Realized today that when I use my walker, what mostly hurt is my arms, not my legs.
Which I guess means my arms are going too. Not a huge surprise, really. Would be weird if my musclular degeneration was limited to my legs.
I am still pissed off at myself for wimping out when I was at Doctor Chao’s office last week. I was all ready to tell him how upset I was about the lack of progress on my case and to demand he do something about it but instead I was my usual eager to please, tell people what they want to hear self.
I did get across to him how worried I was about where this all was going, and he looked concerned, but he didn’t really address my concerns, he just told me to get my diabetes under control and to get a Covid booster.
Like all GPs these days, his main concern is getting you to leave. He is paid per visit so he just wants to get as many butts through that turnstile per hour as he can.
Clearly, rehearsing what I am going to say to him in my head beforehand is not enough. I have to vividly imagine he is sitting in front of me with his usual “open but serious” look on his face and I have to say things to him that I know he won’t like and that might make him upset and I have to be FINE with that.
It’s not easy being as empathic as I am.
That’s why I like to say being sensitive ain’t for wimps.
Well, that plus it’s funny.
Back to my arms.
I think part of the problem is that I have shifted how I relate to the walker. I have finally used it enough that I can walk at a more or less normal speed while pushing it in front of me, and that is a good feeling.
But to do so, I think I began leaning on the thing with much more of my weight, and that meant a lot more strain on my poor flabby nerd arms,
And given that I only leave the apartment three times a week, it might be some time before my arm muscles catch up with the new regime.
It’s always something, ain’t it? Just one thing after another.
That’s life for ya I guess.
Went to see Doctor Caswell, my diabetes and sleep apnea specialist, today. Just in time, too, because I had just run out of Ozempic and Jardiance.
Thanks to Julian, I have both of them now. Phew. For me at least, medication panic is a real thing and something I have had to deal with in the past.
Especially if it’s my psych meds. I will let almost anything slip before I miss a dose of Paxil or Wellbutrin. Those two are the only reason I am as sane as I am.
I remember life before Paxil. It was,,,, dark.
And not just in the sense of being bleak and depressing. Also in the sense of being so much more numb and detached from reality.
To the point where I felt like my life force was ebbing so low that one day it would go out like a candle flame when it’s blown out.
So yeah. Thank you Paxil. You got me on to the path of waking up inside that I am still on twenty years later.
Turns out it’s a very long path.
More after the break.
The looming financial crisis
Of a strictly personal nature.
As patient readers know, every month I buy a credit card from Pay Power and deposit $500 (the limit) on it.
They are theoretically reloadable but when I try to register a card for that I get this screen asking me for a PAC and nobody on God’s green Earth know what what is.
Not my bank. Not Pay Power. Not even the internet in general. It’s just another of the ways I always end up with weird problem nobody has ever heard of.
Like, say, having ytour computer’ keyboard suddenly lose its mind and scramble itself.
Anyhow, I have been doing the Pay Power thing for years now. When my bank, along with every other bank in Canada (??), discontinued its own reloadable credit card, I had to find a substitute, and Pay Power was it.
Until now. Because I can’t reach the Pay Power website any more, and I fear the worst.
The worst, in this case, being Pay Power going out of business as the CEO disappears to Cabo with all our deposits.
Without Pay Power, I will be forced to do everything in cash, and that is crippling in today’s online world.
The only way I will be able to get groceries will be to hand Julian a shopping list. I can’t do it in person any more. I can’t stand up for nearly long enough.
And I hate to further impose on poor Julian but I don’t see another way.
Plus it will be a pain to have to make a shopping list every week. I haven’t had to be that organized about anything in a long time.
But if the Pay Power website stays down, it will be impossible to register new credit cards to activate them, and boom goes Pay Power.
Well if anything is going to prompt me to resume my search for a better bank than Vancity, this is it. At least one Canadian bank must offer Visa Debit by now, and that’s the one that will get my business.
That way, the money come out of my bank account directly and I won’t need Pay Power at all any more.
Monthly “check” gets deposited and is immediately spendable online.
That’s the dream.
I am even willing to go to the branch once to sign up for this shit.
But it’s got to be what I jut described or no dice.
The ball’s in your court, banking industry. Who wants my service charges?
I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.