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shadowkat1. Apparently the trick to staying sane on most social media marketing platforms is: 1) not caring if anyone responds or reads your posts, 2) not caring how they respond to them, and 3) disabling comments and email notifications if you can't do 1 or 2.
Truth is it's almost impossible to predict what and how folks will respond to a particular post. People are frustratingly unpredictable in some respects, believe it or not.
2. Doctor's appointment - went well - I guess? She didn't listen to me, they never really do. If you say anything that doesn't fit the chart they are filling out - they will either interrupt you, cut you off, and tell you sorry - doesn't fit, can't help.
We might as well be working with AI at this point. It's insurance's fault.
Healthcare isn't equal or much good for 90% of the people in the US, because of the evil insurance lobby.
If you have Government or Medicare insurance - you get crappy medical care, because they don't pay the doctors well.
At any rate - the diabetes is under control. It's 94 per the bloodwork taken at the doctor's office. So, well within the range. (I took a glucose tablet after they took the blood - because I'd fasted all day and was worried about low blood sugar. Doctor was amazed such things existed.)
Doctor: What's it been of late?
ME: About 6.4
Doctor: Wow. How'd you manage that?
ME: Went off all carbs, well for the most part. I occasionally do almond flour pancakes, and oatmeal.
Apparently CBD gummies, and Melatonin gummies (actually gummies period) cause gas. So off of that now.
The physician's assistant did struggle with the EKG.
Me: First time doing this or first time with this machine?
PA: This machine.
ME: Figured - it looked new to me.
PA: It is new, and complicated.
Me: Not helped by the fact that the person who knew how to operate it - left.
PA: Well she had something else to do.
ME: Seems to be the case everywhere.
[It is - I experience the same thing at work. People are annoyingly unavailable when you need their help.]
Doctor: You seeing the gynecologist?
ME: Yep (or rather I was - more on that later)
Doctor: Pap smear up -
Me: Don't really need it -
Doctor: When was the last one -
ME: 2020?
Doctor: Scheduling the Mammogram.
Me: Can we do a hormone check?
Doctor: When was your last period? (Seriously do they read their charts - I told the nurse this.)
Me: In 2021 - I'm not having them any longer.
Doctor: You want to see if you are in Menopause?
ME: No, I want to see if I have a hormonal imbalance - I get weird symptoms, such as hot flashes, rosea, hives, sweats, insomina, prickliness -
Doctor: Sorry to cut you off - but that may not be menopause - that's possibly side-effects to all the meds you are on, or blood sugar, or your gut. You taking a probiotic?
ME: I eat yogurt, and sometimes - it doens't really help.
Doctor: How about seeing the gastro -
Me: No.
Doctor: Get the colonoscopy -
Me: Not happening this year -
Doctor: When was the last one -
ME: Before I saw you for the first time -
Doctor: 2018 - so it's getting due, do you have any one with colon cancer in your family?
ME: No.
Doctor: Prostrate?
ME: Testicular -
Doctor: Prostrate?
ME: No.
Doctor: You might want to be careful with nuts and seeds. (Damn.) And maybe see ENT - sometimes that causes gas.
She talked me into the ENT - mainly because I have post-nasal drip at night, and I've tried everything. I'm on a high dosage of allergy meds, I have three air purifiers and an AC. I don't know what else to do. I don't own cats, dogs, birds, or have anything outside of dust and mold - which I work hard to eliminate.
So, she tells me to make appointments now for the follow-up (in six months) and the annual. Also to make an appointment with the ENT, and schedule a mammogram.
It's around 5:15 when I get out, and over 90% of the office staff has left for the day. Seriously these folks do not have schedules that work well with patients. I'd arrived at 3:20 - after fasting all day long, and they didn't see me until 3:45, which granted isn't all that bad, but the Doctor didn't see me until 4 pm, spent 15 minutes, took off, the PA took the blood around 4:30, the EKG around 4:45pm, the doctor came back at 5, for five minutes (got concerned about the EKG for a minute or two...)
Me: Is there something off?
PA; It's weird.
Doctor: Probably the tremor. Let me check the last one? Yep, the tremor.
Me: A-fib runs in my family - father's side.
Doctor: It's not that. No sign of that at all. Your heart rate is a bit low, but that's probably due to the beta blockers. Not a big issues. And this is the tremor.
Anyhow, so I go to make the appointments.
ME: Can I get one six months from now - which is roughly Feb?
Desk Clerk: Nope. April.
Me (resigned): Okay when in April?
Desk Clerk: April 30.
Me: We can't try anything sooner?
Desk Clerk: We can do the 10th?
[I book it - pleased I have enough vacation time and Personal Days now that I can take days off for dumb doctor visits. Sick Leave is impossible because they hate the forms.]
Me: Now, let's book the Annual - six months -
DC: has to be a year from today.
Me: I know. I meant six months from April appointment. Not from today.
DC: Oh. September 3?
ME: Fine.
DC: Afternoon - around 2pm?
ME: Can I get anything earlier? (If I'm fasting, I do not want all day long)
DC: 11 am?
ME: Okay.
Then I set up the ENT...for the same day as the Gynecologist, which according to my information was set up with Maureen Clark for October 31. (yeah, right. I should have known better.)
DC: Nah, it's with Dr. Pepperman for October 30.
Me: I didn't do that. How did that happen? I wanted Clark, she's my gyn -
DC: No it's with Pepperman, who is a male physician by the way.
ME: Cancel it. Absolutely not. I'd never have agreed to that. Damn, I'm glad I asked. I'd have taken the wrong day off and gone on the wrong day.
Also with the wrong physician.
DC: Well, you can't do it with Maureen Clark - she's not here any more. She won't be here - doesn't take patients from this location.
Me: Fine. Just cancel and put the ENT in her place on the 31.
[It's worth noting that this gynecologist - refused to help me with my hot flashes and night sweats, or acknowledge I was dealing with menopause. So, not a great loss.]
That's it. I give up on gynecologists. Outside of the fact that I've not had the best of luck with them, I can't keep one to save my life.
To date?
I've had a gynecologist falsely diagnose me with HPV, the pap smears got mixed up in the lab. Mine got switched with another patients. So I was getting these horribly painful examinations for it - every six months, and scared out of my wits, when in reality another woman had it and wasn't getting treatment at all. They finally figured it out after the second painful exam. "Oh we're so sorry, we mixed up your test results."
I fired their asses. And hunted down a new one.
That one told me I was fine and that occasionally there are false positives because doctors read them wrong or get them mixed up.
But this gynecologist screwed up my meds. I was taking a birth control hormone pill combo that had been working (it wasn't for birth control - it was to regulate painful menstruation and mood swings - which I discovered later were a side effect of ceiliac disease because they went away when I stopped eating glutens), but she panicked over my blood pressure, and proscribed progesterine, which had a bad reaction to another med I was taking for my tremor - and sent me into a physical depression. Then she stopped taking my insurance, and decided to just see pregnant women. So I couldn't go back to her.
I went off the progesterine and scaled back on the other med. The people who figured it out? Weren't the doctors. They were the folks reading my Live Journal (now Dreamwidth) at the time. My correspondence list saved my life, not the dingbat gynecologist or neurologist.
The next one I go to? Puts me on estrogene hormonal combo - which does the exact opposite - I'm anxious all the time, and having anxiety attacks. When I attempt to contact her again? She takes off, and disconnects her phone, without a forwarding address.
Suffice it to say - I've had bad luck with gynecologists. When I discuss this with girl-friends or relatives, I discover I'm not alone. My mother has given up on them too - the last one she had - convinced her to put a plastic mesh in her body to combat urinary tract infections - which was later proven to be a huge mistake. (She takes antibiotics now.) Sisinlaw has also given up. No one has a good one.
At this point? I've decided the hell with gynecologists. I give up. I'm hunting a menopausal specialist instead or no one at all. The worst doctors on the planet apparently specialize in women's health. This is just sad.
3. Today, I chilled. Yesterday was the doctor's appointment and grocery shopping.
I did laundry - and finished "Killers of the Flower Moon" audiobook. It's tragic what happened to the Osage Tribe. The last chapter uncovers a government sponsored cover up that resulted in countless deaths of Osage and others for money. There's a lot of metaphorical vampires on this planet.
It's a good book, but depressing, and infuriating.
As a palate cleanser - I chose Willian Least Heat Moon's Here, There, Everywhere and Elsewhere - which is a collection of his journalistic wanderings. It's actually pretty good - discusses the journalistic process, publishing, and travel. Also various cultures and places he went - such as Japan. And the people he met along the way.
Audible wants me to listen to the Last Action Heroes for some reason, I do not, and keep resisting.
Then watched two flicks on Amazon Prime.
* Mrs Harris Goes to Paris - takes place directly after WWII, and features a cleaning lady in her fifties or sixties (I can't tell age any longer) who decides to go to Paris to buy a Christian Dior dress. It's not what you think. I was surprised by it. It really revolves around how ordinary acts of kindness and compassion can reward you and others. Very uplifting film. Stars: Lesley Manville, Isabelle Hupert, and Jason Issacs.
*A Thousand Years of Longing - this is the latest film directed by George Miller, and stars Tilda Swinton and Idris Elba. It's about a narratologist (Swinton) who uncovers a djinn (Elba) while attending a scholarly conference in Turkey. It's not at all what I expected. Instead of focusing on Swinton's character and her wishes, it focuses on Elba's character, or the Djinn - and he tells her, the narratologist who specializes in story narratives, how he got imprisoned in the lamp three different times. It's a story about friendship and love - and surprised me.
Ignore the reviews, go in blind like I did, and just enjoy.
Both are love stories geared towards folks in their 50s and 60s, who are either widowed, divorced, or perpetually single.
[I stopped reading movie and television reviews for the most part a while back. Why? There's too much content out there - so they've either not seen it all or are just into the stuff that appeals to them personally. And the current crop of reviewers is targeting 18-45 demographic. I'm 56, that's not my demographic any longer. They don't care about me. Actually the evil marketing people never did. Which I'm fine with - being the target of evil marketing people is not necessarily a good thing.]
Also been watching Castlevania - which is an anime series based on a video game - and written/directed by Warren Ellis. It has a good voice cast: Richard Armitage, James Callis, Emily Swallow, Theo James...but alas Warren Ellis. I don't like the man, but he's not a bad writer - actually he's a good comic book writer. And the series is engaging, with art that is good - if not stellar. It's good and similar in anime style to say Cowboy Bebop, Lupin, Ghost in the Robot, etc. More adult style. It's not long. Just four seasons. The first one had four episodes. And the episodes are relatively short.
In regards to laundry? Someone left their laundry in the basement overnight, and in the wire mesh baskets we use for taking laundry out of the washer and into the dryer. I removed them from the baskets and put them in the laundry bins. It was a lot of laundry.
Mother: Did you fold it?
ME: No. Why would I do that? I don't like touching someone else's clothing and things. It's hard enough just to move from basket to bin. (They are supposed to go in the plastic bins.)
I got up before the crack of dawn to do it - 5:45 am. I got down there by 6 am, which is first wash, and it's quiet, no one else is down there at that time.
4. Also took a walk and completed another water color, which is more freestyle and rough around the edges. I didn't base the water color on anything but what was in my head. I have to print off some photos to use them as a basis. But right now - I'm challenging myself to just go off of what is in my head. Which is not always easy. It's easier to do it from a photograph or life.
Leaving you with a photo from my walk.
Truth is it's almost impossible to predict what and how folks will respond to a particular post. People are frustratingly unpredictable in some respects, believe it or not.
2. Doctor's appointment - went well - I guess? She didn't listen to me, they never really do. If you say anything that doesn't fit the chart they are filling out - they will either interrupt you, cut you off, and tell you sorry - doesn't fit, can't help.
We might as well be working with AI at this point. It's insurance's fault.
Healthcare isn't equal or much good for 90% of the people in the US, because of the evil insurance lobby.
If you have Government or Medicare insurance - you get crappy medical care, because they don't pay the doctors well.
At any rate - the diabetes is under control. It's 94 per the bloodwork taken at the doctor's office. So, well within the range. (I took a glucose tablet after they took the blood - because I'd fasted all day and was worried about low blood sugar. Doctor was amazed such things existed.)
Doctor: What's it been of late?
ME: About 6.4
Doctor: Wow. How'd you manage that?
ME: Went off all carbs, well for the most part. I occasionally do almond flour pancakes, and oatmeal.
Apparently CBD gummies, and Melatonin gummies (actually gummies period) cause gas. So off of that now.
The physician's assistant did struggle with the EKG.
Me: First time doing this or first time with this machine?
PA: This machine.
ME: Figured - it looked new to me.
PA: It is new, and complicated.
Me: Not helped by the fact that the person who knew how to operate it - left.
PA: Well she had something else to do.
ME: Seems to be the case everywhere.
[It is - I experience the same thing at work. People are annoyingly unavailable when you need their help.]
Doctor: You seeing the gynecologist?
ME: Yep (or rather I was - more on that later)
Doctor: Pap smear up -
Me: Don't really need it -
Doctor: When was the last one -
ME: 2020?
Doctor: Scheduling the Mammogram.
Me: Can we do a hormone check?
Doctor: When was your last period? (Seriously do they read their charts - I told the nurse this.)
Me: In 2021 - I'm not having them any longer.
Doctor: You want to see if you are in Menopause?
ME: No, I want to see if I have a hormonal imbalance - I get weird symptoms, such as hot flashes, rosea, hives, sweats, insomina, prickliness -
Doctor: Sorry to cut you off - but that may not be menopause - that's possibly side-effects to all the meds you are on, or blood sugar, or your gut. You taking a probiotic?
ME: I eat yogurt, and sometimes - it doens't really help.
Doctor: How about seeing the gastro -
Me: No.
Doctor: Get the colonoscopy -
Me: Not happening this year -
Doctor: When was the last one -
ME: Before I saw you for the first time -
Doctor: 2018 - so it's getting due, do you have any one with colon cancer in your family?
ME: No.
Doctor: Prostrate?
ME: Testicular -
Doctor: Prostrate?
ME: No.
Doctor: You might want to be careful with nuts and seeds. (Damn.) And maybe see ENT - sometimes that causes gas.
She talked me into the ENT - mainly because I have post-nasal drip at night, and I've tried everything. I'm on a high dosage of allergy meds, I have three air purifiers and an AC. I don't know what else to do. I don't own cats, dogs, birds, or have anything outside of dust and mold - which I work hard to eliminate.
So, she tells me to make appointments now for the follow-up (in six months) and the annual. Also to make an appointment with the ENT, and schedule a mammogram.
It's around 5:15 when I get out, and over 90% of the office staff has left for the day. Seriously these folks do not have schedules that work well with patients. I'd arrived at 3:20 - after fasting all day long, and they didn't see me until 3:45, which granted isn't all that bad, but the Doctor didn't see me until 4 pm, spent 15 minutes, took off, the PA took the blood around 4:30, the EKG around 4:45pm, the doctor came back at 5, for five minutes (got concerned about the EKG for a minute or two...)
Me: Is there something off?
PA; It's weird.
Doctor: Probably the tremor. Let me check the last one? Yep, the tremor.
Me: A-fib runs in my family - father's side.
Doctor: It's not that. No sign of that at all. Your heart rate is a bit low, but that's probably due to the beta blockers. Not a big issues. And this is the tremor.
Anyhow, so I go to make the appointments.
ME: Can I get one six months from now - which is roughly Feb?
Desk Clerk: Nope. April.
Me (resigned): Okay when in April?
Desk Clerk: April 30.
Me: We can't try anything sooner?
Desk Clerk: We can do the 10th?
[I book it - pleased I have enough vacation time and Personal Days now that I can take days off for dumb doctor visits. Sick Leave is impossible because they hate the forms.]
Me: Now, let's book the Annual - six months -
DC: has to be a year from today.
Me: I know. I meant six months from April appointment. Not from today.
DC: Oh. September 3?
ME: Fine.
DC: Afternoon - around 2pm?
ME: Can I get anything earlier? (If I'm fasting, I do not want all day long)
DC: 11 am?
ME: Okay.
Then I set up the ENT...for the same day as the Gynecologist, which according to my information was set up with Maureen Clark for October 31. (yeah, right. I should have known better.)
DC: Nah, it's with Dr. Pepperman for October 30.
Me: I didn't do that. How did that happen? I wanted Clark, she's my gyn -
DC: No it's with Pepperman, who is a male physician by the way.
ME: Cancel it. Absolutely not. I'd never have agreed to that. Damn, I'm glad I asked. I'd have taken the wrong day off and gone on the wrong day.
Also with the wrong physician.
DC: Well, you can't do it with Maureen Clark - she's not here any more. She won't be here - doesn't take patients from this location.
Me: Fine. Just cancel and put the ENT in her place on the 31.
[It's worth noting that this gynecologist - refused to help me with my hot flashes and night sweats, or acknowledge I was dealing with menopause. So, not a great loss.]
That's it. I give up on gynecologists. Outside of the fact that I've not had the best of luck with them, I can't keep one to save my life.
To date?
I've had a gynecologist falsely diagnose me with HPV, the pap smears got mixed up in the lab. Mine got switched with another patients. So I was getting these horribly painful examinations for it - every six months, and scared out of my wits, when in reality another woman had it and wasn't getting treatment at all. They finally figured it out after the second painful exam. "Oh we're so sorry, we mixed up your test results."
I fired their asses. And hunted down a new one.
That one told me I was fine and that occasionally there are false positives because doctors read them wrong or get them mixed up.
But this gynecologist screwed up my meds. I was taking a birth control hormone pill combo that had been working (it wasn't for birth control - it was to regulate painful menstruation and mood swings - which I discovered later were a side effect of ceiliac disease because they went away when I stopped eating glutens), but she panicked over my blood pressure, and proscribed progesterine, which had a bad reaction to another med I was taking for my tremor - and sent me into a physical depression. Then she stopped taking my insurance, and decided to just see pregnant women. So I couldn't go back to her.
I went off the progesterine and scaled back on the other med. The people who figured it out? Weren't the doctors. They were the folks reading my Live Journal (now Dreamwidth) at the time. My correspondence list saved my life, not the dingbat gynecologist or neurologist.
The next one I go to? Puts me on estrogene hormonal combo - which does the exact opposite - I'm anxious all the time, and having anxiety attacks. When I attempt to contact her again? She takes off, and disconnects her phone, without a forwarding address.
Suffice it to say - I've had bad luck with gynecologists. When I discuss this with girl-friends or relatives, I discover I'm not alone. My mother has given up on them too - the last one she had - convinced her to put a plastic mesh in her body to combat urinary tract infections - which was later proven to be a huge mistake. (She takes antibiotics now.) Sisinlaw has also given up. No one has a good one.
At this point? I've decided the hell with gynecologists. I give up. I'm hunting a menopausal specialist instead or no one at all. The worst doctors on the planet apparently specialize in women's health. This is just sad.
3. Today, I chilled. Yesterday was the doctor's appointment and grocery shopping.
I did laundry - and finished "Killers of the Flower Moon" audiobook. It's tragic what happened to the Osage Tribe. The last chapter uncovers a government sponsored cover up that resulted in countless deaths of Osage and others for money. There's a lot of metaphorical vampires on this planet.
It's a good book, but depressing, and infuriating.
As a palate cleanser - I chose Willian Least Heat Moon's Here, There, Everywhere and Elsewhere - which is a collection of his journalistic wanderings. It's actually pretty good - discusses the journalistic process, publishing, and travel. Also various cultures and places he went - such as Japan. And the people he met along the way.
Audible wants me to listen to the Last Action Heroes for some reason, I do not, and keep resisting.
Then watched two flicks on Amazon Prime.
* Mrs Harris Goes to Paris - takes place directly after WWII, and features a cleaning lady in her fifties or sixties (I can't tell age any longer) who decides to go to Paris to buy a Christian Dior dress. It's not what you think. I was surprised by it. It really revolves around how ordinary acts of kindness and compassion can reward you and others. Very uplifting film. Stars: Lesley Manville, Isabelle Hupert, and Jason Issacs.
*A Thousand Years of Longing - this is the latest film directed by George Miller, and stars Tilda Swinton and Idris Elba. It's about a narratologist (Swinton) who uncovers a djinn (Elba) while attending a scholarly conference in Turkey. It's not at all what I expected. Instead of focusing on Swinton's character and her wishes, it focuses on Elba's character, or the Djinn - and he tells her, the narratologist who specializes in story narratives, how he got imprisoned in the lamp three different times. It's a story about friendship and love - and surprised me.
Ignore the reviews, go in blind like I did, and just enjoy.
Both are love stories geared towards folks in their 50s and 60s, who are either widowed, divorced, or perpetually single.
[I stopped reading movie and television reviews for the most part a while back. Why? There's too much content out there - so they've either not seen it all or are just into the stuff that appeals to them personally. And the current crop of reviewers is targeting 18-45 demographic. I'm 56, that's not my demographic any longer. They don't care about me. Actually the evil marketing people never did. Which I'm fine with - being the target of evil marketing people is not necessarily a good thing.]
Also been watching Castlevania - which is an anime series based on a video game - and written/directed by Warren Ellis. It has a good voice cast: Richard Armitage, James Callis, Emily Swallow, Theo James...but alas Warren Ellis. I don't like the man, but he's not a bad writer - actually he's a good comic book writer. And the series is engaging, with art that is good - if not stellar. It's good and similar in anime style to say Cowboy Bebop, Lupin, Ghost in the Robot, etc. More adult style. It's not long. Just four seasons. The first one had four episodes. And the episodes are relatively short.
In regards to laundry? Someone left their laundry in the basement overnight, and in the wire mesh baskets we use for taking laundry out of the washer and into the dryer. I removed them from the baskets and put them in the laundry bins. It was a lot of laundry.
Mother: Did you fold it?
ME: No. Why would I do that? I don't like touching someone else's clothing and things. It's hard enough just to move from basket to bin. (They are supposed to go in the plastic bins.)
I got up before the crack of dawn to do it - 5:45 am. I got down there by 6 am, which is first wash, and it's quiet, no one else is down there at that time.
4. Also took a walk and completed another water color, which is more freestyle and rough around the edges. I didn't base the water color on anything but what was in my head. I have to print off some photos to use them as a basis. But right now - I'm challenging myself to just go off of what is in my head. Which is not always easy. It's easier to do it from a photograph or life.
Leaving you with a photo from my walk.
no subject
Date: 2023-09-02 01:04 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2023-09-02 10:18 pm (UTC)The US does have horrible health care - too many patients, doctors overworked, insurance pays them low unless you pay high premiums, and pay the doctors out of pocket. The system is gerry rigged by the insurance companies. (I worked for one once - so I know how it is done. Saw it first hand.)
no subject
Date: 2023-09-04 09:15 am (UTC)You do also get better care here if you have private insurance - we have 'state' insurance (which you also pay for) or private, and while they can't refuse to take you (Like I gather they can in the US?), if you have health conditions private costs LOADS more, it also goes up as you get older and used to also depend whether you were male or female, I forget which had to pay more. So of course I have state insurance though it wasn't that easy to get onto it when I first came here. Usually if you are employed the employer pays some of the premium and the rest is taken off your salary. And the job centre does this if you are unemployed and getting unemployment money.
no subject
Date: 2023-09-04 05:41 pm (UTC)And medical care is only as good as your insurance coverage, and how much you are willing to pay. Medicare and Medicaid (which is fueled through social security and railroad retirement) - a lot of doctors and hospitals have the option over here - to reject and not take. Because we have such a strong private insurance lobby and doctor lobby, doctor's can choose what insurance they take. They can also reject you as a patient. My mother pays extra for a concierge doctor - who spends more time with her, and has more open appointments. I can't afford that - and am on my organization's insurance, which isn't taken by all doctors.