Not making the grade

In addition to the sebaceous cyst that bought jewelry, the other result from my annual exam was learning that I am deficient in vitamins B12 and D, and potassium. The nurse called me on Monday with the news, and started firing off instructions to eat a banana every day (yuck) and to come in immediately to start a weekly series of B12 shots. When I started asking questions like "why?", she told me that I needed to come into the office this week to speak with Coral, the P.A. that I see.

Great. Shots every week, which likely means I have to fork over the $40 copay and a good 90 minutes of my time every single week. I grudgingly made an appointment for this morning, Friday.

What an experience! By the time that Coral saw me, one hour and fifteen minutes after my scheduled appointment time of 10:15 am, we were both annoyed. She told me that she had been double-booked at 8 am and then had patients scheduled for every 15 minutes, and she was angry that she was so late.

She got even more agitated when she realized why I was there - she said that there was no reason for me to come in, that we could have talked on the telephone. Yes, my B12 is low and she did go ahead and give me a shot, but she said that I can buy patches online that will do the same thing as shots; she has used them. Potassium may or may not be low - it is on the lower side of the acceptable range - so she had the nurse draw blood to retest. Again, there are supplements that I can take if this test shows I need them. Vitamin D I can take care of through OTC supplements.

She told the front office to refund my copay, apologized profusely again, and scheduled me for follow-up blood work in four months.

So, all in all, not as bad as I thought it would be...no weekly shots, no weekly $40 copays and I found a pharmacy in town that stocks the patches.

A forever bouquet

This morning was the Mother's Day Tea at Aidan's class. Silly me, I forgot to wear waterproof mascara!

The children had on "tea party" clothes and looked wonderful. Of course, in my opinion, Aidan was the most handsome boy in the class:

At each child's seat in the class, there was a place setting for their mom with a laminated custom place mat, Mother's Day cards, a photo key chain and a plant in a custom flower pot. After everyone was seated, each child stood and said his/her name, and the names of their parents. Even at this stage in kindergarten, several children had difficulty remembering their full names and/or the names of their parents. Silly Aidan pretended to be shy at first!

The class recited two poems about mothers, sang two songs and each child presented their mother with a small bouquet of flowers. Well, except for the three children who did not have anyone there. (Side note: plenty of notice was given for this event, along with pleas that mothers/guardians please attend. I don't know every situation, but couldn't someone from that child's life make the time to attend? My heart sighed for those three children and several of us moms tried to include those children in our celebration)

Then Mrs. Gable read that tear jerker, Love You Forever by Robert Munsch. Several eyes teared up even before she started reading but before it was over, we were all rather verklempt. After we all dried our eyes and hugged the stuffing out of our children, it was time to eat. There was a lovely and delicious strawberry cake, along with strawberries and white chocolate dip. Yum! Aidan definitely enjoyed the strawberries.

It was a lovely time to visit with the children and the other moms. I had Chandler's mom take a photo of Aidan and me: but don't you know that I was dismayed to see that Dick Cheney was in the background!


Text in one of the cards, alongside a photo of Aidan holding flowers:

"I will love you forever
And forever you will be
The most wonderful mom
You mean everything to me

I thought of buying you flowers
In the usual way
But I knew you would prefer
A forever bouquet!"