ProfessorTomoe

Glad to hear they're gone, at least. Here's hoping for a long break between this and the next smallest possible outbreak.

Had a weird event happen during the last big thunderstorm several days back. My TV blanked out, a YUUUGE thunderclap went off very close, and the TV came back on. All like it was timed in step. Like off, BANG, on. No other electrical devices in the house were affected. Weird.

What's the status on those, anyway? Any progress?

Maybe she'd been Netflix-ing The Naked Gun.

Note to Self: Do NOT oversleep your pain medicine by an hour and a half and then expect to function normally for long. - Self

7:49 a.m. 20170702. The weirdness continues. I can't sleep for more than two hours at a time at night. At least no heartburn last night. I did take a Benadryl around 4am to help me sleep, but it didn't do much good. Forgot to mention that I had a nasty crash-and-burn after the podiatrist's appointment on Friday. Everything was going well through the appointment, through a late lunch, and through a trip into CVS to get the anti-fungal for my toenail and the oil for my surgical scar. We picked up prescriptions, checked out, turned to leave, and the bottom fell out of my world. I barely made it back to the Ridgeline and almost didn't make it back into the Ridgeline (those mothers stand tall). Mrs. Prof drove home and helped me in, then headed out for some cat work. I didn't remain awake for more than a minute or two after that. Move forward to today. The right-side back/leg/foot pain is reasserting itself again, as is my left ankle pain, now that my left big toe isn't hurting as much. The sesamoid bone area is still sore—couldn't tell if the bone was still snapped from the X-rays—so I'm still being very careful not to walk on it.

There are some who call him... Tedd?

I did a search for my childhood friend a few minutes ago. He lived across the street from my grandparents in Austin and was born about 4 months before I was. We spent every summer together while he lived in Austin, even after I moved to Houston. We bowled together, rode bikes together, and for a short time even went to school together while one of my uncles was in the hospital with a serious injury one spring in 2nd grade (I temporarily moved to Austin with my mother so she could tend to her brother). Anyway, he eventually moved away from Austin and we completely lost touch. He showed up right near the top of the Google search I ran earlier. In an obituary from 13 years ago. He died in 2004, cause not given, at age 41. I verified that it was him by the family listed for him. To say that I was shocked would be a massive understatement. Absolutely stunned might be closer. I really don't have the words to describe how I feel.

6:22 a.m. CDT 20170701. That. Was. WEIRD. After months of sleeping with a moon boot, my body rejected sleeping straight through the night without one. It kept waking up every two hours, wanting to check the internet, regardless of whether my eyes could focus or not. One time I woke up with horrible heartburn and had to take a Zantac. I guess the "magic mouthwash" doesn't do anything for that. I've finally decided to give up for now and let things straighten themselves out–with the help of a cup of coffee.

9:42 p.m. CDT 20170630. No more moon boot! Also, most of my Frankenstein's Toenail is gone now! The podiatrist took X-rays of my foot and determined that the big toe is healing nicely. It's still not 100% healed, so I have to wear an orthopedic shoe (more of a sandal with Velcro holding it on) for the next three weeks. I might be able to stop using a walker to get around outside, which will be a godsend. Furthermore, I no longer have to have it bandaged! In fact, the doctor said I should start putting some vitamin E and/or aloe vera gel on it (found something called Bio-Oil for it) to help get rid of the dry skin and the scar from the surgery. As for Frankenstein's Toenail, for anyone who clicked on that picture, he did some serious trimming and grinding on it. It's almost completely gone. He said he still might remove the nail, but not until the toe heals. He went on to deal with the rest of my toes and found fungus on the big toe of my right foot. I've got Kerasal for that now. Overall, I don't have to go back to see him for three weeks, as mentioned above. Some not-so-good news from the podiatrist: he recommended that I go back to my primary doctor for my edema/venous stasis. The compression stocking isn't doing any good, so I need something medical rather than mechanical, most likely. In other words, I'm probably going to have to go back on the Lasix. A bit of good news to balance that out from the ENT side: I think the "magic mouthwash" might be helping. I could be hallucinating, but I think I'm getting some of my vocal range back, mainly in the low falsetto. I'm still working on it. Also, no Zofran emergency tonight. I think we've got the pills timed out right.

Interesting enforcement of the style, to be sure. I'll grant that what I wrote doesn't fit any classical definition of "poetry." If you consider free-form or "free-verse" poetry as valid, then it does fall under a currently accepted style of poetry, as I was told by my critiquers on Scribophile. It's a tale told from two POVs of the same narrator (one internal), written in free-verse. I would not agree that it is an essay, though. An essay makes an assertion and goes about proving it. I definitely didn't try to do that. However, If you reject the free-verse as a valid form of poetry, I would ask that you consider it as a short story instead, again told from two points-of-view of the same narrator.

10:18 a.m. CDT 20170630. I just heard back from the ENT specialist. My H. pylori test was negative, so I don't have GERD causing my cough and voice changes. Recommendation: use the "magic mouthwash" for a month and see if it helps. If not, call them back, probably for an appointment. Today is podiatrist/X-ray day. I hope I'll be able to get out of the moon boot, as I've said, but I also hope that I'll be able to stop using a walker (something I've had to use since I broke my toe). I'd like to go back to a cane for outside walking, which is something I can't do as long as I've got the moon boot on my left leg. The X-ray will be the judge of that, I guess. I think we're also going back to ACG Medical Supply for a more reliable foot elevation pillow. Again, that'll depend on the X-ray results. Do I still need to elevate both feet, or just my right one (the one with edema / venous stasis)? We'll take the answer to that question to ACG and let them figure out the appropriate pillow. My pills have settled now, so I'm off to do the "magic mouthwash" routine. I then get to figure out how to fit it into my spreadsheet of medications. That'll be (no) fun.

Thank you. I hope it was a good read, also. I'm a music composer and a wanna-be novelist. Poetry is at the bottom of my creative tree, but it's something I do on rare occasions when I get stuck on something or get a serious muse pushing me in that direction. It's not my best talent, but I hope the end result is at least readable. My pills did, too, for a week, although the bottles still required the shoebox. At the time of the poem, I'd outgrown any AM/PM dispenser on the market. I recently found one that holds my morning and nightly pills, but the way it's put together confuses me (the lids are connected at the middle, the AM is at the top, and I keep getting it confused with PM) to the point where I can only use it to keep track of my hydrocodone doses. Oh, just got a phone call. Update in next message.

Microsoft. Literally no sooner did I get my music system active and updated after several months of downtime than it decided to a] put updates on my machine in the background, b] prep my system for the Creators Update, and c] offer the Creators Update to me. For a musician, item c] is an annoying thing, since we have to deal with copy protection and machine-based authorization. The Creators Update changes certain machine codes–just enough to make some of my more useful plugins think that they've been moved to a different machine, according to reports I've seen on the programs' forums on Facebook. There are supposedly fixes to these issues, but I'd rather have a backup of my working, updated system as it is now before giving in to the Dark Side. So, once again, for the second time this week, out comes the 8 TB external HD and the latest copy of Clonezilla. I'm backing up all four internal drives (two 1 TB SSDs, two 2 TB HDDs) to images on the external drive. The 8 TB was a good investment, or so it seems so far. Backup #1 took up just a tad over 1 TB thanks to Parallel GZIP compression, and it did it quickly thanks to a fast Haswell processor and 32 GB of DDR4 RAM. Once I'm done, and once G.DATA finishes its scan, then have at thee, Creators Update! Do your worst. I'll be backed up and ready to take you on.

Give that man a silver dollar.

The glove, the Gauntlet, Lord Tedd, et cetera, et cetera ...

I mentioned that I wrote a poem about the shoebox of pills I have to take one day after going through a rather depressing and frustrating series of medical appointments. I posted it to Scribophile and got good reviews, so I figure I'd share it here, concerning the medical frustration I've been going through lately. Ladies and gentlemen, allow me to present to you ... THE SHOEBOX by D. Lee Jackson I really ought to replace it. It's a bit lighter than usual today. Some of the medicines I used to keep in it are on the coffee table behind my laptop, ready for my midday dose. Others are still on the bookshelf, waiting until my doctor clears me to take them again. Mainly herbal supplements. When did I start using it, anyway? I wonder if a date's printed on it somewhere. There's also another bottle missing. A bottle of pills that were supposed to help me with my allergies, help me to breathe so I could go outside and enjoy nature at its fullest. Suggested Retail $75.00—Our Low Price $64.99. No date. Just bars and codes. One that would help me get out of the house so that I could take care of some “much-needed exercise,” as several doctors have told me, without having to worry about explosions of pollen from nearby trees. Exercise I needed before they would help me with my other problems. “Made in Indonesia.” Damn. Had to turn it upside down to read that. Jumbled the insides now. Exercise that would help me lose enough weight before they'd work on my knees, my back, my ankles. “Lose thirty pounds and call me in the morning.” Right. The lid fold is getting seriously warped. I wonder how long it'll stay connected. Self-serving bastards. They'll give out expensive medicines to help me “deal with the situation,” but won't do an operation to fix the cause. Of course, that means other meds for the resulting depression, the anxiety, the heart problems, sleep problems, illness-of-the-week problems, and so on. I've put too many stickers on it, I think. Who needs to know about a Houston radio station in Dallas? About which university I went to? At least they cover the goofy company logo. But there was a sinus problem which absolutely required an expensive operation by doctor number … hell, I've lost count. Couldn't fix the other problems without it. It could just barely hold all the pills I took before the sinus surgery. And then, post-op, the one allergy medication that was supposed to help me breathe so I could finally exercise. The one that almost made me suffocate instead. How the hell do you survive a dream where your lungs are collapsing? Another few minutes asleep and I would have stayed that way forever. All thanks to a bottle of pills that was supposed to help me “deal with the situation.” I know at least my feet would fit inside it. I mean, it's a shoebox, right? Shoot, it'll probably out-live me. What's my motivation? Well, doctor? How do I get out of this vicious cycle? I wonder if my ashes will fit inside it one day. ©2015, 2017 D. Lee Jackson. All Rights Reserved,

9:43 p.m. CDT 20170629. Zofran emergency. While taking my nightly pills, no less. Here's the sequence of events: Finish dinner. Swish & spit with "magic mouthwash." Let things settle. Drink some Crystal Light lemon tea while scratching Mrs. Prof's back. (Semi-nightly ritual, the scratching, not the tea—that's nightly.) Move back to my side of the sofa and start taking my shoebox full of pills (I'm going to post that poem, BTW). Start feeling overfull toward the end of pill taking. Take the last pills. Feel like barfing—reach for the Zofran and start praying. Crisis averted. I think I developed a gas bubble in my relatively small (from the gastric bypass) stomach, but when something's gotta come out, anything on top of it's gotta come out first. The Zofran kept that from happening. I have no idea if the "magic mouthwash" influenced this in any way. It would be rather dumb if it did, IMHO, especially since it's got the equivalent of Benadryl in it. Besides, I've still got gas. It's still coming out (the top end, thankyouverymuch), but without the emergency that I had earlier.

5:13 p.m. CDT 20170629. Microsoft has already offered to start installing the Creators Update on my music system. It wasted no time in getting to it. I put it on snooze–not enough energy to deal with all of the updates and the purchase of a major music software upgrade (the goal of all of this panic in the first place). I'm downloading the upgrade on the music machine as I type this on the laptop. I got in touch with my ENT doctor's nurse about the prednisolone issue. She checked with him, and he mirrored the above remarks: unless it's something that I swallow (it isn't), I should be fine. Just watch out for odd side effects. I think I've run through most of my available energy after dealing with all of the upgrades. A bit of food is called for, since I'm not 100% done with the music software upgrade yet. Gotta keep some of my wits about me. Wish me luck for tomorrow, please, BTW. It's podiatrist appointment and X-ray day. I want the broken sesamoid bone to be in good enough shape for me to be able to walk without the moon boot. I'm tired of this damned thing. (At least I'm only wearing one, and not two like I was when I broke both my ankles back in 2009).

It's a prescription mouthwash from my ENT doctor. That's how, basically. None noted yet. Just some odd warmth for a short period after use.

12:55 p.m. CDT 20170629. Microsoft is having its way with my music computer. Yes, I managed to find some strength after a post-coffee nap which has allowed me to begin the long process of performing six months of updates to my music system. All of this is geared toward purchasing an upgrade of one vital piece of software to its latest version, but I've got to get by G.DATA, Malwarebytes, NVIDIA's drivers, a couple of Stardock utilities, several audio plug-in packages, my audio composition software, and of course Microsoft's horrendous upgrades. I just hope that it doesn't decide to throw the Creators Update at me in the middle of all of this. I found out what is in the "magic mouthwash" Mrs. Prof picked up from the compounding pharmacy, and I'm a tad bit concerned about one of the ingredients. It contains: Banophen (a.k.a. Benadryl) Prednisolone (a steroid) Nystatin (an antifungal) Minocycline HCl (a Tetracycline derivative) Salt What worries me is the Prednisolone. I've had bad reactions to oral steroids before, to the point of having atrial fibrillations. However, I can handle injected steroids, and I'm not ingesting this stuff—only swishing and swallowing. Does that put me at the same risk as oral steroids, or does that make it as safe as injected steroids? I'm not sure which way to go here.

Well, I may have said that already anyway. I had some of your Parmesan sausage for breakfast, this time on Club crackers (nom), and chased it with my morning pills and a cup of coffee with two SToK depth charges. All of this got followed by a dose of ibuprofen to stave off a developing headache. Once the headache clears, I'll reassess the situation.

4:55 a.m. CDT 20170629. Here I am, awake before 5am again. It's been a painful sleep, mainly for my back. It didn't want to get into a comfortable position. Pain medicine has been taken. We'll see about how it responds to that, yes we will. Mrs. Prof finally brought home the "magic mouthwash" last night, and I'll be damned if I can tell what's in it. It tastes like a medicine-y melted orange creamcicle, but not like anything you'd want to swallow. It gives me a strange warm sensation after using it. I'd wonder if it was related to my painful sleep if I knew what was in it. I think I'll be calling the ENT doctor to find out later today, since I've got to use the stuff after every meal and at bedtime and I can't have it interfering with any of my other medications. God, I hope I get some energy and stamina today. I've got to finish certain tasks on my music computer by tomorrow, and I can't do that if I'm zonked out on medicines like I was all day yesterday. I know that coffee (cofveve? Lord, I don't need a cofveve day) alone won't do it for me. Mrs. Prof bought groceries as well as the "magic mouthwash" last night, although she threw in a wild card by going to a different store than what I'd written the grocery list for (where, of course, they have different stuff). I'll try to make prudent use of what she bought to help me get through the day. I just don't know when the day should start—should I go back to bed, or just say [redacted] it and get moving?

No, no, I mean the musical element called the "Amen break" ... Further info: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amen_break

Much use was made of the "Amen break" in this song.