(no subject)
I had an appointment with one of the doctors at the Kelvin Grove campus of the university I am at. I kept the appointment in spite of how much trouble I had getting to sleep the previous night. In fact, I was up until roughly 0300 or so, feeling like one of the ghosts of girlfriends past was tickling the underside of my penis with a cocaine-laced feather. At least, I was feeling that way until about 0200, when I logged into the IMDB and saw a sight that made me shudder in horror. A photo gallery for an Autism Speaks event was linked right on the front page, with photos of celebrities of several stripes gathered to lend their visages to "a cause". I will post more about this in due course, but for now I will give you an executive summary of what I think about that. Linking to, advertising, and supporting Autism Speaks is not cool, IMDB. And those celebrities featured in the photo gallery, including but not limited to Adam Arkin and Carla Gugino, you should be ashamed of yourselves. Anyway, I want to get away from this topic for the time being because I need to talk about how the rest of my day went, and writing about Autism Speaks really makes me ill in a number of ways.
So, after struggling to find the energy to get out of bed after five or less hours of sleep, I walked to the local shopping centre. Then, as I made my way to the bank, I realised that I had forgotten to take my insulin pens! This is not a good idea when you are planning on being out for the whole day (although it might have caused me to curtail my eating habits). So I walked back to my home, picked up my insulin pen bag, and then I walked back to the shopping centre before getting a ticket that was valid for all the zones between Morayfield and Kelvin Grove (zones one through eight). With a travel concession card, this set me back five dollars and seventy cents, but it was well worth it to get into Kelvin Grove this time. Now, the trip from Morayfield rail station to Roma Street rail station takes between an hour and ninety minutes, depending on various factors, so I arrived at Roma Street with about an hour to spare, then caught the bus to the Kelvin Grove campus. To say that the Kelvin Grove campus is a totally different universe to the Caboolture campus is like saying that a week-old corpse has a slightly unpleasant smell. All the Kelvin Grove campus really needs is a JB Hi-Fi and it could be a Parramatta. No, really.
Anyway, I got to the front desk at the doctor's offices about twenty minutes early, as opposed to the ten that I was advised when talking on the 'phone to the secretary. They asked me to fill out a form, which I did. It was a bit difficult for me to fill out the question where they asked why I had come to see them, however. There were several checkboxes, and an Other option. I checked multiple options, and I checked Other. Then, in the space that they provided for Other, I wrote something like "My life is presently a complete clusterfukk". I wanted to make absolutely certain that they would not underestimate how desperate and unhappy I was. So you can imagine my surprise when I found myself sitting and speaking comfortably with a doctor who spoke English perfectly clearly and seemed perfectly happy to talk with me. I think the last time I spoke with a doctor who I could understand a whole sentence from was in the 1990s! Anyway, all conversations I have are like a fight or a dance, and this was no different. Were it a fight, we pretty much went through what professionals call the negotiation or interview stage. I had to explain that I am autistic and that this causes me no end of problems both past and present.
Once we got through that stage, I started to explain some of the more pertinent problems of the present time. I explained how it will be my birthday in a matter of weeks, and that this is a part of the year that I find very difficult to say the least. I had to explain to her that hospitalising me at this point will only cause me problems with completing the university work I am supposed to be doing, and thus make the problem even worse. I also told her of my concern that I may have some form of diabetic neuropathy that I have read about twice in the past month, once while waiting in that very office. The form of diabetic neuropathy that I am worried about affects one's sensitivity to hypoglycaemia (of which I have none), and possibly erectile function. I guess that is what they were talking about in one Juvenile Diabetes Foundation advertisement in which the writer states that if her child were male, said child would be running the risk of irreversible impotence. Not that this matters in the end for me, anyway. If someone told me that they wanted to touch me with someone else's fingers right now, the shock would cause me to fall down dead on the floor anyway.
I saved the simplest part of my consultation with them for last. I told them that I need a prescription for more of my short-acting insulin, Humalog. I was somewhat well-stocked today, but insulin is really like non-perishable food to people with diabetes in a way. The only way you can have too much insulin is if it is going to expire, and where Humalog is concerned, I would have to cut my food intake down to virtually nothing before I could ever be in danger of having my Humalog expire. Now, the doctor wanted me to come back in so we could have a more thorough investigation of all the issues that I have unceremoniously brought into their office and dumped into their lap. So I made another appointment for Monday at midday. At first, they were proposing 1400 hours as a time, but I told them that I am restricted to public transport, so they proposed midday instead. I had a bit of a problem making up my mind whether midday or 1400 hours was a better time from my point of view, but that is par for the course lately. After leaving with two prescriptions and an appointment and a confused sense of direction, I climbed on the bus back to Roma Street and caught the train back to Morayfield.
The other prescription I was given was for Avanza soluable tablets, which I obviously had filled at the same time as I handed in the insulin script while at Morayfield. I also went to the Woolworths and bought a few things, including a pack of white Tim Tams, because anything that is novel and white chocolate is always going to get my interest. White chocolate is very much the culinary equivalent of the woman I believe might actually be more intelligent than me. No matter what else happens, I just cannot look away. Unfortunately, such women are a lot harder for me to find than white chocolate. But anyway, Avanza is apparently an antidepressant that was also prescribed for its potential side effect of causing drowsiness, so it may or may not help me sleep. Who knows anymore? All I know for certain is that I will make the trip into Kelvin Grove again on Monday and see what else the good doctor has to offer me. They did ask me to get some blood tests done for various diabetes-related things and thyroid function, so I will try to get those tests done tomorrow and get the results to them in time for Monday. Not knowing how the transmission of blood test results goes from laboratory to practitioner, I can only guess at whether they will have the results then.
In other news, a person on my MSN Messenger list basically urged me to sign up on the Facebook site. Having been told that I should sign up for it by a certain woman at the university whom I would jump through a whirling hall of knives for if she told me that she really needed me to do so, I went and signed up. You can see my profile, or what little of it is accessible to people who are not in my friends list, at this link. If you do decide to try and add me as a friend, then please for Odin's sake, send me a message with the request explaining how I know you or that you are on my LiveJournal friends list. Otherwise I will just get confused and possibly turn the request down, which I do not believe you would particularly like, unless you get some kind of enjoyment out of being turned down. And yes, I do know people who enjoy being told no, go away, or shut up or piss off. It really is a wiggly world out there, you know. Okay, final statement for the time being: the photo exhibition I threatened in my previous entry will eventually be brought online, it is just going to take a little more time than usual to touch up the photographs to my satisfaction. Rest assured that Summer and friends do want you to see them monkeying around with screws and planks of wood.
Anyway, that concludes another entry in my catalogue of woes and bitchings. Until I post next, keep the following in mind: There is no form of life lower than those who say they will do something and then do not without so much as a word of explanation.
So, after struggling to find the energy to get out of bed after five or less hours of sleep, I walked to the local shopping centre. Then, as I made my way to the bank, I realised that I had forgotten to take my insulin pens! This is not a good idea when you are planning on being out for the whole day (although it might have caused me to curtail my eating habits). So I walked back to my home, picked up my insulin pen bag, and then I walked back to the shopping centre before getting a ticket that was valid for all the zones between Morayfield and Kelvin Grove (zones one through eight). With a travel concession card, this set me back five dollars and seventy cents, but it was well worth it to get into Kelvin Grove this time. Now, the trip from Morayfield rail station to Roma Street rail station takes between an hour and ninety minutes, depending on various factors, so I arrived at Roma Street with about an hour to spare, then caught the bus to the Kelvin Grove campus. To say that the Kelvin Grove campus is a totally different universe to the Caboolture campus is like saying that a week-old corpse has a slightly unpleasant smell. All the Kelvin Grove campus really needs is a JB Hi-Fi and it could be a Parramatta. No, really.
Anyway, I got to the front desk at the doctor's offices about twenty minutes early, as opposed to the ten that I was advised when talking on the 'phone to the secretary. They asked me to fill out a form, which I did. It was a bit difficult for me to fill out the question where they asked why I had come to see them, however. There were several checkboxes, and an Other option. I checked multiple options, and I checked Other. Then, in the space that they provided for Other, I wrote something like "My life is presently a complete clusterfukk". I wanted to make absolutely certain that they would not underestimate how desperate and unhappy I was. So you can imagine my surprise when I found myself sitting and speaking comfortably with a doctor who spoke English perfectly clearly and seemed perfectly happy to talk with me. I think the last time I spoke with a doctor who I could understand a whole sentence from was in the 1990s! Anyway, all conversations I have are like a fight or a dance, and this was no different. Were it a fight, we pretty much went through what professionals call the negotiation or interview stage. I had to explain that I am autistic and that this causes me no end of problems both past and present.
Once we got through that stage, I started to explain some of the more pertinent problems of the present time. I explained how it will be my birthday in a matter of weeks, and that this is a part of the year that I find very difficult to say the least. I had to explain to her that hospitalising me at this point will only cause me problems with completing the university work I am supposed to be doing, and thus make the problem even worse. I also told her of my concern that I may have some form of diabetic neuropathy that I have read about twice in the past month, once while waiting in that very office. The form of diabetic neuropathy that I am worried about affects one's sensitivity to hypoglycaemia (of which I have none), and possibly erectile function. I guess that is what they were talking about in one Juvenile Diabetes Foundation advertisement in which the writer states that if her child were male, said child would be running the risk of irreversible impotence. Not that this matters in the end for me, anyway. If someone told me that they wanted to touch me with someone else's fingers right now, the shock would cause me to fall down dead on the floor anyway.
I saved the simplest part of my consultation with them for last. I told them that I need a prescription for more of my short-acting insulin, Humalog. I was somewhat well-stocked today, but insulin is really like non-perishable food to people with diabetes in a way. The only way you can have too much insulin is if it is going to expire, and where Humalog is concerned, I would have to cut my food intake down to virtually nothing before I could ever be in danger of having my Humalog expire. Now, the doctor wanted me to come back in so we could have a more thorough investigation of all the issues that I have unceremoniously brought into their office and dumped into their lap. So I made another appointment for Monday at midday. At first, they were proposing 1400 hours as a time, but I told them that I am restricted to public transport, so they proposed midday instead. I had a bit of a problem making up my mind whether midday or 1400 hours was a better time from my point of view, but that is par for the course lately. After leaving with two prescriptions and an appointment and a confused sense of direction, I climbed on the bus back to Roma Street and caught the train back to Morayfield.
The other prescription I was given was for Avanza soluable tablets, which I obviously had filled at the same time as I handed in the insulin script while at Morayfield. I also went to the Woolworths and bought a few things, including a pack of white Tim Tams, because anything that is novel and white chocolate is always going to get my interest. White chocolate is very much the culinary equivalent of the woman I believe might actually be more intelligent than me. No matter what else happens, I just cannot look away. Unfortunately, such women are a lot harder for me to find than white chocolate. But anyway, Avanza is apparently an antidepressant that was also prescribed for its potential side effect of causing drowsiness, so it may or may not help me sleep. Who knows anymore? All I know for certain is that I will make the trip into Kelvin Grove again on Monday and see what else the good doctor has to offer me. They did ask me to get some blood tests done for various diabetes-related things and thyroid function, so I will try to get those tests done tomorrow and get the results to them in time for Monday. Not knowing how the transmission of blood test results goes from laboratory to practitioner, I can only guess at whether they will have the results then.
In other news, a person on my MSN Messenger list basically urged me to sign up on the Facebook site. Having been told that I should sign up for it by a certain woman at the university whom I would jump through a whirling hall of knives for if she told me that she really needed me to do so, I went and signed up. You can see my profile, or what little of it is accessible to people who are not in my friends list, at this link. If you do decide to try and add me as a friend, then please for Odin's sake, send me a message with the request explaining how I know you or that you are on my LiveJournal friends list. Otherwise I will just get confused and possibly turn the request down, which I do not believe you would particularly like, unless you get some kind of enjoyment out of being turned down. And yes, I do know people who enjoy being told no, go away, or shut up or piss off. It really is a wiggly world out there, you know. Okay, final statement for the time being: the photo exhibition I threatened in my previous entry will eventually be brought online, it is just going to take a little more time than usual to touch up the photographs to my satisfaction. Rest assured that Summer and friends do want you to see them monkeying around with screws and planks of wood.
Anyway, that concludes another entry in my catalogue of woes and bitchings. Until I post next, keep the following in mind: There is no form of life lower than those who say they will do something and then do not without so much as a word of explanation.