medical shit and another firing

Monday morning I woke up with a couple of itchy spots on my jaw line near my chin on the left side of my face making me think a mosquito or spider chowed down on me during the night. By mid-day it had become a larger patch of rash. By evening a line of rash had appeared on the right side of my face from cheekbone to jaw line and Tuesday it had spread into a patch of rash, itchy or tingly off and on. Yesterday during lunch Marc says that's how shingles starts which resulted in a frantic internet search on shingles. Nope, not shingles which starts with severe pain and then a rash develops several days later which become little blisters. So far, no pain, just itchy which I'm treating with cortisone itchy cream. Wednesday morning a small patch on my hairline appeared and by Wednesday night the back of my left ear broke out. Today a small eruption on my right thumb and wrist and my left pinky finger have appeared. I have no idea what this is or what is causing it. Marc suggested poison ivy but I know poison ivy and stay far away from it, don't think I was exposed to any, and besides it's all dormant right now, no leaves, though it does seem like poison ivy and some blisters have formed. Sunday I had been pulling weeds, the same weeds and grass I've been pulling up for weeks, and the tall dead cosmos stalks which are rough and a bit prickly and probably brushed against my face (but the back of my ear?) but then why not my hands and exposed arms?  (well, now my hands.) Not to mention I've been pulling up those stalks and weeds for years and never had a reaction.

In other news, the goldfinches are mobbing the bird feeder and tea cup, the red shouldered hawks are doing their mating flights and calls, the cardinals are singing their love songs. The love-in-a-mist have put out a few first tentative blooms, 

the poppies are growing big, and the woodlands painted petal are beginning to put up bloom stalks.

a chilly sulfur butterfly waiting for the day to warm up

I've been working with the modeling glass and have a kiln shelf full to go in the kiln, most of which are experiments to see how different glass...transparent vs opal, frit vs powder...fires.

And finally, I've almost got my referral for the cardiologist. I have to say that Memorial Hermann is not instilling me with confidence. First of all, they have my husband's phone number as the primary number and mine as secondary totally ignoring what I wrote on the info sheet and despite me telling them over and over of their error. Second, my primary care doctor told the desk worker she was referring me to cardiologist NP Mazel but failed to submit whatever written form which I learned last Thursday when I called the Patient Concierge Services for Memorial Hermann which sets up the referrals and so had to call the doctor's office to get that remedied. When I still hadn't heard anything by last Tuesday, I called the PCS again and they told me they had the referral and were processing it. Today, they called me, again on Marc's phone, to tell me my referral with Dr. XXX was set up and to call them for an appointment. Dr. XXX is not the doctor I want to see and not who my referral was supposed to be to. So, now waiting once again. I asked the woman at PCS if this was going to take another week since it had already been nearly two weeks since I was supposed to be referred. No, she said, she'd try and get it taken care of today.