I feel like I'm dancing a minuet. I take a couple steps forward, a couple steps back, and a couple side to side. I can't tell whether I'm making progress or making busy work.
I went to the rheumatologist for the first time this afternoon. At first, as I tried to give her my medical history, she stopped me on two separate occasions, to say she was confused about why I was talking about my lupus diagnosis. The second time she explained that she had lab results with a negative ANA. I was eternally grateful that I had planned ahead for this possibility, and I presented to her my printouts from the first two blood draws, with positive ANA and strong positive Smith antibodies. Things went smoother after that. She did take me seriously on the things I reported, which was something that had caused me great anxiety in the weeks leading up to this visit. I worried that she would say that she didn't really think it was lupus, and maybe I should just go home and wait until things change. The page full of symptoms, of which I checkmarked 80-90% of them, be damned, if I hadn't had those blood test results, I might have realized my worst fear. That was the good part, that she accepted that I was really in the club. The sideways steps were that she needed more fluid samples from me, and that the chest x-ray she took was really more for a baseline view, not diagnostic of the problems I've been having, that I told her about. The backwards steps were that she sent me back down the chain of command to the GP for the chest and lung pain, and for several of my symptoms, she said that they weren't really in her purview. In fact, there were several things I brought up that she said she didn't think were lupus at all. Does this mean that there are indeed other diseases yet to be discovered? I shudder to think.
After a full 24 hours without power, we were back on the grid in time for me to shower before Rotary, which was a positive outcome. The upgraded panel is a work of art, compared to the pile of shredded cheese that the old one contained. There are no more spliced wires inside the box, and there is an actual main breaker that turns off power to the entire thing. Welcome to the 21st Century, Park West. We've been waiting for you to join us. Unfortunately, somewhere in the long afternoon of hot tub installation, some junction might not have been properly made, and it was only after a half-tub of water was put in that we learned that something keeps "nuisance tripping" the breaker for the tub. So tomorrow we get to find a way to drain that water back out (storing it if at all possible, so we aren't wasting like 300 gallons of the stuff), move the tub to have better access to the back side (it should not have been so close to the wall to begin with), and start over. Maybe by tomorrow night I'll be able to sit outside in warm water and enjoy the cool spring nights.
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