First Door on the Left

The good doctor says that they were wrong at the ER. He says I do not have a sprained shoulder. What I have is a pinched nerve in my spine. He gave me Methylprednisolone (which the s/o says will have me speeding my ass off… that’s just great) and, thankfully, some more pain medication. He says if it isn’t better in a week, he’ll want to schedule an MRI.

Perhaps while I’m speeding, I can work up a template for this page that I can stick with for a while.

I’m really looking for some good sites to link to. There seem to be a lot of sites that just regurgitate the day’s news, and while I have nothing against them, they are not really what I’m looking for. I much prefer sites with a more “personal” touch. If that’s what you have, and you’d like me to add a link to your site, please let me know.

It’s a bit after 3 o’clock in the a.m., and I just got another wake up call from the shoulder. I hate to keep whining about this, but damn it hurts. I took a pill and am just waiting for it to numb me out a bit so I can go back to sleep.

I am going in to see my regular doctor at 2:15 this afternoon. I just hope he listens to what I have to say and doesn’t take off on his own agenda like he did last time I went to see him. Whatever happened to the good old days when you could go to the doctor, tell him what was wrong, and he would fix it? I seem to remember that happening when I was younger. Perhaps my memory is a bit foggy. Maybe it has always been like this. It just seems like the medical profession doesn’t care the way it used to. Now, it seems to be all about the money.

The doctors taking care of my dad there toward the end didn’t seem to really give a shit. It was like pulling teeth with pliers to get them to even see him. The hospice nurses were the only ones who seemed to even care. They were wonderful. I really can’t say enough about them or thank them enough. If you’re looking for someplace to donate some money, send some to your local hospice. Most of them work strictly off of donations. You can even write it off your taxes.

Someday, I am going to settle on a color scheme and layout for this page that I like. Right now, though, it is too much fun to play with. Besides, what else have I to do? I’m afraid that if I get a job (fat chance), it will ruin my plans to drive up north at the end of May. Can’t have that, can we?

Well, thanks for visiting and putting up with my whining (if you’ve read this far). I’ll try to go back to sleep now.

Today I slept. After I went to the pharmacy and had the prescriptions filled.

The pharmacist substituted Hydrocodone for the Vicodin. Insurance, you know. Generic is cheaper. The label on the little brown bottle that contains the tablets says “take one tablet by mouth every 4 hours for pain.” I am glad that they stipulated by mouth, because otherwise who knows where I may have tried to insert them?

My other question is how did they make these tablets so they would last exactly four hours? I took a pill this morning, waited 30 minutes for it to kick in, and went to bed. Exactly 3.5 hours later, my shoulder shouted to my brain that it was time for another pill. My brain then woke me up to tell me it was time for another pill. I got up, took another pill, waited another 30 minutes for it to take effect, and went back to bed. Exactly 3.5 hours later, my shoulder shouted to my brain that it was time for another pill….. and so it went.

Shoulder does feel a bit better, though. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to take a pill, fart about for 30 minutes, and go to bed. Productivity. Gotta love it.

Just home from the emergency room. I somehow managed to sprain my left shoulder yesterday. The pain was quite bad, and getting worse, so I decided not to wait until Monday to see the doctor.

When I arrived at the ER, I told them what I had done and my symptons (pain in left shoulder, radiating down left arm). They thought I was having a heart attack, though I told them I wasn’t. They immediately took me back to a room, hooked me up to all kinds of monitors, started an IV and did an electrocardiogram. (Seems like the initials should be ECG, so why do they call in an EKG?) They also drew out four vials of blood.

Four hours later, they decided I had not had a heart attack, but had sprained my shoulder. Didn’t I tell them that when I got there? So they gave me a shot of morphine mixed with something else (I forget what). It made me a bit woozy, though I can’t really tell yet if it has helped the pain. The ER doctor gave me a prescription for some Vicodin and some Ibuprofen.

It’s a good thing the s/o drove me, because they weren’t going to let me drive home after that injection. Home now and going to bed. Hope your Sunday is a good one.

I am somewhat torn between Internet Explorer 6.0 and Netscape 6.2.1. I have both on this computer, and some sites look better on one and some on the other. This page, for example, I think looks much better in Netscape than it does in Internet Explorer. I tried Opera once a while back, and couldn’t get anything to look good in it. Perhaps it has gotten better since then.

I sure don’t feel like a very productive member of society these days. Today, for example, I accomplished absolutely nothing except a trip to the drug store and to Long John Silver’s to pick up dinner. It’s been kind of a do nothing stay at home day anyway. Cloudy and cool. The sun is supposed to shine and it is supposed to warm up tomorrow. Tomorrow is another day. There is always tomorrow, right?

The more I think of my upcoming trip, the more I am looking forward to it. I really do need to get out of this town for a few days. It’s starting to bring me down.

“The dean wanted to explain to his young charges the difference in how boys and girls approach sex. He reached for two glasses of water, an aspirin and an Alka-Seltzer.

With the youngsters watching, the dean dropped the aspirin in one glass. It sank to the bottom as effectively as if were a rock — inert, lifeless. “This is how girls feel about sex,” he said.

Then — plop! — the Alka-Seltzer tumbled into the second glass. It nearly vanished in the sizzle of bubbles that erupted. That, he said, was how boys felt about sex.” (link)

That explains everything. I’ve been an Alka-Seltzer all these years! I know several people of the female persuasion who would not agree with that aspirin thing, though.

The s/o had the day off work today, so we (as he says) “made it official.” We filled out the domestic partner registration form from West Hollywood, California, had it notarized and dropped it in the mail. You would think, however, that after 26+ years it would be about as official as it was going to get, wouldn’t you? Guess not. This country is so backward in so many ways.

To celebrate, we stopped and had dinner at the Black Eyed Pea on the way home. I am stuffed. Now going to watch the evening news and just relax a bit.

New host, new design. Besides, I got kind of bored this afternoon and had to do something! I like the new design. It’s plain and simple, just like me.

If you’re thinking of starting one of these things, or if you have one and are looking for a new hosting service, click on the Dreamhost button over in the left hand column. If you do, and you end up signing up with them, they will give me some money, or a thank you card, or a kick in the pants, or something.

Seems the company the s/o works for (one of the Fortune 500) offers domestic partner benefits. But, we have to register with some municipality somewhere as domestic partners. What, they can’t take our word for it? West Hollywood, California lets you register by mail for something like $20, then they send you a certificate to certify that you are domestic partners. You just have to send them this signed and notarized form. We think we’ll do that, then he can add me to his health insurance and that will be one less thing to worry about as I continue the search for gainful employment.

Pretty day out. Not raining yet, though they say it’s going to probably. They don’t know. I think I’ll get outside and find something to do.

I’m on my new host! Look at the time, would you? Good thing I don’t have to get in up the morning to go to work, huh?

The transfer seems to have gone pretty smoothly. I had one little snag that I couldn’t figure out for the life of me, but I posted a message on the MT support board, and had my answer in less than an hour. I think everything is working now, but if you notice anything that isn’t please let me know. I’d appreciate it!

Yesterday, which is still today to me since I haven’t been to bed yet, I just piddled around in the yard a bit and washed my car. I came in to watch the 6:00 news, and sure enough rain is predicted for tomorrow. Nothing guarantees rain like me washing my car. Also ordered maps from AAA for the great Memorial Day road trip, which doesn’t mean I won’t get lost because I most likely will, but at least I might not get quite so lost as I would have without the maps. They said they would mark out the route for me and if I follow their route I shouldn’t have any problems. They don’t know me and maps!

Off to bed now.

I did it. I set up an account with a new hosting service today. Now it’s just waiting until my domain name gets transferred over to the new host so I can set up my site there. Given my luck so far with this thing, it will probably happen sometime in the middle of the night when I am (or should be) asleep. So there may be a short period of time when this page will not be viewable. (Don’t all express your disappointment at once, now.)

You know, I am somewhat enjoying being the housewife… er, houseperson… around here. I don’t think this house has ever been kept up like this, and I also don’t think it knows quite what to make of it. Today I cleaned both the kitchen and bathroom, vacuumed all the carpets and did three loads of laundry, plus a dishwasher full of dishes. We’re probably going to have to hire a cleaning lady (person?) to come in a couple of times a week when I do go back to work. I don’t know that I could stand to live in an unkempt house again.

I know the cats are loving it, though they both hate the vacuum cleaner. I am being accused of overfeeding them, though if you ask them they will deny it. Giorgio is already supposed to be on a diet. Last visit to the vet, he weighed in at 14.5 pounds and the vet said he needs to lose at least two pounds. Just try telling him that! He’s the messenger, the one Sunshine sends in to talk to me when they think it’s dinner time.

Well, I’m going to try to post this. Wish me luck. Hope it goes!

I worked for two hours on today’s entry. Okay, I’ll admit I took a couple of breaks, but that’s beside the point. Point is, when I went to post it, cgi scripts were not working on my host (again), so it disappeared into cyberspace never to be heard from again. I am not happy. I have lost track of the number of email messages I have exchanged with tech support about this. They keep telling me to be patient, that they are working on a fix. I am almost out of patience. I am on the verge of invoking their 30 day money back guarantee (no questions asked) and moving to a new hosting service. Any recommendations?

I am typing this right now in WordPad. I’ll post it when I am able. The date now is April 21, the time 8:50 p.m. Just in case the date and time at the bottom of the post are different, which they will be.

Anyway, as I said in the lost entry….

I have been giving a lot of thought to that road trip over Memorial Day that I talked about earlier. I have decided I want to do it. Thing is, it is about 1500 miles in each direction and it looks like I’d be doing it alone. The s/o, despite the fact that he has six weeks of vacation coming to him this year, has informed me that he cannot get that week off. I cannot think of anybody else I would want to do this with, so it will likely be just me and the open road.

We have decided it might be a good idea to continue my health insurance from my former employer for another couple of months. You know, just in case anything untoward should happen on the trip. There goes another $203 per month. What? It’s only money.

I talked about a couple of other things, too. Like the weather here in Texas and how impossible it is to predict (especially this time year) and how idiotic the idiots who try to predict it really are (though they do an excellent job of breaking into TV shows and telling you it is storming while it is storming). I’ll not go into that again, since I more or less got it out of my system the first time I typed it. Oh, and how I joined BlogSnobs, so if you arrived here via a BlogSnob link, welcome! And I talked about how in love I am with Movable Type and I think anybody who is doing this and not using that program should really look into it. We’ll not go into all that again, either. I hate repeating myself. Dang host! (If you want to know who they are, email me and I’ll tell you.)

That is all. For now. If you have a great hosting service that you are really happy with and that doesn’t cost a fortune, please let me know about it. Thanks.