O Tannenbaum

Ready for Christmas

My older brother helped decorate my Charlie Brown Christmas tree today. Last night in one of my sleepless tries at distraction I managed to drag it out of the garage, but I couldn't find any of my Christmas decorations. My younger brother helped us organize the garage last summer, and my malfunctioning noggin couldn't remember where we had put anything. I was lucky I had covered the tree with a big pink sheet last year so it at least was easy to find.

My mom was so pleased to have the tree up even in its sad kind of bedraggled state with no ornaments. My brother took pity and went and bought more lights and some ornaments in town and decorated it. It was transformed by the time I got home, and my mom was delighted. The biggest benefit of my procrastination is that he got all the ornaments 50% off! I guess it pays to buy your decorations close to Christmas.

I have two days off this week for Christmas Holiday. I have one day off next week for New Years, and a floating holiday I will save for later. I am sure I will end up having to use it for some sort of sick day. I haven't really had a vacation in the last six years because of my terrible luck with health issues - all my time off is used for illness. I have the best bosses in the world to have put up with me and my defective body for this long!!!  I just wish I was physically in better shape to do the job they need me to do.  Sigh.

I had a great day at work, got many things done. I have to say I'm a purdy darn good trouble shooter. Now as a fixer, I'm just not as talented so it takes a little more work for me to fix things. Some I won't even attempt - best left for the professional programmers.  The Legs are bad for an hour two each day after I get there, and the same way when I get home so I am paying a price in pain for every trip.  Being able to be productive in spite of The Legs is making me happy.

To make my day even better, I was visited by a good friend at work. I was able to talk with her a bit, and go out and visit for a minute with her husband. She has the most positive attitude of anyone I have ever met, and perseverance that surmounts any obstacle. I tell her we must be long lost cousins because her family is just about the same as mine!!! She had not seen me since I had started using my cane BLING, and somehow it hadn't really occurred to me that using a cane would be a difference that was noticeable. I guess BLING is rather shiny.  We have been friends for over 15 years but I am sure neither one of us looks a day older!

I am on a new diabetic medication, Januvia, along with metformin. I ended up going to Dr. Kid's office and seeing Dr. Kid's endocrinology physician assistant, Ms. Cheerful. We discussed my options because of my refusal to take Actos (cankle maker extraordinaire) and my chronic pancreatitis. Dr. Kid wanted me to take Byetta which has the added benefit of causing weight loss but because it works by holding food in your stomach longer this won't do for me. Ms. Cheerful agreed.

Your pancreas starts producing exocrine enzymes (lipase, protease, and amylase are three main ones) to digest things in your stomach the minute something hits your stomach and keeps on going I guess until the food gets down the digestive chain a little ways. Holding food there longer would just be an exercise in increased pain that I don't want to experience. Januvia has caused problems with pancreatitis also, so I guess I will just have to watch The Belly closely for a while and see how it goes.

I got a couple of letters from Dr. Kildare's office today.  One was rescheduling my March 2011 appointment.  Sooner?? I thought incredulously.  No way!  I was rescheduled from Thursday March 24th to Monday March 28th because Dr. Kildare is not going to be in the office on the 24th.  The other letter was from Nurse Goodguy telling me that one of my blood tests was normal (CPK).  No surprise there.  Time is ticking while I am sure Dr. Kildare and Nurse Goodguy are pondering over my extensive medical record trying to come up with a treatment plan for me and The Legs.  I give them two more weeks after this Friday.  Somehow I think they are going to miss that deadline. 

I think that time actually must flow differently at Dr. Kildare's practice.  A month for me must be like a day to them.  That's my theory of relativity for medical appointments - the closer you get to the speed of "more time to deal with you than I think my time is worth", the slower it gets to your next appointment.  From the doctor's point of view however, it is a blink of an eye and there you are again: older, grumpier, not any better, he still hasn't bothered to review your records, and he can't figure out why you aren't pleased when he can't even remember why you had an appointment and doesn't have an answer for any of your questions. At this point if the doctor is not careful you reach critical mass and explode right there in front of him.