Ugh, smonster, I am enraged on your behalf. I wish there was something we could do. But you know where we are if/when it's time to move!

If I had the money I would totally do crazy colored hair, but I also don't have the patience to keep it up, either.

Toddson, may it al l be resolved to your satisfaction. And a pox on that IT guy.

I went to Pilates, taught by a friend who's been out of town, and caught up with her a bit after. And then I went to Pete's and had a couple of drinks, and all is right with the world. My roommate can't even look me in the eyes. I feel sorry for his sad little life, full of imagined trauma and pineapple vodka. Right now I'm at peace with what is. Remind me of that when I'm in moving hell, please.

Nine days to vacation, bitches.

I have an army behind me of Buffistas and family and friends, and with that I can keep moving. Tipsy, me? Maybe. Now to feed neighborfam cats and go to bed.

Lake Tahoe has stolen my heart yet again. I love it up here. I'm glad I decided to stay up here tonight and tomorrow before heading home on Friday.

This morning, I woke up, listened for voices and then went back to sleep a few times before I finally looked at the time. I ended up sleeping until 10:30am. Ahhhh, vacation. I drove up to Tahoe to meet up with the rest of my cousins and all the kids. There are 20 people staying in the rented house and it was barely managed chaos. I got to snuggle a 3 month old and a 10 month old, tickle the 3 year old, and then have deep conversations with the sweetest 5 year old. There are also 5 boys from 3 - 8 who were running all over the house and the yard. Not sure if they ever really noticed I was there. I also got to chat with my cousin and her adult kids.

For anyone trying to keep track - my aunt had 3 girls who are all older than me and are the closest I've ever had to having siblings. They had 11 kids between them. Now all but two of those 11 are married. They have 15 kids between them with another three on due to arrive in January. Not everyone in here but it has been years since I've seen many of the folks who are here.

IT schadenfreude alert - the guy who sprang the new computer on me Monday decided it would be a good idea to switch out our network servers. And it is a good idea - we've been having problems with them for a while - periodically, we'd all lose access to the network which, since most of our files are on the network is a major pain. However, as usual, he didn't tell anyone in advance. So, suddenly, everyone's lost their network connect as the tech support guy starts doing his thing - preparing the existing servers to be replaced. The actual replacement took place after hours, but there were some intermittant interruptions during working hours ... with, as usual, no advance warning.

Major changes without warning, bad. Then there are the IT people who set up permissions so they're the only ones with admin access. I guess it's one way to keep your job--for a while, anyway.

Good Morning! The motel looked super sketch from the outside, but the room is actually really nice. Unfortunately the bed is much softer than I'm usual. I still slept pretty well.

I had planned on getting homework done last night, but that didn't happen. Now I'm at Starbucks and will put in an hour or two here to get it done before heading over to the house and family. Tonight is my cousin's party. Both she and her husband are turning 60 soon and it is their 40th anniversary. Their kids planned this gathering and party.

Ok - back to homework.

Ugh. I could REALLY use some advice/perspective.

I don't know if I told the whole story of my stomach pain, but here's the (brief) backstory: I've been having intermittent stabby stomach pain for about 3 months. It's VERY different from my IBS pain. I saw a nurse practitioner at Awesome Doctor's practice, and she thought it was my gallbladder, even though the pain was on the wrong side, and ordered a CT scan. That came back totally normal, and so she referred me to a gastroenterologist. In the meantime, 7 days ago I started taking Nexium because I really started to think this was maybe an ulcer. And as of today, the pain is 95%-98% better.

I saw the gastroenterologist today, and he spent most of the time focused on my IBS, even though I told him that my IBS meds didn't help the stabby pain but I told him clearly that 7 days of Nexium reduced the pain by 95%. He wants me to have an endoscopy for the stomach pain and then decided I should have a colonoscopy, too, "because of the IBS."

I cannot state this clearly enough: my IBS is NOT A PROBLEM right now. It's not flaring up. I feel like this doctor didn't even listen to me. He would repeat (or attempt to) things back to me that I didn't even say, like (sorry) "So you're having 2-3 loose stools a day, 5 days a week." OH MY GOD I DID NOT SAY THAT.

So I feel like jumping to really invasive tests is overkill here. When the Nexium helped my symptoms so dramatically, I almost cancelled the appointment, but I decided that since the stomach pain lasted so long,** I should probably get a specialist's opinion. But I thought the opinion would be "Yes, keep taking these meds for a couple of weeks so your stomach lining can heal and then we'll reevaluate." I didn't expect "Hi, I am not listening to you but I want to shove tubes into you okay bye."

So...I really don't want to schedule the endoscopy and colonoscopy right now. But is that stupid? I feel like his recommendation was based on a serious misunderstanding of my medical history. I'd really rather just keep taking Nexium for another couple of weeks and then reevaluate.

**(And, okay, the stomach pain lasted so long because I didn't treat it with the right medication until a week ago. The fact that it responded so rapidly to meds seems like a good sign.)

So...I really don't want to schedule the endoscopy and colonoscopy right now. But is that stupid? I feel like his recommendation was based on a serious misunderstanding of my medical history. I'd really rather just keep taking Nexium for another couple of weeks and then reevaluate.

It's not stupid. But you should definitely call Awesome Doctor and tell him that Not Listening Gastro did not inspire confidence and before undergoing the invasive procedures he recommended you want a second opinion. Because Awesome Doc needs to know that he shouldn't send more patients to Not Listening Gastro, and also, you should not have to undergo treatment with someone who's not listening.

Why don't you go ahead and wait the two weeks and then see how you feel? I'm onboard with not getting invasive tests if you don't need to.

I have a number of Gastroenterologists as customers. Yes, some people need an endoscopy and/or colonoscopy, but they spend a huge amount of time in their practice meetings finding ways to justify them for everyone. I don't want to say don't but if it was one of my client doctors I wouldn't take his word as perfect. Also, patients know their own bodies!!