: the doctor visit :

I spent Monday afternoon at the doctor. Is there anyone who enjoys doing this? Visiting a doctor? I don’t, I’d rather go to prison or wrestle alligators, anything.

So what happened there? Nothing. Well, not nothing, but nothing new. I learned my heart rate was back up to 140 and my blood pressure was high. So they doubled the dosage on the beta blockers.

Plus I found out the endocrinologist they’re supposed to be consulting with isn’t returning phone calls, which means I’m still at square one. Then they drained another quart of blood from my arm and told me to come back in two weeks. (What are they doing with all the blood? Have I stumbled into a secret nest of vampires? I’ve got bruises on top of bruises on top of bruises from the needles.)

Later, at the pharmacy, the pharmacist asked if I’d noticed any changes yet from the thyroid medicine. The only thing I’ve noticed is the way I walk — it’s a more natural, easier gait these days — does my thyroid impact the way I walk? She said the thyroid affects everything — hair, eyes, fingernails, skin, metabolism, energy, moods, memory, the whole shebang.

This news interested me, so I investigated. And I discovered stuff I’d blamed on getting older was really Graves’ disease or hyperthyroidism: it causes fatigue and forgetfulness and muscle weakness, depression, the racing heart, all kinds of weird things. I don’t have every symptom, like panic attacks and skin anomalies, but I have a bunch.

I can’t imagine it all going away and feeling like I used to, but I guess it’s a good possibility. Oh my gosh, that would be a miracle, wouldn’t it? And if the endocrinologist would get off his fat, lazy bum and make a couple phone calls, why, that’d be super, too, really.

: what should I give up? :

Do you realize Lent starts Wednesday, the day after tomorrow? I didn’t, the news came as a surprise, and I’m not prepared. I mean, I know I have to give up something, something I love eating or doing or having, but what? And how much do I have to love it? A lot or a little or not at all, really?

Last year I gave up my beloved Leibniz Butter Biscuits. Cold turkey. I endured six long, miserable weeks without so much as the sight of one. No kitchen cupboard harbored the happy yellow box with the blue and red type. In its absence I tried to fill the void with graham crackers, but it wasn’t the same. I was jonesin’ for the Leibniz, man. Every day, I was jonesin’ for the Leibniz.

One year I gave up smoking. Okay, it was in June, so technically it wasn’t Lent, but I quit smoking, anyway. Again, cold turkey. I don’t remember enjoying myself then, either. In fact, I don’t recall one amusing anecdote from those days. None.

Another year I gave up candy. All kinds, candy bars and Starburst and Twizzlers and Milk Duds  — everything. Then I forgot and ate a Mars bar. The guilt, when I remembered, was huge. Big huge, I tell you.

Do I have to keep doing this to myself? There are so many things I’m willing to give up, forever if I have to. I just can’t decide which one to choose. Wait, I know. How about I make a list and you pick for me. Does that work? Yes? Great, here’s the list of possibilities:

What Should I Give Up for Lent?

1. Shaving my legs
It’s vain and narcissistic, yes?
2. Flipping off chucklehead drivers
I won’t lift a finger for 46 days.
3. Beets
I’m willing to share.
4. Paying bills
A two-digit credit score will be plenty.
5. My Facebook page
I’ll close it down if I remember the name I used.
6. Leibniz Butter Biscuits
I ate a box today, just in case.
7. Smoking
I quit once, I can do it again (since I remain non-smoking).

See how hard it is? Each choice has its own unique merits, wouldn’t you say? I suppose I could go for martyrdom and give up all seven, but that seems like showing off. Well, I’ll leave you to decide. Thank you and good luck.

Copyright © Publikworks 2012.

: the black cloud :

Like a billion other people in the world, I did laundry last week. Of those billion, I was one of, maybe, three who screwed it up. Laundry isn’t difficult, you know, a sensible 8-year old can do it. But me? I get outsmarted by a washing machine.

Somehow, when I transferred a load of clothes from the washer to the dryer, I overlooked a light gray cotton turtleneck. It was squashed against the front of the wash tub. Being oblivious to this lurking garment, I went ahead and added bleach for the upcoming load of whites. And that’s when I noticed the turtleneck, just as the bleach splashed into the wash tub.

I snatched the shirt out of there, examined it thoroughly, and saw no evidence of bleach spots. Until I pulled it out of the dryer. My once light gray shirt had a spray of ivory spots dotting the left sleeve, body, and right shoulder. It’s a whole new look, sort of a Jackson Pollock thing. A look that says, ‘I need a keeper.’

On Sunday, the earpiece of my glasses broke off. Now both of them are taped and I look like every other nerd in the world. Heavy eyeglasses bound together with white adhesive tape sitting slightly awry on a bewildered face above a bleach-splattered turtleneck. It’s a pretty picture, isn’t it?

But it doesn’t end there. No. Tonight my desk chair, which I was sitting on, listed heavily to the right and collapsed. There was no warning, no screech of metal, no shudder signaling imminent danger. It just quietly dumped me on the floor and I write this sitting on a plastic storage container. At some point I expect the lid to give way and trap me inside the thing, so if this post ends abruptly, that’s why.

Folks, I’m in the midst of a protracted bad luck streak. Seven and a half years, if you must know. That’s not as bad as Job, he of the boils and Biblical suffering, but it’s plenty bad enough. With all candor, I’m beginning to fear for my safety. I’m afraid to use my car or the sharp scissors or even take a shower. Heck, the bathroom is a death trap, it’s where most accidents happen.

So, if it’s all the same to you, I’m just going to sit here quie

Copyright © Publikworks 2012

: a game of tag, you’re it :

I was tagged by mild-mannered Lenore Diane — sweet, thoughtful Lenore. What does getting tagged mean? I’m not entirely sure, I’m new to this kind of thing. But from what I can gather, when a person gets tagged, they have to answer the eleven questions posed by the tagger.  Then make up eleven new questions and tag eleven new people. In other words, an online chain letter.

I’m not much for rules, so I’ve decided to tag everyone who stumbles into this post unaware. You’re all it!

Ready? Here are my answers to Lenore Diane’s questions:

1. What is your favorite color, and what do you think it would taste like?
That would be Pantone Orange 021 and it would taste like Froot Loops.
2.  Do you sleep on your left side, right side, back or stomach?
All of the above, thank you. I’m a very active and indiscriminate sleeper.
3.  Do you floss your teeth?
I do, with kite string. Sometimes fishing line.
4.  Do you close the lid before flushing the toilet?
Wait, there’s a lid?
5.  How many times a day do you brush your teeth?
Nine, ten if a dessert is served.
6.  How many times have you brushed your hair today? If you are follicle-challenged, how many times have you rubbed your bald head?
Let’s see, this is Wednesday, so once.
7.   Do your feet smell? (Go ahead and check, we’ll wait.)
How dare you!
8.   Do you have any Ben & Jerry’s ice cream in your freezer? May I have it?
I do not. This is February,
9.  If you notice food stuck between someone’s teeth – do you make an effort to tell him/her? If not, why are you so cruel?
I don’t bother with telling them, no, I just go in after it.
10.  What feature do you most like about me?
Hmm, that’s a toss-up between your sparkling wit and your dimples.
11.  Don’t you think I should be discovered, while I sit doing nothing, and become famous for my writing?
I do and I bet you’d be discovered faster if you sat doing nothing in a bikini on the porch. 

——————————————————————————————————————-

And here are my eleven questions for all of you:

1. What’s the last thing you do before going to bed?

2. When, in your life, were you the happiest?

3. What was your college major?

4. What person, living or dead, do you think had the biggest impact on the world?

5. Have you ever said no to a marriage proposal?

6. What brand of shoes are you wearing right now?

7. Where in the world would you like to work? (Personally I’d like to work at the Louvre in Paris or at Pixar Studios)

8. Do you have a favorite time of day?

9. If you could give yourself a nickname, what would it be?

10. Who is your favorite author?

11. Which one of the Seven Dwarfs is your favorite?

Good luck, everyone.

Copyright © Publikworks 2012.

: what’s wrong with me :

I have Graves’ disease — there, the cat’s out of the bag. It’s an autoimmune disorder that leads to overactivity of the thyroid. Frankly, I don’t like the sound of Graves’ disease. It sounds grim and menacing and hopeless.

It is none of those things, of course, but it does throw a mighty big wrench in the works. A racing, erratic heartbeat was just the tip of the iceberg, Graves’ also causes anxiety, fatigue, depression, insomnia, irritability, trouble concentrating, and, my favorites, pop eyes and goiters. Think Barbara Bush, who suffers from Graves’ disease.

These days, I’m on thyroid medication, beta blockers for my heart, two kinds of antibiotics, and aspirin therapy. I have a delicate ecosystem here and it’s under heavy assault. Who knows what the fallout’s going to be. The rapid heartbeat doesn’t worry me nearly as much as the irritability and trouble concentrating, I think they caused my chronic blunk (blog funk). Damn thyroid.

Gone are the days when I could focus like a laser. My mind is now afflicted with wanderlust, happy feet. And it’s adios to my good-humored nature, hello, cranky scatterbrain. I don’t like the upheaval of illness nor do I like knowing something  in my body has betrayed me. It seems like a warning, like a shot across my bow. In plain English, I’m completely unnerved.

Is this a harbinger of things to come? What’s next, my gall bladder? See, I like to think I’m made of hollow plastic, like a Barbie doll. No messy organs, no veiny circulatory system, just hollow plastic. This thyroid thing blows that little theory right out of the water. It’s back to the drawing board for an all-new delusion.

Yesterday I had yet another blood test, they’ll use the results to decide how best to proceed in my treatment. They’re deciding between removing my thyroid surgically or destroying it medically or controlling it. That’s my choice, controlling it. Surgery is out, too dangerous. Destroying it seems kind of extreme. It’s a gland, not Osama Bin Laden.

In a way, I feel sorry for my thyroid. My whole life it’s been hard at work, doing whatever thankless job a thyroid does. It never once asked for a vacation or a lunch hour or even a bathroom break. Who wouldn’t go a little nuts, right? I think it deserves some slack.

In other developments, my heart rate was 103, which is down from 110 last week. So things are going in the right direction, that’s promising. I’m also told it could take months to notice any significant improvement. Well, fine, I’m in no hurry. I’ve gone without coherent thinking this long, a few more months won’t matter much.

Look at that, I need to trim my nails.

Copyright © Publikworks 2012.

: let’s take the ambulance :

Last Thursday I went to the doctor for a simple referral to an opthamologist. Twenty minutes later, paramedics and EMTs and doctors were hustling me into an ambulance for a trip to the hospital. Oddly enough, they didn’t use the siren. And if they didn’t use the siren how much of an emergency could it have been really?

You know, a trip to the emergency room hadn’t been on my to do list. For one thing, my dear old dog was waiting in the car. For another, I felt fine. No better or worse than any other day. But precisely no one was interested in how I felt.

When I got to the hospital, MDs and technicians and nurses swarmed me. I was hooked to the second heart monitor of the day, which showed my heart rate at 190. They shoved an IV in my arm and clamped a thing that measures oxygen in the blood to my finger and looked somber. Buzzers buzzed, machines beeped, and I was scared spitless.

If the drugs didn’t bring my heart rate down, they warned, they’d have to shock my heart with those paddle things. Are you nuts? We’ll put you under first. Are you nuts? I’m fine. Again, no one was interested.

The crowd in the room slowly thinned until it was just me and a tech. We watched the numbers change on the monitors and talked about caffeine headaches, which I was getting at the time. I wound up watching Cheers on the tv bolted to the wall.

After an eternity someone came in and said things had improved nicely, was I in any pain? Did I feel sick? No. For the thousandth time, no! I felt perfectly and absolutely fine. So they admitted me.

The following days were a round robin of activities. They shot me full of blood thinner, gave me an echocardiogram, a chest x-ray, and took endless blood samples. I was forced to pee in a cup every time I used the bathroom. I was punctured and x-rayed and tested and squeezed and had every move monitored.

Each morning at 5, the nurses would fly into a panic –  my temperature was up a degree. Oh, no. They’d clutch their throat, make furious notes, take my temperature again, flutter more, then rat me out to a doctor. You would think they’d notice a pattern by the third morning, don’t you? They didn’t.

The thing is, at night I turn my bed into a sweat lodge. I do. It’s an ancient Indian custom they believe is healing and purifying; I believe it’s paradise. The nurses believed it was a rampant infection. Because they’re wild-eyed alarmists.

A Dramatization

After all the testing and monitoring it was determined my thyroid is the culprit. I don’t understand the connection but the medical professionals say there is one. Something about too much thyroid hormone sending my heart into a rapid, erratic rhythm. The very good news, miraculous even, is my heart’s in good shape, no sign of damage. phew and phew

On the third day, with my patience gone, I had a loud confrontation with the stoopid doctor. It was silly to keep me there when I could just as easily lie around in my own bed at home. In fact, keeping me there was probably raising my heart rate. In one ear and out the other.

On the fourth day, doctor grim said my heart rate was still far from under control and still quite high, but. (Oh, how I love buts.) He would discharge me if I insisted. I did. He said it was ill-advised and foolish, and he hoped I wouldn’t regret it. Then he left the room, only to return and shake my hand with a melodramatic ‘good luck’ that was supposed to make me change my mind. Fat chance.

Unfortunately, this isn’t the end, I have to return on Wednesday for a thyroid scan. That’s a 2-day event, but it’s outpatient. Yay! If they call the paramedics on me again, I’ll be long gone when they get there.

Regarding Bart the Wonderdog who’d been stranded in the car: the doctor’s office called his vet, the vet called Animal Control, Animal Control picked him up and delivered him to the vet for boarding. He was safe and in familiar surroundings, but he had to be a little freaked out.

A Future Installment: The Roommates

Copyright © Publikworks 2012.

: it’s an spf 9,000 sort of day :

Yikes! We’re smack dab in the middle of the biggest solar storm since 2005.  Streams of radiation from the sun (in the form of protons) are right now zipping across earth’s magnetic field, probably throwing a monkey wrench into high-frequency communications and GPS signals and the power grid.

According to the experts, this latest event started Sunday night when a blast of radiation shot out of a troublesome sunspot. An enormous explosion of plasma ensued, pushing a wave of energized protons before it. This huge blob of gas (they’re not all in Washington, apparently) is speeding our way at 4.5 million mph.

And that’s bad. The faster the plasma cloud travels, the bigger the impacts on our fair planet. This particular cloud is making the 93-million-mile trip in 34 hours, a much snappier pace than the usual two or more days.

Should we get under our desks? Run for the bomb shelter? Heck, no, says an official at NASA’s Space Weather Laboratory. On the contrary, much of North America could get some lovely auroras out of the deal tonight.

Whoopee.

Will we glow in the dark when this is over? That’s what I want to know. And what’s the recommended spf for a solar storm of this intensity? Personally, I don’t want to glow in the dark. Looking in the mirror would be like looking through night vision goggles. I’d be a ghostly green blur that blinked. But, on the plus side, I’d be my own nightlight. Yay!

Regarding the sunscreen, we can always use protection from the sun’s harmful rays. And from the sound of it, these could be doozies. Just how high do spf numbers go, anyway? Three digits? Four? How should we apply it? With a shovel?

On second thought, maybe today’s a good day to stay inside — make soup or read a book. I’m definitely not doing any traveling, not without a reliable GPS signal. There’s not a search party in the world who’d ever find me. No matter how brightly I glowed in the dark.

UPDATE|  The last wave of radiation passed Earth early Tuesday afternoon. After it was all said and done, the National Weather Service rated the storm a 2 (on a scale of 1 to 5). So much for the warnings that this would be the biggest solar storm since 2005.

Copyright © Publikworks 2012

: life as a popsicle :

I’ll be straight with you: I’ve been AWOL for a week. Seven days. One hundred and sixty-eight hours. But it seems longer to me, more like a month or six weeks. The thing is, I can’t shake this damn blunk (my shiny, new word for blog funk). It hangs on like a cold sore.

I can’t think. I can’t concentrate. My mind wanders like a gypsy.

Every afternoon I park myself in front of the computer and watch the cursor blink-blink-blink-blink. After a while I get bored and wander away, distracted by dust collecting on the television screen. Or the dog needing a bath. Or cookies in the kitchen. Or Super Mario Bros.

I almost resorted to the vacuum cleaner a couple of times, that’s how desperate I was. Instead I learned to balance a pencil on my nose — it’s easy once you get the hang of it. I wasted most of one morning watching snow fall out of the sky and the afternoon watching Mr. Snowblower Dude shoot it straight back up.

I blame the weather for this listlessness. Everything in my brain is frozen. My synapses and neurons have all snapped shut against the cold, blocking any and all traffic in the region. Last night it was four measly degrees outside and only marginally warmer inside. The wind chill was seven below zero. Both are Fahrenheit readings. Today it’s warmed up to nineteen, with a wind chill of nine.

On a positive note, the violent shivering and teeth chattering is giving me quite a workout. My lips have a blue tinge, sans lipstick.  Plus, I have enough static electricity to light a strip mall.

Temperatures aren’t supposed to be this cold. Nothing should be this cold. Okay, test tubes and Walt Disney and martinis, but nothing else. I’ve heard hell is hot, but not a place you’d want to visit. Well, neither is this. If hell had an airline I’d be packing my bags. Think it’s smoky there? Who cares, I’ll take a Glade Plug-In. And a flame resistant bathing suit. And Tums, I bet the food’s spicy.

You know, at this point even heartburn sounds good.

Copyright © Publikworks 2012

: speaking of doomsday :

It’s Friday the 13th, Twinkies are going belly up, and the Doomsday Clock was moved ahead 1 minute to 11:55. For crying out loud, we’re only 13 days into a new year. What in the world is going on? Did Nostradamus predict this? What about the Mayans, are they at it again?

Before we start to panic (and by we I mean I) let’s take this one calamity at a time, beginning with Friday the 13th. In fairness, we shouldn’t be surprised by its arrival, the date’s right there on the Gregorian calendar. Even so, I was startled by the appearance of today’s date in my day planner. I feel so ambushed.

After I had a chance to think about it, though, I realized most days are like Friday the 13th. I’ll have 364 more of them this year. Unless. The actual date has the completely opposite effect and brings me a regular day of glad tidings and happy surprises. That seems reasonable, doesn’t it? Either way, air travel and doctor visits are out.

In the grand scheme of things, one day of bad luck is a blip. A world without Twinkies? That’s a catastrophe. Hostess Brands, the makers of Twinkies and Sno Balls and Ding Dongs, is going bankrupt. Again. They emerged from Chapter 11 last September, but decided to try again. They’re still nearly a billion $ in debt.

Hostess has issued statement after statement promising to keep the Twinkies coming, but what if they don’t? Can we go cold turkey? Can we just forget about them, put them out of our minds? No, they’re part of American culture. Remember the Twinkie defense? How about ‘That’s a big Twinkie’ in Ghostbusters? I do and I’m going to stock up.

But I’d better hurry, according to the Doomsday Clock we’re a full minute closer to apocalypse. The hand is standing at five minutes to midnight. Shoot, we were a lot closer in 1953, the clock was down to two minutes. So we’ve gained an extra three minutes, if you’d like to look at it that way. Which I very much do.

See there? Everything’s fine, nothing to worry about. We can just go on about our business and have a nice day : )

Copyright © Publikworks 2012

: will it be like sleepaway camp? :

Have you seen the news? The national unemployment rate has fallen to 8.5 percent, the lowest level since 2009. My personal statistics, however, remain unchanged: I’m 100% unemployed. After this length of time, and with my unemployment benefits rapidly drawing to an end, I’ve begun planning for life in the homeless community.

The way I look at it, the transition will be easier and smoother if I plan ahead. It’s a bit like preparing for the first trip to a foreign land; I don’t speak the language or know the culture or have a guidebook. I fully expect to make the usual newbie mistakes, like packing the wrong things and smiling at the wrong people.

I know the dress code is casual, but how casual? Should I throw in summer clothes, too, even though it’s winter? What is the appropriate dress for a dumpster dive? What about pajamas and toiletries? It’s just so hard to know.

At least I won’t be a complete rookie; I’ve been to Girl Scout camp. For ten days and nights I battled the elements, like bad food and no TV, and I came out alive. Our tents weren’t air conditioned, we drank warm, tinny water from metal canteens, hiked hither and yon, rain or shine, and used latrines. I know harsh conditions, thanks to Camp Tapawingo. And I’ve been trained to survive them.

One morning a fellow camper showed up for breakfast with cuts and scratches and banged up knees. When I asked, she said she’d rolled out of her cot and down the hill in her sleep. I offered to perform first aid, but she declined. We Girl Scouts are tough like that.

Even so, I’d rather avoid the whole transition experience. On one hand, I’d get some great stories out of the experience and meet some interesting people. On the other, I’m a fan of privacy — I like having my own room and a private bath.

Why can’t we return to the days when you could build a cabin in the woods, like Thoreau in Walden, and live a quiet, contemplative life in harmony with nature? Whoa, wait, didn’t the Unabomber live like that? While he wrote the Manifesto? In Montana? You know, never mind.

Cot for one, near a window, please.

Copyright © Publikworks 2012

: newsweek has issues, i have problems :

I’m a right brain person in a left brain world. This is a fact; I’ve been tested. Initially, I was heartened by these results, by proof that, yes, I did indeed have a brain. Albeit one so functionally lopsided I should lean precariously to the right.

Most people are left brain dominant or, at the very least, have the benefit of a functioning left lobe. I don’t. I am bereft of logic and there isn’t a practical bone in my body. My decisions are no more than hunches, I don’t do a cool, reasoned analysis of the facts or waste time on details. This, ladies and gentlemen, is how I wound up with a 5-year warranty on a 3-year lease. Among other absurdities.

It explains a bunch of things, actually. Why I’m labeled a scatterbrained troublemaker, for example. Why I color outside the lines and get bored stiff in structured environments and chose to major in English, instead of chemical engineering. That last one, the English part, baffles people. With so many lucrative options, why pick a dead-end like English? I don’t know.

Neither do I know why I’m in this blunk. That’s a word I made up, blunk, shorthand for blog funk. I have plenty of time, a working computer, a sunny day, everything I need to bang out a fairly decent post. Everything except an idea and words, those are missing.

Please bear with me. Thank you.

Copyright © Publikworks 2012