Migraines
No big changes here. I contacted my neurologist and asked if there were another dose change he wanted to. He upped me to 40mg per day and I started that dose a week ago. A week is a hard time to judge as my migraine ended that day, was off for four days, and has been running now for three days. None of that is different than before. But I can say that I think I'm experiencing a side effect of the medication. A couple days after starting this does I noticed a slightly dizzy feeling. Not outright loss of balance, but feeling like several helium filled balloons were attached to my head, pulling it upward. The dizzy feeling gets worse and gets better throughout the day, but it doesn't ever fully go away.
IF I get relief from this medication, like a major reduction in migraine days per month, I'd be willing to live with this 'dizzy' feeling. But if it's only a minor difference, I'm not sure it would be worth it.
Other Health
I had that episode several months back where my neck and shoulder really hurt bad. I had to use a heating pad for several days just to get back to normal. One thing I considered while I was experiencing that was the new pillow I had. It's one that's filled with small memory foam pieces that allows you to fill it more or take some out and get a custom thickness. To sleep on it, you line your head up and rest it down and over the next 10 minutes, your head will sink into the pillow. It's really quite comfortable once you're in position, but those first few minutes are annoying as your neck is craned incorrectly.
As my neck was hurting I exchanged the pillow with my good old standby pillow and have been using that ever since. Three nights ago I tried the 'new' pillow again and recalled everything I wrote here, including the initial neck pain. So, instead of just waiting for the neck pain to become unbearable, I pulled out about a third of the memory foam filling. It's only been two nights, but I think it might work.
Oh, I should mention that I got a statement from my health insurance about my ER visit. The 'out the door' pricing was just over $9,000. With all the insurance discounts and payments, my part ended up being $200 for the ER visit and just over $100 for the radiologist to read the CT scan.
I know health care and health insurance are odd bedfellows, but it still strikes me as wrong with the pricing of these things. The basic bill from the hospital was $7012.15. The 'discount' for the insurance company was $4250.41. The insurance company paid $2561.74, leaving me to cover the remaining $200 as a copay. So the hospital valued their care at $7000, but the insurance company says its only worth $2700. If I went in without health insurance I would have been absolutely destroyed by a $7000 bill, but because I have insurance they whittle it down and I only pay $200. I honestly wish there was just a big universal health care system that covered almost everything so pricing could exit the health care system.
Finances
Happily enough, nothing new to say here.
Family/Friends
Nothing major here either. B had his work schedule messed with. He works in a casino and as its on an native american reservation, it doesn't have to follow federal work rules. It mostly does, but one thing they certainly don't have is a union contract. So the casino just up and decided to change the way they decided to award shifts and days off. B was working the day shift and had Fridays and Saturdays off, which works perfectly for college football Saturdays. But with their change, he can either move to night shift and keep the days off, or stay on days and move to a rotating day off schedule.
He ended up with the same shift but rotating days off and is one or two people down the list to get his coveted Friday/Saturday days off.
R is fine. Mom is mostly fine. I haven't heard from A and E, but no news is also good news.
I did get an email from my old friend A. He's the one that I went to truck driving school with, lived in a nearby town, and hung out with often. He smoked, drank, and smoked pot which was a nice combination most of the time. But I broke the friendship off suddenly when he got me so upset that I almost struck him and I realized that night and especially the next day that when he was drunk AND high, he was always like that.
I broke that friendship off just over five years ago. It still haunts me as I don't like the idea of turning my back on a friend, even one that I have a big problem with. But he never once took any responsibility with what he did. The closest he ever got was being sorry for me being upset. Not for making me upset, but for me being upset. After a year or so of him writing emails and sending texts, trying to mend the break in our friendship, I told him straight up what my problem was. And he still didn't own up to it. He never apologized.
I bring all that back up to say that he wrote me an email last night. It was short with only a few short lines: "Still miss you my friend. A lot of shit has changed. I'll always be hoping to hear from you. I truly loved our friendship. Peace."
I want to write back, to at least acknowledge his email. But he wrote this late at night on a Thursday. He was very likely high and drunk and depressed. I feel bad that he's still pining for our long lost friendship, but I'm not sure what responding to him would accomplish. I mean, moving backwards and reading his emails, they're all over the place. At one moment, pining for our friendship and at others calling me a selfish prick or asshole. I didn't respond to his last email and it was sent back in November of last year. Maybe I should continue radio silence.
I dunno. I hate being a prick or even being perceived as being a prick.
Entertainment
Since my last update I haven't even attempted to watch any Battlestar Galactica episodes. I HAVE watched three seasons of Suits. I'll probably finish off the series and maybe one of its spin offs before I watch anything else. But at that point, The Acolyte, The Boys, and House of the Dragon will all have finished and be bingeable.
New Tech
I finally got a case that works for the new ebook reader. It's a little thicker than I want, but with the size of the new ebook reader, it's okay. I'm still finding the best way to hold it. I liked holding my old readers with one hand and using my thumb to 'flip the page'. That action, flipping the page, used to be a button on my old old kindle and was a swipe across the screen on my most recent kindle. You could also tap on the screen, but as I held it in my left hand, I could only flip the pages backwards. The new ereader doesn't have any buttons and you can either tap on the right hand side of the screen or swipe from right to left to flip the page. The problem is that the damned thing is so big that it's hard to balance with one hand while using my thumb to swipe on the screen. So I'm more or less having to hold it two handed.
I was honestly having a real problem with this until I realized that size does matter. All of my Kindles could be categorized as 'paperback' in size. This one is more of a hard cover book. And when I'm reading a hard cover book, I can't hold it in one hand and flip the page with that same hand.
It's still an annoying problem, but at least now it doesn't bother me as much!
A few years back I started using both a VPN and a Password Manager. I've gone through several variations and a year and a half a go I settled on Nord VPN and Nord Password Manager. I liked them enough that I signed up for a two year plan just to save money. Well, about a year into it and the VPN was slowing down my internet connection noticeably. It also would disconnect several times a day which absolutely locked my internet. At the time I realized I had access to Google's VPN and just went ahead and started using that while still using the Nord Password Manager. Understand, I didn't really like the password manager, but I'd already paid for it so I stayed with it.
A couple months back and Google dropped their VPN. Yay Google. I spent a morning doing major research and found that Mullvad VPN came highly recommended. Not only did they allow private security firms to check them out, they published those reports so that everybody could see how secure they are. And when they say they respect your privacy, they are 100% on board. When you set up an account with them, you don't even provide a name as they just issue you an account number and then reference that. If you want to remain totally anonymous with them not knowing your name, you can even pay via Bitcoin or just send them cash in the mail.
I tried Mullvad VPN for a month and noticed no slow downs. It stayed connected and except for a little problem with Amazon Prime Video hating it (I have to turn the VPN off when I start watching an Amazon Prime Video), it's worked flawlessly. Instead of doing a second month of it, I paid for a year's worth of service.
For the password manager I ended up with 1Password. I don't see a huge difference in the password managers but this one was highly recommended. One problem I was having with Nord Password Manager and am still having with 1Password is unlocking it. Obviously, it wants to be secure. But I have my computer locked. To log in you need either a PIN, my Microsoft Account Password (20 characters long), or my fingerprint. Once I'm into the computer though, I still have to unlock 1Password.
Both my phone and my computer are guarded with a fingerprint reader. Biometric security. So why can't I utilize biometric security to unlock 1Password. I have to put in my 1Password password. And naturally, being the one password that's guarding all of my passwords, I don't want it to be easy... so it's a royal pain in the ass type out every time I want to log into Netflix or the New York Times crossword puzzle.
I haven't tried to solve this problem, but I wanted to mention it as it's on my mind. As is, I've signed up for a year worth of 1Password to get the savings. No other password manager came recommended AND had biometric unlocking ability.
Writing
So I finished and have now fully published "It's A Man's World" to Fictionmania. I'm guessing that it will be as popular there as it was on CHYOA. Which is to say it won't be popular. It's only received 4 reviews so far. They're all good reviews, but 4? My previous story 'Practice to Deceive' had 5 reviews and the story was shorter, and not as well written. Gamer Gurl was published in 8 parts as opposed to It's A Man's World's 3 parts, but it still had 61 reviews.
It's early, but it's also just not getting read as much. As of today, the first part has been read about 2500 times. The second (and longest) part has been dread 1300 times while the epilogue has been read 1600 times.
It's disappointing as I honestly thought this would be more well received. But I'm trying to not let it get me down and am moving on to the next part of Gamer Gurl. I'll have a full post about that sometime either later today or tomorrow as I'm approaching it quite differently.
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