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Life After Sickness
Feb. 25th, 2013 07:59 pmSo it's now been a few weeks since I was deathly ill. I have largely recovered, thanks to time, the antibiotics, or both. Yuck, that was one of the nastiest viral-initiated infections I've ever had. I can't even describe how horrible I'd feel as I'd settle in for another sickly evening, sitting in the living room, reading and writing, and being largely unable or unwilling to leave the house.
Still coughing some and I *still* seem to be cough up small amounts of phlegm, but it's all much better.
OTHER MEDICAL UPDATES. There were two side effects from my recent doctor's visit. First, my doc put me on a blood pressure med, which I think has been a long-time coming. Second, I had a really irregular EKG, so the doc sent me to a cardiologist.
The blood pressure med seems to be working really well for me. Today when I looked at my blood pressure, it was 105/65 with a resting heart rate of 57. (Man it's nice to see that heart rate where I think it should be based on my level of physical activity, mostly in the low 60s, which hadn't been the case for a while due to a variety of stuff.) I had some concerns before I started taking the meds about fatigue, about exercise capability, and about headaches — all as possible side effects. I seem to be largely OK on those though. My fatigue from taking the pill seems to be slowly reducing (perhaps also because I'm getting better sleep), and my exercise ability has been quickly recovering. I'm still not up to where I was before the sick, but I suspect that's largely the weeks of sickness at this point.
I finally got to see the cardiologist on Friday after the incompetent woman dealing with referrals at my doctor's office totally screwed around for a week, ignored my first phone call, then lied about mailing *and* phoning me the info (because, yeah, the chances of those *both* getting mysteriously lost are somewhere in the same range as a meteor hitting Russia with the power of an atomic bomb — and that already happened the other week). In any case, I was pretty worried about the appointment, but the doctor did an ultrasound and said my heart looked fine. It's kind of nice being 40 and having someone look at your heart in that detail. Now, I still have two more appointments: one to get an ultrasound while walking/running a treadmill, then a discussion of that with the doctor. But hopefully that'll turn out fine as well. I've certainly never *felt* like I was having heart problems when I was doing hard exercise, and some of my hill routines on my bike have been pretty damned hard exercise.
And finally I should comment on headaches: last year when I saw my neurologist I mentioned that I used to still get headaches sometimes while taking the nortriptyline, but that they'd gone away since. So we arranged a plan for dropping down on the nortriptyline and possibly going off it if the headaches stayed away. So I've been slowly tapering off ever since. I'd typically get headaches when I dropped down 10 mg, and then they'd go away in a few weeks or a month. Last Thursday I took what was hopefully my last nortriptyline pill.
This is nice because I really hated a bevy of side effects that were bad but less crippling than my couple of times a week awful headaches. But I was getting sun sensitivity, dry mouth, and several other annoyances. Oh, and nortriptyline can notably increase your heart rate *and* change your blood pressure.
So, I'm hoping that can stay gone. Since I'm pretty certain my headaches were at least partially stress related (the neurologist never actually had a good answer), I'm hoping that my blood pressure med might help with any remaining problems, since it's a selective beta blocker, which means that it stops adrenaline from hitting the heart ... which can help with stress.
Heck, LUCY could use a beta blocker, as her adrenaline smacks her way too often, like anytime someone moves too fast.
BIKING. My biking is almost back to normal, at least where it was in November or so. I've ridden up to Shepherd Canyon Trail three times since I got better (and Lake Temescal at least a couple of times more). I'm getting a little more tuckered out than I used to, and sometimes I take breaks that I didn't used to, but I figure that's just recovery from all the disease.
My last ride up to Shepherd Canyon was this evening. I wanted one more opportunity to rehabilitate my muscles before we went off to Hawaii, as I won't be doing any bike riding there.
I have *not* yet done any of the more daring rides that I was doing in December, like up Tunnel Road to Sibley Park and Redwood Regional Park, or even just up the lower part of Tunnel to the North Oakland Sports Center. I figure that my simpler hill rides are challenging enough that I don't want to try anything tougher and get discouraged.
When I get back, we'll see ...
Oh, and I meant to note that my biking computer flipped over 6,000 miles while I was sick (and doing super-short rides just to get around and do stuff that needed doing). It's somewhere like 6,125 now. That's since I got the computer for my then-newish bike, which I think was about 51 months ago, shortly after Obama was elected (over that Thanksgiving weekend, when Kimberly was out of town and I biked the Iron Horse Trail for the first time). So, the running average is something like 120 miles a month — and recently it seems like 30-40 miles a week has been about right.
TRIP. And we're just a couple of days from our yearly trip to Hawaii. Quite looking forward to it, for the relaxation and the change of venue alike.
8 years ago or so I learned that comics can help a plane trip pass in a way that regular books don't (for me), so on all of my recent trips to Hawaii I've stockpiled about 10 graphic novels in the months leading up to the trip, usually standalone stuff and stuff I'm really looking forward to. This year I have: Revival 1; Secret Avengers by Remender 1; The Manhattan Projects 1; Batman: Knight and Squire (ironically I brought this last year and didn't read it and haven't read it since, so I must question the "really looking forward to categorization", but it's by one of my favorite authors); Prophet 1; Batman Incorporated 1; Fables 18; Fantastic Four by Hickman 5 and FF 3; and Ultimate Comics: United We Stand.
2 years ago, I learned that work helps the time go by, so I've been prepping work for both Designers & Dragons and DnDClassics.com that I can do on the plane without an internet connection. Some is editing (which is easy to do without a connection), but in other cases I've piled all of my research into a file to work from.
I have novels too, of which I'm particularly looking forward to Darkly Dreaming Dexter and Ben Aaronvitch's third Rivers of London book. I may still shuffle the rest of my choices around to make sure I have a top-rate selection (though I limit myself to pocket paperbacks, so they're not necessarily the *most* exciting books on my shelf).
MYSTERY HOUSE. While I'm writing, I suppose I should mention the annoying mystery house next door, which is now entering its fourth month of reconstruction. I am so sick of construction noises, often early in the morning. But it's been quieter the last several days. I think they're working inside.
Now having worked on my Skotos TODO-before-the-trip list throughout the day and biked and eaten and watched The Walking Dead, I can go work on my personal TODO-before-the-trip list throughout the evening.
Still coughing some and I *still* seem to be cough up small amounts of phlegm, but it's all much better.
OTHER MEDICAL UPDATES. There were two side effects from my recent doctor's visit. First, my doc put me on a blood pressure med, which I think has been a long-time coming. Second, I had a really irregular EKG, so the doc sent me to a cardiologist.
The blood pressure med seems to be working really well for me. Today when I looked at my blood pressure, it was 105/65 with a resting heart rate of 57. (Man it's nice to see that heart rate where I think it should be based on my level of physical activity, mostly in the low 60s, which hadn't been the case for a while due to a variety of stuff.) I had some concerns before I started taking the meds about fatigue, about exercise capability, and about headaches — all as possible side effects. I seem to be largely OK on those though. My fatigue from taking the pill seems to be slowly reducing (perhaps also because I'm getting better sleep), and my exercise ability has been quickly recovering. I'm still not up to where I was before the sick, but I suspect that's largely the weeks of sickness at this point.
I finally got to see the cardiologist on Friday after the incompetent woman dealing with referrals at my doctor's office totally screwed around for a week, ignored my first phone call, then lied about mailing *and* phoning me the info (because, yeah, the chances of those *both* getting mysteriously lost are somewhere in the same range as a meteor hitting Russia with the power of an atomic bomb — and that already happened the other week). In any case, I was pretty worried about the appointment, but the doctor did an ultrasound and said my heart looked fine. It's kind of nice being 40 and having someone look at your heart in that detail. Now, I still have two more appointments: one to get an ultrasound while walking/running a treadmill, then a discussion of that with the doctor. But hopefully that'll turn out fine as well. I've certainly never *felt* like I was having heart problems when I was doing hard exercise, and some of my hill routines on my bike have been pretty damned hard exercise.
And finally I should comment on headaches: last year when I saw my neurologist I mentioned that I used to still get headaches sometimes while taking the nortriptyline, but that they'd gone away since. So we arranged a plan for dropping down on the nortriptyline and possibly going off it if the headaches stayed away. So I've been slowly tapering off ever since. I'd typically get headaches when I dropped down 10 mg, and then they'd go away in a few weeks or a month. Last Thursday I took what was hopefully my last nortriptyline pill.
This is nice because I really hated a bevy of side effects that were bad but less crippling than my couple of times a week awful headaches. But I was getting sun sensitivity, dry mouth, and several other annoyances. Oh, and nortriptyline can notably increase your heart rate *and* change your blood pressure.
So, I'm hoping that can stay gone. Since I'm pretty certain my headaches were at least partially stress related (the neurologist never actually had a good answer), I'm hoping that my blood pressure med might help with any remaining problems, since it's a selective beta blocker, which means that it stops adrenaline from hitting the heart ... which can help with stress.
Heck, LUCY could use a beta blocker, as her adrenaline smacks her way too often, like anytime someone moves too fast.
BIKING. My biking is almost back to normal, at least where it was in November or so. I've ridden up to Shepherd Canyon Trail three times since I got better (and Lake Temescal at least a couple of times more). I'm getting a little more tuckered out than I used to, and sometimes I take breaks that I didn't used to, but I figure that's just recovery from all the disease.
My last ride up to Shepherd Canyon was this evening. I wanted one more opportunity to rehabilitate my muscles before we went off to Hawaii, as I won't be doing any bike riding there.
I have *not* yet done any of the more daring rides that I was doing in December, like up Tunnel Road to Sibley Park and Redwood Regional Park, or even just up the lower part of Tunnel to the North Oakland Sports Center. I figure that my simpler hill rides are challenging enough that I don't want to try anything tougher and get discouraged.
When I get back, we'll see ...
Oh, and I meant to note that my biking computer flipped over 6,000 miles while I was sick (and doing super-short rides just to get around and do stuff that needed doing). It's somewhere like 6,125 now. That's since I got the computer for my then-newish bike, which I think was about 51 months ago, shortly after Obama was elected (over that Thanksgiving weekend, when Kimberly was out of town and I biked the Iron Horse Trail for the first time). So, the running average is something like 120 miles a month — and recently it seems like 30-40 miles a week has been about right.
TRIP. And we're just a couple of days from our yearly trip to Hawaii. Quite looking forward to it, for the relaxation and the change of venue alike.
8 years ago or so I learned that comics can help a plane trip pass in a way that regular books don't (for me), so on all of my recent trips to Hawaii I've stockpiled about 10 graphic novels in the months leading up to the trip, usually standalone stuff and stuff I'm really looking forward to. This year I have: Revival 1; Secret Avengers by Remender 1; The Manhattan Projects 1; Batman: Knight and Squire (ironically I brought this last year and didn't read it and haven't read it since, so I must question the "really looking forward to categorization", but it's by one of my favorite authors); Prophet 1; Batman Incorporated 1; Fables 18; Fantastic Four by Hickman 5 and FF 3; and Ultimate Comics: United We Stand.
2 years ago, I learned that work helps the time go by, so I've been prepping work for both Designers & Dragons and DnDClassics.com that I can do on the plane without an internet connection. Some is editing (which is easy to do without a connection), but in other cases I've piled all of my research into a file to work from.
I have novels too, of which I'm particularly looking forward to Darkly Dreaming Dexter and Ben Aaronvitch's third Rivers of London book. I may still shuffle the rest of my choices around to make sure I have a top-rate selection (though I limit myself to pocket paperbacks, so they're not necessarily the *most* exciting books on my shelf).
MYSTERY HOUSE. While I'm writing, I suppose I should mention the annoying mystery house next door, which is now entering its fourth month of reconstruction. I am so sick of construction noises, often early in the morning. But it's been quieter the last several days. I think they're working inside.
Now having worked on my Skotos TODO-before-the-trip list throughout the day and biked and eaten and watched The Walking Dead, I can go work on my personal TODO-before-the-trip list throughout the evening.