Living Systems and Bodily Fluids

We've gone over a week without a new Covid-related catastrophe, although I did lose much of last week to a days-long migraine (the temperature's up! it's down! It's balmy on Friday! It's brisk on Saturday! My head is a football being gleefully punted around between pressure systems). Angus's college is probably online until the end of this term - they almost got to go back, but then the cases spiked in the surrounding county. Eve is in the last couple weeks of the first quadmester - less formally, at the 'trigonometry is ASS' mile marker in math and learning how much water different living things add to their pee in Biology. Last week she explained to me how the PCR Covid test worked in terms that even I could understand, so I sent her teacher a Starbucks gift card. 

Both Eve and I have hit a bad run of insomnia. I used to have prescribed sleeping pills but since I got the sleep apnea diagnosis (thirty years late, not that I'm still bitter) they don't love giving me stuff because apparently it's not great to be sedated when you have a tendency to stop breathing. But, I mean, I use the CPAP, so I don't really understand the reasoning - in fact, if I could take something to help me sleep longer I would use the CPAP for longer, which means I WOULDN'T be stopping breathing. Anyway, for a while I could take a Benadryl and it would help, but now it just has the tendency to exacerbate the restless legs problem. Then I remembered that the very first thing that helped with Eve's relentless insomnia as an early adolescent was a high dose of melatonin - which she hasn't been taking recently because her sleep was so much better. So I told her to take a shit ton of it Sunday night and I did the same and it did the trick for both of us. I'm still exhausted from the sleep debt and I suspect I've had a mild melatonin hangover for the past couple of days, but it's worth it.

(How we wind down for the night, can't think why anyone has trouble sleeping)

So, want to hear about my bloodwork adventure? Just to feel better about yourselves, if for nothing else?

So. I saw my doctor at the end of July and she gave me a requisition for bloodwork. Then we went camping. Then we were getting Eve ready to go back to school. Then my dad fell. Then my dad barfed up huge quantities of blood. Then my dad was in the hospital for two weeks. Then Eve had to get tested for Covid and we were in isolation. Then I had to get tested for Covid and I was in isolation. Then I thought "hmm, I was supposed to get bloodwork a couple weeks back, oh no, look, it was three months". 

I knew there was some kind of sign-in system that meant you maybe wouldn't have to wait in line for as many hours. So I woke up Friday, already later than I meant to (refer back to not sleeping, not before 5 a.m. anyway) and tried to sign in at the lab close by. It was already not taking any more sign-ins. for the day. So I found another one not too far away and signed in there. It said the wait was 82 minutes.

Cool, I though. I'll shower, have breakfast, and head over.

I showered and went downstairs and checked the wait again: 135 minutes. 

Cool, I thought, I'll grab a book.

I dished out my Greek yogurt and checked again: 32 minutes.

Wtf, I thought, scarfed my yogurt, slid my shoes on, and headed for the car. It's only an 11 minute drive, so no worries.

I get halfway there. There's no traffic, the weather is nice, I'm feeling good, I'm getting shit DONE, I.... have forgotten the requisition on the dining room table. 

I am torn between rage and resignation - I am a goddamned half-century old and I STILL can't get my shit together. But honestly, I'm just too tired to panic, so I turn the car around, head back to pick it up and see what can be salvaged of the process.

I get home and check the wait in the driveway: 24 minutes. Hm. Still doable.

I go in, grab the paper, yell I FORGOT THE REQUISITION I'M A FUCKING IDIOT, so that had to be fun for Matt's work call and Eve's Zoom class, get back in the car and check the wait again: 11 minutes.

Clearly, the universe is just fucking with me now. 

I am somewhat less observant of moving violations and land-speed records this time around. I squeal into the parking lot, and then get hung up in the entrance trying to buy these fucking token things that you need to pay, but none of my payment methods are working and and I am losing what's left of my composure and then a woman opens the door and says, oh, don't pay for parking, the gates are up! And also, are these your car keys on the ground? And thank goodness we are wearing masks or I might have kissed her, like, with tongue.

Then I walked down a four-mile-long hallway to find the lab, and they checked me in and I sat down and I was called in under thirty seconds. 

So obviously I win at bloodwork. 

I have to get a mammogram soon, so stay tuned for for that fun-filled frolic.