Tuesday, December 30, 2008

Insanity: Business as Usual

Let's take a walk around the Asylum and check up on everyone, kay?

In the shared office of Thelma and Louise, the faint sound of an aerosol can can be heard throughout the day, accompanied by the squeak squeak of a blood pressure cuff. Thelma has the snot churnin' crud, which she swears she got from PG, causing Louise to continually hose everything down with disinfectant.. when she's not habitually checking her blood pressure every thirty minutes.

Something must have happened in Louise's household over the holidays to trigger her hypochondria to go into turbo drive. She's always been a little nuts, but she's been way over the top the past few days. It's not just her self absorption and magnification of every symptom anyone else mentions, she's been alot worse about trying to finish everyone's sentences (a conversation with her is pointless) and trying SO HARD to stir up shit between everyone else. She literally ran between mine and Bubble's cubey the other day, whispering to one about the other, trying to start an argument.. then gets angry when no one buys into it.

Seriously.. I think something must have happened.

Anywho.. across the hall in Lulu's office, Lulu's been absent from her desk for most of the morning. I don't know if she's pukin' or ... as Ma would say... it's runnin' out the other end.. but she's plumb green and hiding in the potty palace most of the time. The sad part? This is a regular occurrence for Lulu. The last time she went to the doctor about it, they ended up taking her gall bladder out, but her symptoms continued. The obvious tummy problems are accompanied by extreme joint and muscle pain. Like me, Lulu's been tested repeatedly for both lupus and rheumatoid arthritis.

Sound familiar?

Lulu and I are from the same gene pool.. we share the family line where Melungeon names appear.. on both sides. It is a reasonable assumption that she could have the same inherited disease I do. It would take about two weeks of colchacine therapy to determine if she has FMF, but Lulu will not mention it to a doctor.

Why?

It would mean admitting that someone in her family tree may not have been "white." So she suffers. She won't even go to the doctor. I see her sit at her desk in tears with pain, watch her running up and down the hall with regular pukin' fits. It breaks my heart.

Bubbles is apparently tired. I know this because she's told three of her customers so far this morning. Not only has she told them how dead dog tired she is, she's also gone in to this long story of how she was anemic as a child and would faint suddenly and without warning. She went on to tell how they made her take these little brown pills to keep her from passing out (oh.. I dunno.. iron pills maybe? Duh) and oh how they were so strong, making it sound like a dangerous narcotic, given under the strict supervision of the CDC.

In an effort to be a nicer, less hateful bitch calmer, more spiritual Mahala, I've been trying to remind myself that her Bubbahubby works at a job where he has to spend the night away from home for up to three days at a time. I also remind myself that he works two other part time jobs in addition to his job as a paramedic. I consider that the former daddy's girl is probably starved for attention and I tell myself that this is why she feels the need to discuss her personal needs with strangers on the telephone.

And when I'm not feeling quite so spiritual, I just wish she shut the eff up.

As for me... I'm just sitting quietly in my little cube, taking it all in, trying to make it to five o'clock.

MJ over at Note to Self tagged me with a meme asking for 10 honest things about myself. I'm going to have to think about this one a bit. I'm not sure I can come up with 10 things ya'll don't already know... but I'll try.

In the meantime, ya'll have a great one. We'll talk again soon!

Later Taters!

12 comments:

kenju said...

You can give us nine old ones and one new one - and I wouldn't care...
LOL....your life is funny! (as told here)

kenju said...

P.S. Thanks for "following", Mahala.

Mahala said...

My pleasure! I finally set the "following" widgie-widgie up today. I'm a little slow on the draw lol.

Evil Twin's Wife said...

I think I'm following you already. Your office mates sound "interesting"... LOL.

Jeni said...

Ok, maybe you explained the "FMF" factor before but if so, it apparently has passed on into my senility range so can you do a re-run and explain what that is?
Peace and keep trying to be the nice person we know you really are as you have a Happy New Year. Okay?

Mahala said...

Evil Twin's Wife: yes.. "interesting" is a good word for it.

Jeni: FMF stands for Familial Mediterranean Fever, a hereditary disease usually found in Turkish, Sephardic Jew and other mediterranean populations. It's considered rare in the general population, but occurs in a higher concentration among people of Melungeon decent. More information on FMF can be found here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Familial_Mediterranean_fever

You can read more about Melungeons here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melungeon or visit the official website of the Melungeon Heritage Association here: http://www.melungeon.org/

BetteJo said...

Well at least it's an exotic disease. Ugh. :(

tiff said...

FMF sounds perfectly awful. I can't understand why anyone would NOT want to treat what seems to be such a debilitating lifelong disease. Jeepers - a little colchicine and you're protected against attacks? Who wouldn't want to do something that relatively simple to stave off the ick?

The kinder, gelntler Mahala is a good woman, as is the 'old' Mahala. Happy new year to BOTH of you!

Mahala said...

FMF when untreated is pretty sucky, but with colchacine, it's no more than a few aches and pains.. no biggie :)

AC said...

I'm looking forward to the further adventures in FPH and the Asylum- Happy New Year!

Patti said...

Now that was an interesting visit to the Asylum, Ms. Mahala!

I was surprised that you were following moi...I am honored. I love your writing. It's most fun to read.

I also learned something here. I'd never heard of Melungeons.I must check out the site.
I hope you have a Happy and Healthy 2009 ~

MJ said...

I was wondering if you'd gotten my little award! Glad you saw it. Happy New Year!