Song: N/A
Mood: 6.5
Nightmares: 0
Ghosts: Swarm
So yesterday I got an email from FA about a device I didn’t know existed called a “Click to Pray eRosary” and that someone had already found a vulnerability in it. Neither of us were too sure about whether the whole thing was legitimate, so I did some digging and found that it did appear to be real. Not content with looking it up, I thought I’d call one of the contact numbers and see what happened. So I made a call last night…
… to Vatican City.
I was calling outside of business hours but an answering machine picked up with an Italian message. I waited for the beep and then left a brief but polite message. So that was the big excitement last night. I think that was only the second international call I’ve ever made in my life. Can’t wait to see what the phone bill says.
Didn’t get much sleep last night. One of the things I try to follow with the sleep hygiene thing is to not go to bed if I’m not tired. Unfortunately, I ignored the corollary that goes with it, which is something like, “Do calm relaxing things. No screens.” So I was up too late and then woke up two hours before my alarm went off and couldn’t convince myself to get back to sleep.
Today, though, was my pulmonologist appointment. J took some time off work to take me to the appointment, and after she dropped me off at home she was going to head back.
It didn’t quite work out like that.
I’ve got to give the doctor credit – he’s pretty thorough. We left the house at about 10:45AM and I was expecting to be home around noon or 12:30. Well, it was after 5PM when we stumbled back into the house. What a day. I breathed into at least three different machines, got dosed with various medications, walked laps in a hallway, and went to another hospital to get two different lung scans with two kinds of radioactive isotopes: one inhaled and one injected. So far, no superpowers and I can’t see my skin in the dark.
A good thing that happened is that – for the first time – I was actually having my symptoms while I was seeing the specialist. Unfortunately, that meant that I was feeling pretty crappy for most of the day. I don’t have the final report yet but I was the last scan of the day for one of the staff and when he spoke with another doctor who took a look at my scans, he was happy to hear that my scans were “beautiful” (the doctor’s words, apparently), instead of ending the day on a scan where someone’s lungs were on the way out. No blood clots, and air is going into and out of my lungs quite nicely. So that was good to hear.
The only downside about it is that I’m still feeling lungy and don’t know why. It’s really bothering me right now, actually, and I can feel my eyes wanting to bulge out. The pulmonologist was very friendly and took lots of notes (and, frankly, almost every tech/expert/staff that J and I met today were wonderful too), so hopefully the scans will still tell him something that will get someone closer to figuring out what’s going on. It’s a really unsettling feeling.
It had been a really long day and when we got home, I was feeling really wrung out so I went and crashed in the bedroom for a while and tried to relax. I think I caught a little bit of a nap, which was good. After that, we had supper and watched two episodes of The Good Place. And now I’m here.
I’ve said this before, but I am so very lucky to have such a supportive, caring, and helpful wife. J wasn’t expecting (again) to have to take the whole afternoon off (again) and miss lunch (again) because I had another appointment, but she drove me around and kept me calm for the whole day. Thank you, sweetie!
We didn’t hear back from the pulmonologist this evening so I’m supposed to call tomorrow morning and find out what’s going on. Aside from that, I don’t have anything else happening so I think I’m going to take it easy. I have a lot more stuff I want to think about and tomorrow seems like as good a day as any to do it.
So far it looks like I will be volunteering on Friday afternoon for a little while. I hope it works out.
Oh, and I’m also printing up lithophanes that I am hoping to light up with neopixels to use as Halloween decorations. We’ll see how that works out.
Stay safe.