February 2006 Archives

My nurse from the fertility clinic called today. It seems they were going through the results of the various blood work and tests I’ve had done, and she wanted to make sure I’d been fasting when they did one particular set of blood work, because my glucose levels looked high. I verified that I had fasted on that day, and she said she’d have to talk to the doctor and get back to me, but that he may want to put me on Metformin. Which was one of the options we discussed when I had my initial visit with the doctor.

Unfortunately, I didn’t think to ask her what my fasting glucose level was, and she didn’t get back to me this afternoon. Typing “high fasting glucose” into Google was kind of scary, because all the results I saw make it sound like I’m about to be diagnosed with diabetes. I don’t think that’s actually the case, as insulin resistance and high glucose frequently come along with PCOS. And possible (non-standard) PCOS is one of the diagnoses I’ve gotten. If anything, it just gives me additional motivation to get in shape. But even more, it means there might actually be a tangible reason for my infertility – something to fix, instead of possibilities and maybes. At this point, after all this time, that would mean the world to me.

There’s a local story I read about in the paper yesterday that’s just been bugging me. Some of the high schools around here offer a Peace Studies program. Two students at B-CC High School (that’s Bethesda-Chevy Chase, a.k.a. privileged rich kid central) who aren’t even taking the class, have decided that it should be discontinued because it only offers one point of view. The teacher has the nerve to make his views against war, violence and animal testing clear. In his Peace Studies class. How surprising. What should they cover in Peace Studies? How war is good? Why we should all be more intolerant of each other? How to achieve change through the domination and oppression of others? The teacher says he encourages open debate and opposing view points, and my guess is that he does. Of course, these kids wouldn’t know that since they haven’t even taken the class.

I worked for a very conservative magazine for five long years before I took my current job. Many of the people I knew there were really nice, well educated, and quite intelligent (with a couple of extremely mean-spirited exceptions). They all had this same weird blind spot though. They prided themselves on being contrarians, but when presented with an opposing or alternate view, they just wanted to shut it down. They would be in total agreement with these kids, I’m sure. The whole idea of peace studies is something they would have ridiculed. I don’t understand that. How could someone possibly object to the notion of learning about peace? How could they think that wishing for a world where we don’t have to resort to violence to solve our problems and trying to make that a reality is somehow laughable? Why is it crazy to be concerned about the suffering of animals and our fellow humans? If I were suffering, I would want someone to care about what was happening to me.

I can only conclude that these kids – and my former co-workers – find those sorts of ideas threatening for some reason. Perhaps because somewhere deep down inside, notions like that make them question what they’ve always believed, and that makes them uncomfortable? Because otherwise, I don’t see how anyone, anywhere could have a problem with kids learning about peace before they head out into the cold hard world.

I made it down to the doctor’s on time on Friday. Things got off to a rocky start when the gas light came on as I pulled out of my neighborhood. Luckily, there was no traffic at 6:30, so I was able to fit in a stop at the gas station. There was, however, plenty of traffic at 7:07. Right as I was getting off the highway the traffic was coming to a dead stop. Anyway, I got to the doctor’s office exactly at 7:15. Naturally, the doctor was late. But once he arrived everything moved very efficiently. The test itself hurt quite a bit more than last time – at one point I actually had that simultaneous hot and freezing clammy feeling you get right before you pass out, but they finished up very quickly. And in even better news, this time, my right tube was open. I got to see the replay of the test afterwards, and while the right tube is a little twisty looking, I got to see the dye going through. I’m not entirely sure why it would have changed, but I’m hoping that this is a good sign.

In other news, John and I helped my mom move out of her office today, which was both much better than I thought it would be and really crappy, because moving heavy objects pretty much always sucks. I thought it was going to take us forever to get everything out of there, but my mom had finally gotten everything boxed up and it only took us two trips with the van. She has a basement office, which meant that we had been hauling everything up two flights of stairs, but for today she has arranged for the guy in the office next to hers to come in and open up his back door so we could roll everything out that way. Which sounded great until I got in his office and saw that the path to the door was lined with bookcases filled with fragile glass souvenirs from all the trips he’s taken (he’s a travel agent.) Yep, pretty much my worst fucking nightmare. By some miracle, we got all of the furniture out of there without destroying anything. There was one enormous black file cabinet which nearly defeated us. John and I wrestled it out the door and across the grass, but it kept falling off the dolly. Thank goodness my mom was tucked inside and couldn’t hear all the swearing we did at the ridiculously heavy filing cabinet, at each other, at the world at large.

Since we had the van, we stopped by that auction place to see if they had any furniture we might want. They had two chairs I quite liked, but of course, the chairs I liked sold for $250. The two chairs that John liked that I didn’t particularly want? Yeah, we got those for $20 a piece. Plus, my mom gave us a desk and a file cabinet (not the heavy one) if something that you make someone take because you don’t want to get rid of it and can’t fit into your house can be called a gift. So we had to move all of that into the house. And now my whole body hurts. My back, my knees, my arms and most especially my hands. My poor hands ache like you wouldn’t believe. I obviously need to work on my upper body strength. But not for a day or two.

Tomorrow morning I go for my repeat HSG. Not my idea of a good time, but whatever, it’s not that bad. The problem is that I have to be there at 7:15 in the morning. I’m usually just getting out of bed at 7:15 in the morning! Instead, tomorrow I have to be at the doctor’s office 25 miles away from my house. I am really NOT a morning person. My appointment is for 7:30, but they say I have to be there at 7:15. And if I’m not there on time, they’ll bump me and I’d have to wait a whole other month before I could have the test done. That seems to be the new trend with doctors – they want you to come early even though they are going to make you wait around anyway. Although I don’t see how they could be backed up at 7:15 in the morning, so maybe I won’t have to wait around this time.

In an effort to combat my natural morning stupor, I’m getting absolutely everything ready tonight so all I have to do in the morning is shower, put on my clothes, hop in the car and go. Please tell me there’s no traffic at 6:30 am! If there’s traffic I might just have a nervous breakdown.

I actually had a pretty decent day today…but I have just a couple of complaints I’d like to register anyway.

1. I spent a good chunk of my day trying to write a piece of copy that should be simple and straightforward, but which I just can’t get to turn out right. It’s very annoying and I hope I get it sorted out tomorrow.
2. I drive a little Honda Civic. I love my car. It is cute, it is reliable and it gets excellent gas mileage. However it is frequently dwarfed in parking lots by all of the SUVs, ginormous pickup trucks and minivans that everyone drives these days, which means that I have to back out of parking spaces blindly a lot of the time. And stupid fucking people are always walking or driving behind my car when I can’t see them. They can see the back of my car with my reverse lights on and should be able to tell that it is in motion, but apparently they can’t make the connection that I can’t see them until I get out from between the SUVs flanking me. I am seriously terrified that I am going to hit one of these idiots, like the woman who walked right behind me with her shopping cart tonight. I about had a heart attack when I saw her in the rearview mirror.
3. The Doxycycline is upsetting my tummy. Everything I eat sits in my stomach like lead. And not eating makes me feel worse than eating. Yuck.

Oooh, I’m Leadbelly! And I’ve got the lame and boring copy/little car parking lot/antibiotics messing up my digestive system blues. But only for a couple more days. Except for the parking lot thing.

So last night, when I was writing about my weekend? I had taken Excedrin PM because my back urn from all the moving. Which means I was very sleepy and completely forgot three items I wanted to mention.

Item #1:
When John’s aunts came to the house, they brought us bread, salt and wine (or in our case, sparkling cider, because John doesn’t drink). They said it was an old Irish housewarming tradition – John’s mom’s family is Irish, but they grew up in London – and there was a blessing which went with it, explaining what each gift was for. It almost made me cry at the time, and yet somehow I’ve managed to forget it already. Something about the bread so we’d always have plenty, the wine so our lives would be sweet, and I can’t remember what the salt was for. But it was really touching and very meaningful, I swear.

Item #2.:
John doesn’t like cake, so I always try to surprise him with some sort of creative birthday sweet. This year I made a chocolate soufflé with a white chocolate sauce and strawberries. It turned out really well and I just wanted to brag a bit. I’ve never made a soufflé before. It wasn’t all that hard, but my arm did just about fall off from having to beat the egg whites so long.

Item #3:
My new RE has both John and me taking Doxycycline. Me because I’m having a new HSG done on Friday and there’s apparently a risk of infection with that test, and both of us because we could have a “sub-clinical inflammation” of some sort that contributes to infertility. Apparently they just have everyone do a course of antibiotics rather than testing for these “sub-clinical” whatevers because they don’t always show up when you look for them. Or something like that. So, first of all, I sat down and read all of the literature that came with the Doxycycline, and it is a little frightening. You must take it with food, but don’t take it with dairy. Don’t take within two hours of taking a multivitamin. Do drink a whole glass of water. And on and on. I shouldn’t read that stuff. But once I was on an antibiotic and didn’t read the instructions and it turned out you were supposed to start taking it at night because it could make you really dizzy, and it did, in fact, make me really dizzy, and nauseous. Anyway, I’ve had three doses, and so far, nothing scary has happened, so I’ve decided maybe the little drug pamphlet was just a tad alarmist.

But, that brings me to my second point which is, I had an HSG before, and my old doctor didn’t prescribe antibiotics for me. And if there is a risk of infection, I’d like to know why not. Is there debate about whether or not this is helpful or necessary? What if we have this sub-clinical thingy and all we’ve needed for the past two and a half years was antibiotics? Although, doubtful, because I know there are other problems. But still, it makes me wonder.

Yesterday was John’s birthday. We spent the morning tidying up, as John’s auntie Bea from London and auntie Jimmie from Australia are here in the States visiting, and they came up to have lunch and to see the house. We had a really nice time, and they seemed to really like our house.

After they left, we headed over the West Virginia to pick up some Powerball tickets. That isn’t as much of a production as you might think, since we’re only about 20 minutes from Harper’s Ferry. John was hoping his birthday luck might apply to the lotto, so we went to Harper’s Ferry and then kept going until we found a 7-Eleven. 7-Elevens in West Virginia sell liquor. I know this because we were not the only people who thought to duck over to West Virginia to get a Powerball ticket, and there was quite a line. It moved pretty quickly, but even so, I spent several minutes in the extensive liquor section. Alas, we did not get a winner. We had exactly one of the numbers, which means we get nothing. But it was fun to go anyway.

Today I had my first blood draw and sonogram at the new clinic. I was a little worried about going in on a Sunday – but I was pleasantly surprised. I had almost no wait, even though they were very busy. The techs were friendly and efficient, explaining what they were doing and seeing. I was in and out in half an hour. At my old doctor’s I would still have been stuck in the waiting room in half an hour.

Then I went and helped my mom clean out her office for hours and hours and hours. She’s a consultant and she’s got an office that she never uses, so she’s closing it at the end of February. She’s been in there since 1998, and I don’t think she’s thrown out one single thing since she moved in. We threw out 13 bags of trash and moved out 11 boxes of stuff. Next Sunday John and I are going to help her move the furniture and the rest of her crap out. Next Sunday is going to completely suck.

You know what a hungry, tired, PMS-having woman should not do? She should not go to the grocery store. I found myself wandering the store this evening in a disorganized fashion, randomly putting food in my cart, drifting from aisle to aisle, periodically having to double back. When I passed by the syrup and pancake mixes, the syrup smelled so good that I had to suppress the urge to grab a bottle and start doing shots of syrup.

Not that I would actually do it – I’m pretty sure shots of syrup would be would be disgusting in reality. I did buy four Krispy Kreme donuts though (two for me and two for John) and ginger ale, but considering the alternative, that doesn't sound so bad, does it?

When I had my appointment with the new fertility doctor, they gave me orders to have a bunch of blood work done. So much blood work that I couldn’t have it all done at once. I’ve been putting off going to the lab. I’m not sure why. I just kept coming up with seemingly valid reasons not to go. I always have plenty of work to use as an excuse. But at the same time, I fretted about what “my” nurse would think about me that I hadn’t run right out and gotten the tests done immediately. Because I’m neurotic like that, like that would make any difference. Anyway, John and I went and got the first set of blood drawn on Saturday, and because I am lucky, I got to go back and get more blood drawn today.

I went at 2:15, thinking that they wouldn’t be crowded. They weren’t when I got there, but there were only two people working, so we patients stacked up quickly. After an interminable wait in the waiting room of doom, I finally got to go in the back. My lab tech was great. He was British and had a London gangster-movie accent – “here’s the fing” “I’ll be roight wif you” – which was a nice distraction from the eight (eight!) tubes of blood he was taking out of my arm. By the time he was done, I was ready to demand cookies and juice.

I’m watching Deadwood on HBO right now, and that’s the line someone just said. He’s got the town’s first bicycle and they’re taking bets on how his ride around the town will go. I love the dialogue on this show. No one talks like these people do, but it would make life more interesting if they did.

Another weekend is drawing to a close. I wish they didn’t go by so quickly. I didn’t get to half of the things I wanted to get done. I’m trying to get my little home office organized, but I barely got started. I was going to do our taxes, but never quite got to it. Currently, I’m ignoring a pile of laundry, a pile of newspapers, and some pots and pans that need washing.

We got our first real snowstorm yesterday, conveniently on the weekend when I didn’t have to get back and forth to work. Seamus was so excited about the snow he started trying to get me up at 5 o’clock this morning, flipping his ears over and over until I told him he were most definitely going out for two more hours. It was cute to see him acting like a little pup, except for the “at 5 am” part. When we did get up and go out, he bounded through snow up to his chest at times, full of enthusiasm. I was amazed to see that some of my (annoying, overachieving) neighbors had already gotten up and shoveled their walks. Who gets up at 6 am, on Sunday, and shovels while it is still snowing? You’re just going to have to shovel again, so it’s not like you are saving yourself any work. Now, I personally went back to bed after walking Seamus around a bit. I was freezing, and still tired. And John did the shoveling anyway.

The only other time it snowed, I cleared the walk and the car myself because John was still sleeping and I didn’t see any reason to get him up. Everyone – including John – seemed to think that was weird, so I caved to peer pressure and let him do the shoveling this time. I’m fine with that decision. Animals, drunks and sundries -- and snow -- cleared from my passage.

My presentation went well. I believe I managed to be informative without providing so much information that everyone expired of boredom. Even better, for once I did not blush because I was the center of attention. That’s a major accomplishment for me. I always blush.

Anyway, I got through the presentation fine, sat through the rest of the surprisingly interesting meeting, ate my free Corner Bakery lunch, and headed back to my office none the worse for wear. Although I did find myself suffering from a major case of lack of focus-itis.

A case that kept going even after I left work. If my husband didn’t read this blog I could tell you about the silly mistake I made with a present for him, and oh, how we would laugh. But he does read, so instead I guess I’ll have to share my other goofy John story of the week.

On Sunday I learned the shocking truth that John doesn’t like dip. Doesn’t like dip, can you believe it? I was off to the grocery store to pick up a couple of items, and he requested potato chips. And I said, “But we have chips!” “Just plain ones,” he replied. “Well, I’ll be making dip when my mom comes over for the Super Bowl,” I said. And that was when he confessed his secret hatred of dip. So I get to the Giant and I’m looking at all the chips, suddenly concerned that I have no idea what he likes or dislikes anymore. I knew he’d just had salt & vinegar chips, so I didn’t think he want those. And I passed on sour cream & onion, because if he doesn’t like dip, maybe he's also harboring resentment of sour cream (a major component of dip). So after all this careful consideration, what do I buy? Cheddar & sour cream potato chips. Yes, that’s right, the other chips with sour cream in the name. Apparently I’ve been having trouble focusing all week.

I have to give a presentation tomorrow morning at work. It’s mostly an update on what my team has been doing recently and some of the big projects we have on the horizon, but still, I’m just a little bit nervous about it. Public speaking isn’t really my bag, baby. Anyway, not only is John going to get up early to walk Seamus so I don’t have to rush or worry about getting to work on time, but the two of them just sat through my whole talk.

John offered a couple of very useful pointers, and Seamus rolled on to his back and requested a belly rub. Now I feel prepared for just about anything, from questions from the audience (ably portrayed by my talented husband) to loud noises (the fire kept popping as I was talking) to distractions (although the chances of someone requesting a belly rub in the meeting tomorrow seem slim).

Thanks to my two best guys.

Last night the video card connector on my less than three month old computer died. Not the video card itself, at least I think not, but the stupid little plug. I partially blame myself for this one because until two weeks ago I had a nine year old monitor that worked if you plugged it in and braced it against the wall. Or jiggled the cord just right. And then it died, and no amount of pushing or jiggling would get it to work again, so we bought a new monitor. Unfortunately, I think all that jiggling and bracing damaged the pinholes that you plug the video cable in with, and last night, it just up and died too.

So I took the computer in to Best Buy this morning to see if they could replace the connector. They run ads about their stupid Geek Squad all the time, and this seemed like the perfect instance in which to use them. First I had to waste a bunch of time standing around while about five of the Geek Squad guys ignored me completely, pulling out their Treos and making notes or getting involved in intense conversations with each other. Then I got one guy’s attention, only to have him explain that they would only work on my computer if I had a service contract. I say Best Buy is missing a HUGE opportunity here. I would have paid for them to fix the damn thing because it was convenient, but apparently they are too good for my money. At least he was nice enough to confirm my theory that I could just buy a new video card (the old one was kind of crappy anyway) and install it in one of the open slots and that would take care of the problem. I wasn’t sure if that would work because I couldn’t pull out the old video card – it is an integrated chip and it is connected to a bunch of other stuff I didn’t want to mess with.

Anyway, I managed to pick out the right video card and get home and successfully install it, earning myself super genius status for just a little while.

And then the weirdest coincidence happened. I was looking out my front window, and who should I see leaving my next door neighbor’s house but two of the Geek Squad losers who so studiously pretended they couldn’t see me earlier in the day. I was tempted to run out and do some bizarre victory dance as they got in their Geekmobile,but I restrained myself. We super geniuses have to behave with some decorum after all.

I got two important projects that have been on my team’s list for months started. I also wrote two pieces of copy that turned out really well. I don’t get to write as much copy as I used to so it was nice to have the time to sit down and come up with copy that was nice and tight and did exactly what I wanted it to do. Which has not been happening around these parts lately. I actually wrote two separate posts last night and ended up not liking either one, which meant you guys got nothing. But hey, now I’m on a roll! Well, maybe not. This is not the most exciting or interesting thing I’ve ever written. However if you want to know anything about Google, I’m your girl. Plus, there was a new episode of Veronica Mars on tonight. Yes, that’s right – TV makes me happy. Don’t judge me.

Anyway, given the amount of whining I do here on a regular basis, I thought I should take a moment to acknowledge a good day.