2010 in review....

Started the year working dental insurance and mostly hating it but already knowing I was headed back to PHI with Startek for a few months. Don't get me wrong, GWL is lovely, good pay, good benefits, I knew many of the people in my department from Startek, but it just didn't fit. Or rather I didn't, I guess.  Not that I usually do fit in, cos my life is so weird, but this was more of a misfit than usual. At any rate, off to PHI at the start of February. Met new amazing people there--shout out to Ilya, whom I adore! and stayed at again at the Somerset, which is an awesome place. I was two doors down from the room I stayed in last time *L* I had a balcony but never used it. We trained and moved to a new site in Metro Manila (the Ortigas site) and it wasn't the same. The employees were less keen on the work and absenteeism was higher than I had expected. I still adored all my classes, though and they loved me. I got to see more of the city, went on a tour of Corrigador (where all the WWII, MacArthur stuff happened) and later, got to go back to Puerto Galera, the beach I plan on retiring to someday :) We moved to the Oakwood hotel which was brilliant, and then to the Discovery hotel, where life went to shit. I had started this little tour out for 2 mos, but was so amazing they kept extending me. This was fantastic, except in June, I got a cold. I also got a tatoo for my 45th birthday, but I digress. I never get colds. Then after it went away I got another one at start of July. This one didn't go away. No clear diagnosis (they told me there that it was bronchitis) but doctors here think I either had a cardiac "event" (possibly a mini stroke) or pneumonia, and fluid  built up in my lungs.  This led to congestive heart failure and it became clear I couldn't keep working (at least to me, no one else seemed to buy it and they still kept trying to extend me). Feeling sick, fainting all the time (one memorable faint at my desk led to amazing bruises on my face and arm like I was Tina Turner or something *L*), feeling bad for myself, I of course found solace in food--who says six cinnamon buns isn't a viable meal alternative. Also drank a ton of Starbucks americanos (periodically marked with foam as Mick would say) and ate all of the apple fritters in the Philippines *L* When I finally got my plane ticket outta there, I was unhappy with the work, the company, the client (ATT is comprised mostly of fatcats and idiots), myself and life in general, and my 3 mo. tour ended seven months later, end of August. I was close to four hundred lbs. and had to use a wheelchair to get me through the airports on the way home. Yes, I had become the fat lady in the wheelchair. And I was even contemplating getting a scooter.

My friends love me and were kind enough that not one of them told me I looked like shit. I could barely get about my apartment without running out of breath. My lips were blue alot of the time, and I could not sleep unless I was sitting up, which turned my legs into gigantor swollen football lookin' things. I opted to go to the doctor....

One visit, one xray and one bloodtest later, and I was sent to hospital immediately, with heart failing and lungs drowning in my own juices. Lovely. A week of forced lysik (and trying to find my shitty small twisted veins which made me look like a junkie all bruised from finger to elbow) and heart tests and oxygen and someone coming into the room to make sure I hadn't fallen out of bed AND no internet, god help me, and I got to go home with a doctor's note to keep me off work til end of November. Mom and Dad came out after I was out of hospital--after I scared the fuck out of them, but hell, I never get sick, how was I supposed to know I was dying *L* and I learned I could walk again. I missed my first Regina Coronation ever, and even though I know rationally that I could not have been there, or functioned well that day, I still regret it.

Didn't do much after that. Alot of telly, alot of online porn. Not much writing, as though my muse had died of congestive heart failure. I hope to remedy that this year. I connected with more friends and family on facebook and in real life, and starting making tentative moves back to the club and the gay community. Went back to work with the court, hoping that even if I can't make a difference, I can be the bitchy dissenting vote when things get ridiculous, which they have been known to do. Got a clean bill of health more or less from the heart doctor, although I am considered pre-diabetic and have to take metformin, amongst five other drugs, daily. A change in diet and hopefully that will be a thing of the past by March. And am no longer staring at 400 lbs around the corner. Am now under 300 and hope to keep heading in the right direction.

I miss old friends more than I can say but don't know how to connect again, or in some cases, can't cos they're dead. Am enjoying new friends and deepening friendships. Still want to move to England, and still adore the BBC despite what RTD did to Ianto Jones. On the telly front there's White Collar, Hawaii 5-0, Big Bang Theory, Glee, Supernatural, Being Human, Doctor Who and Sherlock. mmm, Benedict Cumberbatch....

Not as detailed as I'd planned, probably, but that's me, in a nutshell. And how was YOUR year?