Friday, August 20, 2010
Forgot to mention: I went to the opthamologist a couple of days ago. The rheumatologist wanted me to be tested for dry eye to see if there maybe it was significant enough to label me a Sjogren's patient without doing the more invasive testing, which turns out to be right only about half the time anyway. I knew the drops would be nasty when he gave me a tissue before he even got them out. He put a couple of drops in my eyes--they stung, but not too badly, but it all seemed to run out of my eyes immediately--and not tears, either, just the icky drops. The stains on the tissue were bright yellow. [Great, now I'm gonna look like a hepatitis patient!] Then he looked in my eye with with a magnifier thingie--you know, you put your chin here, and he zooms in on the other side? Well, this magnifier was the size and shape of an ink pen, and he zoomed right the fuck in, all while shining a light into my retina so strong I was afraid I'd be seeing spots for hours! He actually crept in close enough to touch my freaking eyeballs. Not cool. So then he says, "Well, your eyes are mildy dry. It could be a number of things. Sometimes they can just change with the weather. I wouldn't rule Sjogren's out, though."
Ok, the weather? You mean like wind? humidity? pollen count? That day's weather was 86° and quite humid, slightly breezy, and I hadn't sneezed in almost a week. I could breathe exceptionally well, in fact. I don't think it was the weather.
But it does not surprise me that once again nobody can tell me if I have a disease or not, or that I have one nobody's ever heard of and the best test they have is painful (a biopsy of the inner lip down at the gumline) and isn't reliable enough to tell you anything?
I will say that the new drug I'm on seems to be working. I had to gradually increase the dose, so I've only been on it full strength for a few days now, but I'm noticing marked improvement in most of my pain. I have a couple of "tired" feeling spots, and after a long day, I'm pretty tense and sore, but I'm still feeling better.
My hands, though, are not feeling better--in fact, a little worse. One joint in my index finger in particular really freaking hurts, and has hurt like that for about 2 weeks now. At first I thought I'd injured it, but I couldn't remember doing anything that would have done this. But it should have at least gotten better by now. There's no swelling, either. So perhaps it IS the Sjogren's syndrome. I don't want that to be true--there's no treatment for Sjogren's. They just throw painkillers at you. Just what I need--to get hooked on percoset or vicodin. Blaaaaaah.
I just about lost my cool with D-ball and S at work yesterday and today. Boss is on vacation this week, and the longer he's been gone, the worse their behavior has gotten. I was off Tue. & Wed., so they had all that time to irritate B. On Thurs I worked an 11 hr shift, and it was a freaking nightmare: there was a CRAP-TON of opening work to do, since they'd had a super busy day on Wed. Two people open. The "supervisor" does the opening work--reporting, reviewing, a ton of courtesy calls (yesterday there were 11, today there were 12) and so on. The 2nd person handles the majority of the customers, and does a short list of courtesy calls (usually between 2-5 people). Mornings are not usually terribly busy, and the opening reporting stuff can get pretty hairy, so being repeatedly interrupted can get very stressful. Well, we were busier than usual, so I had to get up a few times to wait on people. I would just deal with that, except that every time S had a spare minute, he'd sit down and get on his cell phone. And he'd be so into whatever he was doing, he wouldn't notice when a customer came to the teller window. Rrrrrgh. 11:30 comes and goes and still no D-ball. S texts him and D-ball says he thought we were switched to the late schedule (when we're behind our account quota, we stay open an hour later). An understandable mistake, but no. 12:30 comes and goes, and STILL no D-ball, and we're getting pretty damned busy now and could really have used a 3rd person and I'm STILL not done with the morning work! He rolls in at 12:50. "You're late." "I thought we were on the late schedule." "Even if we were, you're still late."
Rrrrrrrrrgh.
Did I mention I couldn't go to lunch until he got in? Why would he care, right?
He clocks in, I get him bought into a drawer. Once it's up and running, he immediately opens up Craigslist. Seriously? What really pisses me off about that is not 10 days ago we ALL got our asses chewed because "SOMEBODY" has been spending way too much time and bandwidth surfing on sites that have nothing to do with customers, naming Craigslist specifically. We were told that IT had complained to Boss about it (don't know if it's true, but let's just assume). Not 2 days later, D-ball was back on Craigslist. [eyeroll] He and S proceded through the day in this manner, surfing, texting, standing around chatting. I finally finish morning work, and grab some lunch. I get back at 2pm, and there they are still leaning on the counter, phones in hand (they've been repeatedly told it's not allowed to have them where customers can see). I look in the pending work file, and there's a whole new crap-ton of papers in there they could have been doing all morning, but no, there it sits for ME. I did it, fine--that just means I'd be too busy to help when the lines started piling up at 4pm. Well, it was the same story today. I opened with D this time, and he was on his phone and Craigslist the second he was done opening his drawer, brazenly walking around texting. He even sat there and placed at least 2 ads on craigslist while I was making my courtesy calls (naturally HE skipped HIS courtesy calls)! More than once, I had to get up to help someone because he didn't notice people waiting. I was INCHES away from losing it, so I tattled on them both to Boss via email. He called about 10 minutes later, asking me for details, wanting to know if I said anything to them (technically, no--but I did give them pointed looks that made it clear their phones were not welcome. 'I can't say much, though, I'm not their boss.') D-ball was busy actually working at that time, so he wanted D-ball and S to both call him "from a BRANCH phone." Unfortunately, I had to leave, so I missed the show.
Ok, the weather? You mean like wind? humidity? pollen count? That day's weather was 86° and quite humid, slightly breezy, and I hadn't sneezed in almost a week. I could breathe exceptionally well, in fact. I don't think it was the weather.
But it does not surprise me that once again nobody can tell me if I have a disease or not, or that I have one nobody's ever heard of and the best test they have is painful (a biopsy of the inner lip down at the gumline) and isn't reliable enough to tell you anything?
I will say that the new drug I'm on seems to be working. I had to gradually increase the dose, so I've only been on it full strength for a few days now, but I'm noticing marked improvement in most of my pain. I have a couple of "tired" feeling spots, and after a long day, I'm pretty tense and sore, but I'm still feeling better.
My hands, though, are not feeling better--in fact, a little worse. One joint in my index finger in particular really freaking hurts, and has hurt like that for about 2 weeks now. At first I thought I'd injured it, but I couldn't remember doing anything that would have done this. But it should have at least gotten better by now. There's no swelling, either. So perhaps it IS the Sjogren's syndrome. I don't want that to be true--there's no treatment for Sjogren's. They just throw painkillers at you. Just what I need--to get hooked on percoset or vicodin. Blaaaaaah.
I just about lost my cool with D-ball and S at work yesterday and today. Boss is on vacation this week, and the longer he's been gone, the worse their behavior has gotten. I was off Tue. & Wed., so they had all that time to irritate B. On Thurs I worked an 11 hr shift, and it was a freaking nightmare: there was a CRAP-TON of opening work to do, since they'd had a super busy day on Wed. Two people open. The "supervisor" does the opening work--reporting, reviewing, a ton of courtesy calls (yesterday there were 11, today there were 12) and so on. The 2nd person handles the majority of the customers, and does a short list of courtesy calls (usually between 2-5 people). Mornings are not usually terribly busy, and the opening reporting stuff can get pretty hairy, so being repeatedly interrupted can get very stressful. Well, we were busier than usual, so I had to get up a few times to wait on people. I would just deal with that, except that every time S had a spare minute, he'd sit down and get on his cell phone. And he'd be so into whatever he was doing, he wouldn't notice when a customer came to the teller window. Rrrrrgh. 11:30 comes and goes and still no D-ball. S texts him and D-ball says he thought we were switched to the late schedule (when we're behind our account quota, we stay open an hour later). An understandable mistake, but no. 12:30 comes and goes, and STILL no D-ball, and we're getting pretty damned busy now and could really have used a 3rd person and I'm STILL not done with the morning work! He rolls in at 12:50. "You're late." "I thought we were on the late schedule." "Even if we were, you're still late."
Rrrrrrrrrgh.
Did I mention I couldn't go to lunch until he got in? Why would he care, right?
He clocks in, I get him bought into a drawer. Once it's up and running, he immediately opens up Craigslist. Seriously? What really pisses me off about that is not 10 days ago we ALL got our asses chewed because "SOMEBODY" has been spending way too much time and bandwidth surfing on sites that have nothing to do with customers, naming Craigslist specifically. We were told that IT had complained to Boss about it (don't know if it's true, but let's just assume). Not 2 days later, D-ball was back on Craigslist. [eyeroll] He and S proceded through the day in this manner, surfing, texting, standing around chatting. I finally finish morning work, and grab some lunch. I get back at 2pm, and there they are still leaning on the counter, phones in hand (they've been repeatedly told it's not allowed to have them where customers can see). I look in the pending work file, and there's a whole new crap-ton of papers in there they could have been doing all morning, but no, there it sits for ME. I did it, fine--that just means I'd be too busy to help when the lines started piling up at 4pm. Well, it was the same story today. I opened with D this time, and he was on his phone and Craigslist the second he was done opening his drawer, brazenly walking around texting. He even sat there and placed at least 2 ads on craigslist while I was making my courtesy calls (naturally HE skipped HIS courtesy calls)! More than once, I had to get up to help someone because he didn't notice people waiting. I was INCHES away from losing it, so I tattled on them both to Boss via email. He called about 10 minutes later, asking me for details, wanting to know if I said anything to them (technically, no--but I did give them pointed looks that made it clear their phones were not welcome. 'I can't say much, though, I'm not their boss.') D-ball was busy actually working at that time, so he wanted D-ball and S to both call him "from a BRANCH phone." Unfortunately, I had to leave, so I missed the show.
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