Thursday, May 18, 2023

 Thursday, May 18, 2023

I weighed 146.5 this morning. Given all the Hersey’s milk chocolate, this was a relief. I thought I’d be right back up to 148. A friend who follows my updates asked if it was good for me to be so forensic about my weight. The loss of my great shape is an issue, but not the main one. The rapid weight gain and thickness through the middle rather than all over my body is a sign of diabetes. I was monitoring to see what I could get away with. I asked my doctor to prescribe a glucose monitor and diabetes medication so I could make sure it didn’t cross the line.

     I had a dental appointment at 11:30. I had a cavity that needed filling and a slight adjustment to the cap he installed on my last visit. It was tapping against one of my front teeth, a capped tooth but not a post. He had told me that I had cavities in my bottom teeth that needed filling. He looked at them and said I had plaque buildup. What!! I use the bristle toothpick, floss, brush with an electric brush, water pik, and rinse with Crest mouthwash. How in God’s name do I have any plaque? He scrapped some off to show me. Sure enough, I had plaque buildup at the gum line. I have to push my lip out of the way to reach into that space with the toothbrush. Maintaining a clean mouth is a piece of work. He told me to buy disclosing tablets. Where could I buy them? I was heading to Safeway. Could I get them there? Possibly, but I had a better chance at Long’s.  

    I used disclosing tablets many years ago. I popped one in my mouth one day as candy. Mike saw my mouth turn blue or red; I don’t know the color. He freaked out.  He thought I was bleeding.

    I made Target my first stop. They have a Long’s there. I wanted to pick up a few items there. They’re always cheaper than Safeway. They couldn’t find disclosing tablets in the dental aisle. I couldn’t find an employee to help. I looked for the other items on my list. They had celery. I have fallen in love with celery with cream cheese and salt snacks. I bought two packages. They last for a long time. Cream cheese was next on my list. They didn’t have any. It’s Hawaii. Items are often missing from the shelves, off to Long’s.   

   Long’s didn’t have disclosing tablets, either. I didn’t bother looking for cream cheese, either. They only carry very small sizes of items. They did have Hersey’s milk chocolate nuggets with almonds on sale, though. I grabbed four of those. Safeway was my next stop. 

    My shoulder X-ray showed no particular problems with my shoulder, but it did have aortic atherosclerosis. He said mushrooms were the best for that. I have no idea. There’s some chemical in them that’s good for what ails you. Leave them out in the direct sun, and the chemical gets stronger. I bought the first package of mushrooms I found, white button mushrooms packaged for a quick snack with a side of roasted garlic butter. Further down the aisle, I saw a section devoted to mushrooms. Wow! The big ones are expensive. I was going to start with the ones I bought. Then, go to the dairy aisle for cream and cottage cheese. They had one small container of original cream cheese and little else of any variety. Is this a country-wide shortage of cream cheese? I did find a small container of cottage cheese with chives and grabbed it. It might be cheaper to buy Costco-sized portions of both. Even if they go bad before I finish them, they’ll be cheaper than these small containers.

  My last stop was at the computer repair shop, Jack Be Click, to pick up my computer, my new Apple, and the ancient one that I hung on to, thank God. He could download all the data from the old one that wasn’t on iCloud or OneDrive and move it to the new one.  

   Then, I raced home for my 1:30 appointment with the acupuncturist. I asked her to continue working on my left arm. It hurt enough at night that it woke me up. Besides working on the muscles in my arm, she worked on the ones in my upper chest and back. The pressure on my chest muscles made me cry out in pain. The ones in my back weren’t as bad. In both cases, my muscle tension was so tight they could be used in a well-tuned string instrument.  

     I signed in for my 4 p.m. Zoom session with third-grade KPS. There was no response. I called her grandmother repeatedly; there was no response. We have missed many more sessions than we have had. Out of the nine scheduled sessions, we’ve only met four times.