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Take, for instance, my pharmacy situation. Some people call it a bathroom, I call it my pharmacy. I have this damn prescription plan that makes you order 3 months of your pills at a time. You all probably notice that your 3 month supply begins to dwindle down to 14 pills or so about 2 weeks short of the 3 months. That's where you and I differ. About the time you realize that you need to pop online and order up a refill, I realize that I have not been taking my pills very regularly, thus I have about a 2 months supply left. My on-line pill pushers seem to notice the days passing and begin hounding MOTH to order up more and then he asks me if I need more pills and I "Why, no I don't. I've barely made a dent in these." That may account for the hormonal sweat showers I've been having and the spiking blood pressures and the mood swings. Perhaps.

I don't not take my medication on purpose, I just don't notice that I've not taken them. I've placed them right next to my toothpaste, and I brush my teeth every morning without missing a single day. I've tried placing them in the pill caddies, a weekly pill-bank of sorts, so that I can see if I've taken them and on what days. It worked for a week. The I didn't notice that I hadn't refilled it, and so I went about a week without taking my meds. The Dr. noticed, too, that the time had come for an annual poke around, and so he left a ransom message on my answering machine a few weeks ago, telling me that if I ever wanted to see my refills again, I had to come in and let him check me out. Dammit.

I used to pride myself on my attention to detail when it came to my body. I always said that nothing serious would ever happen without my knowing very early on, as I was no into my own self that I could practically feel a new pube take root. Uncanny it was. Which is why I was so surprised a few years ago when we discovered the football that was growing in the space once occupied by my uterus. How many times did the medical team ask me, "You didn't FEEL that piece of sport's equipment in your belly????" Uhhhhhhh......no. I didn't notice.

So, it's not all that strange that a few weeks (or was it months, I didn't notice) ago, I was lying in bed, trying to watch my favorite Aqua Teen Hunger Force episode on Adult Swim. Trying. I'd been having some difficulty seeing the screen, it seems, for several nights at least, but not enough to really notice. But finally, I DID notice that the difficulty I was having was seeing over the bump in my line of vision. Damn, but I've gotten big. Since I was already in notice-mode, I couldn't help but notice another thing there, not so much a bump as a lump.

"When the hell did I grow this baseball on my stomach?"

I asked, not out loud. Not at first. I kind of poked at it a bit, making sure it was, indeed, a bump or a lump and not just some displaced fat globule causing distention. I don't think it is fat. At least not JUST fat. So, after staring at it for a few weeks (that's my passing of time, in case you haven't noticed. Anything that takes longer than a few days becomes "a few weeks." I can't be more specific than that, because I don't really notice the specific passing of time), I brought it to MOTH's attention who promptly had a stroke and threatened to thump me if I didn't make an immediate appointment, and so after a few weeks (!) of trying to remember to call for an appointment, I finally remembered and so I am going in first thing on Tuesday. I didn't tell them that I'm coming in with a lump, though. I told them I needed my blood pressure checked. I figure I'll just nonchalantly say, "Hey Dr., while I'm here, could you take a look at the new piece of sporting equipment I seem to have sprouted on my belly? Yeah, the baseball. Oh, and I probably should mention that I just noticed that I've grown another golf ball in my left arm pit."

I'm trying to think positively, and not get all freaked out. There has to be some lame ass explanation for the recent SportMart franchise my body has opened. I am going to remain calm. Positive. But I'm telling you, if I pull a hockey stick out of my ass, all bets are off.

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