Turtle Poop�

2002-10-27

Friday was cardiology day. My doctor had said, that because I had a sedentary job and didn't exercise regularly, I could be having silent heart attacks; I would never know. Have I ever said that my doctor always gives the worst possible news first? I think he spends a lot of time thinking "What is the worst possible diagnosis that goes along with this condition?" Then he tells you that it could be the worst possible thing. Everything else is good news after that.

It's funny, but I truly sympathize with him. At least I never feel like he's holding back. The first time I saw him, he told my parents he thought that it was very unlikely that I was going to survive. Recently, when I'd injured a hip, he told me it was possible that they'd have to do a hip replacement. I bit my nails for days. When it turned out to be a torn ligament I can't tell you how relieved I was.

So on Friday I had an EKG, a cardiac ultrasound and a stress test. Let me just say that I was proud to go home and tell my husband that they didn't want to wait around long enough for my heart rate to get high enough. Cardiac tech, "You're at 98 beats per minute." Me, walking on teadmill, "OK, how high do we need to get it?" Cardiac teck "159. We're going to be here forever. Do you exercise regularly? Your heart beat is like someone who runs regularly." They weren't willing to wait long enough for my heart beat to get up to 159. And I sure wasn't willing to run that long in a hospital gown. For a 45-year-old woman running without proper support garments is just bad. Needless to say, it's unlikely that I'm going to fall over from a heart attack any time soon.

Right now, I smell like turtle poop. I haven't seen many of the turtles lately, no big surprise, not much sun for them to bask in. But I was starting to worry that they were too cold. So I discussed it with the beloved spouse and decided to bring them into the garage with a heat lamp.

Today I cleaned out the turtle pond. I found all of the turtles, alive and well, hooray! And decided that they would probably last out the winter where they were. Of course, wonderful spousal unit had already nailed up the lamp, in case of earthquake or other disaster, we didn't want the lamp to fall in with the turtles. That would just be bad.

I scooped all of the sludge off the bottom of the tub, trying to remove all of the fish at the same time. I bought feeder fish, I think they're some kind of guppie, for the turtles to eat. Apparently turtles don't eat guppies. So I spent two hours searching through muck for guppies. Which I can buy, 24 for a dollar. How nuts am I?

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