We especially celebrate Groundhog Day around here because it’s my birthday.
.
This Groundhog Day, I get to do many of my favorite things, including facilitating a therapy group in person and enjoying a special birthday dinner of pasta primavera and chocolate souffle, prepared by my wonderful husband Michael.
On Groundhogs Day Eve, I got to do many of favorite things, including talking to people I love and going to a musical with my wonderful husband Michael, who is very camera shy.
If he sees his shadow, there are six more weeks of winter.
Here are my other images for Groundhog Day:
.
Now that I’ve made it to age 73 on this Groundhog Day, I have to change the opening of my song “Shameless Appeals for Applause” AGAIN.
.
How about this:
I’ve made it to age 73!
I was born with heart problems, but I’m still here. See?
While many people have negative feelings about age (some right-wing jerk on Twitter called me an “old hag” last week), I feel incredibly lucky and grateful to be this age. That’s why I never lie about or conceal my age; instead, I brag about it.
Do you see age in my images for today?
.
From a very young age I’ve known that my birthday was Groundhog Day, but it took this advanced age to find out that it is also World Play Your Ukulele Day!
Thanks to all who are helping me to celebrate my age, including YOU!
I’ve been dependent on medical technology (including cardiac pacemakers and now an artificial heart valve) most of my life.
And if it weren’t for technology, I wouldn’t be able to connect with you through this blog, here and now.
At the same time, I experience myself and others feeling lost and frustrated about technology that we have no choice but to learn and use in order to survive in today’s world.
Yesterday, when I was getting an echocardiogram at the hospital, the sonographer and I spent most of the time complaining to each other about new computer technology we need to use to get our work done.
That inspired me to work on a song about technology, to the tune to Billy Joel’s “Honesty.”
In all honesty, changing technology sometimes gets in the way of me creating and sharing my songs, because I feel unsure about the best way to proceed. I need to learn to use technology to my advantage, and let go of my insecurities about my abilities to keep up with the latest and greatest technology (whatever the heck that is).
Do you see technology in my images for today?
.
Do you agree with me about technology?
Thanks to all who are here for this technology post, including YOU!
Get ready for another blog post from me, in which I share thoughts, feelings, pictures, tweets, updates, cats, meals, the daily holidays/observances, YouTube videos, and whatever else I’m able to get ready first thing in the morning.
After I publish this, I’ll get ready for another Coping and Healing therapy group and another doctor’s appointment regarding my very unusual heart. I also need to get ready for my upcoming cardiac device replacement surgery by maintaining an INR blood reading of 3.0. Last night’s reading was 3.2, but I think that’s good enough for now.
I take anticoagulants because I have a Boston Scientific mechanical heart valve and since leafy green vegetables coagulate your blood, I won’t be eating all veggies today (I stay away from kale). However, I still love veggies and I asked about them on Twitter last night.
.
Do you see veggies in my other images for today?
.
I’m guessing that the Daily Bitch isn’t into veggies.
No veggies video today because I’m catching an early ferry to the hospital, where I’ll take a photo of my veggies-packed lunch for tomorrow’s blog.
Thanks to all who are here for this veggies post, including YOU!
I won’t go into the niceties of why that was, but my nice doctors still thought it would be nice for me to get an echocardiogram ASAP to ensure that my nice but very unusual heart was doing a nice enough job.
So I took a nice trip to the hospital yesterday afternoon and met a nice echocardiogram technologist who despite his many years of experience had never encountered a nice heart like mine before. He said it would have been nice if they had scheduled me with somebody who had experience with congenitally corrected transposition (the rarest of all heart defects). I wasn’t just being nice when I told him that I believed he would do a nice enough echocardiogram to capture all the necessary information my nice doctors wanted to see.
We had a nice time as I told him about my cardiac history and he was nice enough to tell me what he was going to do before he did it. It would have been nice if I had remembered to take a photo of this very nice echo technologist so I could share that with all my nice readers.
What was really nice was that — rather than being tight-lipped about what he was seeing (my usual experience with medical technologists) — he told me that as far as he could tell, my nice and very strange-looking heart was doing a nice job. He said that a nice doctor would take a look at the images after I left and I think it’s a nice sign that I didn’t get a call last night from the hospital.
It was nice that, with all this nice news and non-news, I could really enjoy the arrival of my nice son back from his nice trip to Europe. I guess I was being nice by not taking a picture of him and my husband Michael last night because even though they can be nice about it, they really don’t like having their pictures taken. However, I warned them that I will soon need a nice picture of the three of us for the class report for my upcoming 50th college reunion, which I’m sure will be nice.
It would probably be nice if I stopped writing and shared my nice images from yesterday right now.
.
It’s nice that I don’t have to work like a dog today and that I’m about to play outside with my nice son, who is staying here for a couple of days.
Here’s a nice video of our nice cat Joan doing a nice job cleaning herself.
In therapy, people often ask “Why?” Why did this happen to me? Why does this person act this way? Why do bad things happen when I start feeling better?
I also ask “Why?” Why do wonderful people have so much trouble accepting compliments? Why do so many people keep supporting Donald Trump (aka “The Former Guy” or “TFG”)? Why do narcissistic billionaires control so many resources? And, most recently, why is my BNP (often a measurement of heart failure) so friggin’ high?
Many of those questions are unanswerable. I’m hoping for an answer to my last question when I get an echocardiogram later today at the hospital.
Why am I sharing these images?
.
Why is there a Braham Pie Day when I don’t even know what that is? And why did I read it as Graham Pie Day at first when I don’t even know what that is, either?
Blogging Never Prevents me from Being Nicely Productive in other areas of my life. As a matter of fact, Blogging Naturally Provides what this Blogger Needs: a Personal Balance of Native Perception and Being Nominally Pertinent and Being Neatly Present here, every day.
All those BNPs in that Barely Nonsensical Paragraph are By their Nature Pleasanter than the BNP test I got at my cardiology appointment yesterday, which is Briefly Notated in this Paragraph:
The Basic Number Presenting itself in a BNP test for a Basically Normal Person is less than 100; my BNP yesterday was 1308, which I found out after I left my cardiology appointment yesterday.
Because No Person wants a BNP number that high, I immediately contacted my cardiologist, Deeb Salem, asking if I should be alarmed. He did not recommend alarm (he never does), but he suggested that I get an echocardiogram ASAP. I asked him if this high number meant that I was in heart failure or that my ventricle was going downhill (always a concern for people with my very unusual heart) and he responded: “the echo should tell us.”
Because Nervous People might assume that a BNP number that high might Be a Nasty Prognosis, I should tell you that the BNP for a Basically Normal Person with my heart condition can be high. However, because I’ve never had a BNP higher than 600, even when I was in heart failure in 2016, you can understand why I might Be Nervous, People.
Balanced News Provides some relief, however: there is nothing alarming or abnormal about my appearance, so I choose to Be Naturally Positive about the future. Apparently, for me, an echocardiogram outweighs a BNP test in the ‘Bility to Nicely Portend the future.
But ‘Nough Predictions. Bring on the Nice Pictures!
.
BNP also stands for Bitches Need Pizza.
Here’s what I find on YouTube when I search for “what does BNP stand for.”
Better Numbers. Phew!
What are your thoughts and feeling about this Barely Notable Post about BNP?
Thanks to all the Beautifully Natural People who read this daily blog, including YOU.
