What a morning! I did manage to phone my doctor's office and got an appointment for 11:50 this morning. Thus, I then couldn't eat breakfast (fasting blood test required). Now, I wouldn't care too much, but I was biking to my dentist/doctor's appointments (they're across the street from each other). It would usually take me about 30 minutes, but it took closer to 45 in part because I had less strength and in part because of the rather nasty wind. It was only about 8 degrees celsius this morning with 40km winds and so for the first time in months, I wore gloves when bike riding! What a difference from a couple of weeks ago-there's even a risk of frost overnight.
Everything in the end worked out okay though. Well, pretty much okay. My teeth and gums are all nice and healthy-no cavities, and just a tiny spot in one place on my gums that's a little bit more sensitive then it should be-but no signs of bleeding or anything like that. Horray for my obsessive dental hygeine routine with brushing, flossing and flouride mouthwash. Although my gums are nice and healthy though, I guess I was a little bit sensitive to their examination because I found it somewhat painful. The scaling (removal of tartar buildup) from my teeth wasn't painful, but it's a little bit disturbing...it always feels to me like they're going to scrape my enamel off! It still amazes me that they're scraping so much and it doesn't hurt the teeth but microscopic germs can eat through them...strange quirks of nature. My wisdom teeth are still all in bony casing which means that they probably won't erupt for at least another year, which is just fine with me. Being a flute player, the removal of wisdom teeth must be carefully planned, because it will be at least a 2-4 week recovery period before being back at top efficiency. Perhaps over the christmas break NEXT year. That's when my sister got her wisdom teeth removed (approximately), and I'm figuring that mine will probably follow about the same pattern-perhaps. I'm still holding out hope that maybe I'll have only three wisdom teeth, like my mom. The x-rays were inconclusive (they had to use the small film because my mouth is tiny and they couldn't see all of them) on the top so we just don't know yet. I really don't mind going to the dentist-the hygienists are always nice and friendly and my dentist is a very nice man with 6 or 7 children, two of them now into their teen years so he's very, very patient and always takes the time to explain things! Surprisingly, an hour at the dentist went by pretty quickly and I then headed across the street to my doctor's new office.
I had to wait awhile because I was still early, but that was okay, it gave me a little bit of time to read some more of 'Wild Geese' by Martha Ostenso. I first read it back in grade eleven as part of our literature study on the human condition-in addition to reading 1984, Fahreinheit 451 and Brave New World (reading the four gave me the opportunity to score high and I did, 39/40, just losing one mark for MLA formatting). I think it was last year when I decided that I wanted to read all those books we had to read throughout high school to really READ them and not disect them. My english teacher in high school was wonderful, and I love to read, but there's always a little bit of you that likes the book less when you HAVE to read it. Thus, when I read 1984 last winter I found it a whole lot more interesting than previously! I'm thinking it will be the same way with Wild Geese. I did get to see my doctor a little bit early, which was good because they close at 12:00 for lunch everyday and she did have to do a little bit. Actually, the lab technician had to do a lot more! My doctor took my blood pressure, which was pretty normal for me at 100/60 (small size and active lifestyle plus no alcohol, tobacco and I watch my sodium levels) and listened to my heart and lungs just to make sure. I didn't have to get weighed though! That really made me feel a lot better. Until the problems with the blood test.
Now, the lab technician is quite good. She's been there for several years and is quite friendly and skilled. I'm not blaming her at all! However...having to have I think six test tubes taken when I'd been fasting and probably hadn't had enough water to drink...and the fact that I was cold...made things more challenging. Usually we just take from my left arm-I prefer it that way so that I don't have to worry so much. But, today, the veins on my left arm didn't seem to be popping up so she decided to try my right arm. Not much better, so we put a hot towel over them to help (worked wonders when my mom got her chemo before the PICC line). It started out all right, but quickly stopped...and now I have a rather large, painful bruise right where my elbow bends. So, she moved over to the left arm and decided to use a smaller needle. In the end we got everything but it wasn't very easy...my blood just didn't seem to want to flow today and my hand was turning purple. At least that's done. Hopefully, all the tests will be okay-electrolyte levels that the hospital ED program requires, red cell count, hemaglobin/iron, vitamin d (I have a hard time absorbing it so I take 2000 iui everyday), cholesterol, liver function and blood sugar (the last three because of seroquel's possible side effects). Now we just wait. No news will be good news, I can almost guarantee that. I do know that the vitamin d test results won't be back for months (last september's results only came back in June of this year) because they are understaffed where it has to be sent. The north's curse...lack of direct sunshine for eight months...
I think I've had enough of silver-tipped sharp instruments for today though!
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