Christmas Week

Coming up on January 10th, there is going to be a new series of All Creatures Great and Small on PBS.  I'm looking forward to it.  I got a new antenna for my TV which gets PBS so I can watch this show.  (My old one did not.)  Noah set up the antenna for me- got the tv to find all the channels the antenna can see.  The only problem is that now Antenna TV- a tv channel- isn't there in the list of available channels anymore.  But I've found a game show station and they're doing a Betty White marathon right now.  I watched Super Market Sweep this morning.  I used to love that show back in the day.  I don't know why.  I guess all the running around they do against the clock and to see how much their totals add up to and if they find the $5000.  

Today, I woke up with a backache on my left side.  This keeps happening- has been for weeks.  I wonder if I just sleep funny?  I had been wondering if it is my kidney because my bloodwork came back with lowered kidney function last month- twice!  I guess it must not be serious or my doctor would do something about it.  But my liver function is good now!  I still have cirrhosis though.  I don't know if that ever goes away- I suspect that it doesn't.  I am watching what I eat, so that I might lose more weight. I've hit a plateau. I'm using an app that records fat, calories, carbs,  I wish I could go to the mall to walk for an hour or so several times a week.  Ok- the reality is that I could- and should!  I want to walk outside, but it's just too cold, even with my winter coat on. It's 42 degrees as I type this.  Not bad.  I need to go to the grocery store sometime soon.  It's only going to get busier there as time passes.  Christmas is in 3 days!  I still need to go to my mom's house and get the secret present.  We chose names out of a hat - well, "the dog" did; my mom said her dog picked the names!  All the presents were to be dropped off at my mom's place by yesterday and we are to pick ours up before Christmas.  We are going to try to have a zoom meeting from our own houses Christmas morning.  I hope I get a CD - I don't really care who it is.  I also asked for cleaning supplies which I need, too.  Maybe I'll get both??  We had a limit of $25.  I did buy myself something for "Christmas".  I got a new cell phone.  My old one wasn't charging fully anymore, no matter how long it was plugged in and it was 2 to 3 years old!  Plus, I couldn't hear the main speaker very well.  I had to use earphones to be able to hear what people were saying.  It was just time!  We are planning on getting together via Zoom Christmas morning.  I hope it's not too busy that we can't get on.  We usually have Mickey Mouse waffles and real maple syrup with sausages.  Sometimes, we have half a grapefruit each, too, but my kids didn't really like them- they're less sweet that oranges- so we haven't had them in years.

Still feeling ok, mentally.  My case manager is going to call me and get some important paperwork done so I can continue getting services there.  A couple days ago, I did "freak out" a bit, though.  I thought someone had taken over my phone and/or I had a virus.  No reason, except my phone warned me against "phishing" when I clicked on a link that a friend sent- but it always does that when I click a link in a text message.  It opened to what looked like a YouTube video of a simulation of an airplane landing- very poorly, bouncing around and through things.  I thought the corner of the screen said "VIRUS" in green letters!  I freaked out, grabbed my purse and phone, threw on my shoes and drove the short distance to the phone store that I'd purchased my phone only a week before.  When I got there, I couldn't stop explaining what had happened.  The guy looked at me like I was crazy.  I handed him the phone and he spent a couple minutes swiping and clicking, swiping and clicking... He finally handed it back to me saying he couldn't find anything.  I left, still thinking my phone was - going to be?- possessed.  Someone said that maybe it's still infected and it just hasn't started "working" yet.  I kept hearing commercials on tv about identity theft protection.  Ahhh!  Someone is going to steal my identity!  I did talk with the person who sent me that link and they said it was a YouTube video for them of a plane that he thought looked "like a real plane" until he saw that it "went through another plane".  He said he didn't get any warnings or troubles from YouTube.  

I talked with Caleb today for quite a while.  It is his first day back to work after having to quarantine because he had Covid-19!  He said he was "only sick for the first two days" but he felt pretty bad those 2 days.  His only symptoms were a slight fever and a cough- but then, he said he "have a cough most of the time anyway". The remaining time he was out of work- for a week and a half- he was just bored.  We had a nice conversation today.  I was more talkative than usual, but I just had stories to tell!  The story of how I found out I was pregnant with Noah and the story about how I met Thomas Wiswell back in 2000.  (He's a big circumcision proponent.  Or used to be.  He wrote a "study" that "showed that infants who were not circumcised had 'ten times' more likely to get urinary tract infections than circumcised infants'."  The problem with that study is that the circumcised babies were full-term and healthy, while the intact babies were in the NICU.  And the "ten times" was .1% and 1%.  So babies aren't likely to get UTIs in the first place.  And these results were only for babies up till 6 months after birth.  Not to mention that girl infants get a UTI 4% of the time.  So, I was asked to come help staff a table with circumcision information where a group of neonatologists were having a convention.  There were lots of people on the program and the talks lasted hours.  Last on the list was Wiswell.  Of course, he gave a talk on circumcision.  It was full of half-truths, skewed statistics, scare tactics, and outright lies.  Norm, who got the table for his group where I met Wiswell, asked "What is the function of the foreskin?"  Wiswell dismissed this out of hand.  Other doctors were asking good questions, but again, more lies and half truths.  I had talked with Wiswell one-on-one earlier that afternoon.  He came up to the booth and started looking at some print outs of his "study".  I knew he was a neonatologist, so I started talking about my history as a premature infant.  We talked about the Baby Bird respirator that I used as a newborn.  I was gauging his personality as he spoke, looking at his facial expressions.  He came across as smug, self-righteous and a narcissist.  He wasn't lying to me but how could I tell? He certainly lied straight through his teeth when giving his lecture.  As I said, it was full of lies, half-truths, twisted facts, gaslighting, amongst other things.  Oh surprise!  

At any rate, that's what Caleb and I talked about and how my weeks is going.  I got an email from my pen pal/friend Greg.  He seems like his Christmas week is going well.  My mom made some chocolate-peanut butter, oat treats yesterday.  She also made her famous shortbread recently, too.  She showed me how last year, but I don't remember exactly what she did and I couldn't go over to her house to watch this year because of Covid, so I guess I had better hope she lives past next Christmas and I can write the steps down!  My mom also finished the rainbow blanket she made to match my colorful lamp!  It is so nice to cozy up with, especially with a cup of hot Ovaltine!  She did a complicated stitch, too.