Interrupted

My Life Thus Far
2016-02-23 09:27:43 (UTC)

On My Own Terms, For Once

Such a great day... really. I'm so blissed out on how great today went! I can't put my finger on what made it so great, but it was. I slept well last night, everything seemed to go smoothly, no hiccups. It was a solid day.

I woke up half an hour before my alarm went off. This alone is a rare occurrence. Usually I'm wearing out the snooze button, dreading life, wishing I could call out dead. I started the day on my own terms, for once.

We left the house with plenty of time to stop for coffee and get to the ferry without having to speed or make a made dash for the loading dock! There's construction work going on on the Agate Pass bridge. So, I mentally prepared myself for it to cause us to miss our ferry, but nope. We made it with 15 minutes to spare.

Swedish Medical Center is vast and sprawling. I don't even know how many city blocks it encompasses, but it's big. We took a town car from the ferry terminal, and had the driver drop us off at the first building in the Swedish complex, since I wasn't sure which building my doctor is located in. We walked through the first building, over a sky bridge, into a second building, another sky bridge into a third building, down an elevator, out some doors into a fourth building, up another elevator and finally we found my doctor's office. We waited just under an hour for me to be seen (he was running behind schedule), only to be told that based on my MRI results, I'm not a candidate for surgery... at first I was a little baffled. Why did Dr. Power send me all the way to Seattle to be told something the radiologist told me the day I had the MRI done? Exactly what was written in the report that was included with the MRI CD. I didn't need a specialist for that! Maybe there's some sort of insurance loophole that needs to be jumped through before I can move on to some other treatment? I don't know, but it seemed like a huge waste of time and energy. Yet, for whatever reason I wasn't upset about it. I didn't have to pay a copay, so it's all good. Had I paid $50 to be told something I already knew, I'd have been pissed!

After leaving Swedish, Snookums and I walked back towards downtown, and Pike Place. By this point, we were both starving, so we stopped at El Borracho for lunch. I've heard great things about El Borracho in the Seattle vegan group I'm in, and I wasn't disappointed. I went with the nachos and they were EVERYTHING! I don't know how they did it, but the Daiya cheese was perfectly melted, the faux sour cream tasted just like the real deal, and whoever decided to put papas y poblano (green chile seasoned potatoes) on nachos is a culinary genius! It was divine. The portion was so huge, I couldn't eat them all, so Snookums finished it off for me, and even he loved them! He's a nacho aficionado, so that's high praise coming from him. I will most definitely be back. Soon.

The market was starting to wind down, so there wasn't much to see. I stopped into the little hole in the wall shop I always buy my incense at. Tenzing Momo. It's kind of an eclectic herb shop/natural remedy/book store that carries a little bit of everything. It's tucked away in the corner of the market right above the gum wall. They have the best selection of incense I've every seen. I got my usual Buddhist Temple Blend, and Tibetan Musk, but I got two new ones too. Casablanca Lily and Red Ginger. I burned the Red Ginger tonight and it was sublime. Unlike anything I've experienced before.

Snookums bought some donuts and pastries from Pike Place Bakery, and I found an interesting fruit I've never seen before. Lemon Plums. I tried one tonight, and it's really good! I actually don't love plums all that much. I don't hate them, I eat them on occasion, but more often than not I'm disappointed. I like them sweet, and sometimes they're just so sour. These ones are a lemon plum hybrid, so I expected sour, but the descriptions I read online said if you let them blush a little (turn a twinge of pink) they're sweet, and that wasn't wrong. One of them had quite a bit of blushing, so I gave it a try. It was the sweetest plum I've ever tasted! I'm glad I bought four of them! I also tried the galia melon I bought at Country Aire on Saturday. I hate cantaloupe and honeydew. They just aren't my thing, and I was a little skeptical about like this one... but I did! I feel so happy about finding new fruits I like! My tastes are changing. I remember when the only sweet stuff I wanted was chocolate, cookies, cake, etc. Now I fantasize about mangos and melons. It's a great paradigm shift, for sure.

My back was screaming by the time we got home, so I ran myself a hot Epsom salt bath (my usual treatment). I get to wait until the specialist I saw today sends a letter to Dr. Power before we move on to the next step. Which will probably be physical therapy or pain management. I don't know which or maybe both. Who knows. I guess I should just get used to living with the pain at this rate. *sigh*




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