Monthly Archives: August 2005

Equus review

Here is the East Bay Voice review of Equus, the play I am doing lighting for. It is really too bad that you guys aren’t going to see it if you don’t already have tickets. As of the night of our open dress rehearsal (Wed), the Thursday, Friday, and Saturday shows were sold out. There were only 20 pre-sale tickets left for the Sunday matinee left. And this was before the review was published.

I am only running the lights. I do add to the show but my job only started last Sunday. I can’t lay claim to more than a small fraction of the power this play produces. I am very proud to be a part of it, even if it is a supporting role.

I don’t know if I will work on other plays. I don’t know if I have energy. This is talking about everything extra I have with all the other stuff going on in my life. I feel like I am just barely able to show up and do my part. But I do feel I can support the work these people do. I am glad of the connection I have with them even if it is only for this short time. This attitude is something new for me. I cherish my ability to have it.

Equus

I am running lights for a production of Equus by Magical Acts Ritual Theater. The performances are tonight through Sunday. If anyone is interested in going, the dress rehearsal tonight is free. Except for the 20 first-come first-serve at-the-door tickets available for the rest of the performances, Thursday and Saturday are sold out. Friday is almost sold out. Sunday is at least half sold.

It is quite a powerful production in my opinion. I am very impressed.

I don’t mind it eating up my entire week so much anymore. Everyone else (cast and tech crew), it has eaten up their lives for months.

Trip to the hospital

I promised I would write it up and here it is:

Tuesday morning (Aug 9) at 3:45 am, I woke up with a pain in my abdomen. Above the belly button and deep inside my abdominal cavity. This usually is a gas pain that happens about every 6 months nowadays. The last one was in March, the one before was last August. It doubles me over and nothing helps. It goes away in half an hour to an hour. This one kept going and going. At 8am I decided that while I don’t think a doctor would be able to do anything for me, I have done everything I can think of and that is the next step. I had a 9am urgent care appt and couldn’t find anyone to take me in so I called a cab. I know the problem was magnified because of the panic I was in not knowing what it was and what to do about it. The doctor wasn’t too worried, had me take some of my drugs (for the eye problem) to alleviate the panic and sent me to the lab to get some blood work done. Just a little side note, I don’t have insurance at this point. I have sent in my COBRA continuation forms but they haven’t cleared yet, so Kaiser thinks I have been terminated. I happened to grab my COBRA form before leaving the house so they pretty much passed be through paying nothing and I will get a bill when it is all over. Oh joy.

I had help getting to the lab and it was a long wait. The meds kicked in and I was able to eat something (yes I grabbed my bag of con type food on the way out as well). By the time they got to me, I was feeling like I could walk instead of crawl again. I was ready to leave Kaiser around 12:30 and didn’t have anyone who could drive me. Not only don’t I have my car, I am loopy on drugs and will not drive. Dev at work came and got me. I have only been working there a month and they have been so supportive. He even bought me lunch when I tried to buy it for him.

I had him take me to work because we have lots of work to do, I don’t hurt anymore and a loopy state might produce some fun PowerPoint slides that the boss would be interested in. Around 4pm, the dr office got a hold of me and said I had an elevated white blood and they “would really like me to go to the emergency room as soon as I could.” So Dev took me back and dropped me off.

My boyfriend ditched the rest of his workday and came up from San Jose to find me in the back. They did a CATscan and thought I had early appendicitis. So they wanted to admit me to the hospital. It took them from 4:30pm to 10pm to diagnose me and until 4am to actually move me upstairs. I could be taken to surgery at any moment if it got bad, I could be opened up during the next morning, I could be sent home and have surgery scheduled, or there could be nothing wrong with me. At 8am, some doctor’s showed up to poke my tummy and I told them there was no real pain, just uncomfortable pain like I had eaten too much. They said they were going to check with radiology. Then nothing. I was left with an IV in my arms, attached to a pole, having them collect everything that came out of me. The last thing I ate was lunch the day before and the last thing I drank (besides the liquid for the CATscan) was before I got to the emergency room the day before. I was not a happy camper. Around 4pm I started getting pissy and saying that if the doctor doesn’t make a decision soon, it will be another day. Soon after that, the attending physician, which I hadn’t seen yet showed up and asked me if I hurt. “Nope” Do I want to go home? “Yes!” You are free to go.

They gave me some dinner while I waited for fresne and capricious_k to show up with clothes for me. I felt so much better after eating and drinking. I had two bags of antibiotics through the IV. At first they were going to send me home with a 5 day prescription, then maybe a three day, then because I didn’t have any pain, no antibiotics. When I counted the pills they have me, it was a 7 day prescription. They didn’t charge me anything because they have no membership for me. I am still waiting for COBRA to kick in. So it is either going to be around $15-65 (if the emergency room gets charged if I get admitted to the hospital) or some astronomical cost. After they wheeled me to the curb, the girls and I went grocery shopping and got dinner and had a picnic at my place and the entire hospital ordeal was over. All except the paperwork and the tape marks on my arm tha have lasted a week. And the mental scars. Minor ones but I hate needing to go to the hospital. It means I am really sick. Two years ago, in the beginning of Aug, I had to go to the emergency room in LA from heat exposure.

I am fine. They really don’t know what exactly was up. If I have pain, I am suppose to call the dr’s office and we start it all over again. I am kinda pissed. If I went through all that, I wanted it to be for a reason and not just a waste of time. And I figure something is still wrong which means I will have to go through it again. Blessings on the nurse that happened to mention that they sometimes treat appendicitis with antibiotics. That makes me feel like it might have been worth it. I am taking gentle care of myself. I am tired a lot. Twice this week, I went home at lunch and took a nap.

I want to thank Dev (from work), my boyfriend C, fresne, capricious_k, Fennifer, and my Dad. I felt very supported by these people and they helped me deal with everything. I am lucky to have you in my life and able to help. Thank you very much.

Enneagram, hospital, love life, job

Just a quicky update

Job:
Still working for Meridian Consulting in Berkeley. Good job but I don’t think I fit all that well. I suspect it will last until the end of the probationary period (Aug 31) and then I will be looking again. There are some possibilities out there. The temp agencies started calling me just after I got this job so it is more of a lag in the system than no jobs out there.

Love Life:
I am currently dating a wonderful man that lives to fricking far away in San Jose. If this was just a casual relationship, dating just for fun, we would be doing great. But it seems to have taken a serious turn. There are some Life Issues we need to deal with. Things are going so well that we are facing the possibility of breaking up because we have different directions we want to go in. Lots of communication is happening and we will see where it goes. At least this isn’t following my old pattern of everything is wonderful until all of a sudden, out of nowhere, we break up. The issues are coming up now for us to work on. I am very grateful for that.

Hospital
I spent two days dealing with being in the hospital. I am fine now. They aren’t sure what was wrong with me but it looked like an early appendicitis. I will write up more about it later.

Enneagram:
Over the weekend, my boyfriend and I went to an intensive workshop on the Enneagram and Relationships. I got so many good insights and information. I am so glad I went to it. The boyfriend earned serious boyfriend points by attending it with me since he doesn’t really buy into this stuff. I figure if nothing else, he is learning a language needed to deal with me and to help communicate between us.

Again I make the offer, if any one is interested, I love babbling this stuff. I have lots of information on how the different types approach relationships, the sub-types/instincts, the harmonics, quite a bit about 5s and 8s and 7s.

That is it for this week. Can you see why I haven’t been able to post much? I have been busy living me life instead of recording it.