Blog

  • New CPAP

    Sunday night along with the rest of this weekends excitement my CPAP failed.

    Threw off an error message so I pulled the plug and rebooted it.

    I thought it was putting off enough pressure but I woke up feeling like I hadn't used it. Which happens rarely, since the phase " feeling like doggy dodo" is appropriate.

    First thing I did driving into work, was to call the medical supply company. They are awesome. Hope Home Medical if you are in the Dallas area and you need CPAP. Owner does and gets us.

    They called back as soon as they opened and said they would try to replace it. They got approval right away and I had a new machine at noon.

    I love it. It turns itself off and on. It has a thermostat on the humidifier. And it has an indicator for mask leaks.

    5 years is a long way in medical devices.

    I am quite happy I could do this on school insurance and wait to deal with the new insurance.

    I have new everything.

    Sent from my Windows Phone

  • Disclosing in a new work place

    I will start out by saying that anyone in IT should have looked me up by now and they would know.  So if you are a new coworker of mine, “howdy”.

    I have been worried about two things: keeping insulin in the workplace – I already had a pen out because I thought I might be staying over night somewhere, and I routinely rotate my vials.

    That being said, I would like to keep a fresh vial and pen at work.  At the school gig, I had a small refrigerator in my room for years.  It got old so I just started routinely carrying cold water and refrigerated insulin and that worked well. 

    But people, I work in an office attached to the mall!  And they give us cold drinks and hot drinks.  Just about any flavor you imagine.  So I’m dragging water any where?

    And people, I work in an office attached to the mall and I have to get away from people for a while.  So yes, I’m eating in the mall.  Don’t worry, they know me by name at the Nordstrom’s café.  And Starbucks is closer.  Bet I’ll find other secret places with stuff I can eat for lunch.

    So, I asked – can I leave my insulin in the break refrigerator and the person I asked showed me a closer break room.  We have a beverage area, a break room on our floor and another break room.  However, I’m going to have to share a conference room with 5 other people starting next week.  Oh well.

    I also asked, since I have to share a conference room with 5 other people and the cube farm isn’t any more private if it would be okay to use the mother’s room if I had to make an adjustment.  She said sure.

    By the way, we have real restrooms with real doors that lock and everything.

    I always feel lucky if there is a door at all, much less one that latches.

    YES, I’ve had to use restrooms that didn’t have doors on the stall.

    So I haven’t looked in the mother’s room yet.  But I’m pretty sure that they are a) private, b) lock and c) are sanitary.

    Because I’ve yet to test OR change a set in any one’s restroom.  I had a walk in closet in my old classroom that was perfect for that, and there was only a semester or so where I didn’t have access to it.

    I love  my job.

  • Now I remember why I am not using Dulce

    Took her to the gym today, and they have a new manager.  I had to go through the whole spiel before I could work out.

    Yes, I’ve been a member for 6 years.

    Yes, she’s a service dog.

    No, you aren’t supposed to interact with her unless I have given permission.  Yes, you can say hello to her (her command).

    Sigh.

    That’s okay, I think I’m going to let this membership lapse and go to Planet Fitness.  It wasn’t cooler today. 

    Planet Fitness is on this side of the highway, and there is another one across the street from the new office.

  • A1C is up

    Though Endo excused it. Said it was a miracle it wasn't higher after all the crap I'd been put though by the school district.

    He's happy about the new job too. Agrees any job that is so tough I need Dulce with me, isn't worth it.

    If I can't control my blood sugar at this job, we agreed to consider disability.

    Frankly I think it will be fine. I'm good at all day dev things.

    Sent from my Windows Phone

  • Dulce is NOT going to work with me

    One of the things that my insomnia counselor and I discovered, was that taking Dulce everywhere was very stressful for me and we decided that coping with her and the public wasn't do me a lot of good.

    She still goes to the gym and the endo's office. He would fire me as a patient if she didn't come.  The gym people love her and she does help.  She'll stop a work out early and my blood sugar will be the same as if I had done the full workout. 

    I don't go low there.

    We also decided if the work environment was such that I couldn't manage my diabetes on my own — that wasn't the right work environment for me.  Besides, I use a CGMS.

    I mentioned the diabetes and the dog to the recruiter today and she wants me to disclose right off.  I want to wait a bit.  I don't like being known as the diabetic and most of the time do fine without the dog.

    Cardio workouts have been an issue since day one.

  • Weight Loss

    Its official.  I have lost 60 pounds since my lap band surgery.

    It hasn’t been easy. If you can do it any other way, do it.

    At the time I decided to go for my surgery, I was gaining 10 pounds a month. Job stress was the primary cause. By the way, no job is worth that.  Next time I am quitting the job.  Ended up doing it anyway and not in a good way.

    I still have some eating problems and have found new ways of dealing with them.  Binging on potato chips over three days, rather at one sitting.  Learning to avoid stress causing activity.  Learning how to take care of myself. Doing things for me, more than others, and knowing what is good for me.

    It is a learning process.

    I have a long way to go, but its better.

  • Tracy Morgan’s Crash

    I never let myself get caught in a massive line of traffic, especially at the end, because a teacher I worked with 20 years ago died the same way.

    I was bring a group of kids home from a Robotics competition when we about to be caught in a line of traffic and I immediately got off the highway.  Freaked them out a bit – but I told them what happened to Ms Meriweather, and I hope they remember it.  I get off soon as possible and use my GPS to find an alternative route.

    I didn’t know for sure, but I’m told that she got hit driving a small car, by a truck, in a line of cars in Fort Worth.  Supposedly her body was burned beyond recognition.  Happened on the first day of spring break.

    I sure hope they came out of okay, though I know one didn’t.  I never liked Tracy Morgan on SNL, but it hasn’t been good since the Blue Brothers.  And the music is always a mistake.

    I really liked him on Tanked though, and thought he was really funny about sharks.

  • Am I the only who cries when trees die?

    I am always surprised when I do.

    I also get really made when someone runs a car into a tree, especially a drunk. Yeah, our Magnolia was hit once.

    We lost a tree last summer and I felt worse than we lost Maggie, but we knew Maggie was old, sick, and crazy.  We didn’t know the tree was sick.

    Today the park had to chop down the tree in front of our house. Took them all morning, and I can’t get over how sad it made me.

  • Secondary purpose of a DAD

    We are at the gym and while i was talking to the front desk guy she kept sniffing at a drawer.

    He opened it, starting going through it and found that someone had left a half opened can of pineapple. He thanked her and told her she was a good dog because it was starting to spoil. He didn't want it left there.

    Not her primary purpose of course but if she makes someone else happy, good!

    Sent from my Windows Phone

  • @MonarchDental you need to fix your dentists

    I went to a Monarch Dentist here in Dallas three weeks ago.  I had a broken tooth.  She insisted I had to have a root canal RIGHT NOW.

    Well, I have diabetes, and I want to make sure that my blood sugar is stable before I go in.  I also want to know a bit more about you before I let you work on me.  I also don’t like having the dog with me if I know I’m going to be hurting as she didn’t like it.

    $720 later, I have a root canal and a new crown.  I don’t know if I needed the root canal or not, but she was very gleeful when she found a pocket of infection, so I’ll give it to her.

    I do know I needed the tooth repaired and it is.

    HOWEVER, I was scheduled to have the crown put back on and an exam done on Wednesday morning.

    Like a good patient, I arrived 10 minutes early.

    The assistant saw me fairly quickly, but dropped the crown THREE TIMES!  Complaining the whole time because it was so small.

    BTW, this is my biggest problem with every dentist I have ever had.  They claim my mouth and teeth are two small, like I can do anything about it.  Send me to a pediatric dentist if you can’t deal with it.

    I wouldn’t put it in my mouth and keep there until it got cemented because it kept getting dropped.  Yes, I even dropped it once, and it was very loose on the tooth since most of the tooth was gone.

    The assistance dropped it 4 times total.

    I didn’t see anyone else for at least an hour because I asked for the restroom at 11:30.

    The hygienist finally came, was very nice and professional but that was at least an hour after my appointment.

    The dentist finally shows up at 11:50 and starts ranting over the tooth that needs removed.

    I kept telling her that someone was supposed to call me with a treatment plan but no one did.

    She never DID finish the exam, as I couldn’t take it any more, knew my blood sugar was dropping and it was noon.

    Though her probing did get the missing tooth to ache.

    So my solution – GREATLY recommended:

    I went to the Emergency Tooth Extraction Clinic at Baylor Dental School.  It opens at 7:00, they take 15 patients and tell you to get there early.  I got there at 6:30 and was patient 14.

    I got done in time to get to the gym at 1:30.

    No one claimed my mouth as too small or complained about anything I can’t change.

    They did have to work to get the tooth out, but no one blamed me.

    In other words, they were professional.

    They didn’t scare me either.

    I would go back again, in fact, I’m thinking about seeing if I can be a regular patient of theirs.