I've just come off of two weeks with my husband gone on business, and then a three day weekend where we were either blessed or plagued by non-stop rain. I know we need it, but I've gotten spoiled with our mild winter thus far, and seriously Mother Nature, why you gotta open up the heavens and dump the heaviest rain of the day right when I am walking up to the school to pick the kids up. You fake me out with light rain, I leave the umbrella in the car, and midway up the sidewalk - when turning around in no longer a viable option, you let loose.

So, the last couple of weeks have been sort of manic. All the mania culminated in me experiencing a tightness in the center of my chest this last weekend, which culminated in me finally going to the doctor to have somebody who knows about these things have a look-see. Hi, Dr. Foy-Sterling!

Remember, I was doing that whole Shred thing, with all those exercises for the chest muscles - or probably they weren't for the chest, but they ended up making my armpits and other unlikely places hurt like a mofo. Yeah. So, about 4 weeks ago, I noticed that I was occasionally getting this weird tightness in the center of my chest. It wasn't accompanied by any pain, unless you want to count my ticked-off armpits and my angry, angry thigh muscles. So I just wrote it off.

But this weekend it seemed a little more, shall we say, noticeable, so I decided to go have a blood pressure check. Of course, the appointment booking people took this VERY SERIOUSLY, which I understand they have to do, but when they were asking if I was home alone and if there would be clear access in case they needed to send paramedics, I totally got a case of the hysterical giggles.

They determined I was not in immediate distress and made me an appointment for later that morning. (I think the giggles gave me away. CORNBALL.)

I headed over to the hospital and had a lovely appointment with a new-to-me doctor who appeared to be genuinely curious about my blog (and wondered if I was funny on it) and about my job at BlogHer. After an exam that yielded no giant AHA! moments, I had an EKG (also fine) and had a bunch of blood drawn. Dr. Foy-Sterling also encouraged me to sign up for the online service that allows patients to email doctors, which I tried to do when I got home, except I apparently signed up for the online service in 2005 and then never followed through, so they have to MAIL me a password. Low-tech and High-tech collision in 5...4...3...2...

At one point, I discussed my stress, which is a likely culprit if nothing else rears its ugly head. And then I pointed out the weird skin-taggy growth in the corner of my eye. I was offered a referral to get it removed, and I said YES PLEASE.

Later that evening, while watching TV, I reached up absentmindedly to pick scratch my nose and my finger grazed the growth. It was crowned by some peeling dry skin (again) so I headed to the bathroom and gingerly picked up my tweezers to remove the dead skin.

Maneuvering gingerly as you do when you are pointing a sharp metal implement near your eye, I grabbed hold of the edge of the dry piece and started to pull. It was a little stubborn, so I gave a little twist. With a totally plastic-sounding snap, I ripped the entire skin tag right off my eye.

Immediately, blood welled up, and I dropped the tweezers and used my fingers to apply pressure to the uh, removal site. This redirected the blood flow so that it filled my lower eyelid and dripped out the other side of my eye. I grabbed a wad of toilet paper and stood there dabbing and quietly hooting like an owl, as the kids were already asleep and my husband would surely have some choice words for me about the fact that I was bleeding like crazy.

It didn't hurt, but it took a good hour for the wound to seal itself, probably because I kept removing the tissue to check, thereby breaking it open and starting the whole process over again.

So, the good news is, the thing is completely gone - for now. I'm not entirely sure it won't come back. And yesterday, I got an appointment with the eye doctor for next week. So we'll see. If it is gone for good, I'll cancel.

The funny part is that the entire time I was dealing with the horror of what I had just done, I was toying with whether I could type one handed, or if I should wait to blog about it until later. Heh.