legionnaire

Another midnight ramble. Here we go...

Today was kind of an odd day. I'm trying to shift my schedule back to normal after going to bed at 4:30 am and getting up almost at noon. It was not helping my life in the lab. So I got myself out of bed at 10am (how pathetic that I pat myself on the back for that?) and went to the gym - which I haven't done for a week.

It felt good, I was glad that I got there, and I got a quick peek of the cute girl with the funky long blonde who runs on the treadmill on her way out. Motivation for me to get there earlier in the day next time. I've definitely noticed that from about 10am until noon NO ONE is in gym. Except for this one highly amusing chelsea boy, who was telling me how much he wished warmup suits came in cashmere.

Well, about twenty minutes into my workout it started to snow. Which is pretty unusual for this time of year. It was actually snowing pretty hard for almost thirty minutes. I had that initial response of jumping up and down and grabbing the nearest person, shaking them and jubilantly exclaiming "It's snowing!" But I figured most other people have grown out of that by the time they're like... 5. Woe is me.

So I finally got my lazy ass into the lab at noon, after coming home, taking a nice, long, hot shower and drinking my cofffee. And found myself in the odd predicament of having nothing to do. My grant submission needs to be at the NIH by Friday, but I can't do anything more on it until I've gotten feedback from my advisors. Which I haven't yet. So I'm waiting.

I go downstairs to buy myself a bottle of water, and run into this psychiatrist who was running a medical study that I volunteered for (I'm a research study whore, so you know. Nice extra income.) He mentioned that he had meant to get in touch with me, a few weeks before I had finished his study and when they took a blood sample my white blood cell count was low, and he asked me if I had a minute. My legs got all wobbly for a second and I asked him three times "but everything else with the test was fine, right?" They do a wide immunological screen for all different blood borne diseases, so I was worried. He said, yes, no other problems. Phew. But he recommended that I talk to an internist to see if I had some sort of medical condition.

Having nothing better to do, I go over to the student health and meet with the internist. She says, "well it's almost certainly nothing, you said you had a cold" (I did) "when they took the blood and that's probably what lowered your count. The only other thing I can think of would be some sort of viral infection. Like HIV." Ugh. Wobbly legs again, I feel like I've been punched in the stomach. I say OK.

She says "well, we'll take another sample, give you an HIV test and then you can come back on Thursday and get the results." I tested negative for HIV a month ago (I get tested frequently.) But still, it's always a worry, so now whenever I think I'm feeling calm and normal, I start to get this little knot in my stomach wondering what the test results will be. Waiting sucks.

So now I'm twiddling my thumbs, hoping that I can get to sleep at a reasonable time, since the faster the time goes the less I'll have to wait for the test results.

Until tomorrow....