Went out to dinner with most of the nurses from my office this evening.
That was after working ALL day. ALL day. From 0715 until 1630. Outrageous.
No results from yesterday’s biopsy yet. Not even going to think about what I might do or not do until the results come back or Saturday morning. Whichever comes first.
And now, I do believe I’ll make a nice cuppa And waddle off to bed. You can not believe how many calories were consumed this evening. Let me count the ways:
Beer
Pimento/pickle nachos
Fried green tomatoes
Pig and cheese sandwich, grilled
Brussel sprouts and hominy
Biscuits and honey
Nibbles of macaroni, burger, pancakes, cheese and grits
I will not be able to fit in a plane seat if I don’t get out of here soon.
And now for something really scary – me after the FINE needle biopsy.
The FINE needle biopsy went FINE. Just a little band-aid. But, it does rather feel like I got a karate shot to the neck. Not to complain, a nap and a handful of ibuprofen worked wonders. I went off to work and then joined forces with a friend who also had a procedure at the hospital. We went to “lunch”. We had a well-balanced meal of ice cream and coffee. Hot and Cold. Chocolate and Vanilla. Well-balanced.
Or were you expecting Halloween picture? How about this FINE creature?
South 4th Street. A T-Rex maybe?
On a more serious note – “they” said that the results could take up to 5 business days. I really want to know by Friday. Because, if I am going to need to the surgery – I want to move my departure from Halloween to say Thanksgiving. And, if I am going be told: “we’ll just watch this…” I need to get my ass in gear and get ready to go. How does one hurry cytology?
Being a kickass old woman, I got an appointment (Wednesday AM) for the “Fine” Needle Biopsy. Wonder if “fine” when applied to Fine Needle Biopsy means the same thing it does when I say “Read the FINE manual”… I’ll let you know on Wednesday.
They did tell me that I could drive myself home. GREAT! That must mean that they are going to give me a car. Make it red and convertible.
A car which I would have to park –
Not all parking spaces are created equal. Not even close.
I found this spectacularly shat upon car while walking home from the bus stop.
Taking tomorrow off from work to sort of get ready to get ready to go to Hawai’i as planned on Halloween. I think the trip will take place as planned. Well, maybe I hope the trip will take place as planned.
Continue to have issues with my Time Machine Backup. I think it is some conflict between Sierra and High Sierra maybe exacerbated by file encryption.
Way fewer bands, way more cars in this year’s parade.
Had trouble with Time Machine this morning. I started backing up at 8AM and by noon it had backed up 2 of 38 gig. I stopped the backup and backed Forbin up to a different (unencrypted) drive. It did 300 gig in less than 2 hours. Don’t know how much less, I wasn’t watching.
I know I backed Forbin up to the encrypted drive after I upgraded to High Sierra. And, it didn’t seem to take too long then. I suspect it is some issue with file structures and my encrypted backup disk. I am not happy when my backup system stops working smoothly.
As for my medical issues. Tomorrow, I will be on the case to get an appointment for the biopsy. Guess what? To my complete surprise – one of the ladies here at the Asylum essentially “wrote the book” on fine needle thyroid biopsy. Maybe she can do it for me in her kitchen!
Ran away from myself this morning. I went to the Howard University Homecoming Parade. I used to go every year – if it wasn’t raining – last year I went was 2013. The parade was shorter than it used to be. And, no horses. But, it was still great fun. And, I had very good public transportation karma. Never waited more than 3 minutes. Finally, I took a lap or two around Nordstrom’s and didn’t find a single thing that I need or even wanted to buy.
Howard University Homecoming Parade
Took the newly repaired OMD with my favorite lens. I also discovered that the favorite lens works fine on the new PEN F camera. But, it looks really silly.
(Note to readers: I am not devilishly concerned about this health problem. It is the thyroid and not some rouge lymph node. I am, however, pissed off beyond all recognition that it is messing with my scheduled migration to Hawai’i.)
Well, shit. It was all going well until it wasn’t. I got to hospital with lots of time to spare. Was the first customer in ultrasound. Got the best sonographer. Had a good day at the office. When I am coming home the nurse calls and says I should get an appointment for a biopsy. No surprise. I tried to get her to go directly to biopsy. But, in modern medicine – gotta spread the money around. The ultrasound folk have to earn a living too.
As soon as I get home, I start trying to get an appointment for the biopsy. Not only could I not get an appointment. I couldn’t get anyone to answer the phone. I left 2 messages and 2 phone numbers and got 0 calls. The doctor calls to be sure I made an appointment. I tell her that I can not get them to answer the phone. She calls back and says that she to failed but she left a message for them to call me.
By then end of the afternoon – I was seriously mad. Annoyed. Pissed.
I wrote a letter to the CEO of the hospital. Want to read it? Sending it would be a bad idea. But, at least writing it gave me something to do. I need Carlton to tell me to chill. And just shut up and keep on keeping on.
October 20, 2017
James Cole
Virginia Hospital Center
1701 N. George Mason Drive Arlington, VA 22205
Mr. Cole:
The VHC website says: Radiology & Medical Imaging Center at Virginia Hospital Center provides the highest quality diagnostic and interventional radiology services to our patients and referring physicians in a compassionate and professional environment. To perform 170,000 diagnostic imaging services and interventional radiology a year, we integrated the most advanced medical imaging technology.
The Interventional Radiology impressive list services include: advanced vein vare (sic) including venous sclerotherapy, diagnostic angiography, endovascular stent graft repair of thoracic, abdominal & pelvic aneurysms, endovascular stent graft repair of aneurysms, transjugular intrahepatic portosystemic shunts, uterine artery embolization, tubal cannulization (for fertility treatment), kyphoplasty, interventional oncology (including chemoembolization, RF ablation), and thyroid biopsies.
All of those words are wasted because; Interventional Radiology Scheduling does not answer their phone. I spent all afternoon today (10/20/17) trying to schedule an appointment. My doctor’s office also tried. We were only able to leave messages requesting a return call. I left two phone numbers and received zero calls back.
People do not call Intervention Radiology for insignificant procedures. It is not like calling a salon to schedule a pedicure or Dominos to order a pizza.
Before this wasted afternoon, I was feeling good. I had taken action. Gotten the results of an ultra sound and was taking the next step. I would schedule a thyroid biopsy and get on with life.
Good intentions notwithstanding, I couldn’t schedule anything. I have no recourse until with VHC IR until 8AM Monday morning. I am left feeling helpless and annoyed.
Annoyed enough to ask my doctor to send me a copy of the order and find another hospital – and I do have choices in this area – to do the biopsy and provide any follow up treatments.
This evening I am embarrassed to call VHC “My Hospital”.
/signed/
PS: The ultra sound people were super. They answered the phone, had me in for an appointment and the results were back to my doctor in less than 24 hours.
Took 4 different busses today to get to work to the doctor and back home. Since I have a “Senior Bus Pass”, I think all this riding around cost me $2.70.
As you can see from the 25B riders above – it has cooled off nicely here.
The Nurse Practitioner has me getting an ultrasound of my neck tomorrow at 0710. Not hugely inconvenient – if I get on that 25B bus 0635 and if the 52 bus that I transfer to is on schedule – I make it with 4 minutes to spare. Do you think maybe I should take an earlier bus? We’ll see. Google says I should get on the 0612 bus. Maybe I should listen to Momma Google.
Suspect that my Halloween departure to Kona may be in jeopardy.
Caught some of Bush Junior’s speech today. Did you ever think that we would admire a George W speech? That it would be considered logical, intelligent, and even elegant?
Went out to find butterflies. No luck, Hopefully, this fine fennel will reseed itself.
Last Friday wasn’t my finest ever day. Lost glasses, expected dental problems and the hygienist found an enlarged lymph node in my neck. Well, the dental problems were fixed. The glasses replaced. But, the most troubling thing remains – the lymph node.
Today, I did the grownup thing. Made an appointment to see my nurse practitioner tomorrow afternoon. I know that she will be as clueless as I am about the cause. I am prepared to postpone my trip (I guess) if testing is required to rule out something really serious. This sort of comes under the “don’t ask questions you don’t want answered” rule.
Don’t want to go down that rabbit hole, but…
Had a lovely dinner out on the patio this evening. We have heaters so 65 degrees is fine – especially if one is all sweatered up. Sometimes I get very frustrated living here with 500 of my closest friends. But, it is really nice to get away from myself and my own poor company and be with friends. No need to call, text, email or facebook – just go down to dinner at 1815 and there is good company. And if you a lucky good food too.
Think it is going to be an early night tonight. I seem to be slowing down these days. Of course, I did get up at 0445 this morning. But, I am just feeling creakier and wearier. It is taking more coffee and ibuprofen to keep me functional.
Trying to avoid anything remotely political these days. But, I notice at The Orange Lord seems to be gearing up for a donnybrook with John McCain. He doesn’t seem to realize that people with terminal cancer are absolutely fearless. And congress is in dire need of absolutely fearless these days.
Been trying to use Safari since I updated to High Sierra. It is just different from Chrome – my browser of choice for the last 8 years or so. It uses the funky Touch Bar, a not very useful part of newer MacBook Pros. It has a built in “Text” mode which I rather like. And, it does a good job of killing off zombie-like tracking ads.
I may try to use Safari on my iPads too. Speaking of iPads. I decided that the Facebook App on my iPad Pro was sucking too much battery and doing goodness knows what “in the background” – so, I deleted it. The Pro is big enough to use the browser version. Maybe facebook is doing to our minds what it was doing to my iPad????
Note to Carlton: You are not missing anything at all here on Planet Earth. The Nats are still breaking hearts, The Skins are still suspect, golf is still boring and your tennis courts are fine. Also, I haven’t done anything crazy with your money. Oh yes, it is still “your” money. I’ll let you pay for my room in Hawai’i this winter. Other than that, I am “self supporting through my own contributions”.
Oh one more thing Carlton, remember that Fitbit that you scoffed at. The one I bought the spring before you died? Well, yesterday, I got an email telling me that I have logged 5,500 miles since April 2014. Not too shabby for a creaky old woman. I’d say that the Fitbit was successful retail therapy and was the Olympus OMD – the rest not so much.
And you readers might think I am crazy, writing to Carlton. Don’t tell the Asylum, they will move me off to The Terrarium aka the “memory care unit”.
It was too dark to walk my usual 1.2 miles to the hospital outpost and catch the shuttle bus to the main hospital this morning. I wasn’t afraid of being attacked. I was afraid of falling on wet leaves or acorns that I couldn’t see because it was dark. Can not be too careful with these old bones.
So, I took buses.
Crazy busy day at work. Then I walked home and did zip for the rest of the day.
Another one from yesterday’s butterfly fest…
This is a “whatever happened is what I planned shot”. The Pen F and I were having a hard time with focus. After much hunting, Pen F focused on the flowers. Not the butterfly. Still – an OK shot.
Common Buckeye and Skipper.Monarch – there were two. But they never got close enough to get both in a shot.SkipperCabbage White on my very own rosemary plant
Late this afternoon, I took the Pen F out with the really cheap 300-600mm zoom attached. Trust me it was pretty silly looking. And, it hunted focus like crazy. But, there were butterflies.
I was happy to be shooting something that didn’t complain.
I spent a nice normal day. Catching up on personal chores. Napping. A little yoga. And, this evening I am dining on crab cakes and salad here in the Old Bat Cave.
