You are currently browsing the category archive for the 'Uncategorized' category.
So I had an appointment with my doctor this morning. I knew going into her office what she was going to tell me because I had been able to look at some lab tests at work. I knew what the results of those lab tests meant. Yes, she officially diagnosed me as having diabetes. The diagnosis came out of the blue because I haven’t been having any symptoms, and actually feel just fine. A routine lab draw showed an elevated fasting blood sugar and we followed that up with two separate glucose tolerance tests. They were both elevated. The fasting blood sugar was only very slightly elevated, so I wasn’t too concerned at that point. I wasn’t even terribly worried when the first glucose tolerance test came back high. I managed to convince myself that there had to be some reason it was skewed, inaccurate, just not right. Yes, denial can be very powerful. But then the second glucose tolerance test result was even higher. At that point, the denial began to crumble. Sure, I kept hoping my doctor would tell me it was a mistake right up until the minute she said the word diabetes, but I knew in the back of my mind there was no mistake. The good news is that my glucose levels aren’t horribly out of control, so I don’t need to be on insulin. Just an oral diabetic medication. And my doctor said that we caught this early enough that I have a great deal of control in my hands to determine how this plays out… how bad it gets. And I’m in a position where I’m extremely motivated to take that control. I’ve seen the worst of what happens when people with diabetes don’t control their blood sugars. It ends up effecting literally every system of your body, one by one. I refuse to let that happen. I’m only 41. I have far too many years left to live and far too many reasons to stay healthy. I went shopping today for healthy snack foods, found a yummy very low carb pasta, and bought an iced tea machine because I like my iced tea when I get up in the evening and have been drinking sweetened bottled stuff and need to change that. I’m definitely motivated to do what I need to do. It’s scary, a little overwhelming, but going to be ok. My mom asked me today how I am with this, not physically but in my head. I told her “mostly ok,” and it’s true.
I read a news article recently that made me chuckle. Granted, it’s fairly easy to make me laugh, but the irony in this story is definitely comical. http://www.columbiatribune.com/news/2009/oct/03/admitted-embezzler-wins-lottery-drawing/
In a nutshell, a former radio executive in Kansas admitted he embezzled almost $88,000 from his employer in order to pay for his addiction to scratch off lottery tickets. (Hey, I didn’t make it up, I’m just repeating it… ) At a preliminary hearing recently he was notified he won a $96,000 lottery prize. The irony? The $96,000 winnings are going to pay back his employer so he won’t see a penny of it. You have to admit, that is laughable, yeah?
And in other news, I leave for Guatemala in just 5 days! Yay! I’m busy with last minute preparations and very excited. Many, many photos to follow when I return.
No, I’ve not chosen Bubbles for my stripper name. (It does sound like a stripper name, no?) It’s actually a nickname given to me by a patient of mine at work a few years ago. I’d taken care of this woman several times over a few month time period, so got to know her pretty well. And apparently, she got to know me,too. A few weeks after I started caring for her, she began calling me Bubbles. After a few days of this, she would ask staff on the previous shift if Bubbles was going to be working that night and they would know who she was asking about. She said she called me that ’cause I’m just so darn bubbly. Which is funny, because that’s not how I see myself. And that was the point of this post. We don’t always see ourselves as others see us. Sometimes there’s only a slight discrepancy, and sometimes the discrepancy is huge. In my case, I can see why people see me that way, I just don’t see it myself as much as they do, so I guess the discrepancy is fairly small. Apparently this patient of mine isn’t the only one who sees me as bubbly, because I had another thing happen years ago that showed me this is how people see me. I was a nanny for a family far away from my home and family and friends. I missed my family and friends terribly and was lonely and homesick. The mother of the children I was caring for had the best of intentions when she placed a personal ad for me. In it, she described me as effervescent. I remember asking her what that word meant. She told me she thought it was ironic that I didn’t know the definition, since my personality virtually defines the word. (Yes, I do know now what the word means.) I suppose there are much worse things than bubbly that others could see me as. So I’m not complaining.
Last night I was driving along a residential street in the dark. I came to a four way intersection and stopped. It was clear, so I started to cross the intersection. When I was about halfway across a boy maybe around 13 or so on a skateboard tripped on the sidewalk on the far side of the intersection and slid off the sidewalk into the edge of the street. He was only off the sidewalk a few inches and I stopped immediately and waited for him to get up and back on the sidewalk before I proceeded through the intersection. As I went past him I noticed he was flipping me off. I’d never gotten any closer than halfway across the intersection from him when he was off the sidewalk, so I’m not really sure why he felt the need for the rude hand gesture.
On the other hand, though, I was reminded of someones act of kindness towards me today. There’s a country song I heard on the radio that had some lines in that reminded me of this. The lines are “Treating your neighbor like he’s your next of kin wouldn’t be gone with the wind if the world had a front porch like we did back then.” My dad has lived in the same house for 37 years now. For many of those years the same couple lived in the house right next door. We became very friendly with them. The wife, her name was Frankie, would always call me over to her house to give me homemade sweet pickles whenever she canned some. She knew how much I liked them. She did this for no other reason than to bring me pleasure. It was truly just an act of kindness. One that thirty some years later I still remember.
I read something today that just made me shake my head. Kendra Wilkinson, one of Hugh Hefner’s former girlfriend’s who lived in the Playboy Mansion with him, is living on her own for the first time. And apparently she’s got a thing or two to learn. She admitted to People magazine that a few months ago she sent a piece of mail… without putting a stamp on it, because she didn’t know she needed to! In her own words, “My mom, she was like, ‘Are you serious? You didn’t put a stamp on your mail?’ I’m like, ‘Dude, I’ve never been on my own before, how am I supposed to know?’ “ The girl is 23 years old. Even if you’ve gotten to be that age and never mailed a piece of mail yourself before (I’m guessing because you’ve always had employees around the house to do those things for you) wouldn’t you know that someone at least needs to put a stamp on mail before it’s sent? Can anyone really be that stupid sheltered? Apparently they can.
So yesterday was my niece’s fifth birthday. My sister and her three children (the youngest being the birthday girl) and I went out to dinner and then to a lovely dessert place afterwards. Dinner was delicious and fun with much laughter and kidding around with each other. Dessert was decadently delicious and there were just so many choices! I’d not been to this dessert shop before and it could be dangerous for me to know exactly where it is. I’m going to have to try to forget where it is. These are two shots of just two of their many, many offerings. The whole evening was a very fun, happy family time together.
“There’s no dollar sign on peace of mind, this I’ve come to know.” Those are some lyrics from a country song and ever since I first heard that line I’ve loved it. As I get older, and hopefully wiser, I’ve come to realize that some things really are more important than money. Peace of mind being one of those. I know it sounds trite and cliche, but money really doesn’t buy happiness. The love of family and friends and a strong self esteem and sense of personal worth bring happiness. And money might be able to buy a cheap imitation of those things, but not the real thing. Sure, money is necessary for basic needs like food and shelter. But besides those things, most of the rest of what money buys is just stuff. And stuff can be replaced. The older I get the more I look to the little things in life to be grateful for. And the more I find to be grateful for, the more I realize just how rich I really am even though my bank account may not show that. Do you feel rich? Are there things in your life you’re grateful for?
So, I have a close friend who actually enjoys cleaning. She’s my cleaning guru. I call her any time I need to know how to best clean something around my house and she always has an answer. Me, I like my house being clean but don’t enjoy doing the cleaning to get it that way like she does. I tell her that not everyone enjoys cleaning and she reminds me that not everyone hates it like I do. It’s an ongoing debate and joke for a while now. Anyway, she’s been telling me for several months now that I need a Dyson vacuum cleaner… only a Dyson will do… I’ll be amazed at the difference and at how much it sucks up. Target happened to have a PINK Dyson on clearance sale and pink is my very favorite color and I happened to have the money to spend at the time sooooo… This morning after work I went shopping! I am now the proud owner of a new Dyson brand vacuum. And yes, it is as amazing as she said. In just the bedroom alone it almost filled the entire dirt canister and I had vacuumed in there just about 3 days earlier! It also is awfully quiet compared to other vacuums I’ve owned, and it glides on carpet really easily. I had never even heard of Dyson brand vacuums until this friend of mine told me about them and now I’m hooked. And as I’m writing this, it occurs to me that my life must be awfully dull if a new vacuum is the only thing I can think of to write about, yeah?
A local young man, 24, has screwed his life up beyond belief over some bad choices and poor judgment. That is just sad. The aforementioned young man was drinking, smoking marijuana, then got in his car and was speeding. He hit another car in an intersection when he ran a red light and killed four people; two young mothers in their 30s and two children. A third child survived and is in the hospital with serious injuries. This man is going to jail for a very long time. To his credit, he is remorseful and does comprehend just how badly he screwed up. I can’t possibly imagine how he is going to be able to live the rest of his life with the knowledge that he killed four people. I can’t imagine what it must be like to be 24 years old and know that your life as you know it is over. My mind just can’t begin to wrap around that concept. Call me a bleeding heart liberal, but on some level I do feel badly for what he’s going through … and for what he’s going to have to live with forever. Of course I feel sorrow for the family and friends of the four people who died. They are in my thoughts and prayers. And I believe this man deserves any sentence he’s given. I can just empathize a little bit with the position he’s in. He didn’t intend to hurt anyone when he made those really poor choices. But he DID cause their deaths and that is his responsibility and he now has to pay the consequences of his actions. I know it sounds like I’m straddling the fence here… I’m just seeing both sides of the story. Any thoughts to share?
I have a minor pet peeve to vent about. It’s something that the general public probably wouldn’t give a second thought to, but someone in the health care field would. There’s a headline on a news article I read today that reads “Patrick Swayze checks into hospital with pneumonia.” And various articles I’ve read have mentioned such and such celebrity “checking out” of the hospital. Ok, folks, a hospital is not a hotel. Really. You don’t check in and check out of one. You’re admitted by your doctor and discharged by your doctor. (Unless, of course, you choose to leave Against Medical Advice, in which case you sign a waiver of liability but that’s another story.) As a nurse, I work hard to be seen and treated as a professional. I’m willing to admit I may be being a bit overly sensitive about this, but that terminology that makes it sound like a person coming to the hospital is visiting a hotel irks me. And now that I’m done venting, it’s time to get ready to go take care of some sick patients. :)
