2 1/2 months later

I'm not good at doing much lately except for drinking Miller 64 and enjoying summer.  I have spent the usual amount of time surfing the net and stalking my favorite bloggers and managed to keep myself amused.  Since regaining my vision, I read all three of the book in the Hunger Games trilogy.  I am still nursing a book hangover having just completed Mockingjay about six hours ago.  There has been an abundance of yard work, gardening and beer drinking bocce ball.  A few parties here and there and the usual douchebaggery that goes on living with three males.  The testosterone levels increased for the last month with the visit of my husband's almost-12-year-old son (that would equal 11 but this is the age he presents himself).  Needless to say there has also been an increase in horror movie watching, WWE, video games and outings to stock car races. 

I also feel like I just woke up the inner-Nikki.  By that, I mean the me that used to be me prior to being 30-somethingish.  The me who was more wanton and spontaneous.   I feel so frustrated with life events that are outside of my control that I have just had to start accepting them for what they are and move on in spite of what that may mean.  Changes are coming.  Not sure when but they are.  It's rather like forecasting a storm by the feelings in your bones.  Mine is more like a storm in my head and heart that has been brewing for way too long.  Grab an umbrella and hold on tight.  

The "Eyes" Have it

February sucks!  I hate it.  It has not been a good month for me.  I will be happy when it is over.  It is a good thing it is the shortest month because it may end up killing me.  I think this leap-year of 29 days is crap.  I would prefer this was a normal year.  

On February 1st, I woke up with what I thought was allergies and my left eye was red and watering.  On February 2nd, I woke up with my left eye swollen and feeling like it was popping out of the socket.  It wasn't watering.  It was like a hose was hooked up to it due to the amount of tears that were streaming from it.  It was blood red.  The light was excruciating.  I had to fashion a makeshift eye patch out of a silk scarf and call my best friend to pick the kids up and take them to school.  There was no way I could drive.  I couldn't even keep my eye open and all light seemed to feel like a knife twisting in my cornea.   Moving my eye felt like have a muscle strain in my head.   Horrid!  I took my first sick day at work.   At least it was for a good reason...

This is how I felt the first morning

I found an eye doctor and a diagnosis that day.   The doctor said I had Iritis (eye-right-us).  It is an inflammation of the iris.  In me--that is the blue part of my eye.  It began to swell.  The pupil couldn't constrict or dilate due to the inflammation. I learned that even if one eye is closed (or covered with a patch or a silk scarf) that the eye will still react to light when the seeing eye does.  That explains the constant pain and watering even though it was covered.  I was prescribed steroid eye drops and another to dilate my pupil.  It started to get better.  I went in for a follow up the next Monday.  The doctor said everything looked good and to start tapering the dosage.  So I did.  Then things started to get progressively worse.  A week later I was back to where I had been two weeks prior.  I was referred to a specialist.

The specialist said the inflammation had gotten ahead of the medication.  Even though I had dilating drops, my pupil was not dilated.  My vision had a white blur which was caused by the build up of white blood cells in the eye.  My pupil couldn't move.  It fused to the iris.  I had a number of tears inside my eye caused by the pupil trying to move.  Essentially, it was like superglue in my eyeball.  I got more eye drops to be used every hour for a week.  Dilating drops twice a day now.  Return visit in a week.

Do you see how creepy it looks with one pupil dilated!!!

At this point, it seems to be healing but it still hurts like hell.  My eye is super light sensitive.  On the plus side, it is no longer blood red, just bloodshot.  Worse than hangover bloodshot but better.  I have been wearing a pair of fit-over sunglasses over the top of my normal glasses for over two weeks.  I feel like Stevie Wonder.   

What I have discovered is that this Iritis is similar to having arthritis in your eyeball.  WTF!  It is also the third leading cause of blindness is the world, behind glaucoma and cataracts.   The clincher is that if left untreated or out of control it can cause the aforementioned.  There is really no way to determine what caused this unless I have another case of it.  Usually it is caused by autoimmune disorders.  Blah!!!!!  Aargh!!!  Also, all the literature I seem to find has pictures of eyeballs.  Makes sense but I hate looking at eyeballs.  Also, my sister has a phobia of them so we haven't been facetiming as often since my eye creeps her out.  

This is the kind of diagram I see on nearly all the literature I read about Iritis

My life activities have been affected.  I can't read since I can't focus.  This really bites because I was reading "Atlas Shrugged" and now there is no way I am going to finish before it is due back at the library.  The tv's have all been dimmed.  I can't watch tv in bed either because it can't be turned down enough to stop my eye from watering.  Watching tv with one shut sucks because I just end up falling asleep.  Sleeping is hard since my eye waters at night and feels like it is popping out of my socket.  My computer LED backlight is turned off.  It is difficult to type from copy at work.  It is hard to proof read also.  If you find typos in this, please keep them to yourself.  I don't care.  It is hard to write when you can't see.  Driving is near impossible when you can't focus, or open your eye, or stop the eye from watering.  In Montana, the snow is like driving on a mirror and it reflects the light.  It is more like driving at night when everyone coming at you has their brights on.   The curtains at home are drawn.  It is like being a vampire.  The light may kill me.  I hate this!  It shouldn't be call "iritis" it should be called eye-wrongus.  Plus, I feel like Popeye.  

It's too bad that an eye-patch won't help.  I would wear one like this if it did.....

Web Technology and Parenting Rant

My skills are finally benefiting me.  This week we will launch a new website at work that I have created as an assignment.  I wish it could be super, duper rockin' with flash enabled gadgets and woozits all over but, alas, it will not.  We have a web hosting company that uses templates for promotional items that can be customized with your name, logo, etc.  The current templates look like web sites created in 1999 using simple html code only and no Javascript.  Luckily, the new launch is on a platform that is reminiscent of homestead.com.  It is more of a drag and drop and you can embed your own code in objects to circumvent their templates.  There is also CSS which allows a full overhaul from the basic setup.  I am rather excited since it should give the company an edge.  Finally, we will look like we know what we are doing.  My boss is stoked and has really been talking it up.  You would have thought I just invented the Internet if Al Gore hadn't done it first from they way he is describing it.

The web hosting company is impressed with what I was able to do with the basic membership and has asked if they can use our site as an example of what can be done with the site without purchasing the custom option.  Our representative even offered me a job if I want to move to California, which I don't.  Yes, I complain about the cold in Montana but there are way too many in SoCal for me to deal with on a daily basis.  I like quiet, sparse and predictable.  Plus, I am not the best at programming.  I just have a knack for figuring out what I want to do and only researching the aspects that are needed to do it.

On the home front this week it has all been about arguing.  My 10 year-old is practicing his mediation skills.  The arguing has all been about cleaning his bedroom.  It is not that bad.  It doesn't look like this:

And it wasn't even this bad:

Whatever the case, you would have thought it was a very difficult project due to the arguing and fits that were being had (and that was on both sides because I felt like Mommy Dearest was going to make a second coming due to my frustration level with the whole thing)

Now it is Sunday evening and the job is almost done.  Thank goodness.  I suppose I will get an 18 hour reprieve until he gets home from school tomorrow and has to pick it up again.....Parenting.  Blech!

PS.  Neither of the pictures posted above were taken of my home.  They were clipped from the internet.  I just felt the urge to clarify that.

Flooding Blues

It is pouring here.  The rain only stops intermittently for the last 10 days or so.  Today it is nonstop in downpours.  It makes me sad--not sad because it is raining but sad because it could cause flooding and I am no longer the floodplain administrator over anything more the property where I live.  This is the time of year that CFM's like me actually prepare for.  I don't want to say we hope for them but we do spend hours and hours preparing for action in times of flooding and yet there is nothing for me to do.  Blah!  I wish it was sunny instead and then I wouldn't mind being unemployed as much--although watching out my front window at the cars hydroplaning as they race by is a good way to keep my mind of it.  I just hope no one jumps the curb and hits my parked cars.

In Which I Cry in my Car

Soooo, there was this really appealing job advertised.  It was with a company that manufactures mobile command units for emergencies.  They integrate GIS and GPS.  Perfect match for moi.  Here is when I mention my degree is in Cartography (map making) with my emphasis in GIS and plenty of GPS and remote sensing crap involved while I was in college.  As Ace Venture would say this job would fit me "like a glove."

This employer required Proveit! tests from Job Service. If you are not familiar with Proveit! tests they are tests that were most likely created by the devil and are typically utilized by companies who beat their employees or expect them to perform at a high level of efficiency with little compensation (same thing in my book).  Proveit! tests do not allow you to go back and change an answer.  You can not review anything.  If the little pop-up window comes up unexpectedly in the middle of clicking something else and you click the next question button, you are screwed.  You just answered a question and got it wrong.  These tests suck.  Bad.  You aren't allowed to repeat them.  Even the No Child Left Behind Act allows schools to retest where there were obvious errors.  That is a Bush-era mandate.  Even that administration saw the value of retesting....  Rant Finished****

There were tests for business English (in which I did not score so well...hmmmm), grammar, etiquette, ethics, Word, Excel, Outlook and typing.  They were obviously serious about who they hired as the only thing the company didn't require was a criminal background test, fingerprints, credit report, medical history, a copy of the book of poetry I wrote for the 1987 Young Authors Conference and my report on France that I wrote in the 4th grade.  Assholes.... 

Day 1: I go in and take two hours of tests and have to leave because I have an appointment.  Day 2:  I go in again and take another hour of tests and then in the middle of it....the power goes out.  Twenty minutes later the computers are up and running again but it messed up the test I was on.  As mentioned previously, Proveit! tests don't allow you to repeat or go back to questions so basically it screwed me on that test.  Oh well...Anyway, I finish the round of testing finally (another hour more) and go up to the help desk to retrieve my results and put in the formal application (as I was awaiting the required tests).  I have 4 hours vested into this job and I don't even know how much it pays...Out of the blue, a woman says to the guy that is helping me, "They closed that job early.  It was filled yesterday."  WTF!!!!!!!!!!  He was like "????" and I was like "????!!!!????!!!!!"  He says "I am so sorry. That job was posted to be open until June 6th."  "Yes," I reply "that is what I thought too. " *sobbing on the inside*

Side note:  The man was nice.  He praised my test results.  He said my typing was blazing fast.  I did 70 words a minute with 0 errors for 3 minutes.  Woot!  Woot!  I guess I can type.  :)  

Regressing a bit, after the initial let down I retrieved the phone number of the company who hired someone even though it said the job was still open.  I then went to my car and I called the company and informed them that the job was still listed as open and I had spent 4 hours taking the tests and they needed to fix it so it didn't happen to other people.  Honestly, the woman I spoke with was an unsympathetic beeeaaatch.  Not nice.  Not caring.  Probably because she has a job and doesn't know what it to be fricking desperate for a job.  I hope she gets laid off someday and learns what it feels like.  Maybe then she can be a bit nicer to the general public and at least pretend to care when she speaks to people via telephone.  After all of this was over that is when I shed a few tears out of frustration--I suppose desperation too, as some days I feel like I shall never ever find a real job again.  That is the central idea I refer to where I made an A.A. Milne-type reference in my grammatic pattern and entitled this "In Which I Cry in my Car."  

After a minute or two, I wiped my eyes, smiled at myself in the rear view mirror and went to Shopko to use a gift card I had been saving for some retail therapy.  It helped.  I felt much better and now I have two adorable black wrought iron lamps with micro-suede shades flanking the nightstands on either side of my bed. 

Follow-up:  The day after the incident in which I write about, I received a call from an employee at Workforce who had heard about what had transpired.  She apologized profusely for how it had occurred.  She also said that she had contacted the company with the job posting and read them the riot act as well about how it had happened.  She said it should not happen again.  There was one other person who also completed the tests the same day and suffered through the same hell.  *To whomever you are, we are united.  I feel your pain.  Good luck in your job search*  The good news is that whenever the offending company posts job openings Workforce will be overseeing them and will track it better so this will not happen again.  Hot damn!  Also, this lady said I should submit my materials anyway as I had completed all the requirements and they may have openings again in the next 6 months.  Blah.