I'd like to think that I could write on days other than weekends

But it seems, for now, I'm too tired in the evening.  Here is a re-cap of the last few days:

Thursday, September 27th -- I utterly broke down at work because a mom was not happy that I hade made an appointment at an alternate location since I can't get an MRI at the university until a month after the child was supposed to have it.  Turns out the doctor told her they couldn't have it locally because the university's scanner is so much better.  She was very strident, not necessarily abusive, but it just set me off into a crying fit (it turns out I was also pre-menstrual, so maybe that can explain the sudden lability), and my neighbouring co-worker heard it, had me unlock the door, and talked me into taking a walk and stepping away from the office.  It was a really hard day.  I had over 20 off-sites to schedule (still do, as every time I manage to schedule one about 2-3 more appear in my box).

The university is down to two, maybe one MRI scanner (depending on certain conditions like age, if it's with contrast, etc.) due to some maintenance, and so the other day I managed to get a cervical, thoracic, and lumbar MRI scheduled there--a long scan, easily over 2 hours--but otherwise without any of the constraints I'm normally given (it was originally supposed to coordinate with a brace pickup, but the university was too booked, so they just said any time I could get), and the first available was in the middle of December.  Now in some cases, I do have an alternate place I can go to--the one I scheduled the kid in that caused his mom to go ballistic--and I was given the go ahead to go there for this one, as it's just too far out.  Most of these are supposed to be same day so they can see our doctors then, and they're usually in clinic about two days a week, given that they're in surgery or at the university on other days.  But if I go to the alternate place, I have to clarify a spine survey (a reduced scan) vs a full scan, and all these little details take time, especially since I try at the university first as that's preferred.  And they can't do sedation ones.

Meanwhile, the baby hips are causing me no end of stress.  When we ask for an ultrasound for hip dysplasia, it's usually for treatment, not for diagnosis, and it has to be without manipulation, often in a harness.  These kids are extremely delicate--they can't be moved out of position at all.  The university is the only place in town that does them without manipulation, and they're down three techs.  The requests for these are always the same day, as is our protocol, and usually a week or two weeks out.  I'm struggling to get dates before a month out, and I'm relying on cancellations to get anything scheduled.  There are lots of little things that go into all of this, forms to fill out, faxes or e-mails, calling the centres, calling the parents, rescheduling, usually, as it doesn't suit someone, and then mailing letters, maps, and updating a summary, and sending the form out to a group.  That's just my part.  Then I hand it over to someone else who pre-certifies it.  But this could easily be a more-than-full-time job alone.  And it's just half of what I do--the surgery pre-certs are the main thing, and I"m struggling to get those done ahead of time because of all the time I'm spending on the off-sites.  I tracked the last week of off-sites on a running total to see how many I had a day, how many I got done, etc., whether I ran into any problems.  The one where the mom triggered the crying fit took about three hours total. On a good day--if I only work on off-sites--I can do about seven, or one an hour.  But that's without doing the surgeries at all that day.  Usually, it's two, maybe three.  And they just keep coming.  Plus, they have to be prioritised as they come in, as some are more urgent than others, like ones that are post-surgery the next day, or the baby hips for a week out.  It's causing a lot of stress.

I've already had an episode where I went to the emergency room for hours with chest pains and headache, and they eventually decided I'd had a migraine that was causing numbness and pain down my left arm.  I told that to my neurologist yesterday and he gave me a dissolving medication for migraines.  But I'm sure the whole thing was stress-related.  I'm getting a lot of headaches, have had some gastroenteric issues, and I've been stress eating from the vending machines, so my hA1c jumped from 7.1% a few months ago to 9.0% since I started in June.  I'm going to have to start packing carrots and other healthy foods, as I'm not sure I can curb the urge to eat, but at least I can change what I eat, and my endocrinologist said that was fine.

Friday, September 28th--It was a better day.  Busy, of course.  I started tracking the off-sites at work.  I had 26 that morning and got it down to 19.

Last weekend--my friend, the kitten, and the cat were all sniffly and under the weather.  The dog and I were the only ones fine.  We didn't play the game as a result, but I got a lot of rest, at least.

Work throughout the week--I just sallied forth and did what I could.  Surgeries were mostly done the day before or day of.  I realised late Friday afternoon that I had not sent one, and sent it in.  It may be denied for no timely authorisations (most places don't due retro ones).  That's not acceptable, and I know it, and it most likely will be an issue.  It won't be passed to the family (we are an actual charity, not just a non-profit), but it will cost the hospital money if denied.  So there was stress there.  I didn't think I was doing well, but I didn't think I'd actually drop the ball entirely on one.  So we'll see if they approve it.  I have no illusions that they will.

Tuesday, October 2nd--So I updated my laptop to the Windows 10 October Feature Update.  More on that in a minute.

Wednesday, October 3rd--That evening, I went to do a book review that I hadn't managed to get in by the 1st, and lo, my documents were all gone due to the update.  No one was really reporting on it at the time, just a few things in the fora.  I spent the evening seeing if they had been moved to another area, and I rolled back the update to see if they would appear.  Nada.  Nothing on my desktop, music, or photos had been touched, just my local drive non-cloud documents.  But that included the game notes, my job hunt materials, and my book reviews.  I updated back and at least I have some of that on Dropbox.  The game notes were backed up a month ago, and there are just two sessions I lost, which is good, and those recordings were still on the desktop, thankfully, so I can reconstruct (over several hours).  Most of the important stuff was already backed up.  But I was not happy with Microsoft at all.  I was also up late that night backing up my desktop, where my friend has tens of thousands of documents and pictures that he's collected and created over years, and we unplugged it from the Internet entirely.

Thursday, October 4th--News stories started making the rounds on the tech sites of the data loss issue with the update.  I did find a good tool for trying to recover files, but it only recovered a few non-important files I'd deleted myself, although I did get a book review back.  But either the files I'd had were just absolutely deleted by Microsoft's update, or rolling back--which even now Microsoft is suggesting,--just deleted them beyond recovery.

I did find ways to make sure the desktop didn't get the update (fortunately that machine is Windows 10 Pro, not Home like the laptop, so it's easier.  We were able to plug the computer back in.  It's deferred all updates for a month, and any feature updates for a year.  So we're good for now, hopefully.  But again, despite my best efforts to go to bed early, I was awakened in the middle of the night for a minor crisis and didn't get back to bed till 4 am.

Yesterday--We are officially out of grocery money.  I'm broke in general, my last purchase being a pie for a send-off at work for a co-worker who is moving to a new department.  It's going to be a very lean week until I get paid.

Today--I got some good sleep last night, and woke up to sun streaming through the window, and the cat, who'd really been struggling with the crud, obviously doing much better.  I got up, got some water, took my medicine, and played with the kitten with a laser pointer, although I have to be careful because while he's up to playing, he's still got a little breathing issue from the crud he had.

Okay, that's it for now.  Sorry I haven't blogged.  Today is the library, pet food run, book review, and working on the notes, plus going over to our sick friend's for a visit and maybe a movie tonight.

New month, new attempt to blog more often

My friend is in the shower. We're going to go pick up my insulin and then go to Masala, a local Indian restaurant, to celebrate his birthday, which was this week. It's the buffet. I hope they have gulab jaman--they don't always, but I shall content myself with naan, pakora, and the rest if not.

I had a scare the other day, on Monday. I was working at the computer and slowly realised that my face was growing numb, as well as my arm. At first I just thought it was my posture along with a pinched nerve from my neck, but I couldn't get it to let up at all and then I started having chest pains, starting from the heart area and going towards my left arm, and my shoulder and jaw ached terribly. Afraid to cause an issue (I know, good Southern girls probably drop dead rather than cause a scene), I called my friend, who used to be a nursing assistant, and he pointed out I was in a hospital with plenty of nurses to take my blood pressure. I had it taken by the lady whose cubicle is across from my office, who is acting as the employee health nurse right now, and it was a little high for me 135/85, but not dangerously high. Still, she offered to take me to the emergency room, and I asked her to take me to St. Joseph. She got the car and we left. She couldn't stay but dropped me off. They took me back for an EKG and bloodwork relatively quickly. I had a headache too, which I didn't really notice too much at first (I get a lot of them), and I was a little dizzy, so they got me a wheelchair. I sat for a while after the triage. I didn't realise it but I was a little confused, at one point realising that I didn't exactly remember the ride over (though I did later), and about two hours in remembered to tell them that I was on a beta blocker, which might be an issue if I were having heart issues.

Once I finally got into a room, a gown, and a bed, the nurse came in and took a history. I explained my symptoms, as well as a headache, which was getting terrible. They took me for a CT scan of the head (I'd already had a chest x-ray) and put me back in the room, and I stayed there a long time. One nurse came in and put me on a monitor (they hadn't, probably because I had come in during shift change), and then took some more blood. There was more waiting, but she'd gotten my phone out of my bag for me, so I ran it down to about 2% battery touching base with my friend and posting on Facebook. Eventually, the doctor came in for a couple of minutes. Everything was negative. They took a while to discharge me. A co-worker came and got me and took me to my car, which was over at UK, which was a blessing, as it's a long walk, and I'd been there almost six hours by the time I got out, so it was dark. They didn't know exactly what caused the 'unspecified' chest pain. I appears I had a migraine, and I hadn't thought I had had one in quite some time, but looking at symptoms that come with migraines, it could explain the dizziness I've been having on and off, as I have had quite a few headaches, just not the standard light-sensitive ones I used to have. Also, one type of aura for a migraine involves numbness and tingling in the arms, especially the left one. So that may have been part of it. They gave me some info on migraines, unspecified chest pain, and paresthesia, and sent me home. Thank goodness I've met my out-of-pocket expenses for the year in terms of health insurance.

So it all came down to nothing, but I'm glad I got checked out. But it was a little scary. I think a lot of it was stress, and had the equivalent to 4 1/2 cups of coffee in caffeine that day, via soda. So that could have been part of it. I've cut back on that. The job has been very stressful the last few weeks (I had 20 off-sites to schedule at one point last week--I have 5 now, most from the last couple of days). It's put me a little behind on my surgery authorizations in terms of time I usually get them in. But I keep chugging along. I didn't think I felt particularly anxious that day, but maybe I was somatizing instead.

Okay, I'm going to go now. I'm going to try to write more often, shooting for daily. I consider it a stress reliever.

Just a quick note

to apologise--nothing witty or unusual to report tonight. I had a migraine, well, have a migraine, all sick and light-sensitive and splitting headache, and went to bed in a nice dark quiet room for a couple of hours, then got up and it had eased enough for me to watch tonight's episode of 'Grimm', but my head's hurting again, so it's back to bed I go. Hopefully I'll be able to post something good tomorrow.

Good night.