Dreamer Easy

I HAD AN INJECTION

and I neither died not freaked out!

Admittedly, the Valium helped. And it was only intramuscular B12. BUT STILL. First shot I've had since 1995.

My B12's actually not terrible now, but a squirt of the stuff every few months will make sure it stays OK. My iron's heaps better and my vitamin D is fine. My cholesterol is up lots, though, which is just what you'd expect when you suddenly stop taking a cholesterol-lowering drug like Questran. Dr K has given me a cholesterol-lowering drug to try out.

My blood sugars are still rubbish - 15.5 after breakfast ffs, hb1Ac 9.0 ffs ffs. Off to the endocrinologist we go. GIMME THE INSULIN, DOC, I CAN TAKE ANYTHING. Except oral erythromycin.

Having a moment of premenstrual social phobia panic about Gally. After cocking up at Chicago TARDIS year before last I'll be on rather better behaviour, but I'll still need to do the Chicks Dig Time Lords panel, and there and elsewhere I'm going to be surrounded by people I've clashed with online. My perception, in fact, is that wherever I go at the con, the crowd will be thinking "Oh noes, it's that overentitled racist misogynist wank magnet."

No, OK, Kate, think this through. IRL people almost never act the way they do in cyberspace, including you. It's very rare for someone to make a personal attack during a panel. For that matter, you've changed your online style, partly due to the hard lesson of that bad panel in Chicago - bit more relaxed, bit more gentle. Surely that's going to translate to the real world. Plus, like everyone online, you overestimate the number of people who hold a given opinion - whether about the show or about you. And that bad panel didn't stop you from having a blast at other panels.

So. One corner of online politics is not the whole of fandom. I'm not likely to end up in an actual confrontation. If a discussion becomes heated, I know to step back and chill out and shut up :). It'll all be good anxiety therapy. It'll be fine, like it almost always is.

I'm still never going to WisCon, though.

(You know, I really really ought to flock this posting, but fandom's full of people with social phobia, some of whom are probably thinking similar aaaaargh thoughts about the con. We ought to form a club. Hermits United. And wear a badge, a smiley or something, which indicates "I'm shy too.")

Had a great old chat with the gastroenterologist. The last time I saw him, ten years ago, I was a trembling little creature who panicked at the thought of needles or operations. This time we were both "Bring on the -oscopies!" He wants to have a good rummage around in my innertubes and see if he can find out what's broken: I'm having what the professionals apparently refer to as a "top and tail" on the 25th inst. Holy flaming cow!

"Let's get you sorted out, Kate," he said. Blimey. I've been on Questran for more than half my life. I've never been told exactly what's wrong with me. The doc says this is because so many conditions are subtle and complicated and so difficult to diagnose. I reckon it's also because I've been running away from anything to do with medical procedures for decades. It's only in recent years that I've even started reading online about it, and you know what a research junky I am.

Frankly, I'm petrified. It's not the despair, it's the hope!

(Gods, I'm getting tough in my extreme old age. Got option-clicked at by a couple of superior white anti-racists today, and was merely annoyed, instead of being reduced to terrified snivelling. Hell of a change from two years ago. Tho I am now curious about opportunities to discuss racism with POC IRL.)

XANAX YOU ARE MY BFF <3 <3 <3

I was extremely freaked out the week before we flew to NZ for Conjunction 2008. Looking back now, I can see that social phobia - OMG I MAY HAVE TO ACTUALLY TALK TO PEOPLE - was only a small component of the major, benny-eatin' stressout I had that week. I'd already seen my shrink about the horrors of having to do panels, sit in the bar, etc. We agreed that, when we looked closely, I wasn't actually that worried about it after all. Plus my fear of flying has long since dwindled from giant to dwarf. So where was that crushing anxiety coming from? I shall return to this vital question in a moment.

( Read more... )

"The journey home started to get strange when, during climb-out, with the plane aimed at the sun at a forty-five degree angle, Hunter clawed his way to the forward first-class head. Even though the cabin was full of United personnel, nobody said anything. Maybe it was because, just prior to this walk, Hunter let out a thirty-second, two-octave, head-splitting rebel yell. 'Just what people like to hear during takeoff,' he said."
- Bob Braudis, in Kingdom of Fear, Hunter S. Thompson's quasi-autobiography

For about a decade, I didn't know I had Panic Anxiety Disorder, and I had no way of coping with those overwhelming attacks of shaking, weeping, retching terror. The first time I had an operation, back in 1988, I was quite convinced I would die under the anaesthetic. I had to wait alone in a little room for them to come and get me. I read and immediately re-read the same short story, frantic to distract myself as I became more and more and more terrified. My heart was beating so rapidly my whole body shook with it.

Yesterday's surgery was nothing like that at all. Doctors have become more sensitive to anxiety problems, I've become better at communicating how serious mine is. The anaesthetist and I arranged for me to take my tranquilliser, Xanax, before the operation. Just like before, I had to wait alone in a little room, but this time, instead of becoming more and more frightened, I became more and more relaxed as the Xanax did its work. I read a little, meditated a little, and drowsed a lot.

I just beat my worst fear, albeit with chemical help. I look forward to the day I don't even need the little pink pills.

( More impressions, mostly for my own interest... )

US scientists discover fear gene

More on dodgy obesity claims (thanks damned_colonial)

Some Cool SF T-shirts

HarangueMan asks if Australia is headed down the path to fascism.

Had a blood test this morning to check whether my blood sugar really is as bad as the meter is showing. (Now that we have a few dollars, I think I may buy a whizz-bang new meter in any case.)

For the first time in ten years, I didn't need a tranquilliser before the needle! I experienced only the slightest flickers of anxiety beforehand, and none at all during the actual taking of BLUD. Hooray! I may yet fly unmedicated!