An April update

I've been scarce around here but busy, which is the reason for the scarce part.  So what have I been up to?  Working and working out like a fiend, basically.

The job has kept me plenty busy, whether it's been with the regular ins and outs of it or the predictably regular uncertainty of how the whole arrangement will continue.  One answer appears to be close to agreement, which should resolve some issues in the situation and could provide some much-needed freedom and exciting opportunities.  Granted, it also comes with a significant budget cut and the need for some of that to be made up somewhere.  I tend to think it'll be a good thing, assuming it gets approved.  Clearly there are other things that will need to be worked out with another party, but I'm choosing to see this as a step in the right direction.  This has been going on in some form or another for, yikes, around six years, so it will be a relief to put it to rest.  (Or so I hope.)

After ending last year and starting this year feeling banged up, I'm happy to report that I'm feeling much better these days.  The couple of health scares turned out to be nothing (or the lingering effects from that 2010 car accident.) I've been diligent about working out for an hour at least five times a week, whether with a student trainer or on my own.  While I'm resisting doing a hard count of the calories I consume, I have a pretty good idea of how much I should be and am eating.  I can tell that all of this is making a difference.  Without having set foot on a scale, I'd wager I've lost 15-20 pounds so far this year.

I've also taken to trying to go to bed earlier, which is part of the reason why this blog has seen my contributions reduced to almost zero.  I am getting more sleep than I used to, in part because I'm tired by that point in the day and because it's been a conscious choice.

Extra time has seemed like a rare commodity, but I know I'm susceptible to wanting to overdo it to fit in everything.  I think I've done fairly well in balancing how much I can handle with my desire to do more than I'm sometimes able.  (There are always more movies to see than time to see them, for instance.)  Still, I've seen The Black Keys in concert and attended ten NCAA Tournament Division I men's basketball games, including the one in Dayton that President Obama and the British Prime Minister were at.  (I sat just two sections over from them.  That was pretty exciting.)  I'm seeing Bruce Springsteen next week and Radiohead in June.  I'll be making my annual trip to a festival later this month. 

So I certainly can't say that things are boring, even if there are times I'd like more time to catch my breath.  I'd like to be writing here more, and perhaps it'll pick up again on a more regular basis.

Anyway, I thought I'd pipe up for the handful (?) of people who might still peer in here from time to time.

"Sick Day"

I got up bright and early so I could get a root canal.  Fun stuff.  I had decided that regardless of how I felt, I was going to take the day off from work.  I've been stressing over all the stuff that I need to get done, but I figured I could use a day to myself.

I've felt pretty good in general, which is nice, and I'm relieved that the endodontist just needed to go in there and clean everything out of the tooth.  In other words, there isn't a fracture.

So I laid around and watched TV, played video games, and took a nap.  I'll gladly give up days like this if a root canal is what I have to get to give myself one, but this was a nice pause before letting things go back to being crazy.  Plus, I'm feeling better physically, which makes a world of difference too.

Rediagnosed

So that sinus infection that I said came raging back?  Now I wonder if it was ever a sinus infection.

The swelling had gone down, but there was still an area that was blown up.  I began to suspect that this problem may be dental.  Of course, way back when this began in late summer 2010, I thought it might be, but the dentist and his assistant couldn't find anything to suggest that it was.  Like a dummy, I rolled with it and chalked it up to sinuses or allergies.  And didn't do anything about it.  Sometimes it was sorer than others, but it was never really bad.

At other regular cleanings nothing was spotted, so when I went to the doctor back in December, I mentioned that I thought I had a sinus infection.  He applied pressure where the sinus is, it definitely hurt, and he prescribed an antibiotic and nasal spray.  Problem solved, or so I thought until last week.

I've been dutifully using the nasal spray and taking the different antibiotic prescribed last week to beat the infection, but the last couple of days I began to wonder if perhaps this problem was dental-related after all.  Something didn't seem right--the swollen gum, namely--and when I finally took a peek at it, what I saw sure fit the description of an abscess, as previously explained to me by the dentist.

In a panic--I had mistaken the meaning of an abscess for a fracture--I called the dentist's office and secured an appointment for that afternoon.  About an hour later I felt the abscess deflate.  I was really worked out.  Mistaking an abscess for a fracture, I thought this meant I was going to lose the tooth.  (The abscess was near where I've had a root canal.)

What did the dentist have to say?  Yep, that was an abscess and had nothing to do with my sinuses. (Did it ever?  Who knows?)  He determined that I need to have a root canal.  On a tooth that already had a root canal.  Several years ago I had root canals on two adjacent teeth.  After tomorrow morning both will have had second root canals.  (The other one had a nerve left behind, which could have happened if I had an extra one and the endodontist didn't look for it.)

So my reaction to all this is somewhere in the middle.  I'm relieved that, at least for now, there isn't any suspicion of a fracture and the need for an extraction.  I'm aggravated that I'll be paying again to have a root canal on a tooth already treated in such a manner.  I can't say I'm looking forward to the procedure tomorrow morning, but I'm relatively at peace with it and glad/hopeful it isn't more serious.

As for the other medical thing that's caused some discomfort, I ended up getting in at the specialist on the day of the referral.  He didn't find anything and thinks it may be referred pain.  So that's a win in the interim.  But could this year ease up on the health/medical concerns, pretty please?

 

Every breath I take

While at the football game yesterday, I noticed that when I took a deep breath, I'd feel some pain in my chest.  It wasn't unfamiliar.  I've had it pop up before, maybe over the last year or two, and I want to say I chalked it up as a muscular issue.  Some pain in the left pectoral area did get me to have an EKG done at the doctor's office last year, though.  If I recall, he attributed it to posture and the like.  Nothing appeared to be wrong with my heart.

The pain varied in intensity while I was at the game, on the ride home, and while I sat at home watching TV.  I'd experienced the pain in the same spot, but I couldn't recall ever having it for this long of a time.  And thus began my great capacity for worrying.  Logically I didn't think I was having a heart attack or displaying the symptoms.  I'd engaged in no physical activity that would explain its appearance, but there it was anyway.

This is the point where I began looking up information about heart attacks and the like to determine if I really should be getting to a doctor as soon as possible.  It was later at night, and by now I had sufficiently scared myself into deciding that I would call the doctor's office first thing in the morning.  I also had the irrational (?) idea that I'd be better off staying awake the entire night so that if something more serious did manifest itself, I could call 911.  I didn't want to go to sleep because what if something happened and I didn't/couldn't wake up?

I didn't feel in immediate danger, although I'll grant that not wanting to go to the emergency room and rack up big bills there was playing into the decision too.  My attempt to stay up all night couldn't be maintained by the time 3 a.m. rolled around, but I awakened a mere three and a half hours later to sweat out the remaining time until the doctor's office opened.

As it turned out, I couldn't get an appointment today and was pointed toward urgent care or the emergency room.  Again, trying to keep costs down, I went to urgent care and gave a detailed history as to what I thought might be going on and why.  Long story short: the EKG seemed OK, but you walk into urgent care reporting chest discomfort and (as I found out) you're pretty much guaranteed to go to the ER.  They would not allow me to drive myself.  That's understandable, although I wasn't thrilled.

So I was transported by ambulance to the hospital.  All the time I felt like I'd be OK and that I'd made a possibly expensive decision to get this checked out.  But what was done was done.

Blood and a couple chest x-rays were taken.  I laid out the whole story to I don't know how many people again.  And then I waited while arranging for my aunt to be available to take me back to my car.  (Like I said, I felt pretty certain that this wasn't something serious despite my presence there obviously meaning I'd been worried enough.)

My blood was fine.  No clots were spotted.  Everything looked OK.  The doctor thought that it was musculoskeletal and may have been a lingering symptom from the early 2010 car accident I was in.  He offered to crack my back, so to speak, and that this may pop whatever into place that was causing the problem.  I agreed to give it a shot, and I'm relatively assured that this may be all that was needed.  (The ER doctor said something about everything in my back perhaps having been out of alignment.)

I left with prescriptions for ibuprofen and muscle relaxants as well as--and more importantly--(mostly) peace of mind.  After a night of working myself into a fearful state, I'll take that result.

Situation normal

You don't know what you got until it's gone...or until it returns.  That's how the song goes, right?

The last few days I was feeling less than one hundred percent due to...well, let's just say a problem that had me running to the bathroom, so to speak.  (Seriously, am I going there with this post?)  Although it definitely caused discomfort, I felt OK otherwise, which may have made the whole situation worse.  What brought it on all of a sudden?  Why does it not seem to be going away?

I didn't give it much consideration for the first day and a half, but after that I began to wonder what was wrong.  I picked up something from the grocery that I thought might do the trick.  It didn't seem to help.  I went back and asked a pharmacist for a suggestion.  That didn't seem to make a difference at first.  (I believe it has since worked.)  I was getting ready to plan a trip to the doctor's office on Monday morning.

Today, though, everything has seemed OK.  There haven't been any repeats of the distress that began Wednesday night and continued through Saturday.  Whatever it was--a bug, something bad I ate--seems to have gone away.  Phew.

Like I said, this wasn't anything really serious, but it has reminded me of how easy it is to take one's normal status for granted.  I don't necessarily think about or take notice of feeling fine.  It's sort of what I expect.  Then something small but disruptive comes along and makes you appreciate how wonderful it is to feel like you usually do.  Consider me suitably reminded.    

Learned and relearned

Sometimes it takes learning something again and again and again. Let's hope the lesson sinks in this time.

About two weeks ago I noticed that my left outer thigh felt numb while also producing occasional pain. Of course, the first thing I did was jump to some wild conclusions. Since the area was approximately where my cell phone rests against when in my pocket, the obvious answer was that the radiation from the phone had deadened this part of my leg and possibly made it cancerous. I wish I was joking, but seriously, that was the first thing that crossed my mind.

I stopped carrying the phone in my pants pocket to see if a little time without it there would make a difference. It didn't. The problems persisted. Hmm.

Naturally, the obvious thing to do is jump to a conclusion that may be even more outrageous. This must be the first sign of ALS. Never mind that I don't really know much about it. My maternal grandfather died from it--not that I knew him or ever witnessed the effects of the disease--so clearly I must have inherited it.

In my feeble defense, I can't say that I dwelled on these ridiculous assumptions, but not knowing what was wrong and not doing much about it let me worry like a champion. I tried applying Sportscreme and taking a week off from exercising. Neither seemed to have any appreciable effect.

At the very least I could have looked up the symptoms to get some possible answers. Or I could have gone to the doctor. But no, let's worry about this and make myself miserable. Obviously that's the best solution.

I ended up plugging information into Google and finding what seemed like a reasonable diagnosis. Granted, the first place I think I found this was in an old discussion forum with people who had given some worst case scenario answers to those inquiring about their symptoms. I poked around a little more looking for info about this condition and decided that this is probably what I'm experiencing. That in and of itself let me ease up on the worrying.

I called the doctor's office this morning and surprisingly was able to get in today. The doctor agreed that my self-diagnosis sounded correct, handed me some anti-inflammatory medication, and told me to let him know if I don't notice any improvement in a few weeks. (It could still be a pinched/compressed nerve. It just might need to be treated with something else.)

The lesson, again, is that when it comes to medical concerns, it's better to address them head on. Concocting wild ideas about what might be wrong isn't productive. If anything, they make me feel less like checking with a doctor. What if the doctor confirms my worst fears? What if it's expensive? The question that's not going through my mind often enough--but should be-- is what if you're not helping yourself in any way by handing the issue in such a manner? (I should mention that I've not had any impairment or loss of function, which was the main consoling factor in all this.)

I worked out tonight and didn't notice any issues. I then went to see The Mountain Goats in concert, which required being on my feet for three hours straight. That was probably not the best decision--I was feeling the pain early on--but hey, I bought the ticket awhile back. As if not going was an option.

Worrywart

I'm going to postpone today's intended blogging topic until tomorrow. In its place is something that has been on my mind.

I've written about the intense amount of stress I've been under for about the last month, so I won't go into detail with all that again. Suffice it to say that the work uncertainty and pressures coupled with the noise from the neighboring apartment was a bad combination.

It wasn't enough that I felt lousy. I was also letting my tendency to worry get the best of me. Some pains had me half convinced that maybe I was having some heart problems. A couple spots on my chest surely were indications of some kind of skin cancer. Did I really believe what I would let my imagination concoct? Not necessarily, but I was concerned enough to schedule an appointment to see the doctor. I probably haven't had a regular appointment--in other words, not a follow-up--in something like twenty years. That should say all there is to say about my fear.

My two main concerns proved to be unfounded. My EKG was described as textbook. The doctor's conclusion--and my suspicion when I was being rational--is that muscle tightness in my shoulder is responsible for the pain I've had off and on. The moles (or whatever) are nothing to be worried about. We'll see if the blood work results turn up anything, but my expectation is that they will not.

I had already started to feel a little better after scheduling the appointment, and gradually I've been feeling more "normal" as the work news became less worrisome (which isn't to guarantee it will remain that way). I've had three days where it seems like I'm OK or like I expect to be.

The obvious conclusion then is that I worried myself into feeling bad. I'm not surprised by this--I felt like a wreck long enough--but I am taken aback that my state of mind can have such a profound affect on my physical comfort. If ever there was a lesson about fretting, this was one.

Obviously it's easier said than done when it comes to acknowledging that I should worry less. Old, deeply ingrained habits are hard to break, but if there's anything I've learned today or in the past week, it's that I need to let go of those fears. I'm not doing myself any favors otherwise.

Take what you can

The temperature was significantly chillier, and there was snow to be cleared from the car this morning. Nevertheless, it was a good day, not in any big way but just in a general sense that all is well...or better than it has been. To wit:

-I aced my dental check-up.

-For the first full day in about a week I felt much closer to being one hundred percent. I guess I had been sick? I hadn't felt right--sluggish, mostly--since the middle of last week, but it wasn't anything I couldn't fight through and still do what I needed to do. After whatever that was, I have a new appreciation for feeling well.

-I got a relatively quick appointment scheduled for the assessment and removal of this inflamed sebaceous cyst (or so I assume) on the back of my neck that's been bothering me for awhile. (Sorry, am I sharing too much?) I had one of these a little more than a year ago, so I'm pretty sure a new one--rather, an old one that isn't playing nice--is the culprit. Since I tend to treat using health insurance as something "for disasters only"--I concede that this is likely the wrong approach--it's a relief to know that what I have banked in my HSA should cover the entire cost.

-The Blue Jackets won a game, which has been rare enough of late. It was also one I was attending. That's definitely been hard to come by this season.

That's not a notable day, but it sure beats the ones I've been having of late.

Pre-Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving isn't until a week from now, but I feel like I need to get a jump on it in the sense that I should acknowledge some of what I'm grateful for.

This has been kind of a rough week. Part of it stemmed from my concern over an inflamed bump on the back of my neck at the hairline that appeared last week, if not a little before then. I tend to assume the worst, although it took me until Tuesday to decide that I needed to call a dermatologist to get it checked out. (Basically it came down to the pain being too much, especially if I happened to lay on the trouble spot.)

The first place I called said they couldn't get any new patients in for three months. The next dermatology office could do better and scheduled an appointment in a month. I wasn't thrilled, but it was better than nothing. Luckily, they called me when a cancellation made an opening, and I went in today to have my worst fears confirmed or allayed. (I preferred the latter outcome.)

It turns out that I had a sebaceous cyst, which the doctor drained and removed and then bandaged me up so that I kind of looked like I'd been shot in the neck. The procedure wasn't painless, and that area remains a little sore. Still, I am extremely relieved that it wasn't anything serious and will gladly put up with the temporary discomfort. So I'm thankful for good health and fears that have been wiped away.

I'm also thankful for the peace of mind that comes with judging that my front brake pads and rotors needed replaced. (Yes, it was an expensive day.) Sure, I'd rather not have had to shell out for car maintenance, but last time I needed this, I didn't realize it until the brakes were completely gone.

To end on a frivolous note, I'm thankful that I know enough of what I'm doing that I was able to frog three rows on the Holding Hands, Feeding Ducks scarf. I don't knit in fear of making mistakes, but I try to be ultra-vigilant that I don't. Perfectionism runs in the family, but I also worry that I won't be able to undo my errors. I've been stumped by p2tog, so doing several p3tog stitches spooked me. I did it, though. The scarf is fixed, and I feel like I might legitimately have a clue about this knitting thing.