Early to bed, early to rise leaves a man in stitches

The usual getting up every hour to pee meant I was up 5 minutes before the 6 am alarms I'd set, so I told alexa and google to turn those off. Did my usual routine, Hgl was high so I shot up a little U-500 but also grabbed a banana which I did not have time to eat by the time I'd checked email.

As usual GPS took me around the block a few times before it found the hidden entrance to the clinic. 6:50, door locked not a soul in sight, and the sign on the door said they open at 8. Tried to phone but got voicemail.

7 on the dot a receptionist came out and let me in. My appointment was for 7:15, and that's when the nurse brought me into the exam room. Some forms on a tablet to sign, dots painted on my face around the growth, then lie down on the exam table which she raised way up, like that scene from Frankenstein "It's ALIVE!"  and placed a cloth like a dental bib over my face, and cut out a circle to only expose the part to be operated on. The PA came in to inject the anesthetic, sharp pain at first from the needle but it got numb soon. He waited a bit to let it soak in before he started cutting, I only felt pressure, no pain.

Then he stitched it up, about 7 stitches from the photo:


The nurse applied some Neosporin and a bandage, the photo is from after I got home and the bandage was slipping so I took it off, took a photo and put a better bandage on. Kinda funny because several plays I've been in I've done scars and stitches like this, but I think the play ones looked more real. Sometimes I used mortician's wax, sometimes Rigid Collodion, a chemical which puckers the skin.

Nurse said they would send in a prescription for an antibiotic to prevent infection. Made an appointment to have the stitches out in 10 days. **

On my way home by 7:55, less than half an hour drive.

The masons were back, building the cinder block wall behind the neighbor's house. It took all day, they did a good job. Looks like they built behind two houses.




Mine could use some repair too, but the park owners are not keen on maintenance.

I fired up the work laptop and asked if I could be in on the training session, and one of the producers arranged it. The guy in charge of the session used Slack instead of Zoom, and there were some hiccups. And the more we got into the session the more confused I became. This was a soccer match in the UK, a different customer from the baseball game, and many of the rules for going online and watching the game were different. They kept feeding me URLs in Slack chat, about 20 of them. Ridiculous. And I missed the memo that there was an hour's pause between setting up the stream and the game starting. Everyone stopped talking, I thought my headphones or the laptop audio had died, but it was just everyone doing other things. Last time there was a lot of chat and banter.

It was a standard 90-minute match, but then there was commentary for half an hour, and again everything went silent. I saw that the stream was done, but nobody was sharing their screen or talking. Half an hour after the session was over the host messaged me on another Slack channel asking why I had dropped off the call. But I hadn't, the call was on my screen showing everyone still online. Slack FAIL. He said it happens sometimes.  So I clocked out and shut down the laptop. ~~

**CVS server was still down, but online showed the drug was ready to pick up just after dark, so I went to get it. Pharmacist was concerned because this made 3 broad spectrum antibiotics on my account, but I told him the first one had run its course, the Cipro was for the UTI and this one was for the stitches, so he approved it. 

And in 10 days I have a hematology appointment I think. It is not showing on all my calendars. So Monday I'll call to check, and if that's a valid appointment I'll change the stitches to the next day.

Jade has been skittish, but second visit she was all about getting petted and starting to be comfortable in the middle of the room away from her hiding place.

I changed both litter boxes and both cats used them.

While I was on the soccer call I took a package of short ribs out of the little freezer to defrost and marinate in Belgogi sauce. Grilled that for dinner. 4 minutes on a side, then 3 on the other side. Probably could have used more. Tasted great, though. No salad, but dessert was snacks from CVS - dark chocolate macadamia nuts and Famous Amos cookies.

Watched Married at First Sight Unfiltered. And Expedition X,  which went to a remote area in Thailand to look for a cult who meditate to communicate with space aliens. The two cast members picked up the politeness things quickly, and got to the secret temple. They saw a light in the sky and videoed it, but it looked to me like a spotlight from a military helicopter or maybe a ground vehicle. They chased all over the jungle but never found the source. They did show, using some neurological devices, that the meditation went deeper than usual. And then Josh's talk show had Data from Star Trek and an actor who is also an engineer with 90 patents. I may watch the rest tomorrow.

Speaking of which:
Try to sleep in
Set up the new router