26th of Shevat

Having the new hospital bed in my room has been interesting. The remote actually has a clip to hook over the rails. I don’t have to have it at my side all the time. The old one didn’t have a clip and would easily fall. Had to sleep with it. It feels weird to not have to do that now.

I got 2 new calendars. One that’s Jewish, and the secular one features places from around the world. We think the one that features places has Amsterdam for this month. The houses are similar to the one’s there.

I kept getting hot flashes and had to open the windows in my room. It got pretty chilly in there. It was weird to feel so hot when it was so cold outside.

I had my first bed bath with it on 2/13. I didn’t really trust the water coming from the bathtub, so I got some downstairs, and slowly went back up the stairs. I poured it out in the tub afterwards to make it easier to go down the stairs with. The dust bunnies went everywhere, but it did go down the drain. I did the bed bath after lunch instead of right after brushing my teeth in the morning. I think it was the perfect time. I did that for the other times since then. Most of the time since then it’s ended up being 40 min-45 min to do everything. (A little bit less time last time I did it.) That’s not too bad considering I was by myself. The last couple of times, there wasn’t any wet spots. Yay! I ran out of lotion last Monday. I quickly ordered more that day. With my most recent bed bath, I had to go without the lotion. At least I got clean. It’s just my skin got a bit drier afterwards. I got it tonight. 

I waited a while, but my next Universal Yums box was stuck on the pre-shipping phase. I sent an email to them about it. They replied back only a few minutes later. (It was much faster than expected!) They were sorry that it looked like they lost it. How do you lose something like that? They quickly sent a replacement box free of charge (I paid for the one they lost, so it should be like that) after that email. They said it’ll be on Türkiye or Turkey. That’s interesting. They sent another email on a Turkish recipe for karnıyarık. It’s for a savory stuffed eggplant. I hate eggplant. Maybe if it was hidden I’d try it. They even had tips for what to look for when picking a fresh eggplant, and on Turkish olive oil. They prefer Turkish olive oil. Should be interesting to see what snacks they have. Probably would be different than Treats was. I think they mainly look for things with multiple servings, which is great to me. Apparently, I got 2 boxes from them tonight. (I just got them, so I don’t know what’s in them yet.) They must have found the ‘lost’ one.

My parent was gone last Monday through Friday. She went to a NASP convention. They go to a different place every year. This time it was in Seattle. I heard she met a lot of people she hadn’t seen in a while. She also broke her glasses. She went with an Uber there, and came back in one. 

Rosie has been super clingy since she was gone. She already was before, but even more so now. She’s been resting under my new bed as I’m on it throughout the day. There’s a pretty big area back there. She’s been peeing a lot on the puppy pads. She’s been going through them like water. We got more on Saturday. It takes a lot out of me to do them. I was giving her the insulin shots. Sometimes it was earlier than usual. I didn’t know if she was going to run away later, so I did it when I saw her just before making breakfast and before my dinner. Her usual is after those meals. There was one night where I didn’t see her downstairs until my last snack. A little late, but I did it. I think I was doing it right. I didn’t feel any wetness or smell it in those spots. She seemed wobbly at one point where she tripped over her legs. She was ok after a minute, though. I didn’t think she needed sugar or anything with that. She’s been lying on the hard linoleum floor in the kitchen sometimes. I don’t know why she does that. She has food, water, and the pads have been taken care of. Sometimes I’m making something, so it sort of makes sense. Other times I’m not. Weird. She’s been sitting/lying down really close to me as I eat, too. Sometimes so close, she’s under my chair. Hopefully, she’ll go back to normal, since my parent’s home now.

I decided to order groceries online Friday night, since my parent’s glasses broke. I thought it would not be good for her to drive. Found everything except for the usual desserts, my toothpaste, and a med. Still had to go out for those things Saturday. That’s also when we got more puppy pads for Rosie. My parent decided to wear her bent glasses while driving, since she could still see that way.

Last week I had a chocolate chip cookie sandwich with cream in the middle. It was from the new bakery area at a local market. It seemed over-the-top, and a great way to celebrate things. I could only get through half of it. They also had a red velvet and champagne cake. It was combined, and interesting.

A couple of days ago (in the morning), after brushing my teeth, there was a lot of red stuff that I spat out along with the toothpaste. I didn’t eat anything with a red color. I didn’t feel pain in my mouth, and didn’t see any blood from my gums. The only thing out of place was last night I noticed a hard/spiky spot on the roof of my mouth. It disappeared pretty quickly. I don’t think it had anything to do with it. So, what was it? I’ll see if it does it again.

I enrolled all 5 of my ebooks on Smashwords to their annual Read an Ebook Week promo. I set them to free. I seem to get more ‘bites’ when they’re free. It’ll be from March 2nd-March 8th. I put up a notice about it on my socials. I doubt anyone will care on those. I’ll still post about it on March 2nd.

Last week was Aromantic Spectrum Awareness Week. I didn’t see anything new and interesting on facebook for it. Seems like everyone’s quiet about it this year. Maybe they’re scared.

I posted a selfie on my socials. I haven’t taken a selfie in a long time. I also wanted to compare previous selfies to see how much my ‘moon face’ has gone down. (A steroid made that happen.) I think it’s pretty much gone. I had a couple weird responses. One person, on Tumblr, said they looked at my profile and my selfie and they want to make a mural based on it. Saying I’m their muse. They said they’ll pay me $500 for it. I quickly blocked them. That was just bizarre. On Twitter, someone mentioned me. Apparently they said they were ‘inspired’ by my selfie and drew/painted me. It looked awful. The other people he did that to and was inspired looked awful, too. The original selfies were much better. Good it’s not just me. I don’t like that they did that without my permission, but it doesn’t violate Twitter’s rules. Although, he also had drawings of naked men. Some with rabbit heads. It was creepy. Another little surprising thing was a comment on facebook. Saying my skin is perfection, with hearts for eyes emoji. I think I should take it as a compliment, but I’m not used to that. At least it wasn’t like that person on Twitter.

It’s been raining heavily lately and windy. It’s supposed to get even windier tonight and Tuesday. The temperature has been warmer than usual, too. Warm, but stormy. Weird combo.

I finally cooked again Sunday night. It was One Pot Chili Mac and Cheese. From another pin on Pinterest. I don’t know if I rinsed the beans correctly. It turned out great, though. I thought there wouldn’t be enough liquid, but the pasta was perfectly done. There were a lot of leftovers, but that just means more lunches/dinners during the week.

Had a phone appointment today with my primary care doctor. I wasn’t expecting it. I had a notice telling me to do a pre-check in. I looked at my appointments, and there was also one to see someone in oncology (one I don’t know) in April. No one told me about it. I don’t like when they ‘decide’ for me.

Anyways, my doctor said she created the phone appointment today. She wanted to talk to me right away. She had just talked to Dr. Slack about my pain. He might think I’m still in palliative care (pc), which I’m not.

She went over 3 options for pain. The first one was to go to a certain specialist (I don’t remember what she called them), choosing between 2 different places in Seattle. They’ll insert a pain pump. Seattle’s a long haul. I don’t want to go all the way out there. It also sounds a little scary. The second option is to switch to methadone. I’d have to get off of morphine. The third option was to try gabapentin. That would work together with the morphine. She said the morphine deals more with bone pain, and gabapentin deals with nerve pain. I chose the third option. I think I’ve tried gabapentin before. (I could be wrong. We might have just talked about it.) It was back when they thought I had fibromyalgia. In reality, I probably was experiencing symptoms of my cancer. If I took it, I don’t remember how it affected me. She said there’s either 100 mg or 300 mg capsules. She’s going to try a stronger dose for me to start with. It’ll be the 300 mg. There’s more wiggle room to work with as well. Like, the max is higher than some others. She said I should probably start with it at night, since it might make me sleepy. It might also make me dizzy, unsteady on my feet, or trouble thinking/brain fog. She’ll order this along with okaying my next morphine refill. She wants me to talk to her again in 3 weeks over the phone. Just to see how it’s going. Hopefully, this will work. The other options sound intense, and again, scary. 

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14th of Shevat

It’s been a while. This whole past week was weird. I was supposed to get my hospital bed last Monday (on 2/3), and they were also supposed to ‘pick up’ my old hospital bed that day. The weather was really awful. We had gotten some snow and ice. It was so bad, my parent said the schools she works for were closed. The Apria driver did call me about postponing it, considering it was so bad out. He said he’d call me on Tuesday at around 9am or 9:30am. I never heard from him after that. The weather was bad for most of the week. Schools were closed most of week, except for Friday. That was a 2 hour delay. I have a feeling they didn’t call because of the weather. It was forecast to be really cold out this week. Not much snow in the forecast. It was ridiculous to be waiting so long. Especially with no word from them.

On Monday, they called me at around 12:30pm. I was going to call them after I had lunch. So, perfect timing. They had apparently called my parent just before me. I have her as my emergency contact. They have my info, but for some reason they’ve contacted my parent instead. It’s weird. It was like that with the previous bed. Anyways, they finally did it. They attached some of the old bed parts to the new one, which was interesting. The new one’s fully electric. Different than last time. Just a press of a button to have the whole thing go up and down. There was a crank with the old one. The family room looks really empty downstairs now. My bedroom looks more ‘busy’. I managed to get the hospital table where I wanted it. Parent helped a lot with bringing it upstairs. I almost had to throw it in my room. I can still get to the closet with it. Should be interesting to see what it’s like for bed baths. The bed itself is pretty comfy. 

I still need to dust more in my room. I wasn’t really using it as my room for close to 5 years. A little weird to get back to. I’ll vacuum it more and go through my clothes and other things. Hopefully I'll have the energy to do stuff like that. 

I ordered calendars last night. The previous calendars were stuck on December 2020. I got the Jewish calendar this afternoon. That’s pretty fast. It’s from the same museum that did my previous Jewish calendars. They showcase a different artifact (sometimes 2) a month. I don’t like the new packaging. They went without plastic with a slight overhang. I had to cut that off. They still have the Torah portions or parsha, phases of the moon, Shabbos lighting times, National and Jewish holidays (I think they even have things like Ramadan as well), and more. It’s usually a nice calendar. Last night, I also searched for a secular calendar. I was planning to get a chemical element one, like I had last time. That was a really cool one. Apparently they stopped making them in 2023. I looked for an herbs/spices one, which I had before. Nothing. Then I did a generalized search. They had a Pusheen calendar. I had one in the past and liked it. The problem was it wouldn’t get here until March, and I want it sooner. I was surprised with the sample that they even had Shavuot on there. That’s kind of rare for secular calendars. I found one that was called Passport to the World. It has pics of places from around the world. I think I had a calendar in the past with the same company. They’re French. They have French, Spanish, and English for everything. It might have pretty pics. I think that’s supposed to be delivered on Friday.

I also might look into getting a clock for my room. I already have an idea of where I’ll put it. I’d like it to not tick. I’m a little nervous about how to put it up on the wall. Maybe my parent can help me. I just want a simple one. I’m going to have to get rid of my stereo at some point. It doesn’t really work anymore.

My little TV is old (I think I got it just before I went to college in 2003), and it only plays my old Sega Genesis games. All the other channels don’t work. I want a new nice and small TV. I’ll take down my ace flag, and put it up there. Maybe have a sound bar underneath it. Maybe eventually get a game console with games. I think my parent got a Playstation for us, but it would be interesting to have something like that in my room as well. She can play with me, too. I have some ideas for the future in my room. It seems fun that way.

The Saturday before that Monday (the day I was supposed to get the bed) the Got Junk people came by. They were supposed to be here at 11am, but they came at like 10:30am. They took my bed, the headboard, and the stuff that was under the bed. I was nervous to know what was under there. I thought there would be like a ton of spiders, mice, or Rosie’s poop. None of that craziness. I found my certificate from when I ‘graduated’ from swimming lessons as a kid. Found a few of Rosie’s toys. She must have brought them there. I saved her fave big yellow ball and ladybug plush toy. It’s kind of an angry looking ladybug. I saw my old posters. There was a wooden slab. My desk used to be made of 2 short blue bookcases and a wooden slab/plank over it. I have a real one now. I think what I have now was my mom’s. I certainly didn’t need that huge piece of wood anymore. I’m glad they took most of it away. My parent, on Friday (I think), vacuumed the area that was underneath. There were a lot of dust bunnies and small pieces of debris. Now it’s even better. I didn’t have the energy by then to vacuum it myself. We had it ready for a while this way.

Last Saturday I also had a haircut appointment. I was worried the Got Junk people would take so long that I’d have to cancel it. Luckily, they were quick. They were done before around 11am. I got another buzzcut. A little cold for right now, but it’s so easy to take care of. I had a lot of grey or white hairs. Kind of surprised me. Yet again, she didn’t charge me. She does it because she feels that’s what she can do to help me. When she found out I had cancer, that’s how she felt about it. I feel guilty about it sometimes.

Afterwards, we went to Isla Bonita for lunch. I got their burrito blanco. One of my faves at other Mexican places, so I wanted to see what theirs was like. It was very good. Leftovers made for another great lunch.

After that we went to Starbucks. (I think we went home in between.) Apparently my parent had lost her wallet. The Apple Pay wasn’t working, so I paid for everything. A little difficult for me, considering I don’t get much through ssi.

After that we went to Walmart. I needed a surge protector and my parent needed Tums. I bought both of them, since Apple Pay didn’t work there. I needed the surge protector for my new all electric hospital bed, iPhone charger, and watch charger. The other outlet is for my lamp on my nightstand. So, it was another thing to prepare for the new bed. I’m surprised the iPhone charger works as well. It’s pretty old, but I haven’t used it in a long time. Hopefully it’ll work for a while. I think we might have gone to Petco, too. Rosie needed more cat litter. Apple Pay did eventually work there.

I tried to take a cramp med that my parent gave me during the week. Did it for 3 nights, and didn’t have any cramps those nights. It might interact with my other meds, so I decided to have it when I have cramps at night. That hasn’t happened yet. I’m unsure if it’s safe for me to take on a regular basis.

We decided to go out on Thursday. Kind of felt stir crazy. We went to Starbucks again, which I think I paid for it again. (We tried the Apple Pay again, and it didn’t work.) I tried one of their new sandwiches: pesto egg and mozzarella. It was really hot at first. It was good. The gingerbread latte wasn’t as great as I expected.

We went to Safeway for dinner stuff, and Central Market that night for dessert stuff. I think I got broccoli chicken Alfredo. I got a fruit tart for dessert from their new bakery area. My parent was able to use Apple Pay at both places. Thank goodness. I went through the self checkout and I had to tilt the fruit tart at a weird angle. It made some of the fruit pieces slide off.

We went to the Olive Garden for dinner Friday night. They actually had Apple Pay, and my parent had no problems with it. I got chicken and gnocchi soup, fettuccine Alfredo with broccoli, and tiramisu for dessert. There wasn’t enough gnocchi in the soup. I think I had like 3 in the whole thing. There was way too much broccoli in the fettuccine Alfredo. Like more than a head’s worth. The tiramisu was frozen in parts. Once I thought the cream/custard was like ice cream, it was better. Had half of the fettuccine Alfredo with broccoli and had the leftovers for lunch on Saturday. It seemed like quite a lot still.

Did weekly grocery shopping at Central Market on Saturday. Parent found some decent bananas. I got 2 dinners and 2 desserts. One being a broccoli and cheddar quiche, and the other dinner their mac and cheese. I had half of the mac and cheese Saturday night. Got a hazelnut chocolate cupcake from their new bakery area, and a cherry pie slice. The cupcake that night was a bit weird. The frosting/nuts/chocolate syrup was good, but the cake part had like an herb. I couldn’t place it. I got tired of having the oatmeal cookies, and got snickerdoodles this time. We also got hot dark chocolate. We still have small marshmallows, so why not?

Went to Safeway on Sunday. There’s a new flavor of the cereal I get. I normally get the maple pecan Honey Bunches of Oats. It’s one of the few cereals that doesn’t turn into tasting like sand. The new flavor is chocolate Honey Bunches of Oats. I thought about it. It would only be 3 more grams of sugar. I decided to get my usual, but I might try the new one soon. For a dinner, I got grilled chicken with green beans and mashed potatoes. It also has some garlic and herb butter. I added BBQ sauce to the chicken and the butter mostly on the green beans. I got tiramisu cake for dessert. There was a big one that was like 500 calories, and the one I got was 210 calories. I don’t need a lot. The chicken with BBQ sauce (it was one I haven’t had before) was really good, same with the rest of it. The cake is probably tasty, too.

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