USMB Coffee Shop IV

[gallantwarrior]

Last night after 3 days of blinding headaches I finally did something I should have been doing all along, I checked my blood pressure. No wonder I was having massive headaches!!!! It was in the high 150s over the high 90s, very high for me so at 2 AM I went to the Beaumont ER. They tested everything heart related and a few other things but could not determine any reason for the raised BP or headaches. They did give me a medication cocktail that put me out all the rest of the night and I was released to go home at 8:30 this morning. Fed the cats and went to bed sleeping until 2 PM was up for about 45 minutes than back to bed for another hour and a half....... That was some cocktail.

Finally did figure out what I'm absolutely sure is the problem. Something is blocking the absorption of the medications into my system, okay, what am I doing differently in the last 3 - 4 weeks........ Metamucil, I started taking generic Metamucil during that period but more importantly I started taking it with my medications, bad idea. Psyllium husk expands very quickly into a gelatinous mass, in my case the meds were being trapped in that mass and I was able to only absorb some of the medication. So no taking my meds with the Metamucil anymore.

Glad you figured it out. Mr G takes dulcolax. I can't. I take these gelatous pills to soften stool...not make me "go". I don't need any help for that, lol. But the Doc-Q-Lace works great...and my dr said it is a more natural way to..well..do your thang. Maybe google it, Ringel?

Also..my BP has been 160 over 85 for the past month. I take my BP meds faithfully, so after doing blood tests, Dr and I talked about it today. There is nothing more I can take to make it go down, so we think its stress. I don't think I am stressing, but I probably am...hence the weird dreams, too.
You have a lot of stress you are dealing with too. That might be why yours is so high.

I am surprised that losing weight brought my BP down to "normal" levels. They are still high by younger standards, but normal otherwise. Changing diet is tough, but I am so encouraged by the results, I am determined to maintain the diet I prefer now.

For us, I am trying to incorporate more healthy fruits and veggies and far fewer deep fried proteins and such and that has resulted in some good things. But we still indulge in those things we love that are supposed to be bad for us too. I think if we deprive ourselves of everything bad for us, it is harder to feel good about the good stuff.

The trick is, allow yourself an occasional treat but don't fall back into including such things in a daily diet.

Well, I gained 2 lbs. That sucks. Prolly cuz I have been nibbling instead of walking. I guess I need to get on my bike more often. Still battling fatique and sleepiness at around 2pm, but so far have been resisting taking a nap cuz if I do, I don't sleep at night if I do. And I am bored to tears. I need a friggin' hobby. Just can't think of anything I can do that doesn't involve using fingers for long periods of time. I miss painting, but not enough to take it back up again. Tried reading a book and eye strain developed so bad it aches. At least with the pc, I can enlarge the text. And, reading a book makes me super sleepy. As if I need that when struggling to stay awake during the day.

I just hit 63. What the hell will fall apart when I hit 65? Or 70? Oy.

I'm considering taking up knitting again just get reconnected. I'm looking 60 in that ol' hairy eye.

 

[Gracie]

I'd like to learn how to do that but...if I can't hold a brush, I damn sure can't handle the knitting needles. I CAN sew though. Maybe. Sorta. With winter arriving...no gardening, which I love. I like to build stuff too, but I can't now. Will have to wait til spring. I want a porch or some kind of gazebo. However, I need something for cold winter days to occupy me instead of the tv set and the pc.

 

[Gracie]

I even went to the library. First time in over 15 years. Everything is so changed now, I felt...dumb. Gadgetry. I hate gadgetry.

 

[gallantwarrior]

I'd like to learn how to do that but...if I can't hold a brush, I damn sure can't handle the knitting needles. I CAN sew though. Maybe. Sorta. With winter arriving...no gardening, which I love. I like to build stuff too, but I can't now. Will have to wait til spring. I want a porch or some kind of gazebo. However, I need something for cold winter days to occupy me instead of the tv set and the pc.

De
Define spring. I'll be scraping the last few inches of winter off some spaces. Cold is also relative.

 

[Gracie]

I admire your tenacity to live where you do. I'd probably die cuz I'm used to it being no hotter than 90 (rare) in the summer, and no colder than 45 (in the wee hours of the mornings) in the winter.

I'd want a fireplace in every room. And I would want a SMALL home...which is easier to heat.

When I lived in Iowa for a short time, I was just miserable. But, if we ever have to leave here, or if something happens to MrG, I probably would head to Oregon or Washington. Cheaper rent.

 

[Dajjal]

The trick is, allow yourself an occasional treat but don't fall back into including such things in a daily diet.

I ate an entire slab of cheese yesterday. I just ate it. I did not put it on bread or anything. I am not supposed to eat cheese because of high cholesterol so I normally don't, but yesterday I cracked.

 

[Dajjal]

I even went to the library. First time in over 15 years. Everything is so changed now, I felt...dumb. Gadgetry. I hate gadgetry.

I have not been to the library for over a decade myself. Because I have my own library, a room with wall to wall books. Its a lifetime collection and I have not read many of them. But I started going in my library reading for a couple of hours a day, this year. Most of the books I read need reading slowly with a dictionary at hand, and I still do not understand a lot of it. I have read books such as:
'Zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance' (which I highly recommend as an introduction to philosophy)
'A brief history of time' by Steven Hawking. 'The God delusion' by Richard Dawkins.
And more stuff like that. I have an entire bookcase of classical philosophy books to get through yet.

 

[ChrisL]

Well, my first day of my new job was orientation. Then some actual training yesterday. I'm beat though! Things will be more normalized when I finish my training in about two weeks. It's going to take so long because they need to train me on every shift. Night shifts are different than day shifts, with different protocols because supervisors may not be immediately available. Anyway, things will be more calm after training. Once I'm done with the training period, it's only going to be per diem.

I much prefer night shift. Many reasons but traffic is the most compelling. The second most compelling reason being the lack of "suits".

I've been working at home for so long that I'm actually looking forward to "dressing up" a little. It'll be fun, I think!

 

[Foxfyre]

Dajjal, When cleaning out and culling things, I found some books in my home library I hadn't read too and wondered how that happened? I will be enjoying them this winter.

gallantwarrior, I'm happy to take your water logged goats off the vigil list. Let's leave the job on there though because I know you want it.

ChrisL, I can appreciate looking forward to dressing up a little. However, having done that for most of my working career, I really REALLY enjoy the days I don't have to.

Gracie I can appreciate the less-than-welcome aspects of older age, but there are some perks too. I love the freedom to be much more myself which is permitted at my age when it wasn't so much when I was much younger.

I just saw this Maxine offering and thought how true, and how much I sometimes think she was patterned after me.

 

[Foxfyre]

But there is also this which I can certainly relate to:

 

[Dajjal]

Ha! I have been busy today, at least by my standards as a practicing slob. I got up this morning and decided to work on some of my old computers, and I got one working that has windows 98. You might wonder what I want with a computer running windows 98 but I have a vast amount of software that only runs on it. That includes art software like painter 5, and I also have a lot of games. I also had a hard disk with a huge amount of old text files on it that I have not read for ages. So I have spent the afternoon reading my old stuff.

 

[peach174]

 

[Montrovant]

Ha! I have been busy today, at least by my standards as a practicing slob. I got up this morning and decided to work on some of my old computers, and I got one working that has windows 98. You might wonder what I want with a computer running windows 98 but I have a vast amount of software that only runs on it. That includes art software like painter 5, and I also have a lot of games. I also had a hard disk with a huge amount of old text files on it that I have not read for ages. So I have spent the afternoon reading my old stuff.

I have a second hard drive in my Vista machine that runs 98. I need it to run the software for my mp3 player. I might be able to do it using virtual PC, but the one time I tried I couldn't install the software from disc onto the virtual drive, so I just stuck it on the second HD.

That's the only thing I have (that I actually use) that requires that old an OS. Old games work fine with Vista, if they are old enough they just go through DOSBox.

 

[Ringel05]

Just returned from seeing my primary at the VA, blood pressure is back to normal and everything else looks fine. Have my normal 6 month appt in December so they'll do labs then. I have this "thing" on my neck that I've had since I was at least a teenager, I used to be able to squeeze it and get some foul smelling, greasy looking soap flake looking stuff out of it till it closed up about 6 years ago. It's been getting bigger so she finally referred me for "surgery". Not sure how that will work as cutting it out would take about 15 minutes in a doctors office but that's the way the VA works.

 

[Ringel05]

Just made my bi-annual Mexican "goulash". The bathroom should get a good workout over the next day or two, hence bi-annual........

 

[Montrovant]

Ha! I have been busy today, at least by my standards as a practicing slob. I got up this morning and decided to work on some of my old computers, and I got one working that has windows 98. You might wonder what I want with a computer running windows 98 but I have a vast amount of software that only runs on it. That includes art software like painter 5, and I also have a lot of games. I also had a hard disk with a huge amount of old text files on it that I have not read for ages. So I have spent the afternoon reading my old stuff.

I have a second hard drive in my Vista machine that runs 98. I need it to run the software for my mp3 player. I might be able to do it using virtual PC, but the one time I tried I couldn't install the software from disc onto the virtual drive, so I just stuck it on the second HD.

That's the only thing I have (that I actually use) that requires that old an OS. Old games work fine with Vista, if they are old enough they just go through DOSBox.

I don't have 98 running, I have XP. I think I have a copy of 98 around somewhere, but I wouldn't bet on the disk being readable anymore.

 

[Montrovant]

Just made my bi-annual Mexican "goulash". The bathroom should get a good workout over the next day or two, hence bi-annual........

Luckily I don't like much in the way of Mexican food.....my sensitive digestive system isn't built for that kind of stuff.

 

[Dajjal]

Ha! I have been busy today, at least by my standards as a practicing slob. I got up this morning and decided to work on some of my old computers, and I got one working that has windows 98. You might wonder what I want with a computer running windows 98 but I have a vast amount of software that only runs on it. That includes art software like painter 5, and I also have a lot of games. I also had a hard disk with a huge amount of old text files on it that I have not read for ages. So I have spent the afternoon reading my old stuff.

I have a second hard drive in my Vista machine that runs 98. I need it to run the software for my mp3 player. I might be able to do it using virtual PC, but the one time I tried I couldn't install the software from disc onto the virtual drive, so I just stuck it on the second HD.

That's the only thing I have (that I actually use) that requires that old an OS. Old games work fine with Vista, if they are old enough they just go through DOSBox.

I don't have 98 running, I have XP. I think I have a copy of 98 around somewhere, but I wouldn't bet on the disk being readable anymore.

I now have three computers running windows 98 windows XP and Windows 7. Its getting crowded.
Edit: I just tried to load a windows 95 game on windows 7 and it could not even read the disk, but it works on the windows 98 computer I resurrected this morning.

 

[Gracie]

 

[Ringel05]

We have a front heading our way, wind advisory tonight (2 - 5 am), possible 50 to 60 mph gusts and it's gonna get chilly, down to the high 30s tonight, only in the 60s tomorrow.
Today was in the 60s this morning when I went to the VA, I wore shorts, t-shirt with a light summer shirt over it (open) and my house loafers with no socks. Everyone was in long pants and jackets or coats and I was getting some strange looks.
Even my primary asked how I could wear that with these temps, my response was one word, Colorado. She knew exactly what I was talking about. Nope, I haven't fully acclimated to the high desert just yet.