Song: N/A
Mood: 7.5
Nightmares: 0
Ghosts: Few
Today was another good day. It started out a little stressful because J’s aunt was coming over to visit and I always get anxious before anyone visits, but even though it’s a little unpleasant I know to expect it now (the nerves, not J’s aunt).
She arrived a little after 2PM and the three of us hung out, talked, and had snacks until around 5PM. I had a very good time and enjoyed the conversation. We talked about all kinds of stuff: family, politics, museums, news… all kinds of stuff.
After she left J and I had supper and then we listened to music while she read and I went through my project bins to sort things and throw out junk. Got it down to two bins from three and a little one, so that’s progress!
My Dr C appointment on Wednesday went pretty well. We are still working on fixing up my sleep schedule and (hopefully) getting me ready in the event that Dr W and I do more nighttime medication reductions, but we also talked quite a bit about current events and how much they’re bothering me. Things are good in that regard now, but I have to pay attention to how I’m thinking about things so I don’t start to obsess over it. Dr C says I am pretty good at knowing when things are going wrong, so hopefully I’ll stay on top of things.
My back is pretty much always sore, so a couple of years ago, J finally convinced me to make an appointment with the massage therapist she sees. I’m not a particular fan of people (particularly strangers) touching me, but I was surprised to find that the therapist was very understanding of that and that it ended up helping. I found I was reasonably comfortable with her and decided to go back. My luck being what it is, though, she ended up leaving for a different physio shop in a different part of the city. Recently, though, my back has been really bugging me again, so after a bit of conversation, J convinced me to give her new RMT a try.
So, after my Dr C appointment, I headed over to the physio place. The new massage therapist is much different than the previous one and she does things differently but it worked out pretty well. She talks a lot more (and about all kinds of stuff) and I found it a little distracting to begin with but now that I’ve thought about it some more, I wonder if it’s her way of getting people to relax. At any rate, I think it helped so I’m going to go back and give it another try soon.
I’m going backwards through the week, but my Dr H appointment this week went pretty well, too. None of the specialists I’ve seen have found anything that could cause the unsettling feeling in my chest; the pulmonologist suggested it’s a “functional” issue, which means that there’s nothing physically wrong but for some reason I (or my brain) am interpreting some signals incorrectly. I don’t feel like that’s what’s happening, but hey – if it turns out it’s a software problem instead of something actually wrong with my lungs or heart or whatever, I’m fine with that and will accept it. If, however, the doctors missed something and I suddenly drop dead in the middle of the grocery store one day, they are going to feel soooooo silly…
Dr H was talking about my test results as she was reading through them and mentioned how they were coming back as better or “significantly” better than average. I waved at my flab and said, “Yes, I’m a prime physical specimen.” She found that quite amusing and laughed while the printer spat out a requisition form with enough boxes checked that the lab took seven vials of blood from me when I went for blood tests an hour later. My personal record is 13 (11 of the little ones and two of the big ones), although I’m not sure that’s something to brag about. Anyway…
I also heard from the church people today so I may be going over there sometime next week to volunteer for an hour or so. It’s been a while since I was there last and it will be good to talk to the folks there again.
Nothing too fancy going on this weekend, although I am running an event in STO on Sunday afternoon. I’ve never done that before so it’ll be an interesting experience. Monday I have an appointment to get an ultrasound of my liver – along with the bloodwork, Dr H is putting me through all kinds of tests to figure out why some of my liver numbers are slightly elevated. I do really appreciate her taking that stuff seriously and being proactive about it. I’m very lucky to have a lot of competent and caring professionals on my side.
Stay safe.