Promiseland

[Fetian]

I'm in so much pain I feel like I'm going to throw up

[Fetian]

I feel like ass but at least I don't have a migraine

Let myself go to sleep at about 11:30 and woke up at 3 AM without a headache but unable to fall back asleep. Stayed up listening to podcast and now I'm letting my phone charge enough that it won't die before I wake up again. Then I'll try for more sleep

Hopefully will feel like less ass at that point

[Fetian]

I think it was triggered by caffeine withdrawal caused by not drinking a soda early enough in the day

[Fetian]

Saw a lizard #blessed

[Fetian]

Doctor's appointment today, a preventative care thing. This after a phone appointment yesterday and labs on monday -- the problem with only doing medical stuff when it becomes necessary in some way is that they jump on piling all the preventative stuff on you at once while they have you

As usual for this place I took the light rail about halfway there and then walked the one-and-a-bit miles the rest of the way (and reverse that on the way back). On the way there I did discover that all the connect card tap points have been removed from the station near my house so I had to use cash to buy a ticket, annoying when I'm trying to pinch as much as I can this month for Oz's impending vet bill. But the walk was pretty nice, if tiring -- it was very warm and very windy today, which was an invigorating combination

And appointment went smoothly. The nurse practitioner offered to do my blood pressure then instead of on Monday, but didn't want to overrule whoever decided I couldn't get the actual labs done that day and have to wait 'til Monday. So after the checkup, the nurse and the person shadowing her came back in to do my blood pressure, and then the nurse was like '...You wait here and I'm going to go ask the NP about this', and then came back like 'You sit here for a few minutes and I'm going to come back and do the test again', which is behaviour I would expect if my blood pressure was like wildly elevated, but it was only a little? Per what I can find on the internet. So I sat for a bit and she did it again and it was still a little elevated so she kind of hemmed and hawed and tried just taking my pulse, and ultimately ended up just entering the numbers into my chart. As I said to Lee after, I can't help but feel like she wouldn't have been so reluctant to accept it if I had been visibly overweight, but I do nonetheless appreciate her efforts to not put 'high blood pressure' in my chart. It's also not that surprising, I was very sedentary this past winter and am working on getting active again, but only just, so it makes sense for my blood pressure to be elevated, I think.

The lab work on Monday is apparently going to include a finger prick and that I am worried about, both because I hate having that done it hurts and I'm a baby, but also because I do not take as much care in my diet as I should and my sister has turned out to be diabetic someodd years ago. I know that means I should be paying attention to this and yadda yadda preventative care, but counterpoint: I would rather just ignore it forever

That will be a Monday problem, though.

 
I have been rewatching Dragula and listening to the podcast behind-the-scenes episodes about the episodes I've watched after watching them -- a few days ago finished off doing this with season 3 (not as bad a season as on a first watch), and then when I got home from the appointment I watched the first episode of season 4, except that after I was done when I went to look for those episodes in the podcast it turns out they haven't done season 4? Okay no, I double checked myself and it's just that it's not labelled in the same way as the other recap episodes, and also they did that one as an episode recapping the first six episodes and then one for the remaining four, which is weird. I do hope they eventually do a proper rewatch and recap of that one but my plans have not been as waylaid as I thought

I also do not remember season 4 very well, except knowing that many of the contestants suck, so this may be an interesting experience to rewatch it. I don't even have a clear memory right now who wins

 
It's late, so I'm going to eat more food and go to bed, hopefully my legs feel alright tomorrow.

[Fetian]

"Queer" as in "it's none of your god damn business"

[Fetian]

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[Fetian]

Yesterday was another appointment to get my bloodwork done. This time there were protestors outside the clinic, and when I walked by them a guy started approaching me to ask first how I was ('I'm alright') and then "What are you up to?" -- like ??? I'm not gonna have a fucking chat with you about the medical care I'm here to get my guy!

They did prick my finger but it wasn't for diabetes like I assumed, but for a haemoglobin count which I assume was fine because she didn't say anything when she took the numbers down. Also she took my blood pressure again and it was slightly better than it was on Friday, so that's great. All in all a very fast appointment, and then I was heading home

It was very warm! I'm worried about summer, because we are having pretty summery weather already and it's barely March

Once home I collapsed on the couch and watched a couple dragulas. Season 4 has a bunch of people who will go on to feature in other seasons, and it's interesting to go back and see where they came from (or, where they were in 2021, anyway). There are a couple contestants that really get on my nerves, but honestly for the most part they're chill and it's fun to watch them just enjoying themselves. Before rewatching I wasn't sure if season 4 was one of the ones I hated but I don't think it was, I think I just hated 3 and 5.

Makes me even more sad there isn't a proper recap series on the podcast!

 
Today is a day of frustrations. Accidentally opted in to a new setting on the steamdeck and it says there's a way to toggle it in the settings but that setting does not appear to actually exist! Extremely annoying! Also they still haven't fixed the reversed controller settings issue nor brought back the ability for bluetooth controllers to wake the deck from sleep that they removed like a year ago. They just keep making it slightly worse and I'm getting tired of it

And then, tried to schedule an appointment for a checkup with my PCP and discovered that they no longer take my insurance! It would be so nice if they had to tell you that when it happened instead of making you find out when you're like, actively in need of a doctor's attention. Also it would be nice if they actually couldn't just stop taking your insurance at random.

So went looking for a new doctor who will take my insurance and when I found someone who might and seemed like possibly a good fit for me, called and was told that they do not actually take my insurance. I have given up for today but I do really wish I could just like, enter my insurance information into their patient care portal or something and it'll tell me if I'm wasting my time.

There's so much to take into account between ability to get to their office, whether they're taking new patients, if they'll take my insurance, if they have any patient reviews anywhere and what those reviews say,,, I hate that I apparently have to do this every few years. Makes me real fatalistic -- like I would love to have some continuity of care but that's just too much to ask I guess. So why bother?

And on top of all this I have to be worried that any new doctor I see won't take my disability seriously

Alright, it's getting to be lunchtime. Gonna go eat a thing and probably watch more dragula

[Fetian]

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[Fetian]

The funny -- by which I mean annoying -- thing about taking public transit is how differently "distance" is measured for you than it is other people. Like yes thank you, search results, that doctor is three miles closer to me than this other doctor, but they're also an hour and two transfers away whereas other doctor is thirty minutes and one train.

I have reached out to a doctor and we will see if they are willing to be my new PCP, and if so hopefully they are a good fit for me and my needs (cross fingers and touch wood)