What Not To Wear

It's Friday night and I'm in Detroit, not Baltimore as originally planned. Yesterday I came home from work feeling even worse than I had been. I had gone to the gym on Wednesday and was only able to do 25 minutes on the elliptical. The Libertarian came over to see how much longer I had to go, so that I could stretch his knee, and I discovered that not only couldn't I breathe, I couldn't speak - not a good sign. I wasn't too concerned though, I figured I could get through the weekend and see how I was doing on Monday. Yeah, not so much.

Yesterday I noticed that the fleece jacket I normally wear for warmth at work was bothering my right arm. Besides that I simply didn't feel well. I was very tired and really not very happy. I would have called the dr. for an appt, but I had The Libertarian's big mother truck and I just didn't feel up to driving all the way to the dr's office in it. I'm not comfortable driving something that large. When I got home, I called the dr. and asked them to have him call me which they said they would do. I then called RR to tell her that I was contemplating not coming as I just didn't have the energy for visiting. She understood and told me to let her know for sure. I then called the YS (younger sister), left a message and then went to bed.

Dr. called me back around 5:30, we discussed my breathing issues, so he called in a new antibiotic for me. I couldn't even face driving the truck again, so I texted The Libertarian, but he was already home (45 minutes away). He offered to come up and pick up the prescription for me, but there was no way I was going to make him do that because I was too wimpy to drive 8 blocks. I threw on clothes, but couldn't face shoes, so put on my slippers and walked out the door. When I got outside, I noticed that both of Ursamajor's cars were there. I went back in and knocked on her door and she was so sweet and said, yes, she'd drive me to the pharmacist to get my drugs.

The YS finally called me back (she was at work), and when I told her about my arm which by this time was just exceptionally pain to even the lightest touch and sensitive to temperature, to say nothing of the tingling pain in my hand, specifically my thumb knuckle. It was a different pain/sensation than when I had my herniated disk, so I wasn't worried about that so much, but I wasn't happy, nonetheless. Her initial thought was heart attack, as she has this tendency to go straight for the worst possible scenario. I think I rolled my eyes. She had a few other thoughts, but I wasn't convinced. She wanted to talk to a few other people, and said she'd call me back. When she called me back, she said, "Shannon, the OT here, thought shingles." My heart dropped as I had had that thought myself, but didn't want to go there. I had it exactly two years ago and it was a miserable experience, and it lasted forever.

This morning I tried to get a dr.'s appt., but my GP had no appts today, so I called my old doctor (the one who diagnosed the shingles two years ago, and diagnosed my herniated disk 6.5 years ago), but she couldn't get me into today either. I made appt. to see the GP on Monday and then my old doctor for tomorrow. My issue with my old doctor is that she's a No Insurance doctor - which is totally great for people who don't have insurance - so my appt. tomorrow will cost $45 vs the $20 co-pay if I waited until Monday. After talking to The Libertarian, I went with the $45 doctor and canceled Monday's appt. I talked to Martha later and she agreed that it's better to get it taken care of sooner rather than later.

I hope it's not shingles, but if it's not then what is this strange painful sensation in my right arm? Maybe the alternative is worse. At any rate, I'm home. I didn't get to go to the Cheesecake Factory for dinner tonight. I didn't get to hang out with RR and catch up and meet her 3-year-old son. Tomorrow I won't be sightseeing in my nation's capital or going to see SuperDiamond. Sunday I won't be having alone time with the YS and eating a second time at the Cheesecake Factory (I really wish we'd get one in Detroit). The only high point is that all this means I didn't have fly which is just such a complete PITA these days that I simply dread it. That's the only silver lining and I'm afraid that it's only plated, not a solid or sterling lining.

It's now time for bed. I hope everybody else's weekend beats the crap out of mine.

Update: The doctor said it's not shingles. She think my arm issues are related to my chest congestion and recommended that I see my regular doctor to get a prescription for a chest x-ray. She's the third person to say "pneumonia." So, essentially I wasted $60 since I have to go to my regular doctor anyway. Let's hope I can get an appointment tomorrow.

To Hell With Poverty!

Two days ago I was contemplating wearing shorts and sandals (except my toenails weren't painted), today I was cleaning my little car of about 2" of really heavy wet snow. As we like to say, "Welcome to Michigan, if you don't like the weather, stick around ten minutes, it'll change." Today's weather is courtesy of Canada, supposedly, so thanks, Canada. I preferred the jet stream from the south.

I know I've bitched extensively about the new building where I work (it's only new to me as I'm pretty sure it was built long before I was born, but not in a cool early 1900s kind of way), but new bitching needs to be done. We all know that in December I moved from what I shall call Building A to Building C (for Crappy) and that I'm all annoyed because I now have to drive to work which entails cleaning snow off the car. I know that's a well established whining point. Well, since moving to Building C (for Crappy), I've watched the people who were residents here before us moving out in droves to…you guessed it…Building A. Now all along the powers that be have been reassuring us that we will be moving back to Building A, but I'm beginning to wonder if there will be any room left. Of course, everybody but us and Mr. Snorty across from me has moved out. Last week Mr. Snorty took his annoyingness to a new level – he clipped his nails – for at least ten minutes. I mean, Dear God, how long does it take to clip your friggin' nails??? And don't you do it at home? I will confess that when I break a nail at work I will file it so that it's not catching on all and sundry (namely my clothes), but it takes me mere seconds to take care of the problem. I had to get up and walk away from my desk after five minutes. When I got back, he was still at it. I would have bet money he had taken his shoes off and was clipping his toenails. I stopped by a co-worker's cube kitty corner to mine in the opposite direction than Mr. I-Don't-Know-How-To-Blow-My-Nose-I-Prefer-To-Suck-It-Back-Up-And-Gross-Out-My-Neighbors is and asked him whisperingly if the nail clipping was driving him crazy. "Oh yeah." I then asked if the sucking noise annoyed him and he said he hadn't noticed that. I, of course, being the sharing person that I am e-mailed him the next time Mr. I-Don't-Know-How-To-Blow-My-Nose-I-Prefer-To-Suck-It-Back-Up-And-Gross-Out-My-Neighbors did it and asked "How can you not hear that?" "Hear what?" Then a few moments later, a second response "Thanks for bringing that to my attention." I think he might have been annoyed. ;-)

I have taken to listening to my iPod at a really high volume because I just can't handle the noises anymore, and this week it's extra special because he has a cold, so it's more often and more disgusting. I want to go over there and slap him and tell him to go the bloody hell home, if I get sick again, I'm going to blow a gasket. A friend of mine thinks I get sick so often because of my apt. I think it's these bloody climate controlled buildings where you can't open a window and get fresh air and germs stick around in the duct work. My apt.'s so old that there is always fresh air coming in some crack.

I was really looking forward to the symphony last Friday – a number of my favorite composers, my favorite conductor, a good friend going through a rough time – but I ended up with the headache from hell. You know the type where any light at all makes your head hurt that much worse? I thought I could take a hot shower, a 30 minute nap, a vicodin and all would be good. I was wrong. After 45 minutes I called BST and asked "What are you doing tonight?" "I don’t know, I'm on the phone with Perl right now." "Oh good, because I was supposed to go to the symphony with Perl tonight and I have a migraine type headache and there's just no way I can go." After a couple of phone calls, it was all set, they stopped by to get the tickets and I went back to bed where I remained for almost 20 hours (4:20 to 12:15). I did get up briefly to call Ursamajor who had sinus headache pain reliever type medication, so I made my way downstairs (I'm so going to miss her when she moves out and into her new 1900-built house) for the promised drugs and then went promptly back to bed. The rest of the weekend was spent at siblings' houses for nieces and nephew birthday parties. I did get to see The Libertarian on Saturday night, though, so that was nice. We watched Hitchcock's Notorious and he made me dinner, although not in that order. He had dinner waiting for me when I got there from the first birthday party where they were serving Stouffer's Mac & Cheese and Lasagna for dinner. I don't eat lasagna, obviously, and I *hate* Stouffer's Mac & Cheese, so he held dinner for me. He even knew I would want a Guinness when I got there, so he had put a glass in the freezer. Too sweet.

This weekend the Formula 1 season starts in Australia and has been my custom for the past five years, I go over to my friend Dan's house and watch the race with him, so that's where I'll be Saturday night. Now that Der Chin has retired I can, I hope, properly enjoy the F1 season and even though my beloved Kimi Raikkonen has left McLaren (my favorite F1 team) to go to Ferrari, I hope he does well and that it's a good battle between him and Fernando Alonso for the entire season.

I'd talk hockey but I'm so disgusted that my beloved Red Wings picked up The Goon of All Goons, Todd Bertuzzi, at the trade deadline that I might not even watch the playoffs. Everybody tells me I should get over Bertuzzi's incredibly vicious, dirty, vile hit on Steve Moore three years ago, but I firmly believe that if you injure somebody to that degree you don't play until they can play again. And I'm sorry, but his "14-month" penalty doesn't count in my book when NOBODY played hockey for those 14 months. It was the lockout season. It's complete bullshit that Bettman let him back in the league at all, but he should have at least not been allowed to play the season after the lockout. He wasn't punished at all in my opinion.

Okay, I'm done with all that sports talk for now. Have a great weekend as I probably won't be updating before that!