The long white coat

2002-09-19 - 8:11 p.m.

How many of you have ever read "Anne of Green Gables" by Lucy Maud Montgomery? I read that book many years ago and I loved it. I liked to imagine that I was just like Anne--high-spirited, imaginitive, obstinate--but the truth is, I'm not. There is at least one thing I have in common with her though--the belief in kindred spirits. Kindred spirits--those people who for some reason you just connect with immediately. You see them and you know, or they open their mouth and you know. Just like that. What makes someone a kindred spirit and someone not? It doesn't happen often, at least not to me. Thinking back over my life I can only think of three instances where that really happened. Liz in 6th grade, Mary in 7th, and then Flik as a freshman in college. Of those three people I only speak with one. I don't even know where Liz and Mary are anymore. Do you think it's possible to identify a kindred spirit over the internet? I haven't decided yet. I have someone in mind, though. When I saw his picture I didn't feel a connection. And I didn't feel a connection when he sent his first e-mail. In fact, I'm pretty sure I never even bothered to answer his e-mail. But then I chatted with him online. Immediately there was something. And from what I can tell he agrees with me. But is it possible to tell if someone is a kindred spirit online? My cousin is actually engaged to someone he met online, but they lived near each other. He is in Portland and she was in Tacoma, so it didn't take much for them to meet. It's funny, I never thought I would want to meet someone in real life who I had met online. I mean--freaky! Who knows what he really is? Who knows what his intentions really are?

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I wrote the above at work. At that point I was interrupted by Spike saying, "Eucalia, we have a crisis." Which turned out not to be a crisis in my opinion. The crisis was that my 2:00 signed in at 1:45 but nobody noticed until after my 2:30 had also signed in. It seemed fairly simple to me, I would see the 2:00 and then I would see the 2:30. Turns out my 2:30 was scheduled to see Spike at 3:00 anyway, so we just switched, I saw her at 3:00 instead. Which was the second time we did that today because Spike's 8:00 was scheduled to see me at 8:30 and he didn't show up until 8:30 and my 8:00 didn't show up so I took him until Spike got there. Heh, now did that sentence make any sense? But anyway, my 2:30 (which I saw at 3:00) was seriously messed up. She was an older Indian lady who only spoke Punjabi and had a neighbor kid there to translate. Her numbers ranged from the mid 100's to the upper 400's and she was maxed out on Acarbose and Glucotrol, plus she was taking 60u of 70/30 in the morning and 40u at night. She wasn't getting any exercise due to a back problem but she seemed to be eating properly. She doesn't read numbers so she has another neighbor draw up her insulin shots for her and she lives in Galt so its a serious drive to get out to the clinic and she doesn't have a car so she has to get someone to drive her. I didn't know what to do for her. I felt like I was in way over my head. I was thinking high-velocity intracranial lead therapy might be best, but then I'm not allowed to think that way. So I was thinking, there's no real point in increasing her insulin dose, is there? The dose is already outrageous. She's not on metformin yet...but is there a point to starting that? Perhaps...I wonder if she has any contraindications to it. Can you give metformin with her other meds? I'll have to look into it. What I really wanted to do was start her on Lantus. But I'm not familiar with how to switch someone from 70/30 to Lantus. What's the dosing? I don't know. And it wouldn't do any good anyway because I didn't have any onhand to give her and she can't come back until she finds someone to give her a ride. She was very frustrating. Plus she sat there and cried like we were hopeless. Perhaps we were.

And the other thing that happened today? Of course, it's Thursday, the other thing was Spike. We ate lunch together. We had sandwhiches at the table in the break room. He talked. I listened a bunch. Then of course we worked together most of the day, especially on Ms. Hopeless mentioned above. So before I left I decided I'd better say goodbye. When I did he asked me if I was going running this weekend. I said no. Too busy. Then he said well maybe we can do something after work sometime next week? (I guess that's proof that it's more than just friendly?) And instead of being smart and saying, "No, I don't think that would be a good idea," I said, "Maybe, I gotta go, see ya." I'm such a dork! Would somebody please just put me out of my misery? I don't deserve to be walking around. And why did I give him my phone number? Why? Why? Because I thought he just wanted to get together to go running. Geez, you idiot.