It is oddly gratifying to say to a medical professional, “I’ve never been the sort of person who bruises easily, but last Monday I weeded the garden, and my arm pressed against the tomato cages a few times, and -” then yank up the sleeve of your shirt to display the result:
(It’s much uglier in person.)
and have the reaction be a pained wince of sympathy rather than a shrug and a “Yeah, we see bruises like that ALL the time.” I got the sympathetic wince from the nurse AND my doctor, thank you very much. Both times, I got to follow up the display of the above arm by saying “Then on Saturday I weeded the rest of the row of tomatoes, and did THIS”, and pull up the other sleeve to show a similarly bruised arm.
I didn’t actually make the appointment so I could show off my bruises. I’d made the appointment a few weeks before when I called and said “If I wanted a referral to an endocrinologist, do I need to come in and see the doctor first?” and of course the answer was “yes.” I had finally decided it was time to stop fucking around with the hormone replacement therapy myself and seek the help of a professional who is not someone who has the “Just slap that goddamn patch on there and shut the fuck up about it” mentality that I suspect my gynecologist has, and decided to start out with my primary care physician since I like her a lot and find her easy to talk to.
She ordered a bunch of blood tests to be done and once the results are back, we’ll decide where to go from there, whether it’s with an endocrinologist or a nurse practitioner she knows who is particularly skilled at figuring out a hormone balance.
Also, she ordered tests to figure out what’s up with the bruising. My prediction is that it’ll end up being either (1) nothing at all, or (2) low iron, because I missed my lab appointment in April (and didn’t realize it until last week) and likely need an iron infusion.
I know what you’re thinking: leukemia. Like that wasn’t the first thing I thought of? Please. I have none of the signs of leukemia and a history of low iron, so probably what it’ll end up being is lung cancer caused by litter dust inhalation.
Have I mentioned I went to the Medical School of Google-ology?
While wandering around the internets last week, I stumbled across this post, and then I laughed and laughed. Because if some woman were hitting on Fred, and her lips hit his ear, he would respond in one of the following ways:
1. Freezing in terror
2. Screaming and then giggling like a 6 year-old because he is ticklish
He would not, as his wife might HOPE, spring away from the offending flirter and bellow “UNHAND ME MADAME, FOR I AM MARRIED AND DEEPLY IN LOVE* AND REQUIRE NOT THE TOUCH OF YOUR WHORISH LIPS TO MY EAR!” and then furiously splash sanitizer about his face and neck.
A few weeks ago, on the way back from the vet, Fred and I stopped at Walgreen’s so he could buy Stridex pads for Spanky’s zitty chin, and… something else. Something for a cat. I don’t remember what. Oh! The Zantac for the kitten to quell her nausea. So he left the car running, and me in the car with the cats in the back, and I waited. And I waited. And I waited some more, and then I hit the “JESUS GODDAMN FUCKING CHRIST IS THIS ROCKET SCIENCE WHAT THE FUCK IS TAKING SO LONG” wall, and I went stomping into Walgreen’s to see what the fuck.
He was meandering up toward the front of the store, his Stridex pads and off-brand Zantac in hand, and I snarled “What the fuck?!” and he mumbled about something being hard to find, and he went to stand in line while I stood and perused the sales flyer. As he reached the front of the line, I went to join him, and the cashier -an adorable college-aged girl – said “Good afternoon! How are you?”
Fred said, “Great! How are you?”**
She smiled hugely and said “Much better now that you’re here!”
And I wanted to laugh out loud, because he froze in terror, and the alarm bells in his head were clanging so loud that I could hear them and his internal alert system was wailing WARNING! WARNING! DANGER! WIFE IS IN VICINITY! WILL MOCK MERCILESSLY! ABORT! ABORT!, and I knew he was THIS close to tossing the boxes of Stridex and Zantac-alike over his head and running for the door.
But he just gave her a strained smile, paid for his purchases, and high-stepped out of there as fast as he could.
*Fred was talking to our next door neighbor last week, and in the course of their conversation she told him that it was clear that he and I are deeply in love. “How can she tell THAT?” I pondered after he’d told me. “Maybe she saw that one time I gave you a hug on the way back from the back forty, before you sprung away from me bellowing ‘NO PUBLIC DISPLAYS OF AFFECTION!'” In any case, it amused both of us for some reason.
**These days when Fred and are somewhere and someone says “Hi, how are you!”, we invariably chorus “Great! How are you?” It’s not a deliberate cutesy-pie thing we do, but I fear that it comes across that way. The other day Fred turned to me and said “You need to find something else to say, COPYCAT.” Also, can I request that we banish the whole “Hi, how are you!” bullshit from strangers? Because honest to christ, they DO NOT TRULY CARE how I am. If I start saying “Oy, my hemorrhoids are killing me!” often enough, will they stop?
Fightin’ Bookworms.
Jake, Reacher, and Corbett snuggle up.
I think all my Bookworms are beautiful, but there’s something about Corbett’s caramel-colored belly and striking dark stripes that appeals to me an awful lot. He’s particularly gorgeous, that one.
It’s just too bad that he’s a BAD BAD BOY. When Fred gets up and gets ready for work, one of his tasks is to put the collars on all the cats who require them, and then open the back door. Recently, we’ve both been finding Corbett outside several times during the course of the morning. We react by flinging open the door and telling him to come inside, and then when he gets inside the door, we spray a blast of compressed air at him to scare him further into the house. He runs into the house, but it isn’t long before he’s back out the door again.
Finally, on Saturday, I came up with a plan. Any time we found Corbett outside, we’d pick him up, put him in the guest bedroom, and give him a “time out” for ten minutes. Oh, how Corbett DOES NOT LIKE being locked in the guest bedroom AT ALL. He would howl and howl at the door, “Let me OUT of here! I want out! Oh, release me from this dungeon with a big, comfy bed and my own litter box and all the food and water I could ever want! Let me out! OUT I SAY!”
We’d steel ourselves against the pitiful howling, and at the ten minute mark (or thereabouts), we’d let him out, and OH the joy on his little face. He’d purr and purr and rub up against us, and follow us wherever we went until we picked him up and reassured him that we loved him.
After three days of time outs, I can report that yesterday, he didn’t even go near the back door. I’m not saying that the problem is over, I’m sure he’ll test us a few more times, but if I can convince him that he wants to stay inside, I’ll worry about him a little less.
Jake went running into the foster room yesterday when I went in to hang out with the Rescuees. Gavin, Garrity, and Franco were mildly interested in Jake, and they sniffed at him. Garrity smacked at Jake’s ears a little.
Sheila, though. Sheila went ::FLOOF!:: and just stood there, in her floofed-up glory, and glared at Jake. Who wasn’t paying any attention to her at all.
Jake hung out with the Rescuees for about fifteen minutes before they overwhelmed him, and he growled at them and asked to be let out of the room.
I think the Rescuees are still a bit too small to let out into General Population just yet, but it won’t be too much longer.
Sheila will be one busy little girl, having to show ALL those big cats just who the boss is!
“I am but a poor wee kitteh!”
“No, I am but a poor wee kitteh!”
“You’re both wrong – I am but a poor wee… Okay. Not even I believe that one. I’m a butt-kicking bad girl, and big kitties cower at the sight of me!”
“I don’t cower at the sight of you, little girl, and you do NOT want to mess with Sheriff Mama!”
Previously
2009: Sights from around Crooked Acres.
2008: I suggest that you expect entries to be incredibly light on content for the foreseeable future.
2007: No entry.
2006: No entry.
2005: No entry.
2004: I need to invest in shirts that are low in the back so I can show off my badass scar.
2003: I’m about to enter the PMS Zone
2002: What I’ve done since Thursday
2001: No entry.
2000: God help me, I’m going to go upstairs and strangle Spanky if he doesn’t stop that infernal fucking howling.