Mystery solved?

I think I finally know why I’ve had this itchy red rash… spreading around randomly, seeming to get better then appearing in a bunch of other places… for 9 weeks. It acted like I had poison oak oil on something in the house, but the rash didn’t look like poison oak, to the doctors, either. The regular doc shrugged and shot me in the butt, which did nothing.

At 6 weeks, mom left a message that boiled down to “maybe your bee stings are caused by nickel on the plants in the yard” so I wrote her off as having any useful info, although I am allergic to nickel.

After 9 weeks of this, of talking to my mom and having her ask the same questions about diet and stuff, she calls and leaves a message, she finally remembered she’s allergic to lanolin. I found no reference on the net until after my mom mentioned it.  I googled rashes for weeks and never saw lanolin on the lists of allergens. Now, when I google “lanolin allergy” I find it. This is probably the only useful info/advice from my mom in my adult life…

Lanolin is in the stuff they recommended for radiation  and I think I developed an allergy. Every time I used something else, it got better. When that ran out and I used the goo til I could get to the drug store, it got worse, and spread wherever the goo went…

Nice to know what it probably is. Now I just need it to go away.
I’m laundering everything that is coated with the damn goo…

I suggested I buy all new clothes and my husband said “okay”. I was surprised cause I was joking but he said “it would fit you, you haven’t bought anything for a long time… it’s not like ‘let’s go *shopping!*” Gosh I love him

Rash

I know I need to post, I want to post, but I keep getting confused about what I want to post about.

There’s this rash. What happened was, I got over my radiation burn, I got the flu. I got over the flu, I did some yard work, and then I got this rash. Around the same time, I read something that happened to someone else, and spent some time rubbing on my scar tissue and thinking “Oh I hope that doesn’t happen to me.” So maybe I got something on my hands in the yard and then rubbed it obsessively into my skin.

Also in the weeks preceding I had been getting really paranoid at work. I was convinced people were checking up on me, and I was expressing it on facebook and was rude to some people who deserved it. Now I think I really was picking up on something, since the department got merged and my bosses got changed without me knowing about it ahead of time. And maybe I gave myself hives. I had hives one other time, when I had accepted a new job, but had not given notice or told the people I was friends with at the old job. When I gave notice the hives went away.

And I just seem to have old lady, dry, sensitive skin, now. The upshot is I’ve spent the last 9 weeks rubbing various things into my skin. The rash will seem to die back and then will reappear in the areas right next to where it was. I hope it will only “go around” one time.

So there’s the rash, and then there’s work. I sort of feel like doing a timeline of this job, trying to get it all into one blog with the bare details. It’s pretty boring  but maybe it would make the stupid hives go away. Except, I’m nervous someone from there will find this blog… so I don’t want to do anything rash.

And then…

And then my “foster boss” sent me email saying he’s no longer my foster boss, and then he left for the day right after he pushed “send.” Since it’s the first time I have heard from him since October (except the wrong number), no big whoop.

Brief update

My rash is still traveling merrily around my body, seeming to be almost gone then breaking out in new places.

I work at a college. I found out today that my department is merging with another department, by reading the announcement email sent to the whole campus.

unsent email

Dear Real Boss,

Why didn’t I do much work today? Because I feel like crap. Why did I come to work today?

1) I have no sick time left because I’m not allowed to make up my doctor’s appointments outside of the 8-4:30 timeframe. Unlike every single other employee in this department. How was your unscheduled telecommute day on Friday, by the way? I see you sent about 5 emails.

2) My Foster Boss told me that you said you have to be here, if I’m not here, and I wouldn’t want you to miss your unscheduled, not on the calendar vacation day just because I’ve had an almost intolerable rash for two weeks and didn’t get any sleep last night. Not that you or he knows that, or anything else about my life.

That is all,

Amanda

Now, I have

Now, I have a freakin’ itchy red rash on my neck and down my chest on the mastectomy scar. Argh!

Adding insult to injury… I don’t even want to talk about it!!!

Tee Vee on teh interweb

I have done almost nothing for days but watch tv on the internet. My husband is out of town and I have the sniffles. I don’t really feel like doing anything else, and I’ve discovered  hulu.com.

I watched all the “House” they have. That’s Hugh Laurie? Weird. I had no idea what that show was. Now I wish I could see the earlier ones for free on the internet.

I’ve seen all the Office episodes they have right now.  I watched hours of clips from earlier seasons too. I’ve seen all the recent 30 Rocks.

Eventually I settled down to 13 season’s worth of South Park. I skipped over Mister Hankie, I can’t abide Mister Hankie. Back in the day, I forced myself to watch even the grossest fried rat episodes of Beavis and Butthead, but Mister Hankie just pisses me off. Anyway I’m up to the second season and all my internal dialogue is now in Cartman’s voice.

In other news… I’m pretty much over cancer treatment side effects. I no longer have  “a wound” or “a burn”. I have… a very odd part of my body that is going to take some getting used to. I’m now the weirdest looking person I know. Also I have  an occasional phantom boob. This usually happens when I come upon a mirror without thinking, and my eye seems to fill in “boob” and then it’s a shock to see no boob, just a smiley face scar, on that side.

Also I have phantom hair. I’ll swing my head and expect to feel the weight of it. This seems to be happening more now that I have *some* hair.

Also… I am “waking up” from just barely getting through life. I’m waking up to see that this place is a disaster. I’m not a good housekeeper when I’m well. Things like the kitchen sink and tub are sort of broken, and the yard is a maze of pits and weeds.

Sigh. I need a nap.

work chat

We have a “work chat.” Everyone uses it differently. Many people use it differently on different days. Much effort appears to go into defeating any “timeclock” usage by some people.

For example, Bubba will go idle, drive home, and become active again, without logging off. Other days, he will log off the chat and hang around the building, making sure people see him. (Yes, I stalk his car. I don’t think they know that. I know Swell Guy’s car, too.)

Some people log in on Monday and stay “active” all week 24 hours a day. Some of Swell Guy’s staff still haven’t learned how to turn it on, at all. (They are called “computer operators”. They put paper in printers. They get to drive little golf carts around.)

Last year, when Swell Guy and I were fighting, before I got The Cancer, I had my status set to “doing something else, please leave a message.” Swell Guy chatted at me and asked if I was there, and said “you been afk all day”. I asked him about how he wanted me to use the chat, and gave a couple suggestions, involving what other people do. He got huffy and said something about my turning things into confrontations and threatened to “do something” about it. I said “never mind, I won’t ask for any more guidance, see you next time you need to ‘manage’ me.” So my stupid icon is always active when I’m at my desk and idle, when I’m not. Cause I’m special.

I also get on the work chat from home, which is how I know Swell Guy, the one who suddenly made me sign papers about my hours last year, starts work between 6:50 and 7:30.  Everyone thinks he comes in “really early” and they are not about to check up on how early, by coming in themselves. I think a few of his staff are in cahoots, and also don’t come in as early as they let on.   He goes home anytime between 1:30 and 3pm; this I can watch with my own eyes. And? He’s got 4.5 weeks marked “out of the office” in a row, soon.

Meanwhile, back at Bubba, my “real boss”… I have not been to his office in over 5 years. He gets regular deliveries for me, but he refuses to change the ship-to name, for some reason no one understands. He emails about them, and then usually brings them down, leans into my office, dumps them on my desk, mumbles something, and walks out. I usually just stare at him and there’s not much time for much else.

The last few years he has mostly quit trying to trick me into coming to his office. About every 8th delivery, which is about every 4 months, he will write “come by and pick them up or I’ll drop them off.” He did this again on Monday. I thought “one definition of insanity is doing the same things over and over, and expecting a different result.”

So, of course, I did nothing, just waited for him to deliver the stuff. He did not. Instead, 30 minutes later, he logged off the work chat. I saw him in the hall a few hours later but I was going on break and just continued out of the building.

The next day he stayed off the work chat all day, I think. I ignored the whole thing.

On Wednesday, he went idle around 11:30. At 1:30 pm his car was gone. He was still on the chat, just idle.

On Thursday, he emailed me about an additional delivery. He added it on to the previous email. About 5 minutes later, he showed up, dumped and left. I looked. It was only the new thing.

What could I do? Five minutes later, I emailed him “thanks for the new thing. I didn’t get the other stuff. I couldn’t find you in the office yesterday afternoon, please feel free to put it in my mailbox.” The mail goes to a list, which includes his boss and Swell Guy. I’m sure they don’t read it but I hope Bubba thinks they do.

Still haven’t seen the stuff. He was in the office all day Friday, but not on the chat, so if anyone asks, I’ll say I assumed he was working from home, again. Not that anyone ever asks. I make up these excuses for nothing. It’s insane.

Beginning to think of the future

I am sad for almost everyone in this post, but of course I am so sad for the children.

I have been looking into doing volunteer work with foster children (not being a foster family, but an advocate of some sort.) They ask you to commit to at least two years to take a child through the court process.

I asked my oncologist if I had any right to commit to that, to an already insecure child. We discussed the basic insecurities of life. Then she said “I see no reason why not.”

That’s big.

As for actually doing it, Pamajama’s post both makes me feel the need more strongly, and frightens me to death.

is it over yet?

Ow.

Also I’m tired of being greasy and I can’t keep my glasses clean.

Also did I mention ow?

Almost done though. Wish I could sleep for the next two weeks while my skin heals from the radiation.