utenzi

I'm going to be working a mite late today. I had a doctor's appointment today and I need to make up the time. The appointment was mostly to check out if a cholesterol drug I was just put on (yes, age is making me fall apart) is doing anything. I've been taking it for 2 months now and they drew blood today to see how I'm doing. Anyway, on the way home I'm planning on picking up some soda (yummy yummy soda) and sweet potatoes and while the soda is getting cold I plan on using my pretty mandoline to slide up those taters and then I'm frying them. Sweet potato chips! That's a rather time consuming task so I'll probably make some eggs and sausage for dinner at the same time. Wednesday I hope to make a stew that'll last me the rest of the week and maybe even Saturday too. And on Saturday I'll be doing a hike with Meetup where we cross a bunch of sewer pipes during the afternoon and in the evening I'm planning on making some mint patties . Winterg...

My doctor's appointment on Tuesday morning launched me into my waning years, I'm afraid. Now I admit this isn't the official way to define the "golden stage" of life, but to me once you have to take a drug everyday you're old. Today I picked up some statins to control cholesterol and they have to be taken every day. But it could have happened sooner. My doctor wanted me to take high blood pressure meds a couple of months ago. I had to talk her into running a 24 hour BP monitor instead. Fortunately that test (it checked BP every 15 minutes for a total of nearly 100 datapoints across the 24 hours I had the monitor on--which is a lot more accurate than taking just one BP reading at the doctor's office) Today also marked the second time in recent weeks that people have peeked inside of me. Today it was an echo cardiogram. I was surprised at how much detail it showed. For the most part I was facing away from the screen but the last 5 or 6 minutes I could watch...

I went to my doctor for the third time. Once the medical establishment gets their collective mitts on you, they don't let go easily. Anyway, this time she cut off a skin tag and burned off a growth on my finger. As this was happening I imagined some dead mice dancing with glee. Now it's my turn to have surgical scissors and anesthetic applied to my flesh. The parallel was pretty strong since the skin tag was right near my beltline on the right side and that's where I had implanted the matrigel sponges in my mice. So when my doctor was merrily cutting away, it was thematically similar to the work I had done on my 13 mice on Monday. One difference though, I survived the procedure, the mice, sadly enough, did not. In other medical news, now my doctor wants me to do to some echo thing and get my heart looked at. Damn doctors. I assure everyone that my heart is just fine. Doctors worry way too much. But just in case... I think I'll go and make sure it's okay.

After ignoring the medical community for over 11 years I've gotten hooked into the whole thing. My first doctor's visit 5 weeks ago was very interesting. I really like her and feel comfortable so I'll probably not have a lengthy gap in coverage again. On the other hand, once the doctor-thing gets its hooks into you, they don't let go. Today was my second visit and there's a third scheduled for a month from now--and I suspect there'll be at least one more following that. I think I'm paying the price for not visiting the med community more regularly in the past. This is their way of making me pay! LOL And now it's not just my doctor--she's got me set up to visit more of the little critters. 3 more in the next month or so. Now, there's nothing wrong with me other than the IBS (and maybe a few pesky little things) but doctors seem to want to run tests for everything... just in case. What a waste of time and money, huh? Anyway, there's going to...

Usually a person stops growing in their late teens but for some odd reason that doesn't seem to be the case for me. Yesterday when I was at the doctor's office they measured me at 72.5 inches in height. Now it's true that I've been growing outward for a number of years but I have never been measured over 6 feet before. I mentioned that and the nurse remeasured and got the same result. Huh. Somehow in the ten years since my last doctor's visit I'd gained half an inch in height. What does this have to do with tires floating in the water? Good question. I can't think of a connection. I guess I just liked the picture. The tires are there to dampen out waves so that the sailboats don't get banged up. The sailboats are out of sight behind where I was floating so all you can see are the tires and an island. Sorry! The downside of the measurements is the weight gain. In the past 10 years I've gained 35 pounds! I'm now at 217. And according to the doctor ...