ProfessorTomoe

Our cat, Baker, seems to be losing weight. Either that, or our bathroom scale is off, despite the new battery Mrs. Prof put in it. She's been weighing him by picking him up and weighing the two of them together, then letting him go and weighing just herself. A bit of math, and bingo! Cat weight. Only this latest cat weight was a little bit troubling. Baker has been weighing around 13½ pounds for about a year (he just turned three, we think). Tonight, he was around 10 pounds. (That's why I question the accuracy of the scale.) He'd begun to turn his nose up at the Blue Buffalo food we were feeding him, so Mrs. Prof went out and found something else, which he seems to be eating quite well. I don't think he has tapeworms, since he doesn't have the white squirmies around his butt, and we use a good anti-flea+other nasties external medicine every month. He's active at night, demanding to play with his cat laser. I don't know what's wrong. It's bad enough that Mrs. Prof's been shuttling me to a megaton of doctors. Now, she gets to take Baker to our vet. It never ends.

11:51 p.m. CDT 20170609. I've been on the sine wave roller coaster again today, with a DC offset well below y = 0. I'm blaming it on the residual effects of the Lasix, which my body did not seem to tolerate well at all. I also woke up with a case of Opioid-Induced Constipation—a bad one that demanded attention in coming out. Add in massive heartburn from the leftovers of some Panera sandwich Mrs. Prof brought home from a TNR fundraiser last night, and you've got me taking several OTC medicines just to get me to the doctor on time. I've spent most of the day either asleep, at the doctor's office, or on the phone with medical personnel. I'm getting in plenty of rest before shower time tomorrow prior to my son's arrival and drinking strategically-timed cups of coffee in the afternoon. I do not look forward to my 4pm dose of ½ a hydrocodone + one Tramadol. It does not give me good spinal pain relief. It went up to a level 7 on my right side today and woke me up from a nap. BTW, do you know how hard it is to explain, "Where does it hurt, and how bad?" to a doctor when you're on hydrocodone? I tried to make it clear to the neurosurgeon that my present numbers were due to the pain control from the hydrocodone, but when I've been off of it completely it's been between a 9 and a 10. I don't know if he really listened to me, because he told me to forget about the hydrocodone at one point in the conversation. He was a difficult person to read, but I got the feeling he knew what he was doing. I didn't hear any complaints from Mrs. Prof, which is always a good sign. Starting to get more itching along my right shin. I can't remember if I mentioned it, but my PCP said the itching, redness, and lumpiness was probably due to macrophage white blood cells entering the bruise on my shin to do "clean-up" duty. They normally take a long time to get their job done, but he figured that I had a rare flood that caused the itching and made the section of the bruising disappear. Haven't received my CBC and Vitamin D blood test results yet. I figure I'll get a notice through the patient portal on Sunday or Monday. Not looking forward to more myelocytes in my blood—that'll mean getting my hematologist (another doctor) involved again. Poor Mrs. Prof. She barely has any time to work from home anymore, thanks to her having to shuttle me to my appointments.

Watching Aussie Rules Football again. Live match between Hawthorn and Gold Coast from the MCG in Melbourne. Gold Coast is up 43 to 29 at the Half Time siren. Will be watching much auto racing tomorrow. Formula 1 qualifying, then a replay of today's IndyCar qualifying, followed immediately by the 600 kilometer race at the Texas Motor Speedway. Many bratwurst, bockwurst, and Weisswurst will be consumed, as long as I don't get sick again.

Nothing, unless your name is Joshua. Then it grows a tree and sues U2 for royalties for using its name as an album title. BTW, I just realized something: my appointment with the UT Southwestern Pain Clinic is on June 13th. That's the same day that I'll run out of my hydrocodone prescription, and the day that Dr. [Redacted] from STT wrote that I could get my new 30-day 110-pill (i.e., non-4x-a-day) prescription filled. I do think I'll be sharing that little detail with the Pain Clinic, in hopes that they are not as stingy or downright mean as Dr. [Screen Bursts Into Flames] was. I am thankful for the help of my primary care physician, though. He has given me permission to take three Tramadol each night. So, for the first ½ hydrocodone dose at 4pm, I supplement it with one Tramadol. I supplement the second ½ dose at 10pm with two Tramadol pills. Repeat until July 12th, after which I will see Dr. Noe (Dah-dat-DAH-DAAAAH-dah-Dah-DAAAAH) the following morning. Complicated. I enjoy making fun of it, though.

This is true.

Good grief! You can't let those postal employees deliver you into the hands of the EMS techs, man! Be careful where you sit! I thought that was Mrs. Peel, Not Mrs. Prof.

12:07 p.m. CDT 20170609. I've seen the neurosurgeon at UT Southwestern's Spine Clinic. He only had my CT myelogram to work with, but from it he could not find anything which could be fixed surgically. He asked me to get a copy of the MRI I had done back in March sent to him. That took a lot of finagling, but I finally managed to get the imaging place to accept a faxed request from the Spine Clinic. They'll be mailing a CD as soon as they can. Meanwhile, the neurosurgeon said I would most likely be better treated by a pain management approach—possibly even injecting more blocks directly into the nerves, like the first procedure I had done. He had me get an appointment with—get this—Dr. Noe (cue the James Bond theme). However, for some unfathomable reason, everyone at UT Southwestern seems to start working when the rooster crows. My appointment with Dr. Noe is set for June 13th at 8:15 a.m. CDT. Good lord. Also in the meanwhile, I got a voice mail while I was away this morning. From YET ANOTHER DOCTOR. My primary care doctor referred me to my ophthalmologist for a yearly diabetic retinopathy check. Dear lord, I don't have time for that right now! So, I called them back and asked them to postpone it to October. Besides, every single check I've had has been negative, so I think I can deal with the delay just this once.

Veni, vidi, sedi.

Box learned something from Heka that has her distracted to a T. It's interfering with her daily hijinks. I do wish The Dan had said more about what it was.

Mrs. Prof and I have already discussed this. We're going to ask him if there's anything he can do for my toes, especially my big one. I've got toenail problems on both feet.

Okay. I am going to link to the pictures of my big toe, taken today in my podiatrist's office. WARNING While my injury itself is not that gross, you might be grossed out by my toenails. I have had a chronic problem with them, especially with the one on the big toe. It has undergone ingrown toenail surgery twice and has wound up as the monstrosity that you will see if you click on any of the three links hidden in the spoiler tag. (At least, that's how I hope this will work.) You'll also notice that my other toenails have undergone similar growth problems. There's nothing I can do about them. I'm sorry. So, with no further warning, I present what my post-op broken left big toe looks like, disgusting toenails and all.

One final test.

I am testing something.

4:07 p.m. CDT 20170608. Many developments today. Two doctor's appointments, a trip to a medical supply store, and a referral call, all within a few hours. Busy busy busy. The first appointment was with my primary care doctor. He checked out several things: declared my edema vastly improved if not gone, said the redness from my bruising was probably a flood of macrophages that entered the bruised area and caused the itching, looked at a sore I've had on my ear for about 5 months and told me to put some steroid cream on it, and ran blood tests on my white cell count and my vitamin D levels. He also said he'd work with me on solving Dr. [Redacted]'s stupidity about the hydrocodone prescription, but more on that to come. Next stop was at a medical supply store to get a new orthopedic shoe that I can wear in the shower, wrapped in plastic. The one I have is at least 15 years old and accidentally got wet, so it has reached its end of life. This one's much sturdier. Stop number three was at the podiatrist's office. He unwrapped my foot and gave it a good cleaning for Mrs. Prof's sake. While he was out of the room, I had her take photos of it. Now, due to some problems I've had with the nail on that toe (it went ingrown twice and is not a pretty sight), along with the nails on the other toes, I am not going to post these pictures in the open. If someone can show me how to post a picture using the Spoiler feature of the board, I'll post them then, but only then. Trust me, they're quite gnarly. Anyway, he re-bandaged the foot and told me to come back in a week. Said I'd probably have to have the "K-wires" in my toe for three or four more weeks. The final medical matter happened once I got home, practically after I walked through the door. UT Southwestern Medical Center's Neurosurgery department called to set up an appointment for—get this—tomorrow! One day after I receive the call from the referral! Wow. The only bad thing is that Mrs. Prof is going to have to drive us through rush hour traffic from the far east side of Dallas through Downtown, up to the Medical District and the appropriate UT Southwestern tower (where they charge $5 for valet parking), and she'll have to get us there by 9:00 a.m. CDT. How she'll pull that off without a double dose of coffee I'll never know. In the meantime, I've filled out most of their online new patient surveys (I couldn't fill out their Neck Pain survey, since it asked questions that conflicted with the Back Pain survey), only to find 23 more pages of paperwork in my inbox that has to be filled out by tomorrow morning. Yeah, I think that'll happen after a bit of a nap. (I had a near collapsing bout near the medical supply store.) This day has almost been too much to handle all at once, and I haven't even turned on the TV to find out what happened in Washington, D.C. today. Grant me strength to make it through the night.

I had that when I broke both my ankles and was unable to take care of myself back in 2009/2010. I think I had to have a prescription for that. This is much, much different. I can walk, albeit with my left foot wrapped and in a moon boot and with my right foot in pain from spinal nerve problems. All the person would have to do is unwrap my left foot, wash it, and re-bandage it. I don't think I could get a prescription for that.

11:08 p.m. CDT 20170607. Oww. This damned hydrocodone/Tramadol mix is not giving me decent pain relief. I can feel the pin on the inside of my left big toe sticking through my skin—and moving around. I took my last dose about an hour ago, along with the rest of my "drug cocktail." This included my last dose of Augmentin and my last booster of vitamin B complex. This is not fun. The right leg is still lumpy after the bout of scratching earlier today. It's still less purple, but it's a little bit red now. Doctor's appointment times tomorrow—10:30 a.m. and 1:30 p.m. CDT. I'm going to miss almost all of the congressional fireworks, unless it's on a TV where we go to get lunch between appointments.

Funny. No carburetors in IndyCar racing—direct fuel injection with dual turbocharging only. You're thinking the bumper cars they use in NASCAR. They're stuck in the era of carburetors, if memory serves. The Hondas at the Indy 500 were having full-blown (pun intended) kablammo major engine failures. The rumor was that Honda had asked its customers whether they wanted a reliable but slightly slower engine for the race, or a faster but less reliable engine. The teams supposedly said, "fast, please." They got what they asked for. Honda has been reliable at just about every road course this year. They've been pushing the envelope on the two ovals they've run (Phoenix and Indianapolis). Texas Motor Speedway is a 1.5 mile high-banked tri-oval, where they run 600 kilometers (yes, kilometers) for the race. It's going to be very interesting to see how the Hondas hold together over the shorter distance. So, yes. I do hope my whole family will have a good weekend!

@The Old Hack - Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you! Your gift from my Amazon Wishlist arrived, and it was more than expected! The product description for the Saag's Bistro Bockwurst said it was a three-pack, but they sent four packs! Now, our IndyCar Wurstfest this weekend will be extra special, thanks to you! If I can ask, do you cook Weiss Bockwurst for yourself? If so, how do you prefer to cook it? Pan fried? Boiled? @mlooney, you might want to jump in here on this one. Here's a link (pun intended) to the product: http://www.saags.com/products/saags-bistro-bockwurst/

2:24 p.m. CDT 20170607. Stage one complete—I just received confirmation that my referrals have been faxed to UT Southwestern. I've got a phone number for the neurosurgeon department, but only a general referral number for the pain clinic. Not sure what the deal is on the latter, nor if it bodes ominous or not. I was told by Spine Team (Good Riddance) Texas that I should hear from UT Southwestern in a couple of days, which would put things around this Friday or possibly Monday of next week. I don't know how I'm going to time out taking a shower for tomorrow's appointments. Mrs. Prof has a conference call from 9am to 10am, and I've got to be at the first appointment at 10:40. We'll probably do the early morning shower derby again, since I tend to wake up around four or five in the morning—earlier, now that I'm on half a hydrocodone at bedtime. The leg's not as itchy as it was earlier, but there's a bit of a rise where the obvious spotty bruising had been. Puzzling. I hope my PCP doesn't put me back on Lasix for it. I can't take another round of that stuff. Made me feel horrible.

Would MSNBC be given the first question about ELE?

Ooh—new development. The bruising down my right shin has suddenly started itching and turning red. No swelling. It's just going from purple to red in the center section of the bruise. No idea if this is a good or bad sign. I'm doing everything I can to avoid scratching it. EDIT: I take that back—it does feel slightly swollen. My primary doctor's going to have a blast with this thing tomorrow.

Well, it turned out that she parked the camera the wrong direction in the median. Sigh. Only one usable picture resulted, and it was a daylight photo: This is Big Tom, with Dumbass A off to the left in the background. You can also see the greenhouse to the right. It took several puncture hits in our recent hailstorm. I think Mrs. Prof has plans to replace it.

Mrs. Prof parked the camera in the median of what we call Interstate 35-E/W last night. The cats have trod a path into our backyard that splits at a planter below a bird feeder. We call the path that forks off toward our porch I-35E (E for East - see the link). She turned off the porch light and relied on the infrared flash to see who came down the freeway, if anyone. If any usable pics resulted, I'll post them later.