So, kind of like Mary Chapin Carpenter's song, I feel lucky today.

I got back my pap results and for the first time in 2 years, they were clear. I was so dumbfounded, I asked the nurse,"Are you sure?" and when she reaffirmed it, I asked her,"Really?"

Then I got off the phone and called and emailed everyone I could think of. I have to go back in 6 months and if that pap smear is clear, I just go in for an annual like all the normal women in the world.

Normal. How fucking weird is that?

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Next on the list of fixing the things that are wrong with me is, getting my sugars normal. I've started exercising, so hopefully, that will help a lot. Mike got me the 'tard and I used it on Tuesday, and while it rubs a little on the inside my upper arm, I'm willing to put up with it. It was really comfortable and it was kind of cool having everything held together -- not like a girdle, but more like a body hug kind of thing.

It was nice not to have my jelly belly and my chest flopping in the wind, in particular. It was nice not to have to adjust the tank on my tankini from doing strenuous stuff constantly and it was nice to feel like I looked pretty.

My sugars have been a new kind of porked. I very carefully got myself a regular sleeping hours night and went at the buttcrack of dawn to the lab to get a blood pull. Just from seeing my sugars more recently, I know my hba1c is going to reflect my diabetic decline into Lousy Sugar Land.

I've been eating really carefully for about the past month and a half, when I realized just how bad off I was. Unfortately, lately it's not weird to have sugars well into the 175 range, which is way beyond what is normal for me. I usually have managed to keep my sugars well-controlled -- just within normal, but not since the surgery, I'm guessing because I had so much trouble healing.

Now, I'm keeping watch on my sugars like a security guard in a candy store next to an elementary school. The problem is that I'm always tired and it's always worse after meals. I've got a little bit of neuropathy going down my heel cords from it and the slightest elevation in blood sugars means that walking is more excrutiating than usual.

I'm feeling really desperate about it.

I actually drank an Atkins shake today for breakfast. Choking down that thing should make me a prime candidate for one of those truth or dare TV shows like,"Fear Factor." If I hadn't been hungry, I doubt that thing would have stayed down. It was supposed to be mocha flavored, but I think they confused dog feces with coffee and chocolate.

I was trying to imagine what the strawberry flavor might taste like when my stomach flipped over in complaint at me for the mere contemplation of that. Overall, I had the sense that if the manufacturers poured about 10 lbs of cocoa at it, it might stay down better, but it still wouldn't actually taste "good."

The drag was that I kept tasting that thing until lunch time.*shudder*

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I also decided I had to get out of the house, so I'm volunteering with Russell's 6th grade teacher. She's what I would consider a master teacher and she has a master's in special ed and she's completely and totally awesome.

She has me working with two special ed kids in her classroom, which I just loved. One kid is really severely limited -- not from being retarded or something, but he seems to have severe processing problems. He apparently is also having motivation problems, but he reads worse than Genny. I kept repeating the same information to him over and over again and he never said,"Oh, yeah, I remember." or made any indication that he remembered hearing it previously.

The other kid just is behind in his reading level. I forgot to do any pre reading work with him, but I'm rusty, too.

I'm applying for my substitute license anyhow.

I have been sleeping badly.

At first, I couldn't begin to figure out why. I just had this vague sense of being bothered by something but being too tired and too busy to figure out what.

Essentially, I'm worrying.

Last time, I had the bad cervical stuff, I had kind of a bruised sore thing going on inside that I could feel in my belly. I feel like that now.

I have to wait the two weeks until the pap results come back, and that will be this week.

I know I had a bladder infection, so I have been treating that, and maybe everthing is just plain sore from that and once the antibiotics have finished wreaking havoc with my gastrointestinal system, my malaise will clear. I've been eating a cup of yogurt daily to try to restore intestinal flora and I smeared plain yogurt on tacos at dinner for good measure.

I guess I'm just contending with a general sense of personal unease. I've been thinking a lot about death lately. Not like, how I can plan my own demise or anything, but rather, how much I'd miss my children and my husband because I don't feel right for lack of a better word. I've been thinking about what things I could teach my family before I die, so they'll be ok, if I'm not here. And then I tell myself I'm being overly dramatic and to knock it off. Then, worry about the test results some more.

Yeah, my birthday is coming and I've been thinking how this year I really feel 43 going on 73. I was playing an online game and someone said something about riding a man like a pony. My first thought was,"I wonder if I'll ever be able to do that again?" And I cried.

Today, I got my family to clean the yard, as a birthday gift to me. Then I showed Mike the little patio for stargazing that I had been trying to explain to him months. I set up all the chair, the bench, and the tables. I invited him to watch stars with me. The dog and cat both sat in Mike's lap politely ignoring each other and relishing being the most loved feline/canine on his lap. We identified Orion and said how it'd be nice if the moon wasn't so full.

I explained where I wanted to expand the patio and how I thought we could construct it better. Mike actually understood what I meant and we talked about how much we thought we could do tomorrow.

Now, it's 5am. I'm still fretting, but I'm hanging on to that promise of tomorrow. Somehow, the stargazing patio, with bushes that will grow around it in a few years, made me realize how much I'm hoping that God will let me be here.

I woke Mike up and told him I loved him and he pet the tears away.