My Tuesday was easy. Wednesday should be OK. Then it gets ... interesting.
About 10 days ago I told you about my recent doctor's visit. How they found my heart was beating too fast, so they wanted me to see the cardiologist in Marquette.
That's why I'm driving up to Marquette on Thursday. They are going to give me some tests, which appear to be the same tests I have had up there every year or so for about 10 years.I plan to leave here at about 6:45 a.m. The drive is about two hours long, and the tests start at 9 Central time. The thing of it is, they don't want me to have anything to eat or drink after midnight. So I'm looking forward (not really) to a long, thirsty drive. I hope they let me chew gum--something, at least, to get some moisture in my mouth. I hate it when my mouth is dry.
The information they mailed to me calls it an "echocardiogranm with cardiac doppler and Myoview stress test." What it means is that they are going to inject a radioactive dye in a vein, take some pictures, then do a stress test (treadmill) and take more pictures. I don't like the treadmill; I can walk fairly fast but no faster, and they keep increasing the speed of the belt (they're also increasing the angle to make it harder). They don't let you run, either.
The letter gave a long list of "do nots." "Do not smoke four hours prior to the test." Do I ever? "Do not eat or drink anything after midnight." Grumble, grumble. "Do not take your diabetic medicine, but do bring it with you." Uhhh, what? "Do not wear underwire bras." I'll try. "Do not wear shirts/blouses with zippers/snaps or embroidery/beadwork." Don't worry; I'm no rhinestone cowboy. "Do not have any coffee, decaffeinated beverages, caffeinated beverages or caffeinated food 24 hours before the test." By caffeinated food, they mean anything with chocolate. Not too many options for beverages, right?
Anyway, they do the test. Later they send me a letter telling me what the cardiologist learned from it. The weather should be OK, at least. Once I'm done there (about noon), I get to have lunch (yay!) and then drive south to Iron Mountain, where the district volleyball tournament takes place that evening. Maybe I'll stop over to see my mom, too. I'll probably get back home about 9 p.m. It's going to be a long day.
On Friday, I'm covering a football district championship game, and Saturday is the other volleyball district tourney. Those two are short drives. It's tourney time; the regular season is over.
It's relatively quiet here during November, but there is a very real chance I will have to drive down to Detroit during Thanksgiving week for the state high school football finals. If so, it would be the fourth consecutive year I will miss Thanksgiving at home. I like football and I like seeing our team win ... but I would happier just staying home on Thanksgiving for once.
Anyway, it's a situation I have absolutely no control over. Time will tell. I had noticed that the Red Wings are playing at home Wednesday night, so I told my son that maybe I'd like to do that. But later I saw what the ticket prices are like to see an NHL game in Detroit ... so I told him to forget about; we can have a better time at his apartment, watching the game on TV and messing around.
Yesterday, with winter on its way, I got some new tires for my car--I had to; the old ones had a lot of miles on them. So far, no snow has fallen here. The weather has remained mild for the most part. On Tuesday, there was hardly a cloud in the sky and temperatures were in the low 60s (16C). Up here, of course, that can change on short notice.
Today, on Halloween, it's cloudier, cooler and windy, and tonight I will be getting pictures at a kids' Halloween parade here in town. Chilly kids in Halloween costumes. Then more shots at a kids' party in another town about 15 miles away. That one's indoors.
Some people in that town did up a big "haunted house" in a old school building, and it really sounded like fun. They had that last weekend. I was covering football on Friday. On Saturday I took my wife to Iron Mountain--we had a special dinner to mark her birthday earlier in the week. But I didn't take the usual route home. Instead, the car happened to wind up in the town with the haunted house. Quite by accident, of course. ;) I like to surprise her.
Ideally, we would have gone through the haunted house inside the old school and seen our share of scary sights. But alas, it was about 7 p.m., and when we got there, we saw a long line of people waiting to get inside. I guesstimated we would be waiting at least an hour and a half to get inside (they were taking people through in groups of five!), and my wife wasn't dressed for standing around in the cold that long. So we reluctantly drove home.
In recent e-mails with S, we have been discussing the possibility of visiting them in November or December. But that may have to be put on hold until after the holidays: My wife has applied for the call center job she had during the holiday season last year, and she thinks she will start work there in mid November. Last year, she worked nearly every day until Christmas. So any longish trips will have to wait till after Santa and his elves are on the beach, drinking concoctions that have paper umbrellas in them.
Wonder if he ever gets to Hed II.
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