Category: health

Crazy Long Weekend

I’m 67 minutes away from a long weekend. Lots going on, and I am going to miss almost all of it.

I’m Nana sitting tonight so I will be at my mom’s house until dinner time tomorrow. That means I will miss out on Massachusetts declaring that the global pandemic over and opening up the entire state. Bad move? Likely.

Sunday I will be home for most of the day, which is good because it’s our wedding anniversary. 12 years. 12 wonderful, happy years. Sure 2020 and the first half of 2021 have licked balls, but marriage wise it’s still been incredible. The kids are at their dad’s this weekend, but we’re going to steal them for a while so they can help us celebrate. We’re not doing anything special, just being together. I’m willing to bet that at some point later in the year we will do something more substantial to celebrate. Covid has pretty much taken two anniversaries from us, so we need to do something significant to make up for it.

As for Sunday night and the holiday on Monday, I am Nana sitting again. But wait, Robert. Isn’t that a day early? Why yes, yes it is. Me covering Sunday night/Monday lets my brother go to my niece’s soccer games and it lets me do something on Tuesday. But Robert, Tuesday isn’t a day off, it’s a three day weekend not a four day weekend, isn’t it?

I booked a vacation day for Tuesday so that I can drive back up to Vermont to help my Step Daughter move into her first apartment. Pardon me, I’ve got something in my eye. No, I’m not crying, you’re crying.

I still need to pack up some stuff for tonight and tomorrow, including my MacBook. I want to mix a song or two or three tonight or tomorrow. I want to wrap up May’s Record Every Month entry. I also have an episode of That Pedal Show to watch. I don’t have a Star Wars The Bad Batch to watch because I picked that off before work this morning. I might try to watch some MST3K because I’ve been kinda in the mood for that lately. Mostly though I’ll just be missing Jen and the kids like crazy, because that’s what I mostly do while I’m at my parents. Le Sigh.

Almost Done

Leaving home to come and nana sit last night was much more difficult than in the past. I just didn’t want to go and leave my wife at home alone. I feel terrible.

Fortunately my sister is on the way to mom’s house now and when she gets here I can go home. Both kids are already at the house. We can count the days where both of them will be home with us on one hand and still have some fingers left over. I am so proud of both of them, and I want the world for them, but selfishly I want a little more time with the whole family at home. I’m not ready for that empty nest shit yet.

Nana sitting has gone well this time. The usual pain, but nothing so bad it required (doctor approved) supplemental pain meds. That’s a plus. She slept a lot today and I had a hard time getting her to sit up and take her 5:00pm meds. She eventually did it though, thank you mum.

Okay, I am going to pack up the MacBook now and get ready for the shift change. See you all at home soon.

Tuesday Night Nana Sitting

Last night was okay. My brother told me that my mother had slept most of the day so I was a little nervous that she’d be up all night, struggling with back and leg pain. Nope. She went to bed not long after her 8pm meds and slept most of the way through the night. I was ready for sleep around 10, but ended up staying awake until 11. I woke up to go to the bathroom a bit before 5:00am and ended up sitting up for half an hour before trying to sleep again. All together I got about 6.5 hours of sleep, and that’s pretty good for a night on Mom and Dad’s two-seater.

I did manage to watch this week’s Handmaid’s Tale this morning before work. So the misery porn show switches gears and gives us a tear jerker that at the last minute morphs into something really dark and scary. In other words, a pretty friggin’ great episode. Again.

Okay, it’s 9:00am now and I am signed in to work. Let’s get this day rolling, shall we?

Lunch Break

Ready for a lunch break post?

I still can’t get to the editor on a Vivaldi non-private browser window on my work laptop. It works in a private window and it works on Vivaldi on every other computer in my personal computing universe. What up?

I’ve had a couple of good nights sleep lately, but I still feel tired. I think the Covid is finally wearing my out. I put all new parts onto my breathing machine last night, which was nice, and I slept like the dead for over seven hours, which was nice, but I’m still tired today.

Did I mention the Bruins advanced to the second round? I think I need to start watching the Penguins/Islanders series. I don’t like either team, but the Bruins looked like world beaters in the first round so I’m cautiously optimistic about all possible opponents.

Music, right? I want to do car music tomorrow morning, but I don’t have anything written. There are two songs from this month that are ready for lyrics, and three more from the past couple of months too. I have to write ’em before I sings ’em though. I’m hoping that tonight before bed I’ll be able to sneak some writing in. I’m doing a challenge to record at least one song every month and I have one for this month that’s ready to mix. I just don’t know if it’s as good as some of the other things I’ve worked on this month. We’ll see.

Also music: The recording nook right now has the Vox AC15 plugged into the normal channel and the pedals are a Klon Klone, a Rat klone, and a Muff klone. I think I need to swap out the Rat for something else, and I’m not 100% sure I like the AC15 on it’s own. Maybe it’s time for the Bassbreaker 15 to come back. What I really want is my Deluxe Reverb, but it’s still at the band’s rehearsal room at our bass players house. What to do, what to do. Tone, am I right?

The kids are at their dad’s for the next couple of days. I miss them already. Harry went to school this morning and Bellana just left a minute ago. I am sad. I want them here 24/7 because I am greedy and selfish. Crud.

I should do some sunrise pics soon. I don’t know what my nana-sitting schedule is like off the top of my head, but there is a holiday weekend coming up. There’s also a wedding anniversary for someone coming up too. I wonder who?

Okay, fat boy, back to work.

CPAP Supplies

Every time I do this I tell myself to write it down somewhere and then I never do.

I got a delivery of supplies for my CPAP machine this week and today was the day I put the new parts on.

  • New filter
  • New hose
  • New harness
  • New mask

The only thing I didn’t replace was the water tank. That will happen next time.

There, I wrote it down.

Stealth Mode

Let’s set the scene. I am in the living room noodling around on my computer. My mother is in the bedroom reading through a stack of mail. The bedroom is across the main hall from me at a bit of an angle. From where I sit, I can see into the room but only a little bit.

I’m putzing around on GarageBand and my mother gets up and walks down the hall to the kitchen. The kitchen is on the other side of the house at the other end of the hall. I cannot see it from where I am sitting. I pop my headphones off of one ear and try to listen to what’s going on, but I don’t hear anything.

I couple of minutes later I get a pop up on my computer asking if I want to connect to my iPhones hotspot. Huh? Why do I need to connect to a hotspot if I’m already connected to the wifi? It could be because I am no longer connected to the wifi. I checked my phone and it’s not connected either. The wifi mnemonic isn’t showing up as an option on either device. Well shit, thinks me. I wasn’t involved in setting this up and I don’t know where anything is. I assume it’s downstairs, but no one goes downstairs. Well, we do go downstairs to do laundry, and if my niece or nephews are here during a school day they go down there for their remote classwork. There shouldn’t be anyone downstairs today though.

I get up, walk into the hallway, and find the cellar door is open. Well shit, thinks me. My mother must have gone downstairs. She knows her doctor has told her to stay off the stairs, but every now and then she tells her doctor to stuff it (figuratively speaking) and goes downstairs anyway. I followed her.

In the stack of mail she found one from Readers Digest that suggested she renew her subscription before it runs out three months from now*. The letter includes a URL for renewals. She was trying to get onto a computer, but the desk she was standing in front of doesn’t have a computer. It used to, and there is still a monitor and a power strip, but there isn’t a computer. She wasn’t sure what to do so she started pushing buttons. One of them shut off the router. She switched it back on and after a few minutes the wifi was back. Sigh of relief. I took out my phone, verified it was connected to the wifi, then tested access by going to Google and searching for “what the fuck”. It worked.

Problem solved. No harm done, other than my mother ignoring her doctor’s order. That left me with the question, how the hell did she get downstairs without me hearing it? The stairs are creaky and the door is squeaky. When I go down stairs I make all kinds of noise. She didn’t make the faintest sound. I sent a text to my brother and sister to let them know what happened. I asked if she had some sort of stealth mode that I haven’t seen yet. They both responded, yup.

Good to know. Good to know.

*My sister added the punchline to the Readers Digest situation. Turns out my mother has already mailed them a check to renew the subscription.

Fingers Crossed

My mother was having a pretty rough night. Not the worst I’ve seen, but really not good. I had to give her the extra pain med, only two hours after she had the main pill. She stopped pacing around 10:30 and she was able to lie down. There hasn’t been any noise from her room since around 11:00 (half an hour ago) when I heard some snoring. That’s good news.

The Bruins won.
The Red Sox won.
Mom was asleep by 11:00.

These are a few of my favorite things.

G’night everyone!

Up the Stairs

I just heard that my father’s physical therapy for the last two days involved climbing stairs. He was able to manage one step yesterday, and today he managed two.

I know that doesn’t sound like much, but given the state of things over the last five months, that’s about as huge as huge can get.

Good work, Dad!

85 Minutes to Go

It’s five minutes passed 4:00 which means I have less than an hour and a half to go for today’s work day. 85 minutes to quittin’ time.

I took Tuesday off for the drive to Vermont, and I took an hour yesterday morning for the hospital conference call. These two events have had the unintended side effect of turning my internal calendar inside out and upside down. I have no idea what day it is. At varying times during the day yesterday I was convinced that it was Monday. Other times I was equally convinced that it was Friday. It was Wednesday. What chance does that give me?

I have had my Google Calendar open all day today and it clearly shows that today is Thursday, yet I have been positive that it’s Friday. I had to mess with the Nana Sitting schedule for the weekend too, and that’s going to mess me up even more. Instead of leaving after work on Thursday and coming back after dinner on Saturday, I am going to leave on Thursday and come back after work on Friday. The reason behind it is excellent (happy birthday to Bellana) but it’s messing with my head.

It’s been a wacky week, I tells ya. I’m hoping I have the energy to play some guitar tonight. If I put the leads on one of the May songs tonight I can mix it while I Nana Sit tomorrow.

Back to work. 75 minutes to go. I just got asked to evaluate a custom code project for one of our customers and it’s something I’ve already written. Kick ass, dude. I love it when that happens. Reusing code is totally where it’s at.

Talk to you later. Probably after I get home. Probably with a picture of the cat. Rock on, ladies and germs.

Cough

Two hours ago I ate a granola bar. It feels like the teeny, tiniest little spec of granola, barely a molecule or two, has some how gotten stuck near the back of my throat. I’ve been coughing ever since. I brought a water bottle full of our delicious Poland Spring water, flavored with some delicious grape flavoring. I drank the whole thing while trying to dislodge the speck of granola. I failed. There’s no delicious spring water here at my parents house. I filled up the water bottle with tap water. Then I remembered I was supposed to bring a grape flavoring bottle with me tonight. I had some here, but not enough to adequately grape-ify my water bottle. Shit, cough cough. Shit.

The Bruins and Capitals are playing game three of their first round series. Similar to games one and two, game three has gone to overtime. The Bruins have been rolling in the overtime period with nothing to show for it. I could really go for a Bruins game winning goal right now. Two minute left in the overtime period. I’m starting to get a bad feeling about this one. Shit, cough cough. Shit.

For the second consecutive Nana-Sitting night I am having all kinds of bad allergies. Sniffles, runny nose, the works. All of that on top of my stupid granola bar cough. Shit, cough cough. Shit.

I have a pimple on my left ear lobe. It hurts like furious, bloody murder. Shit, cough cough. Shit.

I wanna go home.