Ginger, may you get the colonoscopy scheduled with no more tsuris. And you have all my it's-nothing in concentrated form.

Maria, you're in my thoughts today, too.

sj, all good wishes with the house inspection, and getting rid of the fumes of cleaning chemicals.

I used to be surgically precise and lethally effective on the phone for work, but I've always resisted making calls. I run out of things to say very quickly when someone calls me. Never used IM. Video chat was unrewarding. I like email. Get to it when you have a chance and get back to me.

I have never been other than at the point of breaking out in hives using a posting board that wasn't a similar format to TT, or b.org. All that green-or-orange-or white text on black, or whatever that evolved into, and reading up from the bottom of the screen? Too weird.

I like the journalesque qualities of LJ and DW. Where I can comment quickly on something seen elsewhere, or post an introspective ramble, and most of it up for discussion should anyone care.

FB and twitter give me the eyetwitches with the ADD and center of the blast feeling. Needless, I never liked raves. Or loud parties, even. I'll be over here on Tumblr, thanks, filling my spirit and expressing myself with gorgeous pictures and pithy socio-political statements.

I...like the humans, primarily in smaller doses. And, over there.

The fucking cleanse drink you have to do prior to the colonoscopy is the WORST.

You'd think the time you spend in the bathroom would be the bad part, but downing that much liquid in a short period of time feels like a form of water boarding.

After a considerable amount of time being told my call was important, I finally talked to a nurse who said she'd talk to the doctor.

I have never gotten used to being able to do something else while I'm on the phone, either

Like, in your house? I don't have the capacity for that, plus I rarely talk on the phone outside of work to anyone other than my parents or best friend.

Though doing other things on the phone is great if you're on a conference call.

Ginger, lots of timely-appointment~ma. I hate that it is so difficult for you.

Kaiser is good at many things, but scheduling tests you have to have immediately for scary reasons is not one of them. A friend and I both had the same horrendous experience trying to schedule all the scans the oncologist wanted us to have in the next week or so after the positive biopsy. I finally called an oncology nurse and cried, and she bullied them into scheduling me. There needs to be some kind of cancer ombudsman who does this stuff, not people who are already shaking piles of goo.

There needs to be some kind of cancer ombudsman who does this stuff, not people who are already shaking piles of goo.

Not just cancer. These are onerous tasks on steroids.

I can't believe it's already been 11 days. It seems like yesterday, and years ago, all at the same time.

We still don't have autopsy results.

We still don't have autopsy results.

In Utah, it can take months to get results. Apparently, our legislature decided to save money and outsource autopsies to Idaho, or something. Or Colorado.

In Utah, it can take months to get results.

We knew it was going to take 4-6 weeks for toxicology. The bigger delay right now is getting all of the findings back from the forensic pathologists who specialize in the major organs and collating it. Hopkins pushed for a more detailed autopsy than is normally performed. They were just as shocked as we were. Dr. Lipson wants to know why.

I had to wait many months for H's, mostly for toxicology. I hope your wait is not as long, Maria. It's emotionally draining to have that uncertainty, and not having the final death certificate really limits what you can get done with legal, financial, etc. matters. But coroner's offices are short-staffed these days.

Dr. Lipson wants to know why.

Doctors who want to know Why are wonderful.

Dr. Hwang, the God of Electrocardiology, is still my model for ideal doctor. He was doing a procedure to burn out a bad electrical generator in Hubby's heart, that was causing the rhythm problems, and he accidentally poked a hole through the heart wall. He came out personally to the waiting room to explain why things had gone on for an extra two hours, and when they moved Hubby to Cardiac ICU, he again personally went to get Hubby's stuff from the old room to carry them to the new room. This was at the end of a 20-hour day, too. I don't think big-league cardiac surgeons normally do that sort of thing.