Clean Bill of Health

Each year, my university requires me to go get an annual physical. Well, I suppose it’s not technically “required,” but if I don’t go, then my insurance rates spike. So it’s kind of like the police don’t “require” me to go the speed limit, but if I don’t, then I have to pay more money. (Not an exact analogy, but you get the point.) For a while, they just had me do a “health coach session,” but that pretty much boiled down to me telling a person on the phone that I didn’t smoke or drink, and then finding out I should lose a bit of weight and be sure to get more sleep. Nothing really earth shattering, and I questioned if it was worth anything (other than keeping my insurance rates low, which obviously isn’t nothing).

So I switched over to physicals, and I’m pretty happy that I did, all things considered. While I generally feel healthy, it’s nice to get confirmation of that once a year, and I get to ask a doctor all the things I’ve been wondering about (such as, “Is this mole on my nose just a mole, or something I should be worried about? Answer? Just a mole.)

Today, I just reflected on how grateful I am that right now, all my answers were good one. Bad cholesterol? Good. Good cholesterol? Good. Blood pressure? Good. Pulse? Good. Weight? Good. Lungs? Good. Heart? Good. You get the picture. I’m getting old enough now to realize how “good” isn’t always a given, and how things can go from “good” to “not good” relatively quickly. So the fact that today was a “good” day is definitely something to celebrate. Not that things were “bad” before, but they’ve definitely have been worse at times, and I’m grateful they’re not anymore.

I’m also grateful for insurance that lets me go get a physical and not worry about costs. I still very much wish America would fix its healthcare system, but I’m lucky that when I wish that, it’s a wish I have for other people, because my personal situation is peachy. Again, I know that’s not the case for many, and so I’m trying to focus on appreciating the things I have that sometimes I take for granted.

Anyway. Nothing profound for you today. Just a general gratitude post. I’m also grateful it’s Friday, and I’ve got a weekend in front of me. Hope yours is a good one!

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Like what you’ve read? Please consider supporting me on Patreon. Thanks to all my Patrons who support me! It only takes a minute or two, and then it’s automatic from there on out. I’ve posted the entirety of my book ICHABOD in installments, as well as PAWN OF THE DEAD, another of my unreleased books. Where else are you going to get the undead and muppets all in the same YA package? Check it out.

If you’d rather not sign up for Patreon, you can also support the site by clicking this DON’T GO TO SLEEP Amazon link. It will take you to Amazon, where you can buy my books or anything else. During that visit, a portion of your purchase will go to me. It won’t cost you anything extra.

Shoulder Pain Update

I can’t remember what I’ve told you all about some things anymore. Blog for long enough, and everything blurs together. But whatever I’ve said before, I’ll recap briefly now. About five years ago, something happened in my right shoulder. I don’t know what. As I recall, it started when I was driving a stick shift car in Europe. I went to a physical therapist, who diagnosed me with impingement syndrome. Basically, doing a certain action repetitively had aggravated my shoulder, and I needed to calm it down or it would only get worse.

For several months, I went to appointments and did exercises, and the pain eventually went away. (Yay!) Then, back at the beginning of my kitchen renovation, I lifted a large piece of plywood, and something popped in the same shoulder. It hurt quite a lot. I hoped it would go away, but it didn’t, so I went back to physical therapy. I’ve been doing it since then. A bit less than a year, though I haven’t been able to do it consistently (which is why it’s taken so long to recover.) It took some time to figure out exactly what motions were aggravating the shoulder, and then when I went to strengthen those motions, that aggravated the other shoulder. It’s been quite an ordeal.

The good news is that I feel better now. I went and played volleyball the other night, and it hurt to use the shoulder, and I worried that I’d regress a ton due to that, but I was already feeling mostly better the next day. That’s significant progress.

The bad news is that to feel better, I have a laundry list of things I’m doing each day. Three different types of stretches, three different strength exercises. The goal is to build the shoulder up so that this doesn’t happen again, and I’m hopeful it works. But where ten years ago, I could just do whatever I wanted and then feel better in a day or two, I’m seeing now that my body doesn’t quite bounce back that way. If I want to feel okay, I need to be reasonable.

Getting old is a bummer, right? But at least it doesn’t have to be a painful bummer, if you watch what you do.

And a big shout out to the folks at Allied Physical Therapy, who have now shepherded me through both shoulder incidents, TMD, rehabbing my broken elbow, and helped with Daniela and MC on various injuries. If you’re looking for a place to go to get fantastic care and attention, from people who really know their stuff, you can’t do better than them.

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Like what you’ve read? Please consider supporting me on Patreon. Thanks to all my Patrons who support me! It only takes a minute or two, and then it’s automatic from there on out. I’ve posted the entirety of my book ICHABOD in installments, and I’m now putting up chapters from PAWN OF THE DEAD, another of my unreleased books. Where else are you going to get the undead and muppets all in the same YA package? Check it out.

If you’d rather not sign up for Patreon, you can also support the site by clicking this DON’T GO TO SLEEP Amazon link. It will take you to Amazon, where you can buy my books or anything else. During that visit, a portion of your purchase will go to me. It won’t cost you anything extra.

Sick-a-palooza

Maybe it’s just me, and maybe it’s just confirmation bias, but I’m sitting at home sick again, and it seems like kids are much more sick than usual this fall. I know that with MC, it feels like she’s been home sick more often than she’s been at school.

I suppose this makes sense. Kids went for so long either isolated at home or masked at school, that now that they’re all back together and unmasked, germs are just having a field day with everything. But then again, that leads me to a larger topic: masking.

I had very much hoped one of the lasting effects of the pandemic would be that Americans would start to mask when they were sick. I’m not talking about masking all the time because there’s a chance you might be sick. I just mean that when you’re actively coughing, sneezing, have a sore throat, and/or blowing your nose all the time, that it would be courteous to have a mask on, just for the sake of not spreading those germs to the people around you.

Instead, we’ve somehow ended up more or less right back where we started. I see people around me actively sniffling and wiping their noses and sneezing, and they’re blissfully unmasked. So maybe we’re not quite back where we started, because back then, I didn’t think about those things. And I got sick.

I’ve been wearing a mask at home around my family while I’m sick. Why? Because I love my family, and this is miserable, and if wearing a mask will help them to not get this, then I’m all for that. But I think when I’m out in public, I’m either going to have to start getting used to just having a mask with me and putting it on when someone sick decides to start sharing my air space, or else I’ll just wear it as a kind of default setting if I’m going into areas that are particularly crowded. (Probably more during the colder months, as that’s generally when more illnesses are kicking around.)

Or maybe I’ve just become a germaphobe over the past two and a half years. What’s your take on all of this? If you’re sick, do you think it’s courteous to wear a mask, or do you not think it’s a big deal? If you’re around someone who’s sick, are you actively annoyed/disappointed if they’re not masked?

Inquiring minds want to know.

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Like what you’ve read? Please consider supporting me on Patreon. Thanks to all my Patrons who support me! It only takes a minute or two, and then it’s automatic from there on out. I’ve posted the entirety of my book ICHABOD in installments, and I’m now putting up chapters from PAWN OF THE DEAD, another of my unreleased books. Where else are you going to get the undead and muppets all in the same YA package? Check it out.

If you’d rather not sign up for Patreon, you can also support the site by clicking this DON’T GO TO SLEEP Amazon link. It will take you to Amazon, where you can buy my books or anything else. During that visit, a portion of your purchase will go to me. It won’t cost you anything extra.

COVID: Round Two

I missed last week’s weigh-in post, because COVID threw everything out the window. I was feeling sick enough that trying to diet on top of feeling that way just wasn’t something I was willing to subject myself to. Then, we went on a quick trip to NYC, which meant eating different food again. The good news is that this morning I was still 193.8, so I didn’t put on much weight over the two weeks.

Now that I’ve been through COVID twice, I have a bit more personal experience with how it affects me. The first time lasted two weeks, but in hindsight, I think that’s because I took Paxlovid. It helped me feel better while I was taking it, but once I was off it, COVID came right back. This time, I didn’t bother with it at all, since I’m low risk, double vaxxed, etc. I feel like I’ve gotten better much more quickly, though it’s admittedly a small sample size. If I were in a high risk group, I’d be much more inclined to take Paxlovid, since it’s real focus is helping you avoid serious symptoms.

This round of COVID all started with Denisa feeling a bit under the weather. She tested consistently, and each time it came back negative, so we all chalked it up to a late summer cold. MC had been sniffling as well, and so it was an easy assumption to make that Denisa had whatever MC had. (MC had also been testing negative.) Then Denisa took one last test, since she wasn’t better yet. Positive.

At that point, I think the damage had been done. Daniela was feeling sick, but she said she wasn’t that bad, and she was testing negative. She went to school masked, and even ran three miles for cross country practice. That evening, she tested positive. I had stayed home just in case, and I tested positive the same night.

For me, the sickness has gone pretty much the same path both times. It started with a scratchy throat, as if I had to clear it but couldn’t. From there, I had trouble sleeping, my muscles ached, and I had a bad headache. Then the fatigue kicked in. Overall, I felt really bad just one day this time, and not great for about two or three more days.

In case you’re wondering, these days if you get COVID, you’re required to quarantine 5 days from the day you first have symptoms. (It doesn’t matter when you test positive. Just when the symptoms started: that’s considered “day 0.”) After those 5 days, if you’ve been fever free for 24 hours and your symptoms are improving, you can be in public, masked. That stage lasts for another 5 days, at which point you’re good to go. So I have to wear a mask until Friday, but it seems like a sensible precaution to take.

(Surprisingly, we’ve gotten grief from some people about wearing masks in public. Apparently they assume we’re doing it because we’re scared? I don’t quite understand it. What possesses people to make them feel the need to criticize people they don’t know well, for doing something that doesn’t affect them in any real way?)

In any case, MC never tested positive, and Tomas didn’t ever feel sick or test positive at all. Quarantining slowly morphed over the stretch of time. First Denisa was in her room, completely alone. Then Daniela and I got it, so we took over the movie room, where Denisa could be unmasked, leaving Tomas and MC to roam the rest of the house. In many ways, I think they felt more like the ones quarantined by the end, just because they were outnumbered.

The good news is that we all seem to be past it now. Here’s hoping it stays that way.

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Like what you’ve read? Please consider supporting me on Patreon. Thanks to all my Patrons who support me! It only takes a minute or two, and then it’s automatic from there on out. I’ve posted the entirety of my book ICHABOD in installments, and I’m now putting up chapters from PAWN OF THE DEAD, another of my unreleased books. Where else are you going to get the undead and muppets all in the same YA package? Check it out.

If you’d rather not sign up for Patreon, you can also support the site by clicking this DON’T GO TO SLEEP Amazon link. It will take you to Amazon, where you can buy my books or anything

PSA: Don’t Get COVID

I realize that (hopefully) most of you already know it’s generally a bad idea to get COVID, but I wanted to complain a bit more than I did back when I said I was on the mend. Going into my bout with the disease, I reasoned I would be generally fine even if I caught it. I’m under 50, not overweight, not diabetic, not asthmatic, double vaxxed and boosted. I expected it to be like a small cold, if I even had any symptoms at all.

I came down with the beginning traces of symptoms 3 weeks ago now. At the time, I didn’t think much of them. Then they got bad enough that I had to stay in bed for about three days. I also isolated from my family, because I didn’t want to give them this. But once my 5 days of total isolation was up, I assumed I was going to be better soon. And indeed, for a while it seemed like that was the case. I went back to work once I tested negative, and I even went to graduation.

However, after that flurry of activity, I realized I must have tried to do too much too soon. I was hit with a bucket of fatigue, a constant headache that ibuprofen didn’t do much to stop, and just generally felt poorly. I worked from home three days last week, using sick time to spend much of it in bed. Thursday, I finally felt up to taking some walks, which still left me tired, but didn’t seem to be totally terrible.

Then the cough kicked in. A steady, dry cough that was with me all the time. If I had a cough drop, it would go away, but other than that, I was hacking all the time. Even when I’d tried to fall asleep, I’d cough and wake myself up.

Today’s the first day that the cough has died down. But the fatigue is back. Not as bad as it was, so I’m hopeful I’m slowly spiraling up to feeling normal, but it’s still a pain.

I’m not saying this to say my life has been crushed by COVID. I’m still counting myself as having had a positive outcome with it. No hospitalization. No loss of taste or smell. But plenty of people keep dismissing the disease as no big deal. I’ve had the flu before. It didn’t knock me out this much, and I recovered much more quickly. There have been a million deaths in the US in two years. If someone had raised that number back in March of 2020, they’d have been horrified. (If you want to be depressed, check out the waybackmachine for pretty much any news organization you like back in March 2020. I’d forgotten there was a time when people were hoping we’d be over this by Easter 2020 . . .)

Anyway. I’ll get off my soapbox before I really get started. I just wanted to put my experience out there. I’m glad many people are symptom free or have very mild symptoms. I had medium symptoms, which made me start to seriously think what having high or extreme symptoms would be like.

No thanks.

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Like what you’ve read? Please consider supporting me on Patreon. Thanks to all my Patrons who support me! It only takes a minute or two, and then it’s automatic from there on out. I’ve posted the entirety of my book ICHABOD in installments, and I’m now putting up chapters from PAWN OF THE DEAD, another of my unreleased books. Where else are you going to get the undead and muppets all in the same YA package? Check it out.

If you’d rather not sign up for Patreon, you can also support the site by clicking this PERFECT PLACE TO DIE Amazon link. It will take you to Amazon, where you can buy my books or anything else. During that visit, a portion of your purchase will go to me. It won’t cost you anything extra.