Life

All posts in the Life category

May we all live in uninteresting times.

Published May 6, 2021 by Malia

Behold my glamorous life…

I’m doing the slightly monotonous work of making inserts for greeting cards. I have all this really pretty cardstock paper that I’m cutting down into correct size.

I’ve also got New Girl on in the background. I realized yesterday that I fell off the show, completely unintentionally, after the second season. And since my memory sucks and it’s been a few years since I last watched it, I started it over from the beginning. The show is quite a bit funnier than I remember it being. One small problem though, since I spent so much time throwing up, my abdominal side muscles hurt super bad every time I start laughing. On the bright side, I still haven’t thrown up since before I made my non-post post yesterday. And I realize that is way too much tmi about my bodily functions. The whole point is, this show is making me laugh so much, but because it really hurts to laugh, my laughs start out normal and then quickly turns to me going, “Ow, ha, ow, ha ow ow ow!”

Tune in tomorrow for another exciting installment of “Malia is either actually getting stuff done or she’s been disassociating for the last 8+ hours.”

P.S. I do have regular dissociative episodes that frequently involve me just staring at a wall for hours on end. I frequently deal with my mental health issues by making jokes about it.

Sleepy Malia

Published May 1, 2021 by Malia

I guess I was more stressed out by this last week than I though I was.  I remember waking up this morning, but I had a rough night with my stomach, and wasn’t feeling quite ready to get up.

I went back to sleep.  I dreamed that I was back being a pastor’s kid.  The church was on fire, and we were trying to get things out of the building. (Clearly this dream has no deeper meanings 😅).

I woke to Tom shaking me awake. At first I thought it was just a few hours later. Turns out it was 5:30 pm. I slept the whole day away. I haven’t done that in a super long time. And now it’s almost 11 pm, and my body is torn. Physically I’m still exhausted, but mentally my brain is now wide awake. So, I guess I’ll go do some laundry to pass the time.

No one expects the Spanish Inquisition

Published April 30, 2021 by Malia

This has been a day.

A few weeks back, Tom went in for a physical, and during the visit, the doctor decided she wanted him to get an abdominal ultrasound. Last Friday, he went in for one, and when he got home he told me that he needed to go back in a few hours to get a CT scan done. There was a dark spot that had shown up on his kidney, and the doctor wanted additional imaging done.

Later last Friday, after the CT scan, he was notified that he needed to see a urologist. When they performed the scan, they used contrast and found that the spot on his kidney was receiving blood.

This started one of the longest weeks of my life. I found myself hoping that whatever it was would turn put to be nothing. Just a weird artifact. The worst part, though, was simply not knowing what we were dealing with and what the next step would be.

One small thing, before I go further. When Tom explained to me what was on the scan, he said it was a “dark spot.” This did not translate in my brain the way I think he thought it did. Hence my hope that it was just a weird artifact. However, this is actually what showed up. Guess which kidney is the one in question…

If I had seen this last week I probably would’ve been far more worried than I spent this week feeling.

He has a tumor. A giant tumor. The urologist said that cancer can’t be officially diagnosed until they can actually take a look at the tumor and kidney. That said, according to the urologist so far this appears to be consistent with kidney cancer. Because the tumor is so large they are going to use the surgical robot and remove his entire kidney on May 13th.

When I was sitting on the phone, listening to Tom meet with the urologist (I had permission, since due to Covid precautions I was unable to be there in person), it was a very surreal experience. Initially, when I heard we were most likely looking at cancer, part of me wanted to return to bed, crawl under the covers, and cry. But that was only a part of me, and turns out it was a small part.

Mostly, I feel relieved. No, cancer is not what I wanted to be the diagnosis. No, I don’t want Tom to lose a kidney. So, how can I feel relieved?

1. Tom has two kidneys. And while one is basically filled with a tumor, the other is a healthy kidney.

2. According to the urologist, based on the imaging, the tumor is solely contained in that one kidney. Nothing has spread to other organs.

3. As of right now, post surgery Tom isn’t looking at chemo, radiation, or other long term meds. He’ll have regular checkups over the next 5 years, but that’s it.

4. Knowing is better than hanging out in limbo. I’m grateful we know what we’re most likely dealing with, and that we have a plan for the next month.

I don’t know what the next five years hold. And after this week, I’m reminded, yet again, that I don’t even know what the next day/weeks/months hold. So, the best I can do is continue to hold onto my faith and be grateful for every single second I get with Tom.

The important thing is that I got out of bed.

Published April 29, 2021 by Malia

I don’t have much in me today. It’s definitely one of those days where my biggest accomplishments are that I got out of bed, put on pants, and ate breakfast. Instead of writing today, I’m going to put up cute pictures of my dog.

Enjoy

Look at her little tongue while she was sleeping! Just the cutest 😍
“I am a Jedi, like my father before me.”
Groot in her crime boss mode. She likes wandering around holding her chew like it’s a cigar.

Your secrets are safe with me, because I’ll forget them.

Published April 28, 2021 by Malia

One of the truly “delightful” parts of having an ADHD brain, is that my memory is deteriorating. I’ll be completely candid, I may have shared some of this before, but I have no recollection of doing so. My apologies if this is a repeat.

I started noticing it in high school. Of course, I had no clue I had ADHD at that point, so I just assumed I was getting dumber. I mostly noticed the problem when I took tests. No matter how much I studied, I could never remember most of what I needed to know. Plus, anxiety meant I just froze and did terrible. However, I was able to keep my grades up with my homework, and so it never really was an issue.

Then, I went to college.

Classes felt pointless, because I would sit there for 50 minutes listening to a lecture, but my brain would tune out 5-10 minutes in. I had no clue what I was being taught. On top of that, I found that nothing stuck when I studied. I remember spending one weekend doing nothing but studying one chapter in my biology textbook. I realized that the book might as well have been written in Japanese, because none of the words made sense in my brain. Do you have any idea how frustrating it is to spend 8 hours studying, only to realize you’ve read the same page over and over and over and over, and you still have zero clue what was written on that page?

The scariest memory moment for me came a few years back at Christmas Eve. I was at my in-laws, and I was crashed on a couch playing a game on my phone. My nephew, B, came into the room and was calling out for someone. At first I thought he was calling for Tom, and I explained to him that Tom was at work, but would be joining us in an hour or so. He looked at me confused and then said, “I’m looking for J.” Which led to me being confused, cause I had no clue who he meant. His maternal grandpa is named J, but we were at his paternal grandparents house. While I was baffled, one of my sister-in-laws came in and told him that J was in the basement. B ran off to find him, and I was completely confused. I asked her, “Who’s he looking for?”

Which led to her giving me a strange look and replying, “His brother.”

Then it clicked. I had forgotten about my nephew, J. B’s older brother. I forgot an entire person existed. I laughed it off, but even now, it still freaks me out.

Tom catches most of my memory mistakes. Usually they show up in the form of me sharing news I’m excited about, and he responds by telling me about when he told me months earlier about that news. Example: the following text exchange from a few years back. He had originally texted me the news in September, and in November I texted him with exciting news I had just learned:

I nicknamed him Sweetie in my phone as a Doctor Who reference. Also, I really love The Good Place.

However, I’m delighted to announce that even with all the negative parts of a bad memory, I have found one awesome perk. I tend to forget what happens in a movie or tv show, so I can watch something again, and enjoy almost as much as the first time I saw it. It’s not a big perk, but I’ll take whatever positives I can get.

Welcome to the Second Decade

Published April 26, 2021 by Malia

If you’re new to the blog, or it’s been awhile since you visited, let me catch you up on what life has been like.

Ten years ago, I started this blog when I moved from Nebraska to North Dakota. I was going through a bad time. I was lost and heartbroken, and I needed to get as far away from Nebraska as I could. North Dakota may not sound like the optimal place to run away to, but I fell in love with Grand Forks. By the December of 2012, I found myself moving back to Nebraska. There were a few reasons that prompted the move, but the main ones were a type 2 diabetes diagnosis and running out of money for school (I was working on my bachelor’s for the umpteenth time).

January 2013-January 2016 saw the following happen:

-I worked in a medical lab.

-I began dating, and got married to the boy. That’s how I referred to him on here for the longest time. His name is actually Tom, and to this day I firmly believe that the best choice I ever made was agreeing to go on a date with him.

-Early Term miscarriages 1 & 2.

January 2016-February 2017

-Tried being a homemaker, it was a bit of a disaster.

-We blew up our car engine by throwing a rod. This led to a giant headache trying to replace the engine. Pretty sure by the time we sold the car we had replaced the engine 4 times. Important lesson kids, always stay on top of your car’s oil levels and changes. It’s and expensive problem you don’t want to deal with.

-We were so broke, and I completely lost hope that things would ever get better. It was a really dark time.

February 2017-April 2018

-I went to work in the lab at our local pediatric hospital.

-I was sick all the time, mostly with respiratory infections.

-Was officially diagnosed with PCOS. I’d been fighting to get someone to officially diagnosis it since 2012. It’s awful trying to get female reproductive health issues diagnosed and treated.

-Decided to leave the job mainly due to my rapidly deteriorating health.

-Adopted an 11 year old Puggle. She’s my first dog ever, and she’s my baby.

-Early term miscarriage 3.

April 2018-August 2019

-Attempt #2 of being a homemaker, again was a bit of a disaster.

-Got officially diagnosed with ADHD, anxiety, and depression. I already knew I was struggling, but it was really helpful to finally have an actual diagnosis.

-It was a dark time, but also a time where I learned quite a bit about myself.

August 2019-March 2020

-Went back to the hospital lab job as a casual employee.

-My grandmother passed away.

-Early term miscarriage 4.

March 2020-Now (April 2021)

-At the end of February 2020, my job was going really well. I was getting healthy, and was finally losing weight. I was on top of the world, and when a full time position opened up I decided I was ready. Let me just say right now, if I had known what was going to hit by mid-March, I would’ve never gone to being full time.

-Working in a hospital lab, during the first 9 months of Covid was a special level of Hell. Eventually, I may be able to write more about it, but I’m not mentally or emotionally in a place where I can do that yet.

-The last week of December 2020, my mental/physical/emotional health bailed on me. I’d been trying so hard, for months, to hold it together. I kept telling myself if I could just keep going eventually things would better. At 2 a.m. on 12/28 I was sitting in the shower, sobbing, and I knew I was officially at my breaking point. Months of barely sleeping, high stress, panic attacks, crying all the time, and constant nightmares when I would manage to sleep had all taken their toll. I was put on leave through January, with the intention that I would be heading back to work. I had countless doctor appointments, and by the end of January I came to the realization that there was no way I would be ready to go back to work. So, I chose my health and my sanity over my paycheck and benefits. I know I made the right choice, but it wasn’t an easy choice.

-Early term miscarriage 5.

What does the second decade look like?

I’ll be completely honest with you, right now I qualify a good day as one where I get out of bed and put pants on. Overall, I’m not doing very good. I am starting to heal from last year, but it’s slow going. Right now, I can only manage baby steps, but I’ve decided baby steps of progress are better than no progress at all.

I’ve been encouraged in therapy to return to writing, and right now the easiest writing for me to do is this blog. And since it’s important to have goals, I will end this post with a small list of goals I have for the next few years:

Goal 1: Getting healthy so that expanding our family (whether biologically or by adoption) is an actual possibility.

Goal 2: Moving The Banana Gift from being a dream to a reality.

Like I said, it’s a small list. I’ll be back tomorrow!

Sometimes I wrestle with the big questions.

Published March 23, 2021 by Malia

In 200 years, I will be very dead. No one will know who I was, and unless they stumble across the remains of this blog, they’ll know nothing about me. Should one of my nephews or niece have descendants, they may stumble across my name while doing a family history project for school. And that’s all I’ll be. A name.

I’m having a hard time wrapping my head around this. Currently, I’m hyperaware of my mortality, and I feel like I’m running out of time. There’s not really any reason for it, beyond the fact that I get a little older everyday.

Why am I here? What is my purpose? Does my continued existence have any true bearing on the future? I’m not a smart, important person. I have no idea where I fit. I keep thinking about all those people over the centuries that lived for a brief window of time. Thanks to things like birth and death records from old churches, we at least know some of their names. But that’s about it.

The more I think about it, I’m not sure that I care if someone remembers my name. However, I want to do something with my life that will be lasting. Something that helps and soothes people, even after I’m long gone.

I don’t fear death. I’m not actively trying to rush it. That said, I do fear dying, having contributed nothing to the world.

Chocolate: 1, Me: 0

Published February 6, 2020 by Malia

People do many things when they feel down. Shop, sleep, drink, sleep around, send text messages to people they absolutely should not be texting. You get the idea. Me?

I eat.

Sometimes I shop, but 98% of the time, I turn to food. It’s been my go to for decades. Does it make me feel better? Yeah. Well, at least it does for a few minutes. And then regret seeps in. Followed by shame. Then I feel even more down than I already did. Which usually leads to more eating. It’s not a unique story by any stretch of the imagination.

Almost a month ago, faced with out of control blood sugar numbers, and severe anxiety about my weight I decided to make one more attempt at losing weight. And since January 14th, I’ve done really well. I’ve lost twenty pounds and stayed completely on plan. I’ve eaten tons of veggies. My blood sugar numbers have been awesome! I’ve resisted pizza, Wendy’s, Arby’s, a giant bowl filled with leftover Christmas chocolate, and piles of baked goods. That’s the short version of an incredibly long list. I have seen myself exercise self-control I really didn’t know I was capable of.

Last Saturday night, I had an incredibly realistic dream. I was tearing my house apart, devouring every little bit of chocolate I could find. I woke up with the most intense chocolate cravings I’ve ever had. I fought it all day Sunday, ending the night by sticking my head in the previously mentioned giant bowl of chocolate and just smelling the chocolate fumes. But the important thing is, I didn’t give in. I didn’t actually eat any. The cravings continued for days. To top it off, I’ve been feeling a lot of stress about work, my stupid fertility issues, and my upcoming root canal. The cravings and stress have started dragging me down into the dark place I don’t like to think or talk about.

I hate the dark place. I know I’ll climb out of it eventually. I’m just hoping I’ll crawl out in a few weeks, instead of a few months. This isn’t my first visit to it, and I know it won’t be my last. I’m not a strong person, but knowing I’ve gotten out of the dark place countless times over the years, helps me hold on. I may sound flippant, but honestly I feel anything but.

Knowing all this, I’m sure it won’t come as a surprise that last night I gave into the cravings. I ate a ton of chocolate and gummies, both from a Japanese snack box I ordered before deciding to get healthy. A strawberry ice cream popsicle, and three bites of a truly disgusting frozen chimichanga. I came very close to going to Taco Bell and ordering 3/4 of the menu, but it was after 10 pm, and would’ve required the wearing of pants.

By 11 pm the regret and shame had settled in, and I realized that I had two options. Clearly the first (and hopefully last) binge of 2020 hadn’t magically drug me out of the dark place or really made me feel any better. The only good that came of it was that my chocolate cravings were no longer driving me mad. So, my two options were:

A. Fall back into my old norm of binge, feel even worse, binge, feel bad, and repeat ad naseum.

B. Accept that I fell off the wagon, suck it up, and remember the important words from Gone With The Wind, “After all, tomorrow is another day!”

So, I woke up today, checked my blood sugar and weight, and hopped back on plan. Nothing magically changed overnight. I’m still in the dark place. I’m still stressed, and honestly I would much rather have had a bagel than my breakfast drink. I can’t promise that I won’t give into my cravings again, because I’m smart enough to know I probably will. I’ll keep facing the same battle, but hopefully I’ll do better the next time I fall off the wagon.

I’m surviving (?) Dronepocalyse 2020.

Published January 11, 2020 by Malia

If you don’t live smack dab in the middle of the United States, you may or may not be aware of our current mystery drone situation. It started shortly before Christmas in Colorado, and has progressively worked it’s way into Nebraska, Kansas, and Wyoming (they’re probably in other states too, but these are the three I currently know of). Every night people are reporting seeing very large drones, usually in groups (the drones, not the people), zipping through the skies, hovering over towns and farms. Honestly, the whole thing sounds like the paranoid ravings of someone who is on a really bad drug trip.

Up until this week, I’d shrugged off the reports, because as previously stated, it sounds crazy. At the beginning of the week, a friend of mine, who lives in the middle of the state, posted video to Facebook of a drone over her home. And since I know she’s not high, I realized there might be some credibility to the massive pile of drone sighting reports. Tuesday, another friend added me to a group on Facebook dedicated to sharing eyewitness accounts, theories, and humor. I would say 92% of the group is made up of genuinely curious, amused people. The remaining 8% are seriously paranoid and get mad when jokes are made because the situation is clearly not being approached with enough seriousness. By this point, I’m in two of these drone groups, and both have turned into a serious dumpster fire of insanity. I’m only staying because I’m equal parts amused and terrified by people’s response to the mystery.

The drones made it to Omaha on Wednesday. I got home from work, right at 2200 (10 pm) and as I was getting out of my car, I noticed lights in the sky rapidly headed my direction. I ran to the backyard to get a better view. Soon enough, something flying too low to be a plane and too quiet to be a helicopter passed by, almost immediately followed by another.

I couldn’t make out anything more than the lights on the bottom. Was way too dark to make out the size, but based on placement of lights, was definitely larger than a drone you’d buy off the shelf.

There was something a bit eerie about the whole thing. I’m used to planes flying overhead, and at least once a year Able-1 (the police helicopter) buzzes over my neighborhood. Those are explained things. I see and/or hear them, and I know what they are. Unlike those things, the drones genuinely are a mystery.

Why do they only fly at night? Why hasn’t anyone come forward and explained their presence? Why so many?

I’ve read a ton of theories at this point that range from plausible to completely ridiculous. Here are a few:

-They’re documenting wildlife migration patterns. I don’t really buy this because I’ve not seen a good explanation for why they’d only be out at night.

-They’re coming to take away all the guns. I don’t even understand how this would work. Maybe they’re scanning for guns? Another one that I’ve not seen a viable explanation for.

-They’re mapping the Ogallala Aquifer. I’m a bit intrigued by this. The drones have been spotted flying grid patterns and they’ve been flying over the aquifer, so I guess that’s possible. (For those who don’t know, the Ogallala Aquifer is a giant body of water under several states here in the middle of the country. Google it, it’s pretty interesting.)

-Tracking the weather patterns. Unless they’re getting sucked up in a tornado, I’m not sure what they’d be tracking that satellite and radar can’t. I’m not completely discounting this one, but I do feel it needs a better explanation.

-It’s the government/military. This, friends, is the most likely.

Personally, I think it’s the military doing training, learning to fly drones at night. So far, it’s the only theory I’ve heard that has a valid reason for them only being out at night.

Whatever the truth, I’ll be surprised if we ever get an actual answer to this mystery. I anticipate that soon the drones will disappear, and it will become a story that turns into an urban legend. It’ll get exaggerated, and in fifty years kids will be telling stories about the alien drone invasion that their grandparents fought off single handed with a fire truck full of Head and Shoulders. No matter what, it’s made for an interesting start to the year.

(And kudos to everyone who gets the Head and Shoulders reference.)

This story sounds fake, and had I not lived it I’d think it was.

Published January 6, 2020 by Malia

I have had bronchitis for what is beginning to feel like forever. Back in November I started waking up every morning with a really bad cough. This continued until the Friday before Christmas. That’s when I developed a sore throat to accompany the cough. That entire weekend I dealt with my voice going bye-bye and generally feeling awful. The Monday before Christmas I went to my doctor’s office, and they did a flu test, because I was showing symptoms of the flu. The test came back negative, but they decided to treat me for the flu anyway (Omaha is currently a hotbed of flu, so not an unreasonable treatment decision). Then on Christmas, breathing got so difficult I found myself in the ED, where they did chest x-rays and another flu test. My chest was clear and I was definitely negative for flu. They gave me a breathing treatment, and diagnosed me with an upper respiratory viral infection. With being in the middle of the holidays, the earliest I could get in to see my regular doctor for a follow up was last Friday (1/3). Since I wasn’t doing much better, she diagnosed me with bronchitis, and prescribed me a couple of meds, one of which needs a nebulizer. She also told me that if I’m not over this by my next follow-up, she’s probably going to send me to see a pulmonologist; which considering I have a long history of bad lung infections, bronchitis and pneumonia, is understandable.

And that’s when the drama began.

About an hour after the prescriptions were sent in, I got a call from CVS letting me know that they could fill the all the meds, but they didn’t carry nebulizers. No big deal, I thought. I left a message for my doctor regarding this, and went to work. Mid-afternoon, I received a message from my doctor that she’d sent my nebulizer prescription in to a local pharmacy. Since I worked until 9:30 that night I was unable to go pick up the script.

Saturday morning, I decided to call the pharmacy to see if the script was ready, since I didn’t really want to drive all the way across town to find out it wasn’t. When I called, they informed me that they had received no prescription, and therefore had nothing for me. Baffled, I hung up, and sent a message to my doctor so she’d know what was going on. I knew I wouldn’t hear back anything until today.

First thing this morning I get a message from my doctor stating she called the pharmacy, and when they looked into their faxes, they found the script that had been sent on Friday. They just hadn’t printed it out. Now they had, and they told her they were in the process of getting it put together for me.

I had some other errands to run, and when I got done, I realized I had enough time to swing by the pharmacy before my therapy appointment.

I stupidly assumed that since this was a local pharmacy that’s been around forever, it was going to be a good experience handled by helpful people.

I walked in, and there was a guy and a gal working the drop-off and pick-up area. They both appeared to be in either their late 50’s or early 60’s. On the shelf right behind them was sitting a nebulizer with paperwork tucked into the top of the box (I mention this, because it will come up later in the story). I told them why I was there, and received a confused reaction from them. The man went, “A nebu…?” As if I had uttered a foreign word. To which I responded, “A nebulizer.” He shook his head, and the woman said, “We don’t have any orders for that.”

I proceeded to tell them everything from my doctor sending the script to the fact she had called this morning to find out why they hadn’t received it. I told them she was told it was there and being put together for me. I offered to give them my doctor’s info and the clinic phone number so they could verify what I was saying. Instead they asked me if I’d ever been to their pharmacy before, and who did my doctor talk to this morning. The answers were no, and I have no idea. The guy then pulls out this pile of papers and starts rifling through them, which leads to he and the gal getting into an argument because these are the faxes from the last two weeks and no one’s gone through them yet.

At that point I seriously considered walking out, but instead I pointed to the nebulizer behind them and asked if that was the paperwork they were looking for. Neither one even looked, they just informed me. “No, it’s not.” After several more minutes of going through faxes and fighting with each other, I was told they didn’t have it, and was I sure it had been sent to them. Considering that my doctor had provided me with the name, address, and phone number of their pharmacy as where I was supposed to go, I knew I was in the right place. Again I offered to give them my doctor’s contact information, but they blew me off.

While this is happening, other people started coming in, and they turned their attention to helping those customers. After they handled a few people, the gal turned to me and asks if I’ve ever been there before, and could I be in their system. I told her I’ve never gotten my prescriptions filled by them, so I doubt I’m in their system.

They helped more customers.

Finally, the guy told me that they don’t have my script and he doesn’t know how else to help me. Really frustrated at that point, I told him I’m going to go get ahold of my doctor and find out what she wants me to do. He then offered to call and get the script.

I give him the info, and waited as he called. He got the info and had them fax over the script again. When he got off the phone, he told me that the fax number they sent to before is one he’s unfamiliar with. He then proceeds to try to look me up in their system…which surprise surprise I’m NOT in. I gave him my i.d. and insurance card, and he starts inputting my info. At the same time, he decides to have this other customer, who was there to return some medical equipment, come up to the same desk, right next to me to start her return process. And when I say right next to, I mean picture the bank teller area, and instead of having her go to a separate station, he had her come to the same station I was at, where all my private information was sitting out, easy to see. I snagged my stuff as soon as I could, but not as soon as I would’ve liked. Since I work in healthcare, this whole situation set off so many privacy violation alarms in my head.

Finally, he told me that once he receives the script, he’ll send my insurance info to their people that will investigate (yes, he actually said investigate), my insurance to see if the nebulizer will be covered.

After 30+ minutes of this nightmare, I finally left, and headed for therapy. This is where the story gets even better.

My therapist is based in the same practice as my doctor. I figured that I’d see if there was a way to catch my doctor after therapy, just to give her a heads up regarding the situation. As it turned out, I ended up running into her in the hall as my therapist and I were headed back to session.

Doctor: Did you see my message? I got a hold of the pharmacy this morning and they’re filling the script.

Me: Yeah, so I just spent 30+ minutes over there and they had no idea what I was talking about.

This led to me relating the entire situation that had transpired at the pharmacy. Both my therapist and doctor were equally horrified as I filled them in. Then when my doctor found out that I still don’t have the nebulizer, she was clearly upset

Turns out, this pharmacy is the one place in town she’d found that is currently carrying nebulizers. She told me she was going to call them again to see if she could get a better handle on what was going on with them, and why I’d had such a ridiculous experience.

So, now I wait…and try not to cough.