Taking Charge

Okay, now that the doctor appointments are done for Rob for a month, I’ll post an update on it all. On the 30th, he had a follow up for his eye. The verdict is that it looks a lot better, but not completely gone yet, we’ll see what it looks like in another month. Until then, keep hot packing and taking the antibiotic. No problem! We can handle that.

Tuesday was dual appointment day for him. The first was a dental appointment where-in he had an initial exam and several x-rays done. He did not see the dentist, however, he was seen by the hygienist. That went well, he goes back on the 11th of September to see the actual Dentist and see where it goes from there. Shouldn’t be too bad, since they seem to have a higher level of intelligence than the last one he saw.

Tuesday afternoon, he had to see his regular physician. I’d been monitoring his blood sugar level daily since it was over 200 on 2 different compassions. I printed out the listing at the library and gave it to the nurse for the doctor to look at. His assessment, “You’re diabetic. Want to start the meds today or do the blood work first?” We opted for blood first, that way there wouldn’t be multiple changes when it came in. So Wednesday he went and had blood drawn, was told the results would be back in a week.

Last night, however, the phone rang. Twas the nurse with the results. Rob is now on diabetic medication and cholesterol medication, along with his fluid pill and antibiotic. Sucks to be him! At least we caught the problem now, rather than later.

made by blizzardskies

I was ambitious today. Seriously. I made Italian bread (in the bread machine, yes I am a cheater) and it turned out SO good. I’ve failed at simple white bread, I’ve failed at simple wheat bread, but my Italian bread came out almost perfect. It didn’t cave in for a change and it didn’t come out super heavy and yeasty. It’s a bit denser than I like, but it tastes absolutely fantastic. After the bread was out, I got dinner started. Whole roasted chicken with a light coating of olive oil just to get it crisp. To go with it was boxed (yep, cheated again) stuffing and instant (I cheat, sue me!) mashed potatoes with real, made from the chicken drippings, gravy.

I have been asked if I’m alright more times than I can count and I don’t understand why. I know I haven’t been posting much on livejournal lately, but there really isn’t a whole lot to post about. I get up, I do crap around the house, I futz around on the computer, I read, I watch TV, I play games, I go to bed and start all over again most of the time. Thusly, that is why there is usually only one ‘real’ update sometimes. So that’s the deal.

I’ve been monitoring blood sugar levels every few days for myself. My levels are super good, ranging in the 90’s, which is really great, considering they were afraid I was borderline diabetic. Meh. Rob’s levels are still high, but he’s going to the doctor sooner rather than later. Mom’s is a the high end of normal, so we’re not too worried.

I think that covers anything of interest.

Today was not Epic Fail, just a waste of time. Well, this morning was at least. We got a call last night in the middle of a thunderstorm from the dental office I took Rob to before the eye crap started up again, asking us to come in for a consultation because they had finally gotten the information on our insurance. So I tell her we can do it tomorrow (today) and we set the time for 10:30, since it’s about a 45 minute drive and I had to take meds and eat first.

So we get there a few minutes early, sat and watched the Fox News until they called us in. We go back and find out the news. What they want to do is going to cost us $10k. Wtf? I really don’t think so. Especially since they want to break and restructure his jaw. I really think not. So we’re now investigating other possibilities. We’ll see what happens with them.

Err.. the rest of this post will be written later, it’s storming and I’m going off line.

Okay, lets dive into this head first! Tuesday afternoon I called Rob’s eye doctor because I really did not like the look of his eye at all and he only does procedures on Wednesday. His appointment was scheduled for Thursday, though, and I knew he was going to need to have procedure and waiting another week was not a good idea, since it looked horrible and he works with people. Anyway, I call around 12:30 and get a call back around 4:30, explain to the doctor’s assistant what’s going on and why I called. She looked to see if there was an opening and luckily there was. Someone had cancelled out. Whew. So we snatched that appointment and that was that.

Wednesday we get there at 10:30 for his appointment, get taken back almost immediately and all that stuff. We came out at almost noon. Long story short and non-disgusting, he had 4 procedures done, a lot of anesthesia was administered and a lot of nastiness was taken care of. It’s still not back to normal, he’s still got a lot left to deal with. Probably at least one more procedure day to deal with. I really hope that that’s all it will be, cuz this is honestly getting to be tiresome and expensive.

I picked up a OneTouch Ultra Mini glucose monitor the other day, since Mom is supposed to be checking her levels daily and I’m supposed to be checking mine regularly as well. I am very happy to say that my levels are in the low end of the normal range. Mom’s are in the high end of the normal range. Rob’s however, is high. We’ll be watching his closer to see if it was a fluke or not. I’m hoping it was, but if it’s not, he’ll be having himself ratted on when he goes to the doctor next month. In fact, I set up a spreadsheet to chart all three of us and plugged in the numbers from all the tests done so far.

Friday, was uneventful, outside of writing articles for Associated Content and listening to the 24 hours of iPhone. Saturday was.. interesting. It started out well enough with me checking lj and email and stuff. I was working on some research and having an interesting chat about BBS days when everything suddenly disconnected. I figured it was a small outage. It happens from time to time. An hour later, it was still down so I call tech support, figuring if it’s an outage, they’ll know, otherwise we can figure out the problem. It was an outage alright. It ended up being a 32 hour outage. Seems that they had a piece of equipment fry at their main hub that took out DSL and Dial-up for the entire coverage area.

So, what did I do without Internet? I read a book. I finally finished Blood Noir. I had a really hard time getting into this one. I usually dive into Anita books like the world will end if I don’t. I enjoyed it overall, but I really don’t like the books that are character-centric. I like Jason, but I don’t think now was the right time for a book focusing on his issues. Especially since she seems to have made it so that Jason replaces Richard as Anita’s wolf. I love Richard, and Jean-Claude. I prefer the books that they are more heavily involved in. I was also disappointed by how forced the book seemed. Like Laurell was pushing herself to get it done so she could get rid of it. There are a lot of holes and unanswered questions. It just seemed like the last few chapters were forced out to get it done. I went back at one point to see if I’d missed a couple pages because it went from Anita and Jason in the hotel getting hit with a tranquilizer grenade to them being somewhere else and no explanation as to any of it. I mean, yeah they wouldn’t know much of how they got there, but there was no real answers as to who all was involved other than the servant of a Vampire Master. The other thing that bothered me was the prominence of the Ardeur, again, after it hadn’t been so prominent. I hope that this isn’t going to be the way of future books.

So yeah, I enjoyed it, but not nearly as much as other books in the series. Next up, I have Kitchen Witch to read, then it SHOULD be the last Twilight book. So that covers much of my weekend. Tonight was spent catching up on LJ, E-mail and stuff while watching Big Brother 10, Design Star and Food Network Star. Now, however, it is bedtime after I do one quickie task that needs to be done tonight.

I keep coming back to looking at treadmills that I’d like to have in my home. I know that when I go back to the doctor Monday, she’s going to tell me to walk more. I would, but I know my limits. I know the only way that I could possibly walk as much as I need to is to have a treadmill in my house.

Sucks not having space to have one. Meh.

Okay, so showering when you have back problems is never any fun, especially if you have a slippery tub shower, rather than a shower stall. It’s so easy for your feet to go out from under you and hurt yourself. This is especially true for older people as well, which is why it is so dangerous for them. One thing that you can do to keep the older people in your life safe is make sure that they have a shower stool of some sort so that they can sit while they shower.

I know that I will have one in my home sooner rather than later, so that I don’t have to worry about my mother falling in our shower. She isn’t as steady on her feet as she used to be.

One of the things that I’ve always done since I’ve had Internet access at home is to research anything that someone says to me. For instance, If someone says that they have a certain health condition, like mesothelioma, I will go learn as much as I can about the condition before discussing it with them. I have the need to educate myself about everything that I can.

However, I have let this slip to the wayside when it comes to my own personal health. This annoys me to no end because I know more about what’s going on with the people around me than I know about what’s going on with myself.

Sometimes I wonder if the medical professionals, or scientific researchers, or whomever have too much time on their hands. Every day there is something new to look at. For instance, the latest is lipovox. Some people blame it on the fact that your are made to feel like you fit into a cookie cutter mold. It sucks, but that’s the way life is. Until the stereotypes are gone, there will be too many cures for problems that don’t really exist.

The big rage these days is to send everyone who has the slightest problem with drugs and alcohol to rehab for 30 days. They seem to expect that the person will come out all fixed. I don’t agree. I think that 30 days for alcohol rehab is ridiculous. Drugs and alcohol aren’t even out of your system after 30 days, so what kind of real progress can be made in that time?

They do a follicle test and can go back at least 3 months, so, suffice it to say there’s no point in a 30 day rehab. I say, one year minimum. I really do think that people need to look at rehab a lot more seriously to solve drug and alcohol problems. It’s not a quick fix and it needs to stop being billed as one.

I have never really suffered migraines, but I know several people who have. I know just how debilitating they can be for the sufferer. I also know that they can last for days at a time sometimes.

Now, with that being said, I’m always watching the news stories and health news for the latest advances. One thing that caught my eye was the information that says you can use Botox for migraines. I find this quite odd and I’m really wary, since botox is generally thought of to be used for vanity purposes.

I think that if it can help, that’s great. People shouldn’t have to suffer from migraines.