Category: health

Cat Scratch

I was sitting at my desk a few minutes ago, looking at the Covid-19 numbers for the day (they were bad. Very bad). Patches decided to jump up onto the desk and say hello. Her aim was a little off and one leg missed. It slipped off the desk and onto my leg. Her claws were out. She got me. No broken skin, but ouch.

The other day she got Jen on the shoulder when Jen tried to pick her up (she acts like she HATES being picked up, but she always purrs like crazy when Jen does it. I think she’s just playing hard to get and secretly loves being picked up).

We don’t have to worry about turning into some shitty 70’s rock song, do we?

#sarcasm is a given, okay?

Sleep Failure

Did I have a crummy night’s sleep last night or what?

I went to bed at midnight. Woke up at 1:00. Woke up again at 2:00. Woke up at 3:50 and could not get back to sleep. I bet I dozed off a little at a time without realizing it, but I know I saw the clock hit 4:40 before I really went under again.

My back was really sore and I couldn’t get comfortable. My arms kept going numb from laying on my side. I mean, my arms were just showing off. Look, jerk, we can go to sleep. Why can’t the rest of you? Ugh.

My CPAP mask kept feeling like it was losing it’s seal. I don’t think it actually was, but during the rare times when I was asleep I was drooling like a fooling and the mask was sliding around all over the place and it was driving me nuts.

At about 6:30 I gave up and got up. I took the trash to the street and I did my whole morning routine and I did car music. Just two songs. The one song I have for Record Every Month, and the last song I had for Quarantine volume 5.

I’m leaving work a couple of hours early today, but I have meetings pretty much for the whole rest of the day. It’s going to be a busy Tuesday. I expect by the time the day ends I am going to be wishing I had a good night’s sleep, right?

Bike Day

It was about a month ago that I stopped closing my exercise ring every day. I stopped doing my 30 minutes of walking. My back was killing me around the clock and I would walk for 2-3 minutes and have to stop. I also stopped doing the Intermittent Fasting thing. That was 25 days ago, if the app I track the fasting in can be believed.

My back doesn’t feel any better, really. I think I have gained 30 pounds in those three-plus weeks. I haven’t weighed myself, but I definitely gained a ton of weight in that short period of time. I can see it, Jen can see it, and I can feel it.

When we put up the Christmas tree we had to find a new, temporary home for our exercise bike. That new home ended up being next to my side of the bed. Right across the room from my work desk. As I felt my weight climbing at a rapid pace, it almost seemed like the bike was mocking me. For about two weeks I have been telling myself to just ride the friggin’ thing. Today I finally did. I only rode it in 5-6 minute intervals. I closed my 30 minute exercise ring, but I didn’t close my 1,000 calorie move ring. My back was okay with the whole thing. My legs weren’t. Ouch. That was a trade I can handle in the short term.

I’ll try again tomorrow. I will shoot for more than just the 30 minutes and see if I can close the 1,000 calorie ring too (I wasn’t even close today). I need to do something before I turn into a Monty Python sketch*.

Oh, and I started tonight’s intermittent fast at 7:30pm. It’s supposed to be 9:00pm, but I guess I was a little anxious. Fingers crossed I can keep myself from falling off the wagon, or from crashing it in to a tree.

I am leaving work a couple of hours early tomorrow. I’m thinking of trying to put new christmas lights on the side of the house. Maybe going up and down the ladder will gain me a few exercise minutes and burn off a few calories. Every little bit helps, I hear.

I am freaking out about my weight. Frankly, it’s so out of control and hard to reign in that it’s scaring the ever loving shit out of me. One step at a time, I guess.

*Just a wafer thin mint, sir.

Blah

Not sure what the deal is tonight but I find myself feeling really low. I was fine a couple of hours ago but right now I’m feeling pretty shitty mental healthily speaking.

I can probably blame it on Covid. I can pretty much blame every unhappy feeling on the ‘Rona, but I’m not sure that’s good enough.

Is it the imminent arrival of yet another locked down holiday? Is it work stress? I had a project on my to-do list this morning that I really wanted to get through but I ended up being so busy with other stuff that I spent exactly zero seconds working on it.

Is it the weather? Is it the calendar? I guarantee it’s not the love of my life who is sleeping next to me as I type this useless shit. I do miss the kids, but that feeling is always with me and whatever is bothering me tonight is on top of that.

I don’t know. I’ll figure it out. Or I won’t. Think I’ll listen to some music for a few and then go to sleep.

Appointments

I made two doctors appointments today. One is just a quickie to drop off some paperwork and take some vitals. The other is a zoom meeting.

I told myself that I wasn’t going to write about this… then changed my mind… then changed my mind again… and now I am changing it again. The appointments are to start the process for weight loss surgery. The idea of mutilating my internal organs in the name of health scares the fucking shit out of me (literally?). 20 years of nothing but negative progress in my attempts to get healthier is currently scaring me even more. A lot more. Almost infinitely more. My step kids were six and four years old when I met them for the first time. I missed out on a ton. I don’t want to miss out on any more because I was not able to get my weight down and it caused my heart to explode. Fuck.

So the first appointment is booked and I am freaking out. Also, the first appointment doesn’t happen until mid-January so I am freaking out about that too. Covid-19 forced us to punt on Harry’s high school graduation trip to Disney World last year. The make up date is currently sometime in January 2023. I don’t want to still be in some weakened recovery phase of this process when the trip date comes around. I’d rather delay than screw up scheduling. Granted Omicron is already hinting at a fucked up 2022 to rival the fucked up 2021 and 2020. Fuck. Who knows what’s going to happen.

Anyway… as of right now I think I am going to share my thoughts and experiences on this whole process as they happen, which means you aren’t going to hear a peep for almost two months. I’ll probably change my mind a few dozen times between now and then so you might not get a post about it until it happens. Or, maybe I’ll wait a year after it happens and then just post a selfie of an unrecognizable, healthier me (that is the goal, right?).

Cross your fingers and hang on to your butts, and come along and freak the fuck out with me.

I wrote “fuck” a lot in this post. Oh well.

Sigh

Yesterday was Monday and somehow I was feeling optimistic about the state of the universe. Today is Tuesday and… sigh. Something about tomorrow being the start of December is messing me up today. I’m not sure exactly why, but it’s probably Covid-19 and holiday related. We’re not getting a normal Christmas for the second year in a row, which implies that our Covid Christmas is actually now the normal. Shit.

I had three projects to do at work in less than two weeks. I picked off one of them yesterday and was feeling pretty good about the state of things. Now, simply because it’s the next day, I am feeling a little defeatist about the remaining two. Why? Where is my rational brain hiding? Come out and play, brain. Pretty please?

I took the barrels out to the street this morning. The barrels are full to bursting, partly with Thanksgiving detritus, but they’ve spent the whole week in the new little shed thing so the squirrels weren’t able to get at them. 10 minutes after I took the barrels to the street I looked out the window and saw a squirrel sitting on the barrel snacking on some stuff. Sigh.

Okay. Time to punch in to work. Here’s hoping the state of the universe improves a little. Fingers crossed, folks.

A Weird Day So Far

My prediction of this being the slowest work day of the year hasn’t really come true, though there is still half a work day to get through. Lots of customer stuff has come in today. Nothing really involving my application directly, but we’re involved in a sort of tangential way. Lots of questions, lots of updates, lots of discussions. It’s enough to keep the perception of the day moving, and some of it has been a tad annoying, but these are good things compared to staring at the clock and watching it not move.

Two odd health-type things to note for future reference. First, my back hurts. Usually my back pain flares up when I’m moving around or being somewhat active (as active as my gargantuan fat-assed self gets at least) but today it’s pretty much constant. That’s annoying. The second thing is more sporadic, but equally annoying. I sort of feel like my left calf is constantly on the verge of a charlie horse. If I’m walking around and I put my left foot down in just the right way, bang – charlie horse. If I am standing in just the right way, bang – charlie horse. It only lasts a few seconds at most and then I correct whatever I did and it’s gone… but it’s always there. Stupid charlie horse.

As I mentioned in a post last night, I came up with a really simple musical idea to add to the November music thing, now that we’re down to less than a week and still miles away from finishing. Today I came up with another one. Now I just have to wait for my MacBook Pro to get home from that fact finding mission to Guyana. I’m sure everything there is fine and it will be home soon. I hope to spend some quality recording time this weekend.

Okay, folks. We’re half a work day away from a four day weekend. Let’s get to it and get through it and at around 5:30 tonight the sigh of relief you hear will be me.

I Mean it This Time

Okay. It’s been over an hour since I said I was going to bed. I mean it this time. No joke. I’m going to bed. I’m so tired I feel like I might start hallucinating or something.

Stop talking about it and sleep, ya friggin’ clown! Turn off the lights, put down your iPad and go to sleep!

I’m Exhausted

I’m so tired. Holy cow, is Robert tired. I mean, I am just completely out of gas.

The kids went over to their father’s house this afternoon and now I am sad. I’m pretty much as sad today as I was happy the last two days. Ugh. Also, I am exhausted and a little brain fried. Half my staff was out today and our biggest customer let us have it with both barrels. Well… that makes it sound like they were pissed at us. No, they just opened new tickets and escalated them all. Yippee. I think we’re leaving them in a good place tonight though so I am happy. I’m still super tired though.

I don’t feel good. Something I ate last night is disagreeing with me today. No clue what, but something. I’m also so tired that my eyes are super tired and now I’m getting a headache. Have I said yippee yet? Yippee.

13 minutes until I am clear to punch out for the day. I am going to make Jen dinner and then… pass out asleep? Maybe. We’ll see. I can tell how excited you are to see how this day ends up. Zzzzzzzzzzzzz