Category: Health

woo hoo!!!

4.9 hours last night.  I feel quite bright-eyed, although I don’t reckon my tail’s that bushy.    The secret appears to be having an iron-clad routine before bed and lying in a specific position as I’m trying to sleep.  This is wacky; positions good for my back are not great for the cpap, etc. etc.  I’m designing a bed to deal with my woes; I already designed a zero-g bed so How Hard Can It Be?  This is an automated hammock bed that senses your position and pays out or reels in support depending on ‘where your head is at’ according to the sensor.  Hey, sf is my life.  Cats would hate it though; the bed when in use is more like an electronic hammock than the staid and steady horizontal mass of comfy.

Interview is midmorning. I got a letter of recommendation in hand, maybe two.

 

We shall overcome

  • Singing that in church on the 50th anniversary of Selma.  I cried, it was really hard not to.  The minister preached an excellent sermon, and owned from the pulpit our shame and Canada’s in the treatment of the First Nations specifically with reference to the residential schools.  The part Unitarians played in Selma was retold.  In the future, they will ask, were you there, and I will have to answer.
  • 1.8 hours on the cpap.  Feel very crusty this morning. I had strange dreams.
  • The Rogue Folk Club is under attack.  They want to redevelop Saint James complex (the United Church of Canada local diocese) and given where it’s located, half a block from one of the priciest stretches of real estate in one of Canada’s priciest cities, I hardly think bake sales and fundraising will help.  Honestly I’m glad John didn’t live to see it.
  • March 14 there’s a demo against C51.
  • March 11 THEOLOGY PUB.  Rob and I are going again but the steak I felt comfy enough to treat him to is not happening again so he’s coming here first for sour owl jowls and then we’ll have soft drinks at the pub. He encouraged me to download Sketchup and it doesn’t fucking work with my Mac OS version so I am really irritated.  I’ll see if I can put it on the other machine. My irritation is softened by our amusing convo yesterday morning.  Me: Hey Rob, missed you in church last week, are you coming? Him: (sleepily) I was planning a leisurely shower and hop on the bus. Me, looking at the clock downstairs at church: Uh, it’s quarter after 10, hon. Him: I set my clock backward instead of forward.  Me: Showing up in time for coffee is a fine Unitarian tradition. Him: Skipping shower…. inbound!
  • Workshops are how to grow a church, who knew.  This is an in joke.
  • My landpeers are not raising our rent – for the second year running.  It’s like a March Miracle.  This is officially the most reasonably priced detached rental in east Burnaby.
  • I got Reddit gold.  If you don’t know what that is, good, and if you do know, ask me for my reddit username so you can bask in the glory that is my helpful commentary to the angry and sad.
  • My pOp played an extremely hilarious practical joke on me and Jeff, and to preserve the dignity of the everyone involved, I am not talking about it on the internet.  I did however light a candle for it in church and it must have sounded funny to the congregation, because they laughed most heartily.
  • I sent off another thousand words to mOm yesterday and as usual she is agitating for more.  It felt so good to have something to send… that chunk is only half way done.
  • The sun and warmth has been glorious.
  • Jeff and I tag teamed to move the fridge, clean under, beside and behind it, remove the MAT of dust on the fan intake, and once I clean the interior the fridge will be cleaner than at any point since we moved in.  I’m thinking of tackling Jeff to help with the kitchen “cupboards must be examined for stale dated contents” clean.
  • I have to call the city of Burnaby today and ask them where the food scraps container we are supposed to get is.
  • The purple and green screeching iridescent ribbons have gone from my fabric stash to church.  I have spent much time thinking what I should do with them, but finding out that the RE kids are doing a Maypole this year means that I never have to look at them and be sad again.
  • I enjoyed my sewing machine so much the last time I’m going to haul it out again.
  • But probably not before I clear off the living room table, which will probably take a couple of hours.
  • Keith is going to come over in the next couple of days and help me get my bicycle in riding condition.
  • I have an appointment with the bone health doc for the end of April. The MOA who called with the appointment info was a truly delightful person and though the call was brief it left me feeling really good.

moar sun

1.5 hours on the cpap.  Yesterday Paul and I ate lunch on his front deck – I had having a most severe craving for European style weiners (for about the last month) and he providentially had some.  Jeff and I don’t buy any kind of weiners at all these days since they are basically a commercialized form of waste. Paul and I left the beer in the fridge and drank mineral water instead.  Paul wasn’t quite feeling up to giving blood, so I’ll book into the next clinic in New West next week.

Day before yesterday we had a blanket on our laps like old folks on the ship deck, and yesterday it was so warm and pleasant we didn’t have to.  Oakalla was so nice Paul took his shirt off (he has long since lost the power to embarrass me) and I contributed to the Caucasoid Hairiness Factor with my legs.  We looked for frogs and didn’t find any, and I identified a Towhee for passing strangers.  We didn’t see any other interesting birds, but we heard the m-e-e-e-e—–p bird in the bushes.  It makes a sound of plaintive disgust, sort of “I am sad and irritated and not energetic enough to make more than this soft little noise” – and I sure wish I knew what it was.  It was definitely warm enough for snakes to come out and Paul was pretty sure he saw one.  The last snake I saw that wasn’t a pet was a baby that Robof9 and Patricia and I saw on the stairs at the old Xantrex building up the hill.  Anyway it was a glorious walk and exactly the right length.

I have unlocked the achievement of getting an appointment for the specialist, and it’s in April, barely.  With not driving a standard so much (I’ve only driven Jeff’s car twice since I figured out what was wrong), and changing my gait just a wee tad, and putting a support pillow in the right place when I’m sleeping, and never, ever running, I can say I feel much better.  I also completely stopped taking any painkillers for most of the last week to see where I was, and I am pleased to say that I’m managing okay in the mornings.

I think what is happening is the cpap is actually getting me oxygenated enough at night that I can heal.  I do feel better.  The only thing that’s worse is my eyes, and I’m going to drill down a bit on that problem next.  I’ve had dry eyes since I was in my 20s but I’m thinking a humidifier in the drier months of the year, maybe one of the personal jobbies for my room, might be a good idea.

Jeff was supposed to go to the fOlks’ but he is going to be very busy with an unanticipated technical challenge.

No Alex yesterday!  How fast we get into habits.  Hopefully I’ll see him sometime this weekend.

 

56 days already…

I am now ready to go back and be punctured for social equity and also, blood.  Hard to be believe 8 weeks went by so fast.

Paul and I had a wonderful afternoon swapping lies and drinking Coulrophobia on his front deck.  (Two decks and two bathrooms, now that’s an apartment). There’s actually a nice view, although frak me, nobody stops at any of those stop signs.  He liked the beer so much he went back to the store for more. Then I gave him some salmon I cooked earlier this week for his dinner.

Buster has brought in from, and Jeff has removed to the great outdoors quantity one mouse.

7 hours total sleep and 3.1 with the cpap.  Progress is being made.

There’s a job in craigslist asking if you can make starbucks coffee in a fast paste environment.  Not sure I’d want to.

 

Feeling somewhat better

I used the cpap for 2.3 hours last night, according to my highly evolved machine.

Doxie sent me an ac charger, yay, now I can use the scanner continuously.

99 words yesterday.  It’s not much but it’s progress.

Had long long talks with Tammy and Sandra yesterday.  Tammy’s continuing to work on her counselling business and we brainstormed some marketing ideas, and Sandra was all bubbly and full of news about family, including comments about the family Bible (what a story, but it’s not mine to tell) and lovely updates about her elderly female relatives (and what a grand ear flapping that was).

Watched Grand Budapest Hotel, and it was lovely.

Applied for a job this morning.

I have not one but two very difficult decisions to make.  One involves my finances and the other my mental health. Wish me luck, I’ll need it.

Now for some eggs and tea and toast.

 

Breathing easy

Many, many hours on the cpap.  I had to go at it on three separate tries, but I gooped my eyes before I slept and woke up both refreshed and not so dry that I couldn’t get my eyes open, so I’d call that a win.  Later on this morning, we’re going to do an early shopping run, and later after that I’ll be off to church – to drop off tea towels and pick up cocoa….

 

Sore

KatieAlexFeb15Walked 4+ km yesterday and my back feels okay but my pelvis is trashed.  Only managed the CPAP for an hour and a half .

Alex is so cute!  Yes I was walking around New Westminster yesterday, and although I have like $60 in my account until more funds arrive I simply had to have a Chronic Taco (Katie and I split one, it was SUPER DELICIOUS).  They cost a bomb but they are simply loaded with nutrition.

As a member of the League of Practical Women I purchased Katie some WD40 which immediately got used to desqueak the horrifically squeaky wheels of the stroller.

Pic back at the apartment.

Note: Baby drool smells GHASTLY once it dries.  I came home and thought, gosh, that’s …. what’s that….. and then ran to change my shirt.  He is Tom Drooly, f’sure.

Buster Boy

He’s curled up next to me right now.  I’ve started letting him in to my room. For a while he was resting his head on the corner of my laptop which was socuteIcoulddie.

I’ve started doing the exercises I found on line and it is already making a difference, not just to my pelvis but also my back.  I woke up this morning with no pain.  I dodged the CPAP, but at least I cleaned it.  I finally went into the programming for the CPAP and checked my actual hours used and it’s pretty bad.  Best night was 3.5 hours; average is just over 2.  I also snugged up and rearranged the mask fitting while I was cleaning it. Back to running the machine tonight.

Mike was gently encouraging me to get over my hate for YYOGA  I will try again.  But honest to glob, if that receptionist is still there and pulls the fat shaming stuff again, I’m going to give her a piece of my mind, complain to her manager, and complain in writing to head office.  And then I’ll say screw it and take Mike on as a private instructor, he is after all trained.  Also, yoga is expensive….

Yay, finished the first part of the thing for church. Now to the edits, after we get updates.

 

 

anecdotal trigger

Ah, me.  The decluttering group I belong to on facebook posted the 40 bags in 40 days challenge.  That made me think.

Time was, I lived in Amedeo Garden Court (5 different apartments over almost ten years) in Toronto.  When I was living in the northwesternmost building, my downstairs neighbour, who was our childcare provider at the time, reported a most amazing story.

It started with a dispute between the landlord and her across the hall neighbour. Other tenants reported that this woman, a slender, sad looking person in her 40s, had an apartment that was full of garbage (when the door was open, you could see a human wide path through a debris field of pizza boxes and trash).  It smelled, it was attracting pests.  The landlord lowered the boom and told the woman to clean or move.

She hired two little Portuguese guys (in those days in Toronto every cleaner was Portuguese – I bet that racial balance has shifted dramatically) to clean. I’m sure their hearts sank when they saw the scale of it.

Well, in one day they hauled out forty large trash bags, forty empty 40oz liquor bottles, and disturbed a veritable army of mice and cockroaches.  You couldn’t get close to the garbage bin; it was surrounded by the most noisome collection of trashbags shy of a garbage strike. The woman came home from work (and we’re talking about a hot day and no air conditioning) and berated them for ‘not finishing’!

My downstairs neighbour’s husband spoke Portuguese, and he said he heard combinations of curse words he’d never heard before, as he eavesdropped from across the hall.  They demanded their money, told her in English that they’d see her in hell before they came back and did a stitch more of work for her… and then the troubles began.

We took five mice out of the apartment over the next week (I caught two with my bare hands, we trapped one, and Bounce got two), and I’ve never, ever seen that many cockroaches outside of films from the tropics. It was months before we got the influx of roaches down to a dull roar.  Hoarding isn’t about moral panic, it’s a health hazard. Also, alcoholism.  My neighbour was amazed this woman would arise from her trashpile everyday and go to work.  I bet her clothing stank, even when it had been laundered.  You can be really really sick and hold down a job.

I may have forty bags  to declutter and take out (actually, I doubt it), but I think apart from spiders and silverfish it’s all good, and it won’t smell.  After all these years, I don’t keep food in my room….

Sore

I was in pain for most of yesterday and I had a brief and unsatisfactory night of it.  The CPAP came off quite early as I recollect.  Every time I roll over in bed I can hear the damned pelvic bones go crunch, crunch.  It doesn’t hurt – strangely, but by jingo it’s weird and freaky.

Unfortunately my plans to go to Victoria are being impacted by how hard it is to walk.  Just before bed last night I imagined the walk (now about half a k longer at the Victoria end and already unconscionably long at the Vancouver end) at the ferry terminal and I actually cried.  I don’t think I can do it.

So I think what I will do is try to locate a brace (it’s actually a maternity girdle, if you can believe it) or jerry-rig something at this end and see if it helps and THEN go.

Hurts to stand, hurts to sit, hurts to walk.  Off to youtube for physio exercises for my problem, as it occurs there should be help there.  Huzzah, there are!  God bless the midwives.