W-w-w-w-Wipeout

I went walking with the date this evening on a new-to-us trail and two people wiped out, right in front of us. First, we just started down a paved path when a biker comes down a hill and just skids out at the bottom. Turned out to be a patch of sand on the pavement which looked exactly like the dappled sunlight hitting other parts of the pavement. He was able to walk it off, but had some serious road rash on his upper arm and tore through his shorts and sleeves. Had it happened 30 seconds later, he would have had some of us on top of him. Later on we came upon someone walking her dog in the opposite direction and just as she came in sight she slid on the sandstone trail and did the weeble-wobble thing. I assured her that it was some sort of force field surrounding us that was knocking people over today. All in all though, we took no injuries ourselves and got 45 minutes of fresh air and exercise.

I needed the exercise because (a) I need the exercise and (b) I was home all day and in bed for half of it. The other half I was on the toilet. I did leave briefly to go to the doctor after my boss suggested I go. The "you dumbass" was left unsaid because she's tactful. I had just planned to wait it out, thinking I might have a kidney stone or something that hurt when I sneezed, and would make it in sooner or later. Turns out to be yet another stone free bladder infection so I'm back on antibiotics of one sort or another. (Good thing I keep a stash of acidophilus.) But until the antibiotics kicked in, I needed to stay close to, well, a particular room at home. I should be good to go for tomorrow though.

During my downtime, I finally picked up Robert Crais's "The Watchman" from my TBR pile and enjoyed it enough to go hit the library today to start the series from wayback. I was hoping that would be the case. He kinda had me hooked since the inscription in the book. I had been joking a little and mentioned that I'd never read his stuff but my friend, whom he knew, was complimentary. He wrote, "I'm the best. You'll love me. Enjoy!" Wouldn't it be nice to wake up every morning and think, "I'm the best. You'll love me."?

One final thing, also health related. There was a post on the book club board about the effects of taking steroids and I thought, "Hey, I resemble that remark!" I've thought so before but had trouble remembering what caused the side effects. Turns out to be cortisol, if your body overproduces it. Cushing's sydrome is the most extreme form and I could be the poster child for most of it. So when I saw the doctor today, in addition to fixing the sneezing with nose spray and the bladder with antibiotics, he's sending me for a cortisol test. In the meantime, I'm going to take the advice of friends, and also my doctor from 1998 (I ran across the advice while looking through records for cortisol tests, of which I have none), and eat more small high protein meals. Somehow. So if anyone has any favorite high-protein recipes to share or advice on dealing with wacked out hormones, sing out.