When my doctor went over my recent blood work results I was dumbfounded. Next time I’m going to have to record my visit because I just can’t remember it all, but the key points are:

According to the numbers I’ve been exercising. Really? Not so much. Sure, I get a bit more exercise now that I’m breathing better, but it’s not like I’m out there trying. More like walking from the parking lot without stopping to rest.

According to the numbers my liver is not handling my alcohol level well. Really? I have two or three drinks a WEEK. And I only started drinking like 5 years ago, so it’s not a long-time drinking thing. Fucking liver is in for it this weekend. (Vegas baby!)

According to the numbers my cholesterol is fine and my heart-related cholesterol is great. I’m as healthy as I can be!

She sees a few white blood cells in my blood, and something about fighting a UTI (which I really don’t remember having) so we’ll check again in 6 months.

All that misinformation from a few tubes of blood?

Actually, my breathing is great. I think I’ve used my albuterol inhaler once in the last couple of weeks as compared to a couple of time an hour like 4 months ago. I feel fantastic!

My blood pressure is iffy, so I now need to keep a chart. My weight is a little high (gained 10 pounds) but I blame that on the steroids – and maybe on the Butter Pecan Ice Cream I’ve used to replace cigarettes. What shall I use to replace the ice cream?

Maybe I should exercise more now that I feel better. Maybe after the spring pollen season passes because the only time I do feel any tightness is when I’m outside.

I’m telling you, when they first put me on 20 mg a day of prednisone I was good, then it was lowered to 15 and then 12 mg a day and I started feeling the bloating and gaining the weight. After Friday I’m supposed to go down to 10 mg a day and I wonder how I’ll feel after that. Though how I can feel more side-effects the less I take stumps both of us. Right now I just feel FAT though I’m sure that damned ice cream doesn’t help.

I really want to go back to smoking. Shaddup.

It’s verrrrrry nice to be pleasantly sleepy and it’s not quite midnight. Getting off the Theophylline was the best thing I’ve done. No more staying up til 2 am and fighting to go to sleep. Now that the aches are gone I feel almost like a normal person.

Goodnight.

I just received a surprise overnight package (no, the UPS driver wasn’t hot) from the VA pharmacy. I usually get my meds through the regular mail. Intrigued, I popped that puppy open to reveal a cooler with ice packs and one box of my inhaled medication.

Wha-what? Nobody told me that one was supposed to be refrigerated!

Nobody told the drug company either. Nowhere in the nine pages of information does it say keep refrigerated, just room temperature and dry.

Overkill? But thanks VA for the free cooler!

I got new meds in the mail yesterday.

They’ve replaced my open and shut purple disc (bottom) with the three dispensers at the top. It took me a half an hour last night to figure out how to use all these stupid things.

The light blue one is used twice a day. You take the cover off, twist it open, insert a capsule from the blister pack, close it up, squeeze both sides to puncture the capsule and then inhale. Then you open it back up to dump out the empty capsule.

Then the short grey one has about the same number of steps. That’s twice a day, too.

Then the pink one thankfully comes pre-loaded, but I have to remember to only do this one once a day but inhale it twice in a row.

And this is on top of the pills I have to take!

I try to schedule my meds for around 10 in the morning and at night to work around the eating/not eating requirements. When I’m out, I can slip that little purple disc and a small pill holder in my purse and voila! Quick click and inhale and I’m done. WTF am I going to do now? I’m out almost every night until well past midnight! This shit is going to put a serious cramp in my social activities. I can’t carry all this out with me!

“Excuse me loverboy whilst I take 20 minutes to fondle and suck on all these stupid inhalers before I work on you?” (That’s assuming I ever bring a loverboy home again.) Oh yeah, that’s sexy as hell.

Fuck asthma.

Breathing is like, really important. Since I had that flu before Christmas I’ve not been breathing like I should be. I had that full-on attack New Years Eve and now even simplest effort sets me off. Walking to my car, Ginnie’s deodorant, vacuuming, showering, talking too much, and today with the rain – just sitting here in my chair.

I have the asthma cough and I feel like there’s a 10 lb weight sitting on my chest. I can’t get a deep breath or when I do I cough it all away.  But this level isn’t emergent. I have a doctor’s appointment on Wednesday and until then I have to plan and take care every moment, or I could overdo it and end up back in the ER.

Please let there be new medications. I’m already taking Advair (500/50) and theophylline, and Accolate, and the inevitable albuterol inhaler and it’s just not cutting it anymore. This is a new doctor so maybe she’ll have new information, new medications.

I have too much to do this week to get bogged down with no air. I’m supposed to give my first ever presentation at CenPhoCamp this Saturday. I’m already nervous as shit about that and I can’t even get up and practice or I get out of breath. I’m so unprepared. If I’m not better by Saturday I’m not sure I can do it.

I think I mentioned that I went to my Doctor last week. While I was chatting him up, I mentioned two specific reasons for the appointment. Besides the annual “please renew my prescriptions so I don’t suffocate” reason.

1. Is there something that I can take for temporary issues with what I self-diagnose as RLS on planes. I don’t have problems any other time. He suggested leg massages and walking during flights. Gee thanks.

2. Can I get something mild to help me sleep. Because most of my asthma-related medications are stimulants I seldom sleep through the night and what sleep I do get isn’t really solid. I just want an occasional knock me out and let me catch up on sleep night. Not all the time, I don’t want to be oblivious!

Blah blah blah and my medications are sent in the mail – arrived today. And I’m reading through the enclosed literature on the new thing (cuz iddn’t that whatcher pussosta do?) and what?

Trazodone
Generic Name: trazodone (TRAZ oh done)
Brand Names: Desyrel
Trazodone is used to treat depression. Antidepressant medications are used to treat a variety of conditions, including depression and other mental/mood disorders. These medications can help prevent suicidal thoughts/attempts and provide other important benefits.

Who’s depressed? Hey, I’m about 85% happy. SUICIDAL! WTF!

Aha! On page 2, fine print:

Other Uses: This drug is used to help people with trouble sleeping (insomnia) to fall asleep. It is also used to help people with anxiety to relax.

Well alrighty then. Way to freak me out with that shit. Eek, another tiny comment:

Priapism (including clitoral priapism in women), a painful condition in which the penis (or clitoris) remains in an erect position for a prolonged period, has been reported in patients receiving trazodone.

So I can be a slightly horny insomniac or I can be well-rested with a hard-on?

Let’s see if I can get this all down in a conversational tone and not as whiny as it is in my head.

Sat down this weekend to call in all my refills and guess what? Most of them are about to expire! Isn’t that special? Considering I *just* went to my Doctor and neither he nor I or the frakking clinic Pharmacist perused the list. We were all so caught up in what I had to do next that none of us paid any attention to my maintenance prescriptions. DUH! So, hopefully, I can call my clinic and he’ll reinstate my drugs without me having to go in again.

But (surprisingly!!!!) I did manage to remember the scrip number to my inhaler. I had mistakenly tossed the box and haven’t been able to phone that one in. I’ve had the same frakking prescriptions for over 10 years, you’d think I’d have them all memorized by now. Then suddenly one day last week it just popped into my head! Getting older sucks.

I always think of that line from Quantum Leap, where he says he has a swiss cheese memory. Sometimes the holes are here and sometimes the holes are there. Or like a fishing net where some of the connections have come undone. I can think around and finally get to the factoid I was searching for instead of it being RIGHT THERE where I know it should be. The boys’ birth dates are 4 days apart and though I can instantly recall the dates, I struggle with the which year. Or phone numbers. In fact, its almost always numbers.

When I worked with classified information there were always ever changing safe combinations, door combinations and access codes. I never forgot. At one time I had 12 safes with different combinations, each changed on a different schedule and every time a person would retire/quit/transfer/leave the office. No prob. Plus various code words and phrases I had to memorize because if you wrote them down the paper you wrote them on would become classified. PITA, but doable.

Now I struggle with my husband’s work number.

I have a thousand pieces of paper stacked in front of me with notes of phone numbers, stuff I need to do, conversations, dates, etc. Because I can no longer depend on my memory.

My friend Joe goes Thursday for a colonoscopy. Poor guy. One of the nicest guys I’ve ever met and he’s going through this whole “C” scare. He’s known in the podcast community, and lots of people are pulling for him. Much to his chagrin. His little mention on one podcast has started a wave of support, and now he’s embarrassed to be getting all the attention. That’s how nice he is. And the conversations are starting to freak him out. He was taking the whole thing in stride, naming the thing growing on his stomach Kuato and talking about selling chunks of it on eBay and pretty much making a joke of the whole thing. Then people got too sympathetic kind of and its making him think its worse than it is and he’s all “I’m fine, I’m not dead yet!!!!!”

So I just squeezed his hand and suggested he get a padded toilet seat. I hear the “cleaning out” you go through before the actual colonoscopy makes for a lot of sitting on the potty time. Good thing he’s a reader. If he lived here instead of Tucson, I’d volunteer to do the sitting in the waiting area vigil with him. Company is always good when you’re stuck waiting. Sorry dude.

Let’s see, what else.

hello mother i just wanted to say how much i love u and that im finally going out the wire on a mission for a week. im sure ill be fine though, u know me to aarrogant and good looking to die! but i will call u as soon as i can get some more min for my fone, so wish me and my buddies luck and like i said ill call u as soon as i can, luv ya

First, let me explain that my sons fought their entire lives to get out from under the tyrannical rule of their proper-English-grammar loving mother. Neither graduated HS but have both managed to attain a G.E.D. I’m so proud. Secondly, I think he does it just for spite. Weird sense of humor that way.

And he called yesterday. He’s fine, leaves today for that mission and should be back just before Christmas. Here’s hoping.

And regarding the movie meme. I’m tempted to go back and somehow annotate which movies I chose to see and which ones I was required to sit through as a parent. Might cut my total by as much as a third or more.

And finally. Gave a bit of thought to one of my friend’s current debate about this story. As a former Episcopalian (yeah, for about a year long time ago) I’m disgusted. Way to spread the hate, y’all. Those stupid classes I had to take to become an official Episcopalian didn’t say nothing about hating gays as far as I can remember. Maybe I missed that session. Good thing I came to my senses and dropped all that religion from my life.

So my question is, what should people do? Those who attend those churches and don’t agree with the change can leave. The rest of that faith can distance themselves from those few. And the rest of us can watch and wait to see if those closed-minded hate-mongers take action or just talk themselves blue. Action you can fight against.

Oh, and I got a flu shot.

Perusing Garfield – the only cat I can stand – graphics this morning and I found this one. Thought maybe szara might appreciate it.

snowcalla is the bestest friend ever. Got an unexpected birthday package yesterday and can’t wait to try these out. Thank you very much!

I’m hoping it’s the progesterone I’m taking for my female problem, but I have absolutely NO desire at all. Poor Buck. I finally broke down and faked it big time this morning just so he’d stop sighing so fucking loud.

Oh my gawd Lost last night! I kinda knew something was gonna happen to AnaL and Libby – because of their drunk driving fiascoes, but getting banged by Michael? Woah!

Just jotting crappola here for the record. Peruse if you’re bored.

• Started that progesterone last night. Cute little pills – look like skittles.
• Favorite TV shows:

Sunday – West Wing, Desperate Housewives, Grey’s Anatomy
Monday – Medium.
Tuesday – NCIS, The Unit, Veronica Mars, American Idol (sometimes) – My DVR is my friend.
Wednesday – Amazing Race, Lost
Thursday – CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, ER
Friday – Las Vegas, Dr. Who

• Mozaki Blocks Score: 218,671,580
• Cute Egg Thingy has not hatched yet.
• Eagle Eye is supposed to have one egg hatch today.

Auburn