Relapse, remit, repeat

Occasionally, much better than yesterday. I got the truck in to the referee to get the magical sticker that does I'm not sure what but it's important for the smog test... and, was surprised that the referee, out of the goodness of his heart, did the smog test too! I had feared that it would be a horrible long and (of course) expensive process... but it was none of those! The hardest part was finding my way to the shop; once I got there, things went great.

I drove home, full of energy, thinking about all the things I'd be able to do this afternoon, being full of energy.

Before I was all the way into the house, poof! Energy--all gone! Crash for a couple of hours.

Woke up and dragged myself off to the hospital--don't worry, nothing bad, it's just that it's the most convenient place to get blood work done (I needed a quick little test).

At least, it used to be convenient. I made the long walk to where the blood-sucker lab used to be, only to find that it was now a block away. Schlep the long walk back to the truck, drive the block, find my way up to the blood lab.

The blood lab--the waiting room and the test rooms--looks like the Marriot LAX hotel. Completely over-decorated. And huge. At least thirty seats in the waiting room, and at least ten test/sample-taking rooms, each of which was carpeted (!) and overdecorated. I'm guessing that (a) my insurance won't pay for anything, 'cause it never does, and (b) at least 90% of the cost will be going to the decorators. I'm definitely gonna stop going to medical facilities that are featured on "Pimp That Lab."

I was the only patient in the facility. It took the hospital a half an hour to find a phlebotomist to do the forty-five second one-tube blood draw. (Well, at least she was nice. And pretty darned painless.) Apparently, there's another lab (I'm presuming, not as nicely decorated) where you don't have to make appointments and don't have to wait like I did when you don't have appointments (which I didn't have 'cause I've been going to that hospital's lab for years and never had to get one before). Of course, the people who I first talked to (see above, long walk) could have sent me there, knowing that I didn't know anything and thus maybe didn't know I had to make an appointment, but didn't. Perhaps they thought my spirits would be improved by the decor.

Made it home. Started making dinner, dropped something on the floor--nothing broken, nothing damaged, but quite the noise--and I had to stop and go lie down. I had no idea I'd take so much effect from dropping something.

I'm managing to get some work done--not much, but some, and some that's important, so that's good, but I don't feel like I'm working that well, and as soon as I sign off here, I'm gonna bang down some herbs and crash.

MS-disease-qualification-wise, I think I'm probably primary progressive. I've never had an "attack," whatever that is, and I've certainly never had any sort of significant improvement. But man, if any day was uptown/downtown, it was today. I was doing fine. I was doing horribly. Fine again, briefly. Then crash again.

It's a very rough ride; strange how the roller coaster actually made "progressive" seem easy to tolerate.