Wednesday, September 26, 2007

my legs hate me and other non-news

I can't really remember where I left off in my whining. I know I blogged about The Geriatric Aquatics Class That Killed Me. Its deadliness has continued. I stayed home and licked my wounds all Monday afternoon. I returned to work on Tues. a.m. My knee was still buckling a little, but I thought it would be ok. Around 10:30, i.e., half an hour after opening, the knee completely went out from under me. I was standing at the circ desk, doing a new card registration when I took a swan dive. One of my colleagues ran over and took over the transaction. I thanked her and hobbled into the break room. I took a break (in the morning--how novel!), then hobbled back to the reference desk. The operations manager was very concerned about my safety. I agreed I would leave when the other librarian arrived. I ended up leaving at 1:00.

I had already scheduled myself off on Wed. to do the prep for the colonoscopy on Thursday. So I went in and worked 9:15-12:15, taking care not to push the knee at all. it was still unhappy, and buckled when I squatted down to get books off a botton shelf, but I got through it ok.

Then it was off to Target to pick up the prep. I'd been trying to get it since Sat. It was non-formulary (i.e., not on the plan's approved list), like every other prescription I've gotten in the last two years. When I'm really so freaking healthy that I have nothing else to whine about, I will carry on and on and on about my prescription plan some day. They really do take the cake. They claim to cover just about everything; in reality, they refuse to cover almost everything. (But they do cover Copaxone, street price $20,000/year. So mustn't grumble.) So the pharmacist kept faxing the GI-man to see if she could substitute a similar prep that was soooo formulary as to not have a co-pay. But GI man never responded to her messages or mine, so I shelled out $57 for something I knew would give me the runs.

The prep was as unpleasant as imaginable. Of course, I didn't follow the clock at all--took four hours instead of one to start, then went on for 8 hours instead of one. This did not surprise me in the least. The procedure was scheduled for 1:30 p.m. I had a little Gatorade and a little water in the morning because I was getting very dehydrated. This really concerned the nurse who admitted me at first, but then when she tried to set up my IV, she couldn't get a vein because I was too dehydrated. So everything got delayed while I got poked by multiple nurses. Fourth attempt was finally successful, though I'll be wearing long sleeves for at least a week.

The colonoscopy was blessedly uneventful. No signs of anything, though they still did some small biopsies. I get to go back in three weeks for a consult. Oh boy!

I have again run out of time to work on this post. More gory stories about my gut to come.

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