#zebrasachsen

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In my favourite park Lütetsburg was the lightshow “Illumina” and my dad and I went out for a photo stroll.

I chose a few pictures that I liked the most to show you how magical it was.

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Waiting for hospital

The closer my stay at the pain clinic comes, the more anxiety unfolds, the slower times seems to pass and the less I can wait.

My doctor accused me of simulating pain, being a drug addict and insane again. Even though I got a copy of the letter from the pain clinic saying I am in intense pain and my psyche is not affected by my illness. (Plus the letter from the psychiatric ward she sent me to also confirming that I am mentally stable and absolutely okay.) - Fucking cunt. Also Tramadol is the strongest pain medication that exists in this universe. There is nothing stronger. I am making up the existence of stronger pain medication. Uh-huh.

The letter from the hospital is so encouraging. They actually wrote down what they want to look into, including rheumatic diseases again, muscles, bones and mostly nerves. (They were not impressed with what my doctors did so far.)

Buuuuut at least I got a key for the elevator at my school now. (I have school once a week in addition to my work for deepening my ‘training’.) Before that I would have had to walk three stories to my classroom or wait around for someone to take me along. Now I can at least spare myself the crying and panic attacks before school - that’s quite nice.

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Job situation

This will be a rant about my job, co-workers and sickness - 3 for 1.

My boss knows about my illness and he is kinda okay with it. At least he was a month ago and told me only to do what I feel I can do. Now something or someone - not me - pissed him off and my problems are not present anymore and he is back to pressuring me. Because sadly I am one of the few that are doing their job quickly and thoroughly. I also somehow got more and more tasks because of that reason. (For clarification: Officially I am not a full worker, I am just a trainee, not even earning 3€ an hour.)

My one co-worker is putting all her work on my desk, because she is not able to do it, but tells out boss she did it. When I started to call her out on the bullshit with just handing the results to the boss himself, she started becoming the biggest bitch in history.

We got an intern, which is actually already officially qualified for the job that she is supposed to take over, but has no practical experience. She is a very nice person, but unconcentrated, superficial and just does not listen. I have to explain everything 3 to 4 times and even then I am left behind with a really bad feeling that she will mess it up. On the other hand I don’t want to upset her, because genuinely nice people are so rare in our company.

One entire department seems to have decided that I am their head now, which means I got my own team to lead and am responsible for 3 team members, as well thousands of guests and all the marketing. The boss doesn’t even know that. Because hey - I am just the fucking trainee.

I have built and set up the entire internet presence of the company (except from exceptionally confusing website), which I got to maintain.

Bitchy co-worker tells boss that I am just there to make tea when customers come in for meetings. (Oh, how I want to punch her in the face.)

So far, so good for my training. I am fucking glorious at my job. If the boss knows it or not. I love my job. It is a more or less normal office job.

I just know that I don’t eat. Ever. My lunchbreaks are used for naps. Everyone in the office knows that - except the boss. I can’t survive a normal 9-5 job without a nap in between. I have to take opiods during my work time. I work on the first level. Some days I have to ask co-workers to get me my post from downstairs, because even with my cane I am not able to “just quickly” go downstairs to pick up my post.

All my boss notices sometimes are my sick times. In June I was in hospital for three weeks, I had tonsillitis for nearly three weeks, today I am home sick with a stomach flu, I also suffer from chronic migraine.

And when I am in the office he sees me huffing and puffing from pain on my cane, hears me complaining about stomach/back/head aches to co-workers.

He doesn’t necessarily see what I am working, he just gets the impression that I am always sick. Never there. Never able to do anything due to pain.

I am 25 years old now. I have studied in college. I got a high IQ, I am smart, empathetic, good at my job. All my boss sees is my illness.

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Some random pictures around our garden.

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I got a very gorgeous little Norwegian forest cat mix. I love her to bits.

I already told you the story how I got her, maybe not exactly that she would have been put to sleep, if I hadn’t taken her...

However she loves me just as much as I love her. She needs to protect me where I stand and go. If I haven’t snuggled with her for a while, she will walk up to me and very audibly demand a round of attention.

Today I had to remove a very painful tick on her chin, which has been bothering her for a while. I thought she would get rid of it on her own since she was scratching it furiously, but she only produced a lot of scab. When I got her in a position to remove it, she was pretty resistant - which is not unusal for her due to her past, but she got relatively used to tick removals - and I noticed how painful the tick was. After the removal she wanted nothing to do with me for a while, but then she called for me and climbed onto my lap. (As I wanted to take pictures of the garden, I had the camera on me.) She drooled a lot, which she does when she is content, and rubbed the chin, which is not sore anymore, on me a lot.

Being the crazy cat lady that I am and knowing Anouk, I guess that was her thank you. All in all I am just glad that we finally could get rid of this tick and that her new tick collar still seems to work fine: This was only her second tick this season. Buying the stronger collar actually works.

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I have been quite absent lately due to two awesome vacation weeks with my viking. He now had to go back to Munich, so I also had to go back to normal.

Or in my case two weeks of mean tonsillitis. Which still hasn’t fully gone away. Yay!

Above a few pictures of the festival, viking and panther reunited and the ultimate vacation thing when one threw his back out during a muddy festival and the other can only eat ice cream. Wrestling.

Ever heard of “The New Day”? It is a Wrestling tag team posing as unicorns. I kid you not. Love them.

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Pain clinic

I finally was at the pain clinic. Since the two hours of examination knocked me the heck out and the day after I also was hit with the flu, I will only give a summary before I forget everything. The entire feeling of the clinic was very efficient and competent, which was a first in my entire medical history. When the doctor asked me in, he had already read all my documents including the 20 pages long questionnaire they had sent me beforehand. He still questioned me for about 90 minutes (taking brakes when I had to readjust due to pain or recover because I couldn't concentrate anymore). He then examined me and was pretty unsettled at how painful I am. At that point he got the doctor, who is in charge of the whole wing (my mom later told me that when he passed her he had a look on his face that could only be described as "what the hell?!"). Main doctor came in and shook my hand, immediately checking me for hypermobility. Doctor A then told him about my history, my symptoms etc.. When I corrected him at some point they realised that I understand 'medical talk' and included me in the conversation. Doctor B made me lie down again and put pressure on trigger points and nearly made me go through the roof. (Even three days later I can feel the pain.) He then explained to me that he doesn't think it is EDS, because I have shooting and pressing pain while resting. That and being a very big person (1.83 m) would talk against it. At that point doctor A and B lost me for a while, because they started arguing at what it might be. All I understood was that it could be nerves, muscles or bones/joints or any of these in any combination. Doctor A thinks joints and muscles and doctor B thinks muscles and nerves. Long story short: In September I will be taken in stationary at the pain clinic for three weeks for a diagnosis. Also they were ridiculed by the tiny amount of pain killers my GP prescribed me. "Take what you need to keep going." Finally talked to my boss as well and he was quite shocked, but took it pretty well otherwise. He told me to do whatever I can. Things are looking up and now I basically just need to get rid of the flu - and my voice back.

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This is my everyday life. As soon as I leave the house I am surrounded by two cats. Most wonderful feeling in the world.

Just gotta un-train Bruno from grooming my hair. Yuck.