1. Fasting. As if the unremitting diet isn’t bad enough then there’s the periodic bloodwork that must be done while fasting. How in the year 2024 has science not progressed to the point where a man can both have breakfast and know his cholesterol simultaneously. I swear, for all our fancy scans and computer enhanced diagnostics, we feel about two steps removed from casting bones and reading entrails sometimes.
2. No plans. We’ve reached the point in the year where I traditionally start burning off vacation time. The catch is, I used to take my time off and go places and see interesting parts of the world… or at least go sit on a beach receiving a heavy dose of sand and rum. It’s been a good long time since I’ve done that. I bought a house, a couple of vehicles, ended up with a few pets that I hate the thought of being separated from and suddenly it’s been a decade since I’ve been any further away than a quick road trip lasting no more than a couple of nights. Oh, I’ll go scouting for some books, do a bit of TV binging, and be absolutely thrilled about not being tethered to work in any way, but there’s part of me that wishes I was headed off somewhere exotic next week, just to get a proper change of scenery.
3. Everything else. In addition to the traditional beginning of annual leave season, it’s also that time of year when where I get unreasonably angsty and out of sorts about nearly everything as my birthday closes in. At this point it’s no longer just a glitch, but a feature of the last few weeks of May every year. Look, especially this year, I appreciate the arrival of another birthday as a sure sign that I managed not to drop dead, but it’s still a stinging reminder of how much I haven’t gotten done – and how much grows increasingly unlikely to ever get done as the years crack on at what feels like an increasingly frenetic pace. I know my mood will improve once I get through next weekend… for now though, you’d best think of me as decidedly surly. If I were a sign, I’d be brightly painted “approach with caution.”
Tag Archives: bloodwork
Half a sick day…
I took some sick leave this morning largely because I had a doctor’s appointment. In my head, though, that was just an invitation to “maximize” my use of sick time. As the only variety of leave that accumulates forever and can then be used to add time to your years of service at the end of your career, the stuff is precious. I try to dole it out as infrequently as possible.
Since I was already going to be at the medical center, it only made sense to head across the street to get my blood drawn for a different appointment I have scheduled at the end of the month. And hey, since there’s a pharmacy at the opposite end of the shopping plaza, I might as well walk down there to see if they’ll dose me with a flu shot and the new and improved COVID booster.
I had the very best of intentions here. I mean, from a time management perspective, knocking out all those things within 500 yards of each other makes eminent sense. What I failed to account for, however, was the net effect overall of two vaccinations, losing 7 or 8 vials of blood, having fasted for 16 hours, and there being absolutely no caffeine in my system. Let’s just say I spent a good part of the rest of the day feeling vaguely “muddled.”
After a couple of meals and a bottomless mug of tea, I’m feeling well enough for my troubles now. This evening, I’m mostly wondering if I’ll have the same reaction to Pfizer’s bivalent dose as I had to the two boosters from Moderna. If I do, sometime around 10 AM tomorrow morning my body will throw the switch from “feeling fine” to “feeling like hot microwaved trash” and that situation will persist for about 12 hours.
That’s all a very wordy way of saying that I think I over scheduled the day today. Some things make perfect sense in terms of efficiency, but it pays to not forget checking in with other factors, too. It would have been nice to have that in mind this morning, but here we are.
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