Steph - think ing all the good thouhts and , form what you said, it sounds like things will be ok.

and I love the vision of you as Daffy duck, even if it less than fun to be daffy duck ( I do daffy duck a lot -- but I call it letting my inner teenager out - because that is who I work with )

askye - so glad people have ideas and can help you

Teppy, you probably know this, but remember that Doctors are told to mention worst possible outcome to preempt malpractice suits later on. They will almost always tell you the unlikely but most serious possibility, rather than the more likely prosaic one. Which sucks for patients and family, but it's the way it is.

I'm not really a jewelry person. I wore the pendant Will gave me and would fidget with that and in high school I wore a necklace but it's not my thing. I mean I don't think it makes sense when I wear such plain clothes and currently don't go out or do much. Although I realize that it really doesn't matter it just feels...I don't know how to describe it.

But I'll keep looking and I appreciate the suggestions. I'll keep an eye out when I'm in stores so I can try things on.

askye, how about worry beads?

Maybe, I'll actually look at stuff.

It would be nice to have something to fidget with and add that to my arsenal.

I really need to talk to my therapist about a script for my mother, I don't think she really believes my diagnosis and keeps saying I never did any of this until it was suggested to me.

They will almost always tell you the unlikely but most serious possibility, rather than the more likely prosaic one.

And to give warning that he's no longer in the "Not a problem to be seen" category but in the "the odds are not as favorable as they are for people who don't have RA" category. So colds and coughs get to be taken a step more seriously than otherwise and more tests than average may be required.

Teppy, you probably know this, but remember that Doctors are told to mention worst possible outcome to preempt malpractice suits later on. They will almost always tell you the unlikely but most serious possibility, rather than the more likely prosaic one. Which sucks for patients and family, but it's the way it is.

That's true. And Tim had a chest x-ray within the last 4-5 months -- the results were totally unremarkable. Neither his PCP or rheumatologist thought there was anything concerning about it.

His PCP is the one who ordered the pulmonary function test in response to Tim saying he had occasional chest pain on the right side (which is the side of the collapsed lung). And I'm glad his PCP was so responsive.

Between his clean x-ray and his lack of any symptoms other than occasional pain on the side where his lung collapsed, I'm hoping SUPER hard that his reduced lung function is just an anomaly, and his lung function is just not in line with other 50-year-old men. Or I'm rooting for asthma. Asthma would be fine. It would be great, comparatively. (He doesn't actually have symptoms of asthma.)

I'm still stressed today, but trying not to flip out and catastrophize until he sees the pulmonary specialist. It's just -- some of the lung diseases that can develop in people with RA are fatal, relatively quickly (3-5 years). Do I think Tim has the horrible fatal lung disease? Probably not. Can I stop myself from worrying that he *might* have it? NOPE.

I hate this fucking year. I feel like we're under a curse.

To go all mememe on this ... it's been a fraught week. We run a program and I have to do the data entry for the accounting (entry fees for the program). The woman in our accounting department who's responsible for money coming in from invoices refuses to do it - says it's not her job. It's also not her job to show me how to do it, since (1) I last did it four years ago and (2) the computer system we use has been changed since I last did it. Bitched at me because the data entry hadn't been done, then I was out sick for a week, the woman she tapped to show me the procedures was out, then finally tapped someone else to show me how to do it. Turned out that there were things that had to be set up by the accounting department (since I have very limited permissions for the system) that they hadn't done, so things were delayed until they could get to them. I had to download information from an outside vendor's site and do the accounting entry. Did it ... and the woman in the accounting department had a hissy fit because there was a detail I wasn't aware of and wanted me to change some of the information and re-do all the invoices I'd prepared since starting.

Got everything done, finalized stuff, took care of entering payments from people who hadn't paid online. Then my boss comes to me and the report generated by our CFO didn't match up with what I had - came up almost $4K short of the income I was showing. So both my boss and I have been toiling over this information trying to reconcile it. I've been trying to reconcile two databases (neither of which I have full access to, plus my updated spreadsheets, plus the exported PDF invoices). At one point I was deathly afraid that I'd marked some people as having paid when they hadn't. Contacted the help desk at our outside vendor to get more information on payments (i.e., that they'd paid using which credit card - Visa, etc. - and the last four digits of the card number and the data). Had to figure out a way to look at information without changing it, since the internal database required me to log into it with a dated accounting thing. Did that, rechecked, pulled details about the payments. Then I created a Word file (which my boss could actually read), added in by hand the codes for both the vendor's invoice and the one we've used to identify specific companies PLUS the data on the check payments (date and check number and amount). Marked the check payments and handed it over to my boss.

Meanwhile, the accounting department is insisting that their numbers are the true numbers and I'm pulling the other ones out of my ass.

Boss is involved in something else, so I expect that the organic fertilizer will hit the fan late next week.

I am not an accountant; I once took an aptitude test that told me to be anything but an accountant or bookkeeper. I really shouldn't have to spend this much time of this nonsense, but I do have a feeling of accomplishment in having actual FACTS that show I am working with real information.

Oh, man, Toddson, I've been there. It made my whole brain cry.

It's especially annoying because the woman who's responsible for accounts receivable - who said this wasn't her job - works short hours and spends most of her day playing solitaire and shopping online (not that I have much room to hold that against her, but still ...).