the stubborn female brain

I saw a friend the other night for a low-key study-break involving New York-style pizza-by-the-slice, a brisk walk in the freezing cold to see the newly lit city christmas tree, and then a warming cup of darjeeling tea. Here's something my friend asked me as though she'd wanted to for awhile:(laughs)"omg, what's with your stubbornness?"(laughs again), referring to how, three weeks ago, despite doubling over and feeling so rotten, I was so reluctant to go to the hospital that I delayed it for 9 hours.

It's true, I dug my heels in, rationalizing (wishing) it would "just go away", I was too busy to be sick, and-and-and...(which is uncharacteristic of me, b/c in other areas of my life i'm an "err-on-the-side-of-caution" woman). I'm the one who would insist that YOU get checked for something like chest pain, at the risk of finding out it's bad heartburn. My hang-up about visiting the ER is so silly in retrospect, esp b/c it DID turn out to be something urgent. It's still a depressing place to have to go, though. Did i mention that the attending doc was the same one who treated me when I got rear-ended on the interstate highway? What are the chances of THAT?! I'm pretty sure she didn't remember me--that would've been too weird. I recall leaving the ER on that late July night in 2004, assuming through a drugged up fog that it was a place I'd probably never see again. Ha!

Have you seen the Michael Moore movie Sicko? It's on my list of DVD's to rent over winter break. But I think if you want an illustrative reiteration of some of the glaring flaws in our American healthcare system, go observe any ER, especially the waiting room. Something's terribly wrong if it's common at an ER to see an 18-year-old mom bring in her 95-pound, Type-2 diabetic toddler b/c of a runny nose or a scraped knee. Right?

It's nice to have my mental clarity back, after 2+ weeks on painkillers. The clear mind is a necessity, not a luxury, as it's final exam time. craptastic! I have a 40-page paper, a 10-page paper, a statistics final exam, and 40+ papers to grade for the class I'm teaching. Hopefully the stats final won't be as bad as the 30-hour midterm, which i managed to get an A- on, but which about ki11ed me in the process.

I suspect stress is playing a role in my hormones being haywire enough to keep me ovulating on the Pill and other such troubling things. I want to see whether the girl belly stuff is something that Chinese/complementary medicine can help with, but alas, I suspect it's more the domain of gynecology/endocrinology. There's only so much acupuncture can do about the Pill's effectiveness, or hormonal weight gain. But unlike GYN's and Endocrinologists, acupuncturists don't ask patient to pee in a cup! And I DO think Chinese medicine might help relieve my still-tender lower belly, plus deliver basic stress mgmt.

Did you know that female students' performance on math tests can fluctuate depending on where in their menstrual cycle they are? Apparently estrogen affects spatial & numerical abilities in the female brain. I checked the calendar, and uh-oh: this isn't the best week for me to have my statistics exam, especialy if I ovulate again this month. So think good thoughts for me, math and otherwise. In less than a week my semester will be over.