ARCHIVES - 1996 to FOREVER

Once again, it was about 02:00 before I went to sleep, and I awoke at 04:00 to check the clock, I guess... don't know why else I would have awoken... and never got back to sleep.

Had a good visit with my doc... annual physical, he pronounced me... older than I was last time.

Not too bad a day at work... I was the runner, and I missed two veins that I shoulda hit. And I'm blaming the needles... we use a certain brand of IV set that lets you pierce the vein and then slip the teflon tube over the piercing metal. And when you hit the vein, blood shows up in the clear plastic sheath. Both of the cases that I missed on, no blood showed up, although I was sure that I was in the vein.

And then, when I removed the set, it bled like I had pierced the vein.

And I got a vein pierced today too....

And the blood work... kinda confused me. It seems that I have a low RBC count.

And my lipids, although OK, were not really improved from last year at all.

And the triglycerides were up, too.

And my LDL-HDL ratio was not very good, even though the total cholesterol was great, like 168 or something like that.

And my PSA was great, too... and the old finger-up-the-ass trick told the doc that my prostate was quite OK.

But the sugar... dammit, that's what's gonna kill me. After nine hours of fasting, it was 129.

And I'm not doing my testing very often... if I did, I would know that I'm being bad more frequently than I think that I am.

I had a bowl of ice cream... a big bowl... last night when I got up at midnight, thinking that would put me to sleep. Heh, wrong on that....

And speaking of sleep, the doc gave me a script for Ambien, the sleep aid... he says that it works really well for the patients that he's used it for. I'm looking forward to that... an appropriate amount of sleep on a regular basis.

We also talked about my leg pain, and the fact that I have to make a decision... have leg pain... or die.

The statins are causing my leg pain... the muscles break down. They are, of course, rebuild regularly... but the process hurts, going both ways.

But they are keeping my cholesterol down... which is allowing me to live.

Decisions, decisions, heh.

An old friend and co-worker was in town today, and I went out with her and some people from work to a local bar. And yes, I did drink some beer, and yes, it was good!

Additionally, I was the only male there, with four beautiful women.

I had a good time, but I only stayed about an hour and a half... not used to beer, y'know?

And I really didn't want to leave, but I did anyway.

Karen is gone to Wichita... I was gonna go, but the more that I thought about it, the more I realized that I would have a lousy time, and make everyone else slow down for me.

The Wichita River Festival starts tonight, and my nephew Jeff will be playing in a jazz band there. And, of course, there are things to do and see all day tomorrow and Sunday... and I realized what a great amount of walking that was going to entail.

And I'm not much of a walker anymore. Not at all.

So... I'm gonna stay here, and try to get some stuff done around here outside... supposed to be a cool but sunny weekend. I need to get an electric string trimmer and get rid of some tall, tall grass....

Y'all have a nice weekend!

"If God only exists in the gaps in our knowledge, why not make lots of room for him by staying as ignorant as possible?"

--Don Baker on the atheist list at yahoo