Category Archives: Health and Spiritualism

2026: H is for health

The PolyBlog
January 10 2026

Of all the topics I have in my A-Z, this is the one that I feel the least comfortable covering.

Let’s start with the basics. I’m turning 58 in June, and I feel like I’m 70. Between initial wound care and then my back problems, my mobility took a hit in 2023-2024 that carried into 2025, but I’m feeling less inhibited by my lower back. I don’t have a lot of stamina or endurance, my muscle tone has been depleted extensively, my core is really weak…I’m just not in good “shape” physically.

The only “plus” side (hah) to losing muscle tone is that I also lost the weight that goes with it. I’m down from a high of 350 to 306. That is NOT because of a sustained effort on my part, alas. It will go back up when I start working out, but I hope to be below 300 by June. I have plans for chair yoga plus the exercise bike and the Bowflex. I just have to get back to it.

For more outward-oriented fitness, I would like to buy a kayak in the next 18 months, but it will probably push to next year. I’ll go golfing a few times this year, and I’m hoping to get my scooter going. Plus more walking.

I have plans for cooking, although the contribution for health is more in avoiding eating out and cooking fresher materials than it is a specific health push for the meals.

But I have six specific issues I need to deal with this year.

My blood pressure has crept up in recent months, so I need to make sure my medications have the right dosage and make sure it stays under control. It’s the first number, not the second that is worrying me, while the second number is normally the one for concern. It’s an easy fix; blood pressure monitoring, check dosage with the doctor.

My diabetes seems under control most of the time, type 2, and right now, the biggest impact is on my lower legs and feet. I need new compression stockings, which requires a new referral and prescription form, which requires a visit to the doctor to get, etc. It’s annoying but easily fixed. For my feet, I had an ingrown toenail back when I was 19, it got infected, and they removed it. It grew back into the same groove and got infected again. So they destroyed the nailbed to theoretically get rid of it entirely and yet didn’t get it all. So I have a partial toenail on my big toe on my right foot. No big deal, looks a bit odd, but well, whatever. However, my toenail on the big toe on my left foot is not in great shape or growing in the direction I want it to do. I’ve trimmed, directed, massaged, etc. but I just need someone more professional to review things and tell me what to do. My GP agreed, I’m seeing someone next week, it’s not terrible, but worth having it checked out before it becomes something more egregious, particularly tied to my diabetes and that all diabetics have feet problems.

My sleep has gotten messed up big time in the last year. The mask I use on my CPAP has a wrap-around strap and it’s been annoying me on and off for the last year. I ordered a new one off Amazon, works fine, but I don’t have the same seal I used to get from the old setup. It seemed like it was part mask, part strap and part machine. The machine did NOT seem to be providing the same level of air as it used to, or more accurately, I wasn’t getting the vapour lock to force it to close my mouth all the time while sleeping. I played with it, it would get better, the strap would lessen, blah blah blah.

Shortly before Christmas, we visited the CPAP place to get Jacob a unit to try, and I talked about getting a new machine. Like the compression socks, you need to have a prescription to get one properly and to have it all covered. And the place won’t give me one without an updated prescription; the sleep doctor won’t see me without a new referral request; and so I have to see the GP to get the referral form. Sound familiar? Now, I know too much about billing issues to not understand what is happening. If I go to my sleep doctor, who prescribed it last time, they get a set fee for seeing me as a follow-up patient. However, if they get a “new” referral, they get more money from OHIP to see me. Hence the reason why they want a new referral. I am 100% a follow-up patient, but if they force me to get a new form, they get paid more to see me. Even though all they are going to do is ask, “So, how’s your machine working? Good, good. Here’s a new prescription to replace it with a new model.”. My sleep machine IS due for a replacement, almost 10 years at this point, it even has a message on the machine saying the “motor” is at the end of its life and the unit should be replaced. And the province will replace it, covering most of the cost. I just need someone to write me a new Rx. We put in a request for the referral, someone will call me, etc.

In the meantime, the sleep place gave me new straps for my headgear. I tried it once, but it didn’t fit at all. I ignored it for a week. Then one morning I woke up, was thinking about it, and went, “Doh!”. The previous headgear comes with two pieces on the sides that serve as extenders…meaning the strap at the back of my head only has to cover about 4-5 inches of space. The NEW straps are designed to go about 9″, way too big. Unless…unless…unless I take off the stupid extenders and run it from ear to ear the way IT IS DESIGNED, YOU NINNY! (Me, not you). And so I put it on, and whaddya know, the vapor lock came back. The other design wasn’t working for me as well as it could; one new strap later, and I slept through the whole night without waking up. The sleep data shows everything is working relatively well, anyway, but I feel more rested. The first week with the new strap was like heaven in comparison. Now I’m back to waking up. But at least things are in “motion”.

I have also noticed as I age that my hearing is not as good as it once was, so I’m trying to book a session with an audiologist to get hearing aids. Do you know that it is not simply “call and get them”? I have literally tried making appointments in the last two years at three different places and either got cancelled or fully ghosted. I don’t know if it’s a business problem, an audiologist availability problem, or the market is just saturated somehow. It’s annoying.

Level 2 problems have entered the chat

I’ve previously written about my fear of dentistry. Growing up, we didn’t have good coverage and we didn’t go very often. More for problems than regular maintenance. It wasn’t until I was an adult with coverage through work that it became more of a regular thing. I didn’t enjoy it, of course, not that anyone does, and I do have a really strong gag reflex, but you know, I got it done. I had an amazing hygienist for a while, kept me calm and didn’t gouge my gums. Oh, sweet bliss. Did some cavities, a bit of other stuff, all good. But doing cavities was hard with just freezing for me as the longer they were in my mouth, the more I would start to get nervous.

It all culminated in a really bad experience where I had a post in my mouth between two teeth, some latex wrapped around a hoop, and it felt like I was swallowing the latex. I had a full-on, no word of a lie, panic attack. I thought I was going to die swallowing the balloon that was in my mouth. I eventually grapped the chair arm, had the guy work on me for about 10 minutes and get everything out, while my whole body wanted to lunge out of the chair and do zoomies in the hallway. It was literal torture for me.

After that, I switched dentists, and she recommended I go the sedation route. I did, did some route canals with NO MEMORY of any of it, it was perfect.

Then the pandemic killed me for oral care. I totally changed my routine, and I did not keep on top of my cleaning duties. Not egregious, but not healthy either. Forget flossing every day, I even missed days for brushing. Anyway, back on track, but it hurt the status of my teeth and gums. I have two teeth at the front of my mouth that the nerves went dead, and the teeth have started to turn black. It grosses me out and embarrasses the f*** out of me too. I should have seen a dentist long ago, but well, fear and cowardice prevented me. Even with the sedation, I was afraid to go. Over Christmas, I had an abscessed tooth that caused me a lot of pain, and I’m do for a double route canal in two weeks, plus some cavity fillings. Great fun. Except I’m not even sure I can do it. I did an extra-long cleaning before Christmas, and even that requires sedation for me at this point. And I didn’t go “under”. I was awake the whole time, both aware and feeling what they were doing. That is not a good omen for the route canal. I cannot be aware for 90 minutes while they work in my mouth. I might need an actual IV to do this. Another dentist offered to do it over Christmas with just gas, and I was like, “No chance”. She even said she didn’t think she was up to my level of problems. (Welcome to my world, is what my wife would have said, I’m sure).

So there’s that. It’ll get done, I just don’t know what it’ll look like. I took a picture of the before look of my teeth, and I’ll share it with the after photos. Part of my way of facing my fear is to out it. However embarrassing my mouth looks, the only way to face the shame is to own it.

The next problem that has levelled up is mental health. There are a bunch of diagnostic tests that they do for psychosocial metrics around happiness, motivation, depression, etc. When I was in wound care, and having serious problems with my shins, something weird happened, and it made me a bit worried, enough to do the tests.

All of the tests ask about whether you think things are hopeless, whether you ever feel like nobody would care if you were gone, and whether you are considering harming yourself. Well, I’m fine on those. I’m not suicidal, so we can take that off the list. However, my wound care lasted a few months, and then I had a huge setback that put me back even farther than when I started. I was feeling old, I was feeling like it had no light at the end of the tunnel, I was in pain. It wasn’t hopeless, but it wasn’t fun. And when I went to see a special clinic, where the main guy is also a surgeon, I wondered if this was some sort of potential radically bad infection situation where they could consider removing part of the leg. Not likely, but I wanted a solution. And if they had said that was the option, my reaction likely would have been, “Okay, is this an outpatient thing?”. I wasn’t suicidal but I wasn’t feeling particularly protective of myself either. I wanted solutions. Today. I was not in a good headspace for calm, logical decision-making. But I spoke to the GP at the time, ran through the diagnostic tests, nothing scary, low to moderate depression and anxiety. Totally appropriate for the situation.

However, the fall of 2025 pushed my buttons some more. We had a good trip in the summer, things should have bumped up after that once we were home. But they didn’t. I’m a bit stressed about retirement options, sure. Jacob’s health is ongoing, mine too, Andrea’s showing signs of burnout; we’re all in need, so to speak. And I’ve noticed that many of my coping methods are NOT working as well as they had in the past. I wasn’t shaking things off when persistent thoughts intruded. I have lots of ways and techniques to shake my brain out of a wayward path. None of them were working, except the one that overrides everything.

I go for a drive, no destination in mind, just as long as there are lights, turns and traffic. I turn on some music that I like, and I blast the f*** out of it. Between driving and listening to the music, I can only keep one thought in my head at a time, and not for long. So I start daydreaming and drifting, driving out the big terrible conscious stuff that was bothering or nagging me, persistently, and just “being” in the moment. It lets me relax. No catastrophizing, no worrying, nothing but light driving and focusing on the road or where a song’s story might have come from or goes after the song ends.

Unfortunately, that’s not sustainable as the only working technique, nor is it good for my hearing.

As an aside, my brothers have dealt with similar brain paralysis and fixations. My brother Don was in the hospital at one point for an extended stay for his diabetes, and while he was in there, they put him on antidepressants and had time to properly calibrate the dosage. I had lunch with him about 2 months afterwards, and I didn’t recognize some of the things coming out of his mouth. He was talking about something that was frustrating him, and that would normally be the onset of a rant about the level of frustration. Instead, he said, “But there’s nothing I can do about that right now so I’m focusing on this over here.” WTF? WHO ARE YOU AND WHAT HAVE YOU DONE WITH MY BROTHER?

Improved living through appropriate pharmacology.

So, going back to those diagnostic tests, I was doing a physical before Christmas (related to a pension thing, but a good thing to do anyway). And I mentioned that, at some point, we should talk about mental health again. So we did the tests again, and I’ve moved from low/mild-to-moderate to full-on moderate depression. Still a smidge on the lower side, but clearly higher than I had been. I told him I was open to meds, if that was warranted, but I also fear them. Too many people have said they don’t feel like themselves on the drugs. But I need help.

The long and the short of it is I am now on happy pills. It’ll take a good five weeks for them to take hold, and I’m only about 2.5 weeks in. It’s a class of drugs called “selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors” aka SSRIs. Mostly, the drug is used for depression and anxiety, and increases serotonin to improve mood and balance. The first few days, the only noticeable effect was that it made me dizzy for the first few hours after taking it, which went away after day 5 or so. I’m a little sleepier in the day this past week, but nothing big or unusual.

Will it make a big difference? I don’t know. I got a placebo effect almost immediately. The fact that I was DOING something about it gave me peace of mind and I’ve felt less anxious the last two weeks. Is any of it the drug? No clue. But I’ll try it for 8-12 months and see how it goes. I started January 1st, so it will be easy to track.

So that’s about it. The dentist is worrying me the most; the rest is mostly noise to figure out in the next six months or so.

How is your health going?

Emotionally difficult moments

The PolyBlog
April 24 2025

Although I am privileged economically, I feel less empowered emotionally. I was reading an article sometime ago about emotional development in terms of navigating difficult situations, at least those that are emotionally challenging, and I’ve been reviewing my experiences for any insights or lessons learned that can help me today. The review is not about traumas, not really, but rather regular life events, mainly. And while I feel somewhat resilient or in touch with my inner self, I am looking back at certain touchstones.

Revisiting the past

One of the touchstones you see in the literature is “dealing with shame“. It usually revolves around either a deep insecurity or self-doubt (hello, weight!), or is merged with another touchstone, such as recovering from failure. Back in 1996, I declared bankruptcy. Several issues were at play, not all of which were of my own making. Still, the part that was my responsibility was trying to juggle working as a consultant, living on my own, paying student loans, and not being particularly skilled with finances. I don’t talk about it much, obviously, as it’s not something I’m proud of, but it was the right decision for me at the time. And like the tenets of programs like AA or NA, you have to admit your failings to take away their power to control you and empower you to move on. My situation is obviously better now, but a lot of that is because a) I started to earn more money and was in a stable job over time, and b) I married someone with an equally good salary that doubles our reach. I wouldn’t say I’m yet good with money, I still eat out a lot, but it is what it is. I’m better than I was, not as good as I would like to be. There’s a lot of emotional turmoil in my past that’s tied to money, but I don’t feel it controls me.

A second (or third?) touchstone is basically saying goodbye to someone who’s still alive i.e, the two of you simply won’t be together anymore by choice. Often, that is a moderate and expected loss, say with transitions at the end of elementary school or high school. More often, it is a break-up. If the relationship simply ran its course, that’s not really the touchstone being considered…it’s more the “hey, we probably won’t even be friends anymore” kind of separation. While I don’t have any raging exes out there, and I left on good terms with almost all, I’m not really in active touch with any of them either. Not that I feel I should be, just a sense of missed opportunity perhaps, maybe because I feel a bit differently about love and loss than most people.

I feel like everyone you love — both romantically or as a close friend or family member — takes up some form of permanent residence in your heart; even if they move out, they leave behind a bit of themselves, an imprint perhaps or an echo. I can think of three people from high school, two of whom were close friends, and they still reside in my heart. My best friend drifted off to a different university; another I reconnected with at one point but the relationship was a bit toxic, so I had to end it. The third is living some version of their best life in Ontario, someone I thought I would know my whole life, and yet I haven’t had any contact with them in 30+ years nor expect to ever again. At university, I can think of two really close friends, gone from my life mainly through inattention. Add in another 3-4 in BC. While I was at DFAIT, there were about six, with two really close friends who will always be in my heart. Add in another five or so over the years who moved from good friend to close friend. Plus a dozen or so current friends who also hold a similar place. You say goodbye to many of them in stages, often without even knowing they’re leaving.

It’s interesting that in the original article and some linked materials, almost none of them talked about an odd touchstone. Finding out who you are as a person. Self-love, I suppose. Coming to terms with yourself. My PolyWogg status from 1996 to 2001, when I field-stripped my psyche, was painful and cathartic, terrifying and exhilarating. Beyond challenging. And I did it to myself, for the most part. Looking back, it let me become the person I was when I met Andrea. It ties in, in part, to the touchstone of being truly vulnerable, but I think it’s almost a double-barrelled vulnerability. Everyone talks about being vulnerable with someone else, obviously, but I think it is equally important, if not more important, to initially be vulnerable with yourself.

All the articles and materials discuss the obvious challenge of grieving the loss of a loved one. My father, my mother, some friends, my brother, Andrea’s grandfather and two uncles. Obvious losses, relatively common experiences. Yet my experiences with my dad before his death created something weirdly healthy. I knew when I moved out West back in ’91 that I might come back for a funeral. So I made sure that anything I had to say to my Dad, I said it to him when I felt it. When he died, I felt like it was the best relationship I had ever had with him. Nothing unsaid, nothing left undone. And I carried that approach forward.

The literature talks about “forgiving someone who has hurt you”, or dealing with “unresolved hurt” from others, but I don’t feel that was quite what I did with some. I simply decided, for example, that my Mom was who she was, not the Mom or person that I thought she should be. Sure, she could annoy the piss out of me, things that could frustrate me to no end. But each time I thought about it, I came to the same conclusion. She lived according to her life and her rules, not mine. Again, my relationship with my Mom ended on the best terms I had ever had. There was a slight disappointment that I couldn’t do a couple of things she wanted me to do after she was gone; I had to accept not only her limitations but also my own.

For my brother, Don, I wish I could have waved a magic wand to change his life and give him a more positive outlook. I’d like to do the same for another family member. But, in the end, all I can do is accept them for who they are; I cannot live their life for them. Instead of a warped version of the Serenity Prayer, my thoughts remind me of a particularly good line from the TV series “The West Wing.” In a flashback episode, they discuss how to convey Bartlet’s intelligence (including a Ph.d. in economics) in a more relatable manner to the average person. None of what they try works. Until Leo sets the game plan — “Let Bartlet be Bartlet”. For my family and friends, I try to do that. Let Don be Don, let my Mom be Mom. In situations where I can’t do that, such as where their behaviour negatively affects me, then I can’t be around them. The literature often links that to another touchstone, “putting yourself first”, which I started to do about a year after my father died. I buried myself in another approach for about six months, trying to please everyone, but eventually, I had to say enough is enough and step away.

I’m not always good at this one…both in terms of doing it when I need to, or not doing it when I shouldn’t. It’s a tricky balance.

I find it interesting that none of the literature appears to address a particular variation of the above themes. It talks about losing someone; it talks about saying goodbye to someone; but it rarely talks about coming to terms with almost losing someone. The fear, the trepidation, the relief, the release. But the emotional rollercoaster has very different twists from actual loss. When Andrea was 26w pregnant with Jacob, she had premature partial rupture of the membrane (PPROM). Basically, her water half-broke, causing her to leak but without labour nor draining completely. I’ve written before about how this became a math equation for 10 weeks. If person X (Andrea) is leaking fluid from her uterus at rate U ml per day and replenishing fluid at rate R ml per day, and baby Y (Jacob) needs enough fluid to prevent infection and do the backstroke for mobility and growth, how long can Y stay in X?

She made it 10 more weeks before a planned C-section, which is another story altogether, but at 26w, I felt like I was going to lose one or both of them. It was a scary night. There was little risk to Andrea, in reality, but it didn’t feel that way until after the birth. Yet the fear for Jacob never really dissipated. Through the NICU experience, and then 5.5 months of emergency room visits, failure to thrive, and a host of other issues, it seemed like the universe had decided to stack the deck against my son. I find it odd that so much of the literature talks about facing your own mortality, or actually losing family, but not much about the process of facing the potential mortality of your spouse and child. It has been the most difficult time of my life. And while it helps, it is hard to pinpoint lessons learned.

My most persistent challenge

However, out of all things that I have faced in my life, my most persistent challenge has been uncertainty. It is my greatest weakness, my fiercest foe. I thrive on planning, controlling for variables, and contingencies on top of contingencies. Decision trees to guide possible outcomes. Uncertainty kicks my ass every time.

When Jacob was born, and we found out that he had cataracts (as we expected), I was quite active in searching out information, joining discussion groups, looking for expected pathways for what was to come. It was mostly catch-up, as Andrea had cataracts and stuff as a child, so she understood most of this more intimately and even intuitively at times. For me, it was all new. So, I researched the crap out of it. That was my coping mechanism…more info to aid in my forecasting of possible outcomes and developments.

Yet Jacob had a LOT more going on than just his eyes. Over the first year, he saw Ear, Nose and Throat; plastics; PT; gastro; respirology. I used to joke that I felt we had seen everyone except a vet, and I wasn’t even sure there wasn’t one in there. Now that we know he’s a penguin (!), maybe a vet would have been good! 🙂 And we had dozens of appointments, if not into the hundreds. Once in a while, we would meet a new specialist or ER doc, give his patient history (PPROM at 26w5d, C-section at 37w, double pneumo thorax, never intubated, always breathed on his own, a bit of jaundice, torticolis, swelling, congenital bilateral cataracts, blah blah blah), and they would pause before asking, “Do you have a medical background?”. No, no medical background. Just a steep learning curve with lots of repetition.

But, as much as I worried, Jacob was Jacob. He grew at the rate he was going to, and at a year, most of the simple stuff resolved. Our favourite words were, “We don’t need to see him anymore.” We were in the car before they finished the sentence. But as he got older, we started hearing the words Cerebral Palsy. And the docs told us NOT to go rushing to the internet to research all the details. Because most of it wouldn’t apply to him anyway. No sense worrying about the whole spectrum rather than the specific symptoms, if that was even what he had. Yet that had been my goto solution for uncertainty with his eyes. I researched the crap out of it. For CP? I listened and didn’t go down rabbitholes.

Jacob has extra issues, yes, but he deals with most of them himself. We help, but most solutions are Jacob being Jacob.

Until eighteen months ago. The short version is he fell down, no big deal, although not fun. Yet, two weeks later, he started showing signs of headaches, dizziness and nausea. We thought at first it was a concussion, but it didn’t react as a concussion. Regardless, you treat the symptoms. The nausea is mostly gone. We found medicine for the headaches, which mostly works, although not perfectly. But, we don’t have solutions for the dizziness. Which has left him in dire straits at times for being able to attend school consistently or frequently.

However, none of that is particularly relevant to what I’m talking about. I’m talking about me, and how I am dealing with helping him, taking care of him, even advising him. We have no answers for him. The doctors have no answers, nor even a prognosis. Will he be better in 6m, a year, never? Is this temporary or permanent?

Last April, I was stressed out of my gourd. I was juggling work, transport, Jacob’s appointments, etc. Andrea does most of the bookings, I would drive him here and there. But there was no predictability. I took time off from work for 3w, wondering if I should just take off several months to help him. Except once I took the time off, my stress dropped to zero. Instantly. WTF? How? All of Jacob’s stuff stayed the same. How could I have zero stress?

It wasn’t Jacob’s needs that were messing me up. It was the uncertainty. He’d plan to go to school Monday morning, so I would plan to stay home that morning to drive him while Andrea would go into the office. Except Monday morning, he’d be sick, and staying home. So, then he would be going Tuesday now, but I planned on going to the office Tuesday. So I’d rejig things on the fly. Then Tuesday morning, something else would happen, and I’d have to adjust the schedules of Andrea, Jacob, and me all over again. Then an appointment would get cancelled and something else would have to get adjusted. The uncertainty was killing me. But once I was off work and thus available whenever Jacob needed me, the uncertainty was manageable, and all the stress disappeared. The problem wasn’t working, per se, but rather adjusting schedules when uncertain forces conspired against us.

I’ve been fortunate. Work has allowed me to continue working from home while Jacob is rebuilding. No scheduling headaches. It works. But as we approach the end of Grade 10, I’m increasingly stressed. Next year, his grades will be much more critical to his future. And yet he is NOT back to full strength. Nor is he showing signs of significant improvement. It’s a gradual improvement, but it is far from success. Plus somewhere in the next two years, he’s supposed to have major surgery for his legs and hips, complete 40h of volunteer work somehow, and maybe learn to drive. If he could drive himself to school, a bunch of pressure would slip away. He wouldn’t have to wait for me, nor would I have to juggle as much. We’d still have to attend appointments and other commitments, but at least school would be better covered. If he is even healthy enough to drive.

I want to help him, I want to frame the problem for him. I want to control the variables, put in place a set of solutions that I think might work. I want to reduce the uncertainty and make changes, try to fix things. I want to know how I can help instead of feeling like the only thing I can help him with is being a chauffeur. I am finding it really hard to just “be”. To let him manage things with Andrea (he responds better to Andrea, or at least, she doesn’t seem to make it worse like I do, I just stress him out).

I know the right answer in terms of my role. It’s to tell him that I love him. To tell him that I believe in him, that he’s doing his best and he’s capable of whatever he sets his mind to, that he has hurdles, but he is awesome. To tell him that I will do anything he needs me to do to help him. And to get the f*** out of his way.

To let Jacob be Jacob.

The universe is full of uncertainties, and I really f***ing hate that about the universe right now. It kicked my mental health Tuesday so I took the day off on short notice. Wednesday was a little better. But like most things, it’s day by day.

Uncertainty sucks. And the rest of my emotional learning doesn’t seem to be of much help.

Struggling a bit this week…

The PolyBlog
September 12 2024

Recently, I’ve been doing a bunch of pre-planning work for my preparations related to retirement in three years, and that was going pretty well. In addition to my new list of rituals to add to my “execution”, I have a list of about 12 topics that I want to work through one per month over the next year. In effect, figuring out what I need to figure out before I retire. The obvious one is finances, but I also combine that with legal, and it encompasses things like wills, powers of attorney, and even some end-of-life planning. That one may seem more like health, but I’ve lumped it with legal. More like long-term health and what I need to put in place legally to support those outcomes. And that is generally going well. In typical PolyWogg fashion, it’s a plan on how to pre-plan my retirement plan. 🙂 My happy place.

Which is good as the rest of my life is going bonkers.

On the positive side, I managed to start my 3D printer up yesterday. Printed two small test prints, didn’t turn out perfect, but they printed at least. Now I just need to dial it in more. I felt like I needed a win or at least a break-through for trying it. I didn’t even know where to start, to be honest. I bought the printer 28 months ago, and paid someone 20 months ago to set it up for me, get it all going. It has sat in my basement ever since. I knew generally how to print stuff, but I had no idea how to get it to the point of actually being ready to print. No manual, no instructions. Apparently, there was an SD card that came with it (I did know there was one but just thought it was for transferring files from computer to printer) and that little SD card has all the instructions on it, as well as the software I need. Found out from the vendor, opened the SD card, and voila! There are the instructions in nice little folders named 1-17 for different “stages” of using the printer. 1-2 were for the initial setup and testing, 3 was a test file you could print directly, and 4-6 were different software options to try. 7 and beyond deal with various aspects of maintenance and more advanced setup options. I followed 1-3 and printed two test prints! 4-6 gave me the software to do new stuff of my own! It’s not rocking and rolling fully, but I’m lightyears ahead of where I was. Which feels like the end of the positive side.

In the meh category, work is fine, nothing exciting. I’m finding it hard to establish a good rhythm for work, and it has been this way for months. Between some short-term leave, summer holidays, acting, etc., I haven’t felt like I was doing my normal job since May and it’s taking a bit of a toll. I have a French test at the start of November, and while I am normally nervous going into the tests, my confidence is really low at the moment.

I was really stressed back in May trying to juggle working at the office, my schedule, Andrea’s schedule and Jacob’s day-to-day schedule changes for his concussion stuff. We found a scheduling solution, he got through June, and I really thought we would have some improvements for September. They even seemed to be working. Jacob did more classes last week than almost the entire second semester last year, annnnd this week he’s back to missing 3 days out of 4 so far. So frustrating.

I’ve been trying to adjust to the new schedule and found an option to ask for an extension for some extra flex right now, as I thought he would be back to a normal or regular schedule in a couple of weeks. But this week was nothing resembling a promising sign.

I’m generally copacetic about return-to-office changes for me at work. We all have to upgrade from 2d/week to 3d/week, with some extra rigour attached, and that was generally okay with me. It’s a challenge to adapt, sure, but better than 5d/week, and most of the complaints I see are of the “suck it up, buttercup” variety. Whether we like it or not is irrelevant. It could be worse, could be better.

But then Andrea took over an hour to get home from a local office from which she could have walked and made it home faster. Stupid transit delays, which is just a nightmare for everyone. And with the unreliability, more people are driving. For me, it will be a challenge. The offices are more packed, and we don’t have assigned seating at the local office, so you reserve in advance to have a guaranteed space, but which space is open depends on when you get there. If you’re there at 6:00 a.m., like a colleague, she can sit anywhere she wants. If you’re there up to 8:00, lots of choice. After 8:00 a.m., it gets decidedly less and less flexible. But I can sit almost anywhere, just annoying to worry about. And for me, if I’m driving Jacob to school still, then I won’t get to the building until close to 9:00 a.m. Not great.

Every other week, we are supposed to go into the mother ship. Which was fine. When I was there 5d/week, I had indoor parking. Expensive, but with Andrea and I usually commuting together, the convenience balanced out the cost. They switched to daily parking which was perfect. But as of today, they announced that they’re cancelling all daily parking and going back to monthly only. The problem with this is that for anyone who is not going into that building at least 3d / week, it’s not worth it. $200 to park once or twice a month? I don’t think so. Sooo, no problem, just park in a nearby lot. Except if you get there at 9:00, there are no spots anywhere. Over the last 7 years, they’ve removed about 50% of the parking spots in the area. People trying to park after 8:30 this week have already said, “all the lots were full”, and they ended up going back home. With the building parking switching back to monthly, this means another 1500 commuters vying for the lots that were full by 8:30, and will now be full by 7:30. In other words, I literally will have no option to drop Jacob at school and go to the office unless I can drop him by 7:15 at the latest.

On band days, that might work. If he can stay in band. If he can attend regularly. If we can find something that will f***ing help him. Cuz we thought we had some stuff working and it’s stopped.

Then, just for fun, my health has sucked this week. Monday was the start of my big plan to fix my back, get it back in proper functioning order, and I started with osteo & massage treatment at 9:00 a.m. Great. Except it wasn’t great. He did some work on my stomach which has been upset of late, and it messed me up royally for Monday and Tuesday. He worked on my legs and the joints hated it later. I did chiro last night, and it helped my upper back, but my lower back was screaming at me most of the day.

Today? My mental health took a giant dump on my body. I’m really stressed about the RTO stuff suddenly, as I’m going to have to adapt my work times considerably just to comply, which is fine generally. I don’t care about that much. I care that it means I have to adjust my support for Jacob quite a bit. Some of the flex that I had that was working for him is gone now. I don’t know what to do about it, and I don’t know how to help him.

I took 3d sick earlier this week with the osteo impact, and today I’m taking a personal day. Great. So much for getting a routine going.

I’m considering just taking 3m sick leave for mental stuff, but the problem with that is that it just delays the problem. 3m from now looks no different than today does. There’s no indication it will be any different. I don’t have a solution, or to be blunt with myself, I don’t have any solutions I like much.

The likely solution is that I’ll have to start going into work for 7:00 a.m. or so to get a parking spot and be able to leave on time to get Jacob from school. Which means Jacob will have to get himself to school which will add a lot of friction to him going at all and increase his absences. Great. But I don’t have an option to handle getting him there and still have any options for commuting. On days in the mothership, I’ll likely have to switch to transit and Jacob will just be on his own for commuting, which again means he likely won’t go.

FML right now. It’ll get better, but it’s annoying me a lot today.

When things go sideways when they shouldn’t

The PolyBlog
March 10 2024

So, I’ve often had a challenge with my lower back, particularly on my left side. The problem area is just above my hip, slightly around the back, somewhat adjacent to the small of my back, and a tad lower. Some of it is my weight, some is my posture, and some is a weak core. Regardless, it’s bothered me on and off for some 15-20 years. Often if I’m worried about doing X activity for health and fitness, my lower back worries me the most. Massage and chiro keep me upright, most of the time. Or I take something like Robaxecet when needed.

Last July, we went on a road trip through New England for 3-4 hours daily in the car. It bothered me a little, but we took a massage machine (two balls that pound on my spine) with us, BioFreeze, and a cushion for extra lumbar support if needed. Two days out of 14, it bothered me — one night at a hotel around day 10 or so and one night in Niagara Falls when we were walking over to a restaurant. That night, it was BAD on the way to the restaurant, but a Robaxecet pill later, and I was all good for the walk home.

In other words, it was controlled.

Until it wasn’t controlled

About five weeks ago, it started to nag at me. Biofreeze and muscle relaxant pills didn’t really help. I put up with it for two weeks, but it would twinge and spasm from time to time—just enough to be uncomfortable if I sat too long. I did back stretches, considered chiro, and finally went to get a massage.

The Registered Massage Therapist (RMT) was new to me, although I’ve seen her name at the clinic for a while. She met with me but didn’t want to treat me as she was afraid that whatever she loosened would / could cause more problems i.e., loosening areas that were actually protecting my back in compensation for whatever was going on. So, she insisted I see my regular doctor first and maybe get X-rays.

So off I trundled at the end of week 3 or so. He talked to me, did a basic exam, decided x-rays weren’t required unless physio didn’t fix me up, and off I went. Note that up until then, my pain was relatively under control. It might go to a 6/10 on a bad day, but that would be a quick twinge, not sustained pain.

On the Saturday and Sunday of that week (i.e., 1 and 2 days later), my back pain scale went to 10. I had some severe lockups, with the whole lower back engaged in a spasm, so much so that I actually screamed. I was even crying a couple of times when it didn’t subside. I needed to sit on the couch with a heating pad and couldn’t do much else. It was severe. But once I sat down, the pain would last maybe 20 seconds and then stop. Until I moved the wrong way.

I’m booked for a physio but that was week 6 (next week) to do the full intro appointment (1h). In the meantime, I saw another RMT in our orbit who is also an osteopath. I saw him Wed of week 4; my quads and hamstrings were SUPER tight, so he stretched and massaged until I could move again. Felt great. Lasted all day, and then on Thursday, I was twinging again. It was not like the previous weekend, but I still hit a 6-8 regularly until I sat down or relaxed my back somehow. The heat helped, but not as much as usual.

For Friday at 3:00, I had a massage booked with an RMT that I use regularly, as does Jacob. She’s awesome. I was really looking forward to the muscles releasing. Instead, I had a huge attack at 2:00, just as I was getting ready to see her.

For context, just before that, I finished work at about 1:45 p.m.; everything had been relatively fine all day. I had lunch; everything was good. When I went to the washroom, my back started to spasm. I stood up, and all hell broke loose in my lower back. Sitting or standing, I couldn’t get it to stop.

Under the heading of embarrassing, I had to call Andrea from upstairs to come help me, AND I even needed her to wipe my butt. I couldn’t bend to reach. Sigh. Cue the mental distress part. My pain scale reset so that I was now hitting 10/10 almost constantly. It wouldn’t stop.

I eventually made it up the stairs while she called an ambulance. It was the worst pain I had ever felt, and I wasn’t going to drive myself or take a taxi to the hospital in case I made it worse. But I wasn’t in a life-threatening situation, so I had to wait 3 hours for the ambulance to come. I finally stopped the pain on the couch with a heating pad, as long as I didn’t move. At 5:30 p.m., I had to go to the washroom again, and while it wasn’t fun getting there, the residual heat from the heating pad was keeping it loose. Until 10 minutes later when I tried to stand up again and it was pure torture. Andrea helped me again, including getting back to the couch. Twenty feet felt like 20 miles of torture. It took another 10 minutes for my back to calm down on the couch.

Enter the paramedics

So the paramedics arrived, checked heart and other vitals, all good. They gave me an option — go out on the gurney, which they thought would hurt a LOT, or power through it to walk to the ambulance. I powered through. Long, slow, and very painful. I’ve been in an ambulance not too long ago in tortoise years, and I know it feels like you’re riding in the back of an unaltered pickup truck. Very raw, little padding. I rode sitting up, holding on to some webbing beside me. Every rock, bump, turn, acceleration or deceleration I felt in my spine and lower back. I tried to chat the WHOLE way there to distract myself. My review? Twenty minutes, 1 star, would not recommend.

Arrival at the hospital showed 6-8 paramedic teams waiting with their patients for hand-off and a very busy ER. Since my problems weren’t life-threatening, they put me in a wheelchair, dumped me in the waiting room and went back to helping patients who really needed it. If I had known the ride in the ambulance would be so basic, I would have just taken a cab and hoped for the best. That isn’t really a fair assessment, as their main benefit besides transport was telling me what to do or how to move so I wouldn’t aggravate the situation.

I got to the ER just after 6:00, triaged at about 6:30, and then sat there in a wheelchair with my pain under control as long as I didn’t move too much. I had taken Robaxecet just before 6:00 at home. But if I stood up or moved too much, the spasms started up again.

I was alone, but I decided I needed an advocate if possible and called Andrea to join me if she was willing and able. Jacob was okay staying at home by himself, so she came. On the positive side, on Wednesday, I had ordered a wrap-around lifting belt/back brace, which arrived just as we were leaving in the ambulance. She brought it with her, and I put it on. Most of my discomfort when I moved went away. I could even stand up and take a few steps.

At 10:00, I had Andrea go tell the triage nurse my pain was increasing from sitting so long, and they said they’d bring me some pills. Two hours later, no pills, and I wanted to get myself out of a seated position. If necessary, I was willing to go home. Andrea went back over to see if there was someplace I could lie down to get the pressure off my spine, but they instead gave her Tylenol for me and a promise I would be seen very soon. “Very soon” turned out to be an hour to be escorted into the back to the secondary waiting room.

We found a place to sit; I even used the washroom on my own with the brace for support and didn’t die. I even managed to walk up and down a 30-foot space. But there were still 7 people ahead of me, apparently. I dozed off in the chair for 30m, but otherwise sat around until 3:00 a.m.. Nine hours after arriving at the hospital, I was going out of my mind. The pain was constant at this point and had risen from a constant 3-4 to a constant 6/10, and mentally I was done. I told Andrea, “I want to stay, but I can’t take this anymore. I need to lie down, or I’m going to lose it completely”.

The nurse agreed to put me in an exam room with an examining bed at least, that was at 3:05 or so, and I laid down on it. It took a bit to find a comfy position, but I slept for 45 minutes. Andrea was struggling too as there was no comfortable place for her. She had her head down on a hospital table. The doctor came in at 4:30 a.m. — 10.5 hours from arrival — and was very abrupt. It was clear that she thought I was wasting her time. I told her the pain was enough to make me scream, and my family doctor had told me if one of two things happened (spontaneous bowel release or increase in pain), I was to go to the ER. Hence, I was there.

She gave me some pain meds by IV and a muscle relaxant orally, and I went for X-rays around 5:30 a.m. The final result was that they showed nothing structural going on. They cut us loose at 7:30, home around 8:00 a.m. or so. It took roughly 14 hours to get a prescription for the pain that had me screaming at home originally. Sure, I got X-rays, pain meds, and a muscle relaxant by IV, which were worth it. And the prescriptions have worked well. But I don’t know that I would go again. I was literally losing my mind sitting there.

She gave me a prescription for five things, four of which were just over-the-counter, although two were prescription strength. The extra one was for reducing the muscle spasms. She told me to follow up with my regular doctor.

Not the best of headspaces

I was not in the best of headspaces for Saturday and Sunday. I’ll tell you, quite honestly, that if I had an off-switch during the worst of the pain on Friday, I’d likely be shut off now. I just needed it to stop. Fourteen hours at the hospital waiting for SOME sort of help did not improve my mood. I was ready to leave at midnight if they didn’t promise “soon,” I would have left at 3:00 a.m. if I couldn’t lie down. In pain with no help = go home now and curl up.

Which I did for the rest of the weekend.

My brain goes to the question, “Is this it? Is this what my life will come to?” I have no resilience for chronic intense pain, nor am I excited by the idea that I can’t sit at a computer for any length of time to write. My whole retirement plan revolves around the ability to do basic mobility and type at my computer. If I can’t, life really isn’t worth living for me.

I’ve been spending way too much time thinking about what a test for quality of life would look like for me. Some sort of quantitative measurement. I keep thinking about a TV episode I saw. Maybe it was on Bones? Castle? Something where the dead guy of the week had been killed by a smart house that he had designed. It looked like someone had perhaps hacked it and killed him; in reality, spoiler alert, he knew his mental faculties were deteriorating, and he set an AI test for himself…every day, the house would give him a puzzle to solve. He was a scientist and mathematician, and he set it as a moderate-level puzzle, not genius-level or anything. If/when he couldn’t solve it, the house would kill him, as he programmed it to do. That episode resonated very strongly with me. I define myself very strongly by my mental faculties. If/when they diminish, what’s left will no longer be me, at least not by my standards.

Nevertheless, with the meds in my system, I managed to work half days from Monday to Wednesday this week. Did I mention that the end of the fiscal year is the worst time for me to be off work? My team has $3.5B in programming per year, and $2B of it goes out between January and March. I still have $750M to go. In addition, my team is working on a huge part of a very large report, and it is legislatively required to be finished by Tuesday next week in English and Friday in French to meet all the deadlines for a Ministerial release. Fun times. And yes, of course, my team can function without me. But it does that better when it’s planned rather than a sudden absence.

I’ve been taking the pills and wearing the brace all week. And to be honest, even with my mood dampened on the weekend, it’s been going pretty well. Even with the new scale for pain, nothing is going above a 6; even then, it’s only a twinge. Sure, I’m being REALLY careful to not aggravate it, but still, the brace and muscle relaxant are making a huge difference.

Reborn faith in healers

On Wednesday, I managed to see a resident at my doctor’s clinic. Honestly, it was a completely pleasant experience.

Over the last two years, Andrea, Jacob, and I have had a number of less-than-promising experiences with the health care system. Almost all of them involve situations where our family doctor is not “enough,” but it’s not quite “emergency care” either. Andrea’s bearing the brunt of many of them for herself and Jacob, as CHEO only lets one parent go in for the appointments. I chauffeur to the door; Andrea takes over from there.

This time, I arrived and managed to make it to the office after a long walk across a parking lot, down a hall, waiting about 10 minutes to check in, and then sitting for 2 minutes, all with relatively no pain other than a few twinges. I waited maybe 5 minutes, and the doctor called me in pretty much to the minute for my appointment, and you know what?

She was completely lovely. She had a positive attitude, was friendly, and took her time to explain things to me. I brought her up to speed on what I had experienced so far, and I told her I had three main questions, all of which seemed very logical to her. She answered them in turn.

First and foremost on my list was that if the hospital X-rays showed nothing, was there any additional follow-up needed? An MRI, maybe? Dr. Harper walked me through it, talking about the limited benefits of the various options and the low likelihood of finding anything if the X-rays didn’t show a structural problem. And that the solution would be the same anyway—likely physio, which I had already booked.

Second was the current mix of meds. I am on a proton pump inhibitor (PPI) already, and the doctor at the ER had prescribed me another (without checking the meds I was already on). I had already confirmed with my in-family pharmacist that they basically did the same thing, and I had decided not to switch over since there is a risk with stopping one that my stomach will rebound with a vengeance and give me reflux big-time. The doctor confirmed I could stick with the existing one. I could switch to the over-the-counter version for the others and use them as needed. Which left one (a back spasm reducer) that was set to run out after a week. She extended it by two weeks for now, and we’ll see how physio goes. We can revisit it in a few weeks if I need it longer.

Now, third on my list was what to do if/when I have a major attack again. Going to the ER was a waste of time and healthcare resources. But, unfortunately, there aren’t many good alternatives. I can take multiple inflammation reducers (mostly Ibuprofen and Acetominophen products), keep the brace on, and lie down immediately. Hopefully I’ll also have some stretches from the physiotherapist that could help in the moment. And if it happens again, I’ll have to bear through it and get a refill on the pure spasm reducer.

As I said, it was a very helpful session and a perfectly lovely experience. Unfortunately, the office I go to frowns on adopting residents who rotate in and out through their training. By the next time I go, she’ll likely be gone.

In the meantime, I’ve been able to write yesterday and today without too much aggravation, and I worked two full days this week, albeit a bit staggered for time. I haven’t gone into the office as I’m using the heating pad three to four times a day, and I can’t plug the heating pad in at my desk (without a risk of blowing a fuse or worse, apparently). I’m working from home for now. When I do go back, it will only be to the satellite office for a while, as my main office has way too long a hike from the parking lot to the actual office area; the local office is a much shorter walk.

In the meantime, onward!

Trip to COVID-town, don’t recommend

The PolyBlog
August 25 2023

Ah, COVID. I managed to avoid it for 1255 days. Seemed like the streak that wouldn’t end. Until it did. Sigh.

We did our trip to New England and everything felt “normal”. Quieter in tourist zones, but normal. I had most of a week afterwards to recover and hang out in Ottawa, and then I started back to work on the Monday two weeks ago. I was a bit tired, but well, that’s not unusual.

On Tuesday, I was super tired AND my digestive system was doing wonky things. It felt like I had a bit of stomach flu, and I ended up being off work for three days (Tuesday / Wednesday / Thursday). I worked on the Friday, but I still wasn’t 100%. Even on the Monday before, I had found it difficult to concentrate…people were briefing me about files, and for some of them, it was like they were talking about things I had never heard of before, they just weren’t tracking. On Monday, I wrote it off as “first day back”. On Friday, I thought, “Still that way, okay, maybe just because I’m still tired.”

On Saturday, I got up and had a hot shower. I was a bit stuffy-headed, so I let it run for a while. Felt okay, maybe a bit achy, but mostly okay. By late afternoon, I was NOT okay. I was feeling crappy, with aches and the start of a fever, and shivering like crazy at certain points. I was practically passed out on the living room couch, skipped dinner, and sent myself to bed early. I had figured that I would do a COVID test, something we hadn’t needed to do in over a year, if I wasn’t feeling great when I woke up.

Yeah, Sunday was NOT a good morning. The COVID test was not even a hint of doubt. As soon as the liquid hit the T line, it was rock solid, CLEARLY a positive result. Huh. I have to admit, I’ve always wondered if I was doing the test well enough, was I getting deep enough into my nostrils (I have a horrible gag reflex, so anything in nose or throat sets me off), etc. I guess my inadequacies were irrelevant, the test worked just fine.

So off I went to isolate in the basement. Jacob has had it before, but not Andrea, and we wanted to keep it that way. Andrea made me some lunch and I attempted to nap. It felt like I was gargling glass, with a super sore throat and ears. Ricola was helping, as was the Tylenol, but mostly just helping me “cope”, not making me functional. My concentration and focus were shot. I ordered groceries online for delivery and crashed. Andrea made some dinner, of which I think I had about 4 bites of some pork, I was not hungry for real food yet.

The plan was that I would be in the basement for the daytime and meals. Jacob has his own room at night, obviously, and Andrea would be in the guest room, so no issues. We could have her use Jacob’s bathroom, and I’d use the ensuite, leaving me able to sleep in my bed. Which is important because if I don’t use my sleep machine, my throat is toast as is my sleep. Except you’re not supposed to use a sleep machine while sick with cold, flu or COVID — you’re basically pumping your aspirant out even farther than normal, so putting others at risk. Andrea was okay with that, I would close the bedroom door, run the fan/ventilator outside in the bathroom, do the best we could.

I apparently slept TOO much on Sunday — that night, I slept hardly at all. I was wired. In the morning, all of the worries about Andrea resolved to be irrelevant as she was already sick, testing positive first thing…she made it 1256 days, beating me by one. For the rest of the week, many of her symptoms followed mine by a day or two. I booked off work for Monday and Tuesday, that was a no-brainer, and not surprisingly, wasn’t there Wednesday either.

I also realized that one of my meds for my diabetes was low, and so had to have that filled, charged and delivered. What many figured out many months ago seemed like, “Wait, are there still options for delivery if you have COVID?”. We gave Jacob an option, as I thought we should probably get him out of the house. He didn’t want to go. So far, a week later, he still feels fine. Fingers crossed.

On Wednesday, Andrea was looking into anti-virals. Not everyone needs them or is approved to take them. If you have really serious other illnesses like cancer (Andrea qualifies) or chronic illnesses like diabetes (hello! I’m here!), and you’re older (me again!), you can qualify to take these antivirals. They are designed as five days of two different drugs, morning and night, to make sure the disease doesn’t multiply. Based on the way they hit my body, they seem like super Sudafed antihistamines. They dry out every aspect of my throat, nasal passages, maybe my belly button from the inside, etc. And leave me feeling like I have a headcold after eating chalk dust for a month. The taste that is left from the AVs is terrible, and exactly like antihistamines. Or my Robaxacet stuff. The pharmacy delivered and they’re in blister packs. Six pills a day for five days, with one of my diabetes drugs eliminated while I’m on it.

I decided that I probably could have returned to work on Thursday, if infection symptoms were the only element, but I am super weak still, with poor concentration and focus. My boss said “rest up, come back when ready”, so I’ve been entertaining myself a bit by going through photos from our New England trip, and writing up a blog from journal entries already written. It’s not the most taxing of jobs, it requires some concentration and ability to sort through things, but it is taking me three times as long as it would normally AND when I’m done a batch, it’s siesta time. I’m wiped.

While my tastebuds aren’t torched, I am a bit bored by the food we have in the house. I now meet all the criteria to let me out of the house again…symptoms have been improving for over 24 hours (actually almost 48-72), no fever, etc. Same for Andrea. Soooo, I dropped my car off for service today. Woohoo, what an outing. Still wore my mask of course. But, I think almost all of my symptoms are gone. I have to finish the AVs, and the AVs themselves have their own symptoms. Mostly the headcold and ears plugged, plus super dry throat. But a lot less hurts than previously.

But it was the dreams, man, the dreams

My brain has been like a squirrel on speed. Do you remember Hammy from Over the Hedge when he takes an energy drink? Yeah, well that’s my brain.

I think it was Monday night, I was trying to go to sleep, and my brain would not stop buzzing. I had been watching Star Trek earlier in the day, and of course, there was a scene with a hologram version of a head tied to medical issues. I had fallen asleep, but not completely, and I knew I was both asleep and dreaming, and my brain kept creating this holohead to show me where I was sick. Full colour, very vibrant. The silvery hologram was bright enough to make me feel like it was even hurting my eyes.

And since I knew I was asleep and dreaming aka lucid dreaming, I told myself to knock off the hologram and go the f*** to sleep. Nope. I couldn’t get rid of the hologram. I had to focus on it to do anything, and the best I could do was push it away mentally. Like a Jedi force push. It bumped away and then came right back. I tried multiple times but I could NOT get it to go away. So I got pissed off.

I marched it all the way to my bedroom door, in my mind, pushing it repeatedly like a bouncer at a bar, and shoved it out the bedroom door. Then I mentally closed the door so it couldn’t get back in, even though it was trying to push against it. It had no hands, it couldn’t open the door, so I went back to my bed (all in my dream), laid back down and said, “Ah, peace at last” and fell asleep. In my dream.

Totally whacked.

The next time I had to calm my mind enough to sleep, I was stuck in some sort of Minecraft / Lego world. My brain was controlling the landscape…if I breathed out, it would create a small valley while my thoughts were trying to decide what to build — trees, mountains, etc. Again, I couldn’t turn it off, but I knew I could control it. So I decided I was going to make the most boring landscape ever. Boring dirt brown, as far as the eye could see. No ripples, no valleys, no mountains, no trees, just an endless see of nothing but brown after brown after brown “brick”. All in the blink of an eye. I set my mind to creating the endless sea of brown, and thought (within my dream), “Ah, that should be peaceful”. And promptly fell asleep. In my dream. Again, because I was already asleep in real life.

I was telling my boss about the dreams, and she asked me if John Malkovich showed up. And ALL of this dreaming was BEFORE the anti-virals. This was just COVID, Ricola and Tylenol, plus my normal pills.

It would be great to have some of that sh** for the future just for vibrant dreams. It seems back to normal now.

So, where does that leave me?

I am comfortable saying it was the worst “flu” that I’ve ever had. I’ve certainly had bad stuff last longer with more sniffling and phlegm, but the quality was more intense than the quantity. Of course, the big downside for me for the AVs or simple antihistamines is that they really dry out my throat. When I wake up in the morning, it feels like I have a small “catch” there. And at some point, I’ll start coughing. If I can’t lubricate it somehow or get a bit of something to clear, I’ll eventually cough until I throw up. It’s happened a couple of times this week, but nothing unusual. Heck, I can have that any day I wake up with a dry throat. Sigh. And I could drink a ton of water, Gatorade, Coke, whatever, makes no difference. That one little spot decides if it is going to itch or not. Or post-nasal drip will kick in for the same spot and annoy the f*** out of me.

The symptoms are almost gone, and my fear has dissipated. I confess, yes, that I was a bit scared. When COVID first arrived, and before there were vaccines, I would have been petrified. I have a lot of trouble with “clearing” respiratory stuff, often lingering coughs long after colds or flus. And you’ll recall that for those who were hospitalized, one of the main “treatments” was a ventilator. I don’t know that I could ever do a ventilator. I have an enormous phobia of anything in my throat, and feel like I would have had to be in an induced coma to even be able to tolerate it. As a comparison, mentally thinking back then about the options, death or ventilator, there wasn’t an automatic answer to that question for me. Now, of course, I’m 4x vax, etc., people mostly getting it now are not needing to be hospitalized, but there’s still that niggling phobia. I was nowhere near that world. In fact, after Tuesday, I’d say my breathing was mostly fine. I felt at times like my chest was tight, but I don’t know how you reconcile a tight chest with open airways. Doesn’t seem like they should go together.

I’ll finish my AVs, and I have another week’s vacation scheduled, so my recovery should be complete before I have to concentrate for work. I feel bad for my teammates who have had to cover while I was off on vacation, then sick leave, and now vacation leave again. But, well, that’s life I suppose.

It looks like I’ll survive COVID, and I’m avoiding any extra sleeping during the day right now, if I can. But it seems like I’m over the worst, just a couple more days of the antihistamines and then my head should clear. Andrea is following along behind by a day or two, so she’s on the mend as well. Her symptoms weren’t identical…whereas my legs were weak, hers were sore, for example. But I’ll let her tell her story on her own time.

I may not be able to quote MacArthur in the Philippines yet, but I “am returning”. I’m hoping to go for a walk around the block later today. Baby steps.

Nevertheless, if you’re thinking of taking a trip to COVID-town, here’s my review — 0 stars, would not recommend.