Halloween is just not my thing. I mean, it was fun to see Justin the Blueberry running around with his friends and collecting candy, but really, this holiday is one I could happily live without.

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I spent Wednesday morning in the hospital for bloodwork. Here’s the dilemma: Any time I go longer than about 3 hours between meals, my fingers get partially numb and partially tingly, the tip of my tongue gets tingly, and I get super-tired. My stomach starts to hurt, and I feel yucky.

If I have a cigarette when all this starts to happen, then I’m nearly comatose. For the past several weeks I’ve slept any time I could. On Saturdays it’s great if I can make it from 9a to noon without laying back down. Sunday afternoons always include a three-hour nap.

Kristi’s commented that the dark circles under my eyes are nearly black anymore. Even makeup doesn’t cover them. And I cannot - cannot - lose any weight. I can skip meals, walk on the treadmill, drink water all day - nothing helps. I’m starting to worry about ripping the ass out of my jeans.

Although I’d just seen the shrink about my meds a week or two ago, I called her. She nonchalantly tells me that it sounds like hypoglycemia, just start eating 6 small meals a day and cut back on carbohydrates, I’ll be fine, thanks, goodbye. I set the receiver down and just stared at it.

Apparently Effexor or Serzone or whatever can cause hypoglycemia. Oh, okay.

Tired of being tired, etc, I demanded that my regular doc set me up for bloodwork. Shockingly, he agreed to it without a big fight. So Wednesday, I sat in the hospital for over two hours, having blood drawn every hour after drinking some potently nasty orange glucose stuff.

Thursday the doctor’s nurse calls and says, “The doctor says you’re fine.” That was literally what she said. I asked for the numbers, and she gave them to me. I’ll be damned. I’m fine.

Then I start reading up (even more) on low blood sugar, and apparently I have what’s called “reactive hypoglycemia.” Aggravated, I call the shrink back. I politely say that her explanation was a little vague, and I’m an analytical kind of girl. She says that reducing the Serzone has my blood sugar levels bouncing all over the place, and that I should go back up to what I was taking before.

So what about drastically reducing my carbohydrate intake? I read that reactive hypoglycemia causes just about every gram of carbo to turn immediately to fat and be stored for damned near forever. She says, well, try to change the meds first, and if that doesn’t work, we’ll look at your diet.

Leave it to my personal Pill Dispenser to find a pharmacological answer to everything.

The ultimate frustration came yesterday afternoon and today, when I tried to pay attention to the amount of carbos I take in every day. It’s revolting. However, without the carbos my brain is on fire for sugar. It’s making me want to die.

I’ve been told “The Z0ne” does a nice job of teaching you how to balance your diet. I thought I’d check that out this weekend. Also thought I’d put a regular exercise regime into place too. Something needs to change.

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I just created my list of things to do for Javi’s site. This week I got to experience a musician snit fit again. I haven’t dealt with one of those since the Max days. This time around, though, it was funny. I didn’t take it personally. So, thanks Max, for the practice. (See, all these good things came out of knowing him, too.)

So anyway, this things to do list is frightening. Besides the fact that it’s literally 49 items long, ninety percent of everything listed begins, “Create.” Create the e-commerce page, create the CSS page, create… Nothing unnerves me as much as the word “create.” I’m not a creatOR. I work with things that are tangible and already researched. Not this new stuff that I’m supposed to pull out the thin air and pass off as wonderful professional and artistic work.

So I’m sick to my stomach.

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And speaking of sick to my stomach, it’s less than an hour away from National Novel Writing Month. As far as I can tell, if I suddenly wake up with the entire “Dreamweaver Unleashed” book memorized, and skip work for a week or so, I might find eight or ten hours before I leave for Australia to work on my novel. This bites ass, because I was really, really looking forward to working on it. Now? Not so much.

Okay, so. I feel like I’m subsisting merely on the adrenaline flowing through my veins. Maybe that’s the problem. I have so many anti-depressants flowing through me that my brain can’t feel that massive amounts of pressure and stress I’m under - but my body can. I’m afraid that one day my body’s going to stage a mutiny, and I’ll be in big trouble.

Until then, I’ll just keep on working.

Stress City,

michelle