It's a Writing Thing

So today, I visited the orthopedist.

New doctor, new specialist. (can I just say: this is getting really annoying)

Dr. U, a lovely older gentleman with white hair and a total air of oldtimey country doctor examines my shoulder (and by examine, I mean manipulates and makes me do things that HURT), then looks at the MRI films.

"You have a swelling!" he says.

"Yes, I know."

"Huh." he says (I'm totally paraphrasing, mind you). He peers at the films and re-reads the MRI report. "It says here 'mild tendinitis'...but (there's always a 'but')...looks like you may have some small spurs/degeneration of the somethingsomething bone where it meets the shoulder (and by "somethingx2" he meant the collarbone). He perks up.

"Let's give you a couple of shots!" (really amazing just how fascinated he was by this)

He continues: "So, the nurse will come in and I'm going to give you a shot right here (points to top of shoulder) and one right here (points to outside of shoulder). In order to get it here (place #2), the nurse will pull on your arm so I can get the needle underneath."

I nod, just wanting to get this over with. Then it hits me - he said "underneath" as in: between the socket and the ball of the shoulder into the rotator cuff. OWIE!

"Oh, and by the way," he says, brightly. "I'm going to inject you with cortisone and an anesthetic, so that you should be able to feel the difference right away."

The nurse did indeed come in and they did indeed inject me twice. Let's just say, I've had much easier shots.

The anesthetic worked, so he knows they injected me in the right place. Thing is, it's worn off now and the cortisone will take some days to work. I repeat: OWIE!!

Prognosis: the shots should reduce swelling and keep taking Aleve for a while. Check in with him in a week.

In conclusion: Getting old is really not for the young...but perhaps maybe for the wicked. ::g::

I'm in t-shirt sleeves, because the temps here today are in the mid-to-high 60s. OTOH, my folks in San Antonio are suffering from a cold front, which dropped their temps to below freezing. Jeebus!

I'm at work, because we're staggering our winter holidays - with half the company here today, and the other half on President's Day. It's fairly unstressful, because many of our clients are not working. I like it like this. :)

In a bit, I go to get an MRI on my left shoulder. It's been paining me for quite some time and I finally went to the doc about a week and a half ago. I did the Xray fine, but when I tried the regular closed MRI, I absolutely lost it. Evidently, I'm extremely claustrophobic. My appointment is with an open MRI place near Shirlington. Wish me luck. :)

Rome: wasn't built in a day, and OMG it's making me have to go get HBO again. I was going to keep my cable service at minimum digital, but noooo, only takes one episode of Rome and the subsequent fannish squee to make me want to order it again*. Seems like Comcast ordering department is taking the holiday, so I won't be able to upgrade until tomorrow. Thank goodness for On-Demand. I did, however, order the DVD set for Season 1.

Miscellaneous:
Article re: James Purefoy getting naked

Slings & Arrows Article








* Of course, re-ordering HBO has absolutely nothing to do with astolat writing Vince/Eric...nope, not at all...

I'm still ticking, still just fine. Doc visit on Friday yielded nothing but a bit of anemia, a sinus infection and a request to follow up with more bloodwork. Uhm, seriously, I *write* about vampires, I don't want to hang out with them. ::g::

Thanks to all of you that sent me get-well wishes, it was a crazy crazy week last week!

I spent the weekend fighting with Word, trying to get my edits back to my editor. Seems like the stupid "track changes" function wanted to just remove chunks, when I hit "accept all changes". ARRGH. I ended up spending nearly three hours having to go change by change and accepting them individually. Sigh.

Note to self: never use "track changes" on a manuscript EVER again.

Watched Transamerica on Sunday (yay Netflix) and enjoyed it immensely. Spent the rest of the day vegging.

This week will be full of work stuff that I need to get done before Friday b/c yay, Con.Txt!! In my infiinte not-wisdom, I reserved a room for me and bheerfan for Friday and Saturday nights, not realizing that I probably wanted to come stay on Thursday. (yes, yes, I know, I did this LAST year, too. The brain, she is losing it.) So in any case, I'll be there first thing on Friday morning. Looking forward to hanging with folks I rarely get to see in person and meeting new folks.

Now that my edits to Matters are done (at least until I get more feedback), I'll be concentrating on Book 2 - which I believe I'm going to go back to calling Blood Bargain. I've screwed around with titles and I really like this one best. I've already done a lot of preliminary work, notes, etc. - filling in holes about Keira's world, how things work, etc. Now I get to the tough and most exciting part - writing the damned thing. I have about 35,000 words from a previous incarnation of which I can salvage most of it, but really, it's the sitting down and doing it. Ah well, the trials and tribulations of authors. ::g::

If I don't post again, catch many of you at Con.Txt!!

...but I sure am sick like she is.


No, not in the whole "I'm twisted" way, just in the sneezing, hacking, OMG how can one human cough so much kind of way.

I thought it was just a cold, but after 6 days of this, I went to the doc this a.m.

I'm just going to say: you piss me off once, I'll write it off as you having a bad day.

Do it twice, (and I've ONLY ever been there twice), you LOSE.

This doc, whom I call Doogie, b/c he's way younger than me, proceeds to get all pissy because I never came back to see him after my 1st visit 2 years ago, when I had flu. He wanted to do a physical, because hey, guess what, I'm a big woman, and god forbid I might actually be healthy (except for the flu).

He mentioned this today, when doing the thumping of the chest thing. I told him I'd had a full workup in October by my gyn. He's all, I didn't mean a female checkup. I kindly corrected him, explaining I had a full physical/blood workup, etc. prior to my day surgery. He then grumbled that it takes an internist to interpret that, not a gyn. So - WTF? He's implying that my gyn (who is in his early 60s) is less of a doctor? And dude, interpret what? All my bloodwork is NORMAL - as in, I'm not diabetic. I have normal blood pressure, normal cholesterol and am not at risk for heart disease because I'm NORMAL. Yes, I fall in the obese category in modern (and IMHO incorrect tables), but that alone doesn't mean I'm a candidate for death.

And since when do docs get grumpy at a patient for this kind of thing? My take is a good doctor is a good doctor, and if gyn saw something funky, he'd have told me to see a primary care doc. (which he did not, because I saw the test results and he explained them quite carefully)

So today, I got a cursory exam and scrips for amoxicillin and codeine cough syrup because I have a sinus infection (which I'd figured). Just a few minutes ago, I went to take a dose of the syrup, because codeine puts me out like a light. The dosage on the label: 5 ccs every 12 hours - which is what in teaspoons - because although I may agree the metric system is much more logical, I don't have a handy-dandy metric measuring item around. ARRGH.

I managed to look it up online (after some false starts) and figured out it's about 1 teaspoon. Why the hell didn't he just write the scrip that way?

Why yes, I'm grumpy. And yes, a new goal for me is to find a new primary care doc - one that respects his patients.

ETA: OMG - In my foggy haze of coughing/congestion, I *totally* forgot to thank all of you that posted such nice things about my recent book review. Mea culpa!! Thanks so much - I'm still kvelling.