I managed to get out of bed to catch Obama's swearing in and his inaugural address before heading off to three separate doctors appointments today that I absent-mindedly scheduled for today. Before my first appointment I got a chest x-ray, then met with my thoraxic surgeon (he was 40 minutes late) who removed the chest tube from my side. After the tube was removed he wanted me to go have another chest x-ray taken after my other appointments. He wanted to make sure there weren't any airpockets or fluid left in the lungs. The doctor als warned me to come straight in to the hospital if I have chest pains or am short of breath (no shit).
The second appointment was with my infectious diseases doctor, who keeps me on, or takes me off, antibiotics. He says I will be on some of them for at least two more weeks. He asked me if I had any worries and I told him about my swollen legs. He said I needed to talk to my family doctor about that. He wanted me to get some labs done after my last appointment.
Finally, I saw my kidney doctor (who is also my family doctor). So far, so good. Other than the swelling in my legs and the fact I have taken a giant step backwards in progress in physical therapy, the doctor says I'm O.K. He'll figure something out about the legs, probably diaretics.
He also wanted me to get even more labs done. So I had to go downstairs and wait, and wait until my name was called and my luck I got someone who never drew blood before. I am particularly difficult to get blood or blood pressures from. Since 2000 I have had a fistula in my left arm when I needed dialysis. So I'm not supposed to have any blood draws or blood pressures taken from the left. That leaves my right am, which may not have any veins left. I keep telling them to not bother with the arm and go right for the hand, which is a perpetual bruise but the veins are easier to fine. The lab wound up sending me down to the Cancer Ward to draw the blood out of my pic line (the needles already in my arm for IVs.) Then I had to do back upstairs for the final chest x-ray. In the end, all three doctors are happy with my progress. I hope we can get this excess fluid off my legs so the pain will go away, so I can move my legs, and I can try to learn how to walk again.
In the end I missed my ride by an hour (they never schedule the window large enough for these appointments), and after waiting for another pick up, I finally got back to the home at 6:30 p.m. Missing a horrid dinner of Bratwurst and cabbage.
I wish I had the foresight to schedule these appointments for yesterday or tomorrow because I felt I missed a lot today. I did see the Warren invocation, which seemed unoffensive and unmemorable. When G.W. was introduced he was apparently booed but I couldn't tell. I saw both Biden's and Obama's swearing in and Obama's speech. All I really missed the day punditry and the Slogging, which I am periodically doing now.
The one line of Obama's speech that stuck with me was "...we will extend a hand if you are willing to unclench your fist). I think this line is applicable to not only those factions or countries that consider us their enemies, but should apply to all people who don't agree on everything, but try to agree on something and get it done.
(Oh, dear. My dumbass roommate is trying to get out of bed setting off an alarm that no one is coming to check on. He's O.K. He just got up to go to the bathroom. At least he isn't pissing all over the floor like he did the last two nights. It's like living with a three year old.)
Depsite it is barely 10 p.m., it feels like it's been a long day. It's one in the morning in D.C. I hope the Obama's can get some rest (they may still hve balls to attend).
Tomorrow I will put all my energy into therapy and Obama will start his first full day as President.
The second appointment was with my infectious diseases doctor, who keeps me on, or takes me off, antibiotics. He says I will be on some of them for at least two more weeks. He asked me if I had any worries and I told him about my swollen legs. He said I needed to talk to my family doctor about that. He wanted me to get some labs done after my last appointment.
Finally, I saw my kidney doctor (who is also my family doctor). So far, so good. Other than the swelling in my legs and the fact I have taken a giant step backwards in progress in physical therapy, the doctor says I'm O.K. He'll figure something out about the legs, probably diaretics.
He also wanted me to get even more labs done. So I had to go downstairs and wait, and wait until my name was called and my luck I got someone who never drew blood before. I am particularly difficult to get blood or blood pressures from. Since 2000 I have had a fistula in my left arm when I needed dialysis. So I'm not supposed to have any blood draws or blood pressures taken from the left. That leaves my right am, which may not have any veins left. I keep telling them to not bother with the arm and go right for the hand, which is a perpetual bruise but the veins are easier to fine. The lab wound up sending me down to the Cancer Ward to draw the blood out of my pic line (the needles already in my arm for IVs.) Then I had to do back upstairs for the final chest x-ray. In the end, all three doctors are happy with my progress. I hope we can get this excess fluid off my legs so the pain will go away, so I can move my legs, and I can try to learn how to walk again.
In the end I missed my ride by an hour (they never schedule the window large enough for these appointments), and after waiting for another pick up, I finally got back to the home at 6:30 p.m. Missing a horrid dinner of Bratwurst and cabbage.
I wish I had the foresight to schedule these appointments for yesterday or tomorrow because I felt I missed a lot today. I did see the Warren invocation, which seemed unoffensive and unmemorable. When G.W. was introduced he was apparently booed but I couldn't tell. I saw both Biden's and Obama's swearing in and Obama's speech. All I really missed the day punditry and the Slogging, which I am periodically doing now.
The one line of Obama's speech that stuck with me was "...we will extend a hand if you are willing to unclench your fist). I think this line is applicable to not only those factions or countries that consider us their enemies, but should apply to all people who don't agree on everything, but try to agree on something and get it done.
(Oh, dear. My dumbass roommate is trying to get out of bed setting off an alarm that no one is coming to check on. He's O.K. He just got up to go to the bathroom. At least he isn't pissing all over the floor like he did the last two nights. It's like living with a three year old.)
Depsite it is barely 10 p.m., it feels like it's been a long day. It's one in the morning in D.C. I hope the Obama's can get some rest (they may still hve balls to attend).
Tomorrow I will put all my energy into therapy and Obama will start his first full day as President.
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2 comments:
Larry -- this isn't an inauguration-related comment - I just didn't want to comment on the spam and cheese post.
I think you should devote an open thread to circumvention of your firewall.
For the sake of anyone else reading this, I don't know you or your computer proficiency, nor what equipment you have access to. Just what I've read on this blog in the past couple of weeks and some comments on SLOG, e.g. wishing you had streaming capability.
And I'll also guess that your ambulatory circumstances change with your health, so maybe access to SPL computers or outside WIFI might change often.
Can you telnet through your firewall to a safe site like a UW or NSCC account?
Have you ever tried a Firefox plugin named DownloadHelper which downloads (instead of streaming) video files from youtube and many other sites?
Do you ever try to use google's cached versions of websites (or archive.org) to get stuff that might be blocked?
Do you run any risk of The Man cutting off priv's just for trying workarounds?
I think you should make a running wishlist of stuff you want to download and request it here.
Gmail is a nice place to store files, in case you hadn't thought of having someone mail you restricted stuff. I'm not sure of their per-attachment size limits but with RAR/unRAR technology, you should be able to get what you want with some help (or a shell account on someone's outside computer).
(aside:) for a clever filesystem idea, look at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GMail_Drive
Do you remember 2 days ago when SLOG posted a youtube video "Almost Over" by someone named JoeMyGod, of GWB's disasters, etc. I downloaded it to a web server at my old university, renamed the .flv file to a bogus extension of .LD so a browser wouldn't try to stream it. If you can, Download it, rename it back to .flv and play locally. It is temporarily stored in a directory at:
http://preview.tinyurl.com/davenport-tmp
Cumbersome, but if it worked, it's a workaround.
Sorry for the long and tedious post (that happens at 4am sometimes). You probably know how to delete it if it gave you a headache. I certainly won't be offended if you think my suggestions are dumb.
- tim
Hi Tim,
When I get some time I will look at all the options you mention.
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