low_delta

The weather was supposed to be good, so I'd taken the day off. It didn't really warm up until late morning, but I was out before lunch, and did all the edging in the yard. Hopefully the last time I'll have to do that this year. I learned how to take apart and reload the head of the string trimmer, because the string (factory-set) had gotten tangled, and wouldn't extend.

After lunch, I was at the computer. There seemed to be a gnat buzzing around to my right. It finally got annoying enough that I started paying attention. It turned out to be a floater in my right eye. A big one, just to the right of center. A second one appeared later. There was no triggering event, as far as I know. No jolts to the head or anything.

Later I went out to the shed and assembled my new aerator. The kind I pull behind my lawn tractor. It costs about the same as two professional aeration treatments, so I think it's a good deal. My lawn is in pretty bad shape, and this is about the only think I can think of that will fix it, so I'll need to do it a lot (at least once a year). It took two hours to assemble it, then I drove it slowly around the lawn for forty-five minutes.

While I was assembling it, I noticed I had a bit of a headache. That was odd. Not sure why. It felt a little like dehydration, but I'm pretty sure I wasn't. Was it related to the eye issues?

I was able to get my messed-up fence posts trimmed. They are the cheap, stamped metal kind, and the tops had rolled over. I have a post-driver, and it doesn't fit over the top of them. I cut the tops off. I need to install them in the lawn around the aspen trees, to put fencing up, to keep the deer away. I didn't have time for that because it was dark as soon as supper was over.

After supper, I was telling Cindy about the floaters in the eyes, when I realized there are flashes of light as well. I had been outside in the sun all afternoon, and couldn't see them. There's a shooting star that goes back and forth around the upper-right periphery. Sometimes it seems dark, though. Kinda weird. And the floaters are distracting when I'm trying to read on my computer, and they move around and draw my attention as my eyes dart back and forth as I read.

So that's pretty damn annoying. Oh, and I've got an infection in the upper lid of my left eye.

About two weeks ago, I was carrying something heavy, and pulled my arm the wrong way. The muscles in my shoulder tightened up and pinched a nerve. It felt like tendinitis in my upper arm. It was uncomfortable sometimes, for over a week. It bothered me at night, and I had trouble lying in a way that didn't cause any trouble. But then this past Tuesday, the feeling became real pain. It was intermittent, and it moved around. I still had the same trouble at night. Wednesday morning it still hurt and I decided that since it was not tendinitis, I needed to go to the doctor.

He confirmed it was a pinched nerve. Wrote me a prescription for Prednisone, and signed me up for physical therapy. The Prednisone helped right away. The physical therapy... not so much, yet.

I had an hourlong appointment so far. He figured out the extent of the trouble, and gave me some exercises. I have not been doing them as I should. I didn't even do them Thursday night after the appointment. It's like it never occurred to me. I took the instructions with me to the office on Friday, but I didn't do them. Friday night I tried, and the instructions weren't very helpful. If I'd figured that out sooner, I could have messaged the therapist and asked for guidance.

There are three exercises. One doesn't seem quite like I remember it. And it bothers my arm, and he said to not do them or back off, if that happens. The second says to see the instructions in the handout, and there is no handout. I can't quite remember it, but I looked it up online, and the instructions are definitely not quite like what he told me to do. This one also bothers my arm a bit. In certain positions, the left side of my hand and forearm get kinda numb and tingly. The third exercise is fine, though I'm not sure it's doing anything.

My only appointment next week is Tuesday. I'm worried this numbness will become permanent, like it is on my left hand. Not serious, but noticeable. And it's been in a lot bigger area than on my left, which is only one side of one finger.

I got my second Moderna vaccination for COVID 19 on Thursday. Cindy had gotten pretty sick from hers the week before, so I took the day off. I kept waking up early in the morning, wondering if I was OK. I was. All day I felt just a little achy, mostly in the head. Nothing serious. Probably could have gotten through a workday OK. I relaxed around the house for most of the day.

A few months ago, my rise time moved a little bit earlier. At that time, I started going to bed earlier, to compensate. That didn't last long, and I've settled on 12:40. Which is slightly later than it used to be, on average. Not only that, but I'm never able to get to sleep quickly, so I'm lucky if I get 6-1/2 hours of sleep a night. Not good.

Saturday night I got to bed later than usual because I was trying to get ready for a Sunday morning art workshop. I had to get up almost as early as on weekdays. Trying to get ready that late at night, and running into some snags unsettled me for sleep so I didn't fall asleep easily, and then I woke up early, for a little while, and then my weekday alarm went off, and then finally my regular alarm. So I slept for shit.

Monday morning I had to get up very early for work. And then I was doing a lot of physical work at the plant. Fortunately I got home early, because I was ready to collapse. I actually took a bit of a nap before supper. I was so exhausted I could hardly sit at the computer. I spent much of the evening lying on the couch. After a while I recovered enough to read, and went to bed before 11:30.

It's times like this that I usually get sick, but I'm feeling better today. Still not out of the woods, but improved, so that's good.

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With my therapist working on it, the pain in my shoulder went away. It took more visits than last time, though. And unfortunately, I still have numbness in my index finger.

In the meantime, I developed leg pain. The pain started out like stiffness or soreness, and it came and went. It kept getting worse, so I finally went to the doctor, about three weeks into it. It's blood clots.

I'm on blood thinner. I should start to feel a difference in about a week. Less, I hope, because the pain is constant now. I'll be on this stuff for six months, and it might take that long for the clots to fully dissolve. So this week I'm lying around the house with my leg elevated.

In hindsight, I should have gone to the doctor sooner. After a week of it, a simple Google of "calf pain" would have indicated such. It felt like cramping, but the Google tells me that actual cramping always comes on quickly. I went down one list of causes of calf pain just now, and of more than a dozen causes, blood clots was the only one that made sense for my symptoms. So while I hate to be the one to self-diagnose using the internet, in this case it would have made sense to get an idea of what I might have been dealing with.

Basically, I lied in bed and tossed and turned for fourteen hours. I got up at 10:00 today. For the first several hours I mostly just sat and stared. Then I watched some video. Then I read. And spent time on the internets. earlier this evening I hit a wall and lost energy. I lied down and was able to get up an hour later. I'm able to sit at the computer again.

Cindy sent me a blurb she found: Our immune system is what we rely on to fight infection and stay healthy. But when your immune system is working hard, you could feel fatigue and sleepiness. Those who sleep more when faced with an infection are more likely to defeat the infection than those with no sleep. So keep your immune system strong and get enough sleep tonight! Aim for seven to nine hours.

Very true. I have problems with exhaustion and illness all the time. And I think it was our walk in the woods yesterday that put me over the edge. I had been fighting off illness all week, and wasn't quite rested up enough when I exerted myself a bit.

I've been having trouble sleeping again. I can't get to sleep. The brain just seems to be tied up with something. Every night of the last four or five. I was up late Saturday. Then the time change shortchanged me a little. I slept kinda late on Sunday morning, so I couldn't get to sleep that night. Got about five hours of sleep. Then Monday night I thought sure I'd fall asleep instantly, but didn't. Got back out of bed and read for a while. Got less than seven hour, and am even more tired than yesterday.

I don't know what's going on. I need to work on the problem again. To go back and look at what helped me previously.

It's been over a week since I went back to work after the illness. Every day since then, I've felt slightly better than the day before. Im mostly good now, but not completely. Still a little bit of tiredness and sore throat or whatever. I even skipped whisky club on Wednesday, since I need rest. Of course I had insomnia that night anyway. I'm not sure if I would have blamed that on the whisky, if I'd gone, or if it would have helped me get to sleep.

Other than that, not much going on. I'm still working my way through Deep Space Nine, and doing a little bit of reading.

I'd been fighting off illness for a week and a half. I've felt almost like I've been coming down with something, and also been very tired. So it finally hit today. I was feeling like I wanted to come home from work half an hour early and take a little nap, but someone came by my desk with some business, so that didn't happen. I felt progressively worse through the evening, so that I was ready to collapse by ten o'clock. I went to bed and maybe dozed a little until I was wide awake again at midnight. I've done nothing but sit and stare since then - something I've felt like doing a lot over the last week and a half.

So I'm off work for a couple of days, and hopefully will be well enough to go back to work on Monday.

I was back to work today. Not feeling bad, just a bit worn out. Moving kinda slow. So that was four days sick, two days off work. I haven't worked a full week since the second week of December.

About twenty minutes after I got to my desk, I reached for a tissue, and pulled the last two out of the box. Perfect timing for an empty box! Fortunately I didn't need too many today, and was able to steal some from a neighbor.