Bear and Mimi and MRI scans

Well, here we go with Keith having been bumped off of the yard job board. There really are no other options as far as traveling to another district for work, all the other districts doing their own cuts, so he will have to go onto the furlough board which is basically an unemployment board where you sit and wait and hope that in a few months they start recalling people to go back to work. He thinks you get a small amount in railroad unemployment, smaller than state unemployment pays, which as anyone whose been on unemployment knows is not much. Something like $1000.00 a month. We are not sure if he loses his benefits while on the board so we may not have any insurance for a while. We have our annual doctor visits coming up and some dental visits which will all have to be put off until he hopefully gets back to work.

I did go back to the urgent care doctor on Monday to see if results had come back as far as intestinal parasites go, and they had and I don't have any parasites but still having issues so they sent me to get a scan to see what the heck is going on with my digestive system. We think it may be diverticulitis which I was diagnosed with back in '07 when I had my colonoscopy. I have never had any real problems with it before unless you count occasional constipation, certainly nothing like I've been going through for the past 6 weeks or so.

I went yesterday for the scan which was no big deal except for no food or water for 4 hours beforehand, which was actually more like 12  hours since there wasn't enough time between waking up and going for the scan to have any food or water. They do tell you to drink 16 oz of water before you come for the appointment and then they give you a bottle of water when you get there. The actual scan only takes about 15 minutes, the checking in and getting your IV in for the contrast dye took longer than the actual scan. I should find out the results from that in a few days and then go from there. If nothing is conclusive the next step would be to see a gastro doctor but if we don't have insurance then that will get put on hold for a while along with the other doctor and dentist stuff.

Other than digestive issues, the two blood draws I've had done had good results, nothing going on with my liver or anything and my blood pressure has been really good too. And no weird parasites living in my body.

Millie is almost done with her antibiotics, she was getting to where she wouldn't eat all of the pill pocket treats so last night we tried some turkey lunch meat with the meds sprinkled on it and yum yum yum, she liked that a lot! It's not crappy lunch meat from Walmart but the good meat from Trader Joe's that is actually turkey cut from the breast in recognizable slices and without all the preservatives you find in regular lunch meat. She seems to be feeling much better and back to her barking at noises and tearing up her toys.

Bear and Mimi were sleeping together on the bed the other day, Mimi being a very convenient pillow for Bear's head.