STILL...ALIVE...

Ten points if you know where the title of this blog entry came from!

WARNING: Rambling Ahead. 

Yes, I'm still kicking, and no, nothing interesting has been happening. At least I don't think so. It's kind of weird, but I have the WORST memory right now. I don't know if it's because so many days are the same, too much Sweet and Low, or if my brain is finally catching up to my age. At any rate, if anything interesting has happened, it wasn't interesting enough to remember.  

I haven't known what to do with myself, lately. I feel like everything is still on hold. I suppose that's really is what is going on. The world hasn't gotten back to normal yet and I am heartily tired of it!

Let's see...I went to the doctor the other day. Finally. I used to go three or four times a year, but my current GP only sees me once a year. In some ways that's rad, because I don't particularly like going to the doctor, but in other ways it kind of sucks because a year is a long time not to know if your blood work is right or whatever. Granted, I know I could make an appointment if something was wrong, but what if it's something I don't notice? How do you know if your cholesterol is bad, or something like that? Eh, well, I guess that's the price you pay not to have to be arsed to go to the doctor more than you want to.

I like my doctor a lot. I met him last year. He's a bit younger than me, quite nice, and funny. He is one of those people that I immediately felt comfortable around when I met him, which is both rare and cool. He came into the exam room wearing a Batman print mask. I made a comment and he said he normally has some Harry Potter masks that he wears, but he'd forgotten them at home and had to wear that one as a backup.  Of course I asked him if he was a Harry Potter fan, in which he demurred and said that he wasn't a huge fan. So I pressed him about whether or not he knew his Hogwarts house. He was a Griffindor. Of course he was. 

Look, I know knowing your Hogwarts house seems like a silly thing, and it means nothing, but I love it when people have enough of a sense of humor to enjoy silly things like that. Especially adults. If you're reading this and don't know your house, please go to Pottermore and find out! It brings me joy. (Of course, I'm a Slytherin, so what do I know? Haha!) ;)

Since my appointment was a wellness check, he and I talked about a lot of stuff. I told him about the panic attacks (he didn't seem worried, but did refill my emergency meds) and I told him about my back. That he seemed worried about. Mainly because I'm so limited as to what I can do because of it. I can't run anymore, I can't comfortably ride a bike, and hell, I can't even do yoga anymore without having to sleep on an ice pack. He told me I could probably swim for exercise, which would be great if I could swim. He told me I could have ...and I don't know what it was...radicular something or other. The only reason I remember that much is because I thought he said I had a ridiculous something or other. I mean, maybe whatever it is is ridiculous, but it still hurts. Other than that, there were just a few things I need to work on. My weight, my cholesterol, my blood sugar levels. The usual. They took a lot of blood for some other tests, but I guess they all came back fine because they didn't contact me again.

Ya know what? I just realized I talked, at length, about a doctor's appointment. I really am turning into an old person! But really, it's been the highlight of the last two months! What else can I talk about?

One day we will get to to stuff again and I'll have new stories and adventures. One day! Don't give up on me! 

VISITING ALL THE DOCTORS!

I'm so tired of going to the doctor.  I mean, I'm glad that there are doctors out there that can basically digitally peel you apart and see what is going on inside of you, and I'm glad that I have access to those doctors, but I feel like I've had more than my fair share of them this year.

I told you about my visit to the Doc-In-the-Box in January because I thought my heart was glitching, and about that visit leading me to the hours long stress test that I had to take to "ease my mind."  Well, just the other day I had a regular visit with my GP.  Just routine stuff, but I had to have blood work and a chest X-Ray beforehand as part of it.  Two days before my appointment, the doctor's office told me they saw some shadowing on my X-Ray and that I needed to go and have a CT scan of my chest.  This probably would have scared me if they'd told me they found a spot, or a lesion, or a ferret on it, but shadows can be caused by almost anything, including leaning too close to the machine-thing.  So I go to have the CT scan, which was a lesson in patience, because you have to wait SO FREAKING LONG before you get to go back there.  I was given an IV (which thankfully didn't squirt my blood across the room this time) and injected with what felt like hot coffee, but what was (I was assured) contrast dye.  That part was really weird because they told me the dye would feel hot in my veins, and then make me feel like I'd just wet my pants.  They were NOT lying about that.  It also made my liver feel like I'd swallowed some lit birthday candles.  Then I was passed in and out of a scanning doughnut, which spoke to me in a creepy robotic voice "Breathe In. Hold Your Breath. Exhale."  I kid you not, it was like the weirdest Disney ride you could ever imagine.

So that was over, and I was fine with it.  Certainly it would ease the doctor's mind about any lung shadows he may see.  I'd had pneumonia after all, so I was sure that's all that it was.  The same thing happened to Steve a year or two ago, and they'd had him convinced it was inoperable lung cancer, but thankfully it was just because he'd had scars from an earlier bout with pneumonia (which he'd never been treated for because he's stubborn and likes coughing a whole lot.)  So, at my actual appointment I was told everything was fine. Blood work was fine and my CT scan just said I had a nodule (just like Steve) from my case of pneumonia.  He even showed me the report that said it was a lung nodule with a very low chance of being anything scary.  I'm paraphrasing, of course.  All he said was that I have to lose weight, of course, but when do I not?  The only other complaint I had was that my side had been hurting quite a lot. I thought it was my gallbladder, and so did my doctor.  So the next monday he sent me to have an ultrasound on my abdomen.  Fun stuff, that ultrasound.  Imagine getting covered with jelly while someone rolls a Tonka truck all over your stomach. It was weird.  Later that day (and way sooner than I'd imagined) they called me to tell me that my ultrasound was fine, although that doesn't explain the pain, but for all I know there really is a ferret in my spleen.  She also told me that the doctor went back to look at my CT scan and wants me to see a pulmonary specialist after all.  The same one as Steve went to, actually, and he says that doctor is a bit of a bastard, so that should be fun.  Now I have to go see yet another doctor who will probably have me scanned or jellied or some crazy thing.

Somewhere in there I also had a dentist appointment where they told me I need to have my crown replaced in early May and I have yet another, unrelated to anything else thus far, doctor's appointment I have to go to in either May or June (depending on when there is an opening.)

Seriously, I'm very, very grateful that I have access to so many doctors and insurance to help pay for these visits, but this is an embarrassment of riches. Getting old sucks.

RANDOM ACTS OF BLOGGING

1) When I was sick at the beginning of the year, I spent a LOT of time lying around feeling miserable.  To keep myself occupied, I started watching a series of videos on YouTube called "Begin Japanology."  I can't be certain, but I think it's an actual show, and not just a YouTube series, that explains various aspects of Japanese living.  I have no idea why I'm so fascinated by these videos, because honestly, they are a weird kind of thing to get wrapped up in.  Each episode deals with one particular subject and it tells the history of whatever it is, the folklore (if any exists) and how it's done there currently. I now know a whole lot about Japanese pickles and Fugu blowfish. 



I honestly think it is the host I like to listen to.  His name is Peter Barakan, and his voice is so darn soothing.  I won't necessarily recommend these videos to you, but if you are ever bored, you can always learn the history of ramen noodles!

2)  I took my stress test last week.  It wasn't a fun thing.  I was referred to a cardiologist after the panic attack I had at the doc-in-the-box to "ease my mind."  I'm actually really embarrassed that I freaked out so hard that I was sent to a doctor.  To be honest, though, it probably didn't hurt that I went, what with my family's history of heart problems, but still...  I actually had two visits.  My initial visit was to have an EKG and talk to the doctor.  I did find out that my blood pressure is higher than it should be, which I think that has a lot to do with the weight I've gained, but the EKG was normal. 

The doctor is Indian, and his accent is so heavy that I couldn't understand anything he said to me.  I felt bad, because I usually do really well with accents, but his just baffled me.  He had me on a table listening to me with his stethoscope, and he said something I couldn't understand.  I just stared at him, hoping his meaning would kind of seep in, and he wound up repeating himself.  I still didn't get it, so he held up his hand and said it again. So I held up my hand, thinking he was asking me to do that so he could hear something better (imagine how someone holds up their hand while swearing on the bible) and he looked at me really strangely and said very slowly and carefully "I said Breathe Normally."  I felt like an idiot, but to be fair, that is really not what it sounded like he said.  *shame* 

I thought that would be all I had to do, but they said I also had to do a sort of pared down stress test. I was ok with that, since I figured it was just walking on a treadmill.  I do that all the time!  So I showed up the day they told me to and immediately had to strip down to my waist and put on a hospital gown. I wasn't expecting that, since I was told to just wear a comfortable, two piece outfit.  Then I was lead to a room where a man gave me an I.V.  I had actually been told I wouldn't be given drugs, but not told that I'd be given some kind of dye, so I hadn't been expecting needles!  He didn't have much trouble getting the needle in, but when I looked back at my arm, I was covered in blood.  I don't know what happened, since I had my eyes closed, but I had to be mopped up.  Gross.  Then I was taken into this very cold room with a treadmill in it.  The nurse who came to administer the test was actually really, very nice.  She must have seen I was nervous, so she kept me talking while she wired me up.  That nurse got REAL familiar with my left boob. Real familiar, y'all.  Once I was all hooked up, I had to walk.  It wasn't bad at first, or at least not as bad as I'd thought it would be.  The only thing is that she kept talking to me, which was distracting.  She made me told on to the bar, and she kept ramping the machine up until I was running. The thing was inclined so high that I felt like Batman scaling a wall. 

Like So.

I have a whole new appreciation of sports bras now.  After this, I thought I was done, but they sent me into a waiting room with  a bunch of other people (similarly topless underneath hospital gowns which were not all cinched as closely as my own.  Yeesh.) I have no idea how long I sat in there, but it was long enough to watch Meredith Veira (?), The View, and part of Kelly and Michael.  I'm not sure if that was part of some kind of endurance test or mindless torture, but that was the hardest part of the whole day.  I would have rather been running at a 90 degree angle with no sports bra again.  Next they took me in for an electrocardiogram, which was fine and normal, and then I was put into some kind of CAT scan machine and I had to lie still for 15 minutes while the thing rotated all around me.  I wasn't told what was being done to me at that point, so I just assumed I was being pumped full of gamma radiation for hulking-out purposes.  After that, the X-Ray man/Gamma radiation tech pulled the IV out of my arm.  I have no idea what he did when he pulled it out, but my blood actually shot all over the wall.  Not from my arm (I don't think my blood pressure was that high) but from the thing he pulled out of my arm.  I had no idea how to react to that, so I just sat and stared at it until he told me to go.  Again, gross.  

Turns out my test results were normal, which I figured they would be, but hooray just the same.  I've been told to lose weight and hopefully I will never have to do any of those heart things again. Fingers crossed for both of those things, please!

3) I still have no idea how to deal with my hair.  It won't do anything I tell it to!  I've decided it makes me look like the perkiest counselor at a summer camp from hell.  That seems very specific, but very apt.  I can't explain it.

4) The other day I pulled out the hand vacuum and was trying to clean up a very messy mess.  It didn't seem to be working, even though I could see that stuff was being sucked up into the thing, but I didn't seem to be making much headway getting stuff off the floor.  I thought for a moment that I'd broken the machine, but it turned out that the latch on the canister was open, and I was just redistributing the stuff I was cleaning up all over the room.  This is why I don't clean more often.