Grumble, grumble, complain some more . . .

Sorry I didn't get anything posted yesterday. I came down to Utah for a couple of doctor appointments. yay . . . ;) Actually, I know this kind of thing is important and good for me, but it usually turns into quite the adventure. Yesterday was no exception to this strange rule.

My first appointment was at 8:30 a.m. on Monday morning. Since it is still quite wintry in our neck of the woods, and yet another winter storm was predicted, we (my oldest son and I) drove down a couple of days early. He was off for two days and needed a break, so he came with me to Utah land. Kennon had to work, so he kept the home fires burning. I have family in the Clinton area and we usually stay with them. This gives us a chance to visit, hangout, and have a right good time, softening the true reason behind our Utah jaunt.

I tried to leave my sister's abode at 8:00 a.m. to give myself plenty of time to make my appointment, which on a good day with light traffic, takes only about 15 minutes to travel. Naturally, it snowed quite heavily during the night\early morning hours, so my car was covered in about 3 inches of snow.

Here's where I made a huge mistake. I figured I would start the car and let it warm up while I cleaned off the snow. So I opened the door on the driver's side, started the engine, then thinking I could just use the window wipers to erase the snow off my windshield, I turned the button to activate this process. This proved to be a very bad idea as I was still standing outside the car, reaching in to activate the wipers . . . with the door open. I'll let your imagination fill in what happened next. Yeah . . . I totally filled the inside of my car with snow. I'm gifted like that. So instead of saving the time I had envisioned, I had to spend extra time scooping out the snow that had fallen on the seat, the floor, all over the inside of the door, etc. I was not amused. Instead of leaving at 8:00 a.m., I left closer to 8:10 a.m. But I figured all would be well, and I hastened on my way.

Since my sister's house is rather close to a set of railroad tracks, I always manage to time things so that I have to sit and wait for a train to pass by before venturing forth. Yesterday was no exception. This took up another five minutes. Thankfully, after that I made good progress until I was about halfway down Riverdale Road. Then behold, a parade of semi-trucks were in the lane ahead of me. I figured they would continue on as I turned up a road that led to McKay-Dee Hospital. Wrong. They turned right in front of me, on the road I needed. This meant I had to follow them all the way to where I turned off at the hospital. Envision crawling along at a snail's pace. This did not help my quandary.

That early in the morning, it's not hard to find a good place to park. This factor saved me. I was only about five minutes late for my first appointment. The first doctor I was seeing that day was my rheumatologist. We'll call him Dr. Speedo. (This is a long story I may share someday.) Dr. Speedo should be renamed: Dr. Takes-His-Sweet-Time. So even though I hurried as best I could, I still had to wait nearly 45 minutes before seeing the good doctor. This concerned me in part because my next appointment was scheduled for 9:45 a.m. I had thought I had left more than enough time for this to work.

When it approached 9:15 a.m. and I was still sitting in the aptly named room, "waiting," I was getting a little nervous. But about then, the nurse called me back and all was well. Sort of. Since I have a form of rheumatoid arthritis, it's important to stay on top of things so I don't end up looking like the Hunchback of Notre Dame.

At the moment, our insurance dictates which doctors I can and cannot see, so I'm no longer seeing the doctor who initially diagnosed me with this condition. Have you ever noticed that doctors rarely believe each other? When I switched to the dude I'm now seeing for my arthritis, he refused to believe anything my other doctor sent inside a nice file for his (and my) benefit. So he runs his owns tests, comes up with his own version of what's wrong, etc. Good times. Yesterday, Dr. Speedo\Takes-His-Sweet-Time, decided to run a plethora of tests to discover why my fingers are curving slightly. (DUH!!!)

Here's the really interesting part of our current insurance plan: not only do they pick which doctors I can see, they also are extremely picky about where any and all lab tests take place. To them, it makes perfect sense to allow me to see the doctors associated with one hospital, but to only allow lab tests to be run across town at the other hospital. Go figure. If we don't follow this guideline, then we have to pay the entire cost of the tests run. Nice.

Long story short, I did make it to my second appointment on time . . . barely. And I got my patty spanked a bit. Let's just say my diabetic specialist wasn't terribly amused over my slightly elevated average blood sugar level. (I got a gold star three months ago . . . sigh) In my defense, during the winter months my arthritis acts up a bit. This causes higher blood sugar moments. C'est la vie.

After surviving appointment number two, I then had to drive across town to the Ogden Regional Hospital and wait yet again for all of the tests Dr. Speedo\Takes-His-Sweet-Time wanted. Seven vials of blood, a complete urinalysis, and a series of x-rays later . . . I was finally done. Whew. Because of how long everything took, I had to reschedule a luncheon date with a good friend who lives in this area. But it all worked out, even if I still possess a nifty bruise on my arm from the nice phlebotomist\vampire people. ;)

I barely returned back to my sister's abode in time to help throw dinner together for the rest of our family who were coming by for a combined FHE moment. So I didn't get a blog written yesterday. My bad. ;) These are the kind of moments when it's important to be flexible, story of my life lately. I'm sure you can all relate. We live during crazy times when life continues to pick up speed, and throw us all curve balls when we least expect it. Sometimes all we can do is force a smile, be a sport, and clean the snow out of our cars. =D