Alert the presses. I did NOT go to Kaiser today. Walt did. twice. But I stayed home. In fact, I almost didn't get dressed. Instead I got half dressed. I kept the t-shirt I wear to bed on, but did change out of pj bottoms and into shorts.
I thought I was finished with Kaiser for the week, but then got an appointment notice that I have an appointment with the neurologist tomorrow afternoon. He had told me my next appointment would be by telephone at the end of the month--it's on my calendar--but had not mentioned another face to face meeting. I guess I'm lucky that the reminder came before the day of the appointment! I am assuming the appointment was because my CK numbers are not going down as everyone thought they would after I quit the Atorvastatin. But we'll see. In any event, after a whole day off, I'm back to Kaiser tomorrow.
However, just because I didn't go to Kaiser, doesn't mean I was free. I decided to take on the web site problem again. In fact, my temporary password arrived in the mail. As promised. Five working days after I'd asked for it (they had told me it would be e-mailed).
FINALLY I could get back on line and I was able to pick up 15 messages, from my doctor and from the various tests I'd had. I also sent an e-mail to my doctor letting her know that I was finally back on line again.
I changed the temporary password to a new password, which it accepted.
Then, when I completed my business, I logged off. And to double check that all was right, I logged back on again and was told that I had an invalid password.
Bad words were yelled (good thing Walt and Ned were at Kaiser).
I started the process again and begged the operator to PLEASE give me a temporary password so I could check on the results of my echocardiogram. She steadfastly refused and I am afraid I yelled at her. A lot. And I slammed the phone down (a sensual pleasure denied those who do not have land lines!)
I then called the advice nurse to find out if I could get a message to my doctor. Bless him, he said he would see that the office got the message. A human being! Imagine! I left a message that I am once again e-mail less. I had told him that I was upset at not being able to get the results of the ECG.
10 minutes later, the phone rang and it was my doctor's office, letting me know that everything on the ECG looked fine. I was starting to feel better.
Then I called the cancellation number for the neurologist, hoping to get a real live person to clear up the in-person/phone confusion I actually did get a real person with almost no hassle and she confirmed that the doctor wants to see me, so off I go to Kaiser tomorrow, after a whole day off.
Ned was here to go to Kaiser with Walt and they had a few hours to kill, so continued on the stripping of everything extraneous in preparation for redoing the house to accommodate my disability (a disability which I have not yet accepted as permanent).
My task was easy -- I was to sit and put my feet up. I can't quite raise them above my head, but can get them up high with the help of the ottoman Ned bought at a furniture store. The act of sitting with feet up removed all guilt from me as I watched the two of them doing all this cleaning. I sat in my chair and watched an old Doris Day / Danny Thomas movie which I remember liking back in the 50s.
I kept my feet up until it was time for them to return to Kaiser and then, knowing that I would not be able to get my legs down from the ottoman without help, I took a break and made myself some lunch and did a little bit of laundry.
Ned had spent yesterday, while we were at Kaiser, folding most of my laundry and it was sitting in a basket. There was another basket of stuff that had been in the dryer and I had folded that basket last night and managed to get it put away this afternoon. It was very frustrating that I went to lift the basket to move it closer to the dresser and it was too heavy for me, so I had to walk back and forth, which is good exercise, of course, but just another reminder that my body is being very persnickity these days.
Otherwise all is dull. Jeri is in Santa Barbara to spend the week end camping with Tom and family and then will fly back to Boston.
I managed to sleep last night so the combination of the butt cream and figuring out how to sleep on my side in the recliner is making it possible to sleep without pain.
How did my life change so completely in such a short period of time???
However, I forgot to mention my one interesting Kaiser story from my first visit 2 weeks ago. After my exam, the doctor told the nurse to put some cream on my butt lesion and so she is sitting on the floor unfolding a pad for me to stand on so I don't have to stand in bare feet on the cold floor. I'm standing there with my butt hanging out waiting for her and she suddenly said "Did you go to see Shrek on Friday?" This is not a nurse I know, but she had apparently been sitting behind us at the theater and recognized me, so we talked about the show and theater in general. I felt just like my friend Jeri (godmother to my daughter Jeri) who used to run into someone she knew everywhere she went, the topper being that the nurse wheeling her into the delivery room to have her first baby turned out to be someone she went to school with!
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