Tag: health

Pain

I am physically falling apart and it’s pissing me off.

Last week I got fed up with the state of my shoes.  Both the shoes I wear to work, business casual style, and the sneakers I wear everywhere else were in a sorry state.  The work shoes were worn smooth and walking on a wet floor in the lobby at work could be dangerous.  The sneakers were also flat but had the added benefit of the soles coming off entirely.  So I bought new shoes.  I have to order them online because my feet are freakishly huge (size 14, 4x width).  New Balance makes shoes that fit me but I generally can’t get them in stores.

The shoes were delivered.  I tried them on.  They fit.  End of story, right?  Wrong.

On Monday I had a bad pain in my left foot.  It felt like I twisted my ankle but I didn’t.  I wasn’t sure what I’d done to earn this fun pain.  By Tuesday the pain had sort of settled into my instep and gotten much worse.  I think I know what it is.  I have never been diagnosed with plantar fasciitis, but years ago I was dealing with brutal pain in one of my feet and there were two or three people who told me that my symptoms were exactly the same as theirs had been when they were diagnosed with plantar fasciitis.  Someone suggested a stretching exercise and I tried it and eventually the pain went away.  This time around it is Friday and I’m still in major pain.  Wednesday was better, Thursday was WORSE (capital letters to emphasize just how much worse).  Today is bad but so far a little better than yesterday.

If it is what I think it is then it’s the third time I’ve had it.  The first time was out of the blue and absolutely brutal.  The second time wasn’t as bad, but I was doing those stretches right away and it took care of it.  Now when I think back at the second time though… I am pretty sure it corresponded with new shoes.  Is it possible that breaking in new shoes causes whatever this is to flare up?  If so, I might never buy new shoes again.  I’ll just wear these until they disintegrate and then go barefoot for the rest of my days.  This sucks.  I want it to be over.

Then we add this onto the crap pile.  Last night, Jen and Harry and I were sitting in the living room watching That 70’s Show on Netflix.  An episode ended at 9:00 (I love cake) and Jen said she had one more in her before she had to go to bed.  I decided to take that opportunity to do the thing that I have been telling myself to do every day for months: Practice the effing guitar.

I went into the bedroom, plugged my Les Paul straight into the amp (guitar pedal nerds world wide shudder in fear) and spent about 20 minutes noodling.  After a few minutes I thought, huh… my left elbow hurts.  Why the hell does my left elbow hurt?  It hadn’t hurt before, but it hurt then and it still feels a little tender now.  What the hell!?  I didn’t do anything to earn additional pain, why the hell does it hurt?

You know what I need?  I need a freakin’ vacation.  That’s what I need.  How about a vacation and a new body.  Can I trade this one in for a younger model?

Scale and Sleep and Stuff

There were a number of reasons why I wanted to change what I eat. The main reason being that I felt like garbage all the time due to having to carry around my gigantic stomach. The other reasons included things like clothes not fitting right anymore, spending way too much money on junk food, fearing that when I sit in a chair it will be crushed beneath me. You know, the little things.

Another of those reasons was due to the digital scale in our bathroom no longer being able to read my weight. When I stepped on it the display would say ERR. In other words, you’re too fat for the scale you fat ass. I’m happy to say that after two weeks of no coca~cola, smaller lunches, no junk food breakfasts, and less snacking between meals, the scale gave me an actual number today. Granted it was an absurdly huge number, but a number. I feel happy about that little detail. Granted, hippopotamuses often feel happy too. I’m still a monstrous fat ass, but I’m enjoying my tiny little victory.

On a less successful note, another reason for changing my intake was that I had trouble sleeping through the night. Eliminating coca~cola from my diet would remove the vast majority of my caffeine intake. If I can cut back on chocolate too (so far so, sort of good) I could stop having caffeine all together. Well I haven’t had any caffeinated soda of any kind in over two weeks now, but I’m not seeing a lot of improvement in my sleeping. A little, maybe, but not that much. I still wake up 1-2 times a night for no apparent reason, and I never feel all that rested in the morning. I probably do feel better than I did a couple of weeks ago, but there has not been any major change. I wonder how long it takes caffeine to purge from your system? I wonder if my massive caffeine intake over the years would skew things so that it takes longer to purge. I wonder.

On the upside of things, the cold that cleaned my clock last week is about 95% gone. Jen is feeling better too, although it hit her much harder than it hit me (and it kicked my ass) and she still has a way to go before she’s all better.

On a non-health note, I put some new strings on one of my guitars yesterday during telecommute lunch and I did a little recording. Then immediately after work I did a little more recording. Then this morning before work I did a little more recording. New/old song in a couple of days? Seems likely. Maybe if I keep up the pre morning commute schedule there might be two new/old songs soon.

In the meantime though, Robert says no to caffeinated beverages. The goal is to have a decent beach body by 2033 (kidding). At this rate, anything is possible.

Friday

It is Friday.  That is good.  Tomorrow is Saturday.  That is better.

My wife seemed a little better last night, but she said she felt just as lousy.  She’s wondering if the antibiotics are causing an allergic reaction.  I hope not.  She’s working from home today.  The kids are going to an arcade with their father and then coming back to our house.  My worries about the reaction to Santa’s gifts is a little less today than it was a couple of days ago.  They are both using things that didn’t seem to go over all that well when they were opened.  That makes me happy.

We don’t have much planned for the weekend.  We had a get together scheduled with Larry and family and Mike and family, but pneumonia has postponed that for a couple of weeks.  It will be good to see everyone all at once again.  It’s been much too long.

All that’s left is a trip to the Apple store.  The kids and I all got iPads for Christmas (yes, we are all spoiled rotten.  Mostly me!) and the kids want to get cases for theirs.  I thought that maybe if Jen is feeling better by Sunday afternoon we might take a shot at seeing The Hobbit, but that’s probably not the smartest idea on my part.  Mostly we should just stay home and take care of Mom.  I think that is the best plan.  I’ll take care of any errands that need to be run, and the kids can stay in their pajamas, which they both love to do.

It’s the last weekend of 2012.  Let’s hope 2013 gets off to a healthier start for all of us.