yup. it’s been approximately one year since i first got sick and though i know it was sometime in august, i never imagined it was something i would spend the rest of my life with, so i never committed to memory the exact date.it’s been an interesting year in terms of both learning about and how to manage the disease, but also in getting diagnosed and receiving monthly medication without health insurance.

i’ve managed to find a place to get my prescription filled without it costing me an arm and a leg (no, not on the black market) and so far i haven’t had to pay for my visits to the GI doctor. hawaii has some of the lowest medically uninsured rates in the nation, thanks to the pre-paid health care act, but if you’re unemployed here, as in most places in the country, you’re screwed. trying to get a potentially deadly illness diagnosed when you don’t have health insurance is, to put it mildly, frustrating. for the first couple of months, i was playing trial and error with a very diligent physician’s assistant at a local community clinic, but when all her ideas proved fruitless, i was forced to spend nearly $800 on a CAT scan (i think that’s what it was), only to have it whittle down the possibilities to crohn’s or cancer, at which point i was forced to find a specialist, which included a consultation with a surgeon. fun stuff.

…more than three months, in fact, since i posted anything here. admittedly, i have, on more than on occasion, wanted to sit down and write, but when i did my brain would go blank. bright and shiny things would distract me, causing words and thoughts to scramble. ultimately frustrations would set in and i’d wander off to other endeavors.

so what’s different now? really, not much. just to get to this point in the writing of this post has taken more than three hours and there’s so much more to say. i’m intent on getting this written, if only because thoughts and images are swirling around my brain and i want them out! they’ve upset my normally calm and settle demeanor; they’ve knocked me off balance and caused the whole world seem a bit gray.

a confluence of things has brought me to this point: a recent frank conversation, a not so subtle comment made by a friend half a year ago, my persistent and ongoing unemployment, and a recent vivid dream that was simultaneously lovely and unsettling…. where to begin? as all these things have contributed to my current lost, lonely, and disjointed feelings, it’s difficult to find a starting point with so many confused thoughts trying to simultaneously occupy the same space in my brain.

as part of an effort to get rid of junk in my room, i’ve (re)transcribed all the various parts of my chronicles into a word document.

it took quite some time and i just finished with the journal. it’s always interesting to go back and read all the things i’ve written over a period of approximately 10 years. in particular, the college years were really tough to go through because it was easily the darkest part of my life.

going through it reminds me of all the insanity, of all the friends i had, and of course of katie and how the whole saga really affected me. even now, so many years later, i still have trouble reading the entries and remembering the feelings i had for her and all the hurt she caused me. after all this time, i still occasionally think about her; i wonder what she’s doing, where she is now. i wonder if she’s happy and if she ever reminisces about college, about our friendship and how it all went so wrong. i wonder if she ever thinks about me and wonders what i’m doing and where i am?

maybe she’ll come across this blog post? doubtful. still, if you’re ever bored and want some entertaining reading, take a look at either hindsight or the journal….

so, i just downloaded this program, MarsEdit, which allows me to create and edit blog posts from the comfort of a program on my Mac, without having to to out to the site on a web browser.

i’m checking out the usefulness robustness of the program with this post. if i get hooked, which i’m not sure i will, the app costs something like $40. at that price i’m even less sure i’ll want to keep it, but i thought i’d give it a try and see how well it works.

upon first glance, i’m not sure it’s going to be good for anything other than writing and editing posts, which is fine, but it would be so much cooler if i could deal with comments, plugins, and even theme modification from here. oh well… we’ll see how it goes.