Aubrey's not dying. He just has big balls.

It turns out that my hypothyroidism was viral, so while it may come back, I am now fine and not suffering from an autoimmune disease. Thank fuck for that.
Anxiety and Guilt, my two bitchy little BFF's, are unfortunately not viral, and even when it comes to something as banal as a pretty antisocial hamster, they get involved:

Monday night and my husband wants to watch a movie in bed - a very respectable request and one I was quite looking forward to. I go and check on Aubrey, our crappy little hamster that I happen to love and nobody else gives a shit about (my colleague Carli says he's not a real pet...not cool Carli...not cool). The poor little bastard is shaking in the corner of his cage and rubbing and biting his nether regions. Now Aub's has always had what looks to me like a protruding anus. I was never sure if it was a tumour or if he was a Kardashian in a past life, but he seemed healthy, so I didn't pay much attention...until Monday night, when the protrusion was twice its usual size and causing Aubrey a lot of distress. So I get tearful and totally panic-stricken, thinking that because I hadn't made time to take him to the Vet, he was now suffering and slowly dying and I was wicked and selfish and irresponsible.

I ask my husband if I should put diluted cortisone cream on Aubrey's bum. Or nappy cream. My husband tries to be empathic but he really doesn't give a shit and just wants to watch a movie.

"Do you think he's dying?"
"No. I think he's fine."
"What if it's my fault and I killed him? Isn't that second degree murder? Or man-slaughter?"
"Mm. Shame love. Do you want to watch the pilot of Smash?"

I give Aubrey a crushed Rescue Remedy tablet in some warm milk and half a teaspoon of homeopathic sleeping powder and he seems to stop shaking.

We watch Smash and I calm down.

Next morning, I rush Aubs to the filthy, foul Vet down the road, where a three-legged sadistic cat looks at Aubrey and licks his feline lips for about 5 minutes. I would have kicked him if his weirdo owner wasn't standing right there eyeballing me. Aubrey is always being threatened or marginalized. It's disgusting.

"Aubrey has a prolapsed anus," I say, confidently to the Vet.
"Aubrey has the biggest balls I've ever seen," he replies.
"What the fuck??? It's his bum! He was scratching it like crazy and shaking! He has worms or protruding intestines or a tumour....or...or.."
"Or big balls."
"He was scratching and gnawing at himself!" I insist.
"He was masturbating."

Ok. Shut the front door. WHAT? First, the mangy psycho legless feline tries to eat my hamster and now this freaky Vet says that Aubrey isn't sick,he's just randy??

It's just fucking disrespectful. This hamster is a real live thing and everywhere he turns, people are dissing him. I refuse to believe it. And for some really screwed up reason, I would find it much easier to accept it if he had a tumour than to try and get my head around a horny hamster (a R391,00 diagnosis).

Eugh.

Auto-immune disease...and other light and airy topics

Here's a question: is auto-immune disease (ie. your body attacking itself) the physiological manifestation of self-criticism (ie. the bitch in your head coming to life) or is it just a Random Act of Unkindness by the apparent powers that be?

Auto-immune diseases are really your body's immune system recognising its own tissues as Public Enemy #1. Lupus is widely accepted to be AI. So is Crohns, Celiac Disease, psoriasis, Rheumatoid arthritis and in my case (or so the doctor told me last week, quite nonchalantly), Hashimoto's Thyroiditis. Sounds like a side dish at Koi, but unfortunately, this 'very common' auto immune disease comes with fuckall edamame beans. What it does come with, said the deadpan physician, as if she was telling me the specials, is the probability of making me fat, depressed and chronically exhausted. Good god I'm excited.

Soooo - I now need chronic medication forever and getting the levels right will be tricky at the start. Also, it is likely that I will struggle with weight gain, even whilst on the meds. You can only imagine how fucking miserable this makes me.

I'm hoping that the meds will lift this nasty depression I've been fighting this year and this perpetual, maddening exhaustion. But I'm also left wondering why my body is attacking itself. Last night, I bawled like a child to my husband, lamenting that I am hopeless at managing my life and that I'm not good enough at anything. A seven out of ten at best.

He told me, in a nice way, that I am fucked in the head and that my yardstick needs to be returned to the psycho Nazis that made it and replaced with a normal one.

I think your yardstick is your yardstick though. No refunds. No returns.

Bastards.