she's an easy liver/(she'll get a hold on you, believe it)

1) I'm getting more liver tests. The people in the liver clinic are very thorough. They had no problem walking me through every possible scenario of what could be wrong with me, right up to the part where I get cirrhosis and need a transplant. But, they assured me, not in a scary way.*

2) I'm in love! Is something wrong with me? Is this going to show up on my next (seemingly weekly) MRI with arm-bursting contrast? I am in love with this man. He is dancing. He is singing Sisqo. Crohns, don't take your temperature now; it's so wrong, it has to be right.



*Note: On the sidelines of all this, in what I am trying to consider a completely non-creepy coincidence, I am sending out a story I first drafted three years ago, title "Transplant," which culminates in exactly what you would imagine. I would say this is life imitating art, but here I think we're going to have to settle with lifelike possibilities imitating another dubious story. "Art" it can hardly be called, as scores of people who have been subjected to it at readings can assure you. (At my reading in October, I looked up just in time to see one confused listener mouth to another, "WHAT?") I'm just wishing I hadn't done all that completely lifelike research where I learned about exactly what happens at every moment. In case you're wondering, it's gross. Incidentally, I think the next story I write is definitely going to feature someone winning the lottery, curing cancer, and then being energetically but sincerely seduced by the man in the above dance sequence. I mean, just in case I actually wield any power here. Maybe I'll also add a little epilogue where everyone who doesn't have eyebrows gets them! Because short stories can absolutely have epilogues all of a sudden.

what lacks in subtlety

This morning, attempting to work on my "novel" (can I take away the quotation marks after page 150?), I allowed my iTunes to express what it would by authorizing its "DJ" function. (Those quotation marks, unfortunately, are non-negotiable, since there are no disks involved and no person or thing is expressly jockeying them. Sorry --- once a devotee of the Chicago Manual of Style, always a devotee of the Chicago Manual of Style.) iTunes had a few things to say. It had to say:

1) Ladytron, "Destroy Everything You Touch," followed directly by
2) Justin Timberlake's "What Goes Around Comes Around," after which came
3) The Besnard Lake's "Disaster" and finally
4) Dolly Parton's "Jolene."

Seriously? Come now, iTunes "DJ." Somewhere in there someone, a gnome or rat, is tee-heeing its little heartlet out. I mean, "Jolene"? What my novel lacks in subtlety* iTunes "DJ" lacks in spades. Later on in the day, having moved on to other, less pressing subjects, it decided that the time was right for Datarock's "Nightflight to Uranus." A Crohn's joke, iTunes? If you're that lighthearted, be my guest.

Luckily for the "DJ" there's only a finite amount of music with which to jockey. I don't think there's anything about excessive consumption of pomegranates (possible song: "Get Them Seeds/Get Them"), four quick, almost jaunty vomits in a row ("And You Ain't Even Drunk, Girl") or a declaration at the doctor this morning that I think I may be losing my composure at large ("Jolene").

*I heard the market was undersaturated with ten-page reveries about the medicinal properties of Feverfew, so I went ahead and dropped one into the middle of chapter 3. See you at the rejection booth!

in which i proceed above the pace of 1 mile per hour

This morning we got up very early to go to the hospital for my procedures. I felt like ass. I don't know about you, but when I have to get up very early, or when I am going to the hospital, I always dress like crap, in pants that do not fit me and T-shirts usually reserved for sleep or running. Absolutely no makeup, not even sunscreen. The sun is not going to get you in there. Besides, studies (my studies) have shown that with enough makeup and a big smile, people might actually believe you are a normal, healthy person, and in the hospital you don't want that anymore.

I got a wheelchair! Somebody noticed it was taking me a thousand years to get up the ramp to the entrance, and they got me a wheelchair. I love riding in wheelchairs. Even though Juan was walking next to me, which means I must have been going about the pace of walking, I felt like I was going inconceivably fast.

They ultrasounded my abdomen. In the women's center at the hospital, the ceilings are painted with flowers. I never thought I'd get so soft, but I like it there, and I appreciate the flower paintings. I enjoyed looking at the flower paintings while they used the roller to press on my gall bladder and liver until I gave the sign that it hurt, so they knew how far they could press. I liked how the word "women" was all over the center. I must be going really soft because the word "women" in so many places made me cry.

Afterward we went into a deli. I ate some toast crusts and the white part of one and a half eggs along with 40 ounces of mint tea. Then we went to the blood lab. I had ten tubes of blood taken, from the same site as Monday. When the needle went in I could feel the scar tissue breaking. I asked the lab technician, while the blood was running through the tubes, where her Halloween costume was. I know all the lab technicians there.
Today's technician blushed when I asked her about her Halloween costume. She said she was too old for costumes. I asked her how old she was and she said 28. I said me too. I told her she should have come to work as a vampire.
"That would have been funny," I said.
"Why?" she asked.

My legs are impressively heavy now. They're so, so heavy, like they're made of something denser than themselves. I've heard that dead bodies are extremely heavy, that they take double the people to carry them a distance. For a few hours every day they wake up and I hobble around to appear places where people expect things of me. One thing that people expect of you, even if you're sick, is that you will show up places and smile and talk about normal things and make jokes about being sick, like it's absolutely no big deal. It's hard to come up with normal things to talk about when you are in the hospital or in bed all day, but this is part of the deal. Usually Juan has to walk me partway, and I can only walk a few blocks, but even if it takes an hour that's better than none.

Every week for two months now I'll be giving the ten tubes of blood. I hope my veins arrive from Amazon.com soon. Somehow I ripped out the stitches from my groin procedure last week. I wasn't even touching it and then all of a sudden I heard a rip, and that was it. On Tuesday I may get new stitches. Then, later, I will go a different doctor and hear about my MRI and my ultrasounds and my biospy reviews and my blood tests. I will see the liver doctor and the leg doctor and the Crohn's doctor and the groin doctor.

Sometimes, because it feels unpleasant, because it's painful physically, it's easy to forget how extremely lucky I am. I am so lucky that these doctors are running these tests to see what is wrong with me, and that they are trying to fix me, and that my insurance is going to pay for the tests. And I am so lucky that Juan is here to help me get out of bed and walk down the street. I am so lucky that it is overwhelming. I wonder how I will ever be able to pay all of it back.

a revolution for ari

Today I turned a full revolution in bed by myself, with no assistance. Next thing you know I'll be placing first in a logrolling contest. At least, that's what the optimists would say.

What was the occasion? Today marks the 21st birthday of my favorite and only sister, the beautiful, brilliant, crusading-for-justice Ari. Wow! you're probably saying to yourself. That means Ari will have her first interaction with alcohol and the institutions that serve it! No, Ari made her own milestone there years ago, when she was probably still in braces and yours truly was being kicked out of bars for using her real, valid, over-21 ID. It turns out that being beautiful and brilliant earns you more than just achievements for the good of man and scads of friends; it also earns you booze. Ari, a toast to you today, my friend. A legal toast. Hallelujah.

I sent away to Amazon.com today for more veins. I think I'm going to need them. Next up: What appear to be three million blood tests, and an abdominal ultrasound. No one will tell me what this is all about, except that it is about my liver. The good news is that if you buy a certain amount of veins, you get free shipping. I got free shipping.

in which the motion is carried by ayes from roadrunner and myself

This morning I was the proud recipient of a triple biopsy of the groin, which sounds like something I would like to award to a hometown sports rival rather than myself. (Greetings, Dallas Cowboys! A Friend Has Gifted You One (1) Triple Biopsy of the Groin! Call at Any Time to Redeem Your Special Gift!) They kept warning me it was going to be so painful, utterly painful, and while yes, it was kind of painful, it honestly had nothing on, say, having your veins explode before your eyes and then having 20 cc of gadolinium leaked into your arm. Overall, I am a satisfied customer.

Afterward, cauterized and yet somehow also bleeding, I accompanied Juan on an errand where we purchased more of the childlike, dog-print cotton underwear I favor despite the fact that I am a 28-year-old woman. I buy the large size underwear even though that underwear is supposedly meant for people whose pants sizes are two to four sizes larger than my own. More cloth = better deal! Right? In Deliverance, a dude used his balled-up underwear to clot up a gigantic arrowhead wound in his side. If he had been wearing the small size dog-print bikini underwears, where would he be now? I ask you.

I guess something is seriously wrong with my liver now. I have been scheduled in Urgent Care at the liver clinic. I'm sorry, but, for real? Gastroenterologist, Hand Specialist, Gynecologist, Neurologist, Hepatologist. And that's just this week. Wouldn't it just be easier to explode me with some jolly-looking TNT and start from scratch? Roadrunner says aye, Kara says aye. The motion passes. Get out the TNT.

from the annals of bicep man

I would like to correct my former diagnosis of "partial use of legs" to "occasional use of legs," as I had a brief renaissance yesterday during a Boggle match with Laura and Laura. After the Boggle match, I was able to walk for approximately ten minutes! (Thank you, Hasbro.) I figured I was probably cured until about two hours later, when I was lying on my stomach on the bed unable to move in any direction, flailing around for pain medications that weren't there, and sobbing like an idiot. I know, none of you would be sobbing. You would be grinning like casino winners and simultaneously receiving the Nobel peace prize. But you're just higher achievers than I.

Luckily, Juan is still here, manually moving my legs. If you've never had someone manually move your legs, do try. Whereas before you might not have been able to move your legs, astonishingly, when someone else picks them up and shifts them around, they attain mobility! It's a magic trick definitely worth a round of applause --- after you're done shrieking with pain, or winning the Nobel peace prize, whatever suits you.

Meanwhile, I have signed up for NaNoWriMo, national novel writing month. This is the act of a desperate person, a person whose e-mail correspondences with agents have gotten increasingly nasty in recent months:

Them: Hi! Loved your stories. Want to read more! Maybe represent you! Where's the novel?

Me: Hi! Thanks! Almost done, be right there.

Them: Where's the novel?

Me: Um, here are fifty pages from the middle. Disfrute.

Them: No, where are the first fifty pages?

Me: Apologies, I write middles first, then endings, then beginnings.

Them: You are a piece of scum born not unto man, whose organs should first be ripped out by buzzards and then distributed amongst the corners of the earth, where fires begun by moose turds will be waiting to burn them, the ashes then fished out and incorporated into McDonald's hamburgers.

Me: I thought you loved my stories?

Them: Stories are a piece of scum born not unto man, whose organs should first be ripped out by buzzards and then distributed amongst the corners of the earth, where fires begun by moose turds will be waiting to burn them, the ashes then fished out and incorporated into McDonald's hamburgers. Novels are the Lord's work.

Me: Oh. I did not know that.

So, since I can't walk, I might as well try this NaNoWriMo thing. In theory, there are more than enough hours in the day to also work on the stories and also work on the novel I already have in progress, plus write another one. I mean, I ask myself: Since everyone else in the world could write three books at once while unable to walk, I should be able to too, shouldn't I?

leg salad sandwich

One thing they don't tell you when you are nine and begin taking prednisone for 18 years is that at the end, when you are in withdrawal, you won't be able to walk. Yeah, I was surprised too. Painkillers, not so much helping. Part of me wants to abscond into the Fort bathroom and just gulp down all the prednisone I can see, withdrawal be damned. Everything would be better then! I'd have my legs back and feel like eight to ten bucks! But no, because I was raised to believe that through hard work one can achieve all things.

Today at the doctor, I pulled myself up the stairs by gripping the railing hand over hand and dragging my legs along behind me. Raging biceps, anyone? Raging biceps. Anyone.

I am pleased to report back to you, Crohns, about what the MRIs of others are like. Did you know, for example, that for a brain MRI, you don't have to drink the "pina colada" contrast (pina colada my ass) that makes you throw up? You don't have to drink anything! How luxurious! Plus, I even got ear plugs! These other people are living large, Crohns. There was a prolonged argument about whether I would receive an IV and get contrast. The technician told me that the radiologist wanted me to have it. I said the neurologist said I didn't have to. Reprise kindergartenesque "yes, no, yes, no" back-and-forth. Ultimately, I won.

MRI with no drinking and no IV = heaven on earth. I know, I have no life anymore.