A wake-up call

Neighbourhood Clematis

So my dominant left hand, half of the wrist, in fact was suddenly and severely inflamed last week, arthritis my sister says. It affected everything fortunately just for a couple of days. This is the most clear symptom I've had of this disease, I can stop denying it now and hope it won't happen too often.  Yes, it's a wake-up call.

At the blood lab

My kids really like getting this 'dippin dots' ice cream:

Dippin Dots

I was at the blood lab with my mom last week, both of us doing routine tests.  I've noticed this summer that the lines haven't been as long and attributed that to people being away on vacation or that they don't tend to come in the summer.  I was talking to the attendant and she mentioned to me that they have changed their process.  It used to be that each worker was assigned an individual task, so one would take the blood, one would type, one would do ECG's etc.  The new process is that one worker is assigned to one patient and sees him through from start to finish.  And it is much faster!  I asked her if she was more tired, and she said initially it was but now it is fine, it is just always busy.  From a patient point of view, we are all much happier!  Well, except for these two little kids who were screaming for a long time after getting their needles.