So sometime Monday I started experiencing this back pain. It’s not uncommon for me to have this pain; its been recurring off and on for the past several years. Sometimes I go a month or so between spells, other times it may be 4 months or more. Sometimes it just lasts for a day, other times for a week. There seems to be no rhyme or reason as to when I am afflicted with this. I can never figure out what causes it to go away either. All I know is that it hurts like hell. A sharp pain. It doesn’t feel like a regular sore back like when you lift something wrong. It feels like a pinched nerve, or at least what I imagine what a pinched nerve would feel like.
Normally the pain isn’t too bad, I can manage quite well with just ibuprofen or tylenol. However, Tuesday morning the pain was so bad I couldn’t get out of bed. So Tuesday afternoon I went to the doctor. The doctor prescribed cyclobenzaprine, which is a muscle relaxer. The thinking is, my muscles aren’t… relaxed? Anyways, I’ve been taking these pills pretty religiously for the past few days. It doesn’t really help the pain go away, but what I have noticed, is that it makes me REALLY sleepy! Basically, other than eating, drinking, and going to the bathroom, I slept all the way from Tuesday night until Friday morning. A very long sleep. However, the pain is not going away. In fact, if anything, it is getting worse. I don’t really know what to do about it. I’ve been taking the muscle relaxers and alternating ibuprofen/tylenol. Nothing seems to help except to sleep. But I can’t just sleep the rest of the weekend, or the rest of my life. I have too many important things to do, I think.
Anyways, why am I up at 4:30 in the morning? Well, I just got off the phone with a friend a little bit ago. I was going to write about that, but I want to think it over first, so more on that later.
Yesterday I had a chance to watch the movie Fanboys. I wasn’t sure what to expect. I knew the basic plot of the movie: set in 1998, some Star Wars fans decide to drive to Skywalker Ranch to steal and watch an advanced cut of Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace. Sounds promising, but did it deliver?
I will admit, I thought it was kinda dumb, but I really liked it. I thought it was funny how they were able to work in quotes from the orignal movies. I fully appreciated the animosity between the Star Wars fans and the Trekkies… er, Trekkers. It is quite obvious from these scenes in the movie that Star Trek fans are huge geeks, while Star Wars fans are entirely cool.
Star Wars fans will appreciate cameos by Carrie Fisher and Billy Dee Williams. Not the best movie ever made of course, but totally worth a watch if you are a fan of Star Wars.
Thumbs up.
So recently I purchased a pair of Koss KE29E Noise Isolating Earbuds from my local WalMart. I generally am not a fan of earbuds because I’ve never found a pair that fit very well; they always fall out. However, I’ve not had good luck with regular over-the-head headphones because they always get broken in my backpack. These come with three different size ear pad things to help fit any size ear.
I’m not an audiophile by any means, but to me these sound great. They fit snugly in the ear to block out a lot of the ambient noise. And I tested the fit by shaking my head all around, so much that I got dizzy, and still the earbuds were securely in place.
Like I mentioned, I got these at WalMart, and they were about $25. So far, so good.
Thumbs up.
One time I almost drowned in the wave pool at Wacky Waters. Some people are sympathetic when they first hear that. And then they hear the rest of the story. I wasn’t a little kid, as they imagined, and in fact was about 23 years old. Also, I was in the 2-ft section of the pool. As I was trying to leave the pool, a big wave hit me in the back and knocked me down. I smashed my face on the bottom of the pool. Everytime I tried getting back up, another wave would come and knock me down again. I was seriously underwater for over a minute, and I was choking on water and I kept thinking about how ridiculous the news would be that night: “Adult dies in 2 foot section of pool, full story at 11″. Finally I was able to get out of the pool and I lay there and was coughing up water and blood was running down my face. The lifeguard ran over and said he thought I was just playing around and that’s why he didn’t come help me. Now when people hear this story they laugh at me.
This is a republish from last June, but the information is no less important now.
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So a few months ago I was driving with the kids in some bad weather and I pulled over because it was raining so hard I couldn’t see. We went inside Walgreens to wait for it to clear up when they informed us there was a tornado warning. They locked down the store and I had to wait in the little break room with the kids and the employees. It really sucked. I didn’t have any idea what was going on so I kept texting Kate, who was in class with a computer and internet access, to find out what was going on. As it turns out, the tornado didn’t get too close to us, but I was still a little freaked out knowing there was a tornado warning in effect and I was away from my computer and TV and couldn’t figure out what was going on.
So later that night I signed up for some free severe weather alerts at http://www.weatherusa.net/alerts/. You have the option of having text messages sent to your phone, an email, or both. So far it’s been working well. Now when there is severe weather we are notified immediately.
I have no affiliation with this site other than being a satisfied customer (am I a customer if it is free?). Anyways, just wanted to let you all know in case you wanted to sign up.
So I am pretty sure I have strep throat. Audrey had a positive test earlier this week, and yesterday (Saturday) I started to get some of the symptoms.
Well of course, being Saturday, my normal doctor’s office wasn’t open. There would have been a time in my life I would have gone to the ER but really, this isn’t an emergency so I wouldn’t feel right going there.
Luckily I remembered that in the Old Capitol Mall there is a UI QuickCare clinic, and they are open 8am-5pm on Sundays.
So I went today and filled out all of their paperwork, and then the lady asked me if I was an established patient at any of the UI clinics. I said I was, since I had already marked it on the paperwork. Apparently, if the doctor listed on my insurance card is part of UIHC, they CANNOT accept my insurance to be seen in the QuickCare clinic. One of the PAs or NPs or whoever was there thought that was ridiculous. I did too. Apparently if you have a UI doctor, they can’t take your insurance because there is some sort of non-compete thing so you have to go to your regular doctor. Except, it is Sunday and my regular doctor is not available. They suggested I could go to the ER…
The thing that makes me the most mad about this whole thing is that NOWHERE on the UI QuickCare website does it mention anything about this insurance deal. It does say:
UI QuickCare is open to anyone older than six months of age and is a service offered through UI Family Care. You do not have to be a UI Family Care patient to be seen at a UI QuickCare clinic. (emphasis mine)
Apparently they should append the following:
In fact, you’d have better luck using your insurance here if you WEREN’T a UI Family Care patient.
Anyways, that is my annoying story of the day.
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Every year on Mardi Gras IHOP has free pancakes! From 0700-2200 this Tuesday visit your local IHOP and get a free short stack of buttermilk pancakes. Just make sure you bring a few bucks to donate to the Children’s Miracle Network.
So stop me if you heard this one…
OK, kidding. Some of you may know that we recently switched to Mediacom and their VIP package. I don’t really like Mediacom but our neighbor works for them and hooked us up with a sweet deal: Video (with Showtime, Encore, and Starz added), Internet (their cable is way faster than Qwest DSL), and Phone. The sweet part of the deal is that we’re paying about $60 less per month than we were through Qwest. Sure, the DVR is a little buggy compared to DirecTV. And sure, we could save even more money by getting rid of all of it. But let’s be realistic here.
Continue reading ‘How many Mediacom employees does it take to hook up a telephone?’
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