I Hate It When She's Right

Yesterday, my friend Olivia called me from Seattle.  We talk more often during election season, and the gaffes coming out of the Romney campaign have been good for several phone calls lately.  I am determined not to feel optimistic about what all these revelations are doing to his campaign, but when folks like conservative columnist Bill Kristol calls his remarks at that infamous fund raising event "arrogant and stupid," it's hard not to have the audacity of just a little hope.

But eventually we got around to matters of my health and I turned into my mother while Olivia turned into me.  She had me at death's door and insisted I get myself to an emergency room NOW (I should have mentioned to her I would have to drive at least 30 minutes to get to the ER just to have them check on my urinary tract infection).

We argued for some time and I know how she felt because it's the same way I feel when dealing with my mother.  But I also knew how my mother feels because when you are on this side of all the stuff going on, it really doesn't seem very serious.

I also had communicated with my doctor, who asked me to come in for lab work Tuesday morning, so I would be going to the local Kaiser clinic in just a few hours anyway and didn't see the need to rush off to the Emergency Room.

The only concern I had was the nausea I've been having.  It's the reason I find it hard to stay on the diabetes meds.  And also the fact that I seem to be suffering from Underdog Syndrome.

For those who never experienced the cartoon Underdog, our kids watched it all the time when they were little.  Underdog's alter ego is Shoe Shine Boy, but when his girlfriend Polly is in trouble he becomes the superhero -- "I am not slow...it's up, up, up and away I go!"

The only episode I really remember was when Underdog was under the spell of the evil Simon Bar Sinister and he couldn't fly because he was dizzy.

"Things are fine
when I sit down
But when I stand
Things go round and round."

Well, that's kind of how I've felt the last couple of days.   (Things don't go "round and round" but just get weak, but I love the Underdog reference.)  This is all very mild, you understand, but just enough to be annoying.  The problem was that three things had changed this week:  I got the urinary tract infection, I started taking my pills again, and I was trying to follow a diabetic diet.  It could be any one of those things that were causing the problem.

I decided to ignore how I was feeling and go to work at community meals anyway.  The cook put me to chopping onions this time and I was doing just fine, sort of, when I realized my legs felt like limp spaghetti and I had broken out in a cold sweat.  I finished the onions, 'cause I'm no quitter, but when they were finished, after I'd only been there 45 minutes, I decided I didn't want to stay and so came home, whereupon I finally gritted my teeth (hearing the loud "I TOLD YOU SO!" from Olivia in my head) and called Kaiser to see if I could get an appointment to see the doctor as long as I was going to be at Kaiser for lab work anyway.

I won't even go into how frustrating the conversation with the person I was put through to when I asked for an advice nurse was, but after all the screening questions she told me that before she could do anything, I would have to talk with an advice nurse.  Huh???

Anyway, the upshot was that my doctor would only be in for an hour today and she had a full schedule, but whoever this was would have her call me, and she gave me an appointment for tomorrow.  The doctor called in about an hour and we had a long talk.  She decided I should have blood work done, in addition to a urine test and she made some suggestions about medication changes this evening.

Throughout the afternoon, she called me three more times to ask how I was feeling.  In truth, I felt like an idiot because these are really very mild symptoms but if there is something I should be doing differently to make getting onto the diabetes routine again less unpleasant, I wanted to start now.

So we'll see how it goes tomorrow.  I'm still suffering from Underdog Syndrome, which is easy to forget whenever I'm sitting down, but when I stand up, I'm glad that I have an appointment tomorrow.  I'm sure Simon bar Sinister is around here somewhere.

Tomorrow is my day to work in the book store.  I'm glad that's a sit-down job!

Now, shut up, Olivia--I'm going, already!  OK???