I’m an Emotional Mess Today

This week has been rough. I didn’t expect it, but three days of window project turning the house upside down has messed me up in a big way. Being sick on Tuesday didn’t help. Waking up at 2:00am with a stomach ache today and not being able to get to sleep until around 4:00am certainly hasn’t helped either. After eight ounces of water and a protein bar this morning I feel a little better, but the stomach ache is still there, just milder than it was.

It got to Jen too, and both of us being on edge lead to pointless, stupid arguments and I hated it. Hate hate hate it. I can’t apologize enough for being an ass. Then today, after very little sleep last night and very little sleep every night this week and being broken in general for days, I watched the series finale of Star Trek Picard and let’s just say… I’ve been following these characters through TV shows and movies since 1987 when I was 16 years old and watched Encounter at Farpoint with my father… I’m not ashamed to admit it… but I balled my eyes out a few times. I am just an emotional train wreck right now.

Season three of The Mandalorian ended yesterday and it was wonderful. Season three of Picard ended today and it was wonderful times 10. I am just a sucker for story lines about parents loving their children that are designed to violently yank at your heartstrings and I am fine with that.

Then on top of all the other shit going on, both home improvement wise and science fiction wise, I went to punch in to work just now and realized I forgot my friggin’ laptop charger in the office yesterday. FFFFFUUUUUUUUU! Jen bailed me out with a sweet USB C charger so I can get through the day. I just hope when I go to the office after work tonight the charger is still on the desk I sat in yesterday. Cross your fingers, kids. I don’t want to have to buy another charger.

Okay. I am punched in to work now. Everything is well. I’m being added to meetings left and right so it’s starting to look like a busy day. Busy is good. Busy is better than too quiet… sometimes. I guess it depends on what kind of busyness it is, you know?

Right. Work. Post this drivel and get to work, Robert.

Going to Try

I’ve barely had any food or drink today. It’s been three hours since I’ve even tried.

It’s 12:36pm and I’m feeling the need to try again. I think I’m going to take a shot.

Wish me luck, oh my readers and only friends. Duck and cover, here we go…..

ADDENDUM: I was going to air fry a little piece of chicken but the window crew is working in the kitchen so I’m going to try a protein bar. Fingers crossed.

Done with Magnesium

My doctor said magnesium can help with migraine headaches. I started taking a supplement last week. On the fourth day I was seriously sick. I was nauseous all day. Nothing helped. I suspected the magnesium might have played a roll so I stopped taking it for a few days.

I tried starting it again yesterday. Today I have been nauseous all day. Nothing helps. I feel absolutely horrendous.

Coincidence?

I don’t think so.

Sick

I woke up sick this morning. Major stomach pain, gas, and nausea. I feel really bad. I called in sick to work. I have a couple of meetings I still want to sit in on, but outside of that I’m sitting on the couch feeling gross.

I’ve only managed eight ounces of liquid so far today (it’s 12:40pm) but it hasn’t helped settle my stomach. I haven’t managed any food yet but I’m going to try a tiny little protein bar and see what happens.

Wish me luck.

Tough Day So Far

This Saturday morning has not been a memorable one so far. It’s snowing, and not a dusting like we’ve mostly been getting this winter, it’s a full blown snow storm. Winter is a dick. Just saying.

I feel better than I did yesterday. The headache is gone. My eyes are still a little funky, but nowhere near as bad as they were last night. I feel a little like one of those snowplows outside rolled over me. I just feel used up and wrung out. I’m not having a good morning.

We got up around 6:30 and started working on Jen’s computer. It’s 8:32 now and her machine is working okay. I haven’t done my exercise yet today. I am planning on having breakfast and seeing how I feel before I start my jogging (yogging), just to see how I’m feeling. I am hoping to play some guitar today. I started an idea for Record Every Month last night. Let’s see how it goes. I am going to have to shovel too, but not until after dark sometime when the snow stops falling.

For now, I am going to have something to eat and watch a little Deep Space Nine. Wish me luck.

This Week Has Sort of Sucked

Between me feeling sick for a few days and my mother going into the hospital with pneumonia and me dropping the ball on something at work for which I will never forgive myself and our new cat being very anti-social, it’s been a pretty crappy week. It’s only Thursday so you’d think there would be time to straighten everything out and salvage the week, but we’re going to a wake for a 20-something year old on Saturday and that is not exactly a day brightener, you know? We are picking up our new cat’s four month old kitten this weekend so hopefully that will lighten the mood a little. The cats were named Disco and Boogie but we are changing them to Robin (or Robin Sparkles) and Lily after two characters on How I Met Your Mother. Robin is mom and Lily is kitten, even though Robin and Lily were not related on the show. Give me a break, okay? It’s better than Disco and Boogie. I mean, I don’t want a kitten named for a synonym for snot.

I’m not sure what the issue was that made me feel sick. It was definitely stomach related, but it was different than the usual post-surgery stomach problems. I wonder if it just had to do with my eating schedule going down the crapper starting on Saturday and not clearing up until Wednesday. I had two stomach problems on Wednesday but they were the usual you-ate-too-fast-and-your-stomach-couldn’t-handle-it problems. Not a stomach ache that gets worse when you’re standing or laying down and gets better when you are sitting up straight. Yeah, I don’t get it. Hopefully that goes away and stays away.

My mother will be in the hospital into the weekend at least. They are giving her antibiotics for pneumonia and a UTI. On her second night they found that she was a little anemic but as of yesterday they haven’t figured out why yet. It’s all really scary and stressful, but we know she’s in good hands. We just need to put our faith in the hospital. I’m still worried though. My brother spent the day with her yesterday, and my sister will visit her today. I’ll be going back tomorrow. After that, I don’t know. There’s a chance she could be going back to the nursing home on Saturday. I don’t know how good of a chance, but there is a chance.

As for the cat, the two year old cat I mean, Robin Sparkles, she spent the first few days hiding, but she’s starting to do a little exploring now. She was very friendly to me for a while, but now she seems scared to death of me. I don’t know why, but I hope she gets over it. She’s more friendly to Jen, but still not too friendly. I want to give her a month or so to adjust before I pass judgement on her behavior. I’m curious to see how she behaves when the kitten gets here (on Sunday… or maybe Saturday if the stars align). When we first met them at the shelter, the kitten was the friendliest feline I’ve ever seen. Here’s hoping that hasn’t changed in the intervening week.

Okay, it’s 9:00am. Time to get to work. May your Thursday go better than my Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday have gone. Thumbs up, brothers and sisters.

Feeling Better Again

For the second time in a week I followed a really sick day by waking up the next morning feeling pretty much all better. This is annoying as hell. I didn’t hit my liquids goal yesterday. I missed it by 10 ounces. I need to make double sure I hit it today. I did manage the protein goal. I was a little nervous that pushing it last night would screw me up today, but I am okay. I did my exercise already this morning but I haven’t had breakfast yet. I want to get a little more liquid in first.

Today will likely be a messy day at work as I catch up from being out yesterday. It will be okay though. Tomorrow and Thursday are both in the office days for a huge management seminar. I am really not looking forward to it. Two days in a row, all the way to Foxborough. I have to do it twice next week too, again all the way to Foxborough. The week after I have to go into the office yet again, but this time I get to go to the closest building to home, which is still 40 miles away. Suck, suck, and suck.

The moral of that story is let’s enjoy working from home today before I go through two far away days. Here’s hoping my stomach issues don’t have another relapse. Driving 10000 miles to Foxborough feeling like I felt yesterday would be pretty much the worst thing ever.

Fingers crossed we’re done with all of that.

Sick Day Update

How’s it going, sick person?

I feel better. Not all better, but better than I was when I was doubled over in pain while I was trying to take a shower this morning. I feel like I got my ass kicked by a locomotive or something, but my stomach isn’t hurting like it was before.

I managed some food. It was sort of like breakfast at lunch time, but I ate some scrambled eggs. I’ve had some water too, and in 13 minutes I’ll be able to have some more. I still feel pretty dehydrated, but nowhere near as bad as I was when I wrote the last post.

It’s a safe bet I won’t be hitting my protein and liquid goals again today, but now it seems like I won’t get virtually shut out like I did on Thursday. I just missed a bunch of time while I was hurting and I don’t think I will be able to make it up. I’ll get as close as I can without overdoing it and just let it go from there.

I’m also not sure what to do for today’s photo a day thing. I will probably used the bathroom construction again. I could use xmas decorations but I’m tired of that. I’m pretty tired of the construction stuff too, but what can you do. We also need to find things to put us into the holiday spirit. I don’t know about the rest of you, but getting sick twice in December has put a damper on my festiveness. Jen found this yesterday though and it might help:

I wonder why our house isn’t on the list?

Kidding.

There’s also a light display at the Stone Zoo. That feels more like a weekend thing to me though. Maybe we could wait for the kids to be home for that one.

Feeling a Little Better

It’s 6:11am, I’ve been up for a little over an hour, no stomach pain or discomfort or anything like that. So far so good. I’ve had eight ounces of water and my morning vitamins. That’s close to equaling my intake from all of yesterday. All I managed over the whole day was eight ounces of protein shake and five ounces of sugar free Gatorade. That’s it. No food at all.

I went to bed at about 7:30 last night. I was exhausted all day, probably from not eating and stressing out over feeling sick. Who knows. I fell asleep on the couch after I punched out of work too, but only for about 30 minutes. Whatever was going wrong in my tiny little rewired, redesigned stomach just wouldn’t go away. I don’t know if it was something I did or if it was the bug Harry had over the weekend, and I don’t care. I just want it to be over. It feels like it might be, but I don’t know.

What I do know is that I have to eat today. I have to hit my goals. 60 ounces of liquid (eight down, 52 to go) and 80 grams of protein (zero down and 80 to go), and I think I want to eat real food, not protein bars… though I will probably need to supplement the actual food because I don’t know how much I’m going to be able to handle and the protein shakes require milk and my half gallon of skim milk expired yesterday and I think this might be the rare case where the expiration date actually matches the day it starts going bad. Just a hunch, ya know? I think I am going to try some scrambled eggs for breakfast. What do you think? Yesterday I reverted back to liquid stage, today I will revert back to soft/puree stage? Sounds like a plan.

Various Updates

We just got off the call with Dad’s rehab facility. Good news all around. There are a couple of things they will follow up on and get back to us. He’s not ready to go home yet, but he is at a point where they can bring his assisted living facility staff into the discussion to see if they can handle his needs.

My stomach still feels like sh-sh-sh-shite. I haven’t eaten anything today and it’s not the kind of thing where I am wondering if I am sick or just hungry. Nope, I’m just sick. Harry had a stomach bug on Sunday. I’m wondering if that’s what I have now. Not so much a couple of meals gone wrong, but just a bug.

I left work at 2:00pm. I wanted to try to stick it out for the day but my boss let me off the hook. I probably should have left earlier. I was no good to anyone. I’m already questioning whether I will be able to pull off work tomorrow. It’s starting to look like a good thing we cancelled the New York plans. I need to be over this before Sunday when we go to Bellana’s concert in Vermont.

I would say I am starting to get into the first season of Pennyworth. I am still not sure though. The whole Aleister Crowley storyline… Crowley died in 1947 so if this takes place in some weird version of 60’s London, then he would have been in his 90’s. There’s a new episode of Titans today that I haven’t watched yet. That’s the better show, I think, but I’m having trouble getting into the new season. Oh, DC on HBO… how you vex me.

In closing, Penguins: