2nd of Kislev

I forgot last time to say what happened on getting a new number/card, and more info, on KP. Apparently, they don’t give out new numbers if plans change within KP. Unless you leave the state. All my medical records will transfer over as well. So, no running around trying to get at least my meds onto the new plan. My social worker says it already shows up that I have Medicaid with them. I might not have to worry when I fully change to the new plan. Yay!

I had my last bed bath with a home aide last Tuesday. Normally it’s every Monday and Thursday. She had off on Monday, and Thursday was a holiday. She was planning on trying to squeeze me in for both Tuesday and Friday. I guess Friday didn’t work out for her. She wanted me to friend her on facebook to stay connected. I tried to, but her settings don’t allow me to friend her. So, I messaged her about it. She’ll have to friend me first. It’s a little weird, but she was nice. It’s ok if I don’t hear from her.

I did my own bed bath today. I did it this morning. I used my shower brush for a lot of it. Since it’s hard to reach some areas with my right shoulder. (I broke it in 2020.) I also had wipes that helped. I had my sock aid ready to put my socks on myself. That’s hard to do without it. I still have all the products she used. I ordered them, so I can just order them again when I run out of them. I’ll have to be sure to remember to use lotion. I did remember this time. I’m super dry, and I think she said it’s worse now that it’s close to wintertime. I’m not sure if I’ll do my bed baths more often, or keep it to Mondays and Thursdays. It’s not like I sweat a lot now. Might be different during the summer. I think I got myself cleaner than when she did it. (Got the bed wet in a little area. I'll just try to be more careful and cover that area with the towels more.) I think it took me a little longer. That might get better over time.

Went to Thanksgiving at one of my parent’s friends’ place. It took about 1.5 hours each way to get there and back by car. Kind of a ways. The turkey was really good. The rest of the food was ok. Got to have interesting conversations. There was a couple with 2 children, my parent and I, the hostess’ parents, and the hostess herself. There were supposed to be 10, but it looks like there was just 9 of us. I didn’t know anyone. (Other than my parent, of course.) There was a dog. I think her name was Heart. She had a sweater on that didn’t really fit her anymore. She also had a painful gum issue, I think. The kids were off the walls. Loud and rambunctious. The boy decided to bring his train under the table and play with it. Eventually he started rubbing my legs under the table and put his head out on the side. It was really bizarre and inappropriate. There was also the time when that family was about to leave but the girl got upset, threw her jacket off, and said she was staying. I tried to stay away from them at the end, and gave them as much space as I could. We left so quickly we forgot our utensils for the pies and the bag. (We were leaving the pies behind. We had brought apple and pumpkin pies.) Maybe she can do something up here, and give them to us on the way or something. My parent said we could just buy new stuff and not worry about it. I don’t know if this will turn into an annual thing. It would be interesting if it did. It’s been a while since we were invited to a Thanksgiving dinner with friends. It was nice that way.

Managed to go to both local markets yesterday. I got a smoked turkey and dill havarti sandwich for dinner that night. Cherry crunch pie for dessert. I plan to have a salmon and pesto pasta dinner tonight. It has asparagus and cherry tomatoes as well. I think it’s pretty healthy. I’ll have a Biscoff cookie butter cake for dessert. It’s new and sounds amazing! Didn’t do the lottery tickets because the machine was acting up, and I didn’t want to wait for it to be fixed. Maybe we’ll go back soon.

Didn’t expect to pour cereal all over the floor this morning. I might have enough left in the box for a few days. I tried cleaning it up with a broom and dustpan. Still heard a little crunching afterwards. 

I was going to have a cherry mixed fruit cup with lunch. (I usually have some form of fruit cup.) It was hard to get out of its package. I noticed there was some weird hard brown sticky stuff on it. It was so sticky, I couldn’t open it. The others in the sleeve looked the same, so I had to throw them out. I had mandarin oranges in gel instead. Luckily I have 2 more things of fruit cups besides the orange one. I just feel like I wasted one package of them. It’s not my fault though. There probably was some sort of leak and it got all over the cups. Today’s been weird. 

I managed to get an outside walk in, along with my 2 indoor walks. Tuesday's the start of the last week of my current walk. I'm going from the mailboxes, all the way to the tennis court, and back home. Oh, I also check the mail afterwards, so technically I do go to the mailboxes again. The next one I'll do is twice around that same area. I'm not sure if I can do it twice, but I'll try. Hopefully I can get the last week in with going outside for them. If I don't go out, I do 15 minutes inside. I'll double that when I can't go out with the 'new' way of doing it. 

Oncology called me. I was busy with something so it went to voicemail. They made an appointment for me. This will be to go over the CT scan I'll get done on January 2nd. It's with a different oncologist. The one I was assigned to is Dr. Nik (they shorten it to that), and this will be a Dr. Stephen. Maybe Dr. Nik will be on vacation? (Hopefully he's not leaving too. So many doctors seem to be leaving or moving around.) I hope this one will be ok. Usually they want lab work done like the week before. They didn't mention that this time. I might call them back at some point to make sure.

I plan to get back into anime and Netflix shows. I still have quite a few anime that I haven't finished from a few years ago. The list for what I want to see is long. I have quite a lot on my Netflix list as well. 

Pinterest (again I did not make these. Just wanted to share):

Youtube:

19th of Cheshvan

I almost forgot. As I was walking through the parking lot to get to Starbucks last week, a car almost ran me over. If I hadn’t started to run, it would have hit me. I had right of way there, and it’s not like I was walking too slow. It was another scary thing. It was pouring rain when we went back out of the café to the car.

We might go to one of my parent’s friends’ place for Thanksgiving. I think they only asked us to get a pie. My parent might get more than just one.

With the previous unit (just started the next one) in Spanish on Duolingo, they’re going over the word si. It’s interesting that with the accent mark as sí, it means yes. Without it as si, it means if. They started putting all the learners learning Spanish in one league this week. Last time I checked, I’m 3rd in the league.

Got my new Molina card. It’s KP through Molina, so they changed the primary care doctor and added Kaiser Permanente at the bottom. (I thought the number was changed, but it’s the same.) I looked more at it. I don’t see the KP stuff in the Molina app. I’m thinking of calling Molina tomorrow about it. I might call KP’s medicaid line as well. I’ll have to make an appointment to see my primary soon. She’s moving to their Silverdale location. They are closing the Poulsbo location. I don’t know how this all works. I guess I’ll find out.

Went to Starbucks again Saturday. I got their new iced pecan crunch oat milk latte and their new dark toffee bundt cake. Both were good. Didn’t get close to getting run over this time.

Went to Kachai Thai for dinner Friday night. I got chicken satay, beef fried rice without onions, and rice pudding for dessert. The pudding was the only dessert they had left. I couldn’t hear our server very well. That was kind of a headache. The pudding had purple rice and sweetened coconut milk. Was better than the last time I had it. No weird aftertaste.

I started a new month for walking. This time, for my outdoor walks, I’m walking all the way over to the tennis courts (starting with the mailbox side) and back once. Apparently, it’s only 1 or 2 min longer than what I was doing last month. I thought it would be more. I only was able to do it once so far. It’s either been too dark and/or too rainy. I’ve decided that when it’s like that, I’ll just do a 14 min or 15 min walk inside. I’m also still doing 2 5-min walks inside. It’s expected to be really rainy and windy today and tomorrow. Weather Underground said the winds will start at 2pm today. It didn’t. My parent said it might be at 6pm. We’ll see. (It already sounds like it's really raining outside right now.) I think the wind will be so strong that the power will probably go out. Since I wasn’t sure when it’ll be windy/rainy, I decided to do a 15 min walk inside. Just to be on the safe side. Don’t want to get out there, and suddenly get stuck in it.

Went to one of the markets (we still call it Central) on Sunday. Got some of my weekly stuff. I was going to get a cranberry supplement, but they didn’t have the one I got last time. I decided to get something else. It’ll last for 50 days at least.

I also got my toothpaste. Apparently they’re the only ones that sell it nearby. It’s Pronamel from Sensodyne, Alpine fresh flavor, and whitens teeth. Good for sensitive teeth, like mine. I’ve been using it as I’ve gotten back to brushing my teeth on a regular basis. Doing it twice a day. I watched a video on youtube talking about when the best time to brush is. (Plus it talked about other hygiene/health things.) They say it’s about an hour after a meal. 30 minutes is ok, but not less than that and it’s not as good. So, I’m doing it an hour after breakfast, and 30 minutes after my last snack, which is kind of close to my bedtime. I also used to use water to rinse it off, but I don’t anymore. Just spit as much of it out as I can. My teeth look the cleanest they’ve been in a long time. Things don’t irritate them much anymore either.

I got a smoked turkey and dill havarti sandwich for dinner. Also, found out they have turkey dinners now. I grabbed one. I wasn’t expecting to get 2 dinners from that market. I also got cherry crunch pie for dessert.

Went to Safeway yesterday. Got some Drano to help with the downstairs’ bathroom sink. (This was after Safeway and going back to Central. They didn't have it at Safeway. They also didn't have milk, and we needed that too. Interesting mix to go back to get.) It seemed to be pretty clogged. It got much better after last night. I got some more cash for the buses. $20 worth of $1 bills. A lot, and it’ll go for quite a few bus rides. I got a grilled salmon and pesto pasta dinner from there. It also has asparagus and cherry tomatoes. I think it’s pretty healthy. Got a tiramisu cake for dessert. Hopefully that will be good too. Got lottery tickets. Mega Millions jackpot is getting pretty big. It’ll be cool to win. The drawing is tonight.

Pinterest (again, I didn't make these. Just sharing. Thought it would be interesting. Some come from my dream home board):

(This one has a link that has tons of different walk-in closets):

Youtube: 

4th of Cheshvan

Had a bed bath today. It went faster than usual. One reason being I got a haircut on Saturday. So, less vigorously washing my hair. She used the dry soap stuff on it. She said I didn’t need the regular shampoo this time. You don’t have to rinse that stuff off. She said it’s good this time considering my stylist washed my hair already. Another reason was I’ve been taking my towels down and back up. Since she’s not doing that anymore, it cuts out some time. It ended up being around 12 minutes.

 

I got up the nerve to call Molina. I was on hold for a little while. Their ‘menu’ before that was awful. It took close to 30 minutes in total. There was a lot of waiting for them to figure out stuff. I can stay on KP (Kaiser Permanente) through Molina, and they switched me to staying on it. Yay! I wasn’t sure if they would let me. I’ll get another card with my primary doctor’s name as my pcp, their address, phone number, etc. I might have to visit her for my meds, etc. to transfer. I forgot to ask about that. There’s still no premiums, copays, etc. Hopefully I did all this correctly. I asked as many questions as I could think of. At least I won’t have to have a totally different medical team/facilities. 

I didn’t think I slept very well last night. However, I got 1 hr 8 min of deep sleep in. I usually get like 20 min at most. 

It was really raining and windy this morning. It’s stopped raining and the wind has died down since. I was nervous that the power would go out earlier. 

I’ll have to go for my walk earlier than before tomorrow, since it gets dark earlier now. I was going out at around 5:15pm. Now it might be around 4pm or so. Today I walked for 10 minutes inside instead. Hopefully I’ll go out tomorrow. 

Pinterest (I did not make these, I just thought it'd be interesting to share. Just some of my most recent pins):

Youtube (obviously did not make these videos, either. Just sharing): 

2nd of Cheshvan

It’s been an even longer time than last time. I want to get back into it though. A lot of things have happened. I’ll try to keep it shorter than last time.

Over the summer, I was approved for ssi. I get a very small income through it now. They also are going to discharge all my student loans. Meaning all of them will be forgiven or gone. I think this will happen in December. 

Being approved for ssi also got me approved for Medicaid. I chose Molina, since I was told that they worked with Kaiser Permanente (KP), my current insurance. The Molina insurance started on the 1st. Apparently they’re not letting new members use KP. There are exemptions, however. Like, if they have been with KP for more than a year. I’ve been with it for many years. I plan to call on Monday about it. Hopefully I can use KP through them this way.

I’m losing weight again. This time through more exercise, eating a bit better, and tapering hydrocortisone. I’m down to 7.5 mg of the hydrocortisone in the morning and 2.5 mg in the afternoon. So far no crazy symptoms of withdrawal yet. Hopefully I can get off of it soon. I’ll switch to 5 mg and 2.5 mg of it soon. Also, just got a letter saying my endocrinologist will be going out of network. So, I'll probably have to find a new one and tell that one about my progress. Hopefully before I get to the point of getting off of it. I don't know what will happen if I don't have it anymore, and I'll get an attack of some sort. They say if I get an attack right now, I need to take something like double what I take now. It's weird. I'm not even sure what an 'attack' would be like with this. 

I’ve gotten back into walking. I made a ‘plan’ to ease into it. I hope to get back up to my 2-mile walks 3 times a day again. Right now I’m doing 2 indoor walks and an outdoor 1 twice around, in a loop where the mailboxes are and a street in between where the tennis courts are and the house. The next outdoor one will be one loop around where the tennis courts are and the house. A bit longer of one. I’m not sure if it’ll just end up being the same distance as my current one. I think it’ll be a little longer. On weekly grocery days, it’s different. I turn the indoor workout on my watch, and pause it when I stop. It ends up being more. If I go out and don’t come home until it’s dark out, I walk inside for 10 minutes. It works out similar. Might have to increase it when I get to walking longer.

I’ve lost enough weight to go down (smaller) another jean size. I’m now 3 jean sizes smaller than at my heaviest. I got new jeans, since the old ones were really falling off me. I’ll get another pair soon, since it fits me like a glove. I got 3 more shirts (like lightweight sweaters) recently. I lost 3 inches from my waist, so that opened up more options with clothes. They seem a bit big on me. Although, it looks like they’re supposed to be. I bought another shirt recently. I should get it today.

I got a haircut today. They’ve been ‘free’ ever since my stylist has known about my cancer. I’m getting more bald spots/lines. It’s a little disturbing to me. I haven’t gone back to the hats yet, but I might.

It’s been pretty cold out lately. When it gets even cooler, it’ll be perfect for my ‘new’ shirts I got last year. They’re more like heavy sweaters. It actually looks like fall now. The trees have turned beautiful colors.