There’s just too much of it everywhere! You can just turn to Google any old time, and scare the pants off of yourself reading horror stories about every ailment you can imagine. Internet, I hate you. Because I can’t quit you! The minute I find out anything, I have to immediately Google it to death so I can obsess about it for the next day and a half. Why? Why do we do this to ourselves?

Yesterday, the doctor’s office called. They apparently forgot that we spoke on Friday, so they called and said, “We’re seeing a cyst in one of the ventricles in your brain, and we need you to come back in for an MRI to make sure that’s all it is.” Ventricle! A new word to search for! Yeah, bad idea. Now I know that it’s right in the middle of my brain, instead of just, like, a wayward tangle they saw in my hair.

I’ve had several people tell me they know someone who was told they had a “brain cyst” (doesn’t that just SOUND gross? Having a cyst anywhere is gross, but in your brain? Sick! I USE my brain! It’s not like having a cyst on my elbow joint or something!) and it turned out to be either nothing, or nothing they had to do anything about. And then I’ve read several more stories where people had to have surgery. So, I’m guessing it’s one of two things: 1. Nothing. or 2. Something. I almost wish they would have just insisted I come in for another test but not told me why, y’know? I’m mostly fine and going on about my business, but then late at night I start thinking about the possibility of having surgery and get my head shaved and possibly DYING and stuff, and then I lie in bed and weep. Sucks, man! I wish they would have placed more of a priority on getting me in there just to ease my MIND!

But hey. What are you gonna do? I say, ’tis the season for eating candy corn.

I’m freaking out a little - and I’m sort of pissed at my doctor’s office, too. I had that CT scan one week ago, and have been waiting and waiting for the results. Finally, I decided to call them this morning and they said my dr. has been out sick all week. Apparently, that means, let this shit go until she gets back. They told me they’d have another doctor read the scan and call me back with the results.

So. Like, seven hours later, they called me back and said there’s something in my brain. A mass, a cyst, or something. Whatever it is, I need to go back and get an MRI now so they can look at it extra closely.

I’m trying not to freak out too much, because “cyst” doesn’t sound that scary, but of course Google is scaring the fuck out of me. And my fears run the whole gamut, from, “What if I need brain surgery?” to “What if I die and leave five kids motherless?” to “What if I fart inside that tube thing during the MRI?”

My appointment isn’t until the end of the month, so I have awhile to freak out yet.

My son, adorable child that he is, light of my life, bright and sensitive little soul, child that I’d walk across fire for…is driving up the fucking WALL. He’s in a new screaming phase. Not to be confused with any previous screaming phases, where he would get upset and shriek this bloodcurdling scream that would always scare the crap out of everyone. Nooo, this one is totally different. It’s these little one syllable short bursts that come about every twenty seconds. All the livelong day.

And he’s not upset or frustrated, he’s just trying to drive me to drink. He KNOWS he’s annoying me. Occasionally, I’ll hear him reminding himself, Inside voice, Pabwo. BWAAAAAAH! If I gently ask him to use quieter words, he’ll agree with me. ‘Top ‘Creaming, Pabwo. BWAAAAAH! The other day, I decided to count seconds between his little bursts of screaminess, like counting the seconds after seeing the lightning before hearing the thunder. They come about twenty seconds apart on average.

In the afternoon when I pick him up from school, his teachers greet me with the same wide-eyed look I see on my own face every time I pass a mirror. It’s sort of a cross between bewilderment and mild rage, except their shared expression has softer, more sympathetic edges. It says, “We adore your child, but we’re thrilled that you’re taking him away for the next eighteen hours.” We laugh nervously, about what an accomplishment it was to break him of his tongue clicking a few weeks ago, and how that was a really stupid thing to do. We brainstorm about ways to get him to do the tongue clicking thing again, hoping that he’ll choose clicking over shrieking. And then I drive home, clicking the whole way to Pablo, like I’m communicating with dolphins.

At home, we turn the TV up to 50, hoping to drown out the pattern of shrieking. The bursts come with uncanny regularity. We go outside and Pablo races across the patio on his bike, shrieking the whole way. I hold him closely. I stroke his hair and tell him how much I love him. He smiles at me and says, “Bike.” He studies a leaf, rolling it between his fingers, smelling it. He gazes up at the birds, perched on the tree branch, squawking at us. He squawks back. It’s tell him we’re all done outside, and it’s time for dinner. He shrieks. I call to him, and he shrieks. I take his hand, and he shrieks. I can keep rhythm with no metronome. No metronome. No metronome.

Many times now, Pablo has regressed just before he has some huge breakthrough. I’m thinking that after this is over, he’s going to be able to do calculus.

Everything always happens at once. Ever notice that? Our lives are very all-or-nothing. We’re bored as shit, sitting around the house, plagued by cabin fever, dying for something to do. Or, we’re scrambling to find a babysitter because both of us have things going on we can’t get out of, and somebody needs to drop off Kayley across town here and pick her up later there, and the kids have appointments, and something breaks and needs to be repaired right fucking now, and the van has a dead battery, and someone set fire to the drapes. Okay, that last thing was made up. But I think you get the idea.

Currently, we’re in the Ridiculously Overscheduled phase. I’m done with the twin club sale, THANK GOD. I still need to reprice a bunch of stuff that didn’t sell before I drag it all back down to the basement, though, because I know I won’t have time to do it come March. I have a bunch of doctor’s appointments, the kids have appointments for physicals, Kayley’s got play practice (that is, until she shoots herself in the foot by being a slacker with her grades, and I ground her from being in the play), she’s in a babysitter course that runs for two days, Paul’s going to classes 16 hours a week all month to prepare for the PE exam, and we think we have a renter for the townhouse, but we need to process his paperwork and handle all of that nonsense.

I’m rebelling against doing stuff online, because…I have no idea why. I think I just need some measure of control in my life that is tangible and which I can show to other people, like, WOW. LOOK AT MY CLEAN FUCKING KITCHEN. IS IT NOT AMAZING. Rather than, WOW. LOOK AT ALL MY BLOG COMMENTS! Seriously, I’m gonna let you in on a little secret here. My house is FAIRLY clean. It could always look better. But I thought I’d magically be able to do EVERYTHING if I stepped away from the internet for a moment. I’m finding, though, that that just isn’t the case. Apparently, I STILL get behind on the laundry, even if I’m not updating Twitter every time I add the fabric softener.

Still, I’m trying. I’m feeling well. Usually, phases like this overwhelm the shit out of me, and I often end up spiraling into depression. I’m trying to nip that in the bud, because it’s just getting OLD. I’ve discovered that if I evict GUILT from my brain, depression moves out along with it. And I feel far less guilty about being behind on the laundry and having toys all over the floor when I know in my heart that I really have worked at it throughout the day, and that I haven’t pissed away the day on MySpace.

After my post yesterday, (and the lack of comments, ahem) I worried a little that people might think I was just giving bloggersville the finger. Not the case. You know I can’t quit you. I just wanted to let you know where my head is with all of it, though. I think it’s all going to be okay.

So, I’ve already gone on and on about my gallbladder woes. I’m trying to be proactive about my health, so I went to my OB/GYN and had my annual girl parts exam, and then to my GP to talk about my chronic headaches and gallbladder issues. Go, me! I didn’t think I’d hit this stage of my life so soon. Figured this would hit after the metamucil years, y’know? Anyway. I had an appointment the other day for an abdominal ultrasound, first one I’ve had in quite awhile where they didn’t tell me I was having twins. I have an appointment for a CT scan tomorrow, to make sure there isn’t something growing in my head. And I gave a whole bunch of blood for various tests.

You can imagine, probably, that I’m feeling a little freaked out by some of this. So I was a little startled to get a voice mail yesterday that I needed to call the clinic as soon as possible. And of course, you can’t just call a phone number. You have to contact the Call Center, then press 4, then press 1, then enter your ID number, then sit on hold for someone to answer, then wait while they connect you to the clinic, then hold waiting for someone to answer THERE, then hold some more. When I said I was returning a call for test results, she took my info and then said, “Uhhh, I need to have you hold on for just a moment, Laura…” I swear, I was on hold for probably 3 minutes, during which time I thought I was probably DYING. She finally came back on the line and said, “Okay! Your labs all came back normal.”

Um. Great? That’s good news, I guess? But, you couldn’t have sent me a postcard? Just…not called me at all? No news is good news, right? You had to terrify me for ten whole minutes just to tell me my labs were fine. SUPER. THANKS. I’ll move on with my life now.

Frickety frackety Kaiser.