Tomorrow will be my second calendar month here in Dunwich Abbey. It's also
the middle of the Covid-19 virus outbreak. Not, as I've been typing,
'Corvid'. It's not a crow. So far I'm fine, I'm low risk, even with
the diabetes and high blood pressure. I'm not being stupid though. And I have
plenty of toilet paper, I bought a bulk pack when I moved in, and well...
I live alone, so I have plenty.
Carcosa Corp is all kinds of busy, projects and migrations and everyone is
twitchy. There's no official word about office closings and whatnot, but
I've been mostly working from home anyway. So we'll see what happens.
Personal foo? Been slowly working on getting Dunwich Abbey setup. Not as
fast as I'd like, but I've been pretty lacking in tentacles post work, and
I spend most of the weekend trying to recover. I've managed to get the
study to be pretty comfortable, and the bedroom is coming together. The
living room is still a bunch of boxes and stuff. I need to get more
bookshelves so I can start organizing books better, but that's going to
wait life to settle down again, vs having random folks over here in case
of plague. Plus the next weekend or two will be busy with work foo. I'll
get around to it sooner or later.
Ok, I'm out of stuff to talk about, and I'm bloody exhausted. Night folks
who read this.
Tag Archives: health
Health and Office Foo
Well yesterday (Thursday), I went back to the hematologist. The issue is
I have an enlarged liver, which is enlarging my gallbladder, which reduces
platelets in the blood. The basic fix is lose weight, liver gets more to
normal, things are ok. My current platelet count is right at the low end
of normal. Doc wants me back in 3 months to see how things go. So I'm
going to try getting more firm on the diet, like I did after being diagnosed
with diabetes, and trying to figure out more exercise. But since it's summer
in the hell of Texas, it's hard to make myself exercise. So we'll see what
happens.
Also, today was my last day in the local Carcosa Corp office. Finished my packing, did some other stuff. Went up to the new office, found my new cube (it's been changed a couple of times). Didn't stay, all I had was my laptop and I didn't want to argue with trying to find the work wifi. So I came home, hit traffic (at 2pm), worked from home for a bit, then kind of checked out. I have to do some work Sunday night before people go in the office Monday, and I have to be in the office way too early to help with people coming in. Hopefully going to get some rest this weekend. In fact, going to finish this post and head to bookville.
Also, today was my last day in the local Carcosa Corp office. Finished my packing, did some other stuff. Went up to the new office, found my new cube (it's been changed a couple of times). Didn't stay, all I had was my laptop and I didn't want to argue with trying to find the work wifi. So I came home, hit traffic (at 2pm), worked from home for a bit, then kind of checked out. I have to do some work Sunday night before people go in the office Monday, and I have to be in the office way too early to help with people coming in. Hopefully going to get some rest this weekend. In fact, going to finish this post and head to bookville.
State of the Fox: redux
Follow up on my last post, most about the health foo. I went to the
hematologist for my first visit. Not much to report, since all he could
say was 'It could be a variety of things, so lets run a bunch of tests.'
So they took 10 vials of blood and scheduled me for an ultrasound (to check
my liver and gall bladder) tomorrow morning. Then I have a follow up on
Damien Thorne's spawning day (June 6th). Hopefully by then we'll have a clue.
My index finger and it's RSI is improving. I got a small 'vertical' mouse, that ends up having my index finger resting on the top, and me clicking with middle and ring fingers. I've only worn the brace at work, and occasionally when lifting things. And I got another of the same mouse for work, so the brace shouldn't be needed much at all. At least that's what I hope.
Stressors are still stressing, work is still frustrating. I took today off on a whim pretty much because of stress. Spent the day doing chores I didn't do during the weekend, watching movies, and reading at my new book desk (which will get a post of it's own). I'm working tonight, our usual release. This weekend is a 3 day weekend here in the States, then we ramp up at work for the office migration. *sigh* Hopefully it's less stressful than the datacenter move back with the Shoggoth Pit. Ok, calling it a post.
My index finger and it's RSI is improving. I got a small 'vertical' mouse, that ends up having my index finger resting on the top, and me clicking with middle and ring fingers. I've only worn the brace at work, and occasionally when lifting things. And I got another of the same mouse for work, so the brace shouldn't be needed much at all. At least that's what I hope.
Stressors are still stressing, work is still frustrating. I took today off on a whim pretty much because of stress. Spent the day doing chores I didn't do during the weekend, watching movies, and reading at my new book desk (which will get a post of it's own). I'm working tonight, our usual release. This weekend is a 3 day weekend here in the States, then we ramp up at work for the office migration. *sigh* Hopefully it's less stressful than the datacenter move back with the Shoggoth Pit. Ok, calling it a post.
State of the Fox
October hasn't been what I'd call a great month. Work is lots of stress,
lots of change and not a lot of concrete stuff. I'm officially a Subject
Matter Expert for something I really do not to be involved in, but I am
the guy with the most knowledge ATM. At least the project is a complete
new build out, so hopefully I can do it right from the start.
I turned 46. I still don't feel 46. What the hell happened? I'll buy my 30's, since I can at least keep my checkbook balanced. Oh well. On my spawning day I went and saw a screening of 'Prince of Darkness' at the Alamo Drafthouse. Good way to spend the end of my spawning day.
Last night I went to the wake of a friend of mine from college. Saw a lot of people I haven't seen in too many years. Lots of stories, laughs, tears. I have a lot of stuff in my head that I have to process. Don't worry, nothing bad, just stuff in my life and how I view my life I think I need to change. I'm also sorry it took a friend dying for me to reach out and see those friends from my past. *sad*
Health wise, things are mixed. When I'm mindful of my eating, and my stress isn't super high, my bloodsugars are hovering a smidge above normal. When the stress kicks in, or I do something stupid like eat too much pizza (aka today), they're all over the place. My dealings with CareNow have sunk to a new low, I need to find a GP so I don't have to deal with unprofessional medical staff. I have a couple of leads from people I trust, so that's good. Depression/anxiety and stress is making the brainmeats tricky to manage, along with constant focusing on my blood sugar and how my eyes are acting. *yawn* I also am having issues sleeping solid, stress is for the feckin birds.
So what's coming up ? A follow up eye-doctor visit on Wednesday, then after that I hope to have stable enough vision to get my normal bifocal glasses. Various work projects, next weekend is more social time, and going to see some classic horror flicks next Sunday. Mostly though, I'm just going to be trying to keep the anxiety/stress levels from hitting peak levels again. *crosses tentacles*
I turned 46. I still don't feel 46. What the hell happened? I'll buy my 30's, since I can at least keep my checkbook balanced. Oh well. On my spawning day I went and saw a screening of 'Prince of Darkness' at the Alamo Drafthouse. Good way to spend the end of my spawning day.
Last night I went to the wake of a friend of mine from college. Saw a lot of people I haven't seen in too many years. Lots of stories, laughs, tears. I have a lot of stuff in my head that I have to process. Don't worry, nothing bad, just stuff in my life and how I view my life I think I need to change. I'm also sorry it took a friend dying for me to reach out and see those friends from my past. *sad*
Health wise, things are mixed. When I'm mindful of my eating, and my stress isn't super high, my bloodsugars are hovering a smidge above normal. When the stress kicks in, or I do something stupid like eat too much pizza (aka today), they're all over the place. My dealings with CareNow have sunk to a new low, I need to find a GP so I don't have to deal with unprofessional medical staff. I have a couple of leads from people I trust, so that's good. Depression/anxiety and stress is making the brainmeats tricky to manage, along with constant focusing on my blood sugar and how my eyes are acting. *yawn* I also am having issues sleeping solid, stress is for the feckin birds.
So what's coming up ? A follow up eye-doctor visit on Wednesday, then after that I hope to have stable enough vision to get my normal bifocal glasses. Various work projects, next weekend is more social time, and going to see some classic horror flicks next Sunday. Mostly though, I'm just going to be trying to keep the anxiety/stress levels from hitting peak levels again. *crosses tentacles*
Three-lobed burning eyes
Good news everybody. The eye doctor said my eyes are quite healthy, no signs of any issues from the diabetes, other than my vision prescription has changed rather dramatically. And since my blood sugars aren’t stable yet, they may change yet more. So I have a new ‘script for glasses, and found a place that could get me distance glasses made today. So I’ll use these ‘cheap’ glasses til we’re sure my script won’t change again crazily, then I’ll get my bifocals made. For now thought, I’m going to go rest my tired eyes, at least until the damn dilation goes away. *blinkblink*
How am I doing?
Well it's currently Day 13 of me being diagnoses with diabetes. So how
am I doing? Well, it's officially official. My bloodwork came back with
confirmation of being diabetic. Which beats having something weird and
esoteric in my pancreas. Been doing the blood testing twice a day per
my doctor. Once when I get up, once after a meal (usually dinner or
lunch). Don't like the jab, but I'm not needle phobic at all, so it's more
of a 'sigh' *bleed* *move on*. Blood sugar is going down, which of course
is the way we want things to be going. Yay medication and diet.
Speaking of diet, I've gone from an average of 3000 calories a day, to under 2000. How, setting limited portions, snacking on cucumbers and tomatoes a lot, and trying to be mindful of how I'm doing. The snacking urge is hard to ignore, I hate being hungry. But my stomach is shrinking a bit, and I've found stuff that works well for me. So I'm doing ok. Trying very hard to not set myself up for a fall. If I go over calories/sugars, then oh well. Try better tomorrow. I'm going to go over tonight by a bit. (I treated myself to NYC pizza, was good and only ate two slices. That was hard). But I don't have to be perfect. Just have to improve.
Otherwise, I'm kind of kerfrazzled, the vision stuff is scary, but I think my eyes have settled down to a point where I think that unless they find something else wrong, And if they do, I'll deal. Though if I stop being able to read, there will be problems. Work is stressing me, lots of meetings, lots of questions I just don't know. Company buyouts are stressful as heck. I ended up taking today as PTO to just decompress. Tomorrow and Sunday are more decompression time, need to do some more chores around the house, read, and really, REALLY try to catch up on sleep.
Speaking of reading and sleeping, I think that's what I'm going to do. Night fellow cultists (and everyone else reading this)
Speaking of diet, I've gone from an average of 3000 calories a day, to under 2000. How, setting limited portions, snacking on cucumbers and tomatoes a lot, and trying to be mindful of how I'm doing. The snacking urge is hard to ignore, I hate being hungry. But my stomach is shrinking a bit, and I've found stuff that works well for me. So I'm doing ok. Trying very hard to not set myself up for a fall. If I go over calories/sugars, then oh well. Try better tomorrow. I'm going to go over tonight by a bit. (I treated myself to NYC pizza, was good and only ate two slices. That was hard). But I don't have to be perfect. Just have to improve.
Otherwise, I'm kind of kerfrazzled, the vision stuff is scary, but I think my eyes have settled down to a point where I think that unless they find something else wrong, And if they do, I'll deal. Though if I stop being able to read, there will be problems. Work is stressing me, lots of meetings, lots of questions I just don't know. Company buyouts are stressful as heck. I ended up taking today as PTO to just decompress. Tomorrow and Sunday are more decompression time, need to do some more chores around the house, read, and really, REALLY try to catch up on sleep.
Speaking of reading and sleeping, I think that's what I'm going to do. Night fellow cultists (and everyone else reading this)
The Eyes Don’t Have It
Quick post. Last Thursday (a week ago), my eyes started acting up. Vision
got kind of fuzzy, over the next few days my eyes changed enough that my
glasses are unwearable. My distance vision is lousy, mid range is fuzzy
but workable, and from arm's length and closer I'm alright. What's going
on ? No idea. It could be the change in blood sugars from high to less
high triggered a change in eyeball/lens shape. It happens, per some diabetic
friends and some major googling. If that's it, my eyes should self correct.
If not, well it could be a number of other things. Thus I have an
ophthalmologist appointment on Monday to give my eyes a complete look over.
They'll be able to tell if I have other eye problem, or if my eyes have just
changed and I need a new 'script. We'll see Monday.
What does this mean? I haven't left the house since Sunday. I can drive, but that's a bad idea IMHO. I took Monday off from Carcosa Corp, but after that I rearranged my desktop setup at home so my computer screens are close enough to limit the eyestrain. I haven't been getting a lot done, but it's been a week of meetings, which doesn't require me to geek much. I can read, thank Cthulhu, otherwise I'd have gone nuts already. I'm listening to a lot of pdocasts and audiobooks when I'm doing other things. So I'm not crazy, but I'm definitely antsy as hell.
So, hopefully the docs can figure out a fix, and life returns to normal. My plans for this weekend are just about non-existent. I'm probably going to stick around home, read, etc. I'll be stircrazy, but not much I can do about that either way. I can at least futz around the house doing chores and stuff. And we'll see how things go after that.
What does this mean? I haven't left the house since Sunday. I can drive, but that's a bad idea IMHO. I took Monday off from Carcosa Corp, but after that I rearranged my desktop setup at home so my computer screens are close enough to limit the eyestrain. I haven't been getting a lot done, but it's been a week of meetings, which doesn't require me to geek much. I can read, thank Cthulhu, otherwise I'd have gone nuts already. I'm listening to a lot of pdocasts and audiobooks when I'm doing other things. So I'm not crazy, but I'm definitely antsy as hell.
So, hopefully the docs can figure out a fix, and life returns to normal. My plans for this weekend are just about non-existent. I'm probably going to stick around home, read, etc. I'll be stircrazy, but not much I can do about that either way. I can at least futz around the house doing chores and stuff. And we'll see how things go after that.
Eyeballs and Books
Look, two posts in a weekend. Yesterday was the mental health day I took
from work. I spent most of it watching various horror flicks, and futzing
around online. Oh, and some vague chore doing at home. I'm slowly
getting rid of clutter. Then I'll start on rearranging things a
little better. I'm also going to pack up some of the scifi/fantasy section
of the Starry Wisdom Library, and probably put it in storage. Shelf space
is at a premium, and history, esoterica and Mythos has priority. (also,
I have piles of books that need to be organized). Worked on that
also this morning, along with more (and worse) movies.
Went to the eye doctor in the afternoon, when it was 105 out. Glad my eyeballs didn't melt. Long story short, my distance vision is a smidge better than it was, my up close vision is a tad worse. So new glasses are in my future. But otherwise my eyes are healthy, come back in year and get dilated.
Came home after that, where I ate way too many chicken tenders. I have to remember, when I have the brilliant idea 'I'll get a family meal, and I'll have 3-4 meals out of it', portion out the damn things...otherwise I keep eating them til I'm about to explode. Haven't done much else this afternoon/ evening. Rearranged a few things, made some mental notes. Found a random flat in London that is not only cool looking, but is the same building for the hero in 'The Devil Rides Out', with the same cool terrace design. But, since I haven't come into my Innsmouth gold inheritance, I don't see me relocating Château Innsmouth to the UK.
So what is Vulpine reading ? Currently I'm reading a history of the Cathars, The Lost Teachings of the Cathars by Andrew Phillip Smith. It's a reread, but given the news lately, who doesn't need a book on medieval quasi-Gnostic dualism. Enjoyable, if nothing really new to the subject. I recently finished a novella, Maniac Gods by Rich Hawkins. Unlike m y current read, this is a little more...intense. It's Lovecraftianesque cosmic horror, with the emphasis on horror. Cult does bad thing, divorced Dad tries to save his ex-wife and kid, bad things happen. Yes, this is done a lot. But Rich gleefully dives into the guts of the story and runs it at full tilt, and when you get to the obvious 'and here's more horror' he slams on brakes and does a 180 that almost hurts. Then he slowly ratchets things up...and then if you want more, go buy the book. *wink* In the bullpen is a number of other British horror novels, I may have gone a little crazy during Amazon Prime Day.
So that's about it for non-brain meats thoughts. Tomorrow I go see Denzel Washington beat people up, and then it's back to work of some stress. But I will survive. Cthulhu's told me so. (Oh yeah, and if you wonder why I have more links than usual, I changed some stuff in my ViM configuration, and this seemed a good test. Yay geeking)
Went to the eye doctor in the afternoon, when it was 105 out. Glad my eyeballs didn't melt. Long story short, my distance vision is a smidge better than it was, my up close vision is a tad worse. So new glasses are in my future. But otherwise my eyes are healthy, come back in year and get dilated.
Came home after that, where I ate way too many chicken tenders. I have to remember, when I have the brilliant idea 'I'll get a family meal, and I'll have 3-4 meals out of it', portion out the damn things...otherwise I keep eating them til I'm about to explode. Haven't done much else this afternoon/ evening. Rearranged a few things, made some mental notes. Found a random flat in London that is not only cool looking, but is the same building for the hero in 'The Devil Rides Out', with the same cool terrace design. But, since I haven't come into my Innsmouth gold inheritance, I don't see me relocating Château Innsmouth to the UK.
So what is Vulpine reading ? Currently I'm reading a history of the Cathars, The Lost Teachings of the Cathars by Andrew Phillip Smith. It's a reread, but given the news lately, who doesn't need a book on medieval quasi-Gnostic dualism. Enjoyable, if nothing really new to the subject. I recently finished a novella, Maniac Gods by Rich Hawkins. Unlike m y current read, this is a little more...intense. It's Lovecraftianesque cosmic horror, with the emphasis on horror. Cult does bad thing, divorced Dad tries to save his ex-wife and kid, bad things happen. Yes, this is done a lot. But Rich gleefully dives into the guts of the story and runs it at full tilt, and when you get to the obvious 'and here's more horror' he slams on brakes and does a 180 that almost hurts. Then he slowly ratchets things up...and then if you want more, go buy the book. *wink* In the bullpen is a number of other British horror novels, I may have gone a little crazy during Amazon Prime Day.
So that's about it for non-brain meats thoughts. Tomorrow I go see Denzel Washington beat people up, and then it's back to work of some stress. But I will survive. Cthulhu's told me so. (Oh yeah, and if you wonder why I have more links than usual, I changed some stuff in my ViM configuration, and this seemed a good test. Yay geeking)
Sleep, perchance not to dream
Some random thoughts. I've been having issues with sleeping, and with dreams.
I'm having nights full of broken sleep, waking up multiple times a night.
And when I do sleep, I have sad or anxious dreams and getting out of bed
is really difficult. My attempts to fix this have either involved spiking
up dopamine or serotonin before bed, or more often, going to bed earlier and
earlier. I'm starting to think this (early to bed) is the problem. Maybe I'm spending
too much time in REM sleep, where I'm mostly awake by 5-6 am, and I'm just
idling in dreaming mode, and waking up repeatedly, which make the dreams more
memorable. At least that's what my googling about sleep patterns and basic
logic comes up with. So, tonight is an experiment. Going to stay up til
about 10pm tonight (1-2 hours later than my sleep schedule lately), then take
my meds and go to bed to read a little. I'm resetting my alarm for the last
possible minute before I need to be up, so I can be at work in time for the
morning meeting. Then we see. If I don't get enough sleep, well the next
morning is the weekend, and I have no plans for Friday night. So if I'm
tired, I can fight through it. And if it helps, make notes, then try again
next week. Document all the way. And we see. If it helps, yay. If it
doesn't, well, check my theory, check my research, come up with a new idea.
That whole scientific method thing. Should do that more in my personal life.
So...I am my own experiment. Which probably isn't the best science, but it's what I've got to work with at the moment. I do have a perfectly good pshrink I can hand the results to after some time. We'll see. Later I may experiment with invocations of Morpheus, Cthulhu, Hypnos, Nut and/or Nyx. Just no self medicating, that will just in tears. Ok, wish me luck.
So...I am my own experiment. Which probably isn't the best science, but it's what I've got to work with at the moment. I do have a perfectly good pshrink I can hand the results to after some time. We'll see. Later I may experiment with invocations of Morpheus, Cthulhu, Hypnos, Nut and/or Nyx. Just no self medicating, that will just in tears. Ok, wish me luck.
To the Devil a Daughter…and more rambles
Home from work, dinner eaten, books added to catalog and shelved. Am pretty pooped after the work day. Going to go to shower, bed and book soon.
Listening to 'To the Devil a Daughter', I knew that the movie was very different than the book, but the only thing they both have is the evil priest. The good guy, Verney is made up of 3 characters in the book. And if you're looking for habit wearing hotties, well this stories has nun ;) Pretty sure I can guess why Wheatley was so torqued off at the Hammer production. It's a slow start, lots of English people complaining about France, while in France. But we got to the crazy Satanist monologing about his plan to a hero, and boy is it bonkers. Also there's a call back to the novel 'The Devil Rides Out' which makes my little geek heart happy. Still have hours to go to listen, might switch over to reading the book the old fashioned way, see if the plot runs off like a crazed hare...like the movie does.
Night all.
Listening to 'To the Devil a Daughter', I knew that the movie was very different than the book, but the only thing they both have is the evil priest. The good guy, Verney is made up of 3 characters in the book. And if you're looking for habit wearing hotties, well this stories has nun ;) Pretty sure I can guess why Wheatley was so torqued off at the Hammer production. It's a slow start, lots of English people complaining about France, while in France. But we got to the crazy Satanist monologing about his plan to a hero, and boy is it bonkers. Also there's a call back to the novel 'The Devil Rides Out' which makes my little geek heart happy. Still have hours to go to listen, might switch over to reading the book the old fashioned way, see if the plot runs off like a crazed hare...like the movie does.
Night all.