After taking my Advair, I started feeling really chilled, shakey, short of breath, and light-headed. My rescue inhaler does give me the shakes from time to time but this was extreme. I called the clinic and they said they could get me in at 2:45. I told them I needed to see someone sooner and she said to come down to the ER. The attending physician (thankfully) had some spare time so he saw me at the clinic instead (which saved me $30 of co-pay). It took him all of 3 minutes to diagnose me with a bad sinus infection which I’ve apparently had for two months. (This would explain me sleeping 13 hours a day.) He also ordered bloodwork (confirmed the infection), a chest x-ray (get a baseline and make sure I don’t have any bronchitis), and a pulmonary output reading (baseline and also to see if the nebulizer helped).

The diagonosis: a sinus infection and a reaction to one of the meds in the Advair. He replaced the Advair with Flowvent, which I know that I’m not going to react with and he gave me some Zithromax to get rid of the sinus infection. (I hate Zithromax because it rips up my stomach but it’s one of the better ones that they can give me that won’t give me massive panic attacks.) He also gave me some Singulair to see if a maintenance med will help and he got me more of the nosespray they gave me for allergies.

So why the “medical stupidity” in the subject line? This visit would not have been necessary if the doctor I saw last week had paid attention and not just thrown pills at me. She didn’t check my face, barely checked my breathing (it was the nurse who gave me a peak flow and the doctor just said it was normal, which means nothing because my peakflows are higher than average). She also didn’t see if I was reactive to any of the meds in the Advair (I’d had both before one had made me vomit).

Jon taught my Confirmandi tonight and I got to chill with my O.C’s (Original Cats — my boys) and correct faith statements. My kids (or at least those who have turned theirs in) have written some really excellent and profound things. Their insights on living a Christian life are better than the ones I’ve heard from some adults! I think they enjoyed having Jon teach — he’s a little more laidback than me and he told them stories about growing up as a PK.

I had to pay bills this morning and this is what I discovered:

Case #1: MCI
They messed up switching our account over when we moved and deleted the mileage program we had with Northwest Airlines. I’d asked them if they had and they promised to do it. Apparently, THEY SCREWED UP!!!!!!!!!!! Lost mileage because of their stupidity: about 1500-2000 miles before the benefits kick in again. Considering we’re only with them for the mileage (it gets us closer to free tickets), I think I’m going to look into someone else.

Case #2: LMH Health Systems
This is the hospital where we lived in Newark. They are under much fire because of incompetent hiring practices and mistakes made in patient care. (In my case, they gave me Demerol [made me vomit uncontrollably and dehydrated me] which is in the same class as codeine [which I am very allergic to] and then they sent me home with Percocet which has a codeine derivative. The only reason I didn’t end up worse than I was is that I read the label in my drugged state and sent the meds back.) Apparently, their ineptness extends to their billing department. They neglected to change the billing address on our account (as well as making sure the *names* were correct — they gave me Jon’s last name and apparently can’t seem to figure out how to change it in the database) and when I realized I hadn’t seen a bill from them in a month, I called. They said they’d sent one out and were about to declare us delinquent on our payment schedule. I explained to them that we’d moved two months ago and that we had done the address change thing four times on the last two bills. (In other words, they screwed up because they neglected to do anything other than credit the check. It’s not like this is hard.)

Why oh why are people this stupid handling my information?!?!?!?!?!?

50 points to anyone who can tell me the origin of the names of those days. 🙂

Flambéing Rose Petals
Jon and I forgot to order palm branches to dry and burn to make the ashes for today so we got some old roses from the florist and decided to dry the petals and burn them for ashes. I dried out the petals, but they wouldn’t light on fire. We tried everything from cooking spray to vodka and nothing would light them. We tried doing this in the middle of the kitchen (mainly to avoid that wind that “sweeps down the plains”) and all we got was smoke and ash floating around from the paper towels we burned to try to get the fire going. (We got ashes from the people with whom we dined that night so all is good for today.) Note to self: save palm branches from Palm Sunday this year! (Well… or order in time from Augsburg Fortress.) Now to weave the stems into a crown of thorns for the service tonight…

Pancakes, Clergy, and Liqueur
We were invited to a Shrove Tuesday pancake supper by two pastors in Jon’s conference (who happen to be related to some people on my blogroll) and it was absolutely lovely. Supper was fabulous and completely bad for me. I tried Bailey’s for the first time and enjoyed it — it was probably good that I had all the bacon or I would have been really inebriated. The company was lovely and it was kind of nice that people assumed that I was also a pastor. (I did feel kind of bad when I had to explain that I was in process, not quite ordained yet.) The drive home was pretty uneventful except for missing the turn from US-12 to US-59 and having to find a turnaround place in the pitch black prairie.

Ash Wednesday… Thus Far
I woke up this morning with an asthma attack and found out that my inhaler was almost expired. I got a doctor’s appointment and had to explain to the doctor that yes, my peak flow was above average for my age and height but it was low for me. (I tend to be 100 above normal. I wasn’t all that impressed with her because checking my nose, throat, and lungs was kind of an afterthought for her when it’s pretty important to check for any signs of bronchitis with someone as severely asthmatic as me.) I came home with lots of meds to treat allergies, a new rescue inhaler, a prescription for Advair (now that I have prescription insurance and only have to pay $20 for it instead of $120/month), and a new spacer for my rescue inhaler. We’ll see if it does anything. Now to de-cat the upstairs and clean the dining room for my first year Confirmation class…

Question: What has ruled the last 24 hours at Casa K-M?

Glasses
Jon popped one of his lenses on the bed and we haven’t been able to find it. (I’m thinking it was gone before it hit the bed.) Lift up some prayers that we find it — I’m not in the mood to make a journey to Watertown to get it replaced, even if it would be covered by insurance.

Basketball
After a trip to Watertown for banking, lunch, and Wal-Mart, we quickly headed home to drop off groceries and then went to the high school to watch some basketball. Three of my confirmands were playing (one in each game in addition to a girl from the churches) and two of them were playing games at the same time. I watched the first half of B-squad and the second half of C-squad before I headed in to watch varsity. Varsity and C-squad lost (a shame because they were playing our big rivals) and B-squad kicked major butt. I usually am bored to tears by sporting events, but I had a great time tonight. I also got some work done on my afghan — a good thing since I’m having some problems in being able to work on it…

Bossy Cats
This morning I was awakened by 13 lbs of fluffy tabby roaring loudly for me to get up and follow him. I followed him downstairs into the Confirmation room and he walked into the chapel… where Jon was doing devos and his brother and sisters were “helping”. Methinks the cats are in favor of family devotions???

Off I go to fold bulletins like a good little khouria!

The optometrist called this morning and told me that my glasses were in. Jon and I went to go get them before heading to the churches to do chores and they’re really nice.

Questions from Krissy:

1.) You??ve moved around quite a bit in the last five or so years. Of the places you??ve lived, which has been your favorite? Why?
Probably Santa Cruz because it’s where I really came into myself as the person I am. It was where I fully lived out my faith for the first time, where I struggled with a lot of major issues, and where I fell really in love with the land. I still miss the oceans, the redwoods, the climate, the atmosphere, Bookshop Santa Cruz, the coffeeshops, the people, the fog, my churches, and the mountains. I want to visit the next time I’m home-home (as in San Jose instead of just California) but I have no idea when that will be.

Ohio was kind of a transitory time for me and it was really culture shock because the people are so different from me. It’s very strange being in a state where people like Bush and where Republicans run everything. (I actually voted Republican pretty universally while there — the Democrats tend to be a little too left-wing and mob-controlled.) I like Minnesota so far, but I’ve only really lived here for two months — not enough time to judge.

2.) What do you like best about being a khouria? What do you like the least?
(For those of you who are really puzzled by this, a khouria is a pastor’s wife. It’s the Syrian Orthodox term for it which I adopted because pastorina is too flowery and I’m not a vicarette any more. I also really like that the Orthodox have a title for the pastor’s wife because she has a ministry of her own.)

The best thing is that I get afforded a whole lot more respect than I’d probably get if I was just a 24 year old laywoman. The people here aren’t nasty or anything but it’s kind of nice to ask that something be done and have it done with almost no questions asked. I have the freedom to involve myself in whatever I want to involve myself in and I think people actually listen to my input more than they would if I was just a regular layperson. After going through some times in my Christian life when I was voiceless in what happened in the Christian groups and churches that I was part of, I really like having a voice in how things are done.

The hardest thing is that I get held up to a higher standard because I get so much respect. Most people in the congregation are really nice about letting me be me but my actions are scrutinized. This means that I have to watch what I say and do, because any mispoken word is going to cause some big problems. In the minds of a lot of the older people, I’m on par with clergy (which does have its benefits) and it means that people unnecessarily bend over backwards to accomodate me. For example, Jon and I were out visiting some older members (one of whom was recovering from a heart attack) and they asked us to stay for dinner. They gave us frozen pizza (which was really great because Jon’s vice is cheese pizza) and the wife was apologizing to me that the house was a mess, that dinner wasn’t fancier, and for a whole bunch of other things that were completely out of her control. I was thinking “OK… your husband is recovering from a week in the hospital and we showed up completely unexpectedly — we’re very OK with frozen pizza if that’s what you had on hand!” Jon and I are really not fancy people and it’s kind of embarassing to have people falling at our feet because we happen to be the pastor and pastor’s wife. I mean, we were just there to give Communion to her husband — dinner was kind of a surprise to us too. (We got there at 4 and didn’t get home until 9 because they insisted on socializing for a spell.)

Another hard thing about this is that people think that I have a lot more power than I have and that I know everything that is going on. I may be married to Jon but it doesn’t mean that I know everything that’s happening at each church in a given week. This also means that if someone isn’t at church to do something (teach Sunday school, hand out bulletins, accompany the WELCA hymn-sing,…) it passes to me and I can’t always fill those roles. I don’t have a problem handing out bulletins but I have worship duties at both churches right now, which means that I can’t teach Sunday school. As for accompanying the hymn-sing, let’s just say that my piano-playing abilities are remaining under a bushel basket for the time being and leave it at that!

3.) If you had a perfect day in which to do absolutely anything you wanted, how would you spend it?
This is hard because I’m fond of my everyday life — things vary so much that I tend not to get sick of my life.

It would probably be spent having laptime with my kitties in bed in the morning (since all 4 have excellent motors and are very good at snuggling), spending some time outdoors (maybe at Lac qui Parle when spring comes), getting a lot of work done on my crocheting, and eating dinner at one of the places in town that makes really good diner food.

Another perfect one would be spending some time with the people of the churches doing something like VBS or a workday. Despite being very introverted, I love working with people and the people at Jon’s churches are really super cool. It would give me fellowship time and also time outside. (It’s February in Minnesota. I’m starting to get cabin fever.)

4.) What will you name your next set of kitties?
I’m not going to know that until I meet them. Each kitty is very different and their name has to match their personality. Edda is a very mellow and bookish kind of cat, so it fits that she’s named after a genre of literature. Freya is a little berzerker but at the same time very affectionate, so she fits her namesake well. (Freyja is the Viking goddess of love.) Cullen just looks like he should be a Cullen and Finian’s episcopal namesake fits the regalness of his looks.

As far as the cat we’ll adopt next, it will probably be another tabby since we’re very fond of them. (We joke that Edda is a tabby who played in ink or with a Sharpie pen. Freya is a white cat with tabby splotches and the boys are red tabbies. Jon calls Freya his “tabbage patch” cat.) I think Tabitha or Abbie would be good for a girl. A male tabby might be Daniel (as in Daniel Striped Tiger from “Mr. Roger’s Neighborhood”) or Tybalt. We’ll have to see.

5.) What is your favorite Loreena McKennitt song? How did you get introduced to her music?
I like almost all of her stuff so I don’t have any absolute favorites. I’d have to say that my current favorites are:

I got into her music 11.5 years ago when my mom heard her on NPR and bought her current tape (The Visit). I got really addicted to it because it’s Celticy (at least that CD was) and her music is written in my range. I saw her in concert in December 1994 and it’s still one of the top concerts I’ve been to. (I am really irritated that I didn’t get to see her in San Francisco in 1998 — I was either in Ireland or being treated for walking pneumonia at the time.) (Someone on my blogroll actually knows her through a friend and I am very jealous of them.) I love her music because it’s basically a creative outlet for her scholarly interests — she even includes wonderful notes on the songs in her liners.

If you??d like to take part in this meme:
* Leave a comment on this post requesting an interview.
* I??ll ask you five questions.
* You??ll answer the questions in a public post to your journal, including these instructions (or ones like them).

Please sing the title of this post to the tune of “I’m Alive, Awake, Alert, Enthusiastic”. The management thanks you.

I dragged myself out from under my purring lumps of fur (especially the purring lump of black satin on my chest) this morning, did devos (again… Jen did morning devos — someone call CNN!!!), and put on as many layers as I could to brave the elements and walk 8 blocks to my eye doctor. (And yes, I’m too stubborn and Irish to call someone for a ride, so being cold is my own fault.) The exam was a 3 on a scale of 1 to 10 (1 being invasive painful procedure and 10 being a routine check up) and they had to dilate my eyes because I couldn’t keep them open for him to just do the normal check with lights. (I’m really light-sensitive as most people who have lived with me can attest to. My freshman roommate asked me frequently if I had some vampire blood in me.) So… I look like I’m stoned as my pupils haven’t gone back to normal yet. It turns out that my astigmatism has worsened exponentially, so I indeed do require a new prescription. During the exam, my eyes started doubling things (probably the machine’s fault) and I think this confused the optometrist. That normally doesn’t happen even when my eyes relax, so I’m wondering what was up.

I ordered the glasses and they’re going to be about $55 more than the refund check from our old insurance company (which I wasn’t expecting to get so this isn’t too bad for us to afford). The new ones are going to be similar to what I had in college except the frames are more of a toasted almond color. They’re going to be bifocals again and thankfully the optical place in town will warranty them so that they’ll fix any problems with my prescription since the doctor admitted it was going to be a strange one. They gave me the little dark funky glasses for my walk home and it was probably a good thing because it was blowing snow and they provided pretty good eye protection. (I had my hooded parka tightened around my face so that I looked like I was a niqabi woman.) Jon got home shortly after I did and we went to the store to get food, stopping by UBC to let one of our treasurers know that we both got home OK. We then found out that her grandson was born this morning — yay!!!!

Now… I get to go quickly prep some lessons for Confirmation. It’s my BIG class (Jon took my first year students) so say prayers that I can make it through. I also have to address council tonight (which is meeting in our living room). Oyyyyy… I’ll be happy when the day is over.