Well, after a heart-pounding 24 hours, Holter and I have parted ways. I took him home after work today. I hope to hear from him soon. I'm so glad to be free of his tentacle-like grasp on my torso. So itchy and irritating! The experience of being tethered to an electronic box was something I'll have to get used to. The process for my insulin pump has been started. Yahoo! This is going to make my life SO MUCH easier.

I guess it freaks some people out, those who aren't familiar with it. I forget that I live in this whole other world with this whole other language sometimes. I'm so excited. No more shots! Well, more like 1 shot every 3 days, as opposed to the 5 a day I'm up to now. Plus the pump I'm getting has an optional remote so I wouldn't even have to pull it out to "bolus" (set it to temporarily increase the amount of insulin it's pushing into me to offset what I'm eating), I could just push a button and I'm done! I don't know why I've been so resistant to it. I guess I was a little freaked by the whole appliance factor. I mean, shooting myself up with insulin 5x a day can suck, but when I'm not shooting up, I'm not thinking about it. Somehow I guess I thought of myself as being "sicker" if I had a pump. Silly, because really all it is is an external pancreas. Non-diabetics' pancreases run on an automatic transmission while mine is a manual. It's also especially important because I'm making strides toward my ultimate goal of becoming a nurse. Step 1 is getting my pre-reqs out of the way (Anatomy & Physiology being the biggie, gulp.) so I can get into a nursing program. I'm scared but excited. This is my true calling.

In other medical-type news: Grey's was pretty good, eh? I totally called the ending but I enjoyed everything leading up to it. Cristina's dollar-store spree made me laugh in a gallows humor type way because I did something similar. It was just after college, and after the big Disney trip. I was grocery shopping preparing for my first night alone in my new apartment. I had a breakdown in the middle of Waldbaums and bought every type of light bulb and air freshener I could.

Labels: health, tv

In honor of Ash Wednesday, which was apparently today, here's a story about a woman who is giving up supermarkets for Lent. She's also British so the article is filled with delightful words and phrases like "trolley," "gone potty," and "fizzy drinks."

As for me, I'm not giving anything up. I wish I could give up lasers but alas, I cannot. If anyone out there is looking for a friendly, dedicated ophthamologist out there, Dr. Elizabeth Simmons at UCONN is incredible.

Right now, I'm supremely irritated by these heart monitor stickies on my chest. I'm on a 24 hour Holter monitor and extremely itchy. Only 18 hours, 16 minutes left to go ...

Labels: health, holidays, whiney

Not of Love Letters, that was just fabulous of course! Amanda and Alan both made me cry, and not in the way that they usually do when they push me and steal my lunch money.

After the show, Nate and I went to the Southington Wood-n-Tap. We're somewhat connaisseurs of WnT, living a stone's throw from The Mothership and all. We've been to the Hartford one countless times, the Farmington one once or twice, and now Southington. Food was top-notch as usual, but here are some of my thoughts on the rest.

Southington pros:

• Lots and lots of room


• Retained the same WnT charm we know and love


• Not overstuffed and loud


• Same quality of food we've come to expect


• Normal-sized bathrooms! This may seem odd but if you've ever visited one of the other WnT's, you know how tight the restrooms are.

Southington cons:

• It used to be a TGIFriday's and it kind of still feels that way. It's almost TOO open. They've done well with the decor and theme, but they layout is a little too American chain style for me


• It's in a shopping plaza


• The music was a little TOO loud, so I still felt like I had to raise my voice to be heard

All in all, if I find myself in Southington again, I'd go back. However, since I don't find myself in Southington often, my time will be spent at The Mothership. Next we'll have to find outselves in Rocky Hill to complete our tour. I hear that one used to be a Ground Round! Maybe they kept the old Pay What You Weigh program ...

Labels: food, friends

Tonight we're off to Southington to watch Amanda and Alan recite love letters to each other. I'm excited cause I get to see Lisa tonight too! It's like a big bloggy nerdfest. I may even blow-dry my hair for the occasion.

Labels: friends, other bloggers

If anyone needs me, I'll be recreating this picture until further notice. Don't even try to find me, I'm too well-hidden!



Well, okay, maybe not. Would be nice. I've just hit a wall today. The doctors and the rescheduling doctors and the scheduling doctors around each other ... I just want it all to go away. The eye doctor wants me to come in, like, 5 days a week for treatments. I have to get the Holter monitor from the cardiologist, which I was supposed to do today but had no desire to get back on the road after the hour it took to get downtown. I have to go for endless pre- and post-pump appointments at the endocrinologist. Then there's my GP, whom I have to see every so often to keep getting referrals for all of these specialists. Plus I have all these weird spots all over me that I should probably get checked out. Maybe they're leprosy.

But hey, Grey's Anatomy was good, wasn't it?

Labels: pictures, tv, whiney

1. Anna Nicole Smith. That was one of those "BREAKING NEWS" headlines on MSNBC that made me do a double take. I mean, it's not SHOCKING but it was rather startling. My money's on suicide, as callous as it sounds. She had a lot of crap coming at her from all directions.

2. Lost. Eh. I mean, there was a lot there, but it didn't really overwhelm me with awesomeness. There's a great article in Newsweek about how to keep enjoying Lost, even if it's lost (ha!) some of its luster. It's so true, there's no way they could have kept it at that pace. Now it's time to just settle back and enjoy the story and the characters.

3. Grey's. YIKES! Stupid cliffhanger. What was UP with that little girl?

I have to go to bed. I'm cranky and my head hurts. TGIF. And TGFFOS. (Thank God For Family on Saturday. I'm excited!)

Labels: celebrities, tv

Today was my third laser treatment and the first on my left eye. It hurt. A lot. In terms of progress, I was able to withstand more lasers than my first treatment but fewer than the second one. She was really close to some nerves which resulted in a wicked headache. Then I came home and slept for a couple of hours. The pain was pretty bad. She said that, though we got fewer lasers in this time, we made more progress because the blood wasn't in the way as much. The blood in my eyes is being reabsorbed, which is a good sign.

And now I'm done for another week, whee.

Labels: diabetes, eyes

I've been waiting to post until I had the promised FLANN 200! (tm Alan) picture to share. Yes, that's right, this is my 200th post over here at Mediacrity. Not sure if I should be proud or sad.



That's about as much exciting content as I can come up with. Everything else is normal. My eyes are getting a lot better, as far as vision goes. The vessels are still actively bleeding, but the blood settled so I can see. I'm scheduled for another laser treatment on Wednesday, hopefully my last one for the right eye. I'll do a separate update about that later. I'm trying a new blog idea where I will detail my weird experiences and any pertinent information to hopefully help out others in the future. It's frustrating when I search for things like how to get my radio code for my car or what panretinal laser photocoagulation feels like.

There's not much else going on, just a whole lot of X-Files wayching. I forgot how scary some of these old episodes are!

Yesterday there was some sort of sporting event on television. I didn't watch any of it, preferring to instead watch the Puppy Bowl on Animal Planet. The best moment was when the Boxer dunked the Boston Terrier's face in the water dish. Awesome.

I did manage to catch a couple of commercials after the fact. Namely the KFed Nationwide one, the Oprah/Letterman one, and the Taco Bell lions. The Oprah/Letterman one was my favorite by far. I've heard that most of them sucked.

Labels: diabetes, eyes, health, pictures, tv

A long long time ago ... well, okay, Sunday. On Sunday, Nate was coming back from Providence and wisely decided to pull off and close his eyes for a bit. Not-so-wisely, he accidentally left the headlights on and awoke to a dead battery. He got it jumped, got ready to continue on his own, and was confronted with the dreaded "CODE" display on the radio. He called me, hoping for a quick resolution. Since I had solved this problem for someone else once before, I knew what to do. I took the serial number from him and called Honda. Well, due to the decline in customer service these days, Honda's CS hotline is not open on Sundays. Blast.

Monday came and I got in touch with Honda. In no time I had given the CSR the serial number and VIN and gotten my code. Later that day, I gave it to Nate to try. He tried, it didn't accept it, and then it locked him out of trying again, having reached its maximum number of attempts.

For one reason or another (one being that our hood release latch snapped off ...), we found ourselves unable to attempt to reset the radio to try the code again until tonight. I scoured the internet, found what needed to be done, and we headed out with our pliers and flashlights. We attempted to remove the proper fuse, almost got it ... then flung it off into the darkness, never to be found again. SUPER.

We hop in the car and head out in search of an automotive shop. Just in the nick of time, we run into Sears Automotive, locate the correct fuse pack, pay, and eagerly run back to the parking lot. Right there, in the daylit glow of Sears, we jerryrigged our hood open with the pliers once again and slipped the fuse in. I turned the car on, turned the radio on, put the code in and ... NNNNOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!! KHHHHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAANNNNNNNNNN!!!!!!

Ahem.

The display read "Err1" meaning "Uh-uh, not that one!" And do, this comedy of errors begins anew at 9am eastern time.

IN THE MEANTIME. Honda. Something's got to give. I drive a 1999 Civic with a factory radio. Nobody but NOBODY wants it. There's got to be a way to disable that thing!

To add insult to injury, Nate's iPod has up and died, too. There were no slots open at the Genius Bar for tonight so we'll try THAT again tomorrow.

Labels: car, music, whiney