Just Like (a) Human

I’ve come to a realization that I need to do something new to me to get enjoyment out of my own life. Doing the same thing over and over again leaves me feeling frustrated with myself, and frustrated with the people and things around me.

At some point in the future, I need to go somewhere new, or do something that is exciting in a good way. Maybe I should get on an airplane and go somewhere, just to make myself get over my fear of heights. Maybe if I do that, I’ll even get up and walk around on the plane. They do, after all, recommend walking around on the plane for long flights to help prevent blood clots from forming in your legs. That’d be new for me to do, but it scares me at the same time.

I guess it’s me being bored with Tampa itself…

It’s been a while, humanity.

I kept wanting to blog for a while, but each time I wanted to do it, something would keep me from doing so. Little did I realize that it was a configuration mistake on my part that caused the majority of my issues.

I’ve had a lot to write about, too. I went in for that adenosine thallium stress test. I want to never experience that again. The thallium goes in smoothly, with no issues. It’s the adenosine that’s the bugger. It felt like someone had just turned loose millions of malfunctioning nanobots into my bloodstream, and they were all exploding ten times a second. The pain was so terrible that my chest couldn’t contain it all — I could physically feel the pain backwash into my arms and down into my hands.
As embarrassing as it sounds, I was crying, begging for them to stop it. It was like every single nerve ending had a cheese grater running over it. That was the longest four minutes of my life.

I think I may have a merrier Christmas this year than I did last year — I actually feel fairly happy this month, with all health issues aside. Heh, Santa may even come for me this year, and give me something fun to play with.

Calling it quits for today,
Xee!

I got a call on Monday, asking me to come in to the Doctor’s office. Given that the Doctor and I had already agreed on two weeks from my last appointment, I was justifiably worried that they found something that needs to be taken care of as soon as possible.

I go in, pay my co-pay (which is annoying, and seems like a trap, when you’re just returning for results, makes you think that hmm, there might be more to this visit), and go to see the doctor. He, in his rather downplaying manner, tells me that I have high cholesterol (no surprise here) and high triglycerides. He then mumbles a few things (did I mention that I would prefer a doctor who natively speaks English, instead of English as a second language?) and tells me “That’s all.”

For those of you who know of my legendary patience, you’ll find the next bit surprising.

I ripped that doctor a brand new number two.

I let him know that I hate how I was left wondering if there was something critically wrong that I was asked to come in long before the two weeks was up, and then he just tells me something this simple. At some point, two F-missiles roared out of the launcher; he got mad, and wanted to start yelling at me.

I let him know in no uncertain terms that he’s not going to yell at me. He said he didn’t have to take it, and was going to leave the room. “Fine, then leave. I don’t really care,” was my response to him.

Of note, this doctor also downplayed the Acid Reflux thing last Friday. Everything I know about it, I learned from people who have had Acid Reflux.

… and now, a week later, I come back to finish writing this post. Since then, I’ve been in the hospital. This past Thursday, I went to the hospital in an ambulance, complaining of chest pain. It felt like a web of pain that focuses in the middle of my chest. I still get traces of this pain by just sitting down and doing nothing in particular. Honestly, the doctor I had on Friday tried to do a stress test on me, wanting to get my pulse up to 165 beats per minute, but I failed that test due to my blood pressure skyrocketing to 230 over 115. While it came back down to normal about 10 minutes after I stopped doing the test, it worried the doctor, so he wanted me to make an appointment to have another test done — this time, they want to do an Adenosine Thallium stress test, since I failed on the Bruce protocol (timed treadmill) test.

Honestly, I am pretty worried, since some of my symptoms match up with one of my fears: a pulmonary embolism.

I don’t really feel like posting this, but I need to get back into the once-a-week or better habit of blogging my thoughts. So, I present to you a few tidbits of what’s going on in my life.

• I saw the doctor on Friday, missing a day of work. The doctor states that I have another throat infection, AND that I have Acid Reflux. No connection was noted between the two. I now take a prescription for the stomach acid I have. It makes sense, too — the food they feed us here isn’t all that healthy, as it is laden with calories.
• Speaking of calories, I’m steadily gaining weight. It’s a combination of being stressed out — which leads to me drinking sodas steadily again — and not smoking. I stopped smoking because I can’t find a cigarette that is as satisfying as my old brand of clove cigarettes (Sampoerna). Additionally, I don’t get enough exercise, and I know it.
• Moving on to exercise, I’d like to get some more of it. I really ought to go to the YMCA up the street from here and get a membership there. I should also replace my bicycle, since this one’s needing some repairs that are probably going to be expensive…
• Onto expensive things: I’m falling behind on my budget and plan to get out of here, simply by stopping to eliminate old debts. I’m working on getting rid of my student loan’s debt by just paying on it in lumps. I refuse to deal with this company in the way they ask, because I think they’re trying to pull the wool over my eyes. Why would I need to tell them the names, addresses, and phone numbers of three people that really know me, just to pay the debt?
• I made a comment via Twitter the other day, mentioning things afflicting me: “Acid reflux, Carpal tunnel, hypertension… What’s next? A thyroid disorder!?” — these are things listed not only in alphabetical order, but also in order of most recent afflicted by, to least recently. A thyroid disorder would be what I expect next, though it’s going to break the chronological order, most likely.
• Oh, and speaking of the thyroid, the Doctor took blood samples Friday, and asked me to come back in two weeks.
• The doctor also wanted to set me up to see a psychologist or psychiatrist, which I think might help with some of the depression I face. There, now it’s in the world’s eye, and I can’t deny it any more.

There… now that this is done, I’m going to go eat breakfast. Yes. At 4 pm.
Ciao, and Chow.

Just a quick post here before I call my taxi today.

I just found out that if I miss the 8 am bus to work, and try to catch the 8:30, I run the risk of really not getting there on time. Since the 8 am route causes me to catch two buses (#6, #37), and would get me there at about 8:45, it’d be fine. However, the 8:30 would require three buses (#6, #15, #37), and it is supposed to put me at the bus stop at 9:23 AM.

Any desync between the three buses could mean I won’t get there on time. The #37 is the one that likes to run at whatever time it feels like, it seems, so I’m just gonna call the taxi in a minute here, and head downstairs.

I must admit that I’ve sort of been avoiding HDTV for a while. It’s not that I didn’t want the high definition displays, but rather that I hadn’t seen any at affordable prices. I didn’t want to spend $1000, $2000, or more just for something I watch for a few hours a week!

I was sorely tempted by HDTV, though, after walking by an HDTV kiosk in a local mall several months back, and glimpsing one out of the corner of my eye. I stopped, turned, and walked up to this display, just marveling at the near-lifelike detail, my eyes opened to just how inferior SDTV (that’s Standard Definition TV) is to the new hardware.

While looking around this week to see what I can window shop for (I have a small list of things I would like to put in an apartment, once I get one), I ran across Second Act’s “Great Deal of the Day“. While the televisions shown on the Great Deal of the Day page are a bit pricey, which means it doesn’t meet my current budget need, the rest of the site has some really good prices and deep cuts on HDTVs.

One thing I noticed is that they do something I already do: They get open boxed, overstocked, closeouts, or refurbished televisions to resell to the public. I actually like refurbs, since they are generally retested by their manufacturer, so that the product meets their standards (and thusly doesn’t embarass the company by failing, I’d dare say).

Part of my head’s stuck in the 80’s and 90’s, so I’m comfortable with spending about $300 on a television that will last several years and isn’t a tiny 13″ box. That’s why I was surprised to see a Toshiba 26″ HDTV for a mere $289.99 plus shipping on their site. It gives me something to consider, and somewhere to watch for decent deals for later.

I’ve come to a conclusion: I need a few more things to read during the week.
On a typical weekday, I can open my newsreader, read everything there, comment on a few interesting things, and then do my job as expected. There’s usually not much in my newsreader, either.

I blame LiveJournal, and the few friends I had there, since they have since “stopped posting”. (For the uninitiated, to “stop posting” on LiveJournal is to set the journal to Friends Only, which basically turns your feed into a hundred bytes of useless mush. You’re still posting, but most web based newsreaders can’t see protected posts, as far as I can tell.)

So yeah, if there’s something that I should be reading, and it has a news feed, let me know, right?

(p.s.: on the weekend, I read on one or the other day, and get done just as fast. I just did that, actually.)