Early Morning Cold Taxi

While sipping my morning coffee and attempting heavily to wake up completely I am writing this post to you. This morning I was awakened around 7:15 to have blood drawn in order to check my lithium level. Lithium levels cannot be measured except by that method. Lithum has a relatively narrow window of efficacy (that is, a blood concentrate level) which must be within .6 and 1.2. If too low, then the positive effects are practically null. If too high, then one gets toxic, which means nausea and vomiting. My last level was at .8, well within the limits. They normally get the results in pretty quickly, within an hour. By the time I finish writing this, I expect to know the results.

I have to say that being jabbed with needles early in the morning is not particularly one of my favorite things. Still, the little man whose job it is to collect everyone's blood work is efficient in what he does and has never yet required more than one needle stick to do it. Some technicians stick you like they enjoy it. By contrast, he has a command of what he is doing and is quite efficient. The whole process takes less than five minutes. After everything was finished and I had a flexible band wrapped around my left forearm to stop the bleeding, I rolled over and went back to sleep for another half of a an hour.

As I've mentioned before, I intend to go on as many day passes as I can, since I might very well not feel like leaving the hospital when the treatment starts. Today I'm going to be visiting the Woodrow Wilson house, which was the President and his wife, Edith's, residence for the remaining years of his life. The Wilsons moved in shortly after his second term in office had expired. Woodrow Wilson died there in 1924. Edith outlived him by nearly three decades and then turned the house over to the National Trust for Historic Preservation upon her death. I meant to go yesterday, but discovered before I intended to leave the unit that the place is closed on Mondays. I stumbled across it on Sunday because it's on the way to the Quaker meeting I have been attending, right off the Dupont Circle metro stop.

In other news, until Obama is sworn in, I'm kind of taking a break from politics. I'd rather not critique or second guess the President-Elect's cabinet posts or economic plan. Much energy and analysis was expended on studying the minutia of the election and now that it is concluded I am taking the time to sort of catch my breath. What I will say, briefly, is that I hold out a tremendous amount of hope that our newest President will be a much better Chief Executive then what we've had for eight long years. Contrary to what some commentators might think, I never enjoyed feeling righteously indignant at everything W did wrong. Left-wing bloggers, liberals, and Democrats alike found common purpose and common indignity in the act of speaking out against the Bush Administration, but I didn't get a sense of satisfaction in doing so. I've found it a frequently exasperating and lonely experience being the Loyal Opposition. Maybe we'll all get a chance to set aside our communal griping and observe what it's like when government is properly and efficiently run.