Health Accountability

I had the same primary care doctor in Tracy for the 19 years we lived there.  I liked him. He had a good vibe, was encouraging and always did whatever he could to help with whatever was wrong health wise.  In all the time I saw him, he never once scheduled a follow-up.  Not once.  Just did annual blood work, reviewed the results and called it all done.  I never felt 'cheated' 'cuz I never expected anything else.  He is a busy doctor and expects his patients to do what they need to do. 

Today, I had a follow-up appointment with the Physician's Assistant I've seen a few times since we moved here.  The reminder call on Friday sort of threw me 'cuz the appointment wasn't on my phone calendar - but I confirmed I would be there.  Set an alarm this morning - hard to do after months of no alarms needed - and got there but told J. as I was getting ready 'I'm not even sure what this appointment is for.  I think he wants to follow-up on a new medication he prescribed for my arthritis'.

He followed up on that - and did a finger blood draw for an in-office A1C to check on my diabetes.  I'm doing well - very 'under control' - but considering I rarely test myself and often forget my morning medication, I felt like I got lucky. 

A 'doctor' who follows-up and wants his patients to be accountable.  That's sure new.  He makes me want to do better - test my blood every couple of days, take the medication regularly and 'try to walk a few times a week'.

I wanted to say 'technically, I do walk a fair amount - frequenting casinos results in lots of walking - really, my Fitbit confirms it!'.  But I don't.  I'm sure it counts but....a 20 minutes walk around the neighborhood or hiking up the hill at dusk a few nights a week would be a good thing to do.

I dreaded the alarm most of the night - every time I'd wake up to go to the bathroom, I'd do the math of 'only [enter # of hours and/or minutes] until the alarm goes off'.

When it went off, I was in a vivid dream state - so I remember the dream completely and was looking forward to finishing it.  But I woke up wide eyed and ready for the day so that was good.  Made a cup of coffee, settled into the study with the door closed and eased into a Monday.

Maybe setting an alarm isn't a bad thing when it gets your day started a couple of hours earlier than usual.

J. is playing golf tomorrow, the additional window shutters we ordered for my bedroom (to cover the three high windows which let in way more light than I like at a 4:45AM sunrise) will be installed on Wednesday.  I will do a free play trip to Atlantis on Wednesday and we'll go together on Saturday for free play and a meal.  We have $3450 in comps - not a typo - and since most of my play these days are on comp multiplier days, they are accumulating pretty darn quickly.  I'm going to cash in some to use for free play at some point - $1,000 in comps = $500 in free play.  Totally worth it considering we have no idea how we would ever use all the comps we have/earn.  We could totally get rooms at Atlantis for any visitors who want to stay in Reno vs. our house in Carson.  And spa days - we could do spa days weekly for a few months, I guess.

Heading out to the backyard to clean and refill the bird baths - we've seen birds using them during the day and when I was at Atlantis on Friday evening, J. saw tons of jack rabbits congregating by our back fence and we're pretty sure they might be using them during the night.  That's the idea - providing a fresh water source to assist wildlife.  I know I might feel differently when those same rabbits end up eating my garden in the future but for now, they can come visit anytime.