Category: health

Boy, am I Tired

A little less than six hours of sleep two nights ago. A little less than five hours of sleep last night.

It is catching up to me. Yikes, friends and neighbors.

I cleaned all of the pieces of my CPAP machine today in the hopes of karmically getting myself some good sleep tonight. Yes, that use of the word “karmically” doesn’t make any sense. It doesn’t apply to this situation at all. I used it ironically to point out how mentally exhausted I am. It’s the English Language, boys and girls. It’s like jazz, you can use the rules of the language to justify and legitimize all sorts of mistakes. Dig that crazy sound, man.

What the heck was I talking about before I stopped making sense? Huh… I should really give Talking Heads another look one of these days. If Adrien Belew liked them then maybe my 80’s ambivalence was misdirected.

Does any of this make sense? I don’t know if I got this point across or not, but I am really tired.

Only Nine Left

I had a pretty crummy nights sleep on Sunday. I had a crummier nights sleep last night. Part of it is from having everything thrown off with the contractor staying super late. Part of it is knowing that one week from today I will be on a clear liquids only diet in preparation for having my innards ripped apart and stapled back together. Yeah, that might be it.

Maybe I should distract myself with something so that I don’t freak myself out.

Maybe….

Here is The Great 2022 Marvel Cinematic Universe Chronological Rewatch of 2022 Update:

  • Phase One-ish
    • Captain America: The First Avenger
    • Captain Marvel
    • Iron Man
    • The Incredible Hulk
    • Iron Man 2
    • Thor
    • Marvel’s The Avengers
  • Phase Two-ish
    • Iron Man 3
    • Thor: The Dark World
    • Captain America: The Winter Soldier
    • Guardians of the Galaxy
    • Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2
    • Avengers: Age of Ultron
    • Ant-Man
  • Phase Three-ish
    • Captain America: Civil War
    • Black Widow
    • Spider-Man: Homecoming
    • Black Panther
    • Doctor Strange
    • Thor: Ragnarok
    • Ant-Man and the Wasp
    • Avengers: Infinity War
    • Avengers: Endgame
    • Spider-Man: Far From Home
  • Phase four-ish
    • Eternals
    • Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings
    • Spider-Man: No Way Home

Doctor Strange is done. Check that one off. Interstellar Overdrive blared forth from the soundtrack and all was good. It’s a killer movie, but I have to admit he’s not my favorite character. I am looking forward to the sequel though. It looks pretty good.

Up next is Thor: Ragnarock. The moment when Thor stopped being over blown and pompous and a smidge on the boringish side and started being hilariously funny and really good. This is one of the MCU’s best moments. Also, I’m only two flicks away from Infinity War when the best of the best starts.

Distilled Water Update

You all can ignore this. This one is just for me.

I am going to open a new bottle of distilled water tonight. The last time I opened one was March 30. 23 days ago. A new record. Granted, not sleeping at all one night skewed the numbers a smidge.

The results so far:
18
18
20
21
23

Woops

I got up early this morning to put the trash out on the street. When I came back inside Jen reminded me that yesterday was a state holiday, Patriots Day, and trash pick up will be tomorrow.

Sonofa…

Did you see those pictures of the cellar floor last night? We’re coming to the end, aren’t we. A few more days to finish the floor and all the baseboards and finishing touches. We have a couple of pieces of furniture coming this weekend. Soon enough we’re going to have us a nice little living room down there.

What else is going on? I have another doctors appointment tomorrow. A pre-screening at the hospital. I don’t know what that means, but it has something to do with anesthesia. Prep work.

Two weeks and one day until surgery. Two weeks after that Harry comes home for the summer. The month of May is going to be a busy one, right?

Stressing

Surgery is in 16 days and I am stressing a little. Not about the surgery itself, but about some things that go along with it.

I need to book a Covid-19 test three days before the surgery. They gave me a few clinics I can go to. I spent a lot of time on the phone with two of them today, trying to schedule a test, and never spoke to a human. Jen reminded me that today is a state holiday in Massachusetts, so that might be why. Still… if you’re not home today, add that to your voice message.

I haven’t had caffeine since February 3rd (I think). I haven’t missed it. Even last Wednesday when I did my 38 hour sleep-free stretch, I was never wishing I could have some caffeine. I am today though. I am jonzing go-juice in a big way. I’m exhausted and I could really use a little help staying focused. I can’t though. I can never have caffeine again.

I do have one little piece of good news, surgically speaking. I checked the documentation they gave me to see what restrictions there are on lifting things immediately post-op. It says not to lift anything over 25 pounds for six weeks after the surgery. Why is that important to me? The average weight of a Gibson Les Paul is around 10 pounds. That’s a ton in the guitar world, but it’s far below my limit. Sigh of musical relief.

One Final Note on the All Nighter

One thing I forgot to mention when I wrote about yesterday’s all nighter.

There will be no perfect week for exercise from my AppleWatch Activity App. I did not do my exercise. The move ring was closed, probably because I stressed out so much I burned tons of calories by just sitting still. The stand ring closed too. That was a given. I had 12 hours with at least one minute standing by 11:01am.

No exercise ring though. I thought about doing my 30 minutes of marching in place in the ER room as soon as I got there so that I could have it all done right away. I didn’t though. I wasn’t sure how long we were going to be there and the thought of doing something physical to tire myself out that late at night when I still might have had to drive her home before going home myself just seemed like a bad move. When I got home I told Jen I was still planning on doing it, but she thought it was a bad idea. I did too, I just didn’t want to admit it. In the end I skipped the day.

The good news, I’ve already closed the 30 minute ring today. We’re back on track already.

I’m Still Alive, Mostly

Wow. Yesterday sucked. I’m not going to recap any of the details pertaining to my mother’s day in the hospital, but I will give a quick recap of my own day.

My SleepWatch app tells me that I woke up at 5:55am on Tuesday morning. Pretty normal. I did a full day’s work, I had dinner with the love of my life, we made some good progress in our How I Met Your Mother binge-fest, we turned in for the night but I didn’t go to sleep. Instead I watched Guardians of the Galaxy Vol 2 as part of my fun, very time consuming marvel rewatch. The movie finished a little before midnight, which was dumb. I should have gone to sleep earlier and finished the movie the next day. I didn’t though.

I sat up in bed for a little while longer and I think I may have nodded off a little around 12:30. I woke up quick though because my phone rang. My sister let me know that my mother was going to the ER and she asked if I could meet her there. I got dressed, filled up my water bottle, grabbed a charger and some ear buds and off I went.

20 minutes later I was in my mother’s room in the ER, and there I stayed. She slept through the night but I stayed up because I didn’t want her to wake up alone. I watched episode two of MoonKnight on my phone and started watching Avengers Age of Ultron, but my brain was getting fuzzy at that point and I stopped. I acknowledge the clock passing 5:55am, meaning I had been awake for 24 hours (minus the maybe two minutes before the phone rang) and then I leaned my head against the wall and tried to doze. I think I was successful, but only for a few minutes. 10 minutes tops.

My mother woke up around 9:00am and I was very busy for a few hours. Very busy. She fell asleep again by noon and I had a couple of hours to rest. I tried to nap again but if I was able to fall asleep it was only for a few minutes. When my mother woke up I was once again very busy for a few hours. They discharged her at around 4:30pm. I was very worried that I would have to drive her home without having slept for over 32 hours. Fortunately the hospital offered us a wheelchair van to take her home. I was very happy to accept. I didn’t mind driving myself, but I was really nervous about driving her.

I went to my parents’ building to help get the wheelchair downstairs to their room. I then filled everyone in on what my brain was still able to process and then I went home. I walked in the door just before 6:00pm. Jen and I had dinner together and went down cellar to check out the new paint job. We went to bed a little after 8:00pm. I don’t think Jen was ready for bed at all, but she was nice enough to sit up with me. She’s amazing, you know. I tried to watch episode three of MoonKnight but I only got a few minutes into it before I gave up and went to sleep. SleepWatch tells me I was asleep at 8:25pm. The sleep-free streak was 38.5 hours, minus the few minutes I grabbed here and there. My watch didn’t register any of the time I thought I might have been asleep, so maybe I dozed and maybe I didn’t. I tried, but maybe I was just sitting there with my eyes closed for longer than I realized. Who knows.

38.5 hours without sleep. Yeah… that was rough, but I made it through and lived to tell the tale via a blog post that will live forever in the wilds of the internet. Or something like that.

Still in the ER.

It’s been almost 31 hours since I was last asleep in my bed. I’ve managed a couple of quick cat naps along the way. You know what? Let’s call them Power Naps.

It’s looking like my mother will be going home today with a sling on her arm. For a while there they were talking about admitting her but that doesn’t seem to be the case anymore.

Here’s hoping this wraps up soon with her safe at home and me safe at home taking another Power Nap.

What a day, right?

All Nighter

It’s 5:57am. As of two minutes ago I have officially pulled an all nighter.

I’m 50 years, 11 months, and five days old.

In the immortal words of Roger Murtaugh, I am too old for this shit.*

*Thats a reference to the Lethal Weapon movie series. Replace the word shit with stuff and it’s a reference to How I Met Your Mother