I love to sleep

When I picked up my Ambien prescription, I got this information sheet and I thought it was funny so I am posting it. By the way, I love Ambien and even if I did any of these crazy things I wouldn’t tell my doctor or he would stop giving it to me. Gosh, then how would I sleep. I can just imagine calling my him to report an Ambien episode. I think he would tell me to call back when I had a REAL medical situation.

My favorite thing on here is page two where it lists possible side effects. DROWSINESS. Really?

I will admit to a lack of memory about what I do after I have taken a pill. Emerson did report that I talked in my sleep one night with a crazy request and I have left facebook posts without remembering.

So if I call you in the middle of the night or leave you a strange text, just remember, it’s not really me. Just one thought, if I drive to your house in an Ambien state, feel free to report me to my Doctor.

Firearm

Ok, tonight we had some customers that literally drove me insane. Rachel asked me a couple of times if I needed to polish the knives which was referring to my comment about wanting to stab myself and say "I am bleeding now and I have to leave and go to the hospital." (Picked that up from Sheldon.) Thankfully, Rachel took over for me or else I might have "lost it".

These people were from England and were making the somewhat simple decision of choosing a kokopelli pendant. I mean really, does it matter if the koko looks like he has little boots on his feet or maybe the one without the little boots looks like he is kicking up his feet more so he must be happier than the one with the boots. The pendants are only about an inch tall so who in the crap will even notice? This went on for about 45 minutes. Then after making the arduous decision of getting the one with the better detail (all the little kokos in their price range look the same to me, so I have no idea what they were talking about when they said that) they then had to choose a chain. We are talking about a chain that cost eight to fifteen dollars, not some 14K gold fancy thing and they could NOT make a decision.


This is about when I escaped to the shoes and let Rachel deal with them. The lady finally asked her if we could hold the two chains for 24 hours while she THOUGHT about it. You have got to be kidding!

Isn’t the exchange rate for the pound like double our dollar? Wouldn’t you think if you could afford a trip to the United States, you wouldn’t sweat a ten dollar chain which would only be five dollars if you figured in the exchange rate.

Is it legal to carry a firearm that is not concealed? I wonder if customers would take 45 minutes to pick out a one inch kokopelli if I had a gun on my hip. Just a thought. Hmmmm. I think I will have to check into this.

NICE, who needs it!

I don’t like being labeled as "nice". It’s just too hard to live up to. Someone who is under the impression that I am nice might catch a glimpse of me doing something not so nice and then what? I think it is ok if you say to me, "That was a nice thing to do." Calling my action nice is ok. Calling me nice is not ok. I like being called funny. I would hope to be able to live up to that label, but that’s the only term I can tolerate.

Reasons I am not nice -

Nice people don’t swear.
Nice people don’t make fun of other people.
Nice people like kids.
Nice people perform random acts of kindness.
Nice people don’t talk too much about themselves.
Nice people aren’t happy when someone gets what they deserve.
Nice people think of others first.
Nice people don’t hope the neighbor’s dog chokes on a chicken bone.
Nice people say they are happy for you and actually mean it.
Nice people are good sports.
Nice people don’t make their kids fake a phone call so they can escape from an annoying person.
Nice people like other nice people.
Nice people don’t put the phone numbers of people they hate in their cell phone so they will show up on caller ID and can be rejected.
Nice people let their snoring husbands sleep with them.
Nice people share.
Nice people don’t have permanent scowl lines.
Nice people give hugs.

To all you nice people - go get a job at Hallmark! Well, I think that pretty well covers it.

The old fashioned way. Diet and excercise.

Yes. It finally happened. Steve and I broke up. Last visit to physical therapy he said he thought I was good and didn’t need to come back. Well ok, I knew that, I just wanted something to force me to keep exercising.

When I started pt at the end of March I was in pretty bad shape. My back was extremely unstable, I was fat and hadn’t exercised since my foot surgery.

After looking at myself in the mirrors at physical therapy I decided I needed to seriously cut calories and lose weight. I started a self imposed 1000 calories a day diet. Today at my morning weigh in I am officially down 37 pounds. YES! Thirty seven! It has been really tough to keep this up, but now the hard part begins. How do I keep the weight off and motivate myself to continue all the exercising?

I do love all of my new muscle. I would never have believed that I could have developed the muscles I have without going to a gym. The other day when I was marveling at my leg and gluteal tone, I told Emerson to feel my muscles and he refused, saying, "I am not touching your butt." Whatever. Maybe Curt will.

Not all is well with losing a large amount of weight at my age. Some things look better, but other things look worse. Face and neck - worse. Legs, butt and arms - better. Still have a fat middle.

Physical Therapy

My doctor thought PT would be good for my back, so about 12 weeks ago I started going to a clinic in town. I am not fond of exercising and ever since my foot surgery (almost two years ago) I have been a major slacker. Well, those days are over.

First visit there, Marlene did my initial evaluation. I thought, “This shouldn’t be too bad, She looks fairly harmless.” I know that I am really out of shape (not that I was ever in shape) and was hoping for a therapist who would be sympathetic when I said, “This is too hard!” Then they would say something like this, “Ok, only do ten instead of twenty.”

Second visit there, I am informed that Steve will be handling my therapy. Wait, Wait, Wait! What happened to Marlene? I take one look at Steve and see my “therapist being sympathetic” concept die. He asks if I am doing 100 bridges. I say, “I am suppose to do 25.” He says, “You need to do 100 even if you have to take some breaks.” Sheesh!

Bridges are really pelvic thrusts. There are a lot of ways to perform them, too. Sometimes I can’t help but smirk when he does a demonstration .

I find it embarrassing to have an audience while exercising and there is nowhere to hide from Steve. He’s extremely adept at noticing my slacking or cheating. I think it has something to do with all of the mirrors they have in that place! Sometimes I am the only patient he has and then he stays with me watching every move I make. I want to say, “Don’t you have some paperwork or something like that to do?”

One day I was balancing on one foot while pulling a red stretchy thing and not being very steady on my left foot, I had to put my right foot down several times to catch myself. This is what he said, “That’s really good that you can keep yourself from falling.” “A lot of elderly people get injured because they are unsteady and can’t catch themselves when they start to fall.”
What the . . .? Did he just call me elderly?

Actually, I really like Steve, even if he does think I’m old enough to be his grandmother!

I am about done with my physical therapy and I have to admit, I will really miss it. If it wasn’t so expensive, I would go forever. Some days I walk in there with a really sore back and it always feels better when I leave. I would even pick a tough therapist. I wouldn’t have come as far with someone who didn’t push me to my limit. (Dang, I hate to admit that).

Dr. Visit

It seems that I switch doctors every two or three years and I guess it’s because I need a clean slate from which to work from. I wonder if that time is approaching again.

I went to the Dr. yesterday to YES, have another urine check. I started panicking about 40 minutes before the appointment so I found a container and decided to put my own personal sample from home in my purse "just in case." I felt like a drug addict trying to sneak urine into the drug testing office. Then I drank a WHOLE ton of water just like Charlotte did so that I would have no excuse not to produce a sizable sample.

I got to the Dr’s office and after sitting in the waiting room for about 10 minutes I knew I wasn’t going to last until they called my name. I explained my problem to the receptionist. She told me to use the bathroom behind her. One of the nurses handed me a cup and I closed the door. Just as I started to fill the cup, it slipped from my hand and FELL into the toilet! Dammit all to hell! Then, of course, I had to fish the dang thing out of the toilet and leave the bathroom without a sample and tell the nurse what had happened.

I chickened out on telling them I had a sample in my purse because I was afraid they would really think I was weird. (I know, I am weird.)

I was hoping to redeem myself after the last visit but to no avail.

Wishing I had Swine Flu

I went to the doctor on Monday because I felt crappy and assumed I had a bladder infection. Sometimes if I knew what the day had in store I would just stay in bed and skip it.

Here’s is how my doctor visit went. After getting my height and weight, I went into the exam room where the nurse asks all sorts of irrelevant questions. After convincing her I didn’t have Swine Flu, she leads me to the bathroom and hands me a specimen cup.

I have never been very good at getting a urine sample, so knowing that I was probably getting an infection I got some paper cups and practiced peeing in them the day before my appointment. So far so good.

I close and lock the bathroom door and then see some weird things in the toilet. Should I flush them or not? (Things like an alcohol wipe and wrapper, band aids, strip of paper and a couple of other weird things) They were small so I decided to go for the flush before I used the toilet, then I washed my hands just in case. In the bathroom is a two way door system for depositing your sample with someone on the other side waiting to pick it up. Just as I started to go, I heard the little door open in an attempt to pick up what I had not yet left. I think the mystery sample collecting person had heard my flush and hand washing and thought I was finished. At this point my bladder froze like a deer in the headlights. That was it. No more! I had two little drops in the bottom of the cup.

Dammit, how am I going to explain TWO drops. Will the person on the other side of the little door think I left an empty cup as some kind of joke?

I left the bathroom and told the waiting nurse I had an unfortunate bladder block and didn’t get much of a sample. Talk about humiliating!

I go back to the exam room to wait for the doctor. CRAP! I sit there wondering what I am going to say to him. I can only hope no one will mention my pathetic attempt and I won’t have to explain anything!

Here it is, one of the most embarrassing doctor appointments I have ever had.

In walks Dr.
Greetings exchanged.
More irrelevant questions.
Still don’t have Swine Flu.
Dr. says I have bladder infection.
Dr. says he needs to culture sample.
Dr. says he needs bigger sample to culture.
Dr. asks me for more.
I say, “Not going to happen”.
Dr. makes sure my kidneys don’t hurt.
Dr. gives me prescription but says a more effective treatment would require a slightly larger specimen.
I hang my head in shame and tell him I feel like I am ten again. Maybe I could drink a lot of water, come back later and try again.
He says, “ Never mind.” “Just call me in two or three days if you don’t feel better.”

I left, vowing not to get sick for a really long time and hope my doctor forgets all about the weird patient he has.