Wednesday, May 26, 2021

Last night I went to bed at 10pm, fell asleep quickly, got up once at midnight, again at 2am, and finally woke/got up at 5:15.

We left the apt just after 6am and arrived at the San Diego Clinic of Opthamology at 6:30. I paid 239mil ($64) for the more sophisticated eye exam. In the 2^nd waiting room we were finally taken in at 7:45. My ophthalmologist, Dr. Montoya, was there and she gave me an exam in their more sophisticated machine where I didn’t need to have my pupils dilated first. After 5 minutes she said my cornea looks healthy.

I told her about my prostate adenocarcinoma and that I would probably be going in for surgery in the coming weeks but I would like to get my eye fixed first so anything she could do to accelerate my appointments would be appreciated. She told me she doesn’t know what my eye problem is and may not find out so I should not wait for her and just go ahead with my other surgery.

Since I didn’t have my pupils dilated we proceeded, as I had promised, to walk over to Premium Plaza mall so she could check out Zara. Problem was the stores don’t open until 10am and it was only 8:15. 😊 I had coffee and a couple bunuelos at Supreme Bunuelos and she had a couple eggs and a Milo (local chocolate drink). Outside we quickly caught a taxi back to the apt. I understood Teresa and the taxi driver were talking about protests in Parque Poblado and Parque Envigado.

We went right to bed and I slept from 9:30 to 11:15. Teresa got up 30 minutes later.

Teresa called my urologist and my next appointment isn’t tomorrow it’s next Thursday, June 3^rd at 11am.

Now I have to try to translate the directions from last night so I can see my bone test results. It turned out to be pretty easy retrieving my results from their website after Teresa told me my cedula number is my password. Via Google Translate:

 

INDICATION: Patient diagnosed with prostate cancer.

TECHNIQUE: Anterior and posterior whole body scanning and special imaging are performed after the intravenous administration of 20mCi of 99mTc-MDP. 

FINDINGS: In the acquired images, no pathological deposits of the radiopharmaceutical are observed that suggest metastatic bone lesions of the reparative type. Only osteodegenerative inflammatory processes in shoulders, handlebars sternal, L5-S1.

CONCLUSION: Negative study for reparative metastatic bone lesions.

 

Negative, in a medical sense, is usually good news! 😊

Per the internet, “Technetium 99m-methyl diphosphonate (99mTc MDP) is a radiotracer used in nuclear medicine especially for bone scintigraphy. Any disease process which results in extracellular fluid expansion will lead to accumulation of this tracer.”

And my brother helped me correct the translation of “handlebars sternal” to “sternum”.

Teresa was on the phone with someone ordering materials to repair the finca patio but afterward she found they don’t have anyone to deliver them. It appears everyone is afraid to have their truck on the road during the protests as it might get torched.

Teresa told me she’s going to call my urologist to see what time my appointment is tomorrow. I told her “you said it’s next Thursday”. She then tells me that was for my eye doctor. (She never did say which doctor she just gave me a date and time for my next appointment.) She called my urologist and found that my appointment tomorrow is at 8:15.

Early afternoon: something’s going on. We usually don’t have so much traffic on our street and it’s even backed up. Later I realized traffic was being diverted from Avenida Las Vegas because protesters were walking down the street.

And then it got real windy and the temperature dropped meaning we’ll probably have rain soon. That sure isn’t going to help the traffic. No rain developed.

Teresa beat me in parcheesi today 3 games to 0. Damn I hate when that happens.

Teresa wanted something different for supper tonight. I told her I would order from Frisby only if they allow me to order a Frichuleta. She told me she wanted a chicken burger from McDonald’s. I tried several times to order using my debit card but it always told me something didn’t work right. I then tried ordering using cash but that didn’t work either. A few minutes later Teresa received a call from the portero that McDonald’s was here with our order. After she hung up I asked her if I’m supposed to pay in cash. She hadn’t asked. I checked my checking account real quick and there was no McDonald’s charge so I went down and paid in cash.

The evening news reported that Colombia reached a record high today in new Covid-19 infections.

It was about 7pm when I noticed the streets were wet. Another day I think we didn’t get over 82 degrees.

Teresa came back from a trip to the garbage chute and reported a couple of 12-year-olds were in the stairwell kissing.

I put new batteries in the new mouse but that cheap piece of %&*$ doesn’t work. Looks like soon I’ll be making a trip to Monterrey Mall.

 

Johns Hopkins redesigned their website so it’s no longer showing total infections it’s showing 7-day averages so I changed too. The US has 24,034 ð 23,162 new cases and 534 ð 521 deaths.

Per Medellin Guru, as of this afternoon Colombia has a total of 3,249,433 ð 3,270,614 ð 3,294,101 cases with 85,207 ð 85,666 ð 86,180 deaths. Medellin has 294,125 ð 295,222 ð 296,683 cases, an increase of 1,456 from May 25^th to 26^th. Envigado has a total of 24,206 cases, an increase of 98 from May 25^th to 26^th.

 

Joke of the day

My boss arrived to work in a brand-new Lamborghini.  “Wow,” I said. “That’s an amazing car.” 

He replied, “If you work hard, put all your hours in, and strive for excellence, I’ll get another one next year.”