autographedcat

I was supposed to go in for my annual 40k mile oil change and checkup (also known as my annual physical) the week after Gafilk, but they called me the day before my appointment and asked me to reschedule, as their office was closed due to a completely impassable parking lot. So I ended up going in on Tuesday to be poked and prodded and have my subscription renewed for another year.

I love Leslie, my RN. She never scolds, she takes everything I say seriously, and she really makes me feel like she's a agent of support with regards to my health. I got the usual reminder about diet and exercise, and I said that I was making an effort to both eat better and exercise more, so I've started to think about the various ways I could do that.

One of the things I've done is take short breaks throughout the workday, go downstairs, and just take a short walk around the building. It gets me a bit of fresh air, and subtracts slightly from the general amount of sedentary sloth that my deskbound job typically entails. This is a good thing, but it's a drop of water in the ocean.

Problem is -- I hate exercise for the sake of exercise. I always start with good intentions, and never really make any progress. I'm reminded of the old joke about quitting smoking: "Starting a new exercise program is the easiest thing in the world. Why, I've done it myself thousands of times."

Many years ago, I first read about the Couch to 5k Program, which was designed to take people from couch potato status and ease them into a training program with the goal of being able to run a 5k race -- not to run it in a decent time, necessarily, but to complete it.

Unfortunately, at the time I first read about it, some ten years ago, the instructions all assumed that you had access to a quarter-mile track. It had instructions like "Walk for one lap, then run for 1 lap." Not having access to a track, I filed it away as intriguing but not useful to me.

A few months ago, aiela said that she was starting to try this program, using an app on her Android phone to regulate her progress. I looked and found that there was an iPhone app as well, which i downloaded, glanced over, and promptly forgot about.

Tonight, feeling a bit restless and bored (not playing WoW turns out to be harder than I thought *grin*), I went down to Lifetime Fitness with my iPhone, a new pair of sneakers, and the determination to get through Week 1, Day 1 of the program. The C25k program lets you set up a playlist to listen to, so I queued up a podcast and kicked off the program. I settled on 2.5mph for the walking sections, and a modest 4.0mph for the running section, and set off. It wasn't that bad; honestly, I think I had more difficulty changing the treadmill speed than I did actually carrying out the routine, but I definitely felt like I had done something at the end.

My hope is that the structured progression of the program will help me stick to it and actually get into the gym and stick to the schedule. My plan is to try and go Monday/Wednesday/Friday, and "Level up" every Monday. We'll see how it goes. But so far, I'm happy with it.

One of the things I'd been greatly looking forward to with our new apartment was its close proximity to my office. It really is "around the corner", and I thought I might take advantage of this one some nicer days and walk. Despite the fact that rain was called for today, I decided to chance it and stroll to work this morning, to get a sense of the timing.

Now, there's two ways I can do this. I can stroll up the street to the light, and then down a short block, and then around the circle which leads to my office building. We'll call this "the long way". The other way, which looks so much more preferable on the map, is to cut through the back parking lot of the office building that is two buildings down from mine. This is the route I took this morning.

Right after coming out of our complex, there's a path leading up a fairly steep embankment. I climbed up, and thought to myself that it really was just a bit too steep for comfort, even if there was an obvious path. But I made it up ok (about 15-17 feet from bottom to top, with a relatively severe incline), caught my breath, and then had a nice stroll across the parking lot to my building. Total time in transit, from my door to my office door: 11 minutes.

At lunchtime, I strolled over to the shopping centre next door and had lunch at Mellow Mushroom, a local pizza chain that I've always been fond of. While I was eating and reading the back half of this weeks Creative Loafing, the sky opened up. This wasn't a shower, this was serious sheets of rain with gusting winds. But I had time, so I leisurely nibbled on my pizza and, having finished reading Creative Loafing, leafed through their far inferior competitor, the Sunday Paper. (The Sunday Paper is an alternative weekly newspaper if it were written by your dad.) The rain finally slaked off and I strolled back to work through the now-light shower, getting wet but not drenched. It was warm enough that this really wasn't terribly unpleasant.

By the time it was time to go home, the rain was gone, so I merrily set off for home. As I got to the top of the embankment, I thought "this really is a bit steep. I'll need to be careful." Unfortunately, two steps later my foot slipped and, unable to recover, I landed hard on my tailbone and slid down to the bottom. I picked myself up and shook myself off, and limped home.

My jeans were a muddy mess, and my dignity suffered a near-fatal blow, saved only by the lack of anyone watching. I have a great deal of pain in my bottom and lower back, but I don't think I did any serious damage to myself. If I'm still in great pain after 24-48 hours, I'll go see a doctor. But I'm afraid that walking to work is going to either have to be the long way around, or I'm going to have to find a less steep pathway that parking lot, because I'm not going down that hill again.

Ow.

I took a half-day off on Friday so that I could go to the 2pm setup class at the clinic and get my device. This was relatively straight forward, as there were only 5 of us, and we had a good time sharing stories of our studies when the tech was out of the room. The unit they provided us was a ResMed S8 Compact, which seems to be an unremarkable but noncontroversial machine, from the research I've done since. (I still intend to followup on laurel's excellent advice, but for now, I figured I'd take what was given and not waste time.

As most people warned me, it is going to take some getting used to. The whole "there's something strapped to my face" feeling really doesn't phase me, but I'm finding that I'm hyper-conscious of my breathing at first. I'll actually be thinking "Ok, breathe in.....and out......and in....and out." Other than that, I don't seem to have too many problems with it insofar as it being a distraction from falling asleep.

The other thing that's going to take some getting used to is that I seem to only be sleeping in 3-4 hour increments. After about that much time, I'm waking up, and finding myself too wired to go back to sleep. So I'll get up for about an hour or so, then try to go back to bed, and often succeed for another 2-3 hours. My co-worker Tim has suggested that I will probably find that I don't actually need as much sleep as I used to, since the sleep I'm getting is higher quality, and he may turn out to be right. i would not actually mind a couple of extra hours in my day!

Of course, the bottom line, and the most important thing, is that I'm feeling a ton better after sleep, regardless of the length of time I actually spend doing it. When I wake up, I find I'm instantly awake, and no longer feel like I'm having to push a large weight off of my brain. While I don't have the "bursting with energy like an ADD ferret on meth" sensation that some people reported after their first experience, I am feeling less fatigued, more alert, and generally more upbeat as a result.

Ultimate verdict: I think this is going to be a good thing.

Thanks to everyone who posted with encouragement, suggestions, resources, or just shared experiences. I really appreciated all of it.

Been suffering a migraine all weekend. Not how I'd planned to spend two days off. :/

I’ve known for quite some time that I really need to go and get an eye exam. For one thing, the last time I had one was eight years ago, and that’s far too long for someone who actually wears corrective lenses. For another thing, i was finding that I couldn’t read the small text on the TiVo screen from the couch, which is only 6-8 feet away. So when one of the nose pads fell off my glasses Friday morning, I took that as a sign from the universe to stop procrastinating, and made a call down to the LensCrafters at North Point Mall, since that’s where I get a discount through my insurance.

They said they could see me pretty much anytime, and I made an appointment for 6pm, so I could go down after work and not need to try and rush it all on my lunch hour. Showed up and filled out the paperwork, and then was shown back into a room for some baseline tests, including the dreaded puff-of-air-in-the-eye glaucoma test, which I’ve detested since I was a child.

The optometrist turned out to be a very pleasant woman who checked the prescription on my old lenses, and then went through the whole “Is this one better, or this one” routine to determine what the new prescription should be. Once that was complete, I went for another test with an amazing new piece of technology they’ve gotten in since the last time I was in, a machine which took photographs of the inside of the eye! It was really cool, even if it took a while to get good shots. (I wasn’t complaining -- the tech running the test was super-cute. *grin*). The amazingly cool thing about this machine is a) it means they don’t have to dilate the pupils in order to see all the things in the back of the eye they want to see, and b) they can save the images to use as a baseline for comparison from year to year, making it much easier to notice deterioration or damage. I thought this was exceptionally nifty and well worth the extra $30 or so it added to the bill. Once the images were taken, I went back in with the optometrist who explained the images to me, and said that everything looks very healthy.

Once I had a new prescription in hand, I wandered next door to the LensCrafters to pick out some new frames. I dithered a while over these or those before finally settling on a pair that I like. (I notice that big chunky frames are back in fashion again, but somehow they’re just not my style at all). I was told they could actually have them ready for me in an hour to 90 minutes, so I called kitanzi to meet me for dinner, rather than have to go home and come back. We were somewhat bemused to discover, once she’d arrived, that nearly all of the non-Food Court restaurants have closed in North Point Mall. Mick’s is gone, Atlanta Bread Company is gone...it was sad. We ended up at the little Japanese grill in the food court, for lack of better options. We then wandered down the mall, stopping briefly in the Mac Store because I like lusting after the laptops and the ipods. We finally made our way back to LensCrafters, where my glasses were waiting for me.

Wow. I actually did a double-take when I put them on. I knew that my old lenses were no longer correct, but I hadn’t realized how badly and how much I was just compensating for. I walked all the way through the mall back to my car just marveling at how much better the world looks when its in focus. (Note to self: Once a year. Stop being so lazy and get these things done.)

Hey, everyone. kitanzi went into surgery for her shoulder at 10:30am, and was done in about an hour. The doctor said that everything went smoothly, and she's now resting comfortably on the couch in front of the TV. She probably won't be in front of the computer much the next few days, since her arm is in a sling, but so far, everything is going very well. She'll see the doctor again next Thursday and they'll start to discuss rehab/PT options at that time.

Thanks to everyone for their thoughts, prayers, and support. They mean a lot to both of us!

Came home last night after a not-bad catchup day at work, expecting to have a nice dinner and then go gaming at bedlamhouse's, as I do most Tuesdays. I was fussing around the house, getting things settled before sitting to eat, when suddenly a weird throbbing pain stabbed me in the mouth. At first, I thought it was just a weird facial muscle cramp or something, but then it came again.

Oww. That wisdom tooth that's been needing looked at finally hit critical.

Fortunately, I was able to get hold of my dentist, who called me in a prescription for painkillers and antibiotics, and I spent the evening being rather stoned and loopy, but mostly not uncomfortable. I'm now waiting for their office to open in 45 minutes to call and get an appointment.

Not what I wanted from my evening.

I've been a bit lax lately about updating this journal with "what's going on with Rob" stuff of late. This is partly because of late, life hasn't been all *that* interesting, and in part because other stresses keeping me from really wrapping my mind around writing here. But, since part of the point of this journal is to keep folks updated with what's going on with me, I'm going to try and do a bit better.

( Doctors and nurses and pretty students... )

( Music and friends... )

( More doctors... )

( Coming up the rest of the week... )

When they decided to refer to me an ENT yesterday, they chose the specific doctor to refer me to based on the fact that it was an office I'd been a patient of in the past. This would be easier for everyone, since I already knew them, they already knew me, I would be in their system, and so forth. This made a lot of sense, even if it meant having to drive down to Sandy Springs rather than finding an ENT who was actually in Alpharetta.

So this morning, I drove down to the Mount Vernon Medical Centre...a familiar drive, since I went to see this particular doctor every 2-4 weeks for over six months. I parked, took the elevator to the third floor, walked around to the corner office....and they weren't there. It was another doctor's office.

Hrm, says I. Oh well, maybe I misremembered the floor. So I tried again on the fourth floor, the fifth, the second. Having worked my way back to the lobby, I consult the directory, and discover the reason I cannot find them.

They aren't there. They've moved out of the building.

Admittedly, it's been a year almost since the last time I was here. Checking the referral form, I find no address, but a phone number. So I call it.

Amazingly, in 2004, you cannot actually speak to a human being at a doctor's office. Not knowing which of their several locations I wanted to get directions to from the voicemail menu, I tried to connect to their appointment line. And waited on hold. For 20 minutes. All the while being assured that there was "one call in front" of me.

Giving up, I called my primary physician's referral coordinator and left her a message, and then drove to his office, where I sat in the lobby until she was free to see me. To her credit, she's always been extra-special-wonderful, and managed to get me a new appointment for 2:30 pm IN Alpharetta, at a location that I actually know the address of. So life is better than it was.

But what a frustrating, and ultimately wasted, morning.

Yesterday afternoon I got home from work feeling utterly exhausted -- to the point where I fell asleep in front of the TV within 15 minutes of turning it on. So I thought I'd go lie down for a nap until kitanzi got home. about 20 minutes later, she called me, asking if I'd be willing to come pick her up from work because she wasn't feeling well either.

Neither of us seems to be outright sick, but both feeling a bit under the weather, so we've taken it easy today. We did go to the library booksale, and picked up a small handful of books, including a half dozen Keith Laumer Retief books, which I've never actually read, and an AD&D Fiend Folio, a lovely book that usually sells for quite a bit, and they only wanted $1 for. Then we swung down to Roswell to check the Gafilk mailbox, and back home for relaxation.

We waited until six to officially decide not to attend the Atlanta housefilk tonight. Disappointing, as this marks the fourth in a row we've missed for one reason or another, but Gafilk is in one month, and we'll get to see everyone there. I hope everyone has a good time.

So, in leui of anything actually interesting to say, I'll succumb to the last resort of the helpless blogger

( Click here to see pictures of the cat... )