Not What I Expected

Picking up the prescription: world-class stupid marketing

I went to the pharmacy this morning, because I had called in prescriptions last Friday, and they said they would be ready for today. Yes, I think waiting that many days for a refill is pretty poor service, but the last time I tried to have the prescription mailed to me, it never showed at all, and previous to that, it took over two weeks. This is the same place that will only refill a prescription when you have ten or fewer days left of the medication.

So, I show up and wait in line. The pharmacy has finally created separate lines for "called in/used the website" prescription fills, vs people who just show up to get their prescription filled. That's one point in their favour, but I want to see how that works when there are bunches of people there, and not enough clerks. The trouble is, I don't want to actually have to take part in the experiment.

I get to a clerk, and after checking the bin, he tells me that they lost one of the prescriptions, so I had to wait for them to do a refill. Whee. I sit down and wait fifteen minutes for my name to be announced.

I tried to pick up my prescriptions, I really did. But I was told that since one was new (the one they lost--this is a prescription I've been taking for over a year) I had to go talk to the consulting pharmacist. And of course, there's a line over there, too.

After listening to the conversations before mine--the HIPAA people can now come after me for having excellent hearing and a low boredom threshold, and I was standing where I was supposed to stand, but if half the conversation is going to be at 125dB, everyone is going to hear it--I finally get a chance to talk to the pharmacist. Well, yes, there's a note on the prescription that I can either take it all at once, or split it into two doses. No, I take it all at once. I've been taking it like that for over a year now. No, it's not a new prescription, it's just when the refill was lost, the system they had tagged it as "new". Oh, okay--never mind, then. And he hands over the prescription bottles.

And on the lid of the prescription that was lost, and then erroneously tracked to consulting, there was a sticker: "Save time next time by calling in your prescription!"

Somehow, I don't think so.....

Frozen as a heart betray'd

Okay, maybe I tempted the weather gods way too much when I kept complaining that I had a bunch of clothes from my "mid-winter in Seattle" wardrobe that I hadn't been able to wear for a year. It can stop being cold now. And it can certainly stop sleeting now.

And yes, sleet has a different crystalline structure from snow, but when an inch of that drops on downtown San Jose in just over an hour, it just doesn't matter that much.

And speaking of a return to winter, I suggested to a friend of mine who needed to do some some set-up work for the coming eclipse that he visit Arizona. And so off he went last weekend. A couple of the locals commented that if he waited a week, the weather would be better. He told them that I had said, nope, the rain was coming in. They laughed, and pointed out it hadn't rained for close to six months.

Yesterday, it started raining in Arizona. In fact, at one point, every county in Arizona had some sort of weather warning, whether it was a flood warning or a snow warning. In fact, a good chunk of the low desert area ended up getting record precipitation for a 24 hour period.

Chuq said this is all due to my not attending Spring Training this year. Me, I think I'll lay low on my next trip to Arizona. I figure they might have a couple of questions for that woman from California who can tell them what their weather's going to be a week in advance.

(technorati tags: weather, snow,rain)

As long as we're not following trends...

There seems to be a backlash against the movie "Sideways", and a bunch of the food writers and pundits are now drinking and talking about Cabernet Francs and Merlots.

Me, I've skipped straight ahead to old-growth Zinfandels. Take that, trendy ones!

I'm afraid they've outlawed red hair....

Well, you'd think, given my trouble purchasing an auburn eyebrow pencil. My trip to Yosemite, and multiple days sweating at 10K ft had bleached my eyebrows to Mats Sundin level blondeness. I really have no interest in going around looking like a Boticelli got loose, so off to find some brow colour while things grow back in.

My current hair colour is slightly brighter than auburn, which for those of you who must know, is darn close to the original specs. I spent the first years of my life as a blazing redhead. Boy, talk about "goin' sanny" in a hurry.

So, when I get some colour in my brows, I'd like to get something close to my hair colour. However, the local stores appear to disagree--it's various shades of ash brown to black or nothing. Given that, I'd rather stay with the blonde and put up with a rather odd "salt and pepper"-ish grow-out.

Luckily, the local Aveda seems to understand that 1. life doesn't start at rose beige, and 2. Some of us don't fit into the "California blonde" model. After a quick "oh, I see your problem", we dug through the colour trays and found something appropriate.

I was so happy, I picked up a lipstick, as well. In copper. Take that, ashy-hair hegemony!

t-mobile takes the money and runs

Last year I was using Starbucks a lot more often for wifi access, and I decided to buy a pack of accesses from t-mobile. Well, I stopped needing such for awhile, and then today I found myself in need of access.

No such luck--it didn't take my account and login. I finally got to another place to check and see what was up with the account name and such (note--t-mobile, if someone can't log in to your service, telling them you'll email them a password change is less than useful), and I find out that they've closed my account!

Nowhere on the site does it talk about "you don't use for n months and we close it out", especially since I had bought a pack of access (an option no longer available, I note). I guess t-mobile felt they could just take the unused funds and run like the wind.

Reminds me why I ditched them when I last changed phones--they're definitely not interested in my business--just my money.

Theme Day!

I had a bunch of medical appointsments all end up on the same day. Some of this was due to planning on my part--why keep driving over to the medical center if I could get a couple of things done at once? And one, the *Return of the Epidural* just happened to get scheduled for the last slot that day.

First up, the nurse practicioner to review the current meds. I arrived to a parking lot in utter chaos, and when I came in the lobby, the place was crawling with people who just didn't seem to know where they should be. I knew where I should be, though, and headed upstairs.

After getting the usuals checked out, and getting the okay to move one prescription to nighttime, the NP asked me if I was going to get my flu shot that day. Aha! I told her not this week, because one, I was headed out of town later in the week, and the shots always make me sleepy for one day, and two, I had a quarterly blood test and epidural that day, and darn it, there's only so much fun one person can have!

She winced and wished me good luck.

Off to the blood taking. I have been asked by the nice people at Kaiser to please use one of the major facilities to get my blood taken. I usually need to have someone with experience in either pediatrics or geriactrics to properly hit a vein and get the multiple tubes. My current record for dry "sticks" is five in one session, which lead to a lab tech who was on the verge of hysteria, and my arms looking like someone had gone after me with a rubber hose.

So, 15 minutes later, I'm making the left arm available for this quarter's extravaganza. Then I noticed the needle. Wrong needle--adult gauge. I was pointing this out to the tech when he assured me he was going to hit a vein, and slammed the effing thing in.

Oh, he hit the vein all right. He tore it such a nice hole that the sub-skin seepage started immediately, and when he pulled the needle, the wound just kept on bleeding.

I always find it interesting when the lab tech acts like it's a personal affront that *I'm* bleeding and bruising. Hey Chuckles--there's a reason there are tabs all over my lab folder! It took about 10 min for things to settle down to the point where I was able to get up and leave w/o freaking everyone else out. But I already had the nicely spreading dark purple stain in the pit of my elbow, and it promised to be a lovely mess in a day.

So, a couple hours with repeats of the ice-gel bag, and it was time to go to the anesthesiologist for the epidural. He checked out my back, we went through what I was doing (everything is correct, it's just that the cartilage is a mess), and after a "oh, so spinal headaches are independent events for each epidural" discussion, it was time to bend over and get the beast.

No matter how much local you get on the skin and in the injection site, epidurals are painful. Amazingly painful. This from the woman whose tolerance for pain is legendary at Kaiser. But nothing to do but breathe and bite the effing pillow.

Then the "huh". Okay--what's up. I can feel everything (oh boy, can I), so it's not spinal related. Then he said--"stay still--you're bleeding, and I can't get it to stop". Okay, here's a problem--while I can put my arm up in the air to try and lessen the pressure on the veins in my arm, I can't exactly elevate my lumbar vertebrae independently of the rest of me. So, he's swabbing and swearing, and I'm trying to remember what colour underwear I had on that day (you think of the weirdest things--mine was I was *never* going to get the stain out if I wore something light). He then told me he was going to have to put some pressure on the injection point, and it was going to hurt. Any worse than the repeated Kyle McLaren butt-checks into the boards I'd just had? Bring it on!

Nope, that was just a "put a load of pinpoint pressure on a rapid expanding lower back bruise". The bleeding finally settled down, and he taped me up but good, telling me that I was going to look like I had major surgery on my back. I told him no worries--looked like it was a theme day, and showed him the large plum-coloured heaps o' fun in the pit of my left elbow, and pointed out that was just due to an adult butterfly being used.

At that point he changed his demeanor. I have to tell you, this doctor and I give each other large amounts of good-natured shit. And I understand his p-chem jokes. The guy basically deals with people in various amounts of pain for a living, so there's a lot of sick humour going down for those who are in that space.

But having a patient who he already knows has a connective tissue problem show an aspect of that in front of him, that's a different deal. And telling him that I've been here all my life, so I don't know anything different--that didn't do scads of good. He felt like he blew it. Given the size of needle you need to have for an epidural, it was a miracle nothing had been ticked before now.

So, an evening with the ice gel bag on my back and one on my arm (what, you thought I had only one?), and a week later, the worst of the discolouration is gone. I did find out that the injection point is still a little sensitive when I put some capsacin cream on the area. OMG.

Next time I'll spread out the fun over a couple of weeks instead of a couple of hours.

Winter Weather Forecast via the "fluffy cat" method

If we go by the state of Archie's coat, the SF Bay area is in for a cold, wet winter. His undercoat of fluff is thick and dense, and his water-resistant overcoat is *long*. So long that it's reaching down to the floor. He's looking positively bearish as we wanders around here. He also has significant fur growth between the toes.

Given it's an event if this area goes below freezing for more than one night, I'm not sure what he's expecting to happen. He doesn't go outside in any case.

The fluffy squirrel tail index corroborates the fluffy cat index.

I don't think wooly worms are indigenous to this area, so no report from them.

The cat and squirrel predictive indices disagree with the Old Farmers Almanac, which is saying warm and wet for the winter around here.

Watching NW Afternoon

If it's 3PM in Seattle, it's time for Northwest Afternoon on KOMO.

I wouldn't be surprised to find out this is the last of the locally produced mid-afternoon shows. These used to be the norm from 3pm to 5pm in just about any market large enough to have its own studio and someone who didn't mind talking it up for 1-2 hours, five days a week.

What's odd is that the replacement for these local shows, the nationally produced talk show, had their beginnings in locally produced shows. Phil Donahue came out of Ohio before he arrived on the scene in Chicago, and Oprah also had her beginnings in Chicago. If I were to hazard a guess, I'd say Chicago was a logical place for this sort of thing to happen--they have studios on a par with New York and Los Angeles (remember, Chicago used to originate shows back in the 50's--Kukla, Fran, & Ollie came out of Chicago), stations like WGN were all over cable in the midwest before satellites took them coast to coast, and the stations have enough cash to be able to produce and distribute programs like these.

The beauty of a show like Northwest Afternoon is that it can have a local, regional, or national focus, or any mix. These are the sort of programs where authors used to flack their latest book, or the travelling company or a national stage tour can get local promo time. If you're lucky, you might have a local radio station that fills that need. If not, and you're local and could use a boost, you're scrabbling.

Programs like this give a view into the flavour of the community that you rarely see. I wish there were more of these around.

Getting that epidural

One week after getting the results of the MRI, I was in the anesthesiologist's office to talk about pain control. The problem with spinal column maladies is not only does your back hurt, whatever is at the end of the nerves that come from that portion of the spine hurt as well. Besides the leg cramps and the constant tuchis twitches, I also had phantom sensation anywhere from my toes to my thighs. This was usually either a feeling that something mouse-sized was making a broken-field run up my legs (I've *had* a vole crawl up my pants leg before, so I know what it feels like, and it's just like this!), or that I have a deep itching that I can't get rid of. At least the rodent races went away after 1-2 iterations. The itching would stick around for hours.

So, off to visit "Integrative Medicine" and figure out what needs to be done next. I talked to the doctor about the pains, when they showed up (one problem--I was having leg cramps due to hypothyroid at the same time, so we can't place the timing exactly), and whether they were getting worse (yes!).

The Doctor then put me thought my paces--"touch the floor". No problem--palms to the floor. "sit down and cross your legs at the ankles and see how far you can bring them in". Okay, I can still cross my legs at my knees and bring the foot in all the way to mid-trunk. "Bend back"--okay--this is a problem. I can bend, but I don't have any stability once I get past 90 degrees.

He just looked. Then he said "That's hypermobility, all right."

Which is why I love Kaiser--that was spelled out in big red letters in my files. The Doctor wanted to see for himself: once again, there just aren't that many people with hypermobility, so every Doctor I've dealt with wants to see a real live case in action.

Time to discuss the epidural. Every woman who's reading this and had one as part of labor has just twinged. The epidural involved sticking the hypodermic into the spinal area, and in my case, deliver a load of cortisone.

We had the usual discussion--cortisone relieves (we hope) the inflammation, so I have a chance of breaking the pain cycle. There are risks, the most notable and least likely is paralysis. More likely is a spinal headache. Yup, I've read the literature.

So, time for the fun to begin. I'm asked to bend over the examination table . The Doctor lifts my shirt, probes for the spot, and then wipes the area down. I'm asked to stay very still, and the puts in a needle. That's not the cortisone--that's just placing the needle. He gets the cortisone from the tray, and injects it into my back.

Okay, this hurts. Ohboy does it hurt. It's " Kyle McLaren butt-checks you into the boards repeatedly, and you aren't wearing any padding, so it feels like someone is taking a ball-bat to both of your kidneys at once" pain. After about 30 seconds of this, it's over.

This was one of the few times I've asked Chuq to be at the Doctor's appointment with me, and I'm happy he was there. We drove home and I spent the rest of the evening prone on the couch, making little groaning sounds.

The next day I am feeling better. No spinal headache (you know, that has to be the final insult to a woman in labor--making you curl around for an epidural, and after you have the kid, *then* you get a massive 48 hour headache), and no other residual effects. After 2 days my back feels *lots* better.

Wow.

It's been six weeks since I've gotten the first injection, and it's worn off. I'll be going in for my next one sometime during the week of the 26th. I've been told I can get 3 in one year, and then we need to look at surgery. I hope this one takes care of the problem, or at least gets me to the point where I can take care of the problem.

SJSU/SJC Library Card

I am going to try and get my library card situation dealt with. Pray for me.

Back-story: I have a SJSU alum library card. It's one of the reasons I paid for a lifetime membership. It used to get me student privs in the SJSU library and full access to all the CSU library system. When SJSU merged with the city of San Jose's city library system, the alum cards were a forgotten category. Yes, I can get a SJC library card, but the SJSU card gets me access to services that the SJC card doesn't.

However, *now* the special access requires a student/faculty number that the alum cards don't have, and no one seems to be able to figure out how to deal with that.

I could go to CSU Hayward, um, CSU "East Bay", but it seems just a little dumb to have to drive 30 miles to get access to services I've paid for at a campus that's 10 miles away.

I'm already a little cranky about the state of the microfilm system--one of the reasons I used SJSU was because the machines generally *worked*, and SJC's didn't. One month after the merger, and most of the machines were in need of repair, and they've been like that ever since. The other reason I paid for a card is so I could use the machines at SJSU. The microfilm machines that used to belong to SJSU are now being monopolized by the whack-jobs that used to camp out in the SJC library.

I'm sure the merger did a lot of people a lot of good, but it's really screwed me over.

So, maybe drivng 30 miles to get to a library I can use isn't that bad of an idea after all.

I'm still going to get the card and access dealt with, though....