Pump Up The Valium

First of all, for any and all of the rest of you who are running into a spate of things going, well, not well - I am here to tell you that flipping Mercury is in retrograde. It happens three times a year and can wreak havoc on all sorts of things.  It is, at any rate, that which will take the blame for the last few days.

Next week is my dreaded annual stress test.  It is a test that I do not want to fail 'cause the last time I failed, I was not all that thrilled about spending Christmas Eve day receiving three more stents from Santa.  (No biggie though - checked in at 8:30am out at 1:30pm.  Went out to dinner that night but still... Christmas Eve). 

None of us can control that which stresses us or when and how many of these things will happen simultaneously - that part is just called Life.  The trick is trying to figure out ways to mitigate the effects, if at all possible, before it ends in tears.

The stress test is, of course, aptly named and not helping my current situation.  I will also say that doctors make me so anxious that my blood pressure goes through the roof. My other doctor had a vaguely alarmed look on his face a couple of months ago, after they'd checked it three times.  I am aware that it is not really practical for medical personnel to try to sneak up on patients in their natural habitat in order to get a more typical reading so I took my own for a few days, sent it off to the doc and got the A-OK.

I have been doing my best to try to chill a bit more, let things go, understand that I do not have to say yes to every bloody thing - especially when there is a lady in my head screaming "Nooooo!".  You know, we all do what we can.  In the past six days I have been rewarded with:

• A panic attack
• A cell phone that seemed to be auditioning for a Stephen King movie.
• A bee sting
• My car deciding to die in the Used-to-be-Buttrey's car park earlier today.

Now - the good news: the feeling that a truck is being parked on my chest is no longer part of the panic attack - making me hopeful that my heart is working just fine, thanks.  Also, a handful of valium helped me knocked that mother out in two hours instead of 12.  Piece of cake.

I now have a new phone that looks as though it will work when it is supposed to.  In the interest of full disclosure, my old one had gotten a little wet but I dried all the bits off immediately and it seemed to eventually do everything that it used to for a while but then the seizures began and it had to be put down.  This new one has a much better keyboard for texting anyway.

Owing to my extensive collection of ice packs, my earlobe, though still swollen, no longer resembles that of Joseph Merrick.  Hadn't been stung in years and just prayed for no big allergic reaction - mostly because one of my few allergies is to the stuff that people take for allergies: Benadryl.  That's just how I roll.

As for my car - yeah, got nothing on the upside of that yet.

And so, onward and sideways:

Pump Up The Jam
Pump Up Your Kicks
Pump Up The Valium