Cars and Cats and Blood

Good afternoon! I hope your day has been good thus far and that it continues to be.

Yesterday Joseph had his first soccer practice of the year. As we were walking over to the field, he said, “I don’t want to do this.” I think it was just the nervousness before the first practice speaking but I told him that now isn’t the time to back out. I wouldn’t have signed him up if he hadn’t said he wanted to play.

Cedric’s dentist appointment went well. He has no new cavities which is what every mother wants to hear. Our trip was fairly uneventful and I forgot to pick up the container that had cookies in it from Joseph’s teacher.

My trip to the doctor revealed nothing. My swelling ankles don’t appear to be from high blood pressure or from anything else readily ascertainable. I do wonder about blood pressure sometimes. If a person’s normal is low, wouldn’t normal be high for them? Mine is usually 106/60. Yesterday it was 118/72. For me, that is a bit high. For Paul, it would be heavenly. I did get to go have my ankles x-rayed and that was interesting and I got to go in this morning to have my blood drawn.

I didn’t know there was an x-ray lab in the Medical Arts Building. I wish I’d have known that before because I wouldn’t have wasted time going to the hospital. Even though they are actually part of the same building, if your doctor is in the Medical Arts Building, you can go to the lab there rather than going into the hospital which requires out-patient check-in at the front and then a long winding walk through several halls and then a wait in the lab area. Same deal with x-rays.

Anyway, when I got there, which was just a walk down one hall, up a flight of stairs, and a shorter walk down another hall, the woman behind the mirrored glass didn’t seem all that friendly. When I got back into the x-ray room, she was very nice. Then, when I was putting my shoes on (which takes, you know, a whole five seconds because they’re Birkenstocks) she asked, “Are you a midwife?” I was wearing my shirt that says “And on the 8^th day God created MIDWIVES.”

“No,” I answered. “But I’m working on it.”

“Do you think more women are actually having their babies at home?”

“Well, the statistics say they are. Still, overall, the homebirth rate is less than 1% so it’s hard to say.”

“Would you be doing hospital births?”

“No.” I explained about how in Massachusetts a midwife cannot attend both home and hospital births and that if a person earns her/his RN and then becomes a midwife and does homebirth, she/he has to relinquish their RN degree. She thought that was ridiculous and of course I agree.

“A woman should be allowed to choose where she gives birth,” she said (and again, I agree), “just like the flu shot baloney.”

She said that she thinks it is interesting that when you go to the doctor, you are able to opt out of things like flu shots and yet employers have the power to force you to get them. There is something really wrong with this, we agreed.

Needless to say, my first impression was not correct and it was actually very nice talking to her.

Cedric and Seth went along with me and Joseph to the rec field for Joseph’s practice. I walked the trail around the fields three times while Cedric and Seth played on the playground and ran around. Cedric wants to take a bicycle next time.

Interesting thing about walking yesterday, my ankle this morning wasn’t swollen by 8:00 like it was yesterday. I think walking is good for it. I also think that because of where the knots are near my right ankle bone and around my left ankle, they are affecting fluid retention because the fluid builds up first in the more distal areas. Only after they are poofy does the swelling climb. Interesting. And walking helped as does keeping my feet up. Interesting. Today Cedric is getting a ride from school to practice from Craig Halfrey who is his coach. I’m going to go about 3:30 and walk around the trail again. I like the idea of making this...whatever go away.

I went to have my blood drawn this morning. I arrived at the lab at 8:26 and there were three people ahead of me. It didn’t take long to get in. When I saw her put six tubes in the tube holder, I thought to myself, “Yeah, right.” I didn’t say anything though. The first three tubes were fine. The fourth she had to move it a bit. The fifth had to move a bit more. The sixth just wasn’t going to cooperate. I sure would like to try drawing my own blood. I know I have veins.

When I got back from that, I took the Jetta to Springfield to trade it for the bug. The Jetta had a real harmonic thing going on. The noise at times was something else—especially taking off from a stop and there were entirely too many of those. If I could keep the right speed going, the noise wasn’t bad. However, there were so many variables it was ridiculous (uphill, flat, downhill, slow people in front of me, stoplights and/or stop signs, pedestrian crossings, etc.). I made it in one piece and was very happy to drive the bug home. I know the guy said the turbo is history (junk, actually, because it was from China), but just new fuel injectors made a huge difference. I was able to accelerate going uphill! Heavenly! And it was so hard to stick close to the speed limit that I didn’t try unless I was stuck on 202 behind a truck (which was most of it). On route 2, I was tooting along at a very nice speed of roughly 25 over the limit listening to Def Leppard having a splendid time. Until I saw a State Police. He was going the other way though. However, because I happened to notice that he took an exit, I thought I probably should as well and did. Which was handy because it’s the one I wanted anyway.

Right now I am going to go check on the kitten that we inherited from the Yang’s. I think she’s a girl and she is very cute. White and black. And she loves attention. It’s too bad we can’t have her in the house but hopefully she’ll be fine outside.

Have a wonderful rest of the day!