stalled

(I think I have used that post title before.)

I'm feeling pressured from so many different angles that I feel completely paralyzed. Here's the list:

- I'm supposed to take my mid-term by tomorrow. I completed all the assignments, now all I have to do is review, and go take the test. I have spent the last four days avoiding the review as if it would kill me. I have an almost physical aversion to the subject.

- I always kids myself that biopsies are no big deal, only to be surprised by how flattened I feel afterward. I mean, the doctor slices off a 4mm disc of flesh, gives me a couple of stitches, and slaps on a band-aid. I was in the office for less than 15 minutes on Tuesday. I'm not expecting bad news, maybe it will be dysplastic but nothing worse than that. Still, I'm a wreck.

- Mom had her lung biopsy on Tuesday and we're waiting on the results. I hope to hear from her tomorrow (Friday), and I am bracing myself, because there's no way to guess what's going on there.

- The kids' computer died a couple of weeks ago, in exactly the same way it died back in January. Only now it's out of warranty... I opened a case with HP. We paid nearly $1K for that thing, and it has a supposedly new motherboard and video card from January. Shouldn't they last more than 9 months? Of course no one has called me back on the case yet, but they are supposed to, by tomorrow. In the meantime, multiple calls and trips to Best Buy, long chat conversations with the HP support people, and absolutely no satisfaction yet.

- DD's birthday is coming up and she wants her own pet. This is so complicated it will get its own post. Uncountable hours have been spent on that project.

- What started out as having the landscaper repair the drip lines has morphed into a full-scale makeover of the front yard to the tune of about $5K. DH, and I quote, "We can't afford it, but we should do it." Because we have an equity accelerator mortgage, it's not true at all that we can't afford it, we just don't want our loan balance going up any higher... but we haven't touched the front yard in ten years, and you can really tell.

- I feel much of the time like crying, throwing up, or both. There are physical reasons for that, including the permanent lump in my throat. My reflux is moderate to horrid these days. The gastroparesis is back enough to make me feel bloated and crank up the reflux, but not enough for me to lose any weight. I think my thyroid meds must be out of whack. I'm back to being cold when no else is, and I'm parched all the time. Then there's that whole inability-to-concentrate thing. Not good. The question is, how long do I let this go on before I break down and go to the doctor? And then, which doctor do I go to? ENT for the throat? G/E for the gastroparesis and reflux? Endo or GP for the thyroid? I'm thinking g/e, he'll run my thyroid panel for me... but I'm also thinking I've got an ovarian cyst which could be causing all of this hormonal swamp, so maybe I should call the GYN.

- Underlying all of these real and personal concerns is this background noise of the pending election, and what changes that may bring.

I'm up too late surfing the web or watching TV, I'm avoiding my schoolwork, I'm worried about my mother, I'm suppressing my own pending biopsy (and mammogram!) results, and I feel icky, and writing about it doesn't help. But it might help later when I'm trying to figure out how long I felt this way, and so here it all is.