Long Time Nobody See Me

I've been around... and around and around and around.

To catch you up:

1. I'm done with classes working on my PhD; all that remains is to read for comprehensive exams, take comprehensive exams (which I hope to actually PASS in August), and write/defend the dissertation. I hope to graduate in May 2011. Hope.
2. As many of you know I have been dealing with significant chronic pain issues; many of them are being *very* well dealt-with through a local pain clinic - very well!! And the PT staff there is AMAZING.
3. Unfortunately, though, I fell down the back steps between Christmas and New Years, landing on my left hip and right shoulder (and knocking myself out cold, it ends up!) significantly making things worse on the pain side of things. Not such a good move. The reason I fell? I have been having problems with numbness on the left side of my body and could not feel the step... and missed it.
4. The numbness issues? Are why I FINALLY got in to see a neurologist today. And had a brain MRI last week. And am having another one week after next with and without contrast... after which (like 45 minutes after which) I see this doc again. He is very aggressively determined to figure this out. I am VERY glad. There is more to it than this... but this is all I am willing to talk about in this forum at this time.
5. I am frantically trying to get my reading done this semester - but it is just hella bad; 38 books and assorted articles in one Readings for Comps class... and an equal amount of reading / question answering for the other three profs. I *love* it, but I can't seem to convince the rest of my life to slow down enough to allow me to read 10 hours a day like I need to. This is bad. Very, very bad.
6. To wit: I had an endometrial ablation two and a half weeks ago (the second of three hospital procedures I have had already this year - can you just say ENOUGH ALREADY??); this will stop the bad cycles I have been having, but it also ends any chance we might ever have had at getting pregnant. I am ok with this. Sometimes I wonder if Crash is not.
7. And finally... I turn 41 on Friday. Wow. Where did the time go?

And that, in a nutshell, children, is my life in a nutshell.

I'll catch you again soon, I hope.