ARCHIVES - 1996 to FOREVER

Got wakened by a call this morning... at 10:20.

Yep, I got to sleep all night.

I got to come home about 13:00 and took a shower, and then went back to do a contrast exam on a patient who'd eaten breakfast. We have to wait six hours after the last solid food before we can do contrast exams.

Anyway, I sent for the patient, and I had the radiologist there waiting. And about 20 minutes after the patient *should* have been there, the floor called, and told me that the pulmonologist was doing a procedure to drain fluid from the patient's lungs. So the radiologist left to go to the other hospital, said he'd call when he was done over there.

Yeah, we have to have the radiologist present to do a contrast exam. They all bitch about that rule, but it's their rule, I don't know why they just don't change it instead of whining about it. But they don't.

So I clocked out about 15:00. Got a mile down the road when the pager went off. Dammit. Called on my cell, it was the ER. I had checked in with them before I left, of course. Had a CT head to do.

Turned around, went back, did the exam. headed home:15:45. My relief was supposed to come on at 16:00. But... she'd called in sick Thursday night, remember? So I called her. Home: no answer. Left a message. Cell: no answer. Left a message.

Got home. I was there about five minutes when the phone rang.

She'd got my message, and she was feeling fine and planning on going in.

So. The weekend call is now officially over!

And Karen is home from KC, and it's only 18:22... and I'm ready to go back to bed now. But it's still light outside! Well, OK, I'll wait for the dark. I'll just go work on some music.

19:13...
There has been a change in my life.

Yep. Karen wants me to grow the hair back on my face and head.

So I'm giving it a try again.

I started not shaving on Thursday, and so far, so good. I'm still shaving my upper lip and the back of my neck, though. and my lower lip, kinda.

People who don't know me will probably think that the chemotherapy is over and that I'm hoping for a remission of whatever it might be.

People who do know me will thing, "Crazy Doug, doesn't know *what* he wants to look like" or maybe "About damned time!"

I will still be me anyway.

And, since I'm growing hair again, I was thinking about the picture of Ben Franklin on the fifty-dollar bill. Fashionable shoulder-length hair, but no beard. And I'm thinking of Lincoln on the fiver, with that beard and no mustache. Put them together, and in a year-and-a-half, I will look like that.

I can't grow a mustache because of the C-PAP, so that's out until someone comes up with a different mask.

I will probably defer to Karen on matters of fashion, though. But I do wanna be kinda counter-cultural, that being my wont.