Stinky Medicine

Last week I started developing a chalazion. Here's the link for WebMD so you can see for yourself, but it's essentially a pimple underneath your eyelid. Well, not yours, but mine, actually.

The first chalazion I ever got was about four years ago. I went to bed one night kind of rubbing my eye because it was itchy and felt irritated even though I couldn't see anything wrong with it. The next morning when I woke up, I thought a spider had bitten my eye or something similar since it was almost swollen shut and fairly gross looking.

Since it was a Sunday morning and I didn't want to page my doctor yet for a possible non-emergency, I had Cim drive me to the pharmacy to see if the pharmacist could recommend anything for it. I took off my sunglasses to show the pharmacist my eye, and she jumped back about two feet and said, "I don't have anything for that. Call a doctor."

I went to the ER and the doctor took one look at it and said, "Oh, you have a chalazion," very matter-of-factly. I had never heard the term before and didn't know what that meant other than, "Your eye is yucky, red, swollen and gross," so I asked, "What's that?"

He laughed and said, "Oh, essentially it's a pimple underneath the eyelid."

"I came to the emergency room for ACNE?"

He laughed some more. He went on to explain that there were two possible treatments for it -- one was to take antibiotics. He stopped.

"And the other way?" I prompted.

"I could go up there and lance it for you if you'd like."

Needless to say, I opted for the antibiotics.

Four years later and I've got another chalazion. This time I was able to diagnose it myself and called my regular doctor to ask for antibiotics. I guess he doesn't have to treat many chalazions because he hesitated a little longer than usual before replying that would be fine.

The antibiotics? Stink. Individually they're almost odorless, but altogether in one bottle they smell like rotten egg, sulphurous farts.

My Latest Addiction

A few weeks ago Linda introduced me to the Coffee Bean and Tea Leaves non-coffe iced vanilla blended drink. It was delicious. It was, I believe, even better tasting than the chocolate iced blended drink I chose at the time thinking that vanilla couldn't be that exciting. Oh, but it is.

There is a Starbucks in the building across the street from where I work. They have an equivalent non-coffee vanilla iced drink. Also very delicious. I asked them today if they could make it with non-fat milk. The barista said that's how they make it anyway, so I ordered a venti, the biggest, piggiest size.

Do you think the fact that the barista looked at me with pity when I exultantly exclaimed that if it's made with non-fat milk must mean it's a low-fat dessert means that it's not really low-fat?

Probably. I ordered the whipped cream anyway.

I Am Not Either Bossy. No I'm NOT!

I attended a work-sponsored "What's Your Communication Style?" class last week. I learned that there are basically four communication types: Analytical, Driver, Expressive and Amiable.

I was telling my two good friends about the class and describing the main attributes of each group -- Analyticals really take their time in making decisions because they want to make sure they have all the facts before proceeding; they typically proivde more information than is necessary; and they're very deliberate.

Drivers are decisive, candid, results-oriented, pragmatic. They see a goal and don't let anything get in their way while achieving it.

Expressives are creative, enthusiastic, spontaneous and in my opinion, can be downright annoying because they have to be the center of attention while not actually doing a lot of the work.

Amiables are very people/relationship focused in that they're supportive, empathic and loyal.

Linda and Cim immediately pegged me as a Driver. Okay, that's fair since that's what my test results were, but I honestly don't see why they had to laugh about it as I was describing those attributes. Besides, I tried justiying, those aren't necessarily personality traits; they're communicattion styles. Right? RIGHT?

Last night I found a cute little on-line quiz to find out what Winnie the Pooh character you most resemble.

It will probably come as a surprise only to me that my results were:

Rabbit. You are rather bossy and high strung, but we love you anyway!

I even took it twice to see if I got a different result, but to no avail. *sigh*