French Word(s) of the Day: une aiguille (ooon A-gwee-ah)- needle

This recovery time has been far less eventful than last time, thank God.  With the exception of the elephants, I haven’t had too many symptoms other than fatigue.  Although, my mother and sister can attest to this, a shot of espresso will get me going for a short while.

Side note: I quite frequently mispronounce words.  I will forever pronounce “espresso” as “expresso.”  Am I alone in this?  I see the “s”, I know it’s there; I’m just choosing to ignore it.

But back to that whole lupus thing (she wrote casually as if it was no big deal), I did still have to stop by the lab yesterday.  I have to get my blood drawn twice for every chemo session.  Once 3-5 days before treatment to make sure I’m healthy enough to receive it and once 10-12 days after to see if it’s working.

Every time I mention this, someone says, “Ew, I hate needles” as if this fear is completely unusual and unique to them.  I have yet to meet someone who says, “Oooo!  Needles!  I love getting stuck.  You know what’s even better?  When they miss and have to stick you more than once!  It’s like Christmas and Easter had a love child.”

Fun fact I learned while looking up the word of the day: there is a word for fear of needles (trypanophobia), but not one for love of needles.  I suppose you could say trypanophilia, but that’s not a word recognized by the dictionary… Probably because no one has ever needed to use it.

You really do get used to them after awhile.  You don’t like them, but they no longer cause the dread they used to.

I’ve been going to the lab so much that they know me there.  They’ve started sharing lab gossip with me.  That’s right- I’ve made it to the elusive inner circle.  You know you’re jealous.

EDIT:  I’ve gotten a lot of questions about where I’ve been getting all the animal photos.  I live a few blocks from the zoo, and it’s one of my favorite places on the planet.  I have about 50 billion photos stock piled from my visits, so you should expect to see even more animals in the future (and possibly some more Paint ones).  All photos are mine unless otherwise stated.