When it comes to getting lost, there’s nothing more dangerous than one’s own home town.
Wednesday morning I went for the CAT scan to see what was going on with my sinuses. Thankfully, this was much more pleasant than the last time I had a CAT scan, which was in the 6th grade when they thought I had a brain tumor. (1) At that time, they had to use these giant bolt things to hold your head in place (not *into* my skull, mind you, but pressing on sides) and they had to use an IV solution to provide some sort of contrast. Then you got stuck in what felt, at the time, like a giant washing machine, whirring and spinning, for what seemed like hours (but was probably only 45 minutes)(2). This time, by contrast, I got to rest my chin on a little cushion (no bolts) and the giant washing machine was more like a small torus (much less enclosed and scary) — and best of all, no IV!
I got to take the scan image with me, so of course I spent an hour and a half scanning it and fitting the pieces together last night (probably a 15″ x 20″ image, too big for a single pass) so I could print it out and get an annotated version from Dr. Clarke (I knew I’d have a use for the white gel pen!!). If you’re curious, here’s my brain (warning — biggum image!!). I’ve annotated my digital copy for your viewing pleasure… the takeaways are that:
So, more steroids (like 18 days more!) — and more attendant puffiness — and more voice restrictions.
(1) No they didn’t tell me why I was having the CAT scan at the time. I’m pretty sure that was a good idea.
(2) They may still do all that for certain kinds of CAT scans, but they didn’t this time. (whew)
Sigh.
Anyone who has spent time with me in the last month or so has heard the Cough of Doom. Or anyone who saw me in April. Or December of last year. Or August of last year, etc. Apparently, I have a triannual cold-that-turns-into-bronchitis thing. I finally realized the periodicity of it this time around (OK, I’m sorta slow when it comes to recognizing health patterns), so I made an appointment with an Ear, Nose & Throat guy (Dr. Clark).
My appointment was this morning… here’s the re-cap:
1) We are still not sure what’s causing the quarterly bouts with bronchitis. The suspicion at the moment is that it’s a persistent sinus infection. I’m having a CAT scan this afternoon to see if that’s the case. I see ENT again on Friday; however, the bronchitis part of it is really not his field, so I’ll probably end up working with my GP on that one. I was tempted to suspect the newest “nasal variable” in my life (India, my puppy), but this has been going on for at least five years (my first one was right before Larry & I went to Iceland in 2001). They do seem to have gone from biannual to triannual though
2) As far as the constant coughing that comes with every round of bronchitis (and won’t leave — even with Advair), apparently the combination of coughing and talking on long calls and in speakerphone situations and over background noise (etc.) has irritated my vocal cords (“caused an ‘insult’ to them, as he put it). They are puffy and don’t close completely. (He stuck a camera down my nose! I asked if I could watch so they set up a monitor for me! Ew! Cool!).
The irritated vocal cords are what’s making cough. And coughing is irritating the vocal cords. Lather, Rinse, Repeat. (Fun.) (As an aside, this explains why it gets so much worse on days where I’m back-to-back on calls, as opposed to, say, Saturdays.)
So, I am starting Prednisone today *and* going on vocal restrictions (yep — you “heard me” correctly… not anything above conversational tone: no conference calls, no speakerphone, no talking above ambient noise) and trying reduce talking as much as possible. Once my vocal cords are more happy and less irritated, the coughing should stop.
Anyway — so I figured I should write this rather than tell you ;-)
May the torture begin.
I don’t know what it is about summer, but I seem to always “fall off the planet” as far as my online presence goes (goodness, that’s a pretentious thing to type).
No Europe trip this year for me (through Jeff made a quick run just to meet up with the rest of the group), since we went to my “baby brother”‘s wedding (which was *lovely*) and Maine for Jeff’s parents’ 50th (!) wedding anniversary.
(If you ever wondered who in my family I take after, check this out…)
There are also some new puppy pics (and we’re in Week 5 of Puppy Class!).
I have about two months’ worth of reading to catch up on LiveJournal-wise (and I probably should tackle the stack of bills on the counter too, huh…).
30 minutes ago: Wash puppy. Blow dry puppy. Puppy smells of lilacs.
Score: Gina 1 Puppy 0
15 minutes ago: Successfully install new mailbox when old screws were completely stripped. Capture puppy when she attemps to exit with me.
Score: Gina 2 Puppy 0
10 minutes ago: Go to take shower and step in fresh puppy poo on bathroom floor.
Score: Gina 2 Puppy 2
5 minutes ago: Get out of shower. Attempt to sit on stool to dry hair. Slip (as stool is still damp from drying puppy) and land squarely on bottom.
Score: Gina 2 Puppy 17
Last night the lid of the lip goo container that I keep on my bedside table went missing. I looked around in the usual places this morning (under the part of the bed that I could see, under the nightstand etc.), but didn’t see it. Oh well. It will turn up.
India is not supposed to leave her “blankie” when she’s in the bedroom (other than to leave the bedroom, of course). After watching this hilarious video (thanks humblepie for the tip!) I take off my headphones to find that the blankie area is susiciously silent. A visual confirms: no puppy.
I call her and out she dashes from under the bed. She knows she’s in trouble (I think?) so she heads straight for “her room” (the guest bath). I follow her there, with the intent of shutting the gate for a little while. When I get there, she looks at me with a really weird grin on her face. At first I think it must be some variation on the “pant-pant-I’m-out-of-breath-face,” but a closer inspection reveals…
… a wee black lip goo lid in her wee black mouth.
I suppose I’ll count this as a “draw”…
This past weekend Jeff & I escaped to Beaufort, NC, a place long-familiar to me, as I spent the summers of 1989 and 1990 there (the first summer I was taking classes at the Duke Marine Lab; the second I was a Residential Advisor for the Duke Talent Identification Program, a summer “edumacational” camp for really smart 7th-10th graders).
It was a most wonderful weekend (interspersed, of course, with moments of supreme anxiety — hey, I’m still me!). The anxiety was primarily due to the fact that mom was keeping India for the weekend — Mom’s first time puppy-sitting India, and India’s first overnight away from me. And, well, my first overnight away from her too. I had always kind of wondered at (and perhaps snickered a tiny bit at) the worries of my friends who were leaving their kids with sitters for the first time. I’d been a baby-sitter… I’d been a very competent baby-sitter. Babies just weren’t all that tricky (at least for a few hours)… why in heavens’ name were they getting so worked up about this?
Now I understand. The anxiety was not (for the most part) about the sitter’s ability to manage a kid for a few hours. The anxiety was about the wee one’s happiness! Would the little one be miserable, scared, confused?
I had no worries about Mom’s ability to handle a pup — she grew up with dogs and has a heckuva lot more experience than I do in that respect (she also raised me, and I turned out OK. Mostly). Plus I’d written a novelette about what noises India might make and what she was allowed to do and how much kibble she’d eat and how many times she would probably need the piddle pad. (This made most parents’: “Bedtime is at 8:30; help yourself to whatever’s in the fridge” instructions seem incredibly trusting).
No, I was worried about whether India would be OK — would she miss her little guest bath palace? Would she cry? (If I haven’t mentioned, she has THE MOST pitiful cry on the planet… it’s both ear pleasing and incredibly sad…1)
India, FWIW, was fine. Happy, even. Disappointed, perhaps, to leave the nice lady who spoiled her rotten.
So, Beaufort (pictures). We did all the things I was looking forward to — all my most favorites plus some new ones (it has been *quite* some time since I’ve been there — I think Caroline and I may have gone in 2000(?) to see The Nudes, a band [since disbanded] that I was once very fond of.)
We:
The only crushing bit of the weekend was when Mom brought India back3. I’ll be darned if my little baby girl didn’t cry when “Granny” left!! Was there any “OMG! I am so glad to see YOU, Mommy!!!”? Not so much really. Sigh.
1 You know how some people cry more attractively than others? They don’t blotch up and snot and squint and sound like wailing banshees? India has a cute cry. I don’t.
2 The cat we were on was a 40-ft. model with two nets up front bridging the gaps between the hulls and the center-line support (warning, link plays an annoying faux-reggae file). Of course I spent the entire time up in the net — best place for bouncy waves and best view! Towards the end of the cruise I discovered that if you stand up on the beam that holds the “front end” of the nets (bow end, for those that are nautically inclined), you can somersault and land on your back in the net. That was way fun. Apparently entertaining for everyone else on the boat too. While walking along Front Street the next night, I was i.d.’d by a passing couple as “the flipping girl.”
3 We brought Mom a little thank-you present for taking care of India… a plaque that says “Now let me get this straight… my grandchild is a DOG?!??!?!”
Oh, if you want to skip the blahblah, here’s the picture-book version.
I’ve always been a bit afraid of announcing the really good stuff that’s going on, for fear of somehow jinxing it away. For example, it was months after Jeff & I started dating that I really started telling people he was anything other than “another .net boy” and I still am sort of reluctant to talk about exciting things like building a house (yes, there’s another post there, still to come).
The big news in my life is that I have a puppy.
As you may recall, I had an experience before Christmas that led me to believe that I *might* be able to have a puppy, which is something I’ve always always wanted.
At the start of this year, “Investigate Pomeranian” made it onto my (always way too long) To Do list. After calling around a bit, we found a breeder (Cindi Wolfe, of Wolfe Kennels) in Graham who had just had a litter of Poms and who was happy for me to come meet them. The following Saturday Jeff and I headed out to Cindi’s and I got to meet India, who was only three weeks old. (OMG!! TEH CUTE TO KILL YOU!!!!) She fit into the palm of my hand and after snoozling a bit fell asleep in my arms.
To tell the truth, I was a bit hivy and sneezy during the visit, but there were *bunches* (seven?) of dogs (and not all Poms) so it was really hard to isolate what was going on. I enjoyed meeting Cindi, though, and I knew that she understood how much I wanted this. She even agreed to let me come back and visit as many times as I needed to in order to make sure that I really wasn’t going to swell up and die.
About this same time, I also paid a visit to my allergist, Dr. LaForce, whom I’d started seeing more than a decade ago, and with whom I’d even done a round of immunotherapy (shots. ow). He did a spot test and confirmed that I really am still allergic(1) to dogs, wrote me a scrip for Zytec and wished me the best of luck (I’d been hoping there’d been some sort of miracle drug developed in the last decade. Sadly, there’s not.)
A few weekends later we went back and visited again…the somewhat (to me) odd thing was that I had *missed* the little puppy after that first time I met her. At that second visit, Cindi (who went so far above and beyond that it’s almost impossible to describe) said she’d even bathe the little girl with the allergen-reducing shampoo and keep her away from the other dogs so I could meet her uncomtaminated.
The pictures from that visit are here — you can’t see it, but I did hive up when she licked me on the face. Not insurmountable, as you can teach puppies not to lick. Other than that, no major issues.
Five days later I picked up India(2). She’s a handful, but then as I understand it, most puppies are. It’s sometimes really frustrating because we don’t know what she wants. She will cry, and we’ve no idea why, or she’ll be absolutely running around mad, and there’s no rhyme or reason to it, it seems.
A learning experience for me, for sure. I love her muchly and hope it works out. Everyone keep their fingers and other appendages crossed for me!
(And if you want to meet the world’s cutest puppy, let me know! She’s had her last puppy shot, so she can now socialize with other dogs (as long as they’ve had their shots).
(1)
I don’t know whether this is common or not, but when everyone seems to suffer from the same affliction I do, I tend to minimize the seriousness of the affliction… I think to myself “Oh yeah, allergies…everyone has allergies. I’m probably over-reacting and being a fuss-budget.
At Dr. LaForce’s I asked him if I really did have seriously bad allergies, or if I was just overestimating my state. He laughed and said “Oh, no, Gina, you’re really allergic.”
To which I replied “I bet you say that to all the ladies”
He laughed again, and I added “No, really, though. Out of 100% of the population, just how bad are my allergies.?”
He replied, “You have one of the worst cases of allergies I’ve ever seen. Seriously.”
So at least I’m not a crazy hypochondriac!
(2) India because she’s black like India Ink. Her whole name is India Friday (for the Steely Dan song “Black Friday”) Wolfe (for Wolfe Kennels).
Yes, this is me at a sporting event. On purpose, even.
By way of explanation, for anyone who is asking “Have the pod people gotten Gina at last?”, this was a networking event for Nortel. After the game we had dinner with Kay Yow and her coaching staff, which was the main reason I was interested in going. Despite my general antipathy towards sports, Kay’s an inspiration and I am really glad I had the opportunity to meet her. I was lucky, too, in that I got to sit next to one of the assistant coaches,Trina Trice-Hill, who has played all over the world in the WNBA. We had a fun conversation about living in France (in French! Boy am I rusty!)
Dinner, BTW, was at Porters, which was *really* good. I had a slow-roasted prime rib with a sauteed onion sauce and smushed potatoes and broiled asparagus. I’d also split some calamari with one of my tablemates and it was *amazing* — some sort of sweet-and-sour coating with sesame seeds that was so good I was willing to eat the “fingers” (normally I only eat the “rubber bands” as I don’t like to eat arms).
Often when I’m scared of doing something the fear acts as a strange signal to me that the very thing I’m scared of is, in fact, something that I need to do. I don’t know when exactly this behavior pattern started, but I do remember the first time I noticed it, which was when LJ decided that for her 30th birthday she wanted to go skydiving.
Now, I love roller coasters, but I’ve never liked plummeting part, just the loops and roles and twists. Therefore, jumping out of a plane had always seemed like all the worst parts of roller coaster rides without any of the good parts, yet when LJ said it, I felt compelled to do it. Upon examining further this seemingly oxymoronic behavior. I realized that I’d been acting this way for quite a while, but that as I grew older — and more determined to continue to grow and challenge myself and not become a fossilized old poop — the drive has become even stronger.
This afternoon there was another example of this sort of behavior
Realm of the Lint Queen 