So yesterday at the gym I tried to do a more normal workout and again was greeted with some mild right side pain and feeling more fatigued than normal. I am wondering if the fatigue and side pain are two mutually exclusive things. Maybe I have some sort of rib cartilage injury or muscle tear/strain that just has become chronic. I decided I need to see if I can differentiate between the two.
To me the only way to do it is to stop doing resistance training for a solid week and see if at least the side pain evaporates. Now asking me to not exercise for a week is not good for my sanity so I intend to still hit the gym daily but I’ll only do stretching followed by cardio, most of it on the cross trainer machine. I like throwing the machine into cardio mode where you enter your weight and age and it automatically adjusts the difficulty level to keep your heart rate at an effective cardio level. I’m hoping this experiment at least gives me some tangible results.
This weekend has the normal suspects on the docket. I’m hoping to enjoy it as much as possible. I need to get my Directv Sunday Ticket reactivated, a process I dread each year as it normally requires lengthy time on the phone with various staff until I stumble upon one who knows how to handle my non-standard configuration.
So yesterday I found myself getting increasingly angry at the med center here as they still had not gotten back to me with my CT results. I had called Tuesday afternoon and was told they had the results but they had not been reviewed yet. So roughly 24 hours later nobody from the clinic had reached out to me to let me know what the hell was going on. I was just about ready to march over there and make a large stink about it when my office phone finally rang.
The cliff notes version of the results are nothing significant was discovered. The long version of the findings are below.
CT SCAN OF ABDOMEN AND PELVIS WITH AND WITHOUT CONTRAST
History: Right lower abdominal pain.
Technique: Helical acquisition was taken from the domes of the
diaphragms to the symphysis pubis before and after intravenous
administration of Omnipaque-300 75 ml, nonionic, iodinated contrast
agent. The axial source image data set was post processed by the
technologist with the consequent creation of reformatted images in the
coronal and sagittal planes. All CT scans are performed using radiation
dose reduction techniques. Technical factors are evaluated and adjusted
to ensure appropriate moderation of exposure.
Findings: The study is performed. Basilar foci of hypoventilatory
changes are noted. There is an area of chronic scarring associated with
a thoracic spur right base. The liver, spleen, adrenals and kidneys are
unremarkable. A 2 mm calculus mid to lower pole left kidney. No
hydronephrosis. The bladder and prostate are unremarkable. No
inflammatory process in the right lower quadrant. No soft tissue mass
is seen. Small bowel loops are decompressed. No gross lytic or blastic
bony lesions are seen.
Impression:
1. No significant abnormalities are noted.
2. There is a 2 mm nonobstructive calculus in the left kidney mid to
lower pole.
3. No other significant findings are seen.
The kidney thing is likely a small stone but it’s on the other side and is too small to cause any issue. The scarring has to do with a bone spur which is not unusual for someone my age. Again, it doesn’t really match the symptoms.
So once again, like my blood tests, and xray, the absence of a clue in the CT results left me feeling frustrated. I have a follow up appointment at the clinic on Monday to discuss options from here. My fatigue is not as severe as it was but I still am definitely not feeling normal.
I’m not really sure where this will go from here but I’ll just keep pressing on, it’s the only way I know.
So last night I tasked myself with getting the grass mowed since the ground was too wet over the weekend. Very early on I had a very dangerous and infuriating moment. Several weeks ago the county came around and filled low spots in the road shoulder with limestone. The fill they used included a lot of rock.
Vehicles running onto the shoulder on the street is very common, hence how I have had my mailbox hit three times. Well a side effect of this are the rocks, sometimes very big rocks get kicked into the grass. Many of the rocks are big enough that they could instantly destroy the blades on the mower if not the deck itself so I have to move them out of the way every time I mow.
So that was what I was doing as I rode the tractor along the roadway reaching down and removing stones from my path. As I am reaching down grabbing one close to the size of a tennis ball a truck flies by me, it’s tire only inches away from the edge of the asphalt. He literally missed me by less than a foot. I was instantly infuriated.
I shot up and uttered a verbal tirade as I tried to identify the particulars of the truck. I could tell it was a GM truck that was brown or gray. It was hard to tell much else since it was already a couple hundred yards away. I was so f’ing mad. I could not believe an operator of a vehicle would not move over even a foot to give someone a safety barrier. I just got more and more angry as I mowed. I kept looking at the returning vehicles, hoping to spot the same truck although I’m not quite sure what I would have done. I later realized the incident should be captured on our security DVR which it was.
As I mowed into twilight I just kept thinking how the incident encapsulated for me just why generally speaking, I don’t like people. It would have taken the driver a couple seconds to adjust the path of his vehicle to avoid such a close call but they couldn’t be bothered. F common courtesy, f safety, f common sense, I need to check my incredibly important Instagram post now! As I closed out my video with, people suck, plain and simple.
I can tell we are inching towards fall as it took every last shred of daylight for me to finish mowing, a sign of the shortening days. Despite the asshole in the truck, it felt good to get the mowing completed. Doing it on a Tuesday should mean I can push the next mowing session off until two weekends from now.
Man I feel badly for the people in the path of Hurricane Florence. Not only is it forecast to have Irma like strength but it is forecast to stall as it hits the coast for almost a day which could bring just an unreal amount of devastation to that area. I can imagine the sense of panic and dread they must be feeling, because I have lived it myself, a few times.
One year ago today we were waking up from the aftermath of Hurricane Irma. The storm which carried winds as high as 130 mph in our area was pretty scary at times. The feeling of unknown as you are boarded up in a house as you hear the fury of the hurricane punishing everything around you is something you never forget. The 10 days plus of no power afterward tested our resourcefulness and patience. Like most difficult things in life, we emerged from the other side of the ordeal stronger and more able to deal with future adversity.
I can sympathize with people in the Carolina area that have Florence slowly marching towards shore. I felt the same with Irma as widespread panic took over the area, I just wanted the damn storm to get here, smack us in the face and get out. Waiting for impending doom is not a good feeling.
Today is also the somber anniversary of 911, the most historic national tragedy of my lifetime. The event initially had a universal unifying effect on our country which faded surprisingly quickly. Instead the day now also marks the point in history where our country became terminally ill with political division that has only amplified over time. If you have never seen any of the Loose Change documentaries, you really it owe it to yourself to do so. There are circumstances surrounding this horrible date in time that still to this day have no logical explanation.
So I had my abdominal CT on Friday. I was dreading the two barium shakes I had to drink but they actually didn’t taste that bad. I was able to get both of them down without issue. I had no clue what to expect of the procedure, I had ideas of it taking an hour or more and of course I would have to be in a hospital gown. Neither of those things were true. I didn’t have to even take off my sneakers, the only requirement was not having any metal in the scan area. The entire process took about 15 minutes.
So the drinks were to create “contrast” in my GI system. In addition I was given an IV prior to the scan to give contrast to my blood. The fluid they inject you with feels odd as you can feel it circulating in your body, causing certain areas to heat up. They warned me about the sensation ahead of time. The machine reminded me of the open MRI that was used to scan my knee years ago. During certain periods you are told to hold your breath for a few seconds. The entire thing was really a non-event. Unfortunately I will not have any information on the results until today or tomorrow.
So I felt fine afterwards and came back to the office to eat my lunch. Somewhere after 1PM I started feeling not so fine in my gut. The result was two trips to the bathroom that reminded me of colonoscopy prep. I asked to go home as I felt ready to burst. It was a long drive home as I fought the pressure pretty much the entire way. Unless I missed it, there was no mention of the barium shakes causing explosive results afterward. It would have been nice to know. That was not fun. I wound up laying in bed for a couple hours at home.
Because of persistent rain the property had a lot of standing water still on it so mowing the grass was off my list for the weekend. We started Saturday off with standard fare, tending to the chickens and weeding the property. During the afternoon I turned my chore focus indoors as I vacuumed all the carpeted areas and then followed up with steam cleaning the hard surfaces. Just for good measure I let my two hard surface cleaning robots loose afterward.
Late Saturday afternoon we headed over to the high school. I had the Meepo along and Cindy wanted to get a brisk walk in while I rode. The ride was cut short by yet another round of hard rain. I still had fun cruising in Expert mode. I even maxed the throttle for a short burst which supposedly should be at 20+ mph.
On Saturday night Cindy and I watched our latest Netflix rental, I, Tonya, the movie about the mess which is Tonya Harding. I thought the movie was very well done and provided me with a lot of background that I did not have about her life. I had no idea just how dysfunctional and abusive her relationships were growing up. The circumstances around the Nancy Kerrigan attack just seem incredibly moronic. How that group of mental midgets thought this was a good idea is amazing and a testament to the power of stupid people collaborating. Anyway, I came away from the movie feeling somewhat sorry for Tonya. I’d give the movie a B+.
Sunday was really nice for me, it felt like a perfect mix of work and play. In the morning Cindy and I parked at DD and rode from there. She started out the session on her roller skates but then later switched to her MiniPro.
I got some tidying up done in the hobby room and did something I do far less than I used to, wash the vehicles. I washed the Tacoma and Cindy’s Ioniq. Both were overdue for sure. I used to wash cars a lot more often in the past, I’m not quite sure why I have slacked off on that nowadays. I guess like most negative things, I can attribute it to old age.
So I decided to go out on a second ride mid-afternoon on the Gotway Monster. I wanted to go all the way to Collier North Regional Park and back, a trip of almost 35 miles. Very early on in the ride I saw something bizarre. As I headed west on Immokalee Road I saw four cops fly by me but none of them had their lights on which seemed very odd. As I rounded a corner I saw a car stopped at the intersection with Wilson Blvd with all of those vehicles surrounding it, with their lights on.
As I got closer I saw the car that was pulled over was a Maserati that I remembered passing me a few minutes prior. I assume the cops did not want to tip off the driver they were in pursuit. As I swung out around the police vehicles I was shocked when I saw two of the cops had their guns drawn and pointed at the open door of the car. I glanced quickly to my right and did not see a driver in the seat so I have no idea what was going on. I later tried to look up the incident on the news and the sheriff’s website but found nothing. It was a little crazy.
The ride to and from the park was fun. I was glad that I had the Monster for the ride, I utilized the seat on the wheel for prolonged periods of time to give my feet a break. By the time I returned the wheel was constantly beeping from low battery levels as the Monster did not have a 100% full charge before I left. When I checked Strava for my ride statistics my mouth dropped open when I saw the top speed it recorded during the ride, 33.1 mph. Wow, I had no idea I was going that fast at any time and I certainly was not trying to hit a new speed record. If that speed is accurate it is the fastest I ever have traveled on a single wheel by several mph.
I finished up my Sunday with a short WoW session, wrapping up a near perfect day. I can hardly wait till the next 5 days pass so we can do it again.
One year ago today Hurricane Irma smacked the hell out of us. Hopefully we can avoid that scenario for another decade but seeing three named hurricanes in the Atlantic right now doesn’t give me the warm and fuzzies.
I was sad to hear Burt Reynolds died yesterday. He was so iconic to me growing up, I loved his character in Smokey and the Bandit and Cannonball Run. He just seemed like the epitome of cool. It was rough seeing him descend into old age and the frail representation of his former self. No one ever looked better behind the wheel of a black Trans Am.
So the Eagles and Falcons kicked off the NFL season last night, albeit late. They delayed the start of the game for 45 minutes because of, rain??? I guess the rain was accompanied by some lightning which was the real cause of the delay. Luckily the storm passed and the team got to do the official commemoration and unveiling of the Eagles first ever Super Bowl Champion banner. Having Brian Dawkins lead the ceremony was awesome. As they dropped the cloth, revealing the banner for the first time, a small tear of joy dropped from my eye as the emotion surrounding the Birds Super Bowl win came rushing back in. It was such a special moment.
For whatever reason the energy from that celebration did not carry onto the field. The Eagles, especially their offense looked inept for almost 2/3 of the game. Everyone knew the way to beat the Falcons was to run but instead the game plan seemed to instead be awful short yard passing often for less than 5 yards per play. It was so aggravating to watch. At one point Nelson Agalor had eight catches for only 34 yards. I don’t think Foles threw for much more than 100 yards on the night.
The team finally started to show some life in the second half and took a late lead. It was uncanny how the end of the game seemed to almost exactly follow the script of the playoff game the Eagles had against the Falcons last season. Cindy and I were besides ourselves with the apparent inability of the Eagles cornerbacks to cover Julio Jones who just made catch after catch with seemingly no resistance. However at the very end the Eagles defense had to come up with huge game winning stops not once but twice when a failed 4th and goal pass with seconds remaining turned into a first down after a bullshit illegal contact call on the Eagles.
So with no timeouts and only time for one play, just like last year, Matt Ryan targeted Julio Jones in the corner of the end zone (opposite corner), and once again the last ditch effort fell short as Jones made the grab but landed safely out of bounds, securing a thrilling game one victory for the Eagles. It was quite the turnaround, the offense seemed like it could not get out of it’s own way early. They never executed well but at least they got points on the board when they needed it. I think not having Ashlon Jeffery on the field makes a HUGE difference. Without him drawing coverage downfield the Falcons backfield locked down the Eagles receivers pretty easily.
The defense did a lot of bending and not breaking. I was so annoyed how open Julio Jones was repeatedly throughout the game. During that last drive it was especially annoying, everyone knew he was the primary target yet he was allowed to pick apart the soft zone coverage at will. The D did do a good job against the run and put decent pressure on Ryan when it mattered the most.
I certainly hope the amount of penalties in the game are not indicative of how this season will go. It was just an obscene amount of flags on both sides. Some of the new rules about QB contact are just insane. You are allowed to tackle a QB but you can’t “drive him into the ground” ? Isn’t that the definition of a good tackle? I understand the desire to protect players but you are asking them to defy the laws of physics at times. It’s pretty dumb. Nobody likes a game that has a penalty thrown on every other play.
After the thrilling finish it was late, very late. Unfortunately the adrenaline from the exciting finish made it very tough for me to fall asleep, despite being exhausted. I bet I rolled around for close to an additional hour before I fell asleep. The lethargy today is worth it. What a great way to start the season.
Unfortunately I can’t have my normal big cup of coffee this morning to combat the tiredness as I normally would. That is because my abdominal CT goes down late this morning. Instead of enjoying a cup of coffee I get to choke down two barium “shakes” 90 and 45 minutes before the appointment. I really have no idea what to expect of the procedure, how long it will take, or how I will feel afterward. My only focus is finding out what is going on and getting on the path to resolution.
This weekend has standard items on it with nothing as frustrating as the Prius work from last weekend clouding the outlook.
So yesterday I called the med clinic looking for results on my blood tests. The receptionist that answered the phone said that all numbers came back in the normal range. It’s odd that somehow I felt disappointed in getting a a good blood report card. I guess I was hoping for something definitive to pop out that would explain the malaise I have been dealing with as well as the right side pain that started out as an extreme exertion, occasional thing but now has settled into a dull, always sort of there thing.
So my next step is getting the abdominal CT out of the way which happens tomorrow. After work I picked up two barium “milkshakes” that I was warned taste pretty awful. I am hoping the procedure provides some clarity. My current theory is this all goes back to the original stabbing pains I had doing dragon flags early last year. At the time I just stopped and stopped doing that movement and the pain subsided. What I am wondering is if that pain was actually a hernia that has been getting worse each time I aggravated it to the point where I am today.
I was talking to Ali about it since her job includes extensive medical knowledge. She said if it is a hernia that has been getting worse the body can focus on trying to repair the damage which in turn could result in the fatigue. The bad news is if it is something like that, it would likely require surgery to correct. At this point I just want the problem identified and addressed.
I have heard people say that the reason they don’t retire is because they don’t want to be bored. I just can not relate to that statement at all. This extended four day weekend was further proof that I could retire tomorrow and never have a worry about boredom. I kept myself busy the entire time I was off and still had things that had to be back burnered. Now if I lived in a condo of a sterilized community I’m sure those tasks would lessen but I still think I have so many rods in the fire of so many things that I could always keep myself busy, regardless. It’s good to have hobbies.
So yesterday I got a call from the med clinic. They got results back from the X-ray I had done last week. The findings were not what I expected, especially the part where it said possible partial bowel blockage. The reason that seemed out of left field was I don’t have the symptoms of a blockage, at all. None of the normal symptoms apply to me unless you count the dull pain on my right side. So anyway the end result was me now being set up for an abdominal CT scan on Friday which will give a much clearer picture. I am more interested in the blood test results but those have not come back as of yet.
I am officially back in the stock market thanks to an incredibly simple and easy to use site/app called Robinhood. For signing up you get one free random stock (I got a share of Groupon), and there is no cost to trade. The web site and app are stupid simple to use. Once you are set up you simply transfer money in to fund your account and have at it. I grabbed a single share of American Airlines today, just for fun. I heard all airlines are jacking bag fees once again, I may as well get on board.
My weekend got off to a late start Friday, I stayed at the office until 6PM hoping for the DB upgrade part of an application server upgrade to complete. It did not complete and actually failed altogether 24 hours later, something I had to monitor and work on throughout the weekend. The late departure meant I wasn’t going to run, not that I planned to anyway with my chronic fatigue thing going on.
Despite that fatigue, I dug into my Saturday morning work immediately. I told Cindy my goal was to have ALL of the grass/property maintenance knocked out Saturday morning. When I say something out loud, that means I will move mountains to get it done. Because of my low energy it almost felt like I was moving mountains but we got the weeding, weed whacking, and mowing done more or less as predicted. The standing water that had plagued us all week long had just receded below ground level, allowing me to mow more or less normally.
On Saturday afternoon I was anxious to take my newly returned/repaired KingSong 18L for a long road test to see how the new battery performs. The answer was, great. On the ride out I was pushing against a steady and stiff headwind but that same wind pushed me back, making the return trip incredibly efficient battery wise. By the time I got home my battery numbers were outstanding. After an almost 30 mile ride I was showing 43% battery remaining. To be honest those numbers almost sound a little too good to be true. I will be doing a 20 mile DD ride this morning to see if I get similar results.
Saturday night we watched our latest Netflix rental, Jumanji. I don’t think I ever saw the original with Robin Williams but Cindy did. I found this reboot to be funny and entertaining, a solid B rental all day long.
Sunday morning Cindy and I went over to the school parking lot for a little while with the Meepo and One Wheel. Now that Cindy is past her competition she is more willing to get on my two newest devices which both excite her more than EUCs. She made some good improvements on both. Cindy is very fearful of falling which is understandable but once she gets past that roadblock her natural athletic nature takes over.
We have Sadie this weekend so we took her and Sadie out for some errands, something that is always fun. When we got home Sunday afternoon I decided to do a repair on the Prius, something that is rarely fun. I was tasked with replacing the coolant control valve, a common failure in the Prius but not a catastrophic one. It throws a P1121 error that triggers a check engine light. I have cleared this light several times and it remains off for weeks at a time. I actually have had the replacement part sitting on my workbench since the end of March, yes MARCH. That is how much I was not interested in doing the work. But hey I have a four day weekend, now was the time to finally jump in.
I had watched a couple videos on the replacement and it looked challenging because of space restrictions but doable. In addition to the part I bought some hose clamps to close off the three hoses that run to the valve. This was to prevent a huge loss of antifreeze during the job. I quickly realized the clamps I bought were too small for the hoses. I attached them but they didn’t fit right. One came off halfway through the work and the other only slowed the flow of coolant but didn’t stop it. I didn’t even bother clamping to bottom hose because I had no space to do it.
This job went from bad to worse. The video does a pretty good job of depicting my frustration level with the job, which was off the charts at certain points. Trying to manipulate tools in small, greasy, wet spaces just sucks. I struggled for over two hours, standing in a puddle of antifreeze for most of it. Eventually I slogged my way through it and got the new valve in but man did it suck…
On Sunday night I was beat but I still had to put on a happy face to do my bi-weekly EUC Live Stream with Marty. It went pretty well but I had to end it rather abruptly when I had to get on a conference call regarding the application server upgrade with the vendor. Sure it isn’t fun dealing with work items at 10PM on a Sunday night but it goes with the territory. The good news was the call resulted in us being able to bypass the issue we were having and complete the upgrade.
So Monday morning as I was out doing the chicken work I noticed how it felt noticeable cooler than normal. As I panned the back yard I realized that the standing water back there had soaked in as well. I then looked to the east and saw very menacing skies. When I came in I told Cindy how it looked like rain. She said, yea tropical storm Gordon is supposed to come through. Huh? I had not looked at any weather since I was off. I hopped on the computer and saw a HUGE red area of rain coming across the state on radar. That was all that it took. I announced to Cindy that I had to get out there and try to mow the rear of the yard before the rain arrives.
So even though it was only a little after 8am I fired up the mower and headed back into high grassy plain of the back yard and got busy. The skies looked foreboding and I was very skeptical of being able to finish. However I got lucky and knocked everything down with about an hour to spare until the steady rain began. That rain intensified and lasted all day long, turning the yard into a bog once again.
The rain made for a pretty depressing Labor Day. We took the dogs for a Rural King ride but after that we were resorted to indoor only activities. Cindy had plenty to keep her busy. We sold the bed in the guest bedroom to make space for Cindy to use that room for her interests. We plan to buy a nice inflatable king size bed that can be used for guests as needed. The room sits unused 98% of the year so we figured we may as well put it to use. Cindy has always had a thing about wanting her own designated space so this was a convenient way to do so without requiring purchase of external buildings or vehicles.
I used the rain as an excuse to dive deeply into WoW, something I hadn’t had a chance to do all weekend. With a newly released expansion there are endless things in game to keep my attention. I bet I got 5 hours plus of play time in which is a rarity nowadays.
Today for my last day off I plan to get another EUC ride in as well as some One Wheel testing. I have two fender related things to try. I used FlexSeal on the inside of my original fender to deaden the sound of rocks and debris banging around inside it. I also 3D printed two partial fenders for the board. I want to see how effective they are at blocking shrapnel from hitting my legs.
It’s been a very busy extended weekend but enjoyable, with an adequate list of accomplishments in the ledger.
