Dispatches from Blogblivion

Today I had my visit to the doctor to have sutures removed, from where I had a mole and skin tag removed. Those were benign. He’d like to remove more skin tags, so said to remind him next visit. Seems like that’s more likely to be cosmetic than medical, though you never know.

He did a quick check of the blood pressure, which was 140/90 on the left, which he considers good, for me. He joked he wouldn’t even tell me what it was on the right, because it spiked as I answered questions and hit the sensitive zone. Which is funny, because he observed that I used exactly the same flat tone as a patient he has whose answers would have gone like:
“How are you?”
“Good.”
How are the kids?
“Good.”
“How is the wife?”
“Good. I just slit my wrist. You should see the blood.”

Except instead of the last two sentences I said “we’re getting divorced.” That must have been interesting, timed exactly with the right arm blood pressure reading.

I go back in six weeks for blood pressure and whatever else. I neglected to mention the back thing, which I think is mainly in hands of neurosurgeon for now, but man the symptoms have gotten interesting. Some of the weirdest seem to be as much a matter of sleep deprivation as anything.

Our insurance leaves a lot to be desired. The whole mandate thing falls kind of short if too few places actually accept the plan.

Anyway, back to attempting to sleep a couple hours. Henry fell asleep early as if it was nap time, then woke after the rest of us went to bed. Deb took him in with them, but I was already on the trajectory of giving up and sitting in here to maybe fall asleep in my chair, with or without him.

Genital Integrity Awareness Week. Via Rob Sama.

I’ve gone from having no particular opinion to believing circumcision is barbaric, and would even had I not eventually learned that mine was… performed less than skillfully, if not exactly “botched.” Pardon the TMI.

My back has not bothered me nearly as much since the mole was removed from the vicinity of the worst pain. I’ve still have the numbness and such, and can more or less predict what and when can cause it, as well as it being unexpected other times. Even that, with one extreme exception that helped keep me awake for hours, seems to have improved. Makes no sense.

Meant to call the neurosurgeon and doctor today. The former because I need to make an appointment, even if they have no results or copy of the MRI yet. The latter with questions, maybe for a freeform referral.

Maybe tomorrow.

Mainly intended to leave house to do combined computer work and job hunting work tomorrow, maybe go out just to be out, but I believe I am wanted here at the time that latter element would be. Plus then I am not forced to spend money I don’t have. I use a tank of gas every two weeks if I don’t do extraordinary driving, have car insurance and cell phone, and after that there is approximately zero per month left from my FredCo and ad money for anything else, if there’s not extra side or ad money, or a month when car insurance is paid off for the year. Everything else goes to rent and household. I’ve been spending too much, so I don’t know where the money will come from for the things I have to pay next time I have to pay them. But I digress.

Yesterday I had my appointment to get the mole on my back removed, along with, of course, the usual blood pressure check. I was not counting on the visit being so focused on the procedure that I’d have no chance to talk to the doctor. In fact, I thought I’d have more, but laying on my side with three people working around me was not so opportune. About all I was able to do was find out he had not heard from the neaurosurgeon, and tell him about the MRI scheduled for Saturday and the EMG scheduled for May 4th.

They have a nursing student who’d just started. She’ll be there for seven weeks and is just the cutest. In an opposite world scenario, for her I relaxed completely and she got a lower blood presure, while I tensed and stopped breathing for the regular nurse and she got a higher one. Relatively speaking, since the highest they got between them all was about 130/90. Considering the circumstances and my BP being higher when I am there, I wonder if my recent faintness and vertigo had either low blood pressure or abruptly changing blood pressure (or drug side effects) connected to it, besides the sleep deprivation that was probably a factor. Instead of being thrilled, the nurse, at least, is still not happy with the bottom number. Half empty.

Besides the mole on my shoulder blade, the doctor noticed a skin tag he didn’t like a bit below it, so I got a twofer. They get biopsied as a matter of standard procedure. The whole thing took far longer than I’d expected, but was kind of interesting.

The doctor stitched the mole incision heavier than he would have, knowing what I do for work and that it had to hold. Seemed to be just fine. Oddly enough, the mole was more or less right in the spot where my back is worst. IMHO anyway, and it may be that the neurosurgeon is focusing on my lower back the way my primary focused on my neck, even though I emphasized the other spot to both. Not sure if he ordered MRI of whole back or just lumbar section, which is the part of his orders I heard. That and something about “both sides.” Guess I’ll know tomorrow. And if my doctor said “ouch” when he heard I was having an EMG, that could be interesting. Shame it’s not until May 4th.

What I was about to say is not only was the big mound of stitches where the mole was fine for a vigorous shift unloading trailers, but also that part of my back stopped bothering me. Probably pure coincidence. How could there be causality at all? Still, found it fascinating, considering how bad it got the past couple days. Then again, there seems to be some correspondence between the back pain and bowels often enough to stop ignoring.

They gave me some spare strips to go over the incision to help keep it together, and had me buy waterproof bandages to go over it before showers, to come off immediately after. That makes things interesting, since I can’t reach. Well, almost can reach the big one, kind of, but the small one not at all. When it was time to take the bandages off they’d left over the spots, I had to ask Sadie to help. I’m dependent on Deb for the bandaging part to take showers, so I can only take them if she is going to be here and awake before and after. Doh.

I go back on Wednesday April 8. They put it in as an appointment for 8:30 AM, but I am supposed to drop by between 7:30 and 12:30, check in, then go in and find my congenial friend the student nurse. Presumably I will see the doctor and he will tell me when to come back. Perhaps I can even discuss other things. Minimum, though, they’ll want to monitor my blood pressure regularly. Maybe I can get extra visits while the student is there!

Meanwhile, I think I need to start logging stuff. If I get numb here or there, skin crawling, involuntary urge to flex or twitch, sensation of warm water running down my thigh (nope, not from me), what is happening or hurting at the time besides, where and how long, those kinds of things, then I can stop forgetting what I wanted to mention and give them more to go by. I spent about three days recently with my feet feeling numb, even if the rest of me seemed fine. I’ve had that for a long time, but blamed it on shoes, or an association with gout attacks, or on my feet always having been weird, and if I mentioned it then hello, they might decide I had diabetes. I’m conditioned not to draw attention to things, especially if they might be dire but haven’t felled me yet, most of all if they might be diabetes or another “mother told ya so” malady. Not sure how I’ll do the mechanics of that. Maybe e-mail myself from wherever I am with the Blackberry, then compile it.

Can’t think of what else I might have been planning to say. Guess I’ll call it a post and move on with the day. Have a huge list of stuff to do.