I had a doctor’s appointment today, and met for the first time with Jeanne Eyman, who is a P.A. My primary physician is Dr. Jacokes, but I almost never see him any more. I usually see Amy Hird, who is a P.A., whom I really, really like. She’s on maternity leave now until the first of March.
Jeanne asked, “So what’s up today?”
I have three things on my agenda I replied:
- I need a new blood pressure medicine prescription, and I think we need to consider upping the dosage. My pressure’s been running high lately, and it was again today upon check-in.
- I want to get back on Nexium. Amy let me “experiment” with taking OTC Prilosec, but that hasn’t been working out for me.
- I’ve had this sore throat for two or three days now. It hurts like a bitch on the right side, when I swallow.
She had no problem upping my Lisinopril from 10/12.5 to 20/25, and writing me out a new prescription for Nexium.
“Let’s have a look at that throat. Hmmm. You have strep. I don’t mean to hurt your feelings, but strep has a distinct odor, and your breath has it. Let’s get you on an antibiotic. You aren’t allergic to penicillin are you?”
“No.”
She continued, “So we’re supposed to follow up on some things from your labs last time, to see if there’s been any change. You fasted, right?”
I stammered, “Well, actually, I did good from 9:30PM to midnight, when I fixed a pizza for a house guest of mine. After I’d finished my piece, I remembered that I was in the middle of fasting. Would one piece of pizza mess it up? It was real thin crust pizza.”
“Let’s not set ourselves up for failure when we’re trying to determine if we should treat your cholesterol or not. Why don’t you take about a month on this new dose of your blood pressure medicine, get your reflux back in control, and then come back, having fasted completely. By then, your strep will be gone, too.”
“Good plan,” I said.
“Oh, and one more thing, I hate to be the Grinch here, but you’ve gained 7 pounds since you were here last.”
We talked a little about this lifelong struggle for me, as I felt disgusted with myself.
During lunch, I ran to Southpoint Mall. Parking was terrible.
In The Apple Store, where it was an absolute mess in terms of the checkout lines, I bought an adapter to allow me to listen to my iPod in my car. I bought the wired, cassette option instead of the Wireless FM Tuner option as the “wired” connection is supposed to be better.
After that, I ran into Barnes & Noble, where I bought a gift CD for Irene, and picked up a $150.00 gift card for Irene — this is for Irene to reimburse me for as she’s giving it to someone for a gift.
I have to remember that three people owe me money now: Joe owes me $150.00 from our Charlotte weekend, Steve owes me $1800 for his tuition that he let me put on my card to collect frequent flyer points, and now Irene owes me $150.00 for this gift card.
Later in the day, I plugged the adapter into my cassette player to listen to my iPod through my car radio. Nothing.
This was very annoying, and I put it aside to try later in my home stereo to see if it is something to do with my stereo system or if the problem is in the device itself.
On our way out of Raleigh, Irene and I stopped at the Avent Ferry Florist / Susan’s Hallmark shop, where Irene was looking for a Michael McDonald CD that you can buy if you purchase three Hallmark Cards.
I was curious to see if we were going to be greeted with a hello after my postcard.
Irene spoke first to the lady who had been at the counter during my last visit, and who had prompted me to write that postcard. After a few minutes, the other woman who works there came out, whom I’d never seen before. She was a little more personable.
It turned out that they aren’t a Hallmark “Gold Crown” store, because 1) Hallmark wants $350,000 for them to be one, and 2) they can’t become one with the size of their current store. There’s no room to make that one bigger, and they can’t afford to move out of that location.
They told us that the Hallmark Shop at Crossroads is a Gold Crown Store.
We ran by K-Mart so that I could pick up my antibiotic prescription, which I started as soon as I got back to the car with it.
Then, before heading to Warsaw, we stopped at that Hallmark Shop in Crossroads, where Irene did indeed find the offer, and fulfilled it.
We met Irene’s mother, Maria, at the Country Squire Inn & Restaurant in Warsaw, where we had a most delicious meal. Irene and I both had the 4 oz. filet mignon, and a stuffed backed potato. It came with a killer salad and bread. Yum.
Irene picked up that tab, and I helped transfer her luggage from my car to Maria’s.
I met av8rdude at Flex for Karaoke. innoman and Jace ended up out, too.
At right around midnight, when Nikki and Robbie got up there to do their tired duet from “Grease,” I had to leave.