Don 't say I didn't warn you--not for the faint of heart or tender of tummy....
From Mark Pett's Lucky Cow comic strip.
Wednesday was the monthly blood panel. Whee. This meant the 12 hours fasting, which isn't a problem, but did mean nothing to drink after midnight, which *is* a pain.
So, bright and shiny, I'm in line at the lab at 6:55 AM. There are about 20 people ahead of me. Either Kaiser is having a 2 for 1 sale, or a lot of people thought if they showed up mid-week, it would be quieter than Friday. Guess not.
Thirty minutes later, I'm seated. Now, one of the little problems I have are itty bitty veins that are very deep, curl like mad, and move out of the way when the needle hits. Luckily, I have a high pain tolerance, and I don't barf, so when the lab people start digging for treasure, I'm usually not in too bad of a state. It's painful afterwards, because there's usually a lot of blood that gets loose during the procedure, and I usually bruise as well.
The bright, shiny extern greeted me. I explained my problem, and she looked worried. Good--I'd rather have worried than challenged. I had one of those two months ago, and it took four sticks before she hit a vein that didn't immediately collapse, and she was a mess by that time. I wasn't exceptionally happy either, but the juvie specialist was busy with a baby (I usually ask for someone who has experience with juvie or gerontology).
Okay, she ties on the tourniquet and starts to look for a vein in my left arm. She couldn't find one. I suggest that she take the easy method and get it from my wrist. She looked sick. Then she yelled for the supervisor, who came over, went looking for a vein, shook her head, and then retied the arm and gave it a couple of slaps. She hit a vein on the first try. She made a remark to the effect of needing to tell the veins who's boss here, and went on her way.
Okay, so I figure I'm good for another month. Nope--I get a call the next day from the Doctor's office that my Creatine levels are somewhere in the stratosphere (can you say two orders of magnitude higher than they should be?), and could I come in for a recheck.
Off to the lab again. This time we decided to take it out of the top of my left hand. A quick stick, and they have their tubeful. Trouble is, even after the needle has left and the pressure has been applied, I'm still bleeding through the gauze. Numerous gauze pads, pressure, and holding my hand above my head for about 10 min, and that settled down. I now have a quarter-sized bruise on the back of my left hand.
But wait--there's more! The next day I get a call from the Doctor's office. The Creatine level is *up* from the day before, and I need to come in for another blood test *and* a "kidney function test". Time to grab a bottle of water and head on in.
I'd like to point out at this time that women are not functionally set up to pee into a centrifuge tube. Thank you.
I saw the same blood draweras the day before. Once she saw my lack of veins she remembered who I was and we had a short talk about where we should take a crack at this time. The right arm was looked at and there wasn't anything that looked remotely promising. I told her our next choices were the top of the right hand or either wrist. The person in the booth next to ours was trying not to listen, but looked vaguely ill.
So, after tying off the right hand and having it hang over the side of the lab cushion, we were able to get the tube d'jour.
I have another blood test and "kidney function test" Monday morning. I'm drinking a lot of water, and hoping I get some veins in the meantime.
The women's beach volleyball players really ought to introduce their counterparts in track and field to the concept of body glue. Really ladies, those wedgies *cannot* feel good.
Starting on the second week of Olympics, and the Little Blue Cow hasn't improved with age or repetition. Yeah, I appreciate some of the throw-away animation (look at the underwater shot in the synchronized swimming version), but it's still disturbing
The Air Canada ads have gotten old, old, old. VW seems to have figured out that introducing ads in the series during the Olympics keeps the concept a heck of a lot fresher. The Ronald McDonald McD's ads--already old, and they're only four days old. And Tim Hortons? We've figured out toffee, and any double entendre associated with it--please move on!
On the Winnipeg feed, there's a Greek restaurant advertising during the fluffier portions of coverage--clever! There's also an ad for the Clarion hotel which emphasizes the indoor waterpark and that people stay at the hotel during shopping expeditions. Think about it--who's coming *in* to the Peg to shop? Scary, isn't it?
On the south side of the 49th. Comcast thinks they can sell their cable service by running commercials that are a cross of reality TV and old Crown industrial films. The John Hancock "little kids talking about death" commercials should come with another six months of therapy for those actors.
Given the treacle being applied to the overall broadcast, perhaps an insulin producer should be advertising. Or Gravol, if it was OTC in the States.
Update:For those asking, "The Little Blue Cow" is the advertising logo/mascot of the Canadian Dairy Council. And MacLean's has a piece on the CBC production of the Olympics, which includes comments on the commercials.
The garden has finally kicked in for real this summer. Both cherry (sungold and sweet million) tomato plants are cranking, the Donia tomatoes are ripening nicely, and the Roma tomatoes will be readt for sauce-making in about 10 days.
The cukes are cranking--I didn't do Armenian cukes this year, so they're all Marketmores. The summer squashes have been producing for about a month, and producing quite a bit. The winter squashes look like they will be prolific as well.
And there will be pumpkins--Jack-be-Littles, Rouge D'Etampes, and Ghost Riders. So, there will be pumpkin bread, ravioli, roasted seeds, and other goodies come this fall.
My old ExpressVu dish has decided to start losing odd transponders. I'd been working on replacing the system, since it had become a pain in the tuckis--I was constantly calling to get it repunched, and effing thing would decide I was no longer subscribed to anything at bizarre times. I was also peeved that I had lost my east coast US networks (excecpt PBS--go deal)--they just fell off the menu. Bizarre. So right now, while I have CBC, I don't have TSN, and I've lost the US indies and the Seattle Fox station.
So, a StarChoice is on the horizon. The question is whether I can go with a HDTV unit or with a regular system. Trouble is, I have only onw HDTV ready unit, and it has only one feed. Unless there's a way to A/B switch the HDTV, getting a second HDTV satellite feed does me no good.
Sure would like to have it installed in time for the Hockey World Cup--I can smell another failure of the system exactly when I need it.
Okay, is anyone else disturbed by the Little Blue Cow doing the weightlifting? There's just something about those *udders*.
Anyone else notice the new FDA sodium recommendations? The nice people with the gov't have reset the number down from 2400mg to 1500mg.
Guess they are serious about getting us to eat unprocessed grains, fruits, veggies, and such because a cursory look at getting in the other recommendations for food every day makes it darn hard to stay below 1500mg.
Let's start with breakfast: Want to try and get in a couple of grain servings right off the bat? You'd better be eating shredded wheat if you like cold cereal--most of the others, including stuff you wouldn't expect, like Cheerios, crank in with about 300 mg of sodium for a "2 grain serving" (think 70 cal of grain-based substance as a serving). Add a cup of milk at 120mg, and you're suddenly at close to 1/3 of the sodium for the day, and you haven't even added something like toast (about 120-190/slice of bread) or an egg (65 mg for the egg, about 100mg for equivalent egg substiute).
You have more options with hot cereals, as long as you don't make them with salt. But once you start adding flavourings or go to the instant versions, the sodium levels go right up.
Lunch? That old dieter's staple, cottage cheese and fruit, is cranking in at 450mg for a half cup of cottage cheese. You *know* that lunch meats are a sodium party--3 oz of ham comes in at 1000 mg of sodium. Tuna has 300 mg for 3 oz, less if you rinse it--guess it's okay to have it with the bread, then. Commercial soups are salt water with interesting bits in them--they crank anywhere from 500-1000mg a serving.
Interestingly enough, the tiny pack (the one that used to be a single serving?) of potato chips has 150mg sodium. Go deal.
Dinner? Okay, pasta. As long as you don't salt the water, you're good. The sauce is a problem, though--a half cup of tomato spaghetti sauce has from 350-500 mg of sodium. You're not going to add an Italian sausage to *that*, much less an ounce of shredded cheese.
Soy sauce is essentially dark brown salt water, no matter how tasty it is. The ketchup or steak sauce for your meat has 150-300mg/ serving.
Frozen dinners? Unless you're specifically going for lower sodium, Healthy Choice is the only one I know who can be reliably counted on to have guideline sodium values. Let's face it--if you're cutting out the fat in the food, the flavour has to come from *somewhere*, and salt's cheap.
Don't get me started on fast food....
You get the idea, though--unless the gov't expects us all to become low-sodium Alice Waters, making everything fresh, so we know what goes into it, the chance of being able to adhere to the new sodium levels (and ladies, it gets even better--after age 50, they lower it to 1300mg!) is at best, an uphill battle, and for most of is, darned close to impossible.
When the first thing you think of, when you see an article about "Howlin' Pelle Almqvist" in the local paper, is if the Hives came out of Ballard or Poulsbo.