howeird | Second Opinion (Reply)

At work a tad bit early, spent the morning researching and trying to apply some new stuff to automation, but it didn't work. Not enough info or examples. Automation Guy says he has never done what I am trying to do.

Lunch at Gombei, an alleged Japanese restaurant across the street from Kaiser, with zero Japanese staff. The tempura shrimp arrived covered with tartar sauce. The teriyaki beef was grilled beef cut into tiny pieces with some weak teriyaki-ish sauce ladled onto it. The tempura was on top of the salad. Despite the bizarre presentation, it tasted fine.

I went to the big Kaiser clinic near work instead of the tiny one in Mountain View where my regular doctor lives because (a) she didn't have any open appointments till Thursday and (b) it's a long drive. And I also wanted a second opinion. My knees - especially my right knee - have been bothering me. Right knee has been too painful to sleep with, especially nights we had a show. My regular doc says arthritis, but I think it's more than that.

Today's doctor is a very pretty, young blonde Russian woman. Her legs don't work at all, which kind of put my knee problems in perspective. She has chairs strategically placed in the office to grab onto so she doesn't have to put on the arm-cuff crutches which were next to her desk. For the most part, she sat at her desk.

She said it's arthritis. But my right knee is swollen and warm, and may also have fluid building up. She totally ruled out torn meniscus or anything like that. She was surprised I had not had my knees X-rayed, so she sent me to the lab for that and sent in a referral for me to the orthopedic department. Turns out she is an expert on sleep disorders, and she figured out I have sleep apnea. But not from being old and fat. She looked into my mouth, and said the shape of my palate shows I have had this problem since childhood. That's very possible, I was rarely able to stay awake in class, and used to sleep till noon on Sundays.

So she also referred me to a sleep lab, one which does a much more thorough job than the cattle call I went to a few months ago. She thinks with tuning I could learn to live with a CPAP. I think she's wrong. But there are other solutions.

Before X-ray I went to the pharmacy down the hall and waited for prescriptions. It was a long wait. One was for vicodin, to take a small dose at bedtime for the knee pain. Another was for Ambien, to take to help me get to sleep when I get to the sleep lab (in a couple of weeks). One was for a topical anesthetic to rub on my knee, but the pharmacy was out of stock and it wasn't covered, so I said forget it. And one was for what the doc said was prescription strength Tylenol, but it turned out to be OTC. It was a long wait because the doc has to fax over a signed document for the two narcotics (which I saw her do from the office) and then the pharmacy has to either lose them, or match them with the wrong prescription.

Drugs in hand, I went to the elevators, and saw they were setting up to give flu shots. Hmmm.

The X-ray lab is next door at the hospital, so they armbanded me since technically I was being admitted to the hospital. As soon as I sat down in the very full waiting room a tech took me back to have the pictures taken. First was standing, both knees from the front, then lying on left my side, then my right side, then on my tummy.

That done, I walked back to the clinic side, went back to the 3rd floor, and got a flu shot. While I was in the elevator, the sleep lab called to say they were putting me in the pipeline for an appointment, and to confirm which lab was closest to me. It's not at Kaiser, it's outsourced.

Back to work by 5. Not much work to do, actually. Got a call from Orthopedics, and set up an appointment for Thursday morning.

Home, thought about Starbucks, but spent the evening soaking my remaining acrylic nails in acetone, and peeled them all off. Applied clear nail polish/strengthener to them, and will wait a week or two before having them done again.

Listened to the 9th inning of the Giants' game on the drive home, and watched the 7th and 9th innings of the A's game. Both were a cardiologist's delight, both won by the right team.

Spent some time on FB looking at all the photos cast members were posting. I must have succeeded in being cast curmudgeon, because there were none of me.

I think I mentioned that two of the dancers knew someone I'd had a crush on the last time I'd played that theater. I don't think I mentioned that I finally figured out how to spell her new (married) last name, and we're FB friends now. She went from being an opera singer and 2-time Miss California runner-up (well, top 5 actually) to having three children, which started her on the path to founding a baby buggy detailing company. Talk about a career change! Her branch is here. Nice photo of her.