Wheeling, the Medical Black Hole

I slept horrible last night.
Up at 12, up at 2, up at 6. So I stayed home this morning to call the Dr's office. The nurse calls me back and says she's calling me in Fenergen. (spelled?) it's an anti-nausua drug. I know this cuz it's what they gave my mom alot for her stomach problems. ( a major side effect is depression go figure) anyways, I was like, uhhhh - really? And the nurse said yes, its what they prescribe for coughs, really gently, even give to children, blah, blah. I called N, and she was like what!? so she called her nurse - who said that's what they did like 30 years AGO. Welcome to Wheeling, the medical anomoly. So I had to call the nurse back and cajole her into giving me something with Codiene. I was like - don't they have something like Robitussin with Codeine? "not that I know of" Dear. Lord. I told her I KNOW Kroger's Pharm has it, could she at least try, please? I cough like I have TB, I just want to sleep. She begrudgingly said ok. I can't wait to get home and take it and pass out. Isn't that crazy? The only thing on my patient chart under drugs taken is "mulit-vit" its not like I was trying to score!!

Neverending Cough

I did get into see my Doctor yesterday. I really like her, she's about my age, super nice. She said I've got a sinus infection, so I did need antibiotics. I also got a nasal spray and she told me about a really strong over the counter cough medicine to take for my cough. I feel a bit better, but I swear the cough is worse. I stayed late at work last night and got home around 8. I coughed from 9-midnight. I had the humidifier going next to the bed, I'm up to 5 pillows stacked up to sleep sitting up, but the cough won't quit. I finally took an extra big dose of my cough medicine, and slept til 6 am. I 'm so tired and my ribs are killing me from all the constant coughing. N said I should call the Doctor to get something with codine in it so at least I sleep. I might. D is still sleeping like a lamb in the other bedroom. yuck.

At least we have Lost to watch tonight. Someone said tonight is a reply of the very first episode. I've never seen it, so looking forward to it.

Neverending Cold

This cold started last monday a week ago, and it continues to hang-on and get worse. Last night I was up all night coughing. D had to sleep in the spare bedroom with the door closed it was so bad. I hate taking antibiotics, so I rarely go to the doctor, because I swear that's their answer to everything. But this morning I called N who said I def need to go. I got an appointment for this morning. I really hope I don't need 'biotics. They just f-up your system. I swear I can't remember the last time I took any. It's been at least 8 years.

Maw - we caught us anuthrin!

Mmmmmm vittles.

Kidding. Yes, we caught the brother over the weekend...only to have two more of the little bastards show up in their place. I want to start spray painting them to see if they actually are walking that many miles back. I swear because we're trapping them, they're getting worse. Now they're up on the deck hanging off of our really nice birdfeeder trying to get that seed. I'm ready to set up an electric current to it somehow at night. This violent thought balanced by my husband who went out and wrapped the trap in a tarp and towels - in case we caught something it wouldn't freeze to death.

I looked out at one point and saw a rabbit, a squirrel and a racoon all congragated around the base of our bird feeding tree. And they were all huge. Apparently our bird seed makes them grow to Chernobyl sizes. Not kidding, they were all about the same size.

In other news over the weekend... I still had my cold. I can't kick it. I did a lot of laying around on the couch which isn't like me. Our neighbor stopped by at 10 am Saturday to see if we wanted a load of "poop" as he said. I had to answer the door in mismatched flannel jammies, a red nose, and bed-head. The neighbor being the heaviest of the heavy-weight millionaires living in our neighborhood. Remember, we live in the smallest house surrounded by doctors and lawyers. (In the "which one of these things doesn't belong game" it would be us) This neighbor though owns a local beer and cigarette store franchise. He has more money than he knows what to do with.. always buying tractors and buldozers - and he's the NICEST guy. He's always offering to do anything for anyone. Dig a hole here, till a garden there, plow the streets all winter. He could not be nicer. And he brings us manure for our garden. Awesome.

Sidenote: D has a job interview tomorrow...cross all fingers and toes. We want him to get it!!

humans vs racoons

1 - 1


We've seen a scarily drunk rabid looking racoon around our property lately. Last night we happened to look out and see two of them tearing apart our bird feeder/suet cage. D got out our Have-A-Heart trap. We have not had luck with it in the past. F'ers always get the food without getting caught. This time we wired the apple slice to the back so they had to really work at it - and guess what? We got one! The other one was still in the tree trying to eat the suet cage, so D got out his trusty pellet gun and shot at it. I seriously doubt it even got past the varmit's fur, but it still high-tailed it up the tree farther than we could see in the dark.

We immediately started to talk about how to dispose of it....now that we actually caught it. Because..well....even though they carry rabies, and are a nusiance...up close they're super cute little guys. No way we could kill it. We're both too tender hearted. So today at lunch, Rocky Racoon got a commuter ride to the neighborhood several miles and ridges down the road.

Tonight we'll see if we get his brother.

Valentine's Day

D and I have a long-standing tradition for Valentine's Day. No gifts, cards are ok but not expected, and we always go out for pizza and beer. It's two things we both love, and there's never any stress about expectation levels or spending silly amounts of money on price-gouged roses.

When we lived in Rockville we used to go to Broadway Pizza. A great little mom and pop type restaurant with great pizza and pitchers of beer. Since we've moved back to WV, it's been hard to follow thru on this tradition. Most of the local pizza places are either A) delivery only or B) square pizza, not a more NY style we like. One year we went to Greco's. It was awful. Usually you can go there for the lunch buffet and it's ok. But when we went for V-Night, it was packed and they couldn't get the pizzas out fast enough, so they weren't cooked all the way thru. Nice big doughy goo with tomato sauce. ick.

This year we went to Enzio's. And it was great! It's small, maybe 20 tables. They have a big brick fire oven to cook the pizza's right in front of everyone. The pizza is thin crust and yummy. We go the Meditereanean. Oliv oil, feta, basil, garlic and olives. Yummy. I also had 2 beers. I haven't drank in about 2 motnhs, but I thought, what the heck just tonight to celebrate.

After dinner we stopped by to visit my folks. They had just got back from visiting my brothers family. We didn't have time to rent a movie after that, so when we got home we played darts. Our basement is huge - the entire size of the house upstairs - but it isn't finished. When it is, it'll be great. But for now we just have a dart board hanging on the wall, and an old tv. So we played 3-4 games of cricket and watched the Olympics. We had such a nice, relaxing fun night. A perfect Valentine's Day. I had a bit of wine while we played, so when we went to bed I thought - I'll sleep soooo good tonight.

Boy was I wrong. Woke up twice through the night to throw-up. I still feel awful. I've been taking lots of vitamin C to try to stop my cold from grabbing on, and I think that and the alcohol had created too much acid in my belly. ugh. Hope I feel better soon. My throat is killing me.

Apart from the ending though, it was a great night!

Where I spend my day

Since I spend so much time here, I though I'd show you where I'm coming from, my daily surroundings and such. I just realized how much I need to add some new posters and things.

Looking towards the rest of the office

Note the really high ceilings. The building used to be a gym, and the area our cubes are in used to be the racquetball courts.

The Door behind my desk

View outside the door behind my cube

Ski Patrol outside our cabin

Off the deck - a Black Diamond Run

View From bedroom window

Nice and Cozy Room

at least the skiing was good

Back at work after the ski-trip weekend. Overall it was a nice weekend holiday with my husband. It wasn’t “the blast” that it’s been in the past. I don’t know if it was the mix of people this year, I do suspect the fact I wasn’t drinking had a big part of it. I think in the past I could tolerate people better when at least I was a bit woozy myself.

We got there late Friday night and being the last people there, were sober compared to the rest of the crowd. But we stayed-up til 2am, playing Trivial Pursuit and just hanging out talking.Saturday woke up to a monsoon. It rained all day. It was miserable. The people that had bought trail passes ahead of time, and were stuck with them, attempted a few runs, but the fog was so thick it was actually pretty dangerous to ski or board, so they came in. A bunch of us walked over to the shop area, walked around, window shopped, went to the arcade, then stopped at the Connections bar and hung out for awhile. D actually ran into someone he worked with in DC. Pretty amazing. We found out that weekend was the Cuervo Games. They started at 4, basically a bunch of drunks doing obstacle course type stuff, but I thought it might be really funny to watch and a way to kill the afternoon. It was only 1pm, so we said we’d go back later. Since we didn’t ski, I made dinner early. D and L and I headed over to see the games, but they were over by the time we go there. A group from the cabin had headed over without telling anyone, and we tried to find them, but to no avail. So we headed back to the cabin and just hung out and played games, watched tv.

The rain finally turned to snow when it got dark, and the snow makers started to make snow as well. When we woke-up conditions were perfect! Couldn’t wait to get out there! I ran up to the main lodge to buy our lift tix, as I was leaving one chic askes me to buy her a ticket. No problem. I get back, hand it to her and she says ”I’m not sure I want to go now” Nice - $65 later you think you might not go. Three of the girls that said they were going to ski were just hemhawing around, so I hurried up and got dressed and left with Dan. We later met another couple from the group out on the slopes, but I wasn’t going to pay that kind of money so I could wait around on people, then listen to them whine about the cold, and then have them decide two runs later they’d rather go tubing. Jayzuz.

I had such a good time skiing with D. I did a lot of blue runs. I really missed that we didn’t get to ski Sat. I usually get the feel for it back the first day, and ski stronger the second. I didn’t want to come in for the Superbowl, I wanted to go out to the Night skiing area. But once we came in for a minute, then saw the wind howling outside, I decided to stay in.

They entire experience would have been better if it had just been D and I. Or us and one or two other couples.The sheer amount of whining and high-pitched shrieking was so frickin irritating. The conversations are so EMPTY. And I hate drugs, hate being around them. Yes, more because I’m just naïve and afraid of them. Pot I could care less about, but when everyone starts popping Vicadon like M&M’s for fun, and follow it up with coke, I hate being around them. Oh add lots of beer and rum. And maybe some X, from the way one person was acting. And I love how it’s always the people that go on and on ad nauseum about what great parent’s they are, and never shut the fuck up about their kids – that are the ones doing the coke. Yes I’m judging. Next year I don’t know if we’ll even do it again. If we do it’s in a smaller cabin, with a diff set of people. The wild crew can get they’re own place.

wait, wait, wait...

Something nice DID happen to me today. While at the Chiro, he who never seems to read the chart asks during the course of my discusion about infertility and if chiro would help asks. " how old are you again?".

Me: "35"

Chiro: Funny look.

Me: " I know, I have good genes"

Chiro: "Gee, you sure do, I thought you were 25, 26 tops just to look at you."

I don't care if he was just placating me.

Surrounded by it

Since October I have had 9 NINE friends at one stage or another of pregnancy. 2 popped out over the holidays. One had a girl yesterday, one is due next week. You'd think with it all around it would be in the air and somehow it would happen by osmosis. I went to the local gym last night with J. She is so big, measuring 3 weeks ahead, the baby is 8 lbs already. We went so she could float around the pool. She's so cute, but so damn big. She said it really helped and really felt good. Can't wait to see her little girl next week when she arrives.

I went to the Chiro this morning. He thinks it can't hurt. So I'm going to go once a week for a month leading up to next month when hopefully we can start stuff. Hopefully. Hate this rollercoaster. One nice thing to realize is it really does happen to just tons of people. I don't know why I hadn't thought to do it before, but there are TONS of infertility blogs out there - TONS. Most seem to have pretty clever names and graphics.

Speaking of not alone...going on the annual ski-trip this weekend. My one girlfriend who's been trying for years longer than me is going as well. Be good to have some time with her. She's already decided on adoption if 2-3 IUI's don't work. Other than how pretty it is up there, she'll be a highlight of the trip. Everyone will be getting hammered and stoned out their mind, while I toss back O'Doul's. Cuz it's always fun to be the lone sober person.

All I do is day-dream about travel. I bought two travel writer books Wed. I think that's my new thing. To read as many travel books as I can. The "what it was like there in a cute story" kind, not Fodors. Travel writing might have become third in my list of "Other Careers I'd Like" list. Which includes run a greenhouse and teach Yoga for a living. This coming from someone who only reads about it and lives vicarioulsy thru her friend who travels. G just got back from SA and is leaving for Oz tomorrow for a week. Can't even imagine. So I'm going to make the best of our trip to exotic Snowshoe, WV for three days.

What sucks is I think I always sound like a bitter pill here lately when I write. It's because I don't want to vent all my irritations to the people around me. If I can offload it here it helps. I'm really not always grumpy and pissed at the world. Just a bit more lately than usual.

I'll write back Monday with pics of the ski-trip.