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Entry tags:
Odds and Ends (much of which is medical whining)
I have several other things to write about, which I will list below, but I want to clear off a few random odds and ends first.
Mostly Harmless: This article tells the story about a hiker who was found dead and the effort to identify him. I thought it was really interesting reading.
Another Lost Person: The story of somebody who shouldn’t have been allowed to travel alone was also amusing.
Vaccine! After a long and frustrating saga, I got my first Pfizer shot last week. I had registered with Kaiser back in January. Then Virginia decided to pull vaccines from everywhere except the Virginia Department of Health. There were some given to pharmacies but only for people over 65. Virginia waffled on registration, first doing it by county, then statewide, but Fairfax County (where I live) opted out of the statewide system. It took Fairfax County about a month to get through people who had registered the first day. Anyway, Kaiser then got an allocation from the CDC and I got a notice to make an appointment with them, which was successful. Of course, about 3 days later, I got a notice from Fairfax County. Such chaos.
At least they made the appointment for the second shot while I was there checking in for the first one. And, for those who are tracking side effects, my left arm was a bit sore for a couple of days, bt not a big deal.
Other Health Stuff: I had mentioned back in December that the bloodwork at my annual physical showed mild anemia. My doctor put in an order for additional lab work, which I did in January. That showed my vitamin B12 level to be quite low and my iron level to be somewhat low, so she told me to take supplements and get retested 6 weeks after starting them. I did that this week. The good news is that the supplements are working for the vitamin B12 and the test for intrinsic factor blocking antibody (which would prevent B12 from being absorbed) was negative. My guess is that the B12 issue was related to the known interference due to taking metformin (which I take for Type 2 diabetes). At any rate, continuing to take a tiny sublingual pill a day is no big deal.
The bad news is that my iron levels did not improve and, in fact, are somewhat worse. I have an upper endoscopy and colonoscopy scheduled in early April to see if there is any bleeding that could account for this. I am rather dreading the prep for this, which everyone says is far worse than the actual procedure. Hopefully, anything that is found will be easily treatable.
Other Stuff I Intend to Write About:
Mostly Harmless: This article tells the story about a hiker who was found dead and the effort to identify him. I thought it was really interesting reading.
Another Lost Person: The story of somebody who shouldn’t have been allowed to travel alone was also amusing.
Vaccine! After a long and frustrating saga, I got my first Pfizer shot last week. I had registered with Kaiser back in January. Then Virginia decided to pull vaccines from everywhere except the Virginia Department of Health. There were some given to pharmacies but only for people over 65. Virginia waffled on registration, first doing it by county, then statewide, but Fairfax County (where I live) opted out of the statewide system. It took Fairfax County about a month to get through people who had registered the first day. Anyway, Kaiser then got an allocation from the CDC and I got a notice to make an appointment with them, which was successful. Of course, about 3 days later, I got a notice from Fairfax County. Such chaos.
At least they made the appointment for the second shot while I was there checking in for the first one. And, for those who are tracking side effects, my left arm was a bit sore for a couple of days, bt not a big deal.
Other Health Stuff: I had mentioned back in December that the bloodwork at my annual physical showed mild anemia. My doctor put in an order for additional lab work, which I did in January. That showed my vitamin B12 level to be quite low and my iron level to be somewhat low, so she told me to take supplements and get retested 6 weeks after starting them. I did that this week. The good news is that the supplements are working for the vitamin B12 and the test for intrinsic factor blocking antibody (which would prevent B12 from being absorbed) was negative. My guess is that the B12 issue was related to the known interference due to taking metformin (which I take for Type 2 diabetes). At any rate, continuing to take a tiny sublingual pill a day is no big deal.
The bad news is that my iron levels did not improve and, in fact, are somewhat worse. I have an upper endoscopy and colonoscopy scheduled in early April to see if there is any bleeding that could account for this. I am rather dreading the prep for this, which everyone says is far worse than the actual procedure. Hopefully, anything that is found will be easily treatable.
Other Stuff I Intend to Write About:
- The rest of the celebrity death watch
- Assorted storytelling events
- The recorded sessions of the 2020 IAJGS conference (except I can’t find my notes from those)
- Art history classes
- Potential travel plans