Tag: health

Over-sharer Fail

What’s a clinical over-sharer to do?

I have four things going on that the clinical over-sharer in me wants to talk about but I can’t. Well… I can, but I just don’t want to… even though I want to. Ugh.

Three of the four things are related to being a home owner. The fourth is a personal healthcare thing. One of the home things is pretty huge, another is kind of huge but dependent on the first thing and after the first thing is squared away there are two other things that have to happen before we get to it… confused? Me too. The third is pretty minor but still nice. The healthcare thing has the potential to become utterly gigantic, in a really positive way, but at the moment is just a teeny tiny thing.

The huge thing will never be discussed directly, the big thing will be, but not until it happens and maybe not until after it happens. The small thing probably won’t be, but in oversharing other things you might get a clue. The healthcare thing is probably going to be discussed in excruciating detail, but not until the process advances quite a bit further than the baby step I’ve taken thus far.

I want to talk about all of it! AAARRRGGGHHH!!!

On a completely unrelated and unimportant note, I just asked a HomePod to play a specific podcast episode and it worked. Nice! Hey Siri, play the newest episode of The Walking Dead ‘Cast. It worked!

Not Much Going On

Watch, I publish a post saying that there isn’t much going on and five minutes later I am going to get run over by a mac truck sized issue at work. Just you watch.

Anyway, nothing much going on today.

Work has been quiet, which is nice on a Monday. I got a little exercise in this morning, but I am having a hard time getting as much done in one sitting as I could even a few days ago. My goal is 30 minutes and I usually try to do it in two 15 minute chunks. Over the last three days or so I haven’t really been able to do more than 10 minutes at a time. Either my back will start screaming, or my calves, or my knees, or something. Isn’t exercise supposed to get easier the more you do it? Apparently not.

Intermittent fasting has not been all that great lately. One or two days each week I have been failing. Not completely, but I’ll be shutting it down after 13 hours or 14 hours or whatever. The goal is 16. Having said that though, today’s fast just ended at 18 hours. So that’s a good day, right?

I have Veteran’s Day off on Thursday. It’s bitter sweet. Starting in January my company has changed the way we handle time off and it includes some of the non-national holidays we’ve enjoyed for decades being changed to floating holidays… which means next year I don’t get 11/11 off. This is my final Veteran’s Day. Unless of course I put in for a floating holiday on that day next year, but that’s neither here nor there. I plan to honor the holiday by playing the guitar, and ending World War I.

Okay. Lunch is over. Back to work, Robert.

Almost Midnight

It’s almost midnight. I haven’t been able to sleep at all. Here’s hoping that changes soon. There’s a lot going on this weekend but most of it is on Sunday. I am hoping I can spend some quality time on music tomorrow and I don’t want to be exhausted all day.

I got my 30 minutes of exercise in, and my 16 hour fast. Now I just need some sleep! Come on, body. Let’s get this done!

Ouch, babie… Ouch

I was sitting at my desk at 8:30am, 30 minutes before I start work, and I thought: Robert, you are going to do 15 minutes of exercise by walking very briskly in place. Hells yeah, you are.

Five minutes later I stopped because my back was hurting like crazy. Hells yeah, it was.

The same thing happened yesterday while I Was trying to do a second round of 15 minutes to close the 30 minute exercise ring on my Apple Watch. I powered through that time, but I couldn’t today.

In the immortal words of Austin Danger Powers, ouch babie… ouch.

I need to keep an eye on this today. I don’t want to hurt myself, but there’s a bag of Hershey’s Kisses off to my left and karmically speaking I need to do the 30 minutes so I can eat those suckers. I do understand that this arrangement makes no actual physiological sense, but shut up and leave me alone.

Here’s to a back pain free day… as if.

Artificial Disk Replacement Surgery

Jack Eichel was traded from the Buffalo Sabers to the Vegas Golden Knights today. The reason for the trade had nothing to do with hockey and everything to do with healthcare.

Eichel needs surgery. He has a herniated disk. He wanted to undergo a procedure that had never been performed on an NHL player. The team wanted him to have a more common procedure. I have to imagine that conflicts like this are probably common. The team doctors want to do X and the player’s personal doctor wants to do Y. In this case the two sides refused to budge and it lead to a stalemate where Eichel didn’t get either procedure and the team traded him to get rid of him.

It all seems dumb to me, but what really surprises me is that based on the collective bargaining agreement, the team is 100% in the right. Now I understand that the team has millions of dollars invested in the player and all of that, but try to look at this from your own healthcare perspective. Imagine you have a condition that requires surgery. You and your doctor come up with a plan of action, and your employer says no and tells you that you have to do something different. Now imagine that you signed a contract that gives the employer that right.

Wow. I mean… wow. Do the other pro sports leagues have this right too? No, don’t tell me. I don’t want to know.

Negative Again

A week ago Monday I took my mother to the doctor.

Over the weekend we paid a visit to Jen’s mom.

Yesterday I saw Harry and went inside two stores.

Today I’m dealing with a bunch of common cold symptoms. The first hint of illness in about two years.

I took a home Covid-19 test. It came back negative. Kick ass, Covid-free-me.

Two vaccine doses and a booster, you damn well better be Covid free. I got your breakthrough case right here! (Picture me making some sort of rude hand gesture in Covid-19’s general direction)

My Back Hurts and I’m Tired

Sleep, man. Am I right?

I went to bed at 10:30 last night and fell asleep quickly. Nice. I woke up at 2:30 with my back aching, completely unable to get comfortable, and I just couldn’t get back to sleep. It was after 3:30 before I could doze off again. When I woke up around 6:30 my back was still aching. Jerk.

I’m tired. The shirt I am wearing has huge holes in the arm pits because I have been flaking on the laundry. I had a vacation day yesterday and now I am all discombobulated and feeling like I’m working on a Sunday. Bummer, dude.

Yesterday when I left for Vermont I stopped at Dunks and ordered some Munchkins for the ride. Mmm, Munchkins. I also bought two diet sodas. Dunks carries Diet Coke. I prefer Diet Pepsi. I drank one of the Diet Cokes on the way up. When it was time to head back I stopped at a CVS and bought two bottles of Diet Pepsi. I drank one on the way back. Today when the work day started I had the two left over bottles in the fridge. One of each. I drank the Diet Pepsi first. A few minutes ago I opened up the Diet Code. Having one right after the other like that is kind of a revelation. What has it revealed? It has revealed that Diet Coke is pretty gross. Diet Pepsi is so much better.

Now you know the truth. Diet Pepsi is better: Confirmed.

You’re welcome.

I wish my back didn’t hurt.

I need a nap.

At least I got the laundry finished. That’s good.

Attenuation

Usually when we go up to Vermont we leave as early as humanly possible so that we can spend as much time there as we can and still get home at a non-ridiculous hour. Today is a little different. I have to time my arrival to match up with his class schedule. That means I have another hour or so before I have to leave.

I was thinking about playing some guitar before I go, but Jen is working and a few minutes from now she’ll be in a meeting. Better for me to keep quiet. It got me thinking about gear though. The amplifier I am going to use for November is a Vox MV50 Clean. There are a ton of MV50 models, but the Clean is the only one that comes with an attenuator. The others have a master volume. Blah.

It’s supposed to be a 50 watt amp and the attenuator has three settings; Off, 1/10th power, and 1/100th power. So it can be 50 watts, five watts, or 0.5 watts. At 50 watts it is loud. Great googlymoogly it is loud. At 0.5 watts it’s not. It’s a nice, useable at home volume. Well… still maybe a smidge loud, but not bad. I keep it at 0.5 all the time.

But should I? I was complaining the other day about it caving in when I bomb it with signal out of one of my overdrive pedals. Maybe I should set it to 1/10th power and just keep the volume control really low. Hell, maybe I should turn the attenuator off and see if I can use the volume control to keep things manageable. It’s doubtful, but maybe worth a try?

Huh… we’ll see.

Change of subject: Last night I don’t know what I was thinking. Two nights ago I had a memory lapse and got into bed without putting my CPAP mask on. Dumb ass. I realized the mistake before my head was on the pillow and all was right with the world again. Last night I missed two things. I forgot to top off the CPAP machine’s humidifier tank. Oops. It didn’t run out, but it’s close to empty.

I also forgot to charge my friggin’ watch. I finished my 30 minutes of exercise and just forgot to put it on the charger. Next thing I know I’m dozing off and my battery is at 30 something percent. Crap. Well, if it dies it dies. What’s a red head to do? I went to sleep. When I woke up today it was at 12%. It’s good to know that I can go 24 hours without a charge. The downside of course is that it’s been on the charger for about 90 minutes and it’s only back up to 52%. It’s probably not going to be fully charged by the time I have to leave. That’s okay. It’ll be charged enough.

I still need to top off the gas tank (it’s about 190 miles each way. In my hybrid Kia, if I start with a full tank I can get there and back and still have about a quarter of a tank left. I friggin’ love science) and pick up some caffeinated beverages for the ride. After that the only question is music or podcasts? If it’s music I might go with the new live record from The Pineapple Thief. I first stumbled across them a couple of years ago and it’s all good stuff, just nothing that sets the world on fire for me. Their new live record (they couldn’t tour last year so they did one show in an empty room and webcast it everywhere. The new record is that show) does it. It sets the red head’s head right on fire. Great album. I was seeing all this potential and waiting for a record that lived up to it. The last one was close. This new one nails it. Having said that though… I’ll still probably go with podcasts. That’s just kinda where I’m at this morning.

Happy travels, folks!