Shaken, but not stirred

OK, so my arms are no longer red or swollen or hot but still are somewhat tender.  Dr. Alkhateeb’s office wrote back saying that what I was experiencing “happens sometimes.”  So, no big deal.  I have complete movement of my arms again.  So we were worried over nothing, but when dealing with cancer reactions, nothing can be something sometimes.

Can’t wait to get my new glasses, I won’t have to pull things up to my nose or push them out to the extremes to see.  But now I am questioning my choice in frames, yeah, the Oakley’s were/are cool and the “fit my face perfectly”, but it might be too much of a change.  I think I should have just gotten exactly what I have/had and been happy.  Oh well, too late now.

LOL, my CPAP died because the cord got pulled out of the block.  DOH.  So, all that was done to “Fix” it was for naught.  It wasn’t till we put it all back together did we notice the plug issue.  Then we forgot to plug one tube back into place and had a flood on my bookcase, probably ruined a few books, haven’t had the guts to look yet.  But I think my Cthullu books are destroyed.  Sucks, but accidents happen.  Anyhow, CPAP worked from 2am to 6am and I haven’t slept that good in a long time.

I got my blood drawn 5 minutes before it was too late to draw it today.  Cortisol has to be taken before 10:30am, why?  Dunno.  But it does and at 10:25am the lab lady took my blood and said have a nice day.  Talk about cutting it close.  I was there at 10:02am waiting patiently.  Was all set to tell them I would come back tomorrow at 8am.  But I didn’t have to, so it should be all good.

Today I got a call back from Iowa Ortho, Des Moines top orthopedic specialists.  Tomorrow at 2 I have an appointment with one of their doctors to get my knee checked out.  I am expecting more x-rays, maybe an MRI and maybe a cortisone shot.  I think it may be arthritis, but it could be something else altogether.  All I know is that I didn’t DO anything to it to hurt it, it just started hurting one day.  So, hopefully something positive comes out of tomorrow’s appointment and not just a “Live with it.”

Avaras launches tomorrow night, Dungeons and Dragons at its finest.  OK, maybe not its finest, but at a fine point.  lol.  Potentially 140 Undead ready to beat up this poor party.  I really hope that things turn out alright for them.  I don’t want to have to fudge numbers and I don’t want to have to kill a character.  But hey, stuff happens, it is part of the game.  Really, it’s no tougher than last time and the characters are NOW more powerful than the first party, so should be a cakewalk for them.  HA.

My car is being dropped off next Monday with orders to keep it till it is fixed.  It needs its suspension redone and steering fluid leak fixed.  AND it needs all of it’s belts replaced, including the big one that holds the engine halves together.  So they are gonna have it for a while I would guess.  2 or 3 days would be my guesstimate.  Like get it back Thursdayish.  But it needs to be fixed and the place we are taking it to got a heck of a recommendation from one of Teresa’s coworkers.  So, we will give them a chance, can’t be worse than what Adel Chrysler (which became Deery Brothers Chrysler in Waukee) did to it last time they worked on it.  I just want to be sure I can get from here to my families house in the Region, tool around the Region some, and then get me back here.  And these few items were pointed out by people we trusted in Rochester.

Did I mention that we were on the two month schedule at Mayo again.  Don’t have to go back in August, have to go back on September 9th.  That is way cool if you ask me.  I really dread the drive up and back and all the waiting in between.  But if you look at a calendar, September 9th is a Monday, we are Friday people.  Going to be really different going on a Monday when they are considerably busier.  Oh well, at least I convinced the scheduler to start us later in the day than initially scheduled.  Those 7 and 8am starts of the day at Mayo started with 3am wake ups here in Adel.  YUCKO.  10:20am still requires a 6:30 leave time, but that’s not so bad.

Sorry about forgetting the video yesterday.  I was tired and cranky and I just plain forgot.

 

 

 

Of medical and Dungeons and Dragons and more

My arms are red, swollen and hot where I got my baby shots at on Friday.  I do not remember (neither does Teresa) this being the case days later from the first round of shots.  It’s bad enough that Teresa made me message Dr. Alkhateeb about this reaction to find out if its normal or not.  My arms are really tender right now.  It sucks.

Earlier today we went to the Eye Doctor.  I knew my vision was worse, Teresa thought her vision might be worse.   We both ordered new glasses.  Teresa got a pair that looked incredible on her.  I changed up my look and went with a pair of Oakley’s that “fit my face perfectly”.  Since my lenses are progressive, mine cost almost (but not quite) twice as much as hers.  But now we are both going to have Adaptive Transition Lenses version 8.  Supposedly they get dark quicker and get lighter 3 minutes quicker.   I guess we shall see (literally).

Teresa took apart my CPAP, cleaned it real good, and put it back together.  Tonight we find out if it works.  Yeah, I did not even look at it yesterday after the failure Friday night.  Teresa just grabbed it and took it away.  I hope it works.  Would hate to tell our insurance that it doesn’t work and I need a new one.  But I am serious about my desire to use the CPAP every night.  And will fight with insurance if its borked.

Tomorrow, early in the morning (8am) I have to call Dr. Wehbe’s office to try to get in and get my labs done before 10:30am.  Might be difficult on a Monday, but hey gotta do what I gotta do.  Need my cortisol checked before 10:30am for some reason, so I will drag my butt out of bed way earlier than I normally do and try to get it done.

So, anyhow, I am still not sleeping well.   Between the regular not sleeping well I have been doing, my CPAP dying in the middle of the night, and my arms hurting so much as I sleep on my side, I have just not been sleeping good.  Maybe Teresa fixed my CPAP, maybe my insomniac tendencies will stop, something has to give, I am so tired.

I am counting the moments until Aravas launches again.  My Dungeons and Dragons campaign is a fully thought out one for a change.  I have a lot of stuff ready to roll, pretty much broken up into 3 hour increments.  It’s going to be good.  I gave the party Feats.  So, I am not as worried about the TPK.  Feats can make a significant difference.  I now think it’s going to be a fair fight between the undead and the party.  Like I have said, I changed how the undead are gonna be spawned, so it is possible to get a bunch of wimpy undead but likewise as possible to get a bunch of tough undead.  Randomness Heh.

Wednesday is gaming at Mayhem Comics and Games again.  I feel like an old man there, especially when adults bring their kids to play.  But I want to meet as many people as I can so I can get a group together to play in the Hole.  I only want a party of 6 but will take 8 which is way too many.  The thing is that most of the people are already in groups who are in campaigns, but we shall see if I can pull some people away from those groups.  Anyhow, for now I play in a Strahd campaign. B L Zebob, the gnome necromancer will plod along with the party.  We are so many, we’ll just swarm Strahd and he will be toast.

Thursday is my first redone root canal.  Since I do not want them to abscess better to get them done sooner as opposed to later.  So, first one gets done Thursday.  Then the next one hopefully the next week.  The second one is the “if we can’t fix it, we pull it”, so I am kind of glad it happens later.

Friday is Strahd campaign number two.  I found out yesterday that we are going to play next Friday.  And I told Jet that unless some unforeseen happens between now and Friday I will be there.   Fedha my dragonborn paladin wants some vampire blood on his flail.  He’s a silver dragonborn so he breathes cold.  Which is (hehehehe) cool.  Seriously, it’s the only dragon breath that is a Constitution Save.

Somewhere during the week, I hope to drop my car off to be fixed.  I want the steering and suspension fixed before I drive it to my brother and mother’s house.  6 hours with messed up suspension would just suck and the suspension is messing with the steering.  We were quoted 800 bucks in Rochester.  I bet it’s gonna cost more here.  But Teresa got a recommendation of “a good and honest” mechanic.  So we are going to give him a try.  The other thing that could go wrong is the big belt that hold the 2 halves of the engine together might be bad.  If it was to break, I would be dead in the water so to speak.  We were quoted 1600 bucks in Rochester for all of it, I am guessing it’ll be over 2000 here.  The joys of living in the middle of nowhere.

I’ve got to say it.  I hated another WWE PPV.  Extreme Rules was boring and predictable.  And we left the show with Brock Lesnar as the Universal Champion.  ZZZZZZZZZZZZ  I am about to surrender WWE and cancel my subscription cuz your programming sucks.  Vince needs to retire and they need to hire new writers, writers who have a clue of what will entertain the audience at home.  I mean, maybe it was really cool for people there, but watching it here, I was bored and I am sick of Brock “I don’t work enough to even be considered part-time” Lesnar.   Should have skipped this PPV like I did Stomping Grounds.

Last night I watched AEW’s Fight for the Fallen.  It was a good show.  Yeah, they are shoving the Elite down our throats, but they are also showcasing talent which I have never heard of but are down right entertaining.  And they proved me wrong when 50 year old Dustin Rhodes hung with 29 year old Nick Jackson in their tag match and didn’t look like an old man.  Maybe that means their is hope for Chris Jericho who is only 48.

 

An omission, CPAP problems, and more

What I forgot to say in last nights blog post (I was really hurting and really tired, so forgive me) is the all of my blood stats went down, platelets even down into the low zone.  This could be caused by a couple of things:  A body naturally fluctuates in these numbers from time to time; just caught me at a bad time.  I have 2 teeth infected currently, the infections can totally screw up blood start. Or the 3rd reason and we don’t want to thing about it, AML or MDS is coming back.  Now, obviously we are hoping for the first or second reason and NOT the third.  Anyhow, I hope to get in to get my blood drawn on Monday which is real soon, but it’ll eliminate the first option.  We shall see.  For the record, I am not worried yet.

First night with the CPAP again was an abject failure.  Everything looked right, but sometime between 10:45pm and 3:30am it shut off.  And I could not get it to turn back on, and I wasn’t going to futz with it at 3:30 in the morning.  So here I am up at 6am again, wondering what went wrong.  And I am tired, but not sleepy or maybe I am sleepy, I don’t know.  All I know is I am upset that my CPAP went kaput on me in the middle of the night.  I am bummed that I did not get the good night sleep that I was so looking forward to.  Hopefully something just jiggled loose and it’s a quick fix, but I have to wait for Teresa to get up, wouldn’t want to wake her on her weekend.

PLUS, sleeping on my side, like I do, was exceptionally painful.  My poor arms are still hurting.  They will hurt for a few more days, then I will forget about the pain.  But for now, it hurts to lay on them either side as I got multiple shots on both sides.

Avaras, my Dungeons and Dragons campaign on Tuesday nights Session 1 is coming soon.  The summoners and the undead are ready.  It’s going to be a tough fight for this particular group.  I am really hoping against a Total Party Kill (TPK), I have only had this happen one time in all the years I have been playing (well, multiple times to the same party).  But for some reason, this group doesn’t seem as strong to me as the last group, on paper that is.  I could be totally wrong, they could just wipe through the undead like they aren’t even there.  But it’s all good, the players will have fun and so will I.

What I decided to do about Strahd on Wednesday and Strahd on Friday is absolutely nothing.  Not going to intentionally tell either DM about it.  A little shifty on my part, but I don’t think I will be harming anyone.  I can play stupid about things that I already know.  It’s all good, it’s just Dungeons and Dragons.

I did not play last night in the Friday game.  I got home way too late and my arms hurt way too much.  I do not know when the next Friday night game is.  It’s all good, I will play in the next one, whatever Friday it is.

And Wednesday night is set in stone, just wish we had more than 2 hours to play.  3 would be perfect, but I understand that Mayhem doesn’t want to have to be open that late in the middle of the week.  So, 2 hours is what we get.

Teresa and I made eye appointments for tomorrow (yes, Sunday) at 2 and 2:20, with Dr Lock.  He works at Lenscrafters, the only eye doctors on my insurance.  He is who I went to last time and the glasses were perfect ( no headache, no swimming feeling).  So, go back to where I got good service last time.  YAY, new glasses, I will be able to see better again.

How was your day? This was mine.

Didn’t sleep so good last night, no surprise there.  Did get 1 mask for the CPAP, so I should be good for a month or so.  Hopefully my nights of crappy sleep will become a thing of the past.  We shall see what happens with the mask.

The trip to Mayo was standard fare.  Did not hit construction until we got to Minnesota.  Then about 15 miles of 1 lane with a truck going real slow in the front.  It’s all good, we made it, would have been “on time” if we didn’t have to stop and alleviate pressure from our bladders when we got there.  So, technically we were 2 minutes late but had to wait for 10 minutes for the lab to call my name, so I call it even.

Did not get to see Dr. Alkhateeb today, saw some CRNP instead names Sue I think.  She had the personality of a shoe.  She seemed competent enough, but she like phoned the visit in.  I would rather have seen Dr. Alkhateeb and his bad sense of humor and attempts at having a personality.  Oh well, that’s another visit over.

Then I went and got more baby shots.  And damn do my arms hurt.  Typing this is really causing dimensions in pain.  So, it will probably be much shorter than normal.  Getting the shots took about 10 minutes total.

We got word via the portal that we don’t have to go back for 2 months.   Which is a big YEAH BUDDY!!!!  I do have to get a blood test next week and another blood test in a month.  But I get to do those at Dr. Wehbe’s clinic, which is just a short jaunt away.   So, that’s cool too.

The drive home we stopped for dinner in Clear Lake at Culvers.  It was exceptional as per Culvers normal.  We then proceeded home, however Waze took us a new way home which took us thru Ames on the 30 and from the 30 to the 169 into Adel.  I do not think it took any more time, but it sure was a nicer drive (ride) than the traffic that is the 35/80 through Des Moines.  We may make that weird detour the normal route just because.

We got home about 7:30pm, which made it a 12 hour day.  Which is much better than the 16 hour days we normally ended up with before.  I am still dead tired though, it’s a draining experience.

It was a beautiful day in Rochester, but here it was supposedly 90 degrees.  I am so glad I didn’t have to deal with the heat today.  Tomorrow will be a whole nother story.  And so on and so forth and so on and so forth for a while at least.

Everything I ordered did show up yesterday.  All of it.  Not all the I expected, but everything I ordered.  I seem to have forgotten some things, so I ordered them to be delivered tomorrow.

Now I am on arm recovery mode for the weekend.  Going to watch wrestling Saturday and Sunday.  AEW and WWE (if I can stomach it), respectively.  ROH is next weekend.

I surrender, gonna go rest my arms.

Stuff

Ah, sleep.  You rascal.  Last night you visited me in the most wonderful way.  I only woke up twice that I remember.  Really, I slept so good last night I may not take a nap today, heh, who am I kidding, I will probably take a nap after I finish this blog.  But the point is, I am choosing to take a nap, not I am so tired that I have to take a nap.  Anyhow, it was nice to sleep well, it’s always nice when I get a good night’s sleep.

Today is supposed to be the last nice day.  High of around 83, the sun is shining.  They are calling it a 10.  Tomorrow and for the next week at least it’s gonna be in the 90s and humid.  YUCK..  It’s supposed to ramp up slowly, but yuck.

I went to Mayhem Comics and Games yesterday to play Dungeons and Dragons in person again.  I really did something stupid though, I wanted to get there around 4 o’clock to talk to Brent (the boss) about DMing on Wednesdays.  Well, I drove all the way there but forgot my backpack, so I had to drive all the way back home, to drive all the way there agaiin.  Mind you its close to a half hour drive.  Well, I made it with 3 minutes to spare.  Just long enough to talk to Brent and get set up with him to start DMing on August 21st (doh, I told him the 24th, will have to fix that).

The game I played in itself was actually quite fun.  A little boring starting off, but once it started going, I had a good time.  The only problem is that its Strahd, the same adventure that I am supposed to run with Jet on Friday nights.  DOH.  Since I am only going to get like 10 hours with the Wednesday night group before my vacation, and after I get back, I plan on running my own game.  I don’t figure it will affect my ability to play in Jet’s game, but I will talk to her anyway, just to make sure she is ok with me playing in both Strahd games.

Everything I ordered is coming today.  I checked them all and they are all out for delivery.  SWEETNESS.  Yeah, buddy.  Can’t wait to see what miniatures I ordered and what they Reaper minis game me for free.  Can’t wait to get my grubby mitts on my ordainship credentials.  Yep, even looking forward to getting the padded boxes that hold the miniatures and the Battle Mat.  Yep, it’s all coming today.  WOOT

Everything is on cruise control for my Tuesday night Avaras Dungeons and Dragons campaign.  I have the first night completely ready.  And the second session is ready too.  And I have the third and forth sessions planned out as well, not ready per se, but I am pretty sure whats going to happen.  Avaras will be affected by my vacation too.  The 6th is my birthday, can’t play on my birthday, have to do dinner with Teresa.  Then the 13th I will still be in Indiana.  I am coming back on the 14th.

Future stuff for me:

Friday:  Mayo, have to be there by 11:10 am, no problem.  Back home by 7pm?  If my arms will let me. Play Strahd.

I cancelled the Allergist appointment on Monday

Tuesday:  Avaras Session 1

Wednesday:  D&D at Mayhem.  Strahd.

Thursday:  Root Canal at noon.  Be miserable for rest of day.

You know that nap that I said I was gonna CHOOSE to take, well, it has turned into a MUST take.  I just got hit with a major wave of sleepiness.  So peace out my brothers and sisters.  I will find a video and then I will be asleep for an hour or two.

They are going to buy an elephant

Sleep, that elusive thing, evaded me again last night.  It looked promising, I was asleep by about 10:45 and I slept sounding for a couple hours, waking up at 2:10am.  I got watch 3:10, 4:10 and 5:10 roll past.  Sometime between 5:10 and Teresa’s 6am alarm I must have dozed off, cuz she yelled at me for sleeping on my back, which I am definitely not supposed to do.  Well, about 7:30am I fell back asleep, my alarm was set for 8:30am to give me time to get ready and get to my endodontics appointment at 10.  So, yes, I got some sleep, but not nearly enough.  Nap time after this blog and I take the trash to the curb.

The endodontics appointment was interesting, he told me in great detail about what was wrong with #14 and #15.  It looks like we can save #14 but #15 is kinda anyone’s guess until he gets inside to take a look.  The cheap dentist I used when we lived in Vegas really did a number on these 2 teeth.   Basically they have to be completely root canaled again and in #15 some of the pathways looked blocked, if that is the case, #15 gets pulled.  There is quite a bit of infection near the nerve ends on both teeth, thus the reason these need to be done.  My appointment for the first one is next Thursday at Noon.

Session 0 for my Dungeons and Dragons campaign, Avaras, was last night.  The first 40 minutes we kept mostly on track and information got passed and questions got answered.  Then someone brought up World of Warcraft and things fell apart.  I called the session at 1 hour and 2 of the players kept rambling for another hour about WoW.  It’s all good I guess, people needed to get to know each other.  Chatting about WoW is getting to know a person sorta.  Danny and I kept talking for a while longer after everyone else was gone.  Danny is a good friend.  Cori is a good friend.  Jason is a good friend.  I thought Tabitha was at least 16, but she is only 14 and quiet like a mouse.  She is gonna get steamrolled I am afraid.  Nick was pretty quiet too.  Bruce was babbling with everyone.  Anyhow, I like this group, I hope I don’t screw it up.

Session 1 is next Tuesday.  I have titled it “Against the Undead”.  They are going to face a lot of undead, just like last time cuz it starts a major recurring plot line that I don’t want to throw away.  It’s all good though, everyone has been told that night 1 is going to be tough and those who have been thru it before know what I am saying.  Get past night 1 and it will get easier before it gets harder.  I gave them all the ability to hurt undead, so that’s good.  It’s just can they kill them all without dying themselves.   That we will know next Tuesday night.

Credentials, Minis, Paints, Boxes, and Battle map should all arrive tomorrow.  Big day for the mail man and the UPS guy and for ME. 🙂  I need new toys to play with.  New junk to clutter the house with.  Teresa won’t care that I got them, she will just want to know where I am going to put them…  I guess in the basement for now.  Except for that which I am working on, that’ll go in the spare room.  Yup, that is how things are going to roll.

Once again, I didn’t play WWE Y2k19 on the XBOX yesterday.  I got sidetracked and it just didn’t happen.  So, maybe tomorrow before everything arrives.  This week is crawling by.  It feels like tomorrow should be the weekend already, but we are just half way through.

I’ve calculated time and watched the weather.  Should, mind you SHOULD, be back in time for Jet’s Strahd campaign on Friday night.  Even if we stop at eat, which we normally do, I should be back before 7.  the question will actually be will I be able to actually lift my arms after the baby shots.  Need my arms to play.  LOL.  We shall see.

Looking forward to a weekend of rest and relaxation and watching wrestling.  I’ll need it after Friday at Mayo.

Exhaustion caused sleep is still sleep

I slept last night, miracle of miracles, I slept without the CPAP.  I must have gotten 10 hours of blissful sleep total.  I feel good.  My body just sort of shut down at 9:30pm last night and the next thing I remember is Teresa’s alarm going off a 6am, me deciding I wasn’t getting up, then my med alarm going off at 7am (I do not remember taking my meds but apparently I did) and finally my med alarm at 9am, which finally woke me up.  Mind you there were some trips to the bathroom during the night, but overall I slept.

This does not mean I am not going to get new masks for CPAP and start using it again.  It was just my body’s defense against total exhaustion.  The CPAP helps me cut down the trips to the bathroom at night by helping me get into a deeper sleep.  Deeper sleep means I don’t need as much sleep.  More time to do much of nothing.

Tonight is Session 0 if my Dungeons and Dragons Campaign, Aravas.  The 5 players I have spoken to are excited to get things going.  Nick, the 6th, the one I need to talk to has been elusive.  But it’s all good.  I’m sure he is excited too.  Session 0 will take less than an hour and be done.  Then it’s on to Session 1.

Session 1 is next Tuesday.  I’ve got the undead list all written out.  Going to go about the undead attack is a slightly different way than last time. Don’t know if it will make it harder or easier or the same, just different.  We’ll find out next week.  As it stands I think the old party on paper was stronger than the new party, but paper doesn’t mean crap.  I think the new party will do just fine.

OK, I was wrong, my Ordainship credentials are to be on the way today.  Being shipped 2 day, so will be here on Thursday I believe.  Way cool.  They are sending them 2 day priority mail thru the USPS.  So, should have no problem getting here by Thursday.

My miniatures and paints are somewhere between Denton, TX and Adel, IA coming UPS.  I have a tracking number that just tells me that they were picked up.  lol.  That is the first step in them getting here.  Estimated delivery is Thursday.  They’ll be here Thursday.

Battle Mat has shipped from Amazon.  The miniature cases haven’t shipped yet.  But they will all be here on Thursday.  I need it all to get here on Thursday cuz I won’t be here on Friday to sign for things.   And I am sure I have to sign for the miniatures.

After I finish writing this blog entry, I am going to fire up the XBOX and try to play WWE 2k19 Wrestling game finally.  Only had it here for a month.  Should have cracked it open a long time ago.   Should do a lot of things that I don’t.  So today is the day.

I hope I get home early enough on Friday to play Dungeons and Dragons with Jet and Derek and Shannon and Beth and Alan.  I’m really looking forward to Strahd.  But priorities on Friday are getting the CPAP masks, not on making it home in record time.

Heh, AEW’s Fight for the Fallen is on Saturday.  WWE’s Extreme Rules in on Sunday.  I got my weekend covered.  I’ll still have time to finish plotting Session 1 of Aravas.