One calla bloom

I'm a little shocked the callas survived that winter; a lot of my tropicals did not. Only one bloom as yet, but it's a peach.

My family practice doc looked up my neuro tests from last week. No active lesions to indicate MS, so I've got that going for me; but I have a largish subarachnoid cyst, and the EEG showed some encephalopathy, which I'm not that surprised by since I still have some neuro symptoms and memory problems. I see the neuro doc Friday to get his opinion on what, if anything, to do next. I am going to have to tell my boss this week that I can't come back to direct patient care. I bet I get fired. But with any luck, I will get my clinicals done and get a new job in the consulting area I am certifying for. Fingers crossed! Ow, muscle spasm, uncross uncross. 

An Herbaceous border

The landscaping I did at OoA#2's house, with the new urn that replaced the Mexican pottery one which didn't survive the superfreezing winter in one piece. Most of the irises, mint, and daylilies are pass-along plants. It's white, yellow, and blue with the azaleas this time of year and smells pretty great.

Leukotrine inhibitors and the single girl

So I begged some Singulair out of my primary doc when I got to wheezing a little over a week ago. I felt better, less wheezing, less overall-achy, in just a few hours. Then about five more days went by and I suddenly realized: gone. Abdominal pain that's kept me sitting down for months, gone. I have done more housecleaning and actually mowed the yard over a period of three days. I think OoA#2 is a little confused at how cheerful it has made me not to have constant bellyache. The steroids have made me gain even more weight, so now I'm going to wean off them, they weren't helping anyhow. And I don't have to have that glass of wine just to be able to swallow dinner, which is helpful to the budget.  My GI doc now thinks the mysterious auto-immune illness that caused all the trouble is mastocytosis, which is sort of like being allergic to yourself; he is calling the allergy/immunology guy at the teaching hospital to see if I can get in to see him. Meanwhile, I suddenly feel like shopping. Very uncharacteristic.

Magical thinking and the Neurologist

My neurologist is a friend. We've worked together well for years, and I've helped him give countless neuro exams to other people. So it was more than a little weird to be on the other end of his safety pin today. I was hoping, I suppose, that he would tell me that the long list of things I had typed out for him were all being imagined, and I was fine. But the corner of his mouth kept pulling back, and he stifled the "humph" noise he makes on several occasions. The noise means, "That's not good." When he checked my eyes in the dark it came out, and his shoulders sagged.   I forgot to tell him I had recently been diagnosed with sleep apnea; it came up in some papers that his staff had printed from my recent labs, etc. He was extremely startled that I had forgotten such a thing. Honestly, I was not that surprised; there's just so much.
I actually passed several parts of the exam that I thought I'd fail, but it took me a looong time to remember the list of three words he assigned me.
He is testing me for lupus, MS, and myasthenia gravis for now. He had trouble meeting my eyes when he was telling me the plan, and trouble thinking of anything positive to say. That's unusual for him. But he's also checking for thyroid and B12, which no one has done lately. So there is that, anyway.
I got my hair cut and put in a call to the woman I had planned to do clinicals with starting in about two weeks. If my magical thinking had gotten my ailments pooh-poohed, I was going to try to go on and do them. Now I am finally going to tell her I will have to put them off.
Awkward.

Spring in my step

The next part of spring in the yard is pretty great. The dogwood that lived is really pretty this year, its unfortunate neighbor has one living branch. The little blue and white starflowers in the grass are terrific and cheerful, and I actually manned the mower to keep them alive and make a path around them for old lady dog; we were losing her in the weeds. The little flowering plum bush is just the cutest pink happy thing, it was a rescue from a farm homeplace about twenty years ago and I love its pinkness. I was feeling even worse and called the doc begging for Singulair to get some relief from all the pollen this spring has brought us. I felt better in, no lie, four hours. I have gotten a lot done in the last few days with less misery, hope it lasts because I am really enjoying taking walks and pulling weeds.

Win

I passed my final with flying colors, albeit some panic the day before and some glitches immediately prior. Actually brought my grade up in the class, which is saying something for the power of not overthinking your answers on a multiple choice test that you have studied your ass off for. I am waiting for the stress relief to magically heal up my guts and make my limbs stop twitching also. C'mon, magic. The new CPAP mask, while not magic at all, has me sleeping until five every morning and then going back to sleep until eight. That's an improvement. I'm super surprised I don't feel a lot better in consequence, but we will see. Right now the pollen count is making me feel like I'm allergic to my bones or something. So, magic...c'mon. Meanwhile, back off to the pool. I am swimming five minutes and walking five for a total of at least 30 minutes every day, which is pretty great when you consider I couldn't swim half a lap two months ago. It's not where I thought I'd be...c'mon magic.

Volunteers Welcome

As a rule, I go to the garden center in the fall, get tulip bulbs, and commandeer my neighbor's unused crisper in his fridge to chill them in. I like to celebrate New Year's Day by going out and planting them, generally in horrible weather. Last year my feet were crippled up from surgery so I made OoA#2 do it. This year I didn't even get around to buying the bulbs. Tulips do not generally return in the South, the heat and rain rot the bulbs. This little guy decided to make a comeback despite the odds. He is all pink cuteness in an otherwise straggly bed; there are quite a few other tulip leaves but his bloom is the showoff so far. Spring is awesome.