Life-Improving Discoveries

Here are two things that I love: 1) fun and exciting new discoveries 2) anything that makes my life better or easier. So you can imagine my joy when these two things merge. Here are some recent examples.

1. Sleeping in the middle of my bed.
In August of 2006, I bought myself a queen size bed. For most of the past year, the part of my bed I don't sleep in has typicallly been used as a sort of storage unit. Recently having moved into and organized my very own room (yay!!), i got my life sorted out to the point that it is just ME in my bed every night. No storage. Just me. Almost always. For several weeks after getting things organized, i was enjoying choosing which side of my bed to sleep on every night, until one day--out of nowhere--it occured to me, I could sleep in the MIDDLE. It did cause a slight pillow problem, but that was easily enough overcome. And let me tell you, I had no idea the levels of emotional stress caused by the subconscious effort to keep one's arms in the bed until the need was taken away. Sleeping in the middle of my bed is awesome!! Too bad I didn't discover this earlier. If I ever get around to it, I will post a picture of my bed. (PS I make my bed every morning now too. How very adult of me.)

2. Wearing make-up prevents acne. True story. I refer specifically to foundation. So happy to know that foundation helps you look better superficially in the here and now, but also in the long-term non-superficial (couldn't find the antonym) way.

3. At work, when retrieving my voice mails, if I hit "1", it will play the last 5 seconds again. Brilliant!! Life=better.

4. Also at work, when entering a date in the current year in the main computer program, if entering a date in the current year, I don't have to type the year!!! That's right--if I type 1025, it will show up 10/25/07. Oh the keystrokes I will save!!

5. Polyphonic sounds. That is the esoteric music term for two sounds happening at once: ie--whistling and humming at the same time. I saw someone do it--one mouth, one time, two sounds. It was pretty darn cool. So darn cool, i would go so far as to say, it improved my life.

Bad Optomestrist Update

So my charming but come-to-find-out thoroughly incompetent optometrist said that I have bumps on the back on my eyelids caused by irritation of my contact lenses. He gave me a prescription, which I sent away for.

It came today and being the good consumer that I am, I read the patient instructions. This is the first thing I read: "This medication is NOT recommended for the treatment of eye irritation due to wearing contact lenses" (emphasis added).

Grrrrr!!!

I Am a Childcare Provider

I loved that movie as a child, but i digress. Today, as part of my continuing quest to be a benefit to mankind, I spent my evening babysitting for a friend. It was quite a delightful experience. The children were very cute and agreeable. I revisited my thirteen year old self by eating their food. (Why is it that other people's food is always more exciting then your own? I thought I wouldn't experience this since I'm now buying my own food, but nope.) Also an advantage of babysitting as adult--I had my laptop with me so i didn't have to fuss with a stranger's TV.

This is what I have to say about babies: when they are really wailing, it does in fact sound like "wahhhh" like it says on the comics. Also, they have serious lung power. I mean I have had a couple of good cries as an adult, but I could not have kept up that loud or that long. It was pretty amazing really. Luckily crying babies don't really upset me. But I did feel bad for the neighbors. The baby (it was her first time with a babysitter) became what we in the industry call "emotionally disregulated." Babies, you know, have not yet learned to manage their affect (emotions) and when they get really upset they literally cannot calm themselves down (some adults have this problem too). My psychology training came in useful, but did not entirely solve the problem. But luckily after about 40 minutes the baby cried itself out, just like I figured she would. And her sister told me that yes, sometimes she does cry like that when her mom is there, so I figured nothing serious was wrong. Like I said, it was a fun evening. I mean, it doesn't make me want to go out and get knocked up or anything, but I enjoyed myself.

I ask myself, how do 13 year-olds, who have no training in human development or the human psyche and who are typically emotionally weird put up with that? This is my ponderment of the day.

A year in review: my medical doctors

My mind lately has been much caught up upon my recent experience with medical doctors. I was shocked to realize that I have become quite a regular at various offices and have actually seen SEVEN different specialists in the past year. Crazy! I feel like such an adult!

This medical reflection (which you will all now be subject to) started last week when i had my eyes examined. It seemed to me like an excellent exam. Very thorough with all sort of procedures I had never experienced, although I have been going to see optometrists annually for well over 15 years now. He checked the back of my eyelids, did a contact fitting, checked my eye pressure, dilated my pupils and all sorts of interesting and unusual things. And I was happy to learn that I have very very healthy eyes. I had always assumed I had unhealthy eyes because my prescription is so high, but no, in fact my eyes are very healthy, which such thing I never would have supposed.

But everything is not perfect in optometry world. First bad sign, it turns out that my insurance didn't cover the extra tests they did. They did not tell me this. I have to pay them $90. Ouch!!

Bad sign two: they dilated my pupils which I had never had done before. It was weird not to be able to see. I want back to work after my exam, but had to leave and go home right away because I couldn't see anything. This, in and of itself would be a good thing, but I don't think I should have been outside with my pupils this big:
They sent me off without sunglasses or anything! They didn't even ask. I didn't think anything of it at the time, but really that seems like very bad form. And please realize that I took this picture almost two hours after they had been dilated. My face looks weird because I couldn't keep both eyes open long enough to take a picture (don't worry I turned the flash off) so I had to close one. (I hope you can see from there how truly big my pupil is--you can hardly see the iris).

Being so quick to see the good in an optometrist who, in fact, was not good made me seriously review some of my other experiences with doctors here in New York. Most of them were pleasant. Here are the highlights (in chronological order). I hope this is not boring. Feel free to skim

1. My primary care physician. I've seen him once and his assistant gave me a very good exam. He came to me very highly recommended by a client at my clinic. He asked good thorough questions, but I didn't feel like he was listening to me. I was a little disappointed that he didn't have any thoughts on the fact that at the time I was needing to drink more then 7 liters of water a day. He told me to drink more juice, milk, and soda instead. SODA!! Crazy weird.

2. My dermatologist came to me very highly recommended by a co-worker who I love. I love love love my dermatologist!!! I've told everyone at the office about him and three people have actually gone. He listens carefully and always has interesting facts to share. Example: zits on the jawline are caused by hormones, zits on cheeks not so much. So interesting! I look for excuses to go see him, but haven't come up with one yet. My skin is looking pretty good!

3. My endocrinologist. Come to find out that endocrinologists are the doctors who can help you if you're drinking more than 7 liters of water a day. My PCP failed to tell me this, but luckily I have a doctor friend named Jamie who knows things. My endocrinologist seems like a good guy. He asked interesting questions. But i didn't really understand anything he explained to me. If Jamie hadn't already explained to me all the possible causes I would have been completely (not just mostly) lost. And, being a certified nursing asssitant and all, I'm totally okay with doing an 24 hour in and out measurement, but he just gave me one big tube to collect all the out for the whole day. I don't think so.

4. My midwife. I called an OB/GYN clinic close to my work and told them to sign me up to see anyone. Imagine my delight when i got there and discovered I would be seeing a midwife. I LOVE nurse practitioners!!! (no offense, Jamie) You know how on TV, doctors take their clients into their office and you sit down at their desk and discuss things. Has anyone ever actually seen that happen in real life? I have!! Bonnie and I sat and chatted at her desk. And she did such a good job with the exam and making things comfortable. I hope that I have a baby in New York so that you can deliver it!

5. My dentist. When I first got my insurance, I called my company and asked them to assign me to someone close to my work. I got set up with a clinic in Chinatown. Every time I called the office, either the person who set appointments wasn't there or there was no one in the office who spoke English. I gave up for almost a year. Then last week I decided to give it another try, so I asked my insurance company to change me to a dentist that was close to my house. Being as how I live in Washington Heights, I figured it would be a Spanish-speaking place, but I figure I speak Spanish ok so I would be closer than at the last place. I got an appointment and sure enough everyone there spoke Spanish. Except the dentist--he was Russian. But thanks to my practice listening to the Russian ladies at work, I was able to understand a good portion of what he was saying.

I love New York.