Praise then darkness, and creation unfinished

I talked to Carmen this afternoon. This was originally my quarterly appointment for the Ritalin prescription. That only took a couple of minutes, long enough to confirm that the meds are still working reasonably well, and ask if she could write the next prescription for 87 days after I filled the previous 90-day prescription.

Then we talked about my gut. I was hoping to be able to tell her that it had been (just) over 4 days since the last episode of diarrhea, but alas, I had one today, not quite four full days since the previous.

It turns out that when they said the symptoms might last for a while after finishing the antibiotics for C. diff, "a while" means a couple of months.

So:

I will continue to track tbe symptoms/how often I need to take Imodium.
Get another package of the probiotic, because it might help and won't hurt.
Carmen isn't going to put me in touch with the infectious disease specialist unless I'm still having symptoms at the end of February.
If I need another antibiotic, Carmen may look into fecal transplant to reset my microbiome, ditto if the symptoms go away soon, but I have a recurrence at some point in the future.

---

I had a frustrating time getting through to the customer service department for my Visa card: the number printed on my card, and as "lost/stolen and general inquiries" on last month's bill, connected me to the collections department. I eventually got someone in that department to connect me to customer service, where it turned out that they hadn't issued a new card to replace the one that expires at the end of this week. The agent ordered me a new card, and predicted it would get here in 3-5 business days. She suggested calling on Monday to check, if I don't get it before then. I asked her for the number to call, and she gave me a number that might work. It's not the one printed on the card, and it's not the one I got from the first collections agent, which was out of service.

---

I went out for a brief walk this afternoon, because I've spent too much time sitting indoors, and I wanted a little exercise that isn't just my PT exercises.

Two unrelated things went wrong today:

1) I slept very poorly last night, waking up multiple times with painful leg cramps. The first couple of times I used an epsom salts rub, and massaged the painful muscles, long enough that they felt better if not good. The third time, I went into the kitchen and drank a couple of glasses of orange juice, for potassium.

I got another three hours of sleep after that, but have been feeling worn out and a little off balance. I called the dentist after lunch, to make a follow-up appointment. They offered an appointment tomorrow, which I declined, because I want to be awake and reasonably focused when I'm making decisions about what I want the dentist to do next, with options including a "partial" bridge, dental implants, or possibly some third thing. So, I will be seeing the dentist again on June 19th.

I asked cattitude to accompany me for a walk this afternoon, because it was a nice day and I wanted to play outside, but was feeling both distracted and slightly off balance, and didn't want to go alone. It was a nice walk, and nothing went wrong, but I was glad of the company for practical reasons as well as because I like walking with him.


2) As soon as we got back from that pleasant walk, I saw a text message about a possible fraudulent charge on my credit card. I didn't recognize the charge or the company it was from, so I texted back "FRAUD" (the other options being "VALID" and "HELP"). A couple of minutes later, I called the credit card company and spent about twenty minuteson the phone sorting out that yes, that charge was fraudulent, although the two charges before that (one of which was from mid-May) were legit. So they cancelled that card and will be sending me a new one. The customer service person said that, because it was after 3:00 eastern time, if I had them send the new card by FedEx, it would arrive on Wednesday or Thursday. We're going to Montreal this weekend, and I didn't want to risk the card arriving after we left for the airport and lying around in the building lobby, or even the inside hallway behind a locked door. Instead, they will be mailing me a new card, which I was told will arrive in 7-10 business days, with the regular mail.

Since I have another credit card, this is an annoyance rather than a Problem, but really.