Category Archives: Health

Health, holidays

Under the Weather

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Well, I had great plans to make several posts to this blog over the last few days, but I have been knocked down with a winter cold. A strange cold. Normally they begin with my sinuses, and I can feel them coming on a day or two before sinus drainage really hits. Then they progress to full sinus drainage then to a chest cold that seems to linger forever. This one, however, began as a chest cold, the same as my usual cold but without the preceding sinus drainage. As I say, strange.

On Saturday, when I probably should have been resting, we drove to Baxter Springs Kansas (68 miles) to meet up with Lynda’s cousins for lunch at a small cafe on the old Route 66. It was a pleasant time, but I could feel myself going downhill during the day. Our route back home took us by the Wal-Mart we normally shop at, so we stopped and shopped for two hours. And the downhill slide continued. By the time we got home around 5:30 PM I knew I wouldn’t be going to church the next day.

So I rested Sunday, doing almost nothing except reading my Bible (several chapters in Numbers, as I’m trying to figure out the wandering Israelites), napping, watching football, and reading in magazines and newsletters. I got caught up on a number of those. I didn’t think, in my diminished capacity, that I could tackle the next book in my reading pile.

Monday I stayed home from work. I hate to do that on a holiday week, because who will believe you are really sick? I had a restful day, doing very little. I exerted myself only in looking for a couple of misplaced items needed to work on our Christmas cards. Those items being found, I developed our send-list and then Lynda and I began addressing. We got about half of those done by the time to turn in. Tonight will be dedicated to the other half, and to finishing and printing the Christmas letter. Maybe we’ll get most of them in the mail tomorrow. Then again, maybe not.

I’m at work, but only for a half day to do some critical items. I’ve got three out of four done already, so should have no problems heading home by 1 PM at the latest. Between resting due to this lingering cold, and the normal busyness that comes with Christmas and the days that immediately surround it, I doubt I’ll be posting again before next Sunday at the earliest. I wish my few regular readers, and those who stumble on this, a blessed Christmas. Ponder Christ’s birth, and be thankful.

Health

The Rheumatoid Report

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I took the last pill in my steroid dose pack last night. The decreasing dosage should have been having less and less effect anyway. The immediate effect on my finger, from last Friday to last Saturday, was amazing. I was ready to find the person who discovered this miracle drug and kiss him/her. Through Monday all was well.

Tuesday I felt just a little more swelling and a little more pain in the same finger, the ring finger on my right hand. The other nine were as usual through all of this. Well, maybe the right middle and pinkie had some sympathetic pains for their neighbor, and the left hand fingers were perhaps a little stiffer. The steroid helped them all.

Until Tuesday, that is. As I said, the swelling, pain, and stiffness crept up a little on Tuesday; more so on Wednesday. So I was not looking forward to this morning, expecting it to be more or last like last Thursday: swollen to the point where it felt hard, stiffness all around, pain more than I felt like bearing.

But it wasn’t. In fact, this morning the stiffness may have been a little less than yesterday. I was able to go through my morning routine at my usual speed, using both hands as normal. Of course, of late I’ve been compensating for that errant finger. Today I may have had less compensation to do.

So what’s up? Wish I knew. If I did something right over the last two days, something that caused this improvement in the arthritis, I’d like to know what it was so I can do it all the time. The only thing that stands out is I’m losing a little weight again. In the past I’ve noticed that, when I’m gaining weight, the arthritis feels worse; when I’m losing weight, the arthritis feels better. At my weigh-in yesterday I had lost all my Thanksgiving bloat, and more. I’m within striking distance of where I hoped to be by the end of the year, which is at least 20 pounds lost for the year, or 25 if possible. It’s possible.

Maybe that’s all it is, being careful of overall food intake and eating small enough portions that I’m losing some weight even without exercising. Whatever it is, I’ll take it. Now it’s time to get a little bit of writing done and posted on-line before the days of Christmas start, and writing ceases for a time.

Health, Writing

A Mixed Bag

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It’s amazing what a white powder, pressed into oblong shape and put into a dose pack, can do to rheumatoid arthritis. After all the problems of getting my prescription–both due to doctor error and pharmacy busyness–the pills did an amazing job. By Saturday morning I was in good shape. By Sunday morning my hands were mostly healed. I say mostly because not quite. The stiffness I normally have was back to background pain. The extreme flare-up was under control. I was able to work again.

Except the emotional toll of the pick-up repairs, the prescription fiasco, Lynda’s lingering illness, and general lack of success with writing in general brought me to Sunday not feeling like doing much. So I did little except go to church and rest. I read a few blogs, finished a stock trading article at Suite101.com (an article I had started on earlier), and read. I read in two days Charles Dickens’ novella The Chimes, the second of his Christmas books. Tomorrow I plan on posting a review of it.

Speaking of Charles Dickens, my Suite101 article on him is one of my recent success stories. This article was picked up and linked by a Charles Dickens dedicated web site. Scroll down to the “Dickens in the News” section to see the link. The way the page is set up, this link should be public for quite some time. Given the season, this is having a positive impact on my page views at Suite.

Also positive is that I discovered a certain site, Investors Journal, is linking to Suite101 articles. Several of mine have been there, although they rotate quickly and none are listed at the moment. But my recent stock trading articles were there, Google still has those links, which boosts my article ranking in a Google search. This apparently was unknown to Suite until I discovered it.

A negative is that the rheumatoid is a bit worse today: same hand, same finger. I’ve worked my way down the steroid dose pack to where I’m not taking much now, and I’m hoping this doesn’t mean in a day or two I’ll be back to where I was last Thursday-Friday. But, to compensate that my weight is down some. I’ve lost about six pounds from the Thanksgiving overeating times, and am pleased with it. I’m right now five pounds above where I hoped to be at the end of the year, so a little exercise, reasonable eating, and the New Year should see me at my goal weight. Time to set a more ambitious goal for 2010.

Two positives are things I wrote at Absolute Write recently, one in a poetry critique and one in a comment on a public events topic. Both were thought excellent by others, and are being quoted. That’s a good feeling.

I suppose we should expect a mixed bag out of life. It can’t all be good. The trick is to not become emotionally down when the bad comes. That’s been my problem lately. Setbacks have set me back emotionally, when they shouldn’t. Hopefully, with a correct appreciation for the situation and expectation for outcomes, from this point on they won’t.

Health

What’s up with my arthritis–or is it arthritis?

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Lately I’ve had a flare up of my rheumatoid arthritis. It has hit my hands and wrists in late Nov/Dec, but in October it was my upper back and right shoulder. Right now it’s confined to both wrists, the bottom joint on my left thumb, and the ring finger on my right hand. That has been getting progressively worse. Aleve has seemed to have no effect, so I quit taking that and putting that foul stuff on my stomach. This morning I woke up and the rt ring finger is so bad it is in constant pain and I can hardly do anything with it. Of course, when one finger on a hand hurts the entire hand hurts, to some extent. Shifted the mouse to use it left handed (as I once did) and I’m keeping on keeping on.

But this really hurts, and I’m not even sure it’s rheumatoid. I must digress a little. I was first diagnosed with rheumatoid back in the early 90s, when I began getting pain in my ankles, an elbow now and then, and maybe other places from time to time. They x-rayed, took the usual tests, and all the rheumatoid tests turned out negative. So they called it “sero-negative rheumatoid arthritis”, which I guess means rheumatoid-like symptoms without the typical rheumatoid chemicals. Sometimes it flares up, and sometimes I have almost no pain at all.

When I had my annual physical in August my new doctor said she questioned the diagnosis, saying that sero-negative is more or less a doctor punting: gotta call it something. But we never got to the point where she could run any tests to see what it might be. And, in August I had almost no symptoms. Now I have the symptoms, and now she has closed her practice and moved to Oklahoma. Blankety-blank Okies!

So today I’ll call our new doctor, one who I’ve never seen but Lynda has, and say “Could I have you look at my rt ring finger and figure out why it’s swollen, deformed, and painful? Could it be phlebitis? Or what? I haven’t had any trauma.” I’ll probably sound ridiculous, but it’s come to the point where I have to do it. If I can’t get in with them, perhaps I’ll go to the ER.

Well, I got through the typing okay. Tapping keys with that finger is a little painful, but I can bear it as long as I don’t tap too hard. My speed was okay as well. Don’t feel like proofreading, thought.

See you all on the flip side.

Fifty Thousand Screaming People, Health

Exercise and Arthritis

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For several weekends I’ve been planning to take a long walk. The weather has been good, and I need the exercise. But Saturday is a busy day of work around the house, resulting in very tired legs by 1 or 2 PM. Sunday we get home from church and, well, the Sunday afternoon nap syndrome takes effect, as well as the must watch football syndrome. So I haven’t made that walk.

But yesterday, with excellent weather, I decided to do it. Coming home from work I sat in my reading chair, read for twenty minutes or so, and was overcome by tiredness. Rather than go to the couch, I just put my head back in the chair and slept for perhaps fifteen minutes. That was all I needed. I read a little more, then headed out. I had determined that I would follow a new route, which I estimate is four miles. My previous longest walk was three miles.

So I headed down the hill, and turned left at the bottom instead of right. This took me on the long loop around the golf course–probably just part of the golf course, to the bottom of the dam, then uphill all the way home. I had planned on the difficulty of the last hill, but not of two intermediate hills. The walk took me about an hour and fifteen minutes, and I was quite tired. Later, Lynda wanted to walk, and we did another mile.

But I felt good. Tired legs, a slightly hurting right knee, a tickle in the throat from heavy breathing, but I felt good. That old single cusp on my aortic valve gave no problem. My mind was fairly well engaged, and in the evening I managed to write 1,000 words on my novel.

However, this morning my hands and wrists are killing me. Not sure what is going on with that. I had a good week last week in terms of arthritis. Why now? Actually they were hurting on Saturday after work around the house, but felt better Sunday, even at day’s end. Was it the peanut butter toast I ate as a late snack? I’ve always wondered if the sero-negative rheumatoid arthritis I have is really a food allergy.

Whatever it is, typing is quite painful this morning. Plus, it’s 8 AM, and my employer is beckoning. Let’s see what the day brings.

Health

It’s Amazing What You Learn…

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…about yourself as you get older.

Take me, for instance. I was 45 years old when I learned that I was part black, through my mother. That secret was kept well hidden by my mother and her mother and her mother. As a boy I never thought about why there were no pictures of my grandmother’s half-sisters in her house. At as 45 I found out. I know they kept this hidden to protect us, but it deprived us from knowing a wonderful family for decades.

Then, just today, for example, I went to a cardiologist for the follow-up to my echo-cardiogram and found out I’m missing two cusps on my aortic valve, a condition I was born with. At my annual physical last month, my new doctor didn’t like something she saw on my EKG, something about the high peaks being where the low peaks should be and vice verse. I jokingly said I guess my heart is pumping backward, but she referred me for the echo.

Last week, as I was on the table watching the scope as the test was in progress, I mentioned to the tech that it looked strange the way something was flapping at the end of each beat. She agreed with me and seemed to study it for a long time. She said it looked abnormal and had me wait while she discussed it with the doc. He must not have been concerned, for he sent word I was to just come for my follow-up already scheduled.

As to symptoms of heart irregularity, I have none. Everything else from the echo looks good. The cusp-short valve is not leaking. Flow is good. Other valves look good. Dr. El Shafie said we could do an ultrasound (a trans-esophageal something-or-other), but said it wasn’t necessary given no symptoms. He said come back for an annual echo and we’ll watch it.

Now, I could easily have gone the next 7 years, 2 months, and 30 days until retirement without knowing this. And the however many years after that until I assume room temperature. But I now know. How will this affect my life? Not much I guess. Perhaps I’ll find new impetus to lose the remaining weight I need to lose so that my single-cusp valve doesn’t have as much body to supply. Perhaps I’ll become a little more faithful in walking, and go for longer distances. Perhaps I’ll finally give up a chips habit that I should have years ago.

Or not.

Time will tell. Well, I must be about other business now. I’ll post the September report and October goals tomorrow–as long as the one-cusp wonder holds out till then.

Health, Writing

The Emotional Roller Coaster

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Life is an emotional roller coaster for me, maybe for most people to a certain degree. Rare, I think, and probably drug-induced, is the person who doesn’t have emotional highs and lows. For some the track tops and bottoms are higher, the run-ups and -downs steeper, and the twists sharper than for others. But I think it is all there for most people.

Seasons in life are another factor. When we lived in Saudi Arabia the roller coaster was particularly pronounced. A lot had to do with our time in life (children ages 3 and 1). A lot had to do with the harshness of the country and culture. A lot had to do with being at the whim of the company for everything from drinking water to rides to spending money. Back in the good old USA was the merry-go-round to Saudi’s roller coaster.

I find the writing life to generate those roller coaster type swings. They can be quite wild at a writers conference, where you’re at the peak one minute and 15 minutes later, after a meeting with an editor, at the bottom of the trough. Other aspects of writing can do the same, almost as quickly.

Take Suite101.com for instance. I’m now up to 26 articles posted, in 31 days. Several of those articles rank high on a couple of search engines for key words I included in the articles. I had one article selected as an Editor’s Choice. I’m starting to generate a little revenue–emphasis on “little,” but that’s better than none. Everything was humming along.

Then, Suite101 adds the requirement, previously a recommendation, that every article include an image. No exceptions. So I quickly had to ramp up on how to find copyright-free images, how to download them to my computer, how to save them to the right type of image, how to upload them into Suite101’s image uploading system, complete with caption, file name, source reference, and available link. I got several uploaded on new articles, and even went back to some earlier articles and added some photos and map excerpts.

Then I captured an image of Ben Franklin to illustrate my latest article. Poof. The image wouldn’t upload. Not from my computer at work. Not from my computer at home. No reason why. It took a couple of days to get help from an editor, as the site trouble-shooting guide and the editor’s e-mails contain many terms I don’t understand. And I find I can’t really do things I don’t understand. I have to understand what I’m doing. Save the image as a jpeg or png file? What do those mean? Why, or when, should I use one instead of the other? Make sure the dpi is 72 or less? Okay, never done that before. How do I do that? And why is that necessary? Make sure the size is not more than y by z? That I think I can handle, but I’m not real sure. Use shorter file names? Okay, but how do I keep them straight on my hard drive?

All these are going to take weeks to come up to speed on. Meantime, all my creative writing time has gone into writing for Suite101. Now suddenly all my creative writing time is going to go to learning photos and images and how to manipulate them for the Internet. Doggone it. I want to write. I don’t want to be a photo manipulator, or a layout artist. The bloom has certainly come off the Suite101 rose. Whether it will bloom again remains to be seen. I’m not a happy camper.

Oh, I also was out of commission a couple of days this week, having a colonoscopy. Not the world’s greatest experience, but at least all seems well (one “small polyp” removed). Bad week to have that in terms of emotions.

Health

The Biggest Loser

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Well, our contest at work is over. We began it January 5th with about 20 people. Some of those quit the program; some were laid off. We limped to the finish line yesterday with 10 remaining participants. I had been in the lead since week seven, and had slowly widened that lead–well, I really widened it the week I had food poisoning, but that didn’t last. However, the eleven day road trip didn’t do much for me, even doing isometric exercises while driving. I came back from vacation up about five pounds. So I was worried.

Then, the man who is coordinating the contest sent out an e-mail saying that, due to inconsistencies in how everyone had been weighing, we were to make our final weigh-in with shoes off and pockets empty. I had been emptying my pockets, but not taking off my shoes. That clinched it for me. I came in first, with 7.01% weight loss in the seventeen weeks. I could have done better, but I’ll take it. The prise is a day off with pay, something I don’t really need but will figure out how to use.

Now comes phase two, losing the next 52 pounds to get to the upper end of my ideal weight range. I’d like to be down 25 pounds more by the end of the year, and hopefully cross the next milestone weight by the end of this month.

Stay tuned.

Fifty Thousand Screaming People, Health, letters, Writing

Well, not quite normal yet

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In my last post I reported that I was back to normal after the food poisoning the week of March 16th. I was wrong, though: I’m not really back to normal. Oh, physically I am, I guess. But mentally I’m not. All the good I was doing on weight loss is in danger of being reversed, as since the sickness I have no desire to eat right. The three days out of town, on conference fare, didn’t help. But at home I just haven’t felt like doing what I need to do to have the right kinds of foods for lunch or supper. Consequently, when I weighed in today, I was way, way up. I’m still a good amount ahead from where I started, but if I don’t get back at it today…. It probably hasn’t helped that Lynda is still away. No accountability partner.

This weekend I could not focus very well. I started Saturday with a couple of household things. We added a console TV to the living room, which hides the lower shelves of a corner cabinet. This cabinet (not a built-in) needed to be raised anyway, since it is 18 inches shorter than the built-ins on the other end of the wall. So Saturday morning, using some salvaged 2×6 boards, I “built” an 18 inch riser for it and installed it. Then I reloaded all the shelves with the nicknacks that had unceremoniously cluttered the hearth for a month. The console TV hides the riser very nicely. Oh, I also raised the console TV the thickness of two 2x6s, as it was a bit close to the floor for comfortable viewing. This all consumed the morning, much of the time working with the salvaged wood to back out nails and separate pieces prior to sawing.

After that, though, I had a very hard time tackling my next project: income taxes. I made a good start, but my concentration faded. As it was snowing outside, I didn’t particularly want to walk as a means of clearing my head. So I puttered on the taxes, got a little done, surfed the web, played mindless computer games, and watch a little NCAA basketball.

I also read in my recent book purchases (the Tolkien letters, the C.S. Lewis letters, and misc. C.S.L. writings), in the Mark Twain Hawaii letters, and in a writers mag. Even with those, I found my mind wandering, and I went from item to item with little comprehension. I gave that up and, as the snow had stopped, drove to Wal-Mart to pick up a few things urgently needed (peanut butter among them), then did laundry and dishes. That got me through 6:00 PM, and a PB&J sandwich through 6:30 PM. I tried the taxes again, and made a little more progress.

Saturday evening was better as far as concentration was concerned. I worked on my outline for In Front of Fifty Thousand Screaming People, and outlined the next seven chapters. That will get me about half way through the book. I was able to read with greater comprehension after that.

Sunday, at a church dinner, I thought my sickness was coming back. Fortunately, it was only one episode and I seem to be fine physically. Still, that gave me a too-easy excuse not to walk or exercise. The taxes again resisted the five hour concentrated effort needed to complete them. I outlined the rest of a political essay I started, then went back to my reading. I found some of C.S. Lewis’ letters on his spiritual life quite interesting, Tolkien’s letters to his son during WW2 less so.

So what will this week hold? I need to get back on the stick as far as exercise and diet are concerned, and get back in the form I was in two weeks ago. I need to have that concentrated time to complete our taxes. It looks as if we will get a nice refund, and I need to get that in the works. And I need to get back to writing, so that if I do get to go to a conference in May (hopefully the Blue Ridge one again), at least I’ll have something to present to editors/agents.

Tonight I get my wife back. Yeah!

Health

Functioning on Three Cylinders

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Tuesday I picked up a bug. Well, at least it was Tuesday evening I began feeling nauseated, with a tight and painful stomach. I lost my supper about 11 PM, went to bed, and was up at 2:15 AM for the big…well, I’ll spare you the details. I was up every 15 minutes through the rest of the night. Wednesday I just stayed in bed or in my reading chair, trying to find strength to function. Finally, at 6:00 PM I went to the nearby dollar store and bought some Gatorade to replensih fluids and electrolytes. I went to bed at 8:45M, and didn’t get up till 8:00 this morning. Haven’t eaten anything since Tuesday evening.

Consequently, I’m behind on everything I planned on doing. I finished Dune Messiah, and planned to blog a book review yesterday. Maybe tonight. I had hoped to send off “Mom’s Letter” to at least two markets by today, but have not been able to complete the last, little research needed.

Tonight is writing critique group. I was really hoping to go and present two Documenting America columns. I guess I’ll wait and see if I can finish the day at work and how I feel at 5:00 PM. I wouldn’t have come to work today except for needing to get some PowerPoint slides done for my presentation next week.