Tag: health

Guilt

We were originally thinking of keeping me isolated until tomorrow night. I was going to take another Covid-19 test, both rapid and PCR, and when the rapid came back negative I would be in the clear. Today, after a little consultation with the CDC, we decided to stretch that to Friday. I cancelled my test appointment and rescheduled for Friday morning. It’s just another day and a half, and while we all agree it is likely a massive overreaction, it just feels a little safer and a little smarter. I just wish it didn’t feel like such a crushing blow. Come on, Robert. It’s only about 36 hours more.

On top of all of the other shit though, it just adds to all the guilt. I should be able to do more for my parents. I should be able to do more for Jen. I should be able to do more to keep everyone safe while still helping with everything that needs help. Shit, man. I shouldn’t really feel this guilty, but I do. It’s weighing me down and making me tired all the time.

I feel like I need a good, solid win. Followed by a good, solid, long (permanent?) vacation to someplace where it never gets too cold and snow is a fairy tale told to kids to scare them into being good… or something like that.

Ah, hell. I think I’m just tired. I’m sure I’ll feel better in the morning. I did get my 30 minutes of exercise in today, so hopefully that will lead to a really good night’s sleep.

Wish me luck.

CPAP Fail

I’m really tired right now and it might be my CPAP machine’s fault. Well… my fault, but related to my CPAP machine.

I turned in around 11:30 last night… I think. (We’re using lots of ellipses in this post already. We might be shooting for a… world record) My watch told me I was asleep around midnight, which seems a bit later than I remember, but whatever. I woke up at about 1:30am (the watch didn’t catch that though) and realized I didn’t have my mask on. I laid down on the couch, expecting to spend some time reading before I went to sleep, and next thing I know it’s like two hours later.

Now if I fell asleep while reading, I would expect my iPad would have fallen out of my hands, right? Given how I was laying on my back and holding it in front of me, I could reasonably expect that it would have actually bashed me in the face. Nope. It was actually laying down next to me with the alarm clock app open and the alarm set for 6:30am. Did I set the iPad up the way I always do when I sleep on the couch (thanks to the CPAP machine that is a super rare occurrence now) in my sleep? Because I don’t remember doing it. I remember setting the alarm, but not putting it down with the clock app having focus and the screen turned off.

So I realized what was going on and put the mask on and switched on the CPAP machine and had a decent night’s sleep for the remainder of the night… but that whole experience was just… weird.

I mean… weird.

Now it’s 2:00pm and I am wrapping up my lunch break and I am seriously ready to go back to bed. Go figure.

Clueless

I don’t know what to write about today. It’s Labor day, so have a good one.

Clean up in the cellar has been taken care of for now. All of Harry’s left over laundry is done, though I still need to put his sheets back onto his bed. There is a mountain of laundry in Bellana’s room that I’ll probably start today. I set up a new music nook for quarantine in the cellar last night and am hoping I’ll get a chance to use it today. Maybe.

No cookouts for me today. Just isolation and stress and work and guilt and the usual. It’s hard to explain what is going through my head at this point. I am sad about how my mother is handling the change (did I ever post what the change was? I’ll get to it), I am guilty because I am not there to help, I am pissed off because I have to isolate for Covid (even though I’m positive this whole thing is an overreaction, even if the overreaction is still the smart move) and I don’t get to hug my wife, and I am filled with relief that my parents are finally in a place where they can get the help and care that they need rather than have my idiot ass pretending like I know what I am doing.

I don’t know.

Here’s the Covid music nook:

Hopefully I won’t have to use it long and can go back to the bedroom. I haven’t received a call from the urgent care place telling me I have a positive result so that’s good. I have an appointment for another test on Wednesday. If that comes back negative then it’s back to reality for me. I know it will because I was barely exposed and people who had much closer exposure are all testing negative. Whatever, isolating is the right thing to do, I just want it to be over.

I want isolation to be over, I want Covid to be over. I want my parents’ difficulties to be over. I want being guilty to be over. I want to be able to get a good night’s sleep again. I want to be able to work without having to think about all of this other stuff. I want my wife to not have to worry about me. I want my kids to not have to worry about anything except their educations. I want my band to get back together.

Call me selfish, but I just want normal back.

Shit. I had nothing to write about when I started and then I turned it into another downer. Sorry about that. Next time I post I’ll try to include some jokes or something.

That Sucked

I called my parents today just to say hello. My mother gave me both barrels, right in the face. Boy is she unhappy about moving into an assisted living place. Boy did she let me have it. My favorite was when she said you’re not going to help me get out of here, are you. Yeah, that was the best. Honorable mention goes to the time she said if she had to live there the rest of her life then the rest of her life is going to be really short. No, I am not going to get you out of the place that will take care of you better than anyone you have ever met before can take care of you.

Yeah, that was fun. It was easy to pay attention to work after that. Sure it was.

Self Isolation Day Three-ish

So… what day is it today? It’s the second full day of our little self induced quarantiney thing-a-doo. Does that mean it’s day two or does Friday count as a day even though it was only a partial day? How do these things work? I’m going to call it day three. I don’t know how long it’s going to go. I don’t have the ‘rona so I am never going to get my pabst blue ribbon test results (you gotta read back a few posts to get that joke. I think I pulled it from two previous posts… sorry about that) so when am I clear to re-enter society? We’re thinking about another rapid test on Wednesday or so? If that comes back clean maybe we’re okay? Maybe another pabst blue ribbon to go along with it? I don’t know. Maybe I just stay in Harry’s room for the rest of eternity? Fun, huh?

I didn’t forget to liberate the CPAP machine last night. On Friday night I slept for four hours and 45 minutes and the restful sleep percentage was something stunningly low, like 46% or something. Last night I got seven hours of sleep and the restful sleep percentage was 71%. That’s more like it. I did wake up around 5:00am and didn’t get back to sleep until almost 6:30 so that’s a pretty colossal fail. Other than that, the sleep was pretty good. I feel almost awake now.

When I came home from my pabst blue ribbon test on Friday (that joke getting old yet?) I told my beautiful wife that I was going to need junk food to get through this. It was all like, engines full, stress eating ahead! Then last night I finished dinner before 7:00pm and didn’t have a single bite to eat afterward so I guess the stress eating commences today. I guess. I started my intermittent fast two hours early, which means I can start eating again two hours early, which means 11:00am which is 14 minutes from now so… there is likely to be a significant amount of M&M’s devoured during much of today’s weekend work day and shit.

Okay. Back to it.

Shit.

Long Day

I’ve been tied to my desk pretty much all day. I did do a shit load of laundry and I cleaned up lake asshole. It’s currently small puddle asshole but the floor in the main cellar still has water under the tiles that bubbles up when you step on the right spots. The water is still coming in from somewhere. I’m guessing the water heater is leaking somewhere but I need a plumber to take a look. With yesterday’s Covid scare we won’t be inviting anyone into the house for a week or so, so the clean up will continue unabated. At least I won’t be out of the house for 24 hour stretches so I will be able to keep on top of things… in theory, at least.

Tomorrow will likely be the same deal. Lots of shit going on that I have to keep up with. Opportunities to stray from my desk are likely to be few and far between. I need to get a good nights sleep. I need to do the exact opposite of what I did last night. With the Covid semi-quarantiney we’re doing around these parts it means I am couch bound. Last night I forgot my CPAP machine. That plus the uncomfortable sectional left me with not a lot of sleep, and the sleep I had was pretty awful. I’ll have the CPAP tonight so what sleep I get should be better. I’m hoping being exhausted yet again might mean that I’ll sleep no matter how uncomfy the couch is.

What other unimportant thing can I write about? Last night I posted a blurb saying that when I start working from Harry’s desk we can expect more time lapse candle videos. Well I worked from Harry’s desk today and my iPad is taking a time lapse as I type this. The thing is, I can’t remember when I started it. I want to say it was 11:00am, which is 11 hours ago. It might have been more like 12noon. Either way… that’s a long ass time to shoot a time lapse. I want to let it run until just before I go to bed, so that will probably be around 11:00pm, maybe 45 minutes from now. I’m sure you’re over come with anticipation.

Okay. I’m watching the last episode of season two of Titans right now. I’m going to wrap this up so I can watch that. Then I am going to upload that time lapse to youtube. I know, I know, you can’t wait. I promise you’ll have that adrenaline rush before I sleep tonight.

Was I Wrong?

This whole time I thought that getting them into a safe place where they can get the care they need 24/7 would make me feel better. I don’t know if it’s some sort of adjustment period that I didn’t factor into the equation, but I really don’t feel better today.

Maybe it would feel different if we hadn’t hit the snags we hit yesterday. I knew my parents would need time to adjust to their new normal but I didn’t expect I’d need so much time too.

It’s only day two. I doubt day three will be better. Maybe day four?

Wrong

I am so tired of everything going wrong. I feel like I’m screaming into a hurricane and no one can hear me.

If I didn’t have Jen to help me through this I don’t think I would have made it this far. She’s my rock. She’s my hero.

I love you, sweetie.

Screaming

I’ll probably write up the events of the last three days at some point. Maybe later today.

I just wanted to take a second to mention this one tidbit. Over the last few months there have been a bunch of times when I wrote something along the lines of, I am going to start screaming and when I start I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to stop. You all ‘member that? Yeah, I ‘member!*

Well you’ll be pleased to know that there did in fact come a time when I did in fact start to scream. It was yesterday afternoon while sitting in the car. Fortunately I was able to stop.

So… win. Yay for me.

*Thats a South Park joke. FYI.

First Last Time

I’m getting ready to head over to my parents’ house. This is likely the last time I will go there while my parents are actually there. It won’t be the last time I go there because there is an eternity of work to do still. It’s just that after today my parents won’t be there anymore.

I expect a lot of emotion. Sadness, nostalgia, all of that. I expect tears. Probably not from me though. My tiny little brain has associated that house with all of the failures and mistakes I made during the first 36 years of my life. Specifically from the day I dropped out of college in 1990 to the day I moved back after getting out for a year in, I think, 1996, to the point where I was a college graduate working a full time job and still living with my parents in 2008.

It’s going to be hard for me not to jump up and down and celebrate while the rest of my family is sad and teary.