Today I picked up my hard neck brace that I'll wear after the surgery.

I hope you find it comfortable. After a nasty whiplash accident decades ago, I had to wear one, or my head would just flop around painfully. It was comforting to have the security. Good~drugs~ma!

Guys, the protein Doritos are officially pretty darn good.

Yesterday was exciting in a no fun way. I’M OKAY, which is always the correct way to start a post like this.

On Tuesday night, my migraine came with a side of blackouts. Tiny, few second blips, and extreme vertigo. I took meds and went to bed. Wednesday morning I still had the migraine, but it didn’t seem as bad as the night before, so I logged into work. Then the blackouts and the extreme vertigo came back. My insurance no longer has an on-call nurse line, but options of different telehealth companies, which I don’t trust. So we went to urgent care, but they couldn’t do the tests they felt were necessary because the software they use was having outages. I won a trip in an ambulance to a hospital; over the course of six hours I had an EKG and a CAT scan, the results of which were that everything was fine with me, it was probably an atypical migraine, and I should make an appointment with my neurologist to discuss things.

I came home and slept for 12 hours. Everything seems okay, but I’m resting and being very aware of how I feel.

The software at urgent care having outages was grimly funny to me, because I know what they use and what’s on the backend of it. Of course they were having issues, thanks Microsoft Azure.

I'm glad the outcome was "Everything seems OK," but that sounds extremely scary and stressful, Atropa. New symptoms like that can eff right off.

The house is gorgeous, David. I hope all goes well.

With you on the not enjoying things around my neck, Steph. How did I survive the 80's scrunched turtleneck era? I must have developed that aversion later on in life. Or, actually, I think I'm just more aware of my aversions now.

Burritos. Yum.

Good lord, Atropa! That sounds terrifying. I hope the everything-being-fine conclusion is completely correct! Yikes!

And yeesh on urgent care having software outages. That is not a thing that should be happening in a well-ordered society. They better not charge you a fortune for the ambulance.

How did I survive the 80's scrunched turtleneck era?

I was extremely devoted to cowl necks. Still like them!

That does sound scary Atropa—did they do an EEG? Could they be little seizures?

Teppy I would have the worst time falling asleep like that, good luck! As someone else said hope the opiates work for that!!

Note to friends: strongly recommend putting something identifying on your keys! Or an AirTag or whatever. Because there’s now been two times where keys were left behind at an event and we didn’t know whose they were…and if they didn’t have a barcoded id tag on them (one for the library and one for parks and rec services) it would’ve been “gosh who knows if they’ll ever get back to the person”! I rarely lose my keys (they have a place they live and I only need them for the car not the house) but this got me to air tag them. Even if it doesn’t say “call Jane at 555-1212” it’s good to have something!

My mother has similar turtleneck anxiety, Tep. Not sure if I do-- I don't think I've had one since college.(At university, I got to say something that made Gloria Steinem chuckle--I remember that she autographed my program, but right after that, I started moving around a lot and I'm not sure that I have it anymore. That's why movies where people find Great-Grandma's letters in pristine condition and order...kind of unintentionally make me laugh. But the memory is a nice counterbalance to almost hitting Cornel West with my chair in the bookstore that same day.) Atropa, that's so weird-frightening--hope you will feel better soon. Good luck with Casa Emmett.

Also Team Hate Tight Things on My Neck!