Wednesday, April 05, 2006

late afternoon

Doctor, Doctor, Gimme The News, I Got A Bad Case Of…

a slight heart murmur.  I got through all of my other lab tests swimmingly (ha! the pregnancy test was a blood test this time - most excellent) and not until the very last thing, when the doctor used his mighty stethoscope did he say, “Hey, you have a slight heart murmur and you need an echocardiogram.  Can you come in on Saturday?  Don’t worry, it probably won’t delay your surgery.” Hmmm, “probably”?  Okay, just one more test.  At least no more blood - I don’t think I have any left.

The good news - this doctor is five minutes away.  It’s an Urgent Care facility, so it’s mostly walk-ins, therefore easier to get an appointment.  He has all sorts of fancy equipment, and he accepts my insurance and can be my first primary care physician in Nevada.  Aww, my first.  Oh yeah, and I like him, at least for the five minutes I spoke with him.  But, onetwothreefourfive minutes away.  Maybe four if I don’t take the long way.  2.5 miles away.  Yay!

Tuesday, April 04, 2006

mid-afternoon

Once, Twice, Thrice, Four Times Not Pregnant

I set up an appointment for tomorrow to get my pre-surgical tests done.  I can’t believe it, but I have to take another pregnancy test.  That’ll be four in the past three months.  Really people, I’m gay and monogamous, I swear.  I don’t want to pee in a cup anymore.  Not to mention, I’m 41 and have a herniated disc, I don’t want to be pregnant.  I like kids, I do, but sometime in the past ten years I realized that I was going to have to like other people’s kids.  Anyway, tomorrow I get a chest x-ray, blood tests, an EKG, etc.  I’m surprised that the local Urgent Care place has all that equipment.  It’s not one of those hospital-like Urgent Cares, just a regular doctor’s office that takes walk-ins.  Fortunately, the doctor is on my insurance plan, because it’s the only doctor’s office in our neck of the woods.  It’ll be nice to have a primary care physician, even if I no longer have any co-pays left for the whole year.

I picked up my prescriptions for Oxytrol and Combunox this afternoon.  Sadly, I learned that I have a $250 deductible for prescriptions.  I don’t know how that works since last year I was only having to pay $10 for everything except the useless $90 Skelaxin.  So, my meds today were $225.  Eek.  At least I know the Combunox (oxycodone & ibuprofen) should work somewhat, but it was $83 for the Oxytrol patches and I don’t know if they’ll do anything.  But geez, they’re $10/patch and I’m supposed to use two of them a week.  I hope they’ll at least get me through until surgery, and that surgery will fix my bladder once and for all.  No one seems overly optimistic about that, but I’m hopeful.  Actually, no one seems to really even think about the bladder issue, except for me...and Leigh-Ann, who has to suffer when I’m driving and having a bad bladder day.  It’s hard to believe that it’s not so common with other herniated disc patients that it would automatically be part of the healing discussions.  But, apparently it isn’t.  I feel super special.

When I got my bottle of Combunox, I thought it looked like an awful lot of pills.  The bottle was a lot taller than the Lortab bottle, but I figured some part of it was an optical illusion.  Until...the pharmacist called, fairly panicked.  He miscounted and gave me too many pills.  He wants me to come back so he can take the extras from me, otherwise he apparently gets into big trouble.  So, kinda tedious, but I have to go back to the pharmacy tomorrow.  I’m happy it’s only a few blocks away.  See Mom, that’s why I can’t have prescriptions filled at Costco.  You never know when your pharmacist will give you too many narcotics.

I hope this whole process is over soon, so I can write about more interesting stuff.  Sure, this is interesting to the people who find me by looking up “nerve root block injection”, but for the rest of you, I know, not so much.

Monday, April 03, 2006

early morning

Ack!  Pain!

I guess the few days of activity decided to catch up to me today.  Whoo, shooting pains from my hip to my calf while walking down the stairs.  You know, just when you question whether or not surgery is the right decision, the reality smacks you in the face and says, “Duh, of course it is.” I’m so sad that my stronger pain meds won’t be in until tomorrow.  So very sad.  I’m also sad that we couldn’t go out for lunch with Helly & Alan before they went home, but hopefully Vegas did itself proud and they’ll want to come back soon.

I’m now off to ice myself or take some drugs or moan quietly in the corner or something.

Sunday, April 02, 2006

evening

Katie Couric & Hillary Clinton

I think I’m missing the gene that finds Katie Couric or Hillary Clinton at all appealing.  Is Katie Couric the person you want comforting you during a disaster?  Peter Jennings, you trusted.  Katie, I find phony.  I feel the same way about Hillary Clinton.  I believe both women are smart, but to me, they seem so unlikeable.  So other.

So, my preference for world news now - the internet.  My preference for the Democratic candidates for 2008 - Al Gore & Russ Feingold.

late morning

Bah, I Don’t Like Springing Forward

Update - here’s the link to the Steven Kalas column I mention below.

For the second time, we learned about the time change from Hockey Night in Canada.  How are we so out of touch?  Anyway, I don’t like springing forward...at least not for the first week or so.  It seems like we’ve lost more than an hour.  I feel like it’s already time for bed.  Of course, that could just be because I’ve had a busy few days.  We met Helly & Alan at The Chocolate Swan for a tasty chocolate truffle treat before we took them to the Wranglers game.  We were going to just pick them up in the parking lot and zoom over to The Orleans for the game, but Bo (Helly’s brother and our arch rival in fantasy hockey) said he wanted to meet us.  But did he show up?  Nooooo.  He’s forgiven, I suppose, as we had some delightful chocolate thanks to our change in plans.

We had a great time at the Wranglers’ game with Helly & Alan, even though the Wranglers had one of their rare losses.  Nonetheless, a warm pretzel and some nacho cheese dip made it all okay.  I’m glad Helly had such a good time, which kind of emphasizes the weirdness of Steven Kalas’ (I’ll get you the link soon - the Review-Journal link isn’t working right now) version of almost the exact same event.  The difference is that we weren’t sprayed by beer, but that doesn’t mean the rest of the fun is negated or that you have to rethink what you originally thought was fun.  Refs are used to being booed, in fact, hockey refs are booed as soon as they appear on the ice, so it’s really nothing personal.  The booing isn’t a reflection of their officiating skills.  The chanting of, “(insert opposing goalie’s name here, three times), you suck!” doesn’t really mean the goalie sucks.  In fact, it mostly is unrelated to how the opposing goalie is playing.  The shouting in the stands is annoying when it’s right behind you, in your ear, but otherwise, fairly entertaining.

Yesterday, Leigh-Ann and I went to the Glass & Bead Expo at the South Coast Hotel convention center.  It wasn’t nearly as good as last year’s convention.  There were a lot fewer independent bead makers, which meant that I didn’t find anything groovy.  At least this year, when I saw the cool Precious Metal Clay stuff, I knew what it was and found some interesting design books.  It’s too bad all of the instructions were in Japanese.  Can anyone here translate Japanese?  This year, when we saw Robin & Andy, the Technicow owners, we knew they were friend and not foe. This time, no case of mistaken identity, as they were the only ones at their booth.  If the show is at the South Coast next year too, I’m not sure that I’d want to drive all the way out there (it seemed like we were driving all the way to California) for it.  I probably will, but that doesn’t mean I’ll be happy about how far it is.

After we came home, we were totally exhausted, but the big win (7-0) by the Leafs gave us a tad more energy to make it until bedtime.  Unfortunately, I knew the results of the game before we started watching our recording.  I was being really careful by not looking at my fantasy team, so as to remain unspoiled.  I stupidly lost track of the time and didn’t realize the game was over, so I went to the Toronto Star website to read pre-game stuff.  D’oh!  Jumping out at me was “Leafs romp over Sabres 7-0”.  Um, oops.  Well, at least it wasn’t a big loss, so the game was still fun to watch.  It was an unlikely group of heroes:  Aubin, Antropov, O’Neill, Domi, et al.

Today, a day of rest, albeit minus one hour.  Grrr.  Tomorrow, hopefully we’ll be able to have lunch with Helly & Alan before they fly back to Atlanta.  And hey, maybe Bo might grace us with his presence. If not, I hope they’ll come back to Vegas soon...and bring Nancy and her husband, since Nancy is responsible for us even knowing Helly.  It’s all because she insisted, on her blog, that everyone wish Helly a “happy birthday” last September.  Now, Leigh-Ann and I have new friends in Georgia.  Thanks, Nancy!  And come visit!