9th of Av

 It’s been a while. I had hoped to blog more often. Maybe I can now. I guess I’ll go over my most recent things.

I started going back to my ‘diet’. It’s where I try to have a certain range of calories for each meal. That being 240-320 calories. It was a bit hard at first, but I’ve been getting the hang of it. For the whole day, the range is 1200 calories to 1600 calories. I have 5 ‘meals’. 5 small meals, I was told when I was diagnosed with IBD, is better on my gut than having 3 big meals a day. Plus, most of the time you don’t feel as hungry in between meals. I have already noticed small changes. I think it’ll work to help me feel healthier and lose weight. Last time I did it for a while, it really helped. I’ve also noticed how big things are again. I’ve noticed how little I can have for a meal. Having a full serving of my cereal and a little milk ends up being like 230 calories. I can’t really have a banana anymore with breakfast. (If I have the cereal. Might have it as part of a snack instead.) Can’t have the sausage patties or turkey bacon with it either. Having plain frozen pancakes and a little syrup is about in the middle of my range. It’s interesting. I also thought of it as like a game. Like you can only ‘pay’ with 1200-1600 calories. However, the weekend is usually my ‘splurge’ days. Especially for dinners. For those days, I might try to have 1800 calories or just a little more. I’m trying to look at other things like protein, carbs, sugar, and fat. I’m usually low on protein, sodium, fiber, and fat. Occasionally sugar, too. I use My Fitness Pal for it. It’s interesting that they now have a separate thing for water. I drink quite a lot according to that.

I’m still walking on top of the diet thing. I try to walk 3 times a day inside. Right now, each one is 10 minutes. I plan to increase each one. Last time I didn’t do it evenly, and my last walk was longer. That being 40 minutes. I’m thinking it might be better to add more to each one. I’ll have the last walk for 15 minutes. Then, eventually have the second walk as 15 minutes as well. Just keep going with each one like that. I might try doing outdoor ones when the weather gets better. Maybe once I get even healthier, I can try to do sit-ups again. They (my health team) were worried that I might break a bone again.

I splurged a bit and went out for dinner on Wednesday. I feel like I kind of broke it that way. We went to Burrata Bistro/Paella Bar. It’s like 2 restaurants in one. We shared some of their focaccia. It’s always so much. The rest are good for snacks. Had a little of the Marcona almonds. I got their penne alla puttanesca. It was much spicier than I expected. There wasn’t any spicy ingredient listed on the menu. The olives were weird. They had like little pieces of hard things inside. I mostly just had the pasta. I got their key lime tart. It was decent. I liked the crust. I wished they had their nutrition info somewhere, or even just the calories next to things, like some other restaurants do. I tried to add similar things to My Fitness Pal. Turns out, if it’s like what I found on there, that I actually ended up under the 1600 calories all together. I didn’t have my 5th meal. Well other than just having pills and water.

Getting my meds through CVS has been a headache. They say they sent things to my doctors, and yet they don’t get them. (I think they have the wrong address, at least for my primary care doctor.) My primary care doctor had to have one of her nurses call Molina about the ‘prior authorization’. They faxed the forms to them, my primary doctor filled them out and sent it. I had to call Molina in order for them to approve it. Might have to do that every time. I have a lot of meds. I tried to get something from my palliative care doctor as well. I called him about the whole thing. I’m still waiting on it to be approved. Hopefully all of them will go through with the way my primary care doctor had to do it.

I recently figured out a schedule for myself. This way I can try to get done what I want to do. Most days except the weekend, I figured out how to add playing my clarinet into it. I’ve been playing it for the first time in years. I think the last time I played was either in 2021 or 2020. It was close to when I was diagnosed with cancer. I also figured out when to blog, like what I’m now doing. Added my bed bath, and what I can do around it. Also, a little bit of doing my coloring books. It’s fun. Added Shabbat services to it, as well. I’ve figured out a pretty easy and accurate schedule with it all.

We (parent and I) recently went on vacation to Bellingham, Washington. I think it was the first time I was there. I haven’t traveled much since the cancer diagnosis. I got to a lot of things that were on my list. Some of those were restaurants. Those were some fun and good tasting food. We saw deer near one of the restaurants. That was cool.

We went to a 3-level bookstore. That was apparently famous. They had 2 cafes. One that was like a restaurant, and the other had a limited amount of things. It was a nice place. Wished there was more than one bathroom. We couldn’t stay very long, either.

The Marine Life Center was really small and cramped. Not much there. There were a lot of people, mainly kids.

We went to a Serbian/Russian market. We got hazelnut caramels, plum jam, cherry jam, pretzels, kvass, and cherry filled chocolate. I’ve had a caramel and some of the plum jam. They were very good. I was surprised there wasn’t much sugar in the plum jam.

We went to the Spark Museum. It started with electricity info, then things like telegrams or morse code or other earlier ways of communicating, telephones, TVs, radio, and more. It was quite packed with stuff.

One of the nights, there were police vehicles circling the hotel. We had to park near the hotel, because they were blocking the way to it. I’m almost afraid to find out what happened. We just hunkered down in the room once they cleared the way.

I’ve also gotten into reading. I made a top 100 list of classic books. I’m going through it. I got a Kindle that I’m reading books on. That’s been interesting. The first one was Pride and Prejudice. It was kind of boring except for the last 30 pages. It got intense. My 2nd book was going to be 1984. I didn’t want to read it, so I changed it. I tried to get into Crime and Punishment. It's a long book, too. I decided to drop that one. I started reading Hamlet, which was next. It's surprisingly short. It probably won't take me very long. 

It’s been hot lately. It’s affected my health, too. I seem to always be sweating. We don’t have ac, and the house stays warm for a while even when it’s cool outside. It’s been interesting watching the temperature in my room. My parent gave me a thing that shows the temperature and humidity. It’s humid in my room apparently. It also shows the lowest temperature and highest temperature in the last 24 hours, along with the humidity.

I was wearing one of my Jewish Pride shirts on yesterday. It has a big star of David in rainbow colors. It says B’tzelem Elohim. Meaning in the image of G-d. It also lists the congregation that was selling them at one of the local Prides. I went to Central, and someone saw it. They quickly said shalom. It was kind of cool. I don’t get a reaction to it very often.

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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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9th of Kislev

One of the bowls I use was broken recently. It was old. I left it in the sink to soak so it’ll be easier to clean in the dishwasher. I had ravioli with sauce (from a can), and it can be hard for the dishwasher to really clean it after that. My parent grabbed a pot from the rack near it, and hit the bowl with it by accident. It shattered. 

Last week was really foggy. I didn’t go for my outside walk one of the days, because of how foggy it was. It seemed dangerous. I did go out there because I needed to check the mail. I get previews of what’s in the mail through emails. It looked like it was a serious thing from the Washington Health Care Authority. It was just a thing that didn’t apply to me since I don’t do taxes. Anyways, I couldn’t see the mailboxes because of the fog. I can’t imagine what it was like to drive in it. It’s gone now. I managed to do some outdoor walks couple of times since. On Tuesday, I plan to do double what I've been doing this past month. If I can't do it outside, I'll have to do around a 30 minute walk inside. I think it'll be around 30 minutes outside with doubling it anyways. I guess I'll see how it goes.  

I finished watching Kai Byoui Ramune. It was just ok. Reminded me a bit of xxxHolic. It was about a doctor (Dr. Ramune) curing people of their supernatural curses/illnesses. I’m glad I finally finished it. It’s one of the ones I started a few years ago. I don’t think it was very popular. I only have one more episode of Zombie Land Saga Revenge (its 2nd season). Sadly, I don’t think there’s another season of this one. I’ve got quite a lot of episodes left of Jujutsu Kaisen and Boku no Hero Academia season 5. Watched them recently. It’ll be great if I can keep up with watching the ones on my current list again. I’ve also been watching Better Than Us on Netflix. Good to get back into watching Netflix shows as well.

I did my bed bath again last Thursday and today. I really do feel cleaner now than when my home aide did it. I didn’t get my bed wet this time and on Thursday. Just a couple of cool areas. I think I have to put the washcloth in a better place when I’m done with it. I managed to get lotion on my back. I put some on the brush and did it that way. It worked well. Got lotion on my feet, too.

Today I missed a sentence in the Spanish lessons from Duolingo. The unit’s on commands this time. I’m 15th in the league. I made it to the Diamond League, and they’re a lot more competitive than in the previous one. I finished Unit 40, and now I’m going through Unit 41.

I finally laundered my bedding. It’s been a long time. It’s been since I did it when I got new sheets. It feels nice and cozy again. I want to try to do it every couple of weeks. Might not do my pillow that often. When I had the pillow in the washing machine, apparently it made it move out of place. I couldn’t move it back myself. (It was really heavy.) My parent helped put it back. It's also been moving with other loads. It's not normal. I thought it was just because of my pillow. Luckily, I've found a way to move it back now.

Managed to go to both markets on Sunday. Also, went to the pet store. We got a low dust litter and a new mat for under her litter box. She’s ruined what was her current mat. The low dust litter might help my parent with her lungs. It’s scented, and I hope Rosie is going to be ok with that. She started peeing outside the box yesterday. I caught her today. Thought she was in the box far enough, but she wasn’t. She peed a little on the mat/floor, but I managed to push her in more after a second. Maybe she thinks she’s in all the way, but isn’t? I’ll try to catch her while I’m awake, but I can’t when I’m asleep. I can't watch her 24/7. My parent did clean the floor and added the new mat today. Maybe if it's cleaned, she'll go in all the way and also poop in there? It's not like she's losing her mind. She still has her wits about her. Hopefully, she'll go back to how she was before. 

We also went to a small hardware store and got a big flashlight battery, a filter for the furnace, and an extension cord (I think). The flashlight I use had dimmed down a lot. My parent put in the new battery for me, and it was nice and bright again. My parent took the old filter out, and put the new one in. Apparently, there were 3 dead mice that made it inside and on top of the old filter. We don’t know how they did it. It was definitely time for a new filter then. At least we’re not breathing in dead mice anymore.

My parent made a pasta and meatball thing for dinner last night. It’s never really the same when she makes it. Good, but different. This time she got the local market’s premade beef meatballs (just have to cook them), onions, green bell peppers, special canned tomatoes that she pureed, garlic (from a jar this time), and fresh fettuccine from that same market. She added fresh parsley to it. The meatballs were huge! I added some parmesan to mine. Tried to mix it up, but it spat sauce at me. It was very good.

I plan to have the local market’s smoked turkey and dill havarti sandwich for dinner tonight. Their raspberry and lemon cake for dessert. For tomorrow’s dinner, I plan to have BBQ brisket with mac and cheese from Safeway. For dessert, their Biscoff cookie butter cake. That was amazing last time I had it!

I got most of my author royalties from Amazon! Yay! Except for $6 more. I don't know what happened to that. They gave me what they said they would from a letter back in June. Thank goodness the tech team looked into it, and they got it for me.

I got a letter from Social Security. They made a phone appointment for me. They said they’re constantly reviewing my status. They need info from me. I don’t know what more they need. Maybe they saw that Amazon finally gave me my royalties. There’s another letter from them today. I don't know what that's about. I checked the mail earlier and it wasn't there yet. I'll check again just before dinner. 

Pinterest (Again, I did not make these. That includes the Youtube videos. Just sharing.):

Youtube:

26th of Cheshvan

My nurse plans to discharge me from palliative care (pc) this week. My home aide did my last bed bath today. She might come on Friday, we don’t know. Most likely won’t. It’s usually on Monday and Thursday. She had off this Monday, and Thursday’s a holiday. At least I’ll be somewhat clean for the holiday. I have a plan for doing it myself. I might even get cleaner. My shower brush will come in handy. As my home aide was leaving, she said that I can friend her on facebook. She said she doesn’t normally say it, but that would be nice to keep in touch. I don’t know if I will or not. I searched for her, just to see. (I was surprised I found her.) She’s right, she doesn’t do much on there. She might react to things though. She was nice, but it might be a little strange.

My social worker said she’ll call me sometime this week. It’ll be about being in touch with another social worker who deals with cancer patients on Medicaid, I think.

They told me I can still stay in touch and call the pc doctor, even when I’m discharged from it. He never was very good at communicating. He keeps saying he’ll call me but never does. I don’t really trust him anymore. My primary doctor and oncologist would do a better job.

We didn’t get to go grocery shopping for the week during the weekend. We went to Central yesterday. On Sunday, my parent spent much of the day making a kosher Ukrainian borscht. All the meat in it was beef. There was quite a bit of vegetables, too. I think that was the first time I’ve had borscht. It seemed earthy. That might have been the beets. The only thing I didn’t like were the pieces of beef. They were a little too fatty for me. The sausage was good with it. Despite it being skimmed, it also left an oily film on my lips. That’s not a bad thing. It was pretty good.

I thought I was finally getting all my royalties from kdp/Amazon, but apparently some of it already went to the ‘state’ as unclaimed property. This is all on kdp or Amazon. I did what they asked me to do. I feel like they almost stole it from me. Luckily, there’s a claim you can file with the Department of Revenue to see if you have unclaimed ‘property’ or money. I shouldn’t have to give them the document that kdp gave me. The link will apparently disappear in 2 business days. I’ll download it to my computer just in case beforehand. They said I’ll get $33 from the US market. I’m not sure where they got the $33 from, if all of it went to the ‘state’. I got the royalty from the UK today. The $33 they say will be paid on 11/29. This is so weird. The Unclaimed Property Division emailed me back. They had a document of things that were unclaimed to me. Nothing on kdp. (Surprised they had anything.) I’ll try to upload the document kdp gave me to them and see what happens. I’m starting to feel like it’s not worth it… Maybe if I don’t get anywhere with the Unclaimed Division, I can email kdp back. They said I could use the email to reply back, if I needed to.

For Thanksgiving we were told to bring pie. We might get apple and pumpkin pies. They’ll probably be good. I don’t know what else will be there. Hopefully foods I can have. There will be 10 people, 8 adults and 2 children. That’s not too bad. Maybe it’ll be a new tradition to go to this friend’s place for Thanksgiving. The only downside would be how far away it is from home. (I think she said it's in Lacey, which would be about a 1.5-hour drive.) We’ll see how it goes. It’s nice to be with people for it, though. It’s a different experience when it’s just my parent and I and Rosie. Nice but different. I hope the friends we used to visit for Thanksgiving have a good one too.

I managed to do an outside walk today. The weather was good. No rain or wind. A little cold and cloudy, but nice walking weather. A little kid in a van yelled hello as they went past me. That was odd, and looked like the kid was going to fall out of the window.

Rosie’s been good today, but she’s been peeing and pooping outside the box lately. I looked up, with Google’s AI, how to clean up after a cat's mess in the bathroom. It came up with some pretty good suggestions. We’ll see how that goes. My parent might get in touch with Rosie’s vet to see what more we can do about it.

Went to Diablo’s tonight. I got their Diablo’s fries without onions, guacamole, and sour cream. It was like nachos but with fries. It was huge! (Fries themselves were huge!) Very good, though. The fries seemed to have a slightly spicy seasoning. I think I ate around a 1/3 of it. It’ll be a lot for tomorrow’s lunch. Got churros for dessert. Those were good too. 

Pinterest (again, I did not make these, I'm just sharing them):

(The next 2 are from the same house plan. One's the main floor, the other 2nd floor):

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. 

15th of Tevet

It's been a long time since my last post. Probably the longest gap in posts. I hope to get back into it. Although, it won't be the same. Interesting using this computer again. 

My last scans were in October. Everything came back fine. No progression, and if I remember correctly, they didn't even see the lung nodule from before. My next ones (CT and full bone) will be next month. I had to call and make an appointment with the infusion center there in order to get the IV in through ultrasound. It seems to be the only way to get it in. They always have a hard time even with that. I'm nervous that they'll find something this time on my CT scan. Had a nightmare where they said the cancer had spread to my liver and lungs. Also, with the full bone scan, that it had progressed. It hasn't progressed in a while. In the dream I had to switch to a chemo that was through an IV. I had to sit there for about 6 hours until it was done. I had weird side effects, too. 

Had an appointment with my primary care doctor in October. Hadn't seen her in-person in about 2 years. The main focus was on recertifying me for insurances through my parent. I'm on her plan as a dependent. They have paperwork for a doctor to fill out. I was nervous, but around the end of December, I got a letter saying I was approved. So, I still get health, dental, and vision through it. The new plan for coverage started this month. The only downside is now there's a copay for all my meds and things. We had met the deductible or something, so we didn't have a copay for a while. I'll probably meet it up again quickly. It's nice they have a special card that covers medical expenses. Although, it's sometimes weird what it considers as medical. It's handy. 

We also talked about my urine incontinence. I know, gross, but it's something I have to live with at the moment. I'll get the urge, and then not have much time to get to a bathroom. It's embarrassing. She suggested that I get pads. I'm still trying them out. Not sure which absorbency is best. I think it feels more 'normal' to try the pads rather than the underwear. Those would feel more like diapers. Not good. She also said I should try going to the bathroom on a schedule. So, I've been trying to do it either before or after meals. It's a little better that way, but I have to remember. 

I also brought up my painful toes/feet. She said I had toenail fungus on every toe except one. It's bad in both my big toes. She tried to clip my toenails for me. She didn't even want to touch my big toes. The toenails are looking pretty gnarly now. My toes hurt a lot as well as the middle of my feet. So much so, it hurts to walk. Feels like I'm walking on hard pointy rocks. I'm walking even less now because of it. My primary sent a referral to see a podiatrist, and I've already made an appointment. That will be the end of this month. Hopefully, they can help me. 

I've been having issues with recurring uti's. The last one was just a couple of weeks ago. I also had one that was in between that and my primary appointment in October. They seem to be happening more often. I went to Urgent Care, like usual, for it. This time they were a lot more thorough. They were surprised about how dehydrated I was. They put an IV in me, after a few tries, and ran fluids and antibiotics through it. They did a lot of blood tests. One of them being for lactate. They had to get it without a tourniquet. It can indicate sepsis. I was high the first time, so they had to do it again. The second time they had to do it on my chest near my left shoulder. That was weird. No other spot was working, though. That ended up even higher. They wanted to do it again because of that. It was just too much, and it was starting to snow a lot. We had to leave. They let me go with a pill-form of antibiotics, and a promise that I'll talk to my primary about it. I don't think I actually had sepsis. I didn't have a fever for one thing.

I had a phone appointment with my primary after that. She suggested some things to help. I thought there were 2 things that I could easily do. That being cranberry and d-mannose supplements. One is supposed to make it harder for bacteria to stick, and one makes it more acidic. Both said helps with cleaning the area. So I got them both. They're huge pills. I had to split the doses up. They wanted me to take 2 capsules of the cranberry and 4 capsules of the d-mannose. I'm doing 1 cranberry and 2 d-mannose twice a day. The d-mannose pills smell really bad. I didn't know they'd also have calories. It's also interesting that they're both put out by Azo. I didn't know they did other meds. So far so good. I don't think I've had another uti. Maybe this is all I need. Although, I have a lot of pills now. I could make meals out of them.

My meds and pain of walking have made me gain quite a bit of weight. It's frustrating. Recently, I decided to go back to the way I used to eat, and doing sit-ups at least. I think I've lost a little bit in the last couple of weeks because of that. The way I used to eat meaning only having 1200-1600 calories during the week, and pretty much whatever I want during the weekend (and holidays). I try to eat 5 meals a day, and want them roughly even. So, 240-320 calories each. I tend to eat less with snacks, and more with meals like dinner. It's a little difficult. It was a bit eye-opening with some things. Plus, I have to be careful with things like bananas that tend to be calorie-packed. I'm up to 10 sit-ups twice a day. Might keep that up for a while, and then do 15 twice a day. I do them a little after I wake up (after going to the bathroom and having breakfast), and when I get into bed just before trying to sleep. I did around similar times the last time I was into it. It's been a while. I also want to get back into walking, but it hurts so much. Maybe with the podiatrist's help I can do it. I want to start off with small walks, and then work my way up to the 2-mile ones I was doing before. At least 2 of those a day would be great. I might get an Apple Watch soon, and that can help a lot with this health stuff. I want to feel better and healthier. 

We've also been into eating out at restaurants lately. I can still do that with the way I want to eat, and probably would be best to do it during the weekends. I'll most likely have more leftovers, but that's ok. We've tried a lot of new ones. Some have been great, others just ok. It's another thing for me to look forward to. (We've also been going to restaurants we haven't been to in a long time.) Oh, Elmer's isn't around anymore. A Denny's moved in. I'm still not used to it. I miss Elmer's. One of the server's from Elmer's is now with Maynard's, a restaurant we tried not too long ago. It was interesting catching up with him. I was surprised he was there. It was ok there. The last 'new' restaurant, or at least new to us, we went to was a Mongolian BBQ place. It wasn't outstanding or anything. I thought it was good. I had the chicken dumplings, which were apparently pot stickers. I got their honey walnut chicken. That was sweet, savory, and smooth. Had little candied walnuts. 

I'm still using Duolingo. I'm studying Spanish through it. It seems so much easier than I expected when I started. I don't particularly like Duolingo's new layout. I don't even think they're sure of it yet. Things keep changing. I liked the way it was before. I've been keeping up with my streak since I did Yiddish. It's like 640 days now. I only forgot about it on New Year's Eve, and they used one of my freeze streaks to keep it going. First time really using that. I think I have like 3 of them. I think that's the max number you can have at once. I try to do 4 lessons, and usually get 100% on it. It's only when it's questionable or unclear when I get them wrong. I've flagged quite a few sentences during this course, because of that. 

I've gotten back into reading as well. You can see how many I finished recently on the side of the blog. Everything from Shadow of the Lions by Christopher Swann up is what I've read since December of 2021. Close to a year ago. That's 16 books. I thought that was pretty good for someone who hasn't been into reading in a long time. 

I'm trying to get back into anime. I started that back up again only a couple of days ago. Before that, it's been since November 2021. Roughly the same time as my last post on here. I'm so far behind. There are so many interesting looking shows that came out in the meantime. I'm not sure how long I can keep up getting back into watching anime now. As it is I might not watch it today. I managed to watch the 1000th episode of One Piece yesterday, I think. I can't believe it's over 1000 episodes now. It'll probably go on forever. 

I've been a lot more into Netflix shows. I've watched a lot, and it's another thing for me to look forward to. I finished 1899 recently. That was interesting. It felt like they were trying to do more with it than they had. Some of it was predictable, but there were a lot of twists. I'm not sure what they'll do with it if there's a 2nd season. I'm currently watching Devil in Ohio. It's just been ok. It has an actress that I like, and am glad she's in something different. I don't remember her first name, but she played the main actress in Bones. She seems more flexible and 'normal' in this. I don't exactly know where this show is going, but it's interesting at least. I'm looking more forward to Wednesday. I liked the Addams Family. Wednesday, Morticia, and Gomez were my fave characters. One on Wednesday seems right up my alley, then.

We've recently been into getting lottery tickets. We've been getting them usually once a week. It's now up to $1.1 billion. I can't imagine even having half of that amount. I've worked out the annuity for some of them, just for fun. (First year would be just over $8 million.) I think if we did win, I'd get half and go for the annuity option. I'll probably not live very long, but I'd still get a huge chunk of money every year. I could pass it on to someone after I die. I don't know who that would be. There's a lot of things I'd be able to do with that amount of money. I could donate a lot, get rid of my student loan debt, get my own nice and cozy house in Seattle, have even better health insurance, and more. 

I wanted to go to a Hanukkah party this year. They were going to have public lighting at a local mall, and then have a party at their synagogue. I hadn't seen people from that congregation in a long time. Plus, their spiritual leader (not quite a rabbi yet) got in touch with me, and wanted me to meet another ace Jew. He was new to their congregation and was feeling really isolated. The 'rabbi' started an email with both of us and introduced us to each other. I responded, but he never did. Anyways, I had another reason to go. The weather was crazy that week. The day they were supposed to have it, there was a lot of snow and ice on top of the snow. Thick ice. Not something we see in this region often. So dangerous, they were telling people not to go outside on the roads unless it was an emergency. They cancelled the party at the synagogue, and thought the roads would still be ok enough for the public lighting. I don't how the lighting was. I wished they just pushed the party to like the last day of Hanukkah. The snow and ice were practically gone by then. They were going to have latkes, donuts, singing, and bags of goodies. I don't know what the bags of goodies would have had, but I'm sure it would have been fun. We didn't have latkes this year. Didn't even have donuts for that matter. I didn't feel very well, and only lit the candles for a few nights off and on. I know it's not a big holiday, but it didn't feel like the usual year for it. I did have some fried things at least. 

It was just my parent and I for our New Year Eve celebration. We used to go to a couple's (friends of the family) place for it. Along with other holiday dinners throughout the year. Ever since Covid hit, they stopped having those dinners. It's felt weird with just us. At least with NYE, we can have whatever snacks we want for it. I got Ruffles chips with French onion dip, pickled herring with Breton crackers, and chocolate covered cherries. I think those are pretty good for NYE. Oh, and of course we got sparkling apple cider. That's like my champagne. I can't have alcohol. At least it's something bubbly. We watched the fireworks at the Space Needle on TV. Before that, it was NYE shows from around the world/country. The fireworks didn't seem that impressive this time. The drones were interesting, but also distracting.