Oh it gets better. That got followed by this...this thing.

“Um, what is that?” I asked, pointing at the thing that looked like it was part of GlaDOS.

“It's a light. I need you to close your eyes, and it's gonna blink a lot.”

There may or may not have been a long “nooooooooo” from me. Blinky bright flashy lights close to my eyes make a weird noise and make me twitchy.

And this went on for...I don't know how long. All I know is my face, shoulder, and part of my leg went completely twitchy and I was told to unclench my jaw once or twice. (Couldn't do anything about it. Reflex. Twitchy means clampy.) By the time the blinky-horrible-light was gone, I was dizzy and headachey and sick. And still twitchy.

Fun fact: apparently migraines aren't supposed to do that.

The next place I had to go was beyond awkward. It STARTED awkward when security had to be called on a very public fight in a bus stop. And the bus was speeding. By the tine I got to the place I had to get directions, but apparently I wasn't ready for the exam.

Let's just say there was enforced drinking of water and the awkward discovery that, despite an intake of over a gallon of water a day, I am severely dehydrated. We skip that part of the test after three attempts and 45 minutes of waiting we get to the second part of the ultrasound.

There's this...thing that gets SHOVED and PRODDED. And a lot of asking about where the pain is and where it has been and where it's been moving if it's been moving. We're looking for two things here: the cause of strange inflammation and this obstruction we can't explain.

By the time that one is over I've been moving since six in the morning and haven't eaten since...a quarter to seven in the morning. It's a trip to fast food place before home.

Next week it gets interesting again. We got the followup from the ultrasound, and a nerve conduction test. The neurologist who thinks that the migraines might actually be seizures also thinks that the neuropathy that I've been having could be something else—like lupus or MS—and he needs to test the functionality of my nerves to be sure. In fact, he thinks that my GP has been irresponsible with his throwing around of the shingles pill and the nerve drugs without sending me to him at some point or another.

A week after that, I got an ultrasound of MY LIVER.

Then I get to enjoy something that I'm apparently a few years overdue for thank to family history: a mammogram. I'm losing a lot of work to scan days and recuperating from scan days.

It's beginning to look a lot like fuck this.

The thing about being really poor is that when you don't make enough money to get yourself something nice for your birthday, it's a mild disappointment. There is another thing about that fact: when you manage to make just enough to pay off all of the bills that you have that month, you still manage to feel accomplished.

This month is one of those.

I looked at this week's paycheck and for a moment felt accomplished. I made an amount of money that had a two in the leading number slot instead of a one. I felt like I was getting somewhere. Then I sat down and did the math, and realized that I hadn't had as much money as I thought.

You know, I actually don't make enough money to save money for a rainy day—or, really, even a sunny day, most of the time. There just isn't that much cushion. Especially when you live in such a situation when your rent isn't even static. Mine's about to go up for no other reason than it does: it goes up when the season gets better, so that it stays at a rate of 30% of my adjusted income. The little box that I had for my savings is going to be the thing that helps me pay the bills this month.

I'd meant it to be for something else, but that can wait for another day.

…I'd like to do something nice for my birthday, but I just don't have the money to do so.

And frankly, just getting there and wanting to still be around at that point will be enough for me at this point.

Nine days.

WARNING!

IF YOU’VE GOT A WEAK STOMACH, skip the cut. It’s a fairly graphic workday description. The TL;DR: Hours got cut because of a fairly shenanigans work situation/health situation in which orders were given to “call me off whenever the opportunity arises.”

FACT: my hours have been cut. I haven’t worked since last Sunday, right before my gigantic dick of a migraine started. (It was a doozy. Convulsions and nausea and vomiting and everything. I did nothing productive until today.)

FACT: this upcoming paycheck is going to be kind of sad.

FACT: this upcoming sad paycheck WILL do me a favor, since the aid office looks at the average of your paycheck stubs across a time frame, and a couple of them were better before this incoming one.

FACT: My tax refund is LATE and I have bills coming in to the tune of…hang on…

*stops to math*

*stops to math*

…dyscalculia (dyslexia, but with everything involving math) really sucks.

*STOPS. TO. MATH*

OK. THIS TIME I GOT IT. $86.23.

If I don’t do anything leisure-related at all payday will cover it. I don’t know what the status of any of my medications are, either, so I’m not adding that into the total either—since those are numbers that I Do Not Know.