The Lovely Doctor Vist

Well, I saw my specialist today and from what she says (actually, she is my doctor's assistant but she is so easy to deal with that I look forward to having her see me instead of my regular doctor) my numbers are looking good for now and I'm stable.  She says my ammonia is still elevated at 66 and so she increased the dreaded Lactulose again but says that after the labs I will have done Friday that if it's the same or lower, she'll take me back down to once a day.  She also told me that it's good to sleep as much as I need to (which seems to be the general consensus) and I told her that I feel like that's all I ever do, besides suffer from terrible tummy aches.  She was being honest when she said there's really nothing to be done about it and I know she's right.  My husband wants me to continue with my appeal for my disability claim and the doctor says there's no reason not to.  What harm can it do?  The worst that can happen is that I'll be denied again.  The only bad thing about my visit today is that the doctor is going to schedule another endoscopy with possible banding for right before the holidays.  I know it's not really a big deal, I've had a few of those by now and the worst part is the waiting (well, really the worst part is the gigantic tube they put down your throat, but let's forget about that for awhile, shall we?).  I still dread it.  It's rotten and just reminds me even more that it's something I'll have to deal with for a long time.  Also, I hate the fact that when my doctor got to the hospital last time to do the procedure he had no clue who I was and no clue why I was there.  That is starting to get very irritating.  Hopefully, they won't even have to do any banding but even if they do it's done so fast that last time I didn't even realize I had any done until they told me after the fact.  So......that's the latest and greatest.  I am going to my husband's Christmas party for his command tomorrow night and hopefully there will be something on the dinner menu that I can eat, but either way, we plan to have a very nice time....I always look forward to meeting his shipmates. Take care and God bless....