Posts Tagged ‘health’

20
Nov
2020

That didn’t go that bad… I hope it didn’t.

categories: personal; word count: 359 words

I feel like my disability hearing went alright. It could have been a lot worse than it actually was, but I’m bracing myself for the potential impact of being denied and having to continue to fight for disability benefits by putting in a new application after the sixty days that I can appeal the judge’s ruling have elapsed. Just as with the presidential election, I brace for the worst possibility and hope for the best. I’ve begun to see the local pain management clinic, and they put me on Gabapentin since I had been on Topamax for years and… well, it didn’t seem to be working that well if I was having migraines at this frequency and severity. I was also put back on Fioricet, which has worked better for me than any triptan ever has, although I’m to take less of them a month. I guess that’s because we don’t want this to stop working like the triptans obviously have.

We’re also in the midst of another COVID-19 (coronavirus) spike, presumably because people still took their kids out for Halloween in spite of the consequences and risk. Bub and Monster stayed home with a bag of candy that I had intentionally bought for them to give to them on Halloween, and I had to explain to Monster a few times that we weren’t going out for Halloween this year and why in a manner that he could more easily understand. I don’t think we’re going to have any problems come the Thanksgiving that we… don’t celebrate for ethical reasons, simply because we’re not inviting anyone over or really even going anywhere.

I need to fix my treadmill, too. The track that you walk on (do you call it a track? I’m not going to look this up right now)… moves from left to right as you walk, if that makes any sense, rather than staying firm on the treadmill and only moving backwards when you walk. This has contributed to me being clumsy on the treadmill. I’m going to get a lot less out of it if I have to walk slower and constantly watch myself using it…

19
Nov
2020

Only one of these things surprises me.

categories: personal; word count: 379 words

So Twitter actually suspended my account for criticizing new Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett, which surprised me… because of all of the things to crack down on, let alone suspend me over, it was that criticism that broke the camel’s back. I appealed the suspension as soon as I became aware that it had happened and began e-mailing Twitter support after they initially e-mailed me, once per day when it became apparent that they could expedite my “permanent” suspension but not bother to have someone take a look at it to see whether or not it was justified (it wasn’t). But it honestly figures that they can expedite a “permanent” account suspension (and not allowing me to create new accounts in spite of the fact that sorting this out has taken forever), but slow-walk an appeal. We really need better social networking sites.

I am also sitting on a Facebook post block that expires at the beginning of next month for telling someone who is extremely religious not to evangelize to me. They also criticized the fact that I am a leftist, so I criticized them for blindly following their religion of choice, and look where that got me. Both Facebook and Twitter seem to “crack down” harder on users that they can, with reasonable suspicion, ascertain to be AFAB (assigned female at birth) or female, going to almost herculean lengths to protect straight white men… and religious, straight white men at that. I am honestly not sure which of them, between the two, is worse.

I’ve begun to be seen at the local pain management clinic for my migraines with the goal being to start Botox at… some point. We’ll have to find out which point that is. In the interim, I’ve been put on Gabapentin to see if it would be a better preventive medication than Topamax and Trokendi… weren’t, and what I’m pretty sure the rest of my preventive medications have been. I’m not sure how well it’s working because I literally can not feel most of my left hand, the back of my left foot, and random, smaller areas on my left side.

So now I have to sit here and think about what I am willing to “trade” for less migraine pain. Wonderful.

30
Aug
2020

Once I am able to walk a mile, Yes.Fit please.

categories: personal; word count: 309 words

I am not being paid to write about this. This is just something that I want to try at some point.

Once I am comfortably able to walk a mile without… there being any problems (and I mean any problems), the next step in the process for me will be to sign up for virtual marathons with Yes.Fit. I may decide to wait until we are out of a global pandemic, although I may do these on my treadmill at home. It all depends. Yes.Fit is a virtual marathon app — or website — that allows you to participate in virtual marathons no matter where in the world you may be at, and you are rewarded with things like medallions and T-shirts that you choose from before you sign up for the marathon as incentive and as a reward for you completing the marathon. You can log the miles that you do any number of ways, including “by hand” if you’re not into things like FitBit or their very own tracker. For someone like me, the medallion at the end of the marathon would be the most incentive. I’d love to collect those. And of course I’d also love to get into better shape!

For instance, there’s one called The Unicorn which is 121.1 miles. Obviously I’m not going to be ready to do that one for quite awhile, but I do aspire to do that one at… some point. The medallion for it is the most adorable, and at some point in my life I would like to say that I got into good enough health to be able to walk 121.1 miles, even if it took me an entire year to do, just to say that I actually completed that marathon.

I definitely have aspirations for improving my health, even though some of them — like that one — are lofty.

29
Aug
2020

Maybe one day I’ll stop accidentally deleting tags.

categories: personal; word count: 376 words

I find it humorously ironic that I get to decide whether or not I get to continue taking the medication that has caused me to gain the weight that I have. Apparently this is a… thing with this medication, as in, this is a distinct possibility that can occur with it. I do wish that this had been explained to me as I was being prescribed it, or even in the earlier stages of me taking it, so that I could have made a better decision about whether or not I wanted to take it or even stay on it, but I digress. It does actually work single-dosing it for particularly troublesome migraines, though, so I probably would have chosen to stay on it and to continue taking it. But like I said, I do wish that I had been informed about this side effect. This was actually one of the reasons that I spent the last of my economic stimulus check (“Coronavirus check”, or “Corona check”, as some people are actually calling it) on a manual treadmill for home. I had just enough money left over to actually do that, and I’m glad that I made that “investment”. It’s been something that I’ve wanted for awhile.

My first long-term goal is to eventually work up to comfortably being able to walk a mile. I’m going to do this on my own time, no matter how long it may take me. That will help my asthma, and it will also help me get into better shape. My neurologist knows about it, and (bless her heart, probably never having actually dealt with someone like me before, even though I’m sure she had to have had some kind of… training on chronic migraine disorder since she knew what it was) she is supportive of me undertaking an exercise regimen with it. I mean, she knows that I bought it. She knows why I bought it. She knows that I want to get into better shape and lose some of the weight that I have gained. The rest of my care team will eventually find out too.

The mile won’t be timed, by the way. It will simply be me working up to comfortably being able to walk one.

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