Not gonna be much excitement in this post, so if you're easily bored - just move along! (Although... There is a "plea" at the Very End of this post - so skip-ahead if you're a nerdy gadget-geek and want to help!)
I rambled, earlier, about my psoriasis flare and the doctors thinking, maybe, I was getting burnt by my home phototherapy unit. I won't bore you with the play-by-play, but I did rent a calibration meter and, on Friday, a tech from the manufacturer walked-me-through the whole calibration procedure...
Unfortunately, I didn't write any of it down, but I am *pretty* sure that my unit was out of calibration by a "fairly big amount." Too lazy to do the math, but my unit "thought" it was delivering 10.xx millijoules, but the meter said it was actually 12.xx millijoules. When we were done with calibrating, we'd gotten the unit to within .02 which, according to the tech, was "pretty darn close."
What-EVER - bottom line is: The unit is back in calibration and I have emailed the doc to confirm I can go back to using it (at much "lighter" doses). Haven't heard back yet but decided "WTF - I'm doing it at low-doses!" ("Anything! Please, Dear Gawd, ANYTHING to make this better!!!")
I also researched the medication she is thinking of adding to my "daily pharmacological stew" and - after reading all the warnings and side-effects (which are plentiful and not entirely rare!), I have decided I want to hold-off on that unless it's absolutely necessary. I'll probably still have her write the scrip, but I will almost-definitely hold-off on taking it until I've *confirmed* that the UVB isn't working (and that will take several weeks to confirm).
In the meantime (and I think this may be one of the primary reasons for the improvement in my mood), I've been managing to spend a fair amount of time OUTSIDE. I've read, many places, that good old-fashioned sunshine is GOOD for skin conditions like mine (and the nurses had concurred - back when I was doing thrice-weekly treatments). So every day, after work, I try to spend about an hour sitting out at the Tiki Bar with my feet propped-up, resting IN THE SUN...
Today was a particularly splendiferous day, with temps in the mid-90's in the shade! I ended up bailing on the Clay Carnival (Major "Boo!"), but I think the alternative wasn't too terribly awful...
Hubs fired-up the gas pool-heater so we could swim (pool has had the solar-cover on it for the last coupla weeks, and the solar heater has been on every day since...). I did manage to swim a few laps, then immediately slathered myself, again, with Burt's Bees Salve (LOL - I'm surprised the pool didn't end-up with a greasy film after I swam in it!)
I also contracted "Rent-A-Son-Services" (P's son, C!) and had him install the [extremely large, heavy and generally unwieldy] thatch umbrellas on the tiki bar and al fresco dining table.
Blurry Droid Pic of Tiki Bar
While he was here, I also had him remove the straw bale bed (FAIL!!!) Although I did snag ONE head of broccoli before the bed was torn to pieces. Unfortunately it was completely overrun with some kind of unidentifiable insects - Ooops! "Compost!" (along with 4 barely-intact bales of straw!).We've still got a ways to go - to get the yard back into full-on summertime mode. But we're definitely making progress...
And the garden? Good GAWD I've got tons to do! I really don't want to plant tomatoes in the same spots in last year's beds (and I'm waiting for the root-crops to finish doing their business). I have asked C to come back - when he's got time and needs $$ - so he can build me another raised bed (or two!) in the straw-bale-bed location.
Hopefully, we can tackle that next weekend and maybe - just maybe! - I'll be able to walk by then!
I'll bust-out the gardening stuff into a separate post when I have more time. For now I'll just file this under "Rambling" (If I can figure out how to update tags. Blogger's new GUI really kinda sucks!)
xoxo
-QT
P.S. One bona-fide improvement in Blogger: You can actually "insert" a photo where you want it to appear. So maybe I'll hold-off on b*tching too much - yet!
Geeky Plea--> P.P.S. I'm curious to know if any of my "silent followers" (I know you're out there, there is NO way that just hubs and me can generate 10K+ "hits!") has any knowledge of digital cameras with WiFi capability - to upload jpgs directly to the 'net (either onto PicasaWeb, or Facebook, or Twitter, or whereEVER). I'd really like to be able to have better quality photos on my blog, but don't want to deal with plugging in cables and downloading and editing and such. Post a comment or email me directly if you have any suggestions! Thx muchly! :-)
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