Wombat Rampant

Actually I just need to cut back on the Cowzilla use when I get home, considering that I spend most of my day either bashing the keyboard and scribbling with a pencil in ledgers. It's not like I really need to get anything done online in a hurry, or keep up to date on the elections. As usual, it's a lot easier to find out what's going on in the race that affects me the least (The Promised One, Lord Obamessiah {PBUH} v. Some Old Dude Who Was In Vietnam Not Named Kerry) than what's happening in my congressional district or even the race to replace John Warner in the Senate.

Stopped at Harris Teeter to pick up some yogurt and wound up with a pound of sliced roast beast, horseradish sauce for same, grapes, Fig Newtons, (which were BOGO) and some Crystal Light, which was buy one get two free. So now I have something to moderate my Diet Coke intake besides water, ehich gets kind of old after a while.

Got the blood testing and insulin injection schedule squared away today - I need to stick my fingers 4x daily and theoretically could wind up injecting three times a day. Weehu. Feel my (lack of) enthusiasm...maybe I should stop looking when I do the injections. Tomorrow it's off to Annapolis after work so I can get measured for the CircAids like I was supposed to the first time. Should be an interesting drive if we get the thunderstorms the weathermen are promising for tomorrow.

( EVE stuff )
Senior controller was busy with the stuff that came from the auditor, so he didn't have me do much for him except fill out some USPS forms and write up ledger entries which I'll probably be entering tomorrow. Which is to say work was kinda slow.

Leg continues to improve; it appears to be drying up since the amount of drainage into the surgical sponges has dropped off a cliff since I started the Omnicef. w00t.

Test results came back from the wound culture yesterday, and after much e-mailing back and forth about cost, location, timing, and other annoying intrusions into the wonderful world of medicine I turned thumbs down on the IV antibiotics and went with an oral antibiotic yclept Omnicef. I am told it will not make me break out in hives or die of anaphylactic shock, despite being a third-generation penicillin derivative; I'm going to pick up some Benadryl anyway. Just in case. The reason we're switching to the Omnicef is that, having killed off the Staphylococcus aureus from last time, the Cipro isn't making much headway against the remaining Pseudomonas and Streptococcus, and the Sulfameth is complete fail. Could have fooled me; the wound looks like it's getting better and there's a total absence of yellow crap in there. However, IANAD.

On a closely related topic, the therapist who I suffered three hours of hellish driving to reach a couple of weeks ago called to let me know that her choice of compression garment had been vetoed by Kaiser on grounds of cost. That, and it wasn't what they asked for anyway. So, since the measurements for the CircAid are different from what she took, I get to drive up to Annapolis again. Welp.

Couldn't get to sleep last night until 0230 due to the pain in my leg. Well, maybe sleeping in until 1000 and being horizontal most of the day had something to do with it too. Anyway, I finally gave up and took another couple of Tylenol and hoped for the best.

Up at 0630, managed not to fall asleep before getting to work, and warned the Senior Controller that I was liable to be a little more retarded than usual and why. So he took it slow and mostly avoided his usual crankiness, thank God. Today was mostly taken up with closing the books, now that we have all the quarterly tax crap taken care of; not all that hard if you step carefully through it, don't rush, and have somewhat of an idea what's going on. I'm happy to say that after doing this for a couple of months, it's slowly becoming more familiar and I see where the parts fit together. Sometimes I have to stop and think about it, but that's okay.

Stopped for yogurt and other dairy products on the way home; need to get shirts done, but aside from that I'm planning on an early bedtime. Blood sugars were uniformly horrible on Sunday, all over 200, but today I didn't feel much like eating (maybe the insulin is having side effects?) and just had a sandwich & V-8 for lunch. Of course, I was hungry when I got home; blood sugar before snacking was 128, which is pretty damn good. Early to bed with a cup of yogurt ought to allow me to dodge the needle in the morning. I hope. Not that it hurts (because the needles are Super Fine) but despite the doctor's briefing it still feels like miserable fail.

So after a couple days laziness where I didn't go to Urgent Care right after work, I finally got there today...by way of Sterling Collision, which replaced the passenger-side tires after I climbed a curb across the street from this place while trying to read the twee little business signs by the side of the road*. Two tires, three hours and $350 later I finally got to Kaiser Urgent Care in Reston (which is located on the wrong side of the road, wtf?) where the doctor agreed that yup, the infection was back, maybe brought some fungal friends with it. So she prescribed three weeks of Cipro and Sulfameth, doubling up on the sulfameth daily dose, and added some oral antifungals for good measure.

And some insulin. I don't have to take it unless my fasting blood sugar is over 200 in the morning/2 hours after the big meal of the day, but it's in the fridge and the needles are in the cabinet. Already stuck myself with 2 units today, since at 4:30 my glucose was 240. The doctor made a point of telling me that insulin isn't just used in end-stage diabetes treatment any more; apparently if I wind up in the hospital for some reason, they'll discontinue the oral meds and just go to insulin shots. The whole point of this particular vial is to get my blood sugar back to normal so it doesn't set off more infections, which can (and apparently has) happen if the blood sugar numbers are too high.

So once this is posted, I'm going to drink an assload of water to go with the antibiotics, take a couple of Tylenol for the occasional shooting pains, and go to bed for at least 10 hours, perchance to sleep; tomorrow will be spent mostly in a horizontal permission as the doctor ordered.

*Fuck Reston and their community sign standards anyway. Dictatorial pricks. (Yes, I realize this makes me a miserable PUD knocker.)

Finished off the main disbursing, body shop checking, and body shop money market accounts today, got the payroll ready for tomorrow, and that pretty much ate the day. Oh, I also brought the employee card file & leave book up to date and ordered some office supplies. Weehu. Unfortunately I was in such a hurry to get out the door with the garbage this morning that I forgot my meds, and so I've pretty much hit the wall. Probably won't stay up for much longer.

This has been one rough day. Went in to work at 0700 since I had to leave at 1100; got there to find that there was no internet. Power-cycled DSL modem, switch and router; the router died the real death. Since none of the cables are tagged, Verizon couldn't even get me directly connected to the DSL modem, and that was pretty much it for the morning. Our LAN support people showed up around 1030, which means I spent the intervening ninety minutes doing everything I could do without the Internets, and then left for physical therapy.

That went okay, and the therapist was even kind enough to print out directions to my next stop, ComfortCare in Annapolis. So I headed off down I-66 to 110 South...and when I got down to 395 North, had to change course in a hurry, since Shirley Highway northbound was so stacked up that people couldn't even get off 110 to get on the ramp. So I headed down Route 1 instead, stop-and-go through Alexandria, and crept along the ramp to 495/95 North. Yup, I went over the Woodrow Wilson and then headed hell-bent for leather up the Beltway to 50 East. Unfortunately, thanks to some god-damned funeral procession (probably the PG County trooper who got offed last week) US 50 East was closed down, and the ramps to it were closed. So I made a move over to 301, hoping to get onto 50 after whatever was clogging the highway. This I eventually did after calling the clinic (again) and making yet another move to 450, which detoured onto 424, which dumped me back onto 50 East, now blessedly clear. I finally made it to the clinic around 1500, after leaving Falls Church at 1215. Fortunately I was their only appointment of the afternoon.

Apparently my therapist is being overruled and I am not going to get the CircAids; I'll be getting a more rigid version of the compression stockings I had, and some night-time compression garments as well. Weehu.

Ignorant sod that I am, I innocently assumed that 301 South would be a good alternate route across the Potomac. Yes, that's how badly I wanted to avoid the Woodrow Wilson in rush hour: a detour that would bring me back to US-1/I-95 over by Fredericksburg seemed like a good idea. Unfortunately, most of the people who used to live in PG County and Baltimore City seem to have moved into Charles & St. Mary's counties, and guess where 301 goes? OMG, the traffic was hideous, and long about 1730 I gave up and backtracked via Maryland 225 to 210 and then over the (blessedly unclogged) Woodrow Wilson. I'll buy tubes of meat for tomorrow's festivities tomorrow, since everything's open then anyway.

Jesus, am I fried...was going to go in early today and am damn glad I didn't, because I am tired as hell right now. Still, most of the month-end crap is done. Tomorrow, there's only some bank reconciliations to be done (when they come in) and some checks to be written tomorrow before I slope off to Falls Church for physical therapy, followed by a high-speed run to Annapolis for some measuring. Some unspecified period after that, I can has CircAids. Apparently the tag-team of my PCP and podiatrist convinced Kaiser that I REALLY REALLY NEED THIS and it is in fact covered by my policy.

There's some other stuff going on that I kinda sorta want to comment on, but all I really want to do right now is eat something resembling dinner and go crash. I will say, though, in advance of a longer post: Wesley Clark, you are a miserable little putz.

Finally got the culture results back from last week's "OMG hurry up and get in here!" appointment, and they were a trifecta of streptococcus beta-hemolytic B, pseudomonas aeruginosa, and staphyloccous aureus, most of which were apparently just hanging around on the skin waiting for a friendly environment to show up. It's possible I may have actually had this infection for a while and just written it off as depression or a lack of sleep, but at any rate it's being beaten back quite nicely by the Cipro and the sulfa.

In other news, work went pretty smoothly today, and we're pretty much ready to get through the month-end close tomorrow. That's what the senior controller thinks, anyway, and he ought to know. Came home to find the replacement bread robot blades in the mailbox, and may crank out some oat bread in the near future, especially if it keeps being pleasantly cool in the evenings.

I haven't been swimming this week, which is bad for me and my legs, but since the diabetes meds and antibiotics are double-teaming my melanin cells all to hell it behooves me to stay the hell out of the sun as much as possible. I mentioned this to P this morning, and she was duly appalled to see the near-sunburn I'd managed to generate on my left forearm on the relatively short drive from Foxchase out to the Amphora in Herndon. So, bottom line, I'm not going out at all unless I have to, and on the weekends I really don't have to. Any shopping I need to do, I can do after dusk - and generally speaking, shopping on the weekends sucks anyway.

Can't wait to see what side effects I'm going to get off the diuretic I'll be starting after I finish up with the antibiotics next week. Thanks to the aforementioned medications, I'm already having to follow desert hydration rules (i.e., if you don't need to piss, you aren't drinking enough) and that doesn't look to be changing when the new drugs replace the old drugs. It's enough to make me wonder what the incidence is of drug interaction deaths in the elderly who can't keep straight what they're not supposed to take with what.

Pretty much done here at work; I have a trivial amount of filing left to do before I leave, and realistically I could have done that an hour ago instead of amusing myself on the Intertubes. On the other hand, it would be pointless to go home since I have a 1610 appointment with my podiatrist/wound care specialist and I'd just be fighting traffic to get there if I went home first.

So, I'm killing time here until about 1500, at which point I'll go hang out someplace else for half an hour and suck down some Diet Coke or (better yet) Diet Sprite.

Dr. L seemed pleased with my rapid response to the antibiotics (as am I), had her nurse re-bandage me and sent me on my way to work. I get to see my podiatrist/wound care specialist tomorrow, and maybe we'll get this compression garment bidness squared away after they tag-team the case manager. Policy does say that durable medical equipment is covered, after all.

Got to work shortly thereafter, where the senior controller had already gotten the paychecks signed, stuffed and sorted into piles. We then proceeded to run -and I do mean run - down the list of things that needed to be done with regard to the payroll, including cranking out a bill to the the body shop for payroll expenses. When he left, I had a foot-high stack of documents and folders to fight through, but I got it all done and ready for the mail/UPS drop by the time I ran out of steam at 1600. Boss is still pretty pissed off at Creative Financial, and I think they realize they're in trouble for selling me as something I'm not. I suggested they ought to charge the senior controller's salary to them, considering all the instruction and training he's giving me; that would fix them and their $9000 liquidated asset charge rather nicely, I think. Senior controller wants to boil CF in oil because he's spending roughly 2.5-3 days a week walking me through stuff instead of building his deck and annoying the fishes, and I can't say I blame them. My job is safe, though; not only am I extremely willing to learn (and very patient with the Sc's baiting) but to use one of Poul Anderson's favorite quotes, "For I have waded so far in gore, the way back were as far as the way before." So I'll keep plugging away and writing everything down so at the very least, when my time comes I can hand off a set of procedures to the next guy.

Enough about that, though. It's sushi time!

I was pretty surprised at how - well, not good, but functional - I felt today as the antibiotics get closer to their full strength. Legs didn't hurt as much, and a couple of other trivial sore spots seem to be diminishing as well. Unfortunately that functional feeling is deserting me now that I'm home, and I have so much to do before I crash for the night. Work shirts need to be washed, others need mending, and there are a couple other things around here that could stand to get done. Like my contribution to the APA, which needs to be bashed out tonight and mailed out tomorrow. It'll be a short one, since I haven't had the time or inclination to work on comments or natter these last couple weeks.

Well, better get to it.

Cut for the squeamish or uninterested.
( Ah, nothing says quality care like painful burning sensations.  )

My doctor was off duty today, but I did get to see another one of the GPs after waiting for two hours; she swizzled a culture swab around in my leg wound (ow), prescribed ten days of Cipro and Bactrim/Septra for me, and had the nurse rebandage both legs with gauze soaked in hydrogen peroxide. I went back to work, pounded out the rest of the checks I'd started in the morning, posted them to the GL and mailed them. Would have grabbed lunch and/or waited for the drugs, but I'd forgotten my wallet, so I had to swing by the pharmacy after work.

And that was Monday. Didn't get a chance to call Member Services and ask them wtf was the point of measuring me for compression garments if they weren't going to cover them? This was doubly irritating since I thought we'd settled this issue with regard to the stockings. Maybe this has to do with the puttees the PT lady wants me to use in lieu of the compression sleeves.

Leg hurt like hell last night after I went to bed, almost to the point that I considered getting up, calling Kaiser and seeing what (if anything) they could/would do at 0100 on a Sunday. Eventually it calmed down, though, and I slept until 1100 today when the alarm went off. It hasn't hurt as much today, but I don't like the way it feels at all - warm to the touch and full of the dull achy pain that tells me something might could be happening. So I'll call in tomorrow, see whether they want me to come into Urgent Care or the Springfield complex. Or whether they just want to prescribe a Z-pack, which is like a preventative nuclear strike for this sort of thing. Any roads, I stayed home and inside all day, doing very little, which bothered me since I'd originally planned to go over to the house and help Carlos get stuff done. That wasn't happening today, though.

Watched the first of the two Trigun DVDs I picked up at the local video store last night, and realized to my disgust that they were HK bootlegs. FUCK. Fortunately they seem to have actually hired competent English-speakers for the subtitling; there's some minor weirdness but you can still follow what's going on. Still going to buy the box set; there's probably some on eBay or half.com for a lot less than the ~$200 Amazon is charging.

Today's appointments were an interesting mixture of win and fail. First, I lugged my compression sleeves & pump up to Falls Church so the lympedema therapist could look at it. This she did, but was diffident about whether I should start using it again. She then proceeded to flog the lymph nodes in my right leg and re-bandage the wound there with some wraparound bandages before putting the stocking back on; as for the left leg, she contented herself with a similar re-bandaging and then broke the zipper on the left compression stocking while putting it back on. Fail. She really wants to get me into one of these dealies, which look more durable than the compression stockings and maybe less expensive too. Might have to start wearing shorts, though, since these look pretty bulky.

After that I dashed back out US 50 to the beltway and was only five minutes late for my second appointment of the day. This went well; Dr. L agreed that I didn't need to hare off to the endocrinologist since my blood test results were all pretty nominal and not much changed from January's baseline. We're going to give dieting and exercise three months to work and do more tests then; for now I am off to a good start, dropping almost 8 pounds in the last two weeks. Booya.

Today was another long slog of wading through checks, general ledger entries, and taking care of things I didn't know enough to do back in May when everything seemed pretty slack. Also, getting my head around the way some of the systems work, which will be an ongoing process until I reach the point where the senior controller retires and I can put all this shit on QuickBooks or Peachtree because I finally understand it and don't need to write everything down in six places with 10-key tapes attached. Maybe in another few years.

Picked up a 3-liter bottle of water at Walmart yesterday and am starting to hit on that at my desk instead of indulging in a super-sized Diet Coke from McD's after breakfast and another bottle with/after lunch. The water is better for me than my caffeinated pop of choice, and it already seems to be having a positive effect on my blood sugar. In related news, the complex pools are open but I haven't used them since my trunks went astray sometime in the last nine months and the new ones haven't arrived yet.

The lymphedema appointment was more intake and measurements than anything else; scheduled a couple of follow-ups over the next couple of weeks.

From there I headed into work, stopping only for a grilled chicken sandwich at McD's and some gas at BP (since I was running on fumes) and getting in around 1100. Month-end stuff ensued, with the senior controller and I finally tearing apart payroll around 5 PM. I got most of the important parts right, missed sending out one check because I forgot to check the calendar, and avoided disaster in the general ledger because I never got around to posting the entries. I badly need to continue updating my checklist of payroll activities, because as much as the SC talks about a checklist, there really isn't one outside his head.

Finally wrapped up around 1900 and headed for Ye Chon and bulgogi with RS & P. Many amusing tales of RS' adventures in New York were told, jokes cracked about weight and leather ties, and a good time was had by all.

Time to crash...

Left work today after getting the bulk of the important payroll stuff done; the rest can wait until Monday after I see the lymphedema consultant who will hopefully take one look at my legs and go "OMFG you need new stockings three months ago!" and dispense with unnecessary dietary/exercise lectures. There's lab work on the schedule for tomorrow morning before I head out to Chantilly for a long-overdue clearing of the mailbox.

Finished Neal Stephenson's The Confusion last night but am withholding judgment until I finish The System of the World, because there are too many dangling plot threads. Am currently enmeshed in Max Hastings' Warriors, which is a nice collection of biographical essays on soldiers, sailors and airmen who were heroes in their time, including Joshua Chamberlain, Eddie Rickenbacker, Frederick Burnaby, John Masters and Jim Gavin. Not all of them pleasant, not all of them boon companions, even, but hard fighters one and all.

deathquaker may have convinced me to go to Otakon after all. We'll see how the budget looks in August when it comes to deciding whether I want to go up for a day or get a hotel room for a couple of nights.