Tag: health

What Will Go Wrong?

The kids are coming over today.
There’s a new Star Wars show premiering today, The Book of Boba Fett.
We are going to have the Christmas dinner we were supposed to have on Christmas but didn’t.
It’s not too cold out (forecast calls for mid to high 30s).
I got a pretty good night’s sleep last night.
I put down all of the midi tracks for two songs this morning before work.

That’s a lot of good stuff for a Wednesday, don’t you think?

I wonder what’s going to come along and blow the happy vibes?

Hang in there, kids. Only two more work days until New Years Eve.

Cat Barf

Jen told me she found a cat vomit stash in Bellana’s room* and she asked me to clean it up. I took a look and found a cat vomit stash and didn’t think much of it. It took me a few days to get to it. It was nothing a little swiffer mop couldn’t handle in two seconds. I cleaned it up. Boom. Then I saw the actual vomit stash Jen was talking about. It was big. It was chunky. It was spread out over a surprising surface area. It was solid as a rock and stuck so thoroughly to the floor that it was essentially a part of the floor. The two had become one and would not be separated.

The swiffer mop didn’t touch it. Hell, the vomit laughed at the swiffer mop. The scouring pad on a sponge barely made a scratch. The vomit scoffed at the scouring pad. A quart of 409… well, that was a good start. That plus the scouring pad took up a lot of it. When I couldn’t get any more, I had to go at it with a second quart of 409, another round with the pad, and then another round with the swiffer.

Yeah, the vomit is gone, but I may have weakened the structural integrity of the entire house. Next time that cat pukes in Bellana’s room it might be the end of us all.

Beware.

*I’m sure I’ve mentioned this before, but Patches the Cat likes to puke. She has some food issues that often upset her stomach and she ralphs it up. We didn’t know what was going on so we asked a Vet and after an examination, the Vet told us that she just eats as much as she can as fast as she can and then gets sick. It’s really gross. It’s even more gross because I am the one who cleans it up.

Bellana’s room is probably her favorite puke palace. She’s not terribly picky. She likes the living room too, and just the other day she let off a bomb in the office. Bellana’s room though… yeah, that’s the stuff. It’s probably because Bellana went to college first and her room is empty the most often so it’s nice and private. Patches sleeps in there a lot too, though when Harry’s not around she likes to sleep (and hurl) in his room too. Bellana’s is definitely the favorite though, and with her coming back on Wednesday we want it to be as vomit free as it can be.

Oh, and did I mention that Bellana’s sheets are in the washing machine because Miss Patches dropped a stomach bile bomb on the bed as well as next to the bed and under the bed?

Yeah, Patches sure loves to yack in Bellana’s room.

Less Productive

I’ve completed about half of the projects I set for myself today. The snow cocked it up, even though we only got a little more than a dusting. Is a wet dusting a thing or is that a precipitation oxymoron? Whatever, I shoveled the tiny bit of snow and cleaned off the cars and my back has been royally pissed at me ever since. I did the trash too, and I’m about to cook dinner.

There are a couple of boxes that need to go into the cellar, haven’t done that. There’s a shit load of laundry to do, haven’t done that. The cat left a mess in Bellana’s room, haven’t cleaned that.

I want to but my back stops me every five minutes or so.

Here’s hoping 2022 (2020 too) leads to the elusive weight loss surgery, and that leads to a reduction in stress on my back, and that leads to less back pain.

It probably won’t, but a boy can dream, right?

Three Rings

I closed all three rings on my Apple Watch activity app today. I’m trying really hard to get back into it after slacking off for a month. It’s so difficult.

The watch has me burning way more calories when I walk in place than when I ride the exercise bike. I’m not sure why, but over the last week the bike has been better for my back. I did 40 minutes on the bike today, the goal is 30, and I wasn’t even close to the calorie goal.

I’ll have to figure something out, just so long as I don’t stop exercising. I can’t let myself stop again.

Good luck tomorrow, self.

Forgetful Doofus

Every few months I get a package in the mail with replacement parts for my CPAP machine. Masks, filters, hoses, harnesses, and sometimes water tanks. I should swap out parts more often than I do, but instead I tend to use each component for longer than expected and I end up not using all of each month’s delivery.

Over the last week or so I have been wanting to update everything, but I knew a delivery was coming soon and I decided to wait. It finally came two days ago and tonight I got around to swapping out parts. That’s when I realized what a forgetful doofus I am.

I keep all of the unused items in my closet. I figured I’d take what I could from the last box before using anything from the new box. I took the box off the top of the closet. It had a harness with a mask and a bunch of filters. Okay, that’s a good start. That’s when I noticed there was another box. Not the latest shipment, but the previous shipment. I hadn’t opened it yet. Ugh, really? I had a full box of parts sitting in the closet and I still waited for a new box to be delivered? What a moron.

So now the box from two deliveries back is empty except for a few filters (which I moved to the end table next to my bed. Don’t forget that, Robert. The next time you swap a filter you don’t have to go into the closet. Remember, you absent minded putz). The box from one delivery back is open and available for use. There is a hose in there and a few masks and another harness. The delivery from this week is in the closet now too, and it’s still unopened.

The machine now has a new filter, a new mask, a new harness, a new hose, and a new tank. Literally everything that can be changed has been changed.

Stop being so damn forgetful and start replacing parts more often. It’s nice that I clean them regularly, but stop being weird about replacement parts. Just stop it. Doofus.

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.