the danish outpost
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a little breathing room

16.10.2001

feeling kinda how a girl feels

out the door! whoo hoo! thank god. the project that we've been working on is gone.

well, not gone. shipped. there's still work to be done. and it will come back to haunt us. no, no, those are the wrong words... back to bite us? no, that's not right either. let's just say, we haven't seen the last of it.

but now we need to start thinking about the next project. yup. no rest for the weary. it's a different sort of cycle than we used to have. the projects went longer, and there was a noticable down time before we picked up on the next one. the running joke was that the acronym for our group, BTR, stood for 'between the releases'. it doesn't even make sense. it's just that we work with so many damn acronyms that there are plenty of jokes about them. it should frighten me, i guess, that i can run across a technical acronym i haven't heard and 4 times out of 5 accurately figure out what it stands for. YMMV.

anyway, it's nice to feel the pressure ease up on everyone, even for a little bit.

took some time off this afternoon to see my neurologist and find out the results from my MRI. why is it that i keep running into creepy elevators? i walked in and thought it might be a little faster to take the elevator. oh, i was sooo wrong. first of all, the elevators there are even slower than the ones in my office building. who would have thought that was possible? then, when the elevator appeared to have reached the first floor, it started screeching. not just a little buzz or something then the door opens. it sat there, obstinately keeping its doors closed and wailing about the injustice of having to carry people up and down all day.

at that point, the stairs started to look like a good alternative.

so the registration desk used to be set up in each department. then they centralized it, and set it up on the first floor. that didn't last long. pretty quickly, it got moved up to the second floor. made sense, as most of the offices are there. but apparently, they're redoing the office yet again, and the checking desk is now on the third floor.

so after opting out of the elevator, i had to walk up to the third floor, realize the line was long enough that i'd be late, walk down to the second floor to let my doctor's assistant know that i would be right there, walk *back* up to the third floor, stand in line along the railing at the top of the stairs to check in, then walk back *down* to the second floor to see my doctor.

i learned some interesting things about neurological scales of evaluation. david asked me if i had any questions, and i said 'yeah. how is it that you can see me once a month and remember enough details to be able to rate my reactions against the last set? you must see a lot of patients. how do you do it?' turns out there's a scale, 0 to 5, with 0 being no movement and 5 being regular movement. 3 is movement but only with gravity. 4 is movement against gravity but not against resistance. (i forget what 2 stands for.) 4 gets a little dicey, because you can be a 4- or a 4+, depending on how much resistance you can push against. and of course, if your neurologist is using the British scale of 1 to 10, then all bets are off. ;)

so there you go. more than you ever thought you needed to know about neurological evaluation.

it looks like i've winged a nerve in my neck. things look a little unusual, but as david admitted, there is no such thing as a usual patient. we all have our quirks. this is good news. the migraine auras haven't come back, my responses are stronger than they have been, and there's no need to be concerned about a little narrowing of the vertebrae gap. happens with age, i'm told. that's the closest to a clean bill of health i'll ever get from that man.

i'm really hoping for an Indian summer real soon now. i've been cold all day. mind you, i could be cold in July. low blood volume tends to leave the digits a bit chilly. so, yeah... Indian summer, anyone?

hung out with earl a little bit tonight; went over to Deisel and had a cup of chai, chatted about some of the awkwardness. i don't know if i feel better or worse, but i feel grateful that we were able to talk.

then i worked on catching up in the paper journal some. i really need to get back to writing, on paper and online, on a more regular basis. i'm feeling ambivalent about it, given several recent events, both public and personal. and when i feel ambivalent, i procrastinate, or outright avoid. this is no good. i want to write. i need to write. i need to wrap words around what i'm doing, what i'm thinking and feeling. i need to stretch and learn; i need to step up to the plate and try out my writing chops on the collabs.

and in order to do all of that, i need to rethink how and why i write. not sure where it will all go. never fear, the journal will still be here. and i'll still keep writing. i'm just not sure how to get to that place. hope you're all willing to bear with me, as i try to figure this all out.

yesterday :: tomorrow

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