mythteller | Entries tagged with health

I went to the YMCA today to meet with my trainer. We did a quick interview and then he setup a training program for me. It used alot of the machines I'm used to, but he added two new ones to my repertoire. They were fun.

The hardest part about working out is getting to the gym; once I get there, I'm pumped to do my workout. It's leaving the house and getting to the gym that's the tricky part. For this series of Flabio Action Adventures, I'll be focussing on getting to the gym 2 to 3 times a week. I refuse to get on a scale for at least 8 months because the weight results will be misleading and discouraging.

Also, I'm planning on trying the Cosom Hockey thing they've got going at the NDG Y. It's on Tuesday nights and promises to be active and challenging. I usually suck at team sports (mainly because of my myopia), but it doesn't mean I can't enjoy it.

In other news, after seven years of being an only cat, Newton is completely freaked out at having a new brother. Rajura had a kitten she couldn't keep and I fell for him at first sight. So I went by today to pick him up and bring him home to live with

sarahcarotte, Newton, and myself. You can see a picture of him here.

So far, Newton's got the busy tail up and wagging, there's been some yowling and some hissing. He is clearly NOT happy with the new roommate. I'll be keeping Schrödinger ("Dinger" for short) in the bathroom for a day or so to let them get used to each other's scent. Then I'll put Newton in the bathroom and let Schrödinger roam around the house for a bit. THEN I'll let both cats out to interact with each other.

I'm expecting a month of fighting and fur-flying, but I'll be keeping a water bottle handy to break up any feline smackdowns. Any advice people have for getting two cats aclimatised to each other would be appreciated!

Current Mood: worried

Apparently, being a member of your local YMCA isn't enough to get in shape and lose weight. You actually have to *go* to the YMCA and lift heavy things or run around until you sweat.

Humph. So *now* you tell me. What a world we live in folks.

I spent about 6 hours in Montreal General yesterday, mainly on the advice of

sarahcarotte's physiotherapist. It seems that she's having trouble with the metal brackets in her foot and lately, they've been causing swelling and a considerable amount of pain.

The physiotherapist (Henry) recommended that we get an appointment with the OrthoSurgeon, but the OrthoSurgeon refused to take an appointment. "Go to Emergency and they'll deal with you," the OrthoSurgeon's lackeys told us. So off we went to Emergency.

We learnt an important trick to getting seen quickly in Emergency.

sarahcarotte forced her blood sugar to go high so that the Triage nurse bumped her to the head of the line. We will be remembering that for the next time.

So after waiting about 3 hours in Emergency, we finally saw a doctor. She poked, prodded, took blood samples, and suggested a few possibilities. At that point, I decided to go home and

sarahcarotte would call me when she knew what was happening.

At midnight, I get a distressed call. "They're discharging me, but they won't tell me why!" Shaking the cobwebs free, I head down to the hospital.

I find the doctors and nurses at one end, chatting about the Italian/German FIFA game and, when I ask about Ms. Carotte, they wave me off to the last bed in the ward.

When I get there, I see right away that Ms. Carotte is experiencing a low-blood sugar crash. I test her blood sugar and see that she is about 5 minutes from going into a diabetic seizure. I rush out, get some ice tea, and attempt to bring her levels back up. All the while, there's not a nurse in reach.

I go see the discharge person and demand to know why Ms. Carotte is being discharged. "Because the doctor discharged her, that's why," the crone sniffed at me. "Why is she still here? We need that bed to be free!"

"I am not taking her out of here until her blood sugar levels are normalized," I reply, trying to remain calm.

The crone waved me off, turning her head in disdain. "I have no idea what that means. Talk to a nurse and get your wife out of that bed."

So I speak to a nurse and explain the situation. I had to re-explain it 3 times because she refused to believe me at first. Finally, she tests Ms. Carotte's blood herself and puts her on a glucose drip. While she's doing this, she's trying to get Ms. Carotte to explain why her blood sugar crashed, as if she was doing this to herself.

Finally, Ms. Carotte's blood-sugar levels come back up to where they should be, but now the doctor wants to keep her for another 3 HOURS. At first, they couldn't wait to get rid of her and now they want to keep an eye on her. I flatly refused and took Ms. Carotte home.

The long and the short of this visit to Emergency is that there is no sign of infection in Ms. Carotte's foot, which is a good thing. But what kills me is that Ms. Carotte was having a medical emergency, but because the nurses closed her file, they couldn't be bothered to check on her. What if I had not gotten there in time? What if she had had a diabetic seizure while the nurses were not looking?

I'm going to start stealing supplies from Montreal General hospital from now on. It took everything I had not to walk off with the wheelchair when I finally took Ms. Carotte home.

Current Mood: angry

In visiting the Village of Values yesterday, I managed to find a kilt and a sporren for my costume. Now I just need to pick up a water jug and some basins for dishwashing and we'll be set for LARPing this weekend. Now if only the weather would behave.

I don't mind if it rains during my LARP as long as it's not a downpour. A light rain keeps the bugs away, and considering that I'll be kiltified this weekend, that would be a good thing.

Wearing a kilt in this game will be good practice for the kilt I eventually intend to wear. No, I'm not Scottish, but there are plenty of Irish kilts as well. However, for the Irish, the tartans are determined by the county you are from. In my case, I would wear a Tipperary Tartan.

Last night, I barely slept a wink for some reason. I kept dreaming that there was some kind of danger in the bedroom, so I kept waking up and investigating it. But it was only when

sarahcarotte jerked suddenly that I realized that she was having a low blood-sugar reaction. My dreams seemed to be in tune with this and kept trying to wake me up to deal with it.

As I've been suspecting for some time now, I think I've developped a psychic bond to her blood-sugar levels; I keep waking up just in time to deal with it. However, I feel no confidence in this. It's scary every time and I always fear that I might, one day, sleep through an episode.

Link of the Day: The new Asterix et les Vikings Movie

Current Mood: accomplished

Blargh... Too humid last night... Sleep near impossible... We both woke up bleary-eyed and cranky.

Maybe I'll break down and get an AC, but the AC make the air taste metallic. And I've already had two AC burst into flames in my presence. This does not bode well.

Current Mood: hot

Take my advice: if you have some kind of medical trauma, save yourself the long-term agony and just saw it off. Sure it'll hurt, but you can save yourself the annoyance of dealing with over-stressed doctors and frustrated nurses who, when it doubt, stick a cathoder in every orifice until you can't even reach the little red button next to your bed.

sarahcarotte is experiencing complications from her surgery. The leg is swelling unexpectedly and the doctors are at a loss to explain it (although it took 14 hours of sitting in Emergency to get that esteemed conclusion).

sarahcarotte's physio guy suggested this morning that the infection might stem from the body rejecting the metal plates in her leg.

Argh. This must be why there are posters all over the hospital that say things like "Violence is not welcome here".

Current Mood: frustrated

Watching

sarahcarotte recover from her accident back in February (breaking her leg after slipping on the ice) is like watching a child grown into an adult.

Just two months ago, she could not even move her leg without explosive pain. Now she's getting around with relative ease using a cane (that she picked up in Chinatown on Sunday). If all goes well (Gods willing), she'll be fully mobile in a couple of weeks. And after that, she probably won't even need the cast.

They grow up so fast! *sniff*

A week and a half ago, I picked up a nasty cold (after spending every available moment at the General Hospital, I should've known I'd pick up something like this) which included congestion, fever, and a nasty cough. Now all I'm left with is the nasty dry cough, which isn't producing much aside from headaches from the intense spasming in my chest.

After much prodding by my entourage, I caved and went to the CLSC to see what they could do (around 2pm). The nurse examined me and suggested that I go to the hospital walk-in to get a ventalin treatment to open up my lung passageways (my wheezing alarmed her).

So I arrived around 5pm and waited. And waited. And waited. At 10pm, I was told I was next in line, so after waiting for 5 hours, I figured I couldn't give up now. At 12am, I was told there were 3 people ahead of me. So after 7 hours of waiting and seeing no one, I gave up and went home.

I can't afford to be gone for that long. Ms. Carotte was home alone all that time with her broken leg and I'm supposed to be watching her. Granted, nothing went wrong, but I couldn't afford to be out for another few hours.

Next time I have to go to the General, I think I'll get a beret, fake a foreign accent, and declare to be the Prince of Moldovia. "If I am not tended to immediately, I will have you all shot at dawn!"

The irony is that I'm sure the psyche ward would take me immediately.

Current Mood: annoyed

Ms. Carotte broke her ankle slipping on the ice on her way to work on Monday morning. You can read about it on her journal.

This week is off to a bad start. My uncle passed away on the weekend after a long illness. I went to the wake tonight and then to visit Ms. Carotte at the hospital. My family have reached the point that the only times we see each other are at weddings and funerals.

My aunt had a strange reaction with me when I came to give my sympathies. When that article about paganism appeared in the Gazette, she emailed me and asked since when I had become a WARLOCK. I emailed her back saying that Warlock wasn't the right term (since it literally means "Oathbreaker"). She wrote back and asked what oaths I had been breaking lately, but I didn't respond to that.

When I saw her tonight, while saying good-bye to folks, she pointed at my medallion (a Cernunuos figure) and said "You're lucky we didn't have a cross over the door!"

I laughed and replied "It burns! But seriously, I'm still not an oathbreaker."

"That's not what I heard." Confused, I asked her what she meant by that, but she said this wasn't the time or place for it.

This worries me. I'm going to give this a few weeks (let the death of my uncle settled down) and then email her back and see if we need to speak over tea. I would hate to think that there's bad blood simmering in my family.

Current Mood: worried

I've gotten through my first week at Melange with very little scarring, but boy-oh-boy do I smell good! This is what happens when you're working with sandalwood, myrrh, and a vast assortment of other oils and incense.

It's been a challenging week, mostly when I need to answer a variety of magic-related questions on-the-spot by customers. Nothing too out of the ordinary really (thanks to my years as an MPRC volunteer), but I feel more pressure because I don't want to misrepresent the store in any way. It's forcing me to put more trust in my instincts rather than feeding my fear of the unknown.

I think the most stressful part is working the cash register. I've never worked a retail job before, so each time I'm faced with punching items into the till, my back muscles seize up. It's getting easier with practice (as all things do), but when the machine starts beeping accusingly at my, I fight the urge to mash the keypad with the base of my hand.

Also, being on my feet all day is tough on my feet and my back. I guess it would help if I didn't have my 40 lbs of potatoes on the front of me. More motivation to lose weight, I guess.

But the upshot is that I have a new contract starting on the 13th (a regular client), the first biography is progressing (I secured a French writer!), and storytelling gigs are coming in slowly. Life is good.

Life would be fantastic if it were not for the torn ligaments in my knee (I'm in pretty much constant pain with varying degress of it), but I'll settle for life being good.