And then that happened

Hi there! I wouldn't dust off this thing except that it was hugged out of me by CMGD, a SAHM (not to be confused with SARS) who recently turned a new age (the pretty one). We celebrated her decrepitude over tortillas, which was nice. There's nothing much new to report here. I am now unemployed, my lower left leg is discolored and bleeds a lot, I'm in the process of discarding my possessions so I can move to Seattle (aka Bunnyland), I drive a white '95 Taurus, I'm in love with a Wiffle Hutt waitress who looks like Julia Stiles without the bitchy overtones, my eyesight is fading, I like 90's sitcoms, and I have trouble stringing two coherent sentences together. Why don't fish have beanbag furniture? A pizza. And which is better: bouncy or boingy? Also, I no longer personally hate every person alive.

And here is Tracy's web site because I can't count the three times people have asked me for it recently: http://www.kaplyinc.com/

Diabetes Notes plus Bunny

I've been taking Metformin for two years, which is supposed to help control blood sugar at the expense of making one (where one = me in this case) permanently sharty. I recently cut back on my prescribed amount, from 2k mg to 1k, then quit taking it altogether when (again) my prescription ran out and my doctor's office couldn't be bothered to refill it. As a result, my stomach problems have almost completely disappeared while my blood glucose levels have remained the same. Bear in mind that I'm also injecting 82 units of Lantus (insulin) per day. Maybe the Metformin is just for amateur diabetics and doesn't help when you go pro. I'm just happy to save $8/month and to once again know the joys of using a urinal since I no longer have to crap more than pee.

I won't bother listing her name or age because she just got engaged. Bunny is off the market. =(

Handwriting Anal

...ysis. Knight claims you can tell a lot by a person's handwriting. Click to embiggen the below and let me know what you think.


Note - this was written last evening during a period when my neuropathy wasn't making it difficult to write. This is why I normally prefer to type or cut and paste letters out of random magazines (whichever is more appropriate to the situation).

Every day is a fresh chance to turn it all around and reach a new low

So Saturday was my day of rest and I slept until after noon, went to the store, slept some more, had a half cup of orange sugar-free Jell-O for dinner, and then spent most of the evening on the toilet.

I've read that a lot of people get upset stomachs from eating too many foods made with artificial sweeteners, and (surprise) I am one of them. And apparently "too many" in my case is equal to more than one serving in a single day, or a serving a day three days running. Popcorn is often pushed as being the healthiest snack for diabetics because it is a whole grain, supposed to be the foundation of our entire diet. This is one of the rare times I lucked out since I love popcorn, although then they go and ruin the suggestion by further saying you should eat it air-popped with no salt or butter. Anyone who's ever had it that way knows the taste and consistency is similar to Styrofoam packing peanuts, albeit a little less mouth-watering.

I should just rename this The Blog of Shart.

So that happened

Last night I went home after a long day of work and rested on the futon. Then I farted and the noxious gas was smelly enough to make me want to flee the room. Then I made several emergency shuffles to the bathroom to explosively expel diarrhea. Then I got into one of my coughing fits while on the toilet which caused me to shart in sync with every cough. Coughing shakes my belly, which is like shaking up a Dr. Pepper before opening it, so then I started belching and eventually had to barf out my dinner oatmeal. I didn't want to get off the pot and put my face in a bowl of toxic shart, so I leaned over and vomited into the shower. Several times. Then I gasped for breath and wished I had air to breath that didn't smell like puke, toxic shart, and blue toilet water. Then it occurred to me that, although I knew I would recover, at that moment I was not happy to be alive and was in fact looking forward to death. None of this stopped me from working last night or from returning to the office today. I am ridiculously awesome.

But I'm sure you don't want to hear about any of that stuff, so here is a bunny.

Current crush - Rika Satou, 24yo race queen bunny.

Night terrors are the new norm

So, this morning I awoke just after 4 AM and was absolutely convinced that I had to compose a paragraph including the word "break", but I couldn't remember what the word meant. Then I pondered the spelling and convinced myself that it was a made up word, like swaberpoo or Booflakken, and that no word that looked like "bree-ack" could have any serious meaning. And then I thought that maybe I needed to compose something with the word "brake", which looked more like a real word but then I couldn't think of a reason I had to describe another word I didn't recognize except that I was vaguely aware that it might be a car part. And then, despite some light feelings of terror directed at nothing, I managed to go back to sleep until the alarm told me to get up and go sit in traffic so I can spend my day yawning in a cubicle but feeling more like my old self, thank you very much.

Something similar happened last week, but I can only remember scant details. I remember being awake in the early AM hours and stumbling around my apartment and feeling terrified and lost and unable to completely remember who and where I was, but that's all. Apparently that incident ended without police intervention and I was back to feeling weak and crappy after more sleep. My dog was kind of like that in the last week before I had to put her down.

Hopefully this is just a phase and not the new level of suck and I'll feel as good (read: sharty) as I did last year before winter hit. Winter messes with my symptoms and makes everything worse for me. I never thought I'd see the day that I found Atlanta to be too cold and dry. In the meantime, if I run naked into your yard and throw rocks at the clouds and scream at them to stop following me, just know that I'm probably not dangerous and I would appreciate a nice cup of tea over being shot at and/or arrested.

Good News for a Change

Yesterday I went to the doctor (again) for the latest round of tests / billing / med adjustments, and they discovered that my current meds and routines are doing all they had hoped. That doesn't mean my diabetes has cleared up (it's not a rash), but it does mean we're minimizing the damage and progression of the disease. For the first time in two and a half years, the doctors don't see an immediate need to get me back in their office, nor are they asking pesky questions like "Are you SURE you're still alive?"

Our regularly scheduled bitching and hot Asian women will resume tomorrow.

Custard > Nog

When I was young and the holiday season came upon us (in those days, that meant after Halloween) two new products would magically appear in the grocers' dairy section - boiled custard and egg nog. Every year my family bought boiled custard because we all liked boiled custard, and egg nog because my parents were raised to buy egg nog without question. It was kind of like religion except that nobody got nailed to anything.

At some point we realized that our routine was to buy both, sip the nog, say "Bleah!", turn to the custard carton which was inevitably empty, and then decide to have a Pepsi for breakfast instead*. Over time our diet improved, by which I mean we quit buying nog and added Mountain Dew, and so our status as egg nog fundamentalists came to an end.

Full disclosure - despite the fact that my family tried more religions than breakfast cereals, we were never really religious. However, the entire family did have a Baptist fundy's negative view on alcohol (aka liquid Satan). As such, I grew up hearing vague rumors that some very few weirdos added booze to their nog, but I've never tried it that way myself.

Over the years, as holiday ornaments began making their appearance dangerously close to summer, we noticed a disturbing shift in the nog to custard ratio. My earliest memories were that it was always a 50 / 50 split between the two, but the custard was beginning to wane as the shelves became overgrown with nog. You could still score custard if you went to multiple stores and were willing to buy an inconvenient size made by an unknown brand that was legally obligated to put quotes around anything denoting it as a "dairy product". And then the Gulf War, part one, occurred and I personally ensured that no member of the Iraqi Republican Guard made it into your homes and you rewarded me by completely replacing the custard with more nog.

Seriously - nog? What the hell is that anyway? Nog sounds like an onomatopoeic word for the act of regurgitation. "Dude, I totally downed too many mimosas last night. I think I'm gonna nog." And the weird thing is that I can't find a single person who has ever tried boiled custard or even remembers seeing it in the stores in the 70's and 80's.

Fortunately Target brought an end to my custard drought. While the drug bunnies put pills in bottles for me, I wandered into their tiny dairy section (it's a regular Target, not one of the giant mega supers) and found exactly one size and brand of custard and the same size and brand of nog. Not only does Target give me drug bunnies, it has restored balance to the force with an equal ratio of seasonal dairy treats. And so I bought a bottle, happy with the knowledge that nobody else will drink it because they think it sounds weird and they never had it growing up. Every time I get a beer I can give it a little glance and get a quick feeling of nostalgia until next week when it goes past the expiration date and I have to throw it out. (I can't drink it myself because it's basically sugar molecules bonded together with liquid fat and on the list of things I shouldn't ingest it falls somewhere between ice cream cake and cyanide)

As final proof of the superiority of custard over nog, here are both represented on the awesomeness chart:
The chart is in color, so you know it's true and accurate. USA Today works like that.

And just because I want this post to get more than three comments - pedophilia.

* unrelated note - I have no idea how my family got diabetes

Take 2 Versace and call me in the morning

Since I was sick to the point that it was difficult to work a consistent 40 hour work week (although I'm back in my cubicle now), I've been going to the doctor more than planned. A couple of weeks ago he upped my meds, drew a lot of blood, and ran a battery of tests which resulted in some unexpected and devastating turns. I'll try to share them here with as little drama as possible as not to compound the tragedy.

My a1c hemoglobin number (the main measure of how well one is controlling diabetes) is supposed to be between 4.2 and 6. During my last check, our goal was to reduce it to 7 (i.e. only slightly fatal). Current level - 5.6 (safe).

My thyroid number was previously below one, but not below 0.34 which is the point they begin treatment (average is around three). My new number - 1.57. I have mixed feelings about this. True, I don't have to take more meds, but it means the treatment for my current level of fatigue is "suck it up, wuss".

Some other weird thing I've never heard of that deals with muscle inflammation was supposed to be between 55 and 170. My score - 672. That warranted another visit. They think it's just a fluke since I was getting over a virus and I don't have any other symptoms, but they're rechecking it and I should know something definitive soon, such as that I need to return for more tests.

Since doubling my blood pressure meds again, my readings have dropped from 200 / 70 (i.e. "are you sure your heart hasn't exploded yet?") to 130 / 90, which is merely very unhealthy. The doctor prescribed yet another med, but it is combined with the one I was already taking so no more pills. I have to return in six weeks, which the reception desk translated to "under a month", to retest and see if the new meds are working and/or have killed me.

Then I went to my hot bunny pharmacist to pick up the new drug and found that a) she just received the fax and so I had to hang out and chat with / ogle her while she filled it, and b) none of her usual helpful and friendly non-bunny assistants (bunch of dickbags) were there to get in our way. So we talked about what the new drugs could do to me (the old med is included so I get to keep my persistent cough, but the new one could add swelling in all the extremities except the one I would pay to have swollen), and then she dropped the bomb on me - the exact combination of drugs at that particular dosage is not available in my usual generic $4 prescription, so I had to pay for a designer label (I'm guessing Louis Vutton) for FIFTY FECKING DOLLARS! For a thirty day supply! If I drop one of those suckers down the drain, that S-bend is coming off so I can retrieve it.

Naturally the bunny came to the rescue. Since my retest is in under a month, they can decide to up the meds again (natch) and then I'll be back on the generics. Or if they decide I must have that precise dosage, the doctor can prescribe them separately and I'll just have two $4 refills. Or since my last tests were mostly good, I can just quit all my meds and spend the extra money on cake and beer. Since I've already paid my doctor two copays in the past few weeks and I don't want my pharmacist to know I spread my refills out so that I get to see her as often as possible, I'll leave this decision up to the Magic 8 Ball.

Okay, cake and beer it is. I wonder what cake goes best with what beer?

Dream Job Update

I started my first day as a work-at-home IT pro feeling a little guilty. Sure, the company didn't go far out of it's way to accommodate me and there are several people who are permanently allowed to work from home for no obvious reason, but I've never been comfortable asking for concessions - it's just become necessary to keep working at my former capacity. Since I felt guilty, I was determined to do such an outstanding job that they would never question the wisdom of their decision. I set my alarm early, dragged myself out of bed at 5 AM, and began working on the day's most critical reports in the hopes that they would all be waiting for the department manager when she arrived (which means any time at 6 AM or later or not at all). Then I would spend the rest of the day alternately working and resting, but always near the computer with the speakers on high and audible prompts any time anyone e-mailed or IM'd me. I would be available to them in a way never possible in the office since the bathroom is now ten feet away instead of three counties over.

To say I am not a morning person is to say the Pacific ocean is a tad damp. My symptoms are at their worst early in the morning, so I struggled with them as I coaxed the bronze-age laptop into operation. I began running the queries, and immediately everything that had ever gone wrong before went wrong again. In addition, I even discovered some new things that could go wrong because they went wrong (excuse my technical jargon). So, three plus hours later the first report was ready, slightly early (although not impressively so) and I no longer felt guilty.

I took a short rest break while the computer computed, then returned to my normal daily routine, albeit still ahead of my normally scheduled schedule. People sensed I was out and began requesting that I join them for meetings RIGHT FREAKING NOW! I let everyone know that I would be within reach of my computer all day long, even later than normal, available for phone conferences and IM's and e-mails and teleconferences, but that I was working from home. This upset them as the entire worldwide computer infrastructure will fail if I am not in my cubicle for people to bother in person (if your ATM is temporarily out of order, you can assume I'm in the bathroom), so they apparently began questioning my primary handler about my new schedule which prompted him to call me and have the latest version of the conversation we've been having every time I've been sick over the past few weeks. "Grant, you do great work, blah blah blah, thanks for getting those reports early for us today, but the laptop is just for rare uses when you can't come into the office." Apparently I was supposed to assume "You can work from home" meant "You can work from home in addition to being in your cubicle."

The new deal is this - if I feel as though I may be too sick to work in my cubicle a full day at my regularly scheduled hours, I have to let them know when I'll be out in advance and what my status will be (beyond being logged into the IM system as "working from home"), and then I can work from home for a couple of hours until I'm well enough to return to my cubicle. This is the special new system created just for me to replace the antiquated system other employees use, known as "calling in sick". And people say large corporations don't treat us as individuals. That's not true. They just don't treat us as individuals when it would benefit us instead of exclusively them. So, apparently I don't work at home, the new offer is that I get to work at home in addition to the office. And thus ends the great work at home experiment of 2010.

That was lovely.

My life as designed by Joseph Heller

Three weeks ago I was sick, overslept, and arrived late to work. By the time I had arrived they had called my mommy and asked if I was in the hospital again. (we're estranged, btw) They told me I needed to inform them if I'm going to be sick again. Then yesterday I was sick again, e-mailed them with the news, and then came to work later in the morning. I was then pulled aside and told that, despite my outstanding work, they couldn't tolerate my excessive tardiness anymore. The new deal is a) I get healthy enough to work a consistent schedule, or b) I arrange downtime in advance (i.e. I have to call in before my shift and inform them that I need x hours more rest before I can get to the office). It's important that I do my job from my cubicle because it can be done from anywhere in the world with a computer and Internet connection, so naturally my employers have canceled telecommuting because the poor economy provided them with the excuse they needed to stop improving efficiency. I was further told that if I they weren't relying on me so heavily they would have more flexibility, but my work is very important and of high quality which is why I may need to be replaced.

I used to be in management before I decided to pursue a career path that ostensibly rewarded having actual job skills and I knew from previous seminars that Georgia is an "employment at will" state, meaning you can be fired for any reason or none at all, so my only legal protection lies in federal law. I contacted a lawyer and he advised me that he can't give advice over the Internet and then added me to his mass e-mail list so I now get spammed by him. I checked the Social Security website to see what criteria has to be met to be labeled disabled, and in plain terms you have to a) be unable to do your job and b) be unable to do similar work under reasonably adjusted conditions (e.g. telecommuting instead of working a rigid office schedule). If you meet those conditions you can be disabled which will then require your employer to work with your medical issues and keep you employed. If not, you can be fired for your poor health and can become a burden on society (but not a disabled one - just a healthy bum).

Also my recent downturn has left me unable to exercise (my life now consists of being in the office, or at home resting so I can return to the office), which in turn leads to a rise in my blood sugars which leads to me being sicker. However, experience has taught me that exhausting the little energy I have during these periods leads to serious downtime and missed work and less exercise as a result. Basically I have to get healthy so I can exercise and get healthy. I also haven't been eating much lately. I think I've gained (more) weight.

And in other fun news, the first hospital that kicked off this whole adventure continues to ignore the bankruptcy ruling and to pester me with old bills, new bills, and collections agencies. My bankruptcy lawyer is taking action against them. Her e-mail to me read, in part, "This should be fun." With luck, that means we'll sue them and win easily and I'll have enough money to live without working for my remaining time. With my luck, that means I'll get to pay her much money to go to court to convince the court that they need to tell the hospital to do what the court said in the first place.

There's some subtle irony in here somewhere, but I just don't see it.

---

Update - they agreed to let me work from home. If you own stock in anything, sell it and spend the money on hookers and beer because the world is ending. Seriously though, that's good for both of us. They'll get their data when needed (before, actually) and I can focus on work and my health instead of expending energy to sit in a cubicle for eight hours a day. As for the above - forget all that. Now I'm good.

The Great Light Beer Challenge of 2010

Many doctors have given me permission to stop trying to get healthier and start relaxing and enjoying my remaining years, but old habits die hard. According to the doctors and Web MD, they strongly recommend you do / do not mix alcohol and diabetes because the effects will definitely / possibly cause your blood sugars to spike / plummet / remain unaffected, two of which could kill you, and most of the doctors agree that is bad. However, on one topic they do agree, and that is if you are a beer drinker, you should be a light beer drinker.

I've never been a big fan of light beer because I think, if you're going to drink beer, it might as well have a little taste and booze in it. If I carelessly run out of the German beers I like, I'm forced to fall back on the Coors Light I keep for people who don't like my normal stuff, and there's just no beer in that beer. To me, most mainstream American beers taste like fermented sewage anyway. But when I saw that Sam Adams Light was on sale (still more expensive than my regular brands), I thought maybe what I needed was a better class of light beer and so I bought a twelve pack.

Since I never know how my body is going to react to anything new, I save all trials for Saturday night after I've had a day of rest, but don't have to get up early for work the next day. So last Saturday I performed my normal ritual, namely sitting in front of my computer with a beer while playing Dragon Age. I can honestly say the Sam Adams Light did not taste bad. In fact, it barely had any taste at all. It had all the flavor of a rice cake, or maybe liquid cardboard. But I had paid for it and it was drinkable, so I focused on my game.

I have a strict formula for determining the number of beers I need to get tipsy and kill the pain while still staying lucid enough to fight evil monsters effectively, which is x-1, where x represents the point where I make a careless remark, embark on a gay relationship with an elf, and then get myself and my companions killed. With my Warsteiner (330ml, or about 11.2 oz each), that number is precisely "about three". (yes, I know I'm a light-weight drinker) So, I played DA and managed to kill the right people and have sex with the right people, and I went to bed feeling okay and not really sure about the whole light beer thing but still willing to try another brand in the future.

Sunday I awoke after 1 PM with the worst hangover I've had since I was young and healthy enough to handle them, then I spent the rest of day in bed (and still feel sick today). When I felt well enough, I checked the rinsed-out empties to see what X-1 had equaled, and found it was nine. NINE! I couldn't handle nine beers at once when I was in the Army and rampant alcoholism was considered manly.

So, to recap: I paid more for this beer, drank three times as much, probably consumed more calories, felt no drunker during the evening, felt much sicker the day after, and to top it off the stuff tasted like watered-down seltzer.

So ends the great light beer challenge of 2010.

Quick, Spoiler-Free J-movie Review (plus medical updates and stuff)

Cutie Honey - a live action version of the manga and anime about a cute crime-fighting ninja who can change outfits by shouting "Honey Flash" in Engrish (Hah-nee furasho!)

Don't bother. It left me feeling like this:
I went to my regular doctor yesterday and he gave me a quick verbal examination, noted that all of my symptoms are now under control (as much as possible), updated my prescriptions with refills to last a full year, and then sent me on my way - no scheduled return visits and no more specialists to see. This is the first time since May 2008 that I haven't been under some form of healthcare. Needless to say, I was thrilled:

In other news, every company that knows I exist has been sending me e-mails suggesting that their product or service would make an excellent Father's Day gift. Although NetFlix could make a good gift (except that the last time I saw my parents they were resisting the evils of the Internet and DVDs), I'm not so sure if my gym should be on that list. "Happy Father's Day, you lazy fat bastard!"

I'm one of the initiated now

So, now I have glasses and I can see things again. I missed that. I also got a haircut, so below is an updated portrait of me:
I got the glasses from a regular optometrist, the kind that takes "about a week" to get them in, which in this case really meant two weeks. I have no idea why I went to them instead of a one-hour place. Are the slow places really superior in any way?

Naturally, the optometrist wants me to go to another specialist and then see him again in three months. That's SOP for American medical care. He only violated procedure by actually helping.

I also got prescription sunglasses so I can see outside in the daylight:
For some reason, there are a lot fewer speed bumps on my way to work now that I can see. On an unrelated topic, unsolved vehicular homicides are also down in my neighborhood.

Now I just have to develop good eyeglass-owning habits, such as not putting them in a chair before sitting down to think about where I may have left my glasses (that almost happened last night). Ironically, when I take off my glasses I can no longer see well enough to find my glasses.

Clear vision and irony - totally worth the price.

Medical Fun, Part the Latest

So I went to the local eye care salon / dental clinic / cemetery and had my eye exam. The doctor and staff all seemed competent, and the news wasn't as disastrous as I feared. ("Check again - are you SURE you're not blind?") My eyesight will never again be what it once was, but corrective lenses should put an end to my need for sonar (I steer by turning the car when I hear the horn echo off buildings or people). I got a nice set of frames made by Harley-Davidson that should go well with my coat and boots, and now the only missing accessory I need is the actual motorcycle. The cost was reasonable, although more than half of my bill was due to the optional Teflon coating. I got it because they said it would help my night driving, then I later heard from a friend that the coating is supposed to protect the lenses from scratching. Does anybody have any knowledge of / experience with coated vs. uncoated lenses? Does it actually help anything, or is it just like the undercoating from the car dealership that has no real function except to inflate the price? Should I get one coated lens and one uncoated so I can drive around alternating eyes to see the difference? Will the Teflon make them cop killer glasses that can fry eggs without any sticky residue?

MEDICAL LIE OF THE DAY: "These eye drops will not affect your ability to drive." HA HA HA HA HA that was a good one. You know how, just for fun, you like to rub your eyes until they feel swollen and scratchy and tear over, then tape your eyelids back and stare at the sun? If that condition doesn't affect your driving, then kindly get your car out of my living room. I only had to drive about a mile home, but it was a scary ride.

Fortunately a friend drove us to dinner and a movie. We ate Korean, which was more exotic than I would have liked, plus the menu was difficult to read because it was blurry and over-exposed. I thought tiny Korean women would be just as hot as the Japanese, but it turns out they're all blurry and over-exposed as well. As is their food. Then we saw Iron Man 2 on the IMAX screen, which was nice but was not as great of an IMAX film as I had hoped because they didn't make full use of the IMAX format, the movie was fun but not quite up to the standards of the first one, there was more high-flying daytime action in the first one (perfect for IMAX), and the beginning of the film was blurry and over-exposed. By the second half, though, the director learned a thing or two and it looked much better.

Naturally, at the end of my visit, I had to schedule more visits with the optometrist and other eye guys. I wish dating was as easy. "Of course I'll go out with you again. Let's schedule three more dates right now! And here are some of my friends who would like to blow you too."

Example of someone not involved in my healthcare in any way:

More medical fun

To kick off the latest round of fun, my employer surreptitiously replaced our drug supplier with another vendor, kind of like how the commercials show actors who pretend to not know the difference between instant coffee and the real thing. (note - if you can't tell, you either have no taste buds or the coffee has a higher IQ) Being the discerning taker of drugs that I am, I noticed the swap immediately after my bunny pharmacist said "They're no longer covering you." But she is smart and helpful and managed to find the new company with a few phone calls, so the issue was resolved.

A week later I got the r/x card and paperwork from the new vendor. They're not as widely accepted and don't cover as many meds, but the Target pharmacy with the two bunnies is in their network and they do handle diabetes medications, probably because that one can eventually lead to conditions such as death and should be taken more seriously than, say, dandruff. Plus which my copay dropped from $30/med/month to just $10, so for once these things worked in my favor. (insert sound effect of god laughing so hard Sprite shoots out of his nose)

So then I went back for more insulin and was told that the drug company wouldn't authorize any because my last prescription said 45 units daily and so they calculated that I don't need any more for a couple of weeks. I explained to the pharmacist, who was not one of the bunnies, that my endocrinologist authorized me to raise the amount based on my home blood sugar readings and that I was now up to 80 units. They said they'd call and get an updated prescription and then I could have my drugs.

The next day I hadn't heard back from them, so I dropped by and another pharmacist who was also not a bunny (a disturbing trend) told me no new news, just go home and we'll let you know when you can shoot up again. Apparently the non-bunny drug dealers view diabetes as a minor issue like acne that can clear up on its own if ignored. Fortunately I expect problems when doctors are involved (if you've been reading this blog for any length of time, you'll understand why) and so I began the refill process several days before I would run out.

Remembering that early in the week usually means bunny, I dropped by Monday and re-explained the issue to the bunny on duty. She checked the progress (HA!) made by the others and discovered a) my regular doctor (who doesn't believe using more than 40 units per day helps) said I'm no longer his patient (news to me), b) the endocrinologist's office has never heard of the endo guy who authorized the increase even though his name was prominently displayed on all the paperwork and doors, and c) the insurance company isn't budging without somebody officially writing a prescription for 80 units daily. The bunnyist questioned me about my condition and how it is responding to the increased dosage (80 units has been doing the job for about a month now, so it appears stable), then personally authorized a one-time refill based on my information. And so the day was saved by a tiny cute Asian woman. As usual.

Now I have to go back to my regular doctor, who may have fired me, and hope that his belief that the amount I'm taking to control my problem can't work won't override the fact that it does. If he refuses to give me an updated prescription I'll have to go back to the endocrinologist, who is very expensive and may have been recalled back to his home planet just before the Saturnians wiped the memories of everyone in his office.

Tomorrow I go to the optometrist in the hopes that they can help reverse the effects of my retinopathy. I remain optimistic despite the fact that their office has a small cemetery in front, as if to say "Official Motto: Our Eye Exams Are Not Always Fatal". I'm seriously not making up the detail about the cemetery.

Ordinarily I would close with a picture of a hot bunny in a lab coat, but I'm having technical problems with my home PC and can't upload pics. IOU one pharmaceutical bunny.

USEFUL INFORMATION WARNING: Increasing beyond 40 units did in fact have very little impact on my blood sugar levels, and had no impact beyond 45 until I discovered taking two small (81mg) enteric aspirins daily combined with the insulin brought it down. It looks like my regular doctor and the endo guy each had a third of the puzzle and I found the last piece to the solution. If you know any diabetics who aren't responding to Lantus (the typical, daily dose of insulin often prescribed) you might want to pass that tip along.

I can has futon

As a pre-present to myself, I recently bought the largest and most expensive piece of furniture I've ever gotten outside of my bed - a futon. Now my apartment has real furniture in it and visitors can quit asking if I'm still moving in. It has magazine racks for my Wii games, storage space in the arms, and it makes both a comfy bed and couch, although it pretty much stays in bed mode when I don't have company. Plus it came with two throw pillows. I can't wait to have guests so I can throw them at people.

I also got another gift, bill #4 from the gastroenterologist. This one was the 2nd bill for the lab work performed. When I saw they wanted $115 from me, I assumed they didn't bill my insurance company. Then I read the entire bill and saw that the original bill was for about $2,700, knocked down to under $600 by my insurance company, and they paid everything but the last $115. The tests show that I have diabetes and should probably see a doctor. Dickbags.

Also a shout-out to all you mothers out there. I hope you had a good Mother's Day, unless you are anything like my mother, in which case I hope you spent the day being repeatedly set on fire and gored by a rhino. You know you have it coming.

Warning: Useful Information Follows

So far this year I've only paid $421* out of pocket in medical expenses, which is apparently not enough to warrant any useful medical advice in return. One doctor told me taking more insulin wouldn't help, so he sent me to a specialist who told me to take more insulin. It didn't help. Since I've been desperate to find something that would help, I've been surfing through WebMD looking for any hints or tips beyond "see your doctor and do what he says". One article mentioned that some doctors may prescribe an 81mg aspirin daily for high blood pressure (mine never did - just more prescription medication) since it thins the blood. A lot of my problems (like the foot wound that won't heal) is directly because diabetes thickens the blood preventing it from carrying oxygen to vital parts of the body, so even if my blood sugars remain high then I hoped that thinning it would help me to heal a little better. So, I took an aspirin, and - cazart! My blood sugars dropped by 60 points.

I won't bore you with the blow-by-blow, but I've been experimenting for almost two weeks and for the first time since I was diagnosed, I've actually got the blood sugars into a safe zone (where safe = 80-140, 100-125, 0r 80-120, depending on your doctor's healthcare beliefs). Raising the insulin did help, but only in conjunction with the aspirin. I'm now doing 80 units of Lantus/day plus two 81mg aspirins, and that seems to be the magic combination for me. My symptoms have abated and my foot finally seems to be healing. Don't ask me to explain. I'm a database administrator. I only know a little more about treating diabetes than a a gastroenterologist, a family practitioner, and a pair of endocrinologists combined.

If you know somebody with diabetes who is having trouble keeping their blood sugars down to a safe level, please pass this information along, unless you hate them in which case tell them my miracle cure is to replace the insulin with battery acid and inject it directly into the eye. Bear in mind that just because it worked for me doesn't mean it will work for them. If my miracle treatment accidentally kills your loved one, please know that you have my sympathies, I'm not legally liable, and I call dibs on half of the inheritance.

*not including my $100/week for insurance or the $50/month on meds