The Anniversary that Wasn't

Yesterday was our 53rd anniversary.  Walt's sister, who loves knowing what people are doing to celebrate events, called in the afternoon to wish us a happy anniversary and I think was disappointed that I had nothing to tell her.

The previous day had been so Kaiser and house heavy that we just didn't think about the fact that the next day was our anniversary.

We don't do anniversary gifts, but always exchange cards and Walt, who is suffering from the cough I had earlier this month and not feeling at all well, forgot to get me a card.  I had a card for him, but only because I buy cards ahead of time and sometimes have more than one anniversary card in the card drawer.  I don't know how long ago I bought this particular card, but was glad I had it.

In the morning Walt took a nap, since he felt so crappy and I spent a good part of the morning writing the review for the show we saw the other night.

I finished up our cottage cheese and strawberries for lunch, so Walt went out to buy more, and when he got home, he was exhausted, so he went down for another nap, and I slept too.

Neither of us was particularly hungry at 5:30, which is when we would have to eat if we were going to have dinner, so we both picked at leftover and then headed off to Sacramento again to see Seven Brides for Seven Brothers.

It was billed as a "daring, dazzling choreographic extravaganza" and they did not lie.  Short on plot but oh...that dancing!

I particularly liked the "girl flipping."

I'm getting to where I hate going to shows like this because at intermission people want to leave their seats and go out to get refreshment, which means I have to get up to let them out, but my knees sometimes don't want to unbend and they have to figure out how to get around me.  I hate this.  Poor Jeff, my colleague, who is not a small man, had to literally climb over me.  Not sure which of us was the more embarrassed.  He later helped me stand up. 

During the finale, I was hoping for lots of applause and a standing ovation (which they got) so I could struggle to my feet...which I was able to do eventually, though with all the jostling of the crowd leaving the theater, I felt very unsteady and had to hang onto Walt.

We got home, had ice cream bars, watched jeopardy and went to sleep.  Happy anniversary!

Today I have an appointment with a neurologist.

This is what marriage is like when you reach a certain age!

I Hate My Body

Walt and I don't have much opportunity to gather socially with friends.  Mostly it's because we spend so much time going to theater that there is never time.

But we have had three opportunities in the past month+.  January 31 was Ashley's wedding at Lake Tahoe.  I had been looking forward to that wedding for six months.  I love Ashley and seeing her so happy brought a big smile to my face and I couldn't wait to see her married to David.

But I got my famous cold and the cough was constant and sounded terrible.  The last thing I wanted to do was to infect anyone at the wedding with my germs, so we stayed home.

Then Ernie and Lucille came to town.  They are two of my favorite people, Walt's cousin and his wife.  They usually make it out to California once a year and visit Ernie's brother in Long Beach, and Alice Nan in Santa Barbara and then come north to see Norm & Olivia and us.  Whichever cousins and grandchildren they can fit in along the way, so much the better

But as we were getting ready to drive to Norm's house to spend the day with the Sykes family, I was still sounding like a TB ward and sadly decided nobody really wanted to be around me with the constant cough.  So I sent Walt on ahead and he had a wonderful time.

Saturday, 2 days ago, we had an invitation to have dinner at my dentist Cindy's house (Cindy was a friend for about 10 years before she became my dentist).  She and our mutual friend Roberta had taken a course in Mexican cooking and wanted to share with us.  They also invited Susan and Peter from Logos.  Susan and Roberta had been colleagues and remain friends.

I was really looking forward to the dinner.  On Thursday, I developed a "thing."  I don't know what it was but as I worked at Logos, my whole abdominal wall started to get sore.  So sore, I didn't think I could walk the 3 blocks to the car, so Walt came and got me.  I spent Thursday night and Friday in the recliner with ibuprofen (suggested by Kaiser) at my side.

1 a.m. Saturday, I woke up pain free.  I was ecstatic.  My cough was gone, my pain was gone and I had a lovely dinner to look forward to.

In the afternoon, I was feeling the need for a nap, which is not unusual.  I nap most afternoons.  When I got up, I was feeling warm.  Not surprising, I thought, as I had been sleeping in a patch of sun, but when the feeling didn't go away, I thought "what the heck" and took my temperature.  I shouldn't have done that.  It was 100.1.  I went back to the recliner, popped more ibuprofen and hoped that maybe I was just still warm from the sun.

But the fever went UP, to 100.3.  Not a bad fever, but nonetheless, not a healthy temperature.  I called Cindy to get a doctor's opinion and she told me to stay home.  Walt went.  I stayed home and felt sorry for myself.  He did bring me a doggie bag and the dinner was delicious (though my stomach hasn't been up to eating much these days), but I missed all the fun stuff.

But I was well enough to get to the B Street Theater today to review a show there.  Not the greatest show, but one of stories from the Hispanic culture for children.  The kids loved it.  I have to figure out how to write a review.  I would rather have gone to Cindy's.

But I was home for the Oscar telecast.  I love Neil Patrick Harris and thought he did a good job of keeping things rolling, but there seemed to be more tech awards than in recent years and it seemed to take a long time to get to the awards everyone was watching to see (except the families of the tech people). (I did like it that they didn't seem to play people off and let them finish their thank yous this year)

I thought Lupita Nyong'o in that pearl studded dress was stunning, and Jennifer Lopez looked like she was walking on a cloud when she came out in her billowing skirt.

And why doesn't someone let Patricia Arquette know that she needs a comb?  I can't believe she thinks that hairdo looks good.  

But she made a wonderful speech about equal pay for women.  Juliana Moore used her acceptance speech to discuss Alzheimers, while Eddie Redmayne put in a plug for ALS and director Alejandro Inarritu hoped that Mexicans in this country, legally or not, would be given respect.

The obviously gay Graham Moore, who won for best screenplay for The Imitation Game talked about not belonging when he was a kid and that he nearly committed suicide and he tried to tell kids to look at how far he has come and to hang in there...that it will get better.  And J.K. Simmons told everyone to call their parents.

John Legend, winning the award for best song, "Glory," for Selma talked about this being "the most incarcerated country in the world" and how there are now more black men in prison than there were under slavery in 1850.

The winners of the documentary Citizenfour thanked Edward Snowden, while the president of the academy referenced terrorist activity and said that the academy had the responsibility to ensure that no one's voice is silenced by threats."

This may have been the most political Oscar telecast I'd seen since Sacheen Littlefeather rejected the Oscar for Marlon Brando.  But it's always fun.

Childhood Illnesses

All the controversy swirling around about measles these days makes me think back to our experience with what used to be thought of as the inevitable childhood diseases.

The DPT (diptheria/pertussus/typhoid) vaccine was not licensed until 6 years after I was born, so I'm not sure if I had it...probably did, but not as a baby. But I was 20 before the measles vaccine was licensed, so I missed out on that protection.

I remember having measles.  I don't remember a lot about it, except that I had to stay in bed in a darkened room for a week. The doctor even made house calls to check on me (yes, I am that old). I don't know how long the disease lasted, but I do remember that just about the time the measles had run its course, I came down with German measles (rubella), which is the much less serious 3-day variety. (Even my mother remembers that today)

Polio was the biggie when I was a kid.  I had nightmares about getting polio.  I didn't know exactly what it was but I knew that kids with polio had to live in iron lungs and as a child who was terribly claustrophic, I was so afraid of getting the disease and having to be confined, I thought, for the rest of my life.

I would wake up in the middle of the night more than once in a sweaty, full blown panic because I was so afraid of getting polio.

The Shriners, in the 50s, had a hospital for kids with polio in San Francisco, and I was too afraid to look at the hospital as we drove by for fear I would see an iron lung through one of the windows and that would somehow make me catch the disease.

I was almost out of grammar school when the polio vaccine came along and I remember lining up to get a little sugar cube with a pink dot in it that was going to keep me from getting polio.  Must have worked.

Our kids had the benefit of vaccines for most of the childhood diseases and never had measles or mumps.  They did, however, have chicken pox, which was quite a memorable time in this family.

Jeri came down with chicken pox on her sixth birthday.  She was so disappointed that she could not go to school, because they always made a big deal about birthdays.  

The kids in her first grade class made a poster-sized greeting for her with a drawing of a huge birthday cake and get well wishes.  It was signed by everyone in the class, and delivered by her best friend, Jenny Blackford.

For her birthday dinner, I baked her a chicken pox cake, a round cake, frosted pink, with a face on it and spots all over it.

The quarantine lasted until the pox began to dry up.  She would have "visits" at the front door through our wire mesh screen, she sitting on one side in a little chair and her friend(s) sitting on the other side.  (I always wondered if those germs passed through the screen or not.)

Two of the boys got it next, as soon as Jeri was well.  I don't remember which two, but we went into round 2 of the disease, and then when they were on the road to recovery, the 3rd son -- and David, who was 3-4 months old -- came down with it.  We had over a month of non-stop chicken pox.

I was delighted that David got it so young because he only had a couple of spots and didn't seem to be uncomfortable at all.  How nice, I thought, to get it all over with in one fell swoop.

What I didn't realize is that when a child gets chicken pox too early and has too light a case, it makes them more vulnerable to shingles as they get older.  David was 5 when he came down with shingles.  My mother had it many years later and said the pain was worse than anything she had ever experienced, including childbirth.

(A year later a classmate of his also came down with shingles.  She was also from a large family and her mother said that she, too, had a light case of chicken pox when she was a baby)

Shingles travels around a nerve path, so only one side of your body is affected.  David's traveled around his lower spine to his belly button and down his buttocks.  At its worst it looked like someone had filled his underwear with bright red cottage cheese.

Apparently the pain of shingles is when the lesions are erupting and then there is a respite until another batch erupts.  For such a little guy, David was so incredibly stoic.  It still makes me cry when I think of him lying on the couch and calling out "Mom, it's starting...hold my hand."  I would hold his hand while he squeezed with all his might and then the pain would pass and he would let go of my hand and say "Thank you."  It was that "thank you" that broke my heart because I was helpless to do anything else to make him feel better.

I am glad that there are vaccines today for measles and chicken pox and shingles and I'm angry with parents who talk about parental choice when it comes to the diseases for which they are putting their children, and others at risk.

And So It Starts

Well, my guru called me today and said he'd found the perfect computer for me.  For those who understand those things (I am not one of them), it's a Dell Inspiron i3647-2309BK Desktop with an Intel Core i3-4150 processor, 8 GB DDR3 RAM, 1 TB hard drive, Windows 8.1 64 bit, 4 2.0 USB ports, 2 3.0 USB ports.

I don't have a clue what most of that means, but it will be much faster and store much more stuff than the one that died, and the price was right, so I gave him the go-ahead.  He'll get it set up for me (that will probably cost more than the computer).

I have an approach-avoidance reaction to the news that I will soon have a new computer.  The learning curve gets harder and harder, though the long time without a computer has given me work-arounds that make the loss of what was on the old computer less painful.

I know that the bonding process will be exciting and frustrating.  But when I've finally bonded, I suspect I will be very happy.  Oh heck, I know I'll be very happy.

I finally got out of my chair of sick today and went to visit my mother.  I hadn't seen her since our lunch on Monday, though I had called her every day.  We didn't have much to say to each other.  All she wanted to know was what I had been doing that was exciting, and all I could tell her was that I had been sitting in a chair with stomach cramps for 3 days.  Many, many times.

I didn't stay for lunch, but I dropped off her meds for next week and picked up her laundry.

Walt and I were going to a memorial service at 1.  It was for Uncle Herb, whom I barely knew, but he was Marta's step-uncle and we went to the memorial to honor him and support the family.  We had been to holiday dinners that Herb attended but I don't think I ever spoke to him--we were always in different parts of the table.

So imagine my surprise to learn that he was an author (Herbert Hocking) who had lived for many years in Perth, Australia and had written several books set in and around Perth and other parts of Western Australia.  Ned didn't know that either.  Had someone told me, we might have talked about Australia.  Instead, I'm going to read one of his books and see how they are.

After the memorial there was a reception catered by the amazing Sarah Clanton, of Stone Soup here in Davis.  It was a lovely spread but none of it looked good to me. I took a few things, ate a couple, and gave the rest to Walt.  My stomach just wasn't in a mood to eat anything...and that is saying something for someone who spends all of her time at things like this hanging around the buffet table trying to sneak seconds, thirds, and fourths without anybody noticing that the fat lady is hovering.

We had been invited to join the family for dinner at one of my favorite local eateries, The Buckhorn in Winters.  It's a real old fashioned meat and potatoes place, where you get huge slabs of meat and sit under the heads of animals who gave their lives so someone could slap them up on a wall (I hate that part, but the food is amazing).  

We almost never go there unless we are with a group, and I had been looking forward to it.  But given the way my stomach reacted to the reception food, I decided it would be a waste of money for me to go there, so I sent Walt on with Ned and Marta and I stayed home.  Probably a good idea.  Walt brought home some of his prime rib and garlic mashed potatoes for me and I did finish them, but it took me all evening before I could get them down.

As for me, I rented Boyhood  and watched it (love Amazon!).  Good movie, but the part that really got me was toward the end when Mom looks at her son as he is headed off to college and says, reflecting back over his life, "I thought there would be more."  No parent who has watched their child grow into adulthood can fail to identify and be moved by that sentiment!

Becoming My Mother

There are times when I swear my mother's condition is contagious, and I have caught it.  Yesterday was one of those days.  She is forever telling me that she feels like things are wrong, that she should be doing something, but she can't remember what.  I felt that way yesterday.  It's impossible to describe exactly what it felt like, but all I know is that I understood for the first time what my mother must be feeling.

Physically, I was still feeling a bit rocky and didn't feel like eating, so had very little to eat throughout the day.

But my brain just didn't kick into gear most of the day.  First I had to solve a banking problem.  I got my Visa bill and it showed that I had not paid last month's bill.  That seemed impossible.  I always pay the bill in full.  How could I have not?  I knew I had paid the bill because when I deposited a check a couple of days before, I only had about $300 in my account, which is what I should have had at the end of the month before my Social Security check is deposited.  If I had not paid my bill, I should have had a lot more.

I started trying to figure it out.  This is the kind of thing that I am not very good at, but as I started checking my bank statement on line, I realized that there is no way I could have paid the bill because I am now using the laptop and didn't have the passwords to get into the account and had to talk with someone at the bank to get my log-in information.  If I had paid the bill last month, I would have already set all of this up.

OK.  so I didn't pay the bill...but where was the money I should have had?  

It took a long time, but I finally figured it out.  I had deposited a check into my checking account at the end of the year and then took a portion of that check and transferred it into my savings account.  The transfer showed, but the deposit did not.  What happened to the money?  After a long, frustrating time, I finally checked my savings account and it turned out I had deposited it into that account...and then transferred money from my checking account into my savings account, leaving very little in the checking account.

I was relieved to have solved the mystery, not happy that for the first time I have a fee on my Visa bill, but as soon as my Social Security check arrives, I can pay the double bill and be back on track.

In the afternoon, I went to the store to do some shopping.  "Just a couple of things."  First I had a check to deposit and in using the ATM machine managed to indicate that I wanted the transaction to be conducted in Spanish. 

I got my "couple" of things and checked out.  When Walt and I were first married, I remember I had $20 a week for household expenses.  I could fill up four bags of groceries for that amount.  Today, 4 bags of groceries came to over $150.  Good thing I wasn't doing a "big" shopping.

But as I shopped, I was feeling less and less well.  I was having pains in my stomach, and my back was killing me, so when I got home I put all the refrigerated or frozen stuff in the fridge and then climbed into the recliner and went to sleep for an hour or so.

Several years ago, I wrote an entry called "Pancakes," which is probably my classic TMI entry, but it detailed a sticky situation and how my traditional remedy for constipation was pancakes with lots of butter and syrup.  Works every time.

So for dinner, I had waffles with lots of butter and syrup and a couple of hours later I felt a bit better.

It was just a strange day all around. I think my brain finally cleared by the end of the day, but I'm not sure.

Baseline

This pot shot card by Ashleigh Brilliant (who really is brilliant, though quite eccentric, if you aren't familiar with him!) gave me an idea for a kind of periodic update on aging.

I have been recording my mother's dementia, without initially realizing I was doing it, for some time now, ever since Kathy, Peach and I started noticing her memory loss and discussing it at length on our rides home after Cousins Days.

Last night I noticed something I have been noticing for some time, about myself, and I thought it might be a good idea to do a self-evaluation about where I am on the aging spectrum, to have a "baseline" to compare with in later years.  In addition to the pot shot, this was also prompted by a program called "Mister Rogers and Me," which Walt mentioned this morning.   I commented that I had seen it before and took umbrage at the beginning where "Me" mentioned moving into a new house, going for a walk and seeing "this old man outside of his house."  The old guy, he went on to say, was the 70 year old Fred Rogers, and the rest of the show is about Rogers and his relationshiop with "Me."

70 year old "old guy," huh?  Well, the body does begin to slow down.  I've been dealing with minor aches and pains that slow me down for so long that I don't even notice them any more, though they do worsen, slowly, over time.   I think of my grandfather every time I go to the kitchen or the bathroom.  I remember his getting out of our car and walking to the house, bent over at a slight degree and walking with arms swinging.  I don't know how old he was at the  time [probably 70 :)].  But he had a very distinctive gait, and every time I walk that way I think of him.  I don't walk that way when out in public, or even in front of Walt, but truth be told, it's the most comfortable way for me to walk when nobody is noticing.  It's kind of a lumbering gait, with each step starting out on the heel of the foot, and knees bent slightly as if to absorb the impact.  The opposite arm swings forward and the back is sloped.

Of course my back is sloped all the time.  I remember as a kid my mother always telling me to stand up straight and not slouch.  Now I can't stand up straight if I try.  I stand as straight as I can possibly get for photos, with shoulders held back as much as I can, though it is an uncomfortable position for me, and then look at myself in the picture and I am very definitely stooped over, in spite of thinking I am standing straight. I remember being shocked when Dr. G told me there was no way I was 5'7-1/2" which I thought I was my whole life.  I'm now more like 5'6" and things I used to reach with ease I can't reach any more.  Pictures of Walt and me show me sometimes shorter than he is.

For several years now getting to a standing position takes a few adjustments while the hips and knees click into place.  Sometimes it takes seconds, sometimes it takes more seconds than usual (not at all helped by excited dogs jumping on me--I swear one of these days they are going to knock me over into the dog bed!).  Sometimes there is a twinge of pain as the clicking into place happens.  It's brief and I'm used to it, but it's part of my aging process.

My mother does a lot of complaining about her back problems, but I've had back problems for so long I don't even think about it.  It's nothing serious, but it aches to stand up for any length of time, and I often adopt her treatment, which is just to sit down for a bit until the ache leaves and then go on about my business. When I have to stand for any period of time, the ache becomes all I can think about. When I stood with the woman in the parking lot after the dementia meeting the other day, fortunately I had my cane with me because while she talked on and on and on, my back was just screaming and I needed to lean heavily on my cane.

The cane (just succumbed and bought that TV-advertised Hurry Cane so I can fold it up and carry it in my purse) helps greatly with balance and locomotion, though I can get along without it.  I realize I can walk faster and steadier using the cane, but when I strike out at (my) top speed, I'm still slower than everybody around me.  Walking "together" with someone is something I never do because my companion is always at least four strides ahead of me.  I can't keep up (and if I try, I'm so winded I can't talk and don't enjoy the walk).

I used to be a nightowl and I suppose compared to most people my age, I still am, but lately I've been realizing that after a certain period -- usually halfway through The Daily Show -- that my body and brain just don't want to work any more.  I can, and frequently do, stay up past midnight, but the brain function just isn't the same and a part of me is screaming to drop whatever project I'm trying to finish (often this journal) and just go to sleep.

Sleep has become a more necessary thing.  Both Walt and I usually take a nap at some time during the day.  Some days I seem to fall asleep whenever I sit down to watch TV (of course Walt has done that for many years and is famous for his instant naps).  But after such a long period of sleep problems -- for decades, really -- I am now sleeping often 7 hours at night, which is huge for me.  The dogs are helping because they are really very considerate and though they may come and check to see if I'm still sleeping (and I pretend I am), they tiptoe around here and don't start acting frisky and ready for the day until I finally let them know that I'm awake.  Then all hell breaks loose.  I love those few minutes when I first wake up and we have my "You're AWAKE" love-in.

My appetite is less now.  I almost always give Walt at least 1/3 of my dinner every night because though I dish up what I think I can eat, it turns out I can't.  I understand when my mother (and previously Walt's mother) complain about the amount of food served at restaurants.  This amazes me because I've had such a big appetite all of my life.  Of course I still snack between meals, so I'm not likely to lose much weight, but it surprises me that I can't eat what I used to.

I wasn't going to leave behind this delicious slice of prime rib at the Harris Ranch the other day, but I only ate a few of the French fries, which is very unusual for me.  Love those thin fries; just didn't feel like eating them.

My taste buds are also less sensitive than before.  Things that I used to love to eat are just "meh" now because the flavor isn't as strong as it used to.  It makes it easier to stop eating when my stomach feels full because my mouth isn't getting the same "delicious" signals that it used to.

Both Walt and I are having mild hearing problems.  Neither of us can hear the other if we are distracted somewhere else, though if we are paying attention, the hearing is fine.  Walt has had his hearing tested and said the doctor says it's OK.  I would insist that the doctor is wrong, if it weren't that I'm having the same problems he is.

Most annoying to me of the aging signs I notice is that my typing is not what it used to be.  I still type fast, but I make more typos and the worst of them is typing a word I did not mean to type, when my brain is thinking of the correct word.  I don't know why that happens, but I may be thinking of "black" and my fingers will type "white."  The fingers have taken on a life of their own.  It's like I have my own personal ouija board instead of a computer keyboard under my fingers sometimes.

And of course when you have a parent with dementia, those memory lapses are very worrisome.  I do word problems all the time, hoping that will help keep the brain cells active, but there are still those times when you are trying to think of a movie star, like Ralph Bellamy, for example.  And it just won't come.  You think and think and think and finally try to find a movie he was in (sometimes you can't remember any movies he was in too!) and look it up on ImDB (thank GOD for computers!).   You get the page, see his name and think "Oh...of course...I knew that") then shut down ImDB and the name is gone again and you have to look it up again.  I hate times like that.  They don't happen that often and I only assume they will happen more often as I get older.

Doing math in my head is an impossibility now.  I need a calculator to add 2 and 2 some days.  (4, right?)

I really do have to put on my glasses to find my glasses.  It's difficult to focus on anything.  I have to put my glasses in the same spot every night or I run the risk of not being able to find them.

At least my teeth are OK!  Thank you, Cindy Belgum.

That Elusive Card

Today we were good people and took a step toward remaining healthy.   The main thing was that my mother and I were going to get flu shots.  She didn't remember that, of course, but the nice thing about her is that I tell her we're going somewhere and she never questions it. 

So I got to the apartment and first she had to find her Kaiser card.   This has been going on for about five years now.  Her Kaiser card is in her wallet, in a little plastic folder that has Kaiser's name on it, and she has to have it in her hand before we leave the house.  But she can never find it.  I told her where to find it.  She found it.  Then she put it back and we went to the car.

When we got in the car, she said she knew she would need her Kaiser card, so I had to help her search for it again.

Then when we got to Kaiser, she had to go searching for it again.   Every time it's exactly where she puts it every. single. time.

So we headed for where the flu shot were being given, but it was a mob scene.  That's when I remembered that she was also supposed to get blood work done, so I decided we'd do that first, hoping the crowds would thin by the time we finished at the lab.  

She found the Kaiser card to register and the phlebotomist told her to hang on to it and show it again before the blood was taken.  (This is kind of weird since we were the ONLY people in the lab waiting area and the woman who told her to keep her card with her so she could show it again before the blood was drawn was the same person who would be drawing her blood in 10 seconds!) 

The blood draw went uneventfully and we walked out of the lab and literally ten steps to the hall and she asked if she would need her Kaiser card again for the flu shot.  I said yes...and she couldn't find it.  It wasn't in her wallet.   It wasn't in her purse.  I searched her wallet and her purse 3 times myself.   I went back to the lab and it wasn't there.  It had just disappeared.  In literally ten steps!  

We sat in the lab and went through everything again, both of us and eventually she was the one who found it--in her purse.  I sure don't know where it was hiding because I swear I went through every pocket in that thing.  

But eventually we did have the card and we signed up for flu shots.   The line was, as I hoped, much shorter and we only had a couple of minutes to wait.   In case you have not had your flu shot yet, let me tell you that the needle for this is so small that you literally can't feel it at all.  There were toddlers having shots without even blinking.

When we got back in the car, I took her purse away from her and made sure that the Kaiser card was where it should be so we don't go through this all again.

We took the long way home.  I drove her around a little bit of the campus, hoping to get her interested enough in Putah Creek, which runs through the campus, that she might be willing to try walking there, but though she gave it passing notice, she just kept mentioning over and over again how many cars there were parked in the parking lot.  You'd think she'd never seen cars before.  And there was zero interest in Putah creek or the vegetation there, which a year ago would be a huge draw for her.

Plants and flowers are something else she seems to be losing interest in.  This is the woman who could make a dry stick bloom and whose house was always filled with lush greenery and the most incredible violets and orchids you can imagine.   But she seems to have lost all interest in gardening so much so that in the aftermath of my cousin bringing her about 8 different kinds of plants to put on her patio, she constantly talks about how much work it is to water them and how a couple of them have died.  And she keeps telling me that she thinks my cousin just had some old plants around that she didn't want and thought she would dump them on Aunt Chubbie. I know my cousin would be very hurt to know that since she has been so wonderful to try to make things look nice for my mother.

But today was another day when I realized that there are perks of dementia.  There is a beautiful street in town which has upscale unique homes, lush old greenery and is really one of my favorite places.  I took her for a drive along the street shortly after she got here, but it's now fall and the trees are starting to turn color so I took that drive again and, of course, she had no memory of having been there before, so it was like seeing it all over again for her--and that was nice, because she loved it.

We had a nice lunch at Atria, then I had her write a couple of checks to pay bills and I came home to spend the whole afternoon on Snapfish, working on arranging nearly 300 pictures from our trip in a photo book.  I forget that Snapfish can be clunky and take a long time, but by the time I got halfway through the project, I was working it more easily. 

So in a couple of weeks, we'll have a book of the best memories of our trip, to put together with the books I had made of the other trips.  And I guess that the trip, now, finally is completely over!

What Century Is This Anyway?

I am caught in a time warp.  I'm having a difficult time figuring out what century I am living in.  This is a personal reflection, by the way, and has nothing to do with any current political policies or decisions!

I've mentioned several times that when I drive, here in the 21st Century, I listen to the Diana Gabaldon "Outlander" series of books.  This is a series of (so far) seven books which are, at the very, very minimum time travel books (but so much more!).  In 1945, Claire Randall is traveling with her husband Frank in Scotland.  While investigating the standing stones at Craigh na Dun (which is actually a fictional stone circle, though I can picture it well since we saw stone circles when we visited Scotland)

Unbeknownst to Claire, this circle is a time portal and at certain times of the year, if you go near the stones, you may be transported back in time.  In Claire's case, she finds herself in Scotland of 1743.  To make things VERY concise, she ends up married (not a choice for either of them) to a Scott warrior, James Frasier.   The two eventually fall madly, passionately in love in a time heading up to war in Scotand.  With a knowledge of history, Claire is able to let Jaimie know what is coming, especially the slaughter that will take place at Culloden, the final confrontation of the Jacobite Rebellion.

When they discover Claire is pregnant, Jamie insists she go back to her own time to save herself and the life of their child.  Claire leaves him behind, knowing she will never see him again (this is only Book 1, so we know that's not true!).   Husband Frank takes her back and when her daughter is born, he raises Brianna as his own child.

After Frank's death, Claire takes Brianna to Scotland and tells her of her real history.  When they find a grave for Jamie and see the date of his death, Claire realizes he lived through the bloody battle of Culloden and decides to go back through the stones to see if she can find him.   Since we have to get through 7 more books, of course she does and in one of the subsequent books, Brianna goes after her, followed a bit later by Roger Wakefield, who is in love with Brianna and who knows the whole story.

Miraculously they all find each other and through many adventures they find themselves in "the colonies" (North Carolina eventually) in the time leading up to the Revolutionary War, so that war plays a big role in the saga.  Bri and Roger have two children, but the youngest has a heart problem which can be easily cured in the 20th century, but not in the 18th, so they decide to return through the stones again, while Claire remains in the 1700s with Jaimie.

I have 3 hours left of book 7 and book 8 won't be released until Fall of 2013 (and who knows when the audio book will come out...I must have the audio book because I'm in love with the voice of narrator Davina Porter).

Anyway, in this audio book, I am straddling the 18th and 20th centuries while at the same time on my Kindle reading Doris Kearns Goodman's "Team of Rivals," on one chapter of which the movie Lincoln is based.  Obviously that puts me smack dab in the middle of the 19th century....with the background on some of the "rivals" extending back into the 18th century at the time of the time traveling Frasiers!

So I don't know what century I am in at the moment and today my credit for a free Audible book arrived. I very nearly ordered "Dissolution: a Novel of Tudor England" but decided I needed to extricate myself from at least one century before adding another!

Tonight the plan was to review a play called "The Mountain Top," which is based on the final day in the life of Martin Luther King, Jr.   However my "intestinal thing" is still giving me a difficult time.  I can sit OK, but when I stand up, I start to get chills (Underdog Syndrome again!)   I thought I'd give it a little time and see if things improved, but they did not, so I exchanged our tickets for next weekend and I have the night off.

(I did enjoy lying down in a patch of sun on the couch in the living room.  The dogs, bless them, let me share  their bit of warmth)

I finally remembered that there are medicines to take care of my problem, so I have popped a couple of generic Imodium and hope that I will feel better soon.  After all, tomorrow we have tickets (that we paid money for) to a Lamplighters show and reservations at a Fisherman's Wharf restaurant for a fancy crab dinner.  When I bought the Groupon, I had no idea I would have so much crab the week before we were going to this dinner, but really can you ever have too much crab?

I think not.

The Numbers Game

I don't think I've ever written here about diabetes, but it's time.   I was diagnosed with Type II Diabetes over 10 years and 3 doctors ago.   Actually it was me who requested testing.  I asked my then-doctor (who, for obvious reasons, is no longer my doctor!) if he didn't think I should be tested.   My father had Type II diabetes, I said, and I pointed out that I was morbidly obese (weighing over 300 lbs at that time), and it seemed to me I should be tested.  The doctor looked kind of surprised and actually opened my file to check my weight to see if I was, indeed, morbidly obese.   Good grief...was he blind?

Anyway, surprise, surprise, the A1C came back showing that yes, I was not just pre-diabetic, but actually full blown Type II diabetic.  In all honesty, I can't remember getting any instruction from him other than to watch my eating and exercise more.  I was very dissatisfied with him as a primary care physician and when John, who had been a Sutter doctor and whose Internal Medicine office had been next to mine when I was managing Women's Health, joined the Kaiser staff, I requested a switch to him and promised to be a 100% compliant patient.

And I was.  John had me taking classes to learn about diabetes and I went to Weight Watchers and lost buckets of weight.  I took up biking.  I don't remember doing a lot of glucose testing, and I don't think John had me on any medication, but apparently I was doing all right.  I was working for Dr. G at the time and he told me if he were my doctor, he would have had me on insulin, but he could see that I was doing all the right things.

Well, John left Kaiser and started a high priced weight loss/obesity clinic and I was assigned another doctor.

In all honesty, I'm kind of neutral about this doctor, though she has been my doctor for years now.  She really knows very little about me and it seems to me that I am just a bunch of numbers to her.   She has never asked anything about my personal life (she has no idea I have two dead children, for example, compared to my gynecologist, who takes time to chat and ask me how things are going and who is well aware of Paul and David).  Dr. A and I never "chat," but she just checks the numbers and tries to get the medication, which she has put me on, dosage right.  But, to be fair, I haven't kept up my end of the bargain either.  I rarely followed through when she requested lab tests because I knew they were going to be bad.  I went for a few years without taking the meds at all, and doing no testing.  I lived in blissful ignorance.

But I had a scare recently (which turned out to be just a bladder infection) and it was kind of a wake up call.  I decided it was time to try to take charge of this diabetes thing. 

I went home from the appointment and did glucose testing for the first time in a few years.  You know what a slot machine looks like when you hit the jackpot?  All the lights go off and things to round and round and bells ring? If my glucose meter had sound and lights, that was what it would have looked like.  My blood sugar was so high (over 400) that the meter apparently didn't go up that high.  I just got a  dire warning to see my doctor NOW.

I started getting serious about the medication.  Within a couple of weeks, I had brought my numbers down to the low 200s, which, while still way too high, was at least heading in the right direction.  As for diet, well, some days were better than others, but more "less good" than "better."

By the time I saw the doctor again, All of my numbers were starting to look much better.  My cholesterol was OK, but the HDL (bad kind) was still too high.   My A1C, which measures the bood sugar over the past 3 months, which should be 7 and which had been 13 the last time it was measured, was now 8, still not where it should be, but definitely going in the right direction.  Of course Dr. A never gives me positive (or negative) reinforcement.  She just notices the numbers and suggests action, without editorial comment.

Dr. A set me up with Heather, who teaches a diabetes class.   There were only two of us in the class and one thing I learned was that each doctor has his or her own diabetes rep and that Heather was my doctor's rep, while the other woman had another rep, so at the end of the class, she gave the other woman the name of her rep and let her go, while she kept me another 30 minutes and I had a personal one-on-one session.

Heather has changed my life.  The answer?  Technology!   She reminded me that my glucose meter can be hooked up to my computer, which will download all the readings and put them in a graph form to help me see patterns and adjust diet accordingly. As I told her, I may have difficulty sticking with a program, but give me a computer thing and I'm there, Baby.  I ordered the cord that allowed me to connect with my computer.

I'm now testing my sugars several times a day...before breakfast, sometimes after breakfast, sometimes before lunch, always before dinner, and before bedtime (unless I forget).  The before dinner number is a great help because if it's high, I eat less.   My target range should be between 90 and 150.

I learned my lesson on the day when I woke up feeling so good because my sugar was 119, but then I snacked on Cheetos and when I tested before dinner, it was 277, the highest it's been since I got below 200!  I had a small dinner and brought it down to 156 by bedtime and then starting afresh at 113 the next morning.  Good me.   That day was so good my sugar was 116 at dinner and low at 73 before bedtime.  I had 1/2 cup of orange juice and brought it up to 93 before going to sleep.  This morning it was a nice respectable 110. 

For breakfast I had 1/2 cup of Grapenuts and 1/2 cup of blackberries with a bit of Splenda.  I tested an hour after eating and it was 234!  WTF? 

I wrote to Heather, who explained that testing 1 hour after meals (though somewhere I read that was recommended) is too soon, because food is still digesting, so she recommends only testing before meals to get a more accurate reading.   It's just great having someone available to answer questions more or less instantly.

I feel like my life has become numbers but, you know what?  It's actually fun figuring this all out.  It's a painless way to finally take control of my diabetes.  If I can begin to make sense of the pattern of what is causing the highs and lows!

Sleep

Sleep is a wonderful thing.  I finally got some of it and feel refreshed.  It took awhile, though.

I finally managed to get to sleep somewhere around 3:30 yesterday morning, and was wide awake at 5, which gave me a whopping total hours of sleep for two days somewhere between 3 and 4.  I remember, with some wry humor, my friend Gilbert's perennial sleep problems and how every time I saw him I first heard a recitation of how much (or more likely how little) sleep he had the night before.

But I had a doctor's appointment to get to and decided to talk with her about it. 

It was kind of cool, driving to Kaiser, because I came across the famous Davis wild turkeys, grazing in a church yard.  

We never heard much about wild turkeys until the cemetery decided to ban dogs from the property in the back of the grave area, which used to be a dog run.   Apparently the dogs had kept the wild turkeys out, but after the dogs were no longer allowed, the turkeys began to multiply and now you see them all over town.  A couple of years ago, Walt saw them on our roof.  I know they can be a big nuisance, but it's kind of fun to come across them unexpectedly.

It was a good appointment with my doctor.  Most of my appointments are to have her scold me for my bad test results, but this time almost all of them were good.  My numbers are finally getting where they are supposed to be and even my weight is down 60 lbs.  My pulse was higher than it had been the previous two visits last week, so she ordered an EKG, but on the EKG, the pulse was just fine.

The EKG is kind of silly.  They have you disrobe and give you a gown to put on, but since the nurse has to attach leads all over your chest, the only thing the gown actually covers is your back (which you are lying on) and your shoulders.  I laughed about it with the nurse and she said that the gown was mainly so you could cover up while waiting for someone to come in and do the test.

I had worn my matryushka doll socks...

...which the nurse liked.  She has a couple of matryushka dolls and we talked about them, about the store that used to sell them in Old Sacramento, and about all the dolls I saw when we were in Russia.  Something to pass the time while a machine is measuring your heart rate.

I talked with the doctor about my insomnia of the past two days and, very strangely, she ordered a sleep study.  I told her my problem was not that I couldn't stay asleep, but that I couldn't get to sleep, but she decided to have me checked for sleep apnea.  I think it's very likely that I have sleep apnea, but I doubt that logistically I can use a c-Pap machine even if I do, what with where and how I sleep, but I will do the sleep study, which requires my picking up a testing machine in Sacramento, doing the test overnight, and returning the machine the next morning by 7 a.m., which seems kind of silly, given that it's a 20-30 minute drive from here, and why does it have to be returned so early.  But owell.

I got back home again around 10:15 and had a date to meet a friend for lunch at 11:45.  I tried to nap for half an hour, but couldn't get to sleep, probably because I was so aware that I had to be up again so soon.

Lunch was very nice.  There is a new Panera in town that we wanted to try and we both decided this is our new 'place," since the Chinese buffet is now closed.  And we had a nice chat, but every single molecule in my body was screaming that I wanted to get out of there and go to sleep!  

We finally said good bye, I drove home and went from the front door to the couch and, finally...finally, went to sleep.  I slept about 2-1/2 hours and Walt said that I even slept through a volley of dog barks.  I woke up feeling like a new person and when nighttime came went right to sleep and slept my usual 6 hours, so I hope I'm finally back on track again.

Another Day, Another Trip to Kaiser

This one was going to be easy.  Walt and I were going to get flu shots first thing in the morning and then a quick re-check of my blood pressure and then we were outta there, Baby.

Only it wasn't easy.  Of course.

The shots went fine, but my friend Sherri took the BP and again the BP was fine, but the pulse today was higher than it had been yesterday--by 10 points.  Nobody knew what was going on.  So it required another visit with Terry, the nurse from yesterday, who had me sit and relax for 5 minutes before she took the BP.  In my right arm, the machine wouldn't register a pulse at all (I assured her I was alive) and in the left, this machine matched Sherri's.

So I'm now set to see the doctor herself tomorrow morning after she has all the results of my tests back.  I have now seen all the results and everything is "wnl" (as I used to type on medical forms -- "within normal limits").  The shocking number was the LDL, the "bad" cholesterol, which a year ago had been 186 (it should be less than 120) and today was 85.  My A1C, the glucose, which is supposed to be 7-8 was 13 a year ago and is 9 today, not quite within range, but oh so all but.  So there is nothing immediately visible, to me, at least that may be causing this pulse spike.  I'll see what the doctor has to say tomorrow.  MAYBE I can get by with only one appointment, and not have to run around to several different departments, but after the past two days, I'm not going to hold my breath.

I was meeting my friend Lisa for lunch at 11:45 and hoped to mail 2 packages at the post office and get my hair done before that.  Knowing that this is approaching post office hell season, I anticipated a huge line and wasn't sure I could get both errands run before lunch, but there was almost nobody in line and I got the packages mailed AND there was plenty of time to get a long-overdue haircut.

To my surprise the woman who cut my hair asked if I wanted some "body" put in it.  It has been a long time since a hair dresser has complimented me on my thick hair and I have been aware that it has lost a lot of body, so I said yes.  It seems to have a bit more oomph now, which will, of course, disappear as soon as I wash it.  But I wasn't going to spend $15 for a little bottle of oomph.

I made it to the restaurant with 5 minutes to spare, just enough time to finish the chapter I'm reading in Tess Gerritsen's new book, "The Last to Die."

The restaurant was Namaste, a Nepalese place with a nice luncheon buffet for about $10 per person.

There were two tables like this with a large assortment of choices.   Surprisingly good was the bin of "fried chicken skin," which I had to try and which was delicious (I love crispy skin anyway!).  We had a lovely lunch and an even better visit and I got caught up on juicy gossip, which I had not heard in a very long time.  Such fun.

When I said goodbye to Lisa and returned to my car, I discovered that though we were both parked legally within the lines, the car next to me was so close I didn't think there was anyway I could get into the front seat on that side.

It's times like this that I hate being fat.  But this was an area where it was likely that the owners of the car were at lunch and would return in a short time.  I got in on the passenger's side and listened to an audio book for awhile until I got tired of waiting, then I decided to see if maybe I could squeeze in.   Miraculously, it was a very tight squeeze, but I did manage to slip inside the car, though I was afraid for a moment that I might have to leave one of my Birkinstocks behind.

On the ride home, I stopped to take some photos of some of the glorious color that you can find on the streets right now, before the wind tears all the leaves off the trees.  I do love the fall colors, even though we don't get what you see back east.  It's still pretty, for one brief fleeting moment.

Health Care's a Grind

My doctor was going to be so pleased.  Usually she has to remind me countless times before I go in for blood work or to get my blood pressure checked.   I put off the blood work because I know that it's going to be higher than it should be; I put off the blood pressure just because I don't want to drive across town to get my blood pressure checked.

I had a call from the doctor on Friday asking me for a routine blood pressure check.  I was able to tell her I had a diabetes class on Monday and would have the blood pressure checked and my blood work done at that time.  I have visions of my doctor fainting from shock.

The class was at 10, and knowing that it sometimes requires a bit of a wait at the lab, I decided if I came in at 8, I could get the lab work done, pass by the blood pressure station and have that done, rush out and get a bite to eat, and be back in time for the 10 a.m. class, probably with time to spare.

Sigh.  No.  Not really.

I was actually pleased that the blood work got drawn fairly quickly.   Good.  Easy peasy.

Then I went to get my blood pressure taken.  As I sat down in the chair, I asked Sherry, the woman taking it, if she was ready for Thanksgiving.  I wasn't aware that would set off a life story, including when her mother died, her father's remarriage, how she came to actually like her new stepmother (after feeling jealous at first), her stepmother's background and why it makes her cry to realize that nobody in Sherry's family actually argues, as they did in her family.

Whew.  Lots of mileage for a simple question!

She took my blood pressure, which was fine (she was pleased), but she noticed that my pulse was one point above what it should be.  Hmmm, she mused.   This required a call to a nurse.

She called the nurse, and then told me to register at Medicine 1 and tell them that Sherry sent me.  I did so.  It took 15 minutes before I was called back and the nurse took my blood pressure again.  Again, the BP was fine, but the pulse was still one point too high.

"I'll go talk with your doctor," she said, and was gone for 20 minutes.  When she returned, she told me my doctor was still with another patient, apologized for leaving me alone for such a long time, and said she'd be back when she was able to get to the doctor.

I pointed out that my class was now in 15 minutes and that I hadn't had anything to eat yet, thinking that the blood test was supposed to be fasting (it turned out that it was not) and that before I went into a 2 hour class, I would need to get SOMETHING to eat.

She told me to go and that she would call if my doctor wanted me to do something else.

So I went and found food and got back to Kaiser at precisely 10 a.m. on the dot.  I went to register where I have registered for all classes I have taken and the girl in the office said she knew nothing about a class and had no idea what to do about registration.  She waved off in the direction of the hall and suggested I "go down there" (wherever "there" was) and ask somebody.

I went to the information desk and the guy there didn't know anything either, but my friend the blood pressure person did and told me I should register at Medicine 2 and that the class would be right where I knew it would be, where the woman in the office swore there was no class scheduled.

By the time I stood in line and registered and got to the class, it was 10:15, which made me very upset because I had arrived on time for the class and I hated coming in late.  Fortunately, however, there were only two of us in the class.

The class was better than I anticipated and even encouraging, realizing that I'm not as "bad" as I thought I was.  The woman leading it is the one who works with my doctor's patients, so she let the other woman in the class go and we spent about 15 minutes talking about me personally, which was also very nice.   We're going to follow up by phone in a couple of weeks.

When I got home, there was a call from Kaiser.  My doctor wants me to come back tomorrow for another blood pressure test to see how my pulse is then.   Fortunately, Walt and I had already planned to go to Kaiser to get our flu shot tomorrow morning, so I can kill two birds with one stone.

I sure don't like this all-Kaiser-all-the-time business!

I'd Make a Lousy Hypochondriac

I don't know how people can be hypochondriacs.  There is nothing more boring than spending essentially half of the day in doctors' offices!

I was pleased when I got up this morning and noted that I didn't seem to have Underdog Syndrome any more.  But I was supposed to get the blood work and Kaiser called to check if I was going to be seeing my doctor.  I said that I guessed so.

I got to Kaiser early.  The lab waiting room is frequently full.   The procedure is that you take a number, sit and when it's your turn, they call your number.  But since the waiting room was EMPTY I just went up to the desk and was told I had to take a number.  I said that since there was nobody else there, I thought I could bypass that. I was literally taken to the number machine, a few feet behind me, and shown how to pull down a number and how to put it in the basket.   I did.  I went to sit down and before my butt touched the couch, they called my number.

It was like something out of Candid Camera.

The clerk asked if I was fasting.  I said that I was not because the doctor had told me this was not a fasting test.  She said there was an order on file from last October for a fasting test and I should have fasted.  I said the doctor specifically told me not to.  She checked and saw that I had a fasting test in August and asked if she would remove the orders for October.  I said yes.

I got to the doctor's waiting room about 15 minutes early and sat down to read mybook.  They finally called my name about 25 minutes later.  They did all the usual things like take my temp (normal), oxygen (normal), weight (not horrible) and blood pressure (lowest it's been in years). 

The nurse seemed confused about why I was there.  She finally asked "was this supposed to be a telephone visit?"  I told her I'd talked to the doctor four times yesterday and she said I should come in.

So she let me stay, said the doctor would be right in.  40 minutes later I was almost going to leave a note saying that I felt OK and was tired of waiting, but the doctor finally came in.  I would have ben angry about the time in the exam room were it not that (a) I had lots of time to read and (b) I remembered those long-ago days working for Women's Health when one of our doctors was perennially late and the long-suffering staff had to placate the patients.  So I continued to wait.

She finally arrived and actually we had a better chat than we normally have.  I didn't tell her about "Underdog syndrome" by name, but we discussed what had happened, about the worrisome nausea, about my fears that Underdog syndrome might be cardiac related.

She agreed that the idea of cardiac involvement had occurred to her too, and suggested I get an EKG while I was there.  She also suggested some medication adjustments to try to nail down which one might be making me sick to my stomach.

She gave me a robe to put on for the EKG.  I giggled a lot about that while it was going on.  It's a gown that opens down the middle in the front and I guess is supposed to give you a feeling of modesty, but the first thing that happens when the nurse comes in is that you lie on your back, she opens up the gown and attaches the leads and you lie there with your nipples pointing up to the ceiling, so relieved that your back is modestly covered!

The doctor conferred with a cardiolgist and they agreed there was nothing worrisome on my EKG.  She suggested I get a treadmill test also, which is scheduled for some ungodly hour tomorrow morning.  I aced that sucker in 2009, to everyone's surprise and I had every confidence that I would do it again, but after I left the office (some 3 hours after I arrived), I was feeling slight Underdog syndrome again, with the weakness of spaghetti legs and slightly heavy breathing, though less serious than yesterday, and I'm wondering if I will have problems tomorrow.

I have such renewed sympathy for people who have serious medical problems that involve multiple doctors' appointments, and am so glad that this is not my situation.   But I know people who rush off to the doctor with every little twinge or imagined twinge.  How do they do it? I hate all these appointents, especially since I feel like a hypochondriac since my symptoms are so minor.

I guess I'll hear about the lab tests tomorrow and hopefully once I finish the treadmill test, this will be the end of things for awhile.

I am also cautiously optimistic that the change in medication the doctor suggested seems to be working.  I don't feel like I have morning sickness tonight.

I spent a pleasant afternoon at the book store, which included a nice visit with an old neighbor (from the days when our neighbors actually talked to me), then came home and cooked a chicken recipe out of a diabetic cookbook, gave part of mine to the dogs because I was too full (they love me) and now as soon as The Daily Show is over, it's off to bed for me.  I have to be on the road at the crack of dawn.

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???