This is starting to get old.

I don't want my stupid disease anymore.

This severe anemia business was fun for a minute, you know, like I could finally say I 'had' something, "oh poor me, I'm soooooo sick from the anemia, remember that time I was severely anemic, oh Shawn, please feel sorry for me and do the dishes and the housework, and you know I'm suddenly feeling tired, I think I better take a nap..."

But then I had to go have more stupid blood tests.  Which, of course, wasn't fun, on account of the fact that obviously it involved NEEDLES.  And this time I had the kids with me too, so they got to sit in the room with me and watch their mom shaking in her flip-flops as I hoisted myself onto the bed they make the people who need a Xanax to get through a blood test use.  The nurse even said, "normally I encourage children to watch me do the needle, but I think watching you would terrify them, it's probably a bad idea, so we won't let them near you while it's happening."

And then I had to go to the doctor today to get the results.

He's like, "You know, you have NO iron stored.  None at all, like it is actually completely empty.  How do you not fall down with exhaustion every day!?"  I'm like, psssht, whatever man, I'm kind of a rock star like that.  Who needs iron?  Not this girl!

He's like, "actually dummy, you DO need iron.  So we're going to give it to you intravenously."

When I finished laughing at the notion that this poor guy actually believed that I might allow someone to give me an IV, I was like, "oh, no you're not."

Then he goes, "OK, then we'll do the needles in your butt.  And I'm telling you, they are big, they go deep, and they REALLY hurt.

And I said, "well, then, I'm not doing that either."

We were at an impasse, me and Dr. K.  And now we were involved in a full-out staring contest, and I was totally winning that shit, because I mean it, I am NOT doing either of those things and I was not backing down from this.

Finally, he broke.  "OK, fine.  You can try pills instead."

So he gave me a prescription, wished me luck, informed me that if I don't get my iron stores up I could have heart failure, and THEN told me that, oh yeah, by the way, those pills are totally going to make me constipated, and also he's put in a SIX-MONTH STANDING ORDER for me to get goddamn BLOOD TESTS EVERY SIX WEEKS!

The f***, Dr. K?!?  Well played, friend.  Well played.

I guess he means business.

So, I went to the pharmacy, and I got the damn iron pills, and the pharmacist reiterated that I will probably not crap for like 12 weeks while on this medication, then he told me that my body has somehow managed to learn how to function without adequate iron, and I thought, "well no shit, Pharmacist Guy.  My body has learned how to function on nothing but diet Coke, Kraft Dinner and McDonalds, so surely this lack of iron thing is a friggin cake walk."

Then, still feeling sorry for myself because I am SO OVER this and I don't want to go to the pharmacy or some dumb blood lab or the doctor's office ever again as long as I live, I went home and texted C about my sad little problem.  A few hours later, her husband showed up at my house with an armload of kale, which is something I have never seen ever in my entire life, and told me to just "do the same thing you do to spinach."  Which then made us both laugh, because really, he knows me well enough to know that I wouldn't know what to do with spinach if you held a gun to my head.

But, as it happens, there was a recipe in the weekly paper for "kale chips", so I followed that, toasted up some kale (with a shitload of salt, but that's beside the point right now), and ate it for dinner.  And I did OK.  I got to almost the end of the pile on my plate, when I started to gag and had to drown the rest in ranch dressing.  But, I did clear the plate, and I was feeling rather proud of myself, so I downed one of my new iron pills, brushed the chunks of kale out of my teeth (that shit sticks like glue), grabbed a diet Coke, and headed downtown to the radio station to get some work done.

Well.  I got halfway down the highway, and thanks to that frickin' little iron pill, the urge to vomit hit me so hard I honestly wasn't sure what to do and was contemplating if it would be possible to drive and puke at the same time because I really, truly did not think I was going to have time to pull over.  But I took a deep breath, puffed my cheeks out like a blowfish, got ahold of myself, pulled to the side of the road, and dry-heaved for five minutes into an empty grocery bag.

THAT SUCKED.

And THEN, I got to work (and this next part could be a little too much information for you, so maybe stop reading now if you don't want to know, though really, this whole post could be filed under TMI, so whatever), and I started to burp like CRAZY!  What the hell, kale!?!?  Do ALL vegetables do this to people!?  Seriously!  This is why vegetables suck, and nobody should eat them ever!!!

I will end this post with nothing but a big, long, sad, exasperated, poor-me, "SIGH"!!!!