7 posts tagged “cold”
In honor of the weather and, well, other stuff. I've been listening to this all day.
It's -12 right now. With the wind chill, that comes out to around -25. Fahrenheit. The high today will be almost -9. Beach weather.
Parts of which make up my new banner.
Was in a minor vehicle accident yesterday morning on the way to work. Temperature was 20 degrees and road was very slippery. I lost control of the car going around a bend and went over a foot-high divider. Shredded the front left tire and bent the rim, but otherwise there doesn't seem to be any damage to the car. My ego, however, was severely wounded.
I managed to limp the car along about a block to a gas station, pull in and call for a tow truck. Waited almost two hours for rescue. Apparently I wasn't the only one having problems that morning. I'm sitting there in the car, feeling like a complete idiot, so I called Brother Man. He had the best line: "Don't you wish you smoked right now? This is the perfect time for a cigarette." Yeah, that or a martini.
I feel like I've been run over by a freight train. I had zero degree Kelvin energy this morning -- I absolutely could not move. I spent 30 minutes after the alarm went off lying in bed petting Stinky. My nose is running a marathon and my throat hurts. I think Wife gave me her cold.
On top of that, I slipped on some ice two nights ago and fell on my right knee, right where the incisions were. I lay on the ground swearing for five minutes before I could get up again. Nothing like a good whack on the old sore spot to aggravate an old wound and set your recovery back a week.
At least it's Bike Week in Daytona. Lots of racing this weekend (some of it even covered on TV!), including the AMA Superbike season opener.
I had another enlightening conversation with the fertility clinic the other day, where the suggested that, since I am a man and biologically incapable of having an egg implanted in me, that my insurance would not cover IVF. So, I called my mostly worthless health insurance company, spent 20 minutes on hold waiting for a supervisor, and yes indeed, they don't cover men for IVF. If Wife was on my plan it might be covered, after submitting a letter of predetermination from our doctor, but not me. They cover sperm aspiration (thankfully not necessary in our case -- I can still get them out the old fashioned way) and some diagnostic testing, but not any procedures that will help us.
This sucks, and has put a big dent in our plans, hopes, dreams, and urban renewal. Wife has become very depressed. She's mopey, drinking too much at night, and not really giving a shit about anything around our place. I'm tenacious by nature, and not ready to give up yet. I'll talk to a (an?) Urologist to see if there's anything I can do to get my numbers up. I also want another session our Fertility doctor to see if there's something less expensive than IVF we can try. We still haven't received final numbers on costs, but I think we'll have a few thousand left in coverage on Wife's insurance -- not enough for a round of IVF, but there's gotta be something we can try.
I have an MRI scheduled on my right knee scheduled for Friday night. All the major joints in my body are stiff and sore -- knees, elbows, shoulders. Getting down on my knees for 10 minutes last night to plug some cables into the back of a computer was torture. And I'm already taking 600mg Ibuprofen three times per day. Something's got to change. The pain is making me cranky and short tempered -- even more so than usual.
Oh, and on top of all the other fun I've been having, our heating system broke yesterday afternoon. It's 20 degrees outside and only slightly warmer inside. The boiler people were called, heat came on once about 10pm, and that was it for the night. They got called again this morning, and someone is rooting around in the valves and thermostats now. The thermometer in the living room, which usually reads high, says 61 right now. Even the cats are wearing turtleneck sweaters.
I'm tired.
The week began, innocently enough, with a mere upset stomach on Monday. Wasn't feeling good at all, but add in the fact that paychecks still hadn't arrived (they were due Friday) and I said "the Hell with it" and called in dead that day with no guilt. But I really was sick. Honest!
The rest of the week my upset stomach disappeared, to be replaced by a sore throat for a couple of days, then on to a runny nose. I'm Jewish, so when I say runny nose, I mean REALLY running. As in it looks like I'm trying to blow my brains out through my nose. This is generally not fun to look at, unless you're a really obscure scientist who never gets invites to "those" sorts of parties.
Plus, my wife's getting up and some God-awful hour like 5:30 to get poked and prodded in places where one heterosexual woman ain't supposed to be poking and prodding another heterosexual woman (unless there are guys watching), all in the name of science. It's called a fertility clinic. If we learn anything, I'll sure I'll let you know. In the mean time, it's off to bed for me.
I'm tired.
P.S. Email any thoughts, comments, suggestions, complaints, etc., to zeliotrope <at sign> yahoo.com.
