In Theory, When You Take A Vacation Day, You're Supposed To Relax

I was kind of on the fence today on what to write for a post. I originally wanted to write about getting caught by the language police at work a couple of weeks ago. But it's the type of post that requires a lot of thought, which usually means that I write the first draft out by hand. Which, if you know anything about me after four years of blogging, usually means that a very nasty and very pointed post will pollute this blog as an end result.

Since I really wasn't in the mood to construct a well thought out post, I thought that for general ha-ha's and slight head scratching I would share with you my slightly screwed up week.

On Saturday, the day after my wonderful phone calls to the IRS and TD Bank, I bought my new/used car: a 2009 blackish gray Nissan Altima. That was the easiest part of my Saturday. The rest of the Saturday was spent running around trying to get my morning errands done so that I could pick up the car before running another afternoon errand and then going to a family friend's 25th wedding anniversary party.

Now repeat after me: Murphy's Law is a very good thing.

Anything that could go wrong, did. I bought my money orders from the post office and staggered home (more on the staggering shortly) to pay my bills. As I got to the last bill, I realized that I was short a money order. So I hopped into my-previous-car-that-I'd-just-removed-the-insurance-and-placed-it-on-the-other and drove to the post office to register a very tiny complaint.

One thing that you probably don't know is that I very seldom complain about things. I honestly try to nurture a good working/customer relationship with the entities/people that I deal with on a daily basis, so that when I do have to make a complaint, it gets taken care of promptly.

And this was no exception. About a half hour later, the problem was resolved and I was able to get my money order later in the evening (they found it and I had them put it in my p.o. box).

The rest of the weekend went okay, did a little writing and basically relaxed and chilled. Even my Monday went relatively well. However, my Tuesday sucked major moose testicles.

I woke up about 3:30a in a world of excruciating pain. I couldn't bend or straighten out my leg, and I couldn't fall back to sleep. When 5:30a rolled around, I was still in excruciating pain, so as I managed to hop around on one foot, I told Joanne that once Jenelle was on her way to school, I needed her to drive me to the E.R.

About three to four weeks ago, I banged/twisted my knee. Not sure how I did it, but it had gotten progressively worse during the month until Tuesday, when I couldn't do anything.

Another positive customer service experience was had as the hospital that I went to made everything smooth as silk. Even though I live about the same distance from each major city hospital (Hartford Hospital and the Hospital of Central Connecticut, located in New Britain), I make it point to always go to New Britain. Why? Because it's never crowded, the wait is very tolerable, and you're treated like a person, so a three hour visit to the E.R. in New Britain feels like a one hour visit.

Case in point: when I'd got there, I didn't even have time to get comfortable in the waiting room as I immediately got called to triage. A few minutes later, was put into an examination room, and within the hour had x-rays done, blood work done and I.V. with some major pain meds pumped in (took them only two tries to get a line in, which is a record for me, because I blow lines like crazy).

About an hour later, a diagnosis was made, fluid in the knee, and a minor surgical procedure performed (big ass 18 gauge needles that removed about 50cc's of yellow fluid).

While I was waiting for the lab work to come back, which was the only bad part of the visit because it took about an hour and a half for the lab work, I managed to talk to my boss at work and fix a few problems over the phone (multi-tasking at its finest).

After discharge is when things got to be interesting. Because of the major changes made to my health insurance, I spent about fifteen minutes on the phone with my insurance company making sure that I could get two prescriptions filled. Why? Because my insurance has a policy that 'scripts need to be 90 days/minimum three refills, so I wanted to make sure that they would fill these two one shot 'scripts.

With my phone call concluded, my wife then drove me to lunch, to the bank and to the package store. If you think that this isn't interesting, think again. I am a horrible passenger. I am the equivalent of Sheldon Cooper from "The Big Bang Theory" and Walter Mitty's wife rolled into one.

Anyways, when I got home, I spent the rest of the day staggering (remember later? this isn't it) from floor to floor in a semi-successful attempt at relaxing.

Wednesday picked up from where Tuesday evening left off at (remember later? this ain't it either) and I gimped my way through the morning and got driven to work. At work, we basically staggered through the day (remember later? this is later) playing catch up with my work and trying to fly under the radar.

However, the one highlight from Wednesday was this: I had called my primary in the morning because that's what the discharge instructions required. He gave me permission to contact my ortho for a follow up. So I called up my ortho, who I was already seeing for my shoulders (keep this fact in mind), to schedule an appointment.

She took my information and confirmed my insurance (keep this fact in mind too), then told me I had to go back to the E.R. to get the results of my lab work and my x-rays. I politely told her that was something that I never had to do before, so I asked if they could request it. She said because I wasn't a patient yet, they couldn't do it.

We continued in this same vein for another minute or so, until I finally said, "I'm already seeing the doctor for my shoulder. Doesn't that count?"

My friends, my phone went dead for about five seconds, then she came back on the line and scheduled an appointment for today.

And that my friends, is how my week went.

Oh yeah, here's the connection to the post title: I'd originally planned to take all day Thursday and Friday morning off as vacation time. However, I had a job interview on Thursday and have my follow up appointment this Friday afternoon. So no, I'm not relaxing Thursday and Friday because I gots a little bit of stress for those two days and possibly the weekend.

Yay, me.