7th of Tevet

I’m still waiting for Social Security’s decision on my SSI. I think they’re giving me until January 11th, but I think they might have finally made their decision before that. I sent papers to them like they asked me to. They suggested I hand the envelope to them at the office or mail it. Mailing it was easier for me. I’m not sure why it’s taking so long, since I sent it a while ago. I hope it gets to them, and they decide to approve me. If not, we’ll have to appeal it. I did recently get another notification that they still consider me categorically needy for health care stuff. That’s something. I think that’s the state, not on the federal level? I called them a couple of times. Each time I would be put on hold for over 2 hours. Too long for me. I don’t think they’d be able to help me either. If they didn’t get the papers, that’s not my fault. Where did it go, if they didn’t get it? It got me so worried at one point, I couldn’t sleep well. Now, realizing I can’t do anything more and they should have gotten it, oddly makes me feel a little better.

I called Access Bus for another ride. This time to my oncology appointment coming up on Thursday. That went smoothly. Except I forgot who I’m seeing. It’s someone who I haven’t met before. I don’t know what happened to Dr. Nik.

Had my CT scan last Thursday morning. I usually get both that and a full bone scan done in Tacoma. This was just the CT scan part and it was at KP’s Silverdale clinic. Much closer. I had to get up a little earlier than usual. (It’s bad enough I usually have to get up early to take a pill.) They told me not to eat 4 hours beforehand. They were going to do some bloodwork, but looked over my info again and apparently they didn’t have to. They wanted me there an hour early so I could drink the contrast before it. They didn’t tell me to take my clothes off this time. I just had to push my jeans down a little. I was really worried they wouldn’t be able to get an IV in. It was a big ordeal last time I had it done there. This time he got it in right away. He said I had rock hard veins, but it looked like a few good ones. I had a hard time breathing during it. We thought my arms would be up enough so they wouldn’t hit the machine, they did anyway. It wasn’t too bad this time.

The results were pretty good. Only thing that showed up were gallstones. No mention of lung nodules,  atelectasis (partial lung collapse), or fatty liver disease. Maybe my walks have helped?   

I was really hungry afterwards. I thought about going to the Oak Table. The parking lot was way too crowded, and it looked like we would have to wait a long time. So, we decided to go to Green Light Diner instead. I got their smoked salmon eggs Benedict without scallions and with hash browns. I was thinking of getting the Oak Table version, so why not try theirs? The eggs seemed almost hard-boiled instead of poached. They have herbed cream cheese along with their hollandaise sauce. There were capers, too. The salmon seemed thicker and there was more of it. It was pretty good all together. The hash browns needed just a little more salt. I ate the whole thing. I was that hungry.

Oncology called me yesterday and left a voicemail. They wanted me to get some lab work done before my appointment this Thursday. So, I had a blood draw yesterday for it. I knew I needed it soon, because it’s been a while. It went well. In fact, they said I had a beautiful vein. I got 2 results back yesterday. My alk phos was high, and my platelet count was high. That’s not normal for me. Makes me wonder what that actually means. Google is a bit scary when I searched for it on there. My cancer marker (which I got today) is the lowest it’s ever been. (Since they have kept track of it.) I think that’s a good thing.

It’s a new month today with my walking plan. My new outside walk is walking out of the neighborhood, to the Mormon church, through the greenbelt, next to the tennis courts and back. I plan to do inside walks occasionally too. Like when it’s too rainy out there. I decided to do 40 minutes inside today. When I know how long the new outside route will be, I can change it. If I had gone out today, the sun would have been in my eyes. I did 137 rounds inside. That’s a lot. Apparently, just over a mile.

I plan to start cooking again. I haven’t done it in a long time. A lot of the recipes I see on Pinterest look great. It’d be nice to try them. A lot of them have either cheese in it, or you can add it as like a garnish at the end. Some are truly without cheese. However, I think it’ll be fun to cook with it. Some of the recipes might last me most of the week. So, that’s also a positive. Maybe I'll do it for Saturday dinners? That sounds like a good time.

I did 6 Spanish lessons on Duolingo today. I usually do 3. I only missed one sentence. I flagged it because I think mine was just another way to do it. They have interacted with me in the past when I flag them. They say things like they added another option putting mine into it, too. I finished all 3 quests. One of the quests wanted me to finish 5 lessons, so that’s partially why I did that. After the 5th one, I got another xp multiplier, so had to use it. I might try to do more than the 3 I usually do. I also got to 2 stories. One they’ve done before and the other seemed new. I don’t like when they repeat. When I was done today, I was 4th in the league. Not sure if I’m still at that spot now.

Rosie’s been using the box often. Sometimes she misses and it ends up on the puppy pads, but she was doing really well for a few days. (Those days doing nothing on the puppy pads.) The happy pills might be helping her. Today, she’s made it in the box most of the time, and a little on the pads.

Had a nice New Year’s Eve at home. We got some snacks for it. Got pickled herring, a cheese ball (thought it would be interesting to try), plain Ruffles chips with French onion dip, dolmas, olives, smoked salmon spread, chocolate covered malt balls, chocolate covered cherries, little slices of rye bread (for things like fish, cheese, etc.), the Hanukkah truffles, and I think that’s it. It was nice. We saw the celebrations from around the world. I fell asleep at some point. We watched the local fireworks too. Had sparkling apple cider to ring in the new year. Kind of like our champagne. Since I don’t drink alcohol. Still trying to eat everything we got, and have the 2nd bottle of sparkling apple cider. Nice to keep it going. 

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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. 

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