Tag: health

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Crampache

Summer and I both got up fairly early today. Eaddie’s friend snuck out early while we were on the couch. I got a major thigh cramp that may have caused some muscle pain in my leg for the rest of the day, because I didn’t recall hurting that badly from yesterday’s fall when I first woke up.

Summer went to the gym and Eaddie left for church, and then was gone for the entire day. Summer said she wanted to clean up the back yard when she got home, but it was still soggy. I need to dig some trenches for the water to flow away from the house, and we probably need to clean out the gutters again before the spring rains show up.

I loaded up on some vitamins after cramping so much, and ate some leftovers for lunch. Then I took care of the plants, took a shower, and Summer and I took a bunch of bags to Walmart for recycling. We walked the store to try and stretch my legs out a bit, and picked up some dog food. Then we went by Lowe’s where she saw a couple of people from work. Our last stop was PetSmart to browse, where I encountered my old buddy Keith.

Summer needed to get home after we left there, so we made it to the house and I took the dogs out for a run. They did better than yesterday, and I was much better about staying behind them after the tumble I took. Both of the dogs wanted to splash in the creek a bit, but Stilgar wanted to dam up the stream. We met Dad in the street again, then made it home for dinner.

I finished up some leftovers with Summer, then spent the rest of the evening trying to clean up the kitchen area before I leave the girls for a week. They’ll have to bring in all of my Vine stuff while I’m gone, so I didn’t want that to stress them out much more than it already does.

Drop it!

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Blunderive

I woke up several times last night with terrible shin and calf cramps. Then as the night progressed, I started waking up to Stilgar barking at something outside. I eventually got up when Summer got out of bed, and she made us some bacon and eggs for breakfast. Then she went to the gym and Eaddie got up to go do something in the early afternoon. I had plans to meet with Mark to help with some computer questions, so I eventually got cleaned up to go help with that.

I stopped by Walgreens to pick up my iron pills, and I should have just asked the pharmacist if I could take it with my antibiotic, but I didn’t think of that in time. I made it to Mark’s place and waited a couple minutes for them to get in, and then I tried to help him talk through the concerns he had. They’re never really deeply technical problems that he has, but rather software quirks he has to work around because he just seems to have a lot of stuff he wants to manage. I ended up hanging out there for about three hours, in part waiting for OneDrive to sync, and he handed me a hundred bucks as we finished up for the day.

Summer had Eaddie outside taking pictures before the Sweetheart dance when I got home, and I made it inside to find my Mothman onesie just in time to get dressed up and take some pictures with her. Then we took pictures of her with Eli when he showed up.

Dad invited us over for spaghetti earlier in the day, and I still had to run the dogs before dark, so I took them out while Summer saw the kids off. We were doing pretty well until we made it around to Promenade Circle. We got to the last stretch of that road, and Stilgar decided he had to make an emergency stop to poop. Muad’Dib was already pretty far ahead, so that yanked everybody by the rope, and I tripped off the board as I tried to slow down. I landed on my right hand hard enough to draw a little bit of blood on my palm, and the dogs both wanted to come up and check on me. I got myself up, picked up the trail of poop, and we made our way to my parents’ house for dinner.

I left the dogs in the fence out back, and Summer showed up while Mom was prepping the last of the salad. It was completely dark by the time we finished eating, so we didn’t stay long. As soon as I stepped out back, Muad’Dib was there to greet me at the door. They must have pushed their way out through the fence and run around and back in somewhere else. I called to Stilgar, and saw him climb out of the pool cover to excitedly come greet the three of us. Dad and I tried to inspect the fence by phone flash, and he found a couple loose boards they probably pushed through. Luckily Stilgar didn’t appear to have pushed the cover all the way into the pool, but it made another good case for a taught cover.

Summer followed me home and the dogs were rowdy enough that they didn’t get dinner. Summer sat on her phone in the living room while I wrapped up on the computer, and we eventually made it to bed. Eaddie ended up bringing her friend Emma over to stay the night because she lives a little ways out and it was late.

Don’t oversync it.

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Rolled Foods

The drive to work was super foggy this morning. For the first several miles, I could barely see a couple car lengths ahead, so I had to take things slow. Gary and Randy were there, but things were quiet. Maggie gave me a sausage, egg, and cheese eggroll from the donut shop up the road. After that, the most excitement we saw was our CDW rep getting successfully phished. He tried shipping us a lab-worth of laptops, but luckily they caught it. Randy wanted to gripe at Steven, but of course when the conference call actually happened, he was much less confrontational. I told him not to rag on him too hard in spite of the PO printed in Comic Sans. He’s a human dealing with paperwork from possibly hundreds of clients.

I ended up taking lunch by myself, so I thought I’d try Blue Coast Burrito. It was a bit like a Chipotle, but for the hood. The food was good though, and they had individual cups of different salsas available by the drinks. I would have preferred a salsa bar to eliminate the plastic waste, but the salsa was good. After that, I went by Walmart to check their clearance aisle. It’s always sparse, but since they also sold beer, I picked up a couple things for Summer.

On the way back to the shop, I picked up some fries from Rally’s since I had an expiring coupon. Then the afternoon was mostly dull and quiet. I tried getting Jim into SCCM, but for some reason his laptop wouldn’t connect to the server.

There was an accident or something on the way home, so traffic was super slow for about a quarter of the way to Conway. I didn’t really have to, but I stopped to charge so I wouldn’t run my battery too low. Summer had dinner going again, so I quickly ran the dogs and made it home to eat. She made a sort of baked chicken cordon bleu with Brussels sprouts and mashed sweet potato. I thought it was all really good, but the potatoes were cold, which made them taste more like pie.

After we ate, I had a bunch of big Vine packages to process. My absolute favorite was a watch winder that felt pretty high quality from the moment I opened the shipping package. It was in another brown shipping type box, which housed a well-padded retail box. The winder itself was super cool looking. I never thought I’d actually get one, but I’d wanted one ever since I saw the dressup scene of the first Doctor Strange. I had to search to find out why his watches were spinning, and from that moment I knew I wanted one. Funny enough, his setup probably didn’t actually wind his watches because they were all laying flat instead of standing upright.

I tried not to stay up too late after that. I contacted the clinic again because I still hadn’t heard from a hematology referral. She sent me a prescription for iron, but the antibiotics she put me on specifically say not to take them with iron products because it reduces their absorption. Hopefully I can just take them a few hours apart, but it still got me worried about how urgent this alleged anemia is. She said to call the clinic myself on Tuesday, but didn’t tell me which clinic. I was feeling really good about having a new PCP, but now I’m questioning it.

Ah, cramp.

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Bummers

Traffic was pretty bad on the way in this morning, but I got there. Randy was early again, and we all sat and chatted for a while in the morning. Maggie was stressing out due to something happening with a friend or family, so she ended up taking the afternoon off. I tried to help Jim with some stuff over the phone and was mostly successful, and Randy was in his executive team meeting all morning.

Lunch came a little late, and I met Kyle, Jim, Randy, and Jay at Brewski’s for their version of Taco Tuesday. I remembered thinking their burger was okay last time, but it was still bar food. I was even less impressed with their tacos, so I’ll never order those again. Everything was incredibly dry. Even the limes fell apart into pulp when we squeezed them. I actually ended up stopping at McDonald’s on the way back to get some fries, which were actually pretty good since I went to the one on McCain this time.

Sometime in the afternoon, Greg stopped by our office and for some reason wanted a tour of our shop area. I had a feeling someone put him up to it, but eventually Randy came back inside and said I couldn’t charge my car in there any more. That’s a pretty big bummer, especially in the winter, and it may be the straw that prompted the camel to update his resumé. It’s all about minimizing my time away from home, and if a few pennies worth of electricity is going to keep me away any longer, then it’s just not going to be sustainable for me.

I got home without any trouble and took the dogs out for a run. They weren’t great, so they didn’t get any treats when we got home, and I cut down their dinner a little as well. Muad’Dib hadn’t been eating some of his meals anyway.

I took care of some large Vine stuff before Summer got home, and she didn’t have a great day at work either. Then I had to fire off a message to the clinic because I was completely out of amlodipine for the next morning. Luckily they phoned it in to Walgreens and I was able to pick it up just a few minutes before they closed.

After I got back home, Dad said Uncle Tuan wasn’t doing great, so it looks like we’ll be going to visit. I don’t really know what happened to him for the past several years, but I know I’ll have a very different memory of him than what we’ll find, and he likely won’t remember me at all.

No Win Tuesday

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Cheap Lunch Crew

Eaddie ended up having a quintet practice session in Fort Smith today, so I had the house to myself. Then Zach texted wanting to know if I had to take a personal day to be off during the snow day, and I just had to laugh. I asked him if they had lunch plans, and wasn’t surprised to hear they were probably having Mexican. I ended up meeting them at La Chiquita. Gary was the one that interacted with me the most. Thomas, Greg, and even Zach were mostly just present, but would respond when I talked to them. The thing I missed most was paying less than $10 for lunch. Food in Little Rock is insane, and it’s typical for me to pay nearly twice that, or more.

After we ate, I stopped by the Superfast to see Summer while she was working out in the cold. I thought I’d install my yoke, but it was going to be too involved, and I didn’t want to work on it there in the cold. I figured I’d borrow a hex socket later and do it from home.

I got back to the house and took the dogs out for a run at the peak temperature for the day in the high 20s. We had a good run, and caught Dad at the end of their road. He spun around to get me a heat lamp for the dogs, though Muad’Dib never came out to use it. I don’t know where he was sleeping, but Stilgar has been the only one at the door in the warmth.

I spent the rest of the afternoon cleaning house, and then quite a bit of time consolidating my blood pressure tracker to share with the clinic. I still haven’t heard anything more about seeing a specialist, and I’m hoping it was just a fluke reading after being sick.

Eaddie got home pretty late, followed by Summer. She ran a bath and I warmed up some pizza for her before bed.

Hexed

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Jumbo Gumbo

I was sleeping pretty hard when my alarm went off this morning, but I managed to get to work before anyone else. It was another slow day for me, just kind of riding out my new meds. I wouldn’t have expected such a difference for such a small dose of basically the same combination I’d started with before. I took my amlodipine and lisinopril a couple hours apart today to see if I could minimize my afternoon reaction, and it seemed to help a little bit, though I still felt a bit dizzy for a little while.

I was on my own for lunch, so I decided to pick up some gumbo from the Louisiana Fried Chicken place just down the road. The fact that they even have a website is wild to me, because the place looks so rough, is in such a rough area, and is basically empty every time I drive by. The guy was super nice though, and I really liked the gumbo.

Jim, Charles, Randy, and Maggie were there in the afternoon gossiping about some local drama. Evidently my superintendent nemesis in town is negotiating an exit from her contract by the end of this year as well. I’m really just standing by to see if I die from whatever ails me, so it’s hard to get me excited about much right now.

I ran the dogs hard when I got home from work, and they had a great time. Dad met us at the end of their driveway, and we hit over 20 miles an hour. He was making taco soup, so we went home and I fed the dogs, then unboxed a ton of Vine stuff before going back over there to eat. Summer got home late from work and wasn’t hungry, and Eaddie was out with a friend.

After dinner, I had to take out the trash and recycling. They hadn’t picked up recycling in a couple weeks, so with all the Vine stuff I’ve been getting, I could have nearly filled up two whole dumpsters. I accidentally spilled an entire box of miscellaneous recycling, and was picking it all up by flashlight when the UPS driver stopped to hand me one more package for the day. I lost count of how many were delivered today, but it’s clear I’ve got a problem.

The girls were up for a while talking about everything Eaddie has going on. I cleaned up the best I could and made a mad dash for bed.

Retail therapy gets me a 1099-NEC this year.

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Donut Panic

I didn’t sleep great last night, but I managed to make it to work a few minutes early. I parked in the other bay because my usual was blocked by a layer of snow, but I think I like the other bay better anyway, because I can pull straight in and there’s nothing in the way of the power outlet. My third party charger decided to quit working after a couple hours, so I had to break out the Tesla branded one instead. I’ll need to update my review, and see if I can get it fixed or replaced, but at least it was “free.”

Maggie called me early wanting to know if I wanted donuts, and then she basically brought me every example of something I might like. She’s always too generous when she brings us food, so I tried to pay her back a little bit by buying her kid’s meal she wanted from Cane’s for lunch.

Otherwise it was a super quiet day until the afternoon when I felt like I was going to black out again out of nowhere. I felt pretty dizzy and strange for a little while after that, and I was nervous to go home at the end of the day, but I was better by then. I had gotten enough of a charge to make it home, so I stopped to see Summer in Conway and washed my car.

I got home just before dark and took the dogs out for a quick run. We creeped through the basin trail because there was still standing water over parts of the trail, and they kept pulling pretty hard in some places, so I had to tug back on their leash quite a bit after that. We visited Dad, then got home a little bit before Summer did.

Eaddie was out super late for all-region, and I wasn’t surprised when she reported first chair. I tried to get to bed super early with the hopes that more sleep might prevent another spell like today, but I wasn’t sure if it was due to a slight change in meds, or the alleged anemia, which doesn’t seem to be making me as tired as I would expect, otherwise I might be sleeping better.

Quit!

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Well?

I forgot to kill my alarm for today, so I was buzzed awake at 4:20 and went back to sleep until Summer got up for work. She had to go in for a little while due to staffing issues, and would just meet me at the clinic for our appointments. Dad had a funeral, so I also had to let the restoration guys into the house, but they were quite a bit later than I was expecting, and I missed the call while I was in the shower. They didn’t have to wait terribly long, and I made it to my appointment and got seated just as Summer pulled up.

We both really like Crystal, and they were able to have both of us seen at the same time without any trouble. I got half the dosage of lisinopril to start up again, and also asked for something to knock out my bronchitis instead of living with it for the next few weeks. Summer got herself established as a new patient as well, and we both had blood drawn, then went to Walgreens to pick up our meds.

I guess the stores were handling it, because Summer actually took the time to go to lunch with me after that. We met at New China and took our time eating because the food was super hot and fresh. I had a pretty bad anxiety attack while I was eating some honeydew, and it took me a moment to shake that off. Then Summer went back to work for a bit, and I ran by Clear View to schedule my tint job. While I was there, I noticed a missed call from the restoration guys. I guess they locked themselves out for lunch, so I called to make sure they still needed in. Then I went by to grab a couple boxes of stuff to take home while they were back to work.

I tried to wash my car on the way home, but the quarter wash was still closed for fear of freezing temperatures. I had some time when I got home, so I finally installed the threshold protective panels on the passenger side, along with the back covers for the rear seats. I’ve just about got the entire inside of the car encapsulated.

Summer got home just as I finished up, and then Eaddie and Eli came home shortly after that. I took the dogs out for the most dry run we’ve had in a few days. I tried to route them some extra blocks since we were still avoiding some other icy areas, and they did fairly well. I spent the rest of the evening trying to clean up a bit since Summer started feeling pretty bad with a headache and who knows what else. She went to bed really early, and the kids stayed up late doing homework.

I got a load of laundry going, and got a call from Jessica at the clinic. She said I was severely anemic, and that iron supplements wouldn’t be enough, so they were going to refer me to a hematologist. I thought it might all be due to some heavy blood loss through hemorrhoids last week and sent a message back to Crystal, but she said my iron reserves still shouldn’t be this low, so I guess I’m going to see a specialist. I’m really glad I bumped up my insurance coverage for this year.

That’s not ironic.

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Chilly Dogs

I got up when Summer went to work, but Eaddie and I were both out of school. I finished up some turkey soup and then started to get cleaned up so I could take the dogs out for a run. I ended up having a pretty bad time and had to rest in a bath for a while after Summer got home. Nobody said anything to me, and by the time I got out, there was already snow on the ground, so I couldn’t ride the Onewheel without making a big mess.

I went outside to play with the dogs for a little bit, who seemed to be having a great time in the snow. I had to get their heated water bowl out since their other one froze solid. Hopefully they don’t chew up the power cord.

Michael called me for some help with some cheap drone he was trying to fix by updating firmware. There wasn’t anything I could do for him, but he talked to me for a little while. The girls were both in the living room doing some work on their laptops, so I went to Sonic to get some chili dogs. The roads were already bad enough that I got a little bit sideways in the road, but I made it. The driveway up into the Sonic lot was really bad though, and I was surprised they didn’t do more to clean it up if they were going to stay open for a while.

I got home and we ate, and then we started watching Brooklyn Nine-Nine. It started out a bit slower than I liked, but I’ve seen so many funny clips and it’s been on my watch list for so long, that I just have to devote some time to consume all of it. After that, I watched the first episode of Creature Commandos and then the first episode of Dune: Prophecy. Summer wanted to watch Nate Bargatze’s new Netflix special, so we watched that, but I started to fall asleep near the end.

Nothing we watched really satisfied me, and I hadn’t felt very good for most of the day. I think getting out earlier with the dogs might have helped, but we’ll have ice for the next several days though. I guess we’re just going to shelter in place, but maybe we’ll get the dogs out for a manual walk tomorrow.

Pressed foods tomorrow.

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FOMO Anxiety

I burned up all of my Vine orders pretty quickly yesterday on accident, so when a very specific Model 3 accessory just happened to become available after I had been pining after one, I was unable to order it. I don’t know how much of my anxiety that caused last night, but I couldn’t sleep at all. I ended up waking up right around two when the counter reset, and of course it was gone.

My alarm eventually went off and I got going for work. It was cold out, but the car had been preconditioning for a little while and was nice and toasty. I assume it was the crosswinds that caused it to howl down the interstate, because I don’t remember that happening at all the day we got it. It was a very eerie sound, especially to my groggy, sleep-deprived ears. I got to work in plenty of time, passing Randy just before we got to the exit. There was less fanfare than I expected when I got there. It almost seemed to mirror my own experience, but that was fine.

The morning went by pretty quickly, but not much how I expected it to. Things were quieter, possibly because kids weren’t back yet, though we’re several miles from the nearest campus with actual students. I got a text from Cici’s that they were doing their early week deal, and we actually had several takers. Maggie and I met Randy, Kyle, and Jim there. Jim said it wasn’t really pizza, but I countered that for $5, it didn’t have to be as long as it was the right shape.

I actually kept kind of busy in the afternoon, and of the three of us in the office, I was the first one out at the end of the day. I stopped to supercharge more than I needed to make the trip, since the electricity was free. There was a guy there that appeared to be working on the equipment, which I assumed was why it was quite a bit slower than it should have been.

Summer was making some kind of stuffed peppers for dinner when I got home. I took the dogs for a quick run before it got dark, and then Eaddie and Eli came to eat. I messed with some more accessories for both cars, got Summer’s tires aired up again, and then tried to start settling down quickly. I’d felt high-anxiety all day, and was ready for some sleep.

Find Calm