Poser in Granolaville

Blood in a Baggie

April 1, 2009 by Kathryn

Sometimes the red tape involved with medical care baffles me, especially when you see more than one provider at once.

Last week, my naturopath told me I looked like crap. She said it a lot nicer than that but basically she told me she was worried about the color of my skin and wanted my iron tested. So she wrote out a requisition for me to have my blood taken at a lab about 35 minutes from my house, the closest one in the chain of labs their clinic uses. She wanted me to do it this week.

I hate having my blood taken. I have bad veins and I’m frequently stuck multiple times before any blood comes out. Now it just so happened that I had an appointment to have blood drawn at the Magical Ultrasound Clinic of Joy this week. So I asked her if I could just have the Magical Ultrasound Clinic of Joy take a little extra blood and check it for iron.

She didn’t see why not so she told me to bring the requisition to the MUCJ and ask if they’d be willing to help me out. Well I was in a hurry this morning dealing with sick kids, sick me and sick Dan and I completely spaced bringing the form.

When I showed up at the MUCJ, I asked the nurse if she’d run the extra test and she said she couldn’t do it without consent from my doctor, without the form. As she gathered the vials and needle, I started to tear up a little. Without looking up, she offered, “I could call your doctor’s office and ask them to fax over a copy of the requisition while you wait out in the lobby.”

“No. It’s okay,” I answered. “I’ve got babysitting issues. My husband’s home sick with the kids and I promised him I’d be quick and home in time to make lunch.” I’ll just drive back out to the lab another day and get it taken again.

But she wouldn’t give up. She wanted to help. “I could take the extra blood and then see if I can get them to fax in the requisition and if they do, I could run the tests. If not, I’d just toss the extra blood.”

I thanked her profusely and headed home, making a quick stop to pick something up at a nearby store while I was in the area. My cell phone rang. It was the helpful nurse from the MUCJ. She said that the naturopath’s office would only use their specific lab, a different lab than the MUCJ worked with but if the naturopath’s lab was willing to send over a courier to pick up the blood, that would work just fine.

The naturopath’s lab has one person working in the office. The same person who checks you in takes your blood. I told her that I could not imagine them using a courier service. Again I thanked her but told her I’d just have to come back again another day and do the draw again. THEN she offered to drive the blood over to the lab herself when she got off work that day. Okay. Cookies, flowers, something. This woman’s got something coming to her.

“I’m not comfortable asking you to do that, but I’m still fairly close, I could come by and get my blood and drive it over to them.”

I asked her if there was any way I could avoid paying $4 again to park in their garage for 5 minutes while I ran in to get the specimen. (I love saying and writing “specimen”. It just sounds so creepish.) She said just to pull up in the roundabout outside the office building, call the office and ask for her and she’d run it out to my car… in the pouring rain. Bless this woman!

So I called my naturopath’s office and asked them if they’d fax the form over to the lab so my blood transport wouldn’t be in vain. No. They said they couldn’t do it because my doctor wasn’t in this morning. I asked if one of the other doctors in the practice could write one up since the information was on my chart. It’s not like I was calling up out of the blue asking for a prescription for medical marijuana. I just wanted to see if my blood had enough iron. Could a test like that ever be harmful? She said she’d check. After a few minutes she came back and said one of the other doctors was willing to do it.

Then I asked her if she had the address of the local lab for me. No. She didn’t have it. Apparently they normally use the Lynnwood lab so she didn’t have access to the address I needed. I visualized her sitting at her desk with her computer hooked to the internet unwilling to google for me and then visualized the nurse at the Magical Ultrasound Clinic of Joy who was willing to look up the address and DRIVE MY BLOOD OVER TO THE LAB AFTER SHE GOT OFF WORK and I asked politely, “If you don’t have the information for the local lab, how are you going to fax the form over to them?”

She said she was planning on looking it up in a couple of minutes.

“Could I hold until you get a chance to do that?”

She said I could and in 30 seconds she had the address for me. I thanked her and apologized for causing all this trouble. “I just didn’t think it would be this hard,” I confided.

“I know. It shouldn’t be,” she conceded.

When I pulled into the roundabout at the UCJ’s office and called up for my nurse, she was down to my car within 60 seconds, a smile on her face and a baggie of blood in her hand. I believe I professed my love for her. Then I drove the 3 blocks to the lab.

When I got there, baggie of blood vials in hand, I gave the lab employee the short version of my story and asked if she’d gotten a fax from my Naturopath’s office. No. She hadn’t.

I did sort of a “follow my eyes” movement over to the fax machine. She followed my eyes and reached the 18 inches to the piece of paper lying face down on the fax machine.

“Your last name?” she asked.

“Thompson.”

“Yeah. I’ve got it.” Then she smiled and said she’d get it taken care of and I suddenly liked her a teeny bit more.

My naturopath’s office is efficient and well run. They’ve stayed open late for me more than once so I could come after Dan got home from work and taken as much time as I needed. My doctor there is one of the most patient and empathetic medical professionals I’ve ever met. Maybe their office staff was just having a rough day today. It was the contrast in the two offices that was so startling.

I don’t think anyone was being malicious or trying to give me the runaround and one person went WAY above and beyond the call of duty. I know that different doctors’ offices contract with different labs. But I still don’t understand why it had to be so hard. Why can’t every person be as helpful and kind as the MUCJ nurse? Why doesn’t everyone get it? Why can’t we all just get along? Why can I keep down a McDonald’s hamburger but not rice?

These are the questions that trouble me today.

Into the Drink

July 29, 2008 by Kathryn

Guess who swam across a lake at 7:00 this morning and now has algae-looking stuff in unmentionable places? Not naming names. Follow my eyes.

I’ve been casually training for a triathlon I’m not going to compete in because my ladies are doing it and I’m nothing if not a follower. Last Saturday and then again this morning we worked on our open water swimming. There are many signs that we are taking this athletic challenge of athleticism in a very seriously serious manner, which include but are not limited to:

-Giggling like wee girls.

-Squealing as we stand at the edge of the frigid drink and then eventually needing to be pushed in (This will go over well on race day, I imagine. The shotgun goes off. There’s a flurry of splashtastic activity. One lone spaztard in my heat stands with her arms folded, dancing from one foot to the other, “OOOoooooo… but it’s so COOOOLDD. Tee-hee-hee.” Grin. “I hope I win.”).

-Doing the back stroke most of the way, even though one woman warned us that when she switched to backstroke in her last race, the medi-kayak was deployed to see what was wrong with her.

-Periodically swimming up next to another athletic athlete and saying, “Shark Week,” in a most menacing way.

I’ll be going out of town when the other ladies take the plunge, Â½ mile swim followed by an 18 mile bike ride followed by a 3.5 mile run and I’d be lying if I didn’t say I was just a teeny bit glad in the smallest corner of my heart to have a good excuse for my athletic truancy.

But it’s fun to train with them. Mostly. In the middle part. For a couple of minutes. After my body is numb and before my brain is filled with green water.

There was even one sublime moment during Saturday’s swim when a duck swam past me in a not creepy, we’re-all-part-of-the-great-circle-of-life, kind of way and then a bald eagle swooped down and grabbed a fish right out of the water and glided off to munch on it’s still beating heart.

If I were Native American or even had a Native American name like Pocahontas or John Smith, I think that moment would have moved me into postponing my trip so I could complete the race, a mystical sign from my animal brothers that I had raw fish left to clutch or races to eat or something.

Alas, I am the whitest white person I know so what it actually did after the initial “WOW” wore off was remind me that lakes contain things, living things, things that are cold, wet, slimy and potentially man-eating. If a fish were to bump into me while I was swimming, I feel fairly certain that I would make no sound as my heart stopped and I slipped ignominiously to Davy Jones’ locker.

Not thinking of my neurotic aquatic terror, following the first race in which I had gotten a tiny piece of water in my eye, I went to Tarzhay and purchased a pair of goggles so that I could see WHILE SWIMMING. IN THE LAKE. WHERE THE FISH AND DEAD BODIES LIVE.

I’ve always been scared of dead bodies under dark water but after watching that one scary movie where Harrison Ford plays a villain and you spend the whole movie asking “Han Solo, why’s it gotta go down like this Homey?” I now know that dead bodies under water are true.

So today as I swam along, I kept catching glimpses of my paler than death, whiter than normal white people arm flashing by as I swam. At which time I would die just a little, thus partially self-fulfilling prophecy, and scream under water, sure I had seen the floating remains of some poor victim of Mr. Solo. This would result in the inhalation of said water and in a fervent vow to never ever EVER again open my eyes in those way-too-clear goggles of terror. Then I would swim with eyes closed way off course until my compatriots yelled my name and pointed back to shore. I repeated this zig-zag pattern all over the lake, getting worked up to the point where I was sure that the skirt on my tankini was really a giant strand of semi-sentient sea weed tangled around my legs and bent on my most hideous destruction.

One of my friends told me after the swim that she was only in it to get an athletic body like the other triathletes she knows. I thought about this and I realized that hers is an unrealistic goal for someone like me.

People who eat cheese will never have triathlete bodies. I mean, they can sample cheese betimes at cheese tasting events. But I’m fairly sure that people who EAT cheese will never look like that.

That’s why I’m in it for the glory.

Thoughts on a Flat Back

June 16, 2008 by Kathryn

Since my back’s been bad, I’ve spent a lot of time alone. Alone with my bed. Alone with my thoughts. Alone with my current choice of natural deodorant. I’ve sworn off aluminum in an attempt to detox my body and help prevent dementia, Alzheimer’s and that pesky beeping sound at the airport metal detectors.

But I have to ask myself, “Would I rather live a life that ends in a slow and depressing degradation of my mind and memory or would I prefer to live a long full life where I forever remember perfectly how bad I always smelled?”

Idyllic and Over

May 27, 2008 by Kathryn

I want to write about our mind-popping trip to Disneyland, really I do. Much to share, there is. But now I’m back and there’s life and I’d rather write about what we’re doing now but I feel pressure to blog the big D so instead I blog nothing. And that’s just wrong.

Today was as near perfect as a day can be… in my world… with the life I have… with these children I own. Dan and I sat down this weekend and listed out a bunch of goals. We basically wrote down the things we would be doing in our ideal life and chose several of them to focus on for a whole month. They include things like consistent bed and wake up times, scheduled family dinner, exercise, meaningful prayer and scripture study and more dateage and schmoopage.

So for two days we’ve stuck to our plans and despite a plague that’s ravaging Dan’s delicate software-engineering body, we feel great. I’ve had healthy attractive dinner on the table at the same time for two nights in a ROW! I even used several of the herbs and vegetables disguised as weeds that I received from my CSA in tonight’s dinner.

I’ve been excited to support local agriculture and broaden my horizons but a little afraid of the bag of early spring greens I’ve been getting each week. I thought I had a wide veggie repertoire but it did not include chervil, lovage (Dan says he’s a big fan of my “lovage”), lemon verbena, nasturtium, new varieties of kale complete with little yellow flowers, leeks, silver thyme, mountains of rhubarb. Don’t get me wrong, I can make a super-rad rhubarb pie or crumble, especially if organic strawberries are on sale, but there’s still the question of what to do with the other 10 lbs. Suggestions?

Tonight I made a salad from the lettuce mix in this week’s bag, chopped chervil, verbena, sorrel (looks like spinach, tastes like lemons), mushrooms and yellow tomatoes. To this I added salmon marinated in olive oil, soy sauce, fresh oregano, chives, verbena and lovage with brown rice and steamed carrots. It was delicious and 3 weeks into the CSA I’m finally getting more comfortable experimenting with all these new foods.

This weekend I made an omelet with sauteed lovage stalk and sun-dried tomatoes and garlic in red pepper oil because I happened to have those things from the farm and they were yummers. Who knew?

I woke up before the kids this morning and read scriptures while I waited for them to pounce. Then we had oatmeal and fresh cantaloupe for breakfast. We read several stories and then walked to the park to meet some friends. Magoo rode his new scooter and when we passed a jogger, he jumped off, lifted it in the air towards her and shouted, “I GOT A SCOOTER!”

“Wow. I can see that.”

“And it’s BLUE and I saw a BUG!”

“Really? A bug?”

“Yessir!” he called to the nice lady.

And we walked another 3 feet until he saw ANOTHER BUG!! The bugs were plentiful and we paid our respects to each and every one. No one was maimed or park-napped. Everyone waited for mom before crossing the busy roads. No one even asked me to push them on the swings! When it was time to leave, I told them we had to go and they CAME WITH ME, no questions asked.

We went to Target and Costco where we got decent, if not super-hero-worthy, parking spots. I stayed close to budget. There were free Haagen Dazs ice cream bar bits at one of the sample tables.

After coming home, we headed to the farmer’s market where we bought tomatoes, more herb starts and a loaf of fresh-baked apple cinnamon bread.

My neighbors came over to play.

The sun shone.

My kitchen remained clean.

My new washer was shiny and it washed things.

I weeded my garden and no mosquitoes bit me.

The Bambi deer stopped by and left my garden untouched in their beneficence.

Dan asked me if I might like to watch Corner Gas later even though he’s not orignally from my motherland.

We had healthy dinner in which the children ate green things without much coercion.

There was no TV and no video games today and no requests for them.

My dining room floor smells like peppermint.

Today is the opposite of that one other day.

SUN!!!

May 14, 2008 by Kathryn

Thank you all for your comfort, ideas and cyber hugs yesterday. It’s amazing what good a little time, sleep, perspective and chocolate chip cookie dough will do. I got a recommendation from my doctor for another naturopath she trusts and I’ll just cross my fingers, prepare to delve into the details of my personal and medical history and try again.

I’m worried about Laylee’s hearing, even more so because in the past couple of months she’s become obsessed with sign language. I thought it was really cute until yesterday when the initial hearing tests showed a problem. My mind is prone to spiral out of control with “what ifs”.

What if she loves sign language so much because she’s in the beginning stages of a profound degenerative hearing loss?

I loved sign language as a teenager and always had a feeling it was because I’d someday have a deaf child? What if Laylee’s becoming that child?

What if I never lose the baby weight from Magoo?

What if American Idol ends up in a tie between the two Davids?

I could go on like this forever. I am truly much more calm today and much more in touch with reality. It just seems like the more things that go wrong, the more things seem wrong and you start to notice problems where they don’t exist.

But truly this bad weather does exist. It has existed for far too long, even for Seattle. I’m starting to think that this global warming stuff is all a lie and that living more green is plunging my family into the depths of eternal drizzleish winter.

I’m seriously tempted to turn on every light and appliance in the house, go through the McDonald’s drivethrough in a Hummer, kill a few slugs and spiders with acid, slather my arms with paraben-full lotion, hire a few slave children to help me flush a couple hundred rolls of bleached toilet paper made from ancient Amazon rainforests down my high flow toilet, feed chili beans to some cows and dump a chemistry set over the fields of my nearest organic hemp farm.

If green stops the warming, then I’m gonna live black or red or whatever’s the opposite of green for a while. OH SUN, WHERE ART THOU!!???

**Megan, Jenny, All Adither, Isabel, and Renae have all promised me sun tomorrow. If it rains, I’m burning their blogs to the ground and dancing amidst the flames.**

Mobile Medicine

May 14, 2008 by Kathryn

I’m a little glum today folks. Okay. A lot glum. Wallow with me for a moment before we get back to our regularly scheduled programming. Magoo turns 3 this summer. He’s a big fat ball of toddleric cuteness and I want more.

I’ve been wanting another baby for years now and have been pushing against obstacle after obstacle to having another healthy pregnancy. My most recent and hopefully last hurdle has been working on getting my body and brain to a place where I can survive postpartum without losing my marbles.

My post partum specialist has been amazing at treating my symptoms and I’ve gone from doctor to doctor looking for someone who could find the root of what went wrong and fix it before next time. I finally found a great naturopath who I’m happy and comfortable with and she’s run a bunch of tests and we’re working on a plan to get me up and running.

It’s the first time in my adult life that I’ve had a general practitioner I’m happy with and we’ve been making good progress towards my goals.

This morning I went in to see her and she told me she’s moving to another city a few hours away. I am crushed, frustrated, sad and discouraged. I cried off and on all day. I don’t want to start meeting doctors again. I don’t want to have to tell one more person all the hairy details of my medical history. I just want to keep progressing.

Then I took Laylee in for her 5-year-old check up and the doctor’s test confirmed what I’ve been fearing. She appears to have some level of hearing damage from the repeated ear infections. My baby could be hard of hearing and we’re off to a specialist to find out more.

Magoo filled his pants as soon as we entered the exam room and I’d forgotten a diaper.

Laylee screamed like the dying when they gave her the first immunization shot. They then proceeded to give her 3 more. By the time they finished we were both crying.

I’m just tired and whiny and my foot still hurts.

My kids filled the entire house with packing peanuts and then danced them into the carpet.

It appears that it may never stop raining again.

Lost and Found

May 12, 2008 by Kathryn

I’ve officially decided that I have too many purses. Remember the priceless family heirlooms I allegedly tossed in the landfill a couple of weeks ago? Well it turns out that they were in the zipper pouch of the OTHER purse I took on vacation and not the one I cleaned out. So Dan and I are still officially married and I feel officially sheepish and very grateful.

I usually pray when I lose something and 9 times out of 10 I find it right away. This time however I was too sure that the rings were gone forever to bother praying for help. I just accepted my ringless fate. Possibly there was a part of me that was hoping to cash in on Scout’s suggestion to add a few carats here or there when we replaced the set… for comfort.

But they’re back and I have a renewed love for them.

In other news, my 20-year-old dryer that’s painted a color which indicates that it’s impossible to find replacement parts for it, finally bit the big one. Dan performed an autopsy this weekend and it looks like one of the thingies is snorgled and there’s no recovering.

Luckily the drying racks I ordered weeks ago showed up in the mail within 5 minutes of me discovering that the dryer had surrendered to the sopping towels in its belly. I guess I’ll be finding out what it’s like to line dry for REAL over the next couple of weeks as we research various dryers. Anyone in love with theirs? Any good recommendations?

My Favorite Husband — Mother’s Day Edition

May 11, 2008 by Kathryn

And the award for My Favorite Husband Mother’s Day 2008 goes to… SLASH THOMPSON!!!!

This is a picture of us dressed up to play Rock Band this weekend with some crazy friends. Dan went all out with the nose ring and wig this time. He even painted on a gold tooth. No one can ever say that man’s not fly because he is.

Not only is he fly but he’s also the recipient of the MFHMD2008 award and I will tell you why. This year for Mother’s Day Dan asked me for a few gift ideas. I typed out a wish list, complete with links to websites, and then gave it to him way too late for him to order anything on the list in time for Mother’s Day. So he improvised.

I’m trying to consume less after following one of my reader’s advice to watch this video. When I do need something, I’ve been trying to buy more things second hand or from companies that follow fair trade practices.

On my wish list I’d asked for a fairly-made recycled glass pitcher, glass because it’s free of the toxins commonly found in plastic. (Yes I’m being assimilated by the granola-ites.)

So Dan took the kids to a giant antique shop where he spent over an hour walking them through the entire maze of breakable treasures looking for the exact right pitcher for me. He said he passed up several along the way, wanting to make sure he found one he knew I’d like. Be still my heart, it’s perfect! “Recycled” in the truest sense of the word, BPA-free and lovely. He couldn’t get me exactly what I wanted in time for Mother’s Day so he paid attention to the REASONS behind what I was asking for and got me something better.

At the store he let Laylee pick through every piece of jewelry she could find, advising her on my tastes. “Yes that IS pretty, but mom doesn’t really like to wear heart-shaped jewelry.” Heaven bless him for guiding her to a pretty bracelet I will actually WEAR! On the way home from the antique shop, they stopped for flowers.

I slept in late this morning and woke to find Laylee had created an avalanche of drawings for me, all on the theme of love, moms, mudders and LOVE. Dan made scrambled eggs with extra cheese.

From Magoo I got new non-slip potholders that match my KitchenAid perfectly and to top it off, I was presented with the final season of the West Wing so I can discover again whether Matt Santos, Latino for President, beats Allen Alda to become the next leader of these United States in Imaginary Political World Where I’m a Staunch Democrat.

And they were nice to me all day. And they made me breakfast. And I got to eat off the special plate. And Magoo magically fell asleep in the car on the way home from church and let me carry him inside and rock him like a baby for the better part of an hour, something he hasn’t let me do for months. It was a great day to be a mom and a great day to be married to Dan. How was your Mother’s Day? Was it a great day to be married to Dan for you too?

That’s NOT Yoga!

May 5, 2008 by Kathryn

I was trying out some yoga for beginners in the family room this morning when Magoo walked in.

Magoo: What? Are? Youdoing?
Me: Yoga. It’s a special kind of exercise.
Magoo: That’s not ECKK-ERCIZE!!!! That’s SITTING!

Maybe I should go to a class.

We Don’t Put Meat in Our Pockets

April 30, 2008 by Kathryn

Last week I found myself having the following conversation with Magoo:

Me: NO. We don’t put meat in our pockets!
Magoo: Oh. Hmm. We don’t put meat at our pock-ets?
Me: NO. Meat only goes in our mouths or on our plates.
Magoo [still holding the lunch meat an inch from his jeans]: I can save it?
Me: Not in your pocket.
Magoo: Okay.

Sometimes we SMELL like we put meat in our pockets… or onions… or rubbed onions under our arms. Those are the days that we return our natural deodorant to Whole Foods for a refund because if we’re gonna spend $5 for a quality aluminum-free deodorant, we’re gonna be sure we don’t stink.

I handed the deodorant to the man at the service desk yesterday and told him I was returning it because it didn’t work. He asked me if it had been opened.

“Yes,” I said slowly, “I did open it. I even put it on. After a couple of days I started putting it on twice a day. No luck.”

He gave me a funny look.

“My friends and acquaintances would all appreciate it if you’d give me a refund so I could find something that works.”

I will never feel embarrassed returning an unwanted Pyrex dish to Target again.

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