I feel bad and beautiful

So far my early impressions of Colorado and our new duty station have been... less than favorable.

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Over all of this.

The one bright shining star in this cluster fuck was introducing the Demon Spawn to a swimming pool at one of our hotel stays. It took a few moments for him to adjust to being surrounded by cool water, but then he discovered what would happen if he slammed his flailing arms into the water and suddenly there were smiles and giggles and Mommy trying not to drown in the deluge. So that was nice.

Monday Captain and I drove up to South Carolina for another visit with the Crazy!Doc. We spent my fifteen minutes (billed as half an hour, as always) discussing Doctor!Asshat, and I believe this is the first time Crazy!Doc has ever seen me being truly bitchy.

Oh, he's seen me annoyed and bitter and cranky, but never in full on gleeful bitch mode.

By the end of the session he was convinced that New!Doc was an asshat, and he completely agreed that New!Doc should not be mucking about with things he has no business in (ie - my crazy!meds). So Crazy!Doc wrote some new prescriptions for me, to override the ones New!Doc had put into the system, and sent me off to schedule my next appointment in two months.

This morning I had to report to the hospital to see New!Doc again because he got my lab results (from the bloodwork I had to remind him that I needed) and wanted to "discuss treatment options".

Such an eye roll for that one.

Anyway, we showed up thirty minutes early because gate traffic wasn't as bad as we were expecting, which meant we were brought back far earlier than he was expecting. Captain came back to the exam room with me so that we could roll our eyes at each other behind New!Doc's back, which I can already tell is the only way we'll be getting through any future appointments with him.

I brought knitting because I had fully expected to be sitting in the car, waiting to get through security, for a while, so I was sitting on the exam table knitting when New!Doc showed up. He glared at me, either because I'd brought Captain along, or because I didn't immediately drop what I was doing the second he opened the door. I was counting stitches and was all set to mark my place and give him my attention until the glare. After that, I finished counting and didn't bother hurrying as I carefully tucked my knitting away, then turned to face him and gave him the brightest, most innocently cheerful smile ever. That earned me another glare. I'm assuming that one was for not being intimidated by the first.

Whatever.

It seems that New!Doc didn't even realize he'd changed my metformin prescription two weeks ago (upping it by 200mgs a day) because he can't read a typed spreadsheet in 14pt Times New Roman and got the dosage wrong. Also, he put ALL the meds I'm on into the system for refill at that point (including my Crazy!Meds, which he isn't supposed to be touching, hence my earlier discussion with Crazy!Doc) and the hospital pharmacy did their job and filled them as he wrote them, so I don't know why he was copping an attitude with me because I went home with the wrong dosage. So now I've got a huge bottle of 850mg metformin sitting in my cabinet that I can't take because he upped the dosage again this morning.

He also did that annoying thing some doctors do - the scare tactic thing? You know the one, where they tell you if you don't change your evil ways, you'll end up legless, peeing into a bag or something? This time it was... insulin therapy, whispered in this soft, menacing tone. Captain and I shared an eye roll AND a smirk over that one.

I don't know what he wants me to do this time, I'm already taking all my pills as prescribed, limiting my sugar intake, trying to cut back on the red meat by eating more chicken and turkey and the occasional pork chop (lightly breaded with seasoned bread crumbs that I've smashed with my very own rolling pin - FUN!) and I've even been making myself bleed every stupid morning. Captain and I are even heading to the PX this weekend to look at exercise bikes because there is a sale and I can park a bike in the living room and watch zombie movies while I peddle in the privacy of my comfy climate controlled home.

Basically what I'm saying is that I'm doing what I've been told and if the meds I'm taking aren't doing their job to his satisfaction, it's not my fault this time. So he can suck it.

Also - I accidentally locked Bellatrix in the linen/medicine cabinet for a few hours this afternoon and ended up tearing apart most of the house trying to find her before I remembered putting away the unused metformin bottle. So that was fun.

So New!Doctor Asshat apparently got my bloodwork results in and now, all of the sudden, he wants to talk to me about my treatment options or some crap.

Color me surprised.

We shall see what "new" and "insightful" information he has for me in a week or so.

I'm home from the hospital and in a fabulous mood. Ha.

First, they've switched my PCM, without notifying me, AGAIN.

New!Doc is a douche canoe.

He tells me that my last glucose bloodwork shows that I'm not anywhere close to being under control, and I point out that bloodwork is now 18 months old AT LEAST. He asks how long I've been prescribed my current meds. I'm honest and tell him it's been awhile but I've only been actively taking them daily since March. He very snidely tells me that the medicine they prescribe only works if I take it.

I very politely do not tell him to shove it.

I'm taking the meds now, suck it up and move on, dude.

Then came the exercise discussion. "Do you exercise?" "No." "Why not?" "Because I don't want to?" Then there was a staring contest, which I'm pretty sure I would have won but I started coughing and turned away to cough into my kleenex to keep my germs off of other people because I'm polite like that. When I looked back he was all smirky so I got all smirky and then Captain (who came in with me because I'm currently loopy on lack of sleep/Sudafed/death cold cooties) got slightly smirky (he's not as good at it).

So then New!Doc got judgmental on my crazy!pills scripts, which I told him my Crazy!Doc was managing just fine, thanks. And he got judgmental on the little emergency IBS pills I've been renewing prescriptions for since 2007's colonoscopy of doom, all "Do those actually work? Because no one I've ever talked to says they work."

I very politely did not tell him to shove it, again.

He tried to get us to leave and I had to remind him that I have a chest cold, and since I have a history of reactive airway disorder, breathing issues and bronchitis perhaps it might be useful if he, oh, I don't know, actually listened to my breathing?

So that resulted in two more prescriptions (bringing the count up to ten for this visit, I believe).

AND THEN, he tried to get us to leave again, and I pointed out that since my last glucose blood work was over a year old, perhaps I should have another one? So he had to schedule that for tomorrow, along with some other tests that will probably result in me having to tinkle into an orange thermos for 24 hours - AGAIN - because that's how these things always seem to work out.

On the plus side, if the orange thermos is involved this time, Captain will have to be the one to ferry it across town and on to base instead of me.

Also, I got a nice drawstring grocery back to cart my loot (lots of meds) home.

My internal clock's insistence on not being tired until long after six am and then the need to pass out until mid-to-late afternoon is going to be very inconvenient next week, so I've got until Monday morning to reset it and start going to bed at night like a "normal" person.

Monday I have a late morning trip to SC to visit the Crazy!Doc for yet another med check. At this point, I don't even remember when I was first diagnosed, but it would be absolutely lovely to not have to show up every month to discuss tweaking my meds/dosage.

Then, Tuesday afternoon is Captain's latest graduation ceremony and I'm invited to this one, apparently, but it's three hours away and I don't drive that far to unknown places alone anymore (so spoiled, not even funny) so I wasn't going to go. However, Captain went behind my anti-social/stranger-danger-fearing back and talked to his WLC sponsor from our local base and she's willing to drive me up for the graduation since she was planning to go herself, assuming something involving First Sergeant happens (I don't know, blah blah Army politics)... So now I feel like I should put on a dress and some makeup and maybe brush my hair and ride in a car with a perfect stranger for three hours one way and then back. I mean, I love my husband, but I don't particularly like being trapped in small areas with strangers. As "nice" as Captain keeps assuring me she is.

Original point, need to be awake during the day by Monday morning at the latest. So what am I doing right now? I just finished catching up on the Exchange and am now playing about with HTML and photoshop while my latest attempt at the Wideye Potion brews on Pottermore.

Brewing potions is hard, yo.

Also, I wish dueling worked because I want to see how badly I suck at that against an actual opponent.

As to playing with HTML and photoshop, I seriously had forgotten how much I used to enjoy futzing about with that stuff. Little fiddly things amuse me almost as much as alphabetizing things and making spreadsheets (SPREADSHEETS!!).

Good gravy, I'm a nerd.

Yesterday was a strange day.

First, I woke up early. But then I nearly fell asleep at my desk so I toddled off to bed for a nap.

Only to be woken up by the phone call from the Vet.

It only took two weeks and nearly $600 to tell me that my dog is not dying of cancer, nor does he have Cushing's Disease. Instead, he has... dun dun duuuunnnn.... allergies.

Which is exactly what I thought he had when I took him in to the vet in the first place, but I guess it doesn't hurt to be sure?

Anywho, I was happy about the whole Puppy not dying thing, and the Captain came home to let me know that they were springing another weigh-in on him in the morning (this morning). That would be the third one in the last month and a half, and that, to me, would also be harassment at this stage because there is NO REASON to insist on weighing my husband every two weeks unless they're trying to catch him overweight. Especially not on a day's notice.

But that's just going to piss me off again if I keep talking about it so... moving on.

So last night, because I was tired of eating my own - rather surprisingly tasty actually - cooking leftovers from Sunday's breaded pork chops and Monday's Shepherd's Pie and because it was family game night at the local game store, Captain and I went out and sat around discussing politics and the military and local restaurants and Moby Dick (I don't even...) and Dragon Con and people who dress up as BSG characters and weddings and possibly weddings with people dressed up as BSG characters at the game store for a few hours.

Also, there was a Moon Pie.

As some of you may or may not be aware, when the Army overpays you in some fashion, once they figure out what they've done, they get hella cranky. Suddenly, their mistake is your fault.

This could be understandable if, perhaps, they just randomly throw on four hundred bucks to your normal every single two weeks pay and when you get the LES you are all "WTF? Extra four hundred bucks?! Hells yes, I'm throwing a cheese and Dr. Pepper Party!"

I once spent an hour and a half on the phone with various other Army Spouses, trying to figure out why Captain's monthly pay was over by fifty-six cents. No one knows, still.

However, what usually happens is that you're in the middle of a strange transition where your paychecks are fluctuating anyway, because you're pay rate is going up (or down) and you're getting your clothing allowance or your anniversary bonus or your spouse is just coming home from or has been on deployment for over a month so your special pay rates have just kicked in and you have no idea what all those little initials on the pay stub mean, so you sit there and compare them with other pay stubs you've seen in the past and then you call your husband over and say "Do you know what this is? Why are we getting this paid still, you're home?" and your husband says "I think it's because I didn't get home until the month started?" and you hem and haw, but then you shrug and say "It's not like the Army hasn't been paying soldiers for about a bajillion years, I guess they know what they're doing."

They don't, actually.

So, what usually happens is the Army suddenly goes "Holy fuck! We gave Private Joe Schmoo too much money! Fuck that shit, dock his paycheck for ALL OF IT, RIGHT THE FUCK NOW!" and then poor Joe, if he's lucky, gets less pay that pay period. If he's unlucky, he gets no pay. Because the Army does not give a fuck if a guy can't feed his family, it's his fault for not noticing he got over-paid at some point before, amIright?

Even, as I have actually seen, if they are simultaneously over-paying you one amount for an item and under-paying you another. If that happens and you bring it to their attention, they will not split the difference with you and either ask for what is left that you owe or pay you back what they owe. What they will do, instead, is immediately dock your check for the total amount they've been over-paying and then ask you to begin a two to even longer month paperwork process to possibly begin receiving the back-pay they owed you from the start.

I bring this up because I usually inspect our pay stubs with a magnifying glass because I do not want a no-paycheck half-a-month. However, last pay period was, in fact, Captain's anniversary, his first pay with his promotion, and a clothing allowance, plus there was still his combat/deployment stuff. Did I mention that the first half of the month you don't even get a broken down list of how they come to the amount they pay you, it's just a small stublette that says "You get this much monies this week, yay!" so you can't even figure out what the hell you're being paid for until the end of the month. So, back to that specific pay stub, it still had deployment stuff. I ask the husband if that's correct because it seems fishy, BUT I know for a fact there are certain deployment benefits that are paid for a full month even if you only spend one single day overseas (Tax Exempt, I'm looking at you).

Captain thinks for a minute, reminds me he didn't come home until the second of June and was technically overseas when the month started, so he thinks it's right.

Then, today... I get woken up early by a phone call from Captain (Again, that makes him 5/5 this week, which makes me annoyed like hell). The Army has overpaid us by "like" four hundred dollars for family seperation and they want their money back, do we want to write them a check or have them pull it from the end of the month pay or they even offered to take it out of the next twelve months? Ohhhh, options!

I tell him to confirm the pay that's depositing into our account today is actually correct, and I will write them a check. He'll have to come home to get it or they'll have to wait until Monday because I'm the one in control of the household paper monies, mwhahahaha. "Okies! I'll go see if I can confirm our pay!"

"Fabulous," I grunt and decide to go ahead and get out of bed since my sleepy times are ruined anyway.

Then, being the super genius that I am, I pull up last months detailed pay stub. Umm... no, they did not over pay us "like" four hundred for family separation. They didn't even pay us four hundred for family sep. in the first place. There it was, the standard $250. Which, I am totally willing to pay back if they say so because what the hell do I know about how the Army figures out pay? So I call back the Captain and point this out. I tell him that I'm not paying a cent of this "like" four hundred, until they tell me what it's actually for, because none of the various things we got paid for on the last pay stub are four hundred bucks. I could add a few random ones up to get four hundredish pretty easy, so if that's where the amount is coming from, I can see that. Again, do not understand Army pay allowances (seriously, some start the day you leave, some start after you've been gone thirty days, some stay the rest of the month after you return, etc).

However, I'm not paying that much money for just a generic "Oops, we over paid you for, umm... family sep. sounds good. Yes, that's what we over paid for. Give us monies."

My husband, of course, did not answer his phone when I called because there are certain buildings that you can not carry a phone in for... reasons. >_>

So, moral of this story for anyone who is thinking about joining the US Armed Forces - watch your LES like a HAWK.

ETA: We now have an itemized list of what we were over-paid. Turns out, none of those numbers are the same as what is on the pay stub because we were supposed to get partial payments, not full payments, for two things. *Headdesk* Still have not been able to confirm the current pay is correct though. Captain will be going to finance this afternoon to check that, also, while I would like to give the Army a check, they didn't actually tell us who to write it out to or where to take it. Because that would be too helpful, yes?

ETA AGAIN: So I wrote out a check for them, because I'm a good girl. But then! Captain calls me back and says it actually needs to be two checks, that are totally going to the same place with the same PAY TO. Hate. Them.

Captain got promoted!

We actually found out last night when someone congratulated him on Facebook. Both of us were confused because neither of us knew what he was being congratulated for.

Turns out, his name was on the 'by name' list!

His unit hasn't even had time to let him know.

Effective the beginning of June, he'll be a higher rank and we'll get a pay raise and I am so happy I barfed when he called this morning.

Believe it or not, I have managed to make it an entire week and a half without having to visit the stupid hospital.

You have no idea how happy that makes me.

There was one small incident last Monday where it was touch and go and I ended up calling Beck in tears because I had managed to convince myself that I had a reoccurrence of Cellulitus, but then I calmed down.

For some reason, I seem to be a bit paranoid about being sick.

Gee, I have no idea why. /sarcasm

Sadly, my non-hospital visiting streak will end on Tuesday, but that's for a regularly scheduled "Woman's Wellness" exam and not for a sudden onset of infection and/or barfy cooties.

In other news, Captain is going in front of the Promotion Board this next week and if it wouldn't be too much trouble and you have a moment to spare, could you guys cross your fingers for him?

Last week (Thursday to be exact) I was forced to get out of bed at the ungodly hour of eight in the morning (shut it, I don't want to hear it) so that I could get up and put on makeup and shave the legs (again) and be waiting for the Captain to come pick me up between ten and ten thirty so that we could go to the second stupid Army picnic in less than seven days.

Perhaps I should have used some commas in that sentence, but that sentence does not deserve commas because it is a bad, bad thing.

Anywho, I got up, I carefully got ready, and then I sat around waiting.

And waiting.

Also, waiting.

Ten thirty comes and goes and Captain has not shown up nor has he called. The "picnic" is supposed to start at eleven, and he still had to come home and change and then we had to drive across town (several of them actually, as we live in a giant mosh pit of suburbs all around the bigger city) and pick up a friend AND THEN go to this "picnic".

Notice my "ironic" use of ""s around picnic?

TEN FORTY FIVE, they finally let Captain out of the meeting that was supposed to end at ten, and he obviously does not have time to swing home before he has to report at this "picnic" that starts at eleven. But, he reassures me, he will make an appearance and then get permission to come home to get me (and the friend) so we - his family - can go to the "picnic" that was specifically for family.

Except for the part where they don't let him leave.

All of the events and things they had planned for this family gathering apparently fell through so all they had was some boxes of pizza and some soldiers standing around the motor pool, AND they refused to let Captain come home to get me because they said they would be ending the pizza not-a-picnic very, very early and by the time he drove home and back it would be over.

So, I got up and got dressed for nothing. Our friend got up and got spiffy for nothing.

I? Was not amused.

I went back to bed.

BUT THEN... Oh, friends, THEN it got BETTER!

BETTER BY A FACTOR OF A BAJILLION!

Because Saturday, Captain and I went to Zoo Atlanta (The Atlanta zoo, just in case the stupid name they go by threw you) and I saw GIANT PANDAS! TWO OF THEM! LIVE! IN PERSON! PANDAS!

Can you tell I'm still giddy about that?

On the way home from the zoo I pretty much called most of the people in my phone directory, and texted a few others, just to let them know about the pandas.

Also, there were otters.

The fourth was spent in the house, running a Star Wars RPG session for some friends, and listening to the neighbors blow crap up in the streets.