I missed a day (technically).

Where I live, it’s currently July 25th. That means I failed to post on the 24th, BUT I posted a lot of things on the 23rd. Does that count for anything? I think it should, especially since it’s only 1:12 AM. So, I mean, I haven’t gone to bed – it’s still Wednesday in my book. And it was a busy Wednesday. So ha.

To make up for my failure (and the fact that I really want to post some other things not in this post), I have a peace offering. A silly list by a local news station, and I also bring you baby zoo animals. Have I paid my penance yet?

For realz, though, I had a somewhat busy day. Almost immediately after I woke up my stepdad came home and told me that if I was getting my blood work done I should probably get it done today because he claimed the phlebotomist was great. I tend to disagree. I wish my usual person were there because she’s really fantastic. And when I was at my doctor’s office for that I signed more medical release forms. I’m pretty sure that means pretty much every medical record I can think of is on its way to the Cleveland Clinic as of tomorrow. I MAILED MINE! Some of the offices gave me copies of them to send out myself, so I mailed them out this morning. I should really check the tracking number tomorrow and get all giddy if they got there safely.

I also got my packets from the Cleveland Clinic, which weren’t all that informative, honestly. But it taught me a lesson – a lesson I shall teach you. At some point. I might be taking my nighttime meds and seeing if I can actually sleep soon. Especially because tomorrow I’m not allowed to eat or drink anything after midnight so I should really make sure I take those an hour and a half (or maybe two hours) sooner.

I also handled giving all of my information to UPMC for the surgery! I have to laugh when intake nurses are just like, “Oh honey, I can’t believe that you’re been through so much at 22.” “You’re on all of those medications and you’re only 22?” More things along those lines. I actually laughed and went, “Oh, you haven’t heard the half of it. I promise my medical and surgical history will shock you if that did.” At the end of the conversation I made sure that I brought up getting an IV into me pronto on Friday because this whole no drinking water after midnight thing may leave me dehydrated. When I said it I made sure that it was something along the lines of, “This might sound overzealous but because of my POTS I need to make sure I’m staying hydrated, and not drinking water after midnight really sounds like a great way of getting dehydrated. I was just hoping we might be able to get some IV fluids in fast enough before the procedure that my heart doesn’t decide to do anything funny and freak anyone out.” The girl’s best friend from high school also has POTS so she just laughed with me and went, “Oh, I can only imagine. Yeah, we’ll take care of you sweetie.” It was almost comforting in a sense that she knew someone that had POTS – there’s nothing like a random connection to a stranger to make you feel like less of a freak.

I was also working toward my best daughter ever award today by taking my mom over to the nursing home her brother is at so she could visit for a while. For whatever reason she refuses to drive herself there, so it falls on me. I spent time calling all of my doctors’ offices scrambling to get them to give me the films for my appointment on August 6th because apparently I’m to hand carry the actual films with me. I’m guessing that the Cleveland Clinic MAY have a slight superiority complex where they think that they might find something my lowly rural doctors have missed. Meanwhile I’m hoping to go, “So can we connect the dots?”

I spent my afternoon filling out paperwork (like I said, I learned a lesson that I shall pass on so no one ever has to go through this misery in the next generation). And exploring the internet I think – maybe. YES, actually. I was exploring for heart monitors – it turns out they’re expensive because people assume they’re being purchased for recreational use. Oh if only you knew, Garmin and Polar, how many people feel as though their lives are in your hands – even if we’re not technically going to die because of the absurd things our hearts do any time soon. You would just be helping us to feel a little more in control by creating a product that we heart patients could wear 24/7 for several days without the battery dying similar to an UP band. And if you could provide these for us at a low cost because it’s for a medical purpose not an elite athletic training purpose? I would seriously love you forever. I want your products oh so desperately (and seriously – Jawbone, hop on the heart rate monitoring bandwagon please; I wanted your product most of all until I realized it doesn’t monitor my heart rate which is the entire purpose behind investing in expensive gadgets), but they are oh so expensive. They seem even more expensive when you think of it in terms of how the cost of your product compares to all of the doctors’ visits my family has been making payments on lately. See what I mean? Play nice for those of us who want to use your product medically. Or help us to figure out how to make our insurance companies pay for it as a preventative service.

There was also the part of my day that is most definitely getting its own post. It took place before my search for heart monitors – sortof. It may have fallen in the middle of the search haha. My cardiologist just seems too sweet not to get a shout out.

And then I got to go for a walk with my friend Eddie! I’m pretty sure we probably did like 4 miles minimum and it makes me happy. I got to talk about music and movies and everything else we could think of. And I forgot to ask about his dad’s wedding. Seriously, that’s how much we were talking. I’ve also been offered a place to stay while I’m in Cleveland during the school year, which I think qualifies as a good enough reason for me to go to my appointments alone. It was an awesome, potentially productive visit. Yeah – fantastic.

And now it’s suddenly three hours after I got home from visiting, and I don’t know how. It’s also almost an hour after I started writing this post. I mean, I know it took some time and that I got a little distracted responding to things on facebook, but I didn’t realize it had taken that long. If you happen to hear someone refer to brain fog and not understand, keep this example in mind. It’s like time magically disappears while you’re trying to get something accomplished and you have no idea where it went or why things aren’t done. And sometimes – a chunk of that time might be spent trying to think of words that were just “on the tip of your tongue.” (Just not this time.)

 

Oh, and by the way, in case you missed it: Dear companies – if you want to just, you know, hook me up with a heart rate monitor I’m totally game. I would love you forever. I doubt that this would ever happen as much as I would like it to – but it’s worth a shot, right? Here’s my subliminal messaging. Search your names, find my posts, send me love. Jawbone this includes you – I will gladly talk about how fantastic your sleep monitor is if you would like to send me a pretty one that’s preferably a small because I have tiny wrists. But you should really step up your game and add a new heart rate monitor THING (see, word you can’t think of….. FEATURE) to your new model, k? I would appreciate it and be so happy that I get to use your band and join my friends on their teams. (Oh, and explain to me how you know if I’m in a deep sleep or not but you can’t track my tachycardia please.)