Word dump

Too much had gone on since I last wrote.

The main thing was that my dad was in the hospital for about a week and a half.  He was having some really bad bleeding (from his crohns).  And got taken to the hospital last Saturday (8/18).  He was there til Wednesday.  He still wasn't feeling well, but was released anyway.  Thursday, he fell, or possibly passed out (once again, blood loss).  He called his friend to take him back to the hospital, but by the time the friend arrived, he looked really bad, so they called 911, and he rode in the ambulance to the ER.  He has an MRI on top on other things, and they discovered a compression fracture in T-9.  Possibly from the fall, or the long term use of prednisone.  He got out yesterday.  I brought him some soups today, since that was all he could think that he wanted.  He doesn't feel like eating.  But he does seem better.  Less grouchy.

My crohns has been acting up too.  I started prednisone, against my better judgement.  It seems to be helping, and I'm not having the severity of side effects from before.

People keep walking past the house, and Fiona is going crazy.

Monday was Aaron's birthday.  We didn't do much except have dinner with Aaron's folks.

Yesterday night we went to our first Dog Scouts meeting.  It was pretty fun.  I think it'll be good to having the dogs making friends.  And us too.

Work has been going well.  I've still been doing a lot of overtime.  They hired a new girl for front desk.  She seems good, very professional.

Aaron's cousin had her baby today.  She was supposed to be induced on 8/26, but they didn't start til 8/27, and they she wasn't dilating.  Even after two rounds of pitocin, she was still under 5cm.  So she had to have a c-section.   

Weekly Wrap-up

• I spent most of Wednesday and Thursday cleaning like a fiend.  I wanted Aaron to be able to come home from his two-week business trip to a nice clean home.  I did a lot, and the house looks great.  The only thing I wasn't able to do was mow the lawns.  Not too bad though.
• Work has been going well.  I think I've got it all down now.  I have my weekly meeting with the owner and office manager on Monday, so I guess I'll know for sure then.  It was a productive week.
• I went to work at 6am on Friday.  Since I was leaving early (supposedly at 2) to get Aaron from the airport.  He didn't actually arrive til after 3.  But that's ok, I worked nearly 8 hours.  Plus I've been doing a bit of overtime lately.  So I'm looking forward to next payday.
• I going to fly out to see my mom and sisters in October.  I was looking at flights earlier in the week, and found some for $320.  When I started looking towards the end of the week, $385 is the lowest.  I hate that, why does it happen?  My mom is buying, so it's not really a huge deal, but I don't want her to pay more.
• Weight loss is still going very well.  I was 137.5 this morning!  The first goal I set was 133.  But if I can get there, I'll probably aim for 129 or so.  It would be a lot easier if I could exercise more, but I don't have the energy for that (stupid crohns).  
• Against my better judgement, I agreed to help out in nursery at church tomorrow.  The lady left me a message, and I sat on it for a while.  Anything having to do with kids for extended periods of time tends to be heartbreaking for me.  But I felt like I should do it.  And then it'll force me to stay for all 3 hours, and I won't have to go to ladies' Sunday school (which is generally asinine, at best).
• I told Aaron next time he goes away, he'll have to make me some freezer meals.  I can cook (not well), but when I'm alone, I'm not motivated to do so; I usually have tv dinners, canned soup, or cereal.  Aaron (rightly so) worries about my diet.  

Everything went wrong...

but is a-ok.

Pretty much everything went wrong today, but it actually wasn't a bad day.  Odd that.

I spent two hours yesterday, and one hour today working on enter one set of claims (it was 12 pages long, and chalk full of errors), only to find that my computer didn't save my work.

Then I spent way too long stuck on the phone doing insurance calls.  I was on hold for 30 minutes at one point.

We had our staff meeting at lunch today.  I ordered a kid's meal from Red Robin, with a boca patty.  When I opened the lunch box, I saw there was bacon on my burger.  So I pulled it off, then I was looking at the burger, and realized it was beef.  Grr.  Then I was stuck at the main office for most of the rest of the afternoon.  And I had no food there.  So I ate candy for lunch.

I ended up having to delete all the payments I'd entered so far.  That pained me a little.  But now I know I'll be entering them all correctly.

After the whole ordeal of getting my main crohns meds yesterday, my GI told me to stop taking them.  I got my blood work back today, and my ALT (liver enzyme) was double what it should be!  Hopefully it'll be lower next month, because that's a bit worrisome.

My guts hurt.  Likely from eating candy for lunch.

I am exhausted.

I worked an hour overtime today.  And I'll likely work quite a bit more this week (which I was ok'd to do).  That's not all bad, since it'll be time and a half.  And I'm hoping to catch up a little bit.

Oddly enough, I'm not feeling grumpy.  Just tired.

Long day...

• Last night, I made a tofu "meatloaf" so I would have easy lunches and dinners for a few days.  I brought some for lunch today.  Ugh, it was awful!  Probably the worst thing I've ever made.  I hate wasting food, but there was no way it was going to get eaten.  
• Getting up at 5:30 is getting harder, for some reason.  I assumed it would get easier.  But every morning, when the alarm goes off (no matter how early I went to bed), it's always too soon.
• I got stuck on billing stuff this afternoon.  I spent over 2 hours on one EoB, and didn't even finish it.  :sigh:  I left it all open on the computer.  I'm really hoping it doesn't log out over night (it does that some times).
• I was planning on hiking after work, but then realized I was out of my main crohns medicine.  (!)  It's one I take 3 pills, 3 times a day.  I went to grab a new bottle from the cabinet, and it was all gone.  Worse, was that I didn't have any refills left.  So I left a message at the GIs office, and sent him an email.  Fortunately, he was in, and was able to renew it..
• So after work, I drove to Kaiser to pick up the meds and do my blood work.  On the way there, my 12 pack of soda broke open, and they rolled all over the car.  I was worried they would explode, but they didn't (yay).  
• For some reason, it didn't hurt during the blood draw, but now my arm is super bruised, and hurts a lot.

Quick Sunday Post

Psyching myself up to go to church.  Since Aaron's been gone, I've been pretty happy cloistering myself, so I'd rather not go.  But I'll at least go for the first part, and take it from there.  Here are some other tidbits:

• Took the dogos to Rio del Mar beach yesterday.  It was a lot of fun.  I'm embarrassed to say that I'm actually sore from all the sand walking/running.  It's easier with two people, but Aaron always gets nervous driving distances with the dogs.  Mostly because Yoie will trampoline back and forth across the front seats.
• Since we didn't have anything specific to do, I took the long, roundabout way home.  It was nice, except I was hoping to see all the little fruit stands I remembered from my youth.  But there were none.  I did, however, get the dogs lunch from a Jack in the Box drive through.  Grilled chicken strips, seemed dog appropriate, and they were so hungry.
• Friday was Humira day.  It hurt, as always.  And I have a nice little bruise.  I probably need to talk to my doctor, it seems like I'm bruising easily lately.
• I finally thought of a couple things for Aaron's birthday.  But since he reads the blog from time to time, I won't elaborate.
• It's birthday time. Friday was my MiL's birthday.  Saturday was my dad's birthday.  And today is my sister in law's birthday.  Plus Rebecca and Aaron's birthdays at the end of the month.
• I've been cutting out milk lately (just milk, not all dairy) in favour of soy milk.  A lot less calories, since I'm trying to drop a little weight.  One cup has half the calories of 1% milk.  So I think I'll be doing that for a while.
• As of yesterday, I'm down 6lbs in 5 weeks.  Yay me!  139 and feelin' fine.  Well, as fine as I can feel. :-P  I'm trying to get down to 135 right now (I should be there in another month).  And then maybe I'll aim for 132 or 130, we'll see.  Exercising is the hardest part, since I still have no energy.  I've been using the myfitnesspal app.  It's great, I love it.  So I'm doing it healthfully, and making sure I'm getting all my needed vitamins.
• There was a little hiccup at work this week.  Well, a big hiccup, but only a small one having to do with me.  I was entering some of the billing wrong, which I discovered a week or so ago.  But I wasn't fixing the error correctly.  So I'm working on going back and fixing that.  I'm meeting with the owner tomorrow, just to update him on that, and show him the processes.
• The big hiccup doesn't have to do with me, except that I'm helping out.  One of the front desk gals, J, is newly pregnant (10 weeks) and has been ridiculously sick.  As in she had to get IV fluids, and she's lost so much weight that her OBGYN said she can't work for at least 3 weeks!  She is the opener for the front desk.  Cue where I come in.  I'm now opening at the main office from 7 til 8 or 9 depending on the day.  Then I go over to the billing office for the rest of the day, barring any complications, in which case, I go back, and help out at the main office.  It's a lot of back and forth, but I don't mind too much.  I actually get to see people this way, since I'm usually all alone at the other office.