GetSheila

I’m not sure…

I’m not sure, I mean I can’t be certain, but I think it may be allergy season:

 

Technorati Tags: allergies,allergy season

Monster from the planet Big Pupil

Guess which doctor I went to see today? Go on, guess.

I can’t believe they let people drive after having their eyes dilated. And I’m relatively young and healthy. Do they let the rickety old people drive themselves home with dilated eyes, too? SCARY.

I learned something new when discussing invisible cat hairs with my ophthalmologist today, and my method for retrieving them from my eyeball. Did you know your mouth has more bacteria than your butt?

Yeah, the hole you poop out of is cleaner than your mouth. I will never again wet a Q-Tip by sticking it in my mouth before swirling it around in my eye to catch an invisible cat hair. No, instead I will squirt sterile eye wash on the Q-Tip and try not to think about how, before, I was putting something grosser than poop in my eye.

And you people who pop your contact out and spit on it or stick it in your mouth to “clean” it, then pop it back in your eye? CUT IT OUT.

So here I sit, thanking my lucky stars I escaped a slow and horrible death from advanced stage eyepoopitis, yet still annoyed that I have a painful hangnail but cannot see well enough to dig it out with a sharp object.

Perhaps I’ll go run with scissors instead. Or take a Vicodin for the debilitating hangnail pain then go out and operate heavy machinery.

 

Technorati Tags: hangnail,eye doctor

Bikes and bunnies

I got on the stationary bike for twenty whole minutes after work today. It has a handy ledge that holds my iPad perfectly so the time just flew by, what with blogs and news and LOLCats to catch up on. Perhaps I will start making a habit of this exercise thing. I hear it’s good for you.

Only then I ate an entire DiGiorno’s flatbread pizza for dinner and half a chocolate Easter bunny for dessert.

I still have a few kinks to work out of my “get healthy” plan.

 

Technorati Tags: exercise bicycle,fitness

Mental Health Day Monday

I stayed home from work today. I could have gone to the office, truth be told, but I needed a mental health day. I was, in fact, unwell in the wee hours of the night and in need of additional rest in the a.m. but could have dragged my sorry ass to work.

Then I thought, BUT WHY? I’ve been dragging my sorry ass to work seven days a week for the past three and a half months!

One of my favorite things about tax season is getting to use it as an excuse all year, first for four months – “I’m sorry, I can’t make it to little Bobby’s birthday party with dozens of screaming children, I have to work” – and then for the remaining eight – “I’m sorry, I can’t make it to Bobby’s graduation. Tax season sucks the life out of me so I only do things I actually enjoy the rest of the year.”

(No, I don’t know anyone with a child named Bobby. If you happen to have a child named Bobby and further happen to know me, this isn’t about you.)

Most people would worry about posting something like this on their blog. What if your boss reads it! Here’s the thing:

1. Buff Kahuna doesn’t even own a cell phone much less get on the Internet for anything other than tax research,
2. Big Kahuna was at the beach today so he can’t complain. And besides, he is exposed to my blog in a roundabout way because it gets sucked into Facebook automatically but he’s too busy following sports scores to actually read it, and
3. We’re all adults. We get the work done on time and that’s all that really matters.

So after nursing several cups of tea, I finally got up the energy to tackle my Inbox. You know, the one I throw all my mail into and clear out each weekend. Only I kept skipping the clearing out part during tax season so the box was overflowing. Slicing open 50 envelopes resulted in a mere ONE piece of mail that actually mattered: my bank is switching its Quicken service so I had to deactivate then reactivate my online accounts.

Kind of important. A little disturbing they did not email me, since that is my preferred method of contact, and I almost THREW IT AWAY as junk mail. I wonder how many Wells Fargo customers are going to wake up on June 7th and wonder why they can no longer access their bank account through their software.

I did use two additional pieces of mail, but they were not actually necessary. One was the City of Merced water bill I can pay online but I have to MANUALLY go to the website and INPUT my payment. It used to be automatic but then they promoted Mr. Flintstone to head up online accounts, or something.

The second was an offer from Omaha Steaks telling me how much they missed me and providing a special offer JUST FOR ME. Unless of course someone gives you the direct link. And because I’m a sucker and they really do have yummy stuff (I’ll never eat store bought hamburgers again), I caved.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a stack of 20 magazines and catalogs to go through. Seventeen if I don’t count the three from AARP I deny receiving and throw directly into the recycling bin.

 

Technorati Tags: monday,tax follies,mental health day

Hair gone wrong

Lest you think my hair looks like crap when you see me, please know this is what I am dealing with:

This is my freshly washed hair after using only my fingers and a blow dryer to get as much moisture out of it as possible and before tackling it with a round brush and flat iron.

I thought you’d want to know.

 

Technorati Tags: hair gone wrong

Update on mom

If you’ve Friended my sister Karen on Facebook, you are up to date with our 82 year old mom’s status. If not, here is your executive summary:

1. Kidney stone went walkabout, landing her in the hospital up in Idaho, where she was visiting my sister Karen;
2. Two additional stones found still up in her kidney. All three stones of massive proportions, as kidney stones go;
3. Master Blaster kidney stone pulverizer procedure scheduled for one week later, when machine comes back to town (the perils of living in BFE);
4. In the meantime, developed an infection due to blockage caused by walkabout stone, which turned into sepsis/septicemia;
5. Almost died;
6. Released into Karen’s custody after 6 days in hospital;
7. Gradually gaining back her strength and appetite (today is Day 5 at Karen’s);
8. Not much interested in eating, watching TV, reading, talking on the phone, or getting on the computer (children very worried about that last one, computer-addict that she is);
9. Complains about being bored and pissed at her body for betraying her. (Getting better!);
10. Master Blaster scheduled for this coming Friday. Sees the doc early in the week to verify she is strong enough to undergo the procedure.

I’m not sure why I feel compelled to refer to her as “my 82 year old mom” any time I write about her. I think I’m just happy the females in my family are long-lived (in general) and she deserves to be recognized for her octogenarian status.

BTW, I just looked it up and I am a quadragenarian, being in my 40’s. Doesn’t quite have the same ring to it, does it?

 

Technorati Tags: mom

Short hair-not as easy as it looks

My newish hairdo:

Reminds me of something but I can't quite think of what. Hm...

 
 

All better so far…

My skin is much better, thank you baby Jesus!

I’m still not entirely sure what caused it but I suspect it was a combination of:

1. Applying baby oil to my post-shower self for the first time in decades in a feeble attempt to recapture my youth;
    
2. Stressing about my sis having gastric bypass surgery a few short months after her hysterectomy surgery, which didn’t go so smoothly;
    
3. Staying away from my bed and kitties, all of which I adore, to spend 6 nights in Fresno with my sis. A very good cause and one I thoroughly enjoyed, but we all know there’s no place like home, Dorothy;
    
4. Sleeping in sheets laundered I believe in the same detergent but definitely with a different fabric softener.
    

Maybe it had something to do with my new meds as well, but it’s likely too soon to tell. I went off them for 3 days and the hives cleared up but I still had the smaller red bumps.

Of course, it didn’t help that I COULDN’T STOP SCRATCHING THEM.

I did try.

Really.

I’ve been back on the meds for 6 days now, no hives yet, and I’m no itchier than normal, though Day One back on the meds was the day I came home to my own sheets.

I now use baby oil solely to clean out my ear wax and belly button lint, my sister had a remarkably smooth surgery and recovery, and I’ve been back long enough I no longer think it’s cute to be forced to stay in one position in bed so as not to disturb the cats who use me as a sleeping surface.

Huh. Maybe that’s how I ended up with a crick in my neck that makes my thumb go numb.

When in doubt, blame the cat.

 

Technorati Tags: allergy to prescription drug inactive ingredient,hives

The Itchies…THE ITCHIES!

Within the last week, I started feeling itchy. I thought to myself, well it is summer…and  blazing hot…and air conditioning sucks the moisture out of the air…and you sweat and you dry and you sweat and you dry…so, duh, your skin is probably dry.

So of course, being me, I Googled “dry skin” to see if there was, you know, anything new only to discover I have been moisturizing wrong all these years. Wrong!

Did you know you are supposed to apply moisturizer right after drying off from the shower when your skin is still moist and your pores are still open? In fact, you’re not supposed to dry off completely before applying said moisturizer?

Also:

1. Take lukewarm baths or showers (instead of hot ones) because hot water strips the natural oils out of your skin faster which increases evaporation of the skin’s moisture. It’s the naturally-retained water that keeps the skin supple;
2. Limit baths and showers to 15 minutes max. I’m unclear on exactly why: too much water dries out the skin because it washes away the natural oils?
3. Limit the use of harsh soaps to areas that develop an odor, such as armpits, genital area, and feet. Use mild cleansers everywhere else, preferably something moisturizing;
4. Don’t scrub so hard in the shower and only pat dry or gently rub when toweling off to avoid removing all the moisture and/or damaging the skin via “towel shock.”
5. Similar to applying moisturizer right after you bathe, apply a moisturizer right after you wash your hands throughout the day;
6. Use heavier creams or ointments during the winter months and lighter lotions in the summer.

So I thought, hey, I’ll apply baby oil to my wet body after I shower rather than toweling dry, pat off the excess, then apply a moisturizing lotion after that.

But then this happened:

And this:

That’s my leg. Ignore the bruise. The red bumps aren’t so bad. It’s the lighter areas to which I want to call your attention. You can’t make it out very well but they look lighter because they are raised bumps I highly suspect are hives.

Here’s a closer shot of the same area. It’s still rather hard to make out but you get the gist: small red bumps interspersed among the larger hive-like bumps.

And then there’s my knee:

Yes, I am a pasty-white, out of shape, 40-something. However, I DO NOT generally have red splotches all over my pasty-whiteness.

Could it be the baby oil I used was, uh, rather old? It smelled fine. Hm. So I showered everything off last night and felt soothingly un-itchy.

For about an hour.

Then I remembered the itchiness started before I began using the baby oil and was, in fact, the reason I experimented with it in the first place.

The only thing I can think of is I am having an allergic reaction to one of the inactive ingredients in my new Wal-Mart prescription meds, which I started about a week ago. It must be the inactive ingredients because I took the Walgreens version for a month and didn’t have this reaction.

Sidebar: it never occurred to me drugs are essentially like cereal. Corn flakes, for example: each manufacturer uses unique packaging, food coloring, and non-corn flake additives, like nuts and granola, but it’s still corn flakes. Same with generic drugs: the active ingredients are identical. It is only the method of preparation and the inactive ingredients, like dyes and binding agents, that are unique to the manufacturer.

Sidebar Sidebar: Pre-Prozac, I would have felt overwhelmed that here is yet another thing I didn’t know and there’s so much knowledge out there how can we possibly keep track of it all? Post-Prozac, my reaction is, hey, wow, learn something new every day.

If it turns out I am allergic to an inactive ingredient in Wal-Mart’s version of the drug where I wasn’t with the Walgreens version, my excitement at discovering I can save $320 a year just by switching to Wal-Mart is for naught, and that would be tragic.

Oh wait, that would have been tragic, pre-Prozac. Now it’s just a bummer.

Though I would have to call my doctor’s office – again – and ask them to switch my prescription back to Walgreens and that’s a little embarrassing. But people on anti-depressants are expected to be a little crazy, right?

 

Technorati Tags: Prozac,fluoxetine,mental health,wal-mart pharmacy,wal-mart $4 prescriptions,wal-mart $10 90-day prescriptions,allergy to prescription drug inactive ingredient

Debbie Downer Gets Her Meds

(Sung to the tune of The Brady Bunch)

Here’s a story, of a lovely lady,

Who was bring up two very lovely cats.

All of them were fine alone with just each other,

Except the mom was bats.

 

Here’s a story, of a lovely doctor,

Who was busy with a practice all her own.

She knew symptoms and the drugs you need to treat them,

And had a script pad all her own.

 

Till the one day when the lady met this doctor,

And they knew that it was much more than a hunch.

That this lady was depressed and needed Prozac.

That’s the way she soon became less of a grump.

Less of a grump, less of a grump.

 

That’s the way she soon became less of a grump.

 

I’d gotten so used to feeling crappy I didn’t realize how bad it was. I finally went to the doctor for my weird neck/shoulder/arm pain and mentioned oh, uh, by the way, I think about death a lot. Is that normal?

Now let’s get something straight: I was talking about death, NOT suicide. As a regular consultant of Dr. Google, I of course took a few online depression questionnaires only to discover they have a serious flaw. They all ask whether you have thoughts of death or suicide.

In one question.

Like it’s the same thing.

When you answer in the affirmative, they tell you to CALL THE SUICIDE HOTLINE IMMEDIATELY.

I never had thoughts of suicide. What I had were thoughts about how my mom is in her 80’s, my aunt died a few years ago, my cousin plus a good friend died a few years before that within a month of each other, and we’re all going to die one day. BUT I DON’T WANT TO DIE, WHY DO WE ALL HAVE TO DIE? Then I’d get sad and cry.

Another symptom was inappropriate anger. I am generally a cranky person anyway but everything pissed me off and I would seethe. Sometimes for days. You don’t want to do it my way? DIE BASTARD DIE!

Yeah. It was definitely time for medication.

I’ve been on it for 5 weeks now and it has made all the difference in the world. It takes the edge off. It’s like aspirin for your brain: it makes the symptoms go away but otherwise leaves you feeling normal. No head fuzziness. No tummy upset. Just a normal person with normal feelings and reactions.

You don’t want to do it my way? Well, bother. I am slightly annoyed but you’re an adult with a mind of your own and I’ll forget my annoyance in a few minutes. I’ll even dive into that project I’ve been putting off at work for months now with a new “I can do” attitude. “Ooh, a puzzle! I love puzzles!”

 

Technorati Tags: depression,prozac,fluoxetine