health

America’s radio sweetheart

Today was pretty similar to yesterday, except the live radio show I went to see was The Sound of Young America, not The Prairie Home Companion. (Given host Jesse Thorn’s noted dislike of PHC, hinted at in a couple of polite jokes at its expense at the top of the show, I find this scheduling coincidence quite amusing.) And instead of meeting my parents for dinner beforehand, I wound up briefly visiting New York’s High Line Park — I still like it, but I think the thrill of its newness is gone — and managing not to have any dinner at all. In fact, I’m writing this while on the train ride home, and I’ve managed to have nothing to eat or drink for about four or five hours. (I passed on the free wine and beer available at the show.) That wasn’t at all my original plan, but when your plan is basically “wander downtown and see what happens,” sometimes that’s what happens.

The show itself was a lot of fun, with guests like Judah Frielander, Amy Sedaris, and John Hodgman, plus pretty much exactly the sort of audience you’d expect at a live public radio show featuring those people. And live comedy and music. There was going to be a meet-up after, at a nearby bar, but I have an MRI at 7 a.m. tomorrow morning. And I’ve had nothing to eat since an apple after lunch, so a beer or two might not be exactly the right thing for me now anyway.

If I had to pick, I’d say I probably enjoyed last night’s show a little more, even if that hurts Jesse Thorn’s feelings or loses me public radio indie cred with the heavily Brooklynite audience tonight. But it’s a narrow margin, and this time I was actually there, not watching on a movie screen.

Now I’m just actually glad to be going home, and have something to eat.

Update: Just after I’d written that — or, rather, written up to the “going home, and…” part — my train arrived at the station, where my father was waiting to pick me up. I had a left-over turkey burger and some mac’n’cheese, and now I’m going to get myself ready for bed. I don’t expect to have a lot to do tomorrow morning, since the MRI mostly entails lying very still and trying to concentrate on anything other than the fact that my arms are kind of pinched at my side*. But it is at the unconscionable hour of 7 a.m. on a Saturday.

* I did request an open MRI, but I also told the woman who made my appointment that it wasn’t a deal-breaker, not if I could get in sooner with a closed one. She said she understood, but she didn’t say if my appointment was either one or the other. I’m hoping it won’t matter, and they’ll have an open one available. Also that it reveals exactly what’s wrong, isn’t serious, outlines a plan of action, and gets me some relief. Oh, and is full of rainbows and magic beams and gumdrops, but I think that much goes without saying, right?

I guess that was Tuesday

I overslept this morning and somehow didn’t wake up until 8 o’clock on the nose. Even more remarkable, though, is the fact that I still managed to be on the 8:15 train. I even managed to shower and brush my teeth. (Well, okay, I did those two simultaneously.) And while I had to rush like mad, I didn’t have to run for the train or anything.

Sometimes it pays to live only a couple of minutes from the train station.

The rest of the day was pretty much business as usual. I spent most of it weeding through stock photo sites, which I’m still doing, looking for replacements for figures that appeared in the first edition. This is proving a little tougher than finding regular stock photos, since these others are more medical and scientific in nature. I know I’m just asking for trouble plugging keywords like “glands” into my image searches, but that’s sort of what it’s come to. The previous edition was published by a competitor, and I think they had an illustrator or two on hand, which seems just wholly unfair.

Other than that, I scheduled a follow-up appointment with my spine doctor for next Tuesday. It was probably asking too much that I be able to get a Friday appointment, and thereby use a day I was already taking off for vacation. But I rescheduled my day off, for next Tuesday, and it’s not too shabby getting the initial visit, MRI, and follow-up all taken care of it less than two weeks. Hopefully the MRI — bright and early this Saturday — will suggest a plan of action.

And this evening, when I came home, there was a helicopter circling this and the surrounding blocks for twenty or thirty minutes. Also, maybe unconnected, a police car pulling into the parking lot at the train station a few minutes before that. I wonder if they were chasing a fugitive or something. I’ve seen nothing about it on the news, or online, but that helicopter seemed to be making quite a few passes overhead.

Oh, and I would be remiss if I didn’t enjoin you all to vote for Heather in the Canadian Blog Awards. Hers is my favorite Canadian blog, which I’m sure you’re all reading anyway, but I thought I’d pass the word along.

Tomorrow, they tell me, is Wednesday.

Six years of Mondays

Today marked my six-year anniversary at work, although the day itself was just like any other Monday. I’ve actually got a pretty busy week planned, at least near the end of it, and this evening I managed to schedule my MRI. It’s this Saturday at 7 a.m. Luckily, the radiology place is right nearby, and the woman on the phone assured me that I’ll be in and out pretty quick, since I’m definitely the first appointment of the day. I still need to call my spine doctor to confirm they squared the insurance authorization — as well as to schedule a follow-up with him to discuss the MRI results — but it’s nice to have a plan of action worked out for the week.

Still, I remain wholly unconvinced that six whole years have gone by since I moved back home from Pennsylvania. On the one hand, I’m glad. I had some friends in Pennsylvania, although fewer as the years went by and more graduated, and I absolutely didn’t hate working for the university. But New York was the only place I was going to get an entry-level job in publishing, if only because this is where ninety-something percent of all publishing jobs are located. Moving back home was not at all a mistake. And yet, the thought of buying a home (or rather apartment or condo) and settling down…I still really don’t know how I feel about that. I like my job and the people I work with, and I do want to move out on my own again, but is New York really where I want to stay?

It should be noted I am not the most decisive of individuals. That’s sort of how six year go by just like that.

Dungow-dash

Today was kind of a bust as a vacation day, and pretty much what I expected from my doctor’s appointment. It went well enough, and it’s always good to get a medical opinion that isn’t a faceless internet site, but not much has changed except their office reception area.

I have a scrip for a new MRI — and won’t that be fun? — which, after a little light insurance authorization at their end, I should be able to schedule early next week. Hopefully that means I can get back to my spine doctor, to figure out if it’s the disc or he wants to send me to someone else, before the end of October. I should be more than fine until then; it’s less dealing with the mild (if persistent) discomfort that bothers me, and more the uncertainty and possible need to take more days off.

We’ll see. Nothing I can do about it until Monday.

The Forgotten English word for today is “dungow-dash,” meaning:

When the clouds threaten hail or rain it is said, “There is a deal of dungow-dash to come down.” From dung, filth.

That according to an 1826 Glossary of Some Words Used in Cheshire — and if that’s not an authoritative source, I don’t know what is. It rained a little here today, though hardly enough to start resorting to nineteenth-century Cheshire slang. (Although I understand that in some wilds of the world it actually snowed!) It was chill and windy here more than anything — windy enough to knock out the power, first at the doctor’s office for a moment, and then again while I was on my way home. Which meant that when I got home — with a few groceries in tow, I should add — I couldn’t get in the house. I only had keys for the side door, which is inside the garage, whose door is electrically operated. I walked around the house for ten or fifteen minutes, contemplating both melting ice cream and breaking windows, and accidentally making enough noise to bother the dog, who was safe inside the kitchen I couldn’t get to. Luckily the power came back on before long, and none of the groceries were ruined beyond salvage. And I didn’t have to wait several hours for one of my parents to return home…or go about the clumsy process of breaking into my own house.

Anyway, that was Friday. Not a particularly exciting day — I slept pretty late, had a chicken sandwich for lunch, went to the doctor — but at least not a filth-falling-from-the-sky kind of day.

Thursday is my Friday

I’m very happy to be off from work tomorrow, but I do wish it was for something more fun than a doctor’s appointment. My original plan, weeks ago, was to be off next Friday, just one in several long weekends planned for the rest of the year. I have vacation time I need to burn up before January. But then the whole thing with my back and the radiating discomfort it can cause started up again in earnest, and I made an appointment with my spine doctor. I’m worried that not much will come of tomorrow’s appointment, that I’ll tell him my symptoms and, at best, he’ll be able to say how likely it is they’re being caused by the herniated disc. There’s actually little of what I’d classify as “back pain;” for me, the problem have almost always been when the disc pinches the surrounding nerves and causes weird and unfortunate symptoms. Symptoms that in this case, I must say, could be indicative of other, unrelated problems. (Although the other symptoms that would usually accompany those problems so far haven’t, as far as I’ve noticed.)

I don’t think he’ll be able to tell me anything with conviction, however, without a new MRI. I’m not a fan of that procedure, at all, but if it’s necessary of course I’ll do it. But I do worry about how long I’ll have to wait for that appointment, plus the follow-up with the spine doctor to discuss the scan, plus any follow-up I might then need for treatment. And that’s leaving aside, for the moment, the very real possibility that treatment will involve — or even be limited to — surgical options. Or that the MRI will suggest that nothing has changed, that the disc doesn’t seem to be causing my new symptoms, and I’ll be back to square one.

I think I’d be less worried if I knew that tomorrow’s appointment would probably offer me some kind of battle plan — maybe a potentially dangerous and last-resort kind of plan (like spinal surgery), but a plan nonetheless. But I suspect it will come down to just, “well, let’s see what the MRI says,” and that will push me into next week, and probably even further than that, before we get anything like answers or relief.

And, of course, I’ll have to schedule vacation time (and/or my few remaining sick days) around a string of follow-up appointments. It’s got to be done, especially if this is potentially more serious than some intermittent (if persistent) discomfort, but I’d be lying if I said the whole thing didn’t make me nervous and worried.

I like my spine doctor, even though I haven’t seen him in about a year and a half, so I’m going to try to be optimistic about tomorrow afternoon’s appointment.

And hey, at least it means I get to sleep in late tomorrow. That’s something, right?