"You're the easiest patient all day"

I don't know why I ever go to the doctor. They never spend enough time with me and never tell me something I don't already know.

I went to an orthopedist today to get my hip checked out. Turns out I have gluteus medius syndrome and can ease back into running and continue taking ibuprofen. Great. So keep doing what I'm doing, but slowly add mileage.

"You're a physio, you know what to do."

Well, sure, but I wanted some 'roids. And maybe a PT script since I can't analyze my own running. I didn't get a chance to ask for either of these.

"You're the easiest patient all day."

Well, yes, that's because you did a 30 second physical exam and a 2 minute history.

Thanks, glad I paid my $45 copay.

More Shoes

I really want to buy a house.

So I can buy more shoes.

I only have 11 pairs.

Take this job and shove it! I ain't workin here no more!

My two year contract for my first job out of school is up next Wednesday. I managed to weasel my way into having my last week of work off with PTO and flex days. I'm DONE!

I'm tired of not getting respect. That's what it all comes down to. I didn't go to school for 7 years to get two degrees and $80,000 (before interest) of loans to be disrespected. I think the worst part of it all is being told things like "you are too compassionate."

Are you kidding?

This is health care for crying out loud. What would I be doing here if it weren't for my compassion? I sure am not in it for the money.

My older co-workers tell me "it's like this every where."

If that's the case I will change my job every year until I find people that do not accept the unacceptable.

What it comes down to is this: If you allow people to walk all over you they will time and time again. I refuse to be a doormat.

I will continue to stand up for my patients and what is right. That's the kind of clinician I am.

In closing, I'd like to sing another song:

Kiss. Kiss this. And I don't mean on my rosy red lips!

Aaaand, on that note, I'll be having dental surgery tomorrow and then moving to the beach on Sunday! Whoop whooop!

I am lame. I know. I never write anymore. My excuse is that I have a life outside of this box we all call "computer." However, this is not the case. The Best Man sits for hours on end each evening at his box and I at mine. I really could write. I'm lazy.

So that's it. I'm lazy. And lame.

The Best Man's Brother's Best and Only Girl wrote this post tonight which prompted me to write.

I have much to say regarding her post, however I thought I best save that for another day.

However, I will say I do believe Erikson would say this is a case of Identity versus Role Confusion. Obviously, The Best Man's Brother's Best and Only Girl has her identity creatively constructed via any art medium she chooses, however is frustrated with those losers who are struggling over lower life stages such as industry versus inferiority.

Okay, so I was a psych major in undergrad, what's it to you. Oh yeah, and I forgot I wasn't going to talk about that.

What I am going to talk about (and yes, I do realize that I should never begin any sort of writing with any kind of potential with any stating "what I'm going to talk about is...", but I just did, so oh well) is wedding planning.

We now have an officiant and catering quotes. And (heaven forbid, but this is really the best thing of all) most importantly A CAKE! So, I've been preaching to all my SC friends down yonder how great my favourite local grocery store cake is for the past 1.5 years. They have their own variety of grocery store cake which they rant about. What is the best part of a cake, I ask you? THE ICING. I mean obviously, the icing makes the cake. The icing down here is horrendous. Terrible, I tell you. These people make this their wedding cake? Really? With nasty icing like that?

Oh, I digress. So, anyway, I had pretty much signed the deal in my head and heart that I was going to get my cake from the local grocer. On a whim, The Best Man and I went to local pastry shop and did a cake tasting before we went to the grocer for our official must be made in pen and ink appointment. Turns out not only was the local pastry shop cheaper, but the almond flavor (the only flavor of any importance in my opinion) was much more palatable.

So, needless to say, we have officially booked THE CAKE. And an officiant. And hopefully we can soon say we've booked some food and some hotel rooms for ourselves and guests, however I do hope these last two will lessen their bills before we commit.

Well, that is all. Well, that and bekind to your fellow artist, for you never know whom will be painting a life like picture of you.

P.s. Now I want to paint. Or at least make pretty jewelry. . . mmm wedding jewels...

Hindsight

Recently I've been fretting about a self diagnosed brain tumor that has been affecting my vision. It is located somewhere in the back of my head near the optic radiations. It first affected my left eye, then vanished before reappearing (or should I say disappearing because of my lack of vision?) in my right eye. Transient vision changes that occur in one eye then reappear in another eye are not normally related to a tumor. You know, unless the tumor is shrinking in one direction as it grows in another.

So basically, I have a self diagnosed traveling brain tumor that is making its way from the left side of my head to the right.

Or so I thought.

When I was finally able to get myself an eye appointment, the optometrist asked questions like "why can't you see?" (to which I wanted to respond "aren't you supposed to answer that?") and made comments such as, "well, you could read that a minute ago" when I couldn't read even the big E on the top of the eye chart.

After two appointments in as many weeks, my old prescription was changed, then later rewritten to resemble the original prescription. The original prescription which caused me to come in for the first place because I couldn't see.

So at this point, I had changed my working diagnosis from a traveling brain tumor to a conversion disorder. Clearly, there was nothing wrong with my eyes or the optometrist would not have asked me why I couldn't see. Without any anatomical basis to my blurry vision, the only remaining answer is a conversion disorder.

I made an appointment a month away with an ophthalmologist, ie a real MD. I spent the next month hoping it was legal for me to be on the road and ignoring people at work because I couldn't see them down the hallway. All the while, I was trying to come to terms with the fact that I obviously had a conversion disorder.

When it was finally time for my appointment, the technician made me feel like a fraud when she questioned what I could and couldn't see. She wasn't able to correct my vision with lenses. Then the real MD came in and asked "has anyone ever mentioned an astigmatism?"

He then showed me a picture of the peaks and valleys of the surface of my right eye. The cornea is supposed to be round like a basketball. An astigmatism means the cornea cones out like a football. This can be corrected with glasses and soft contacts. However, my eye only cones out at the bottom and is rounded at the top. This is called an irregular astigmatism. It can only be corrected with hard contacts. I was told the cause could be due to a) illfitting contacts, b) a corneal deformity, or c) a and b.

I'm shooting for a) as this would explain why my vision was first blurry in my left eye and now my right.

Today I had my fitting for my contacts. They hurt. I squinted, cried, blinked and got asked what the heck was wrong with me by nurses and even a patient. However, I was able to wear them for 4 hours as I was asked.

I am shooting for 6 hours tomorrow. I doubt I will be able to drive in these things for a while as it is hard to look for side to side. Thus, unfortunately, I will still be driving with my useless glasses. Wish me luck!

I almost volunteered The Best Man to fight a drunk high schooler...opps!

The Best Man and I had a picnic dinner at the park. We were laying on the river bank after eating with the river at our feet and the parking garage several yards behind us. Suddenly, something wet landed between us.

A half full Budweizer beer can.

The Best Man inspected and noted several beer cans by the parking garage. I packed up our stuff, put in the car and stormed up the incline of the deck looking for the kids who threw the can at me.

What was I thinking?

"How dare they?" That's what I was thinking.

What was The Best Man thinking? "I hope we don't get killed."

We have since spoken and he has been instructed to ground me and calm me down the next time.

I ended up confronting the 4 or 5 high schoolers. One of them was upset because I called him an idiot because he had fallen (or been pushed as he claimed) off the parking deck through a tree and onto the ground an hour earlier. This kid hand long scraggly blonde surfer boy hair and was 1/2 my size. He looked at The Best Man behind me and said "Is that your boy? He's going to have to fight me."

Then he began to take off his shirt.

Why is it that people who are trash talking always take off their shirts to fight? I mean, what's that going to do?

Needless to say, The Best Man has a lot cooler head on his shoulders than I do and simply stated we were not going to fight anyone and were just looking for whom ever threw a beer can at us.

Although there was an empty can at their feet, the same variety of what I was now wearing, they claimed some other kids did it.

And with that we stormed up the flight of stairs to the top level...where I cooled off and made The Best Man call the non emergency police number.

I hope those kids at the very least got busted for loitering and smoking and drinking under age. Take that little twerps!

Ps. Next time, The Best Man, will forcefully restrain me if need be and then we will stay put and call the non emergency police number.

The Big Purple Monster

The Big Purple Monster (named by The Best Man) is to immobilize my foot for the next 3 weeks. . .

Here are just a couple of things that are difficult for me to do without movement of my foot (specifically, I'm missing dorsiflexion the most):
1. walking
2. stair climbing
3. showering
4. squatting, bending down or doing anything near or on the floor
5. speaking of 4...getting off the floor
6. hoovering over a public toilet

Wish me luck...I'm already going insane and it's only been 2 days!

Emergent Care Needed

Please read prior post and the comment before reading further. . .







My temp crown fell out this afternoon.


In public.


While eating a piece of cheese.

NOT impressed!

Stress

I think I have a stress fracture of the base of my 5th metatarsal.

See the last blog for background on my idiocy.

Alarming

Have you ever been woken up by the sound of car alarm and just rolled over?

That's what I did this morning. Not 10 minutes later I heard a pounding on my door. I looked out the peep hole and saw a man with glasses. Tentatively I opened the door and kept the chain on...like that would help me some how.

"Ma'am, I'm sorry to wake you, but I'm afraid your car has been broken into."

"SERIOUSLY?"

"Do you have a maroon mazda."

"N0. I have a Nissan. Gold."

We then preceded to argue about whether or not this was my car.

Finally, I pointed out that the previous tennants never changed their address as I still get their mail. They live on the first floor of my building now. The officer went to wake up that couple.

I went to check my car as the officer had stated several cars had been broken into. It's fine. I will be cleaning it out this afternoon and parking under a light from now on.

Oh, and I'll be wearing cuter pajamas that match.

I hope everyone else had a better way to wake up this morning. Happy Monday!

Rain, rain go away

I got in a fight with my umbrella today.






It won.

Projectile

Projectile vomit is not as cool as it sounds. Especially, when you have a weak stomach yourself. This why I wear scrubs and retired my crocs with the holes in them. YUCK!

Work is finally going to an EMR (Electronic Medical Record...fancy, ey?). I attended the second of three classes today to get the updated information. The instructors were stumped- twice- with problems that anyone proficient with computers could answer...aka me. I answered the "problems" with ease..."Um, you can't use the button because you haven't activated that field...click in the box." I told The Best Man about helping the instructors in the computer class and he was rather proud...although he somehow seems to think his computer prowess has brushed off on me via osmosis.

Seriously

So, I don't have cable. No big deal. Only only watch two tv shows: Prison Break and Grey's. One would think I wouldn't need cable to watch these. I get Fox for my Prison Break fix on Mondays (when Fox doesn't deem that baseball trumps Prison Break as happened this week). I don't get ABC, however.

This is a problem.

The first episode of the season I managed to invite myself over to the Other New PT's place. Last week, I played her potential wing girl (is that what you call the girl version?) and ended up (after several hours, two phone calls to The Best Man, and one link from said Best Man) watching it online later that weekend.

Tonight, I sunk to an all time low and watched it while walking on the treadmill at the tiny gym here. Normally there isn't anyone in the gym that late.

Notice I said normally. Do you know how awkward it is to tell someone who comes to the gym to work out that they can use your treadmill as you are only walking (and very slowly at that secondary to just having eaten dinner out with the girls) to watch the tv? Well, I'll just say it was so embarassing that I ended up "jogging" after a while despite the pains in my abdomen while my stomach tried to tell me it was still digesting my food.

I hope I get that dumb coupon in the mail so I can get that convertor box and hopefully get regular channels. Wish me luck!

Tired.

This week I'm tired of taking care of people who yell, curse, or at the very nicest frown as soon as they catch sight of me. I'm also tired of helping people who aren't receptive. That's enough complaining for the day. . . I'm off to watch the last two episodes of Grey's Season 4 before Season 5 starts tomorrow...although I still need to figure out exactly how I'll be watching it tomorrow without a cable.

Reasons I'm not sleeping

1. I go through bouts of insomnia with changes in my life or when I'm stressed, ie I just moved to a new state alone and started my first big girl job.
2. Guy upstairs who's alarm goes off for at least an hour before he gets up- oh and it goes off at least 20 minutes before mine.
3. Next door: squeaky bed, loud girlfriend. Disgusting.
4. I don't go to bed early enough, which leaves me less time to sleep, plus its about that time when number 3 occurs. :(

Another loud neighbor

The guy next door has a very squeaky bed.

Upstairs

So, the guy who lives above me was absent for a while. At least I didn't hear him. Then I started hearing multiple foot steps prancing around. I finally figured out that he frequently has several extended family members over for dinner. This noise does not bother as I am awake.

What does bother me is that his alarm goes off at 6 AM every morning. This would not be so bad if he also got up at 6 AM every morning. The alarm goes off continuously until 6:20, which also happens to be when my alarm goes off, when he gets up, crosses the room and presses snooze. 9 minutes later its screeech screeech screeech until 7:10, which is 10 minutes before I leave. I mean, seriously?!

The Brat Pack

Raise your left hand if you know and love "The Brat Pack."

Raise your right hand if you have seen "The Breakfast Club" and recognize references to it in pop culture.

If both of your hands are up in the air, then you should be as astonished as I was when I saw a reference to "The Breakfast Club" in a JC Penny comercia for back to school shopping for tweens and teens.

Seriously? That reference went over all their heads. One of my lifeguards who is 17 had not seen nor heard of "The Goonies. " Now, I know these two movies are not in the same realm, but bare with me a moment. If a soon to be high school senior doesn't know what "Goonies never say die" means, how is he going to catch the reference to "The Breakfast Club?" I'm just sayin'!

Speaking of Grey's, I got an ad in the mail for another apartment complex. It reads:

paper or plastic?
USC or Clemson?
mcdreamy or mcsteamy?
expensive or inexpensive?

some choices are easy, but some just make cents!!!

I LOVE the Grey's reference. Just so you know, people are CRAZY down here about Carolina vs. Clemson football. I was told by another Virginian who has relocated here "Just tell them you're not from here. Do not pick sides. What ever you do, do not pick sides." I appreciate his advice.