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Not so good results
Last Monday I went to get some bloodwork done and it was ten tubes or more that were taken. Not all were full and there were various colors involved. Plus a midstream urine test. Fortunately, I didn’t pass out after losing all that blood. :D
On Thursday I got a message saying my results were ready so I downloaded the pages and was a bit surprised by some of them. I think most relevant was the fact my iron levels are actually much worse than over a month ago. My ferritin went from 24 to 15 and my iron is down to 9, getting close to low. Fortunately, I am not anemic at this point, just deficient. The only thing that stayed the same was saturation which is at the top end of the normal range. At the rate I’m going, I will likely be anemic by next year as iron stores will be gone by then.
There were some other out-of-normal range results, some that I don’t understand and so I need to talk to the doctor next. I have an appointment tomorrow morning and hopefully, some of this will make better sense. The helicobacter pylori and celiac came back normal which narrows down possible causes for my iron deficiency. I do have a follow-up appointment in January with the doctor who did my colonoscopy and gastroscopy where I understand I may have a capsule endoscopy where I swallow a camera to get more images of my gut.
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Good results
I saw my doctor today to discuss the results of the procedures on the weekend and the ultrasound I had a bit further back. I already knew everything looks good visually from the gastroscopy and colonoscopy. The biopsies came back all good too. So it doesn’t seem like there’s any bleeding there. I will follow up with the specialist who may end up having me swallow one of those capsule camera thingies that goes all the way through to check things out. Apparently what was done only goes so far each way and there’s still an area that isn’t viewed. I’m of a mind that maybe I am just not eating enough meat. I did switch iron supplements and that’s a lot easier to tolerate so I might be okay to go daily with that. I still have a bunch of blood tests to do before the end of the month and I will see the doctor once more in early December to discuss those results. I’m allowing at least a week as some of those tests take more time to process. Or at least they once did.
My ultrasound was to check my liver due to inconsistent liver tests. They are only off by a little but seem to go normal and then not normal. The last abdominal ultrasound showed I had fatty liver disease so I kind of figured that might be an issue. But this also came back completely normal. So I guess I am doing something right. It’s quite a relief because I was imagining all sorts of issues.
My dad is still in the hospital and seems to be doing well aside from the fact he wants to go home and they aren’t ready to release him. Also, the hospital has some staff shortages so that nurses are delivering meals and sometimes they are quite late. And my dad hasn’t had a shower in five days. He’s finding it very upsetting. I think he’s pretty much at the same level as before the blood clot so I guess it was caught really early. I really hope he is home by Thanksgiving as I suspect he will become quite agitated if still stuck there.
My hayfever is much better than it was on the weekend. Switching back to loratadine has definitely helped although I’m still having a few more symptoms than usual. Still, it’s a lot easier to live with than feeling totally run down and miserable like I did on Sunday.
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“Fun” week
I think I mentioned recently I was referred to have a gastroscopy and colonoscopy. Well, today was the day and it’s now over. I’ve had a colonoscopy once before and the prep was awful but it worked. This time I had to do a special diet for several days and didn’t use the prep until 6 pm yesterday. It was slow to work and I was up most of the night and still wasn’t ready when I arrived this morning. I ended up with some extra help times two and finally was fit to go through it. The prep solution was truly vile and I had to be up at 4:30 am to do the second dose. How I finished without vomiting I don’t know. I definitely gagged after every mouthful. Anyway, it’s all over and done and I’ve been home, had an afternoon nap and it’s now about bedtime where I hopefully will actually sleep. I told my family over chat I think I slept more during the procedure than during the entire night before. LOL
Don’t have all results but the colonoscopy was perfectly fine with no issues. Nothing was noted on gastroscopy either but she did take tissue for three biopsies. I will get results through my regular doctor at some point. The point of all this was to look for reasons for iron deficiency that are not diet-related. What was rather neat in the report is there are photos done from the procedures, I definitely didn’t have that on the previous one.
I ran out of my supply of loratadine (Claritin) this week and forgot to get more so I have been using Fexo tabs that other family members use and I don’t think they work as well even though they are more potent. Since I’ve been home today I’ve developed an allergy attack condition which is the worst I’ve suffered so far this season.
Also related is that we reached the government safety net on prescriptions and it seems we are due a refund. Once a family spends a certain amount, medication prices are reduced for the rest of the year and we got there early this year. I have to go sign a form at the pharmacy to get the refund into our bank account.
In other news, my dad is in the hospital again. He went to the doctor about one issue and somehow they found out he had a large clot in his brain. He was rushed to the ER and they did a procedure to break it up and he’s recovering at the moment. I suspect he will go home sometime today. I don’t know if anything happened regarding the other issue but so glad his doctor picked up the issue. I don’t think he would have survived another massive stroke. I guess this was considered a stroke but they got to it early enough that he may have avoided any notable additional damage to the previous one. This brings back the idea of travelling home but I’m not rushing any decisions. It’s not like I can get flights out all that easily yet anyway. And getting back to Western Australia will be difficult before the state border is open to international travel again (which might not be until January or February based on current estimates on vaccination rates reaching 90%).
My exercise routine has suffered considerably this week. I haven’t been to the gym since Monday although I did get exercise on Tuesday and Wednesday. I plan to go tomorrow and do a decent workout. I suspect it’s going to be a struggle after several days but it’s got to be done. :)
That’s probably all for now so I will finish up and get to bed for a decent sleep.
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Not fully functional
That’s kind of how I am feeling today but I know it will pass. The past few days I have had to really push to do exercise and I must admit I didn’t feel better afterwards either. I got a new workout routine on Monday, having gone a full eight weeks going to the gym already. This one uses the machines less and requires more abdominal work, which I hope will improve my core muscle groups, which have been really weak since having kids. I’ve noticed my foot/toes are handling activity a lot better now than they did before. The exception is when I am doing yoga moves that require me to be on my toes. I suspect that may just be painful activity when the toes are stretched like that. Anyway, I have started walking a lot more than I have been and have even gone on short hikes in the hills, which I hope to continue through the warmer months.
I had a bunch of blood tests recently and went for a follow-up to discover I have low iron stores. There’s been a gradual decline over the past couple of years. My last test was borderline normal but it dropped quite a bit over three months. Since I am post-menopausal, the usual reasons don’t apply so I’m going in to have a gastroscopy and colonoscopy later this month to check for any internal issues. It’s been several years since my first colonoscopy so I guess that’s okay. Not looking forward to the prep for it, of course. I have been put on iron supplements but they are wreaking havoc with my digestive system. I am trying to eat more red meat but it’s a struggle since I don’t have much appetite for it on a regular basis. I came up with the idea of having small amounts more often and seeing if that works for me. I will also see about switching to a gentler iron supplement since I am not even taking the current one daily and I am having a lot of issues. Tonight I made a stir fry with potatoes, green beans, mushrooms, and a spinach/kale mix along with some stir fry beef and that worked okay for me.
I’ve been feeling what I call draggy the past few days. I’m not sure if that’s due to low iron or something else since I wasn’t feeling like that much before I was told about the iron deficiency. I also learned that I shouldn’t have iron and calcium together either as it affect iron absorption.
My liver tests haven’t been consistent lately so I also had an ultrasound which I imagine will show fatty liver disease, which was there before. I’m hoping it’s not so bad as the last one in 2016. I’m due to have repeat blood tests plus a panel of liver and celiac and other tests at the end of the month so it will be interesting to see how things go. I did find that after two months of exercise I had not only gained weight but my muscle mass hadn’t changed at all. I am sure I have more muscle in some areas so it doesn’t make much sense to me. I’m not that fussed about the slight weight increase and it actually has dropped in the past few days.
After a pretty mild October, we’re getting some warmer weather now but it’s not constant. We go to eat at the food trucks on Monday nights and it’s not been all that comfortable since the first week when we had some lovely warm weather. We even missed a couple of weeks, one of them due to wet and chilly weather. Tomorrow’s forecast is quite positive so I am looking forward to it.
A Lego store opened in Perth about ten days ago so we had to make a first visit. I was expecting really long lines and big crowds but it turned out to be reasonable when we went. But there wasn’t a lot of merchandise still available by the time we got in on day four. We only had to wait for about 15-20 minutes to get in and it was fine in-store. It was worse finding parking at the shopping center, which has mostly doubled in size very recently. I found I didn’t recognise much there and it took a while to find the area of the original structure. I suspect we’ll be visiting there more often once the excitement over new stores dies down (lots of new shops just opened, enough that there was an electronic sign advising there was an “event” ahead on the road.)
I had been considering an upgrade to my Apple watch but finally decided to wait another year. My watch is working fine and although there are features I’d like, I don’t know if it’s enough to upgrade yet. Assuming the iPhone gets a couple of features I want next year, I will update both watch and phone.
Our state finally has a plan for opening up to the world set so I have a more likely chance of going home for a visit next year. No definite dates but our premier is waiting for vaccination rates to reach 90% before we open up properly. Once that happens, I think it might be doable, if things like travel insurance will provide sufficient coverage. I’d really like to get home to see my family, especially my dad. He’s doing okay but has had a couple of scares lately and his blood pressure is definitely not under control.
There’s surely some other stuff I meant to write about but I can’t recall all of it lately. So hopefully I will update again soon.
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And just like that September is long over and it’s almost halfway through October. I had actually started a post several days ago but it’s now a bit too dated.
Obviously time is just kicking along and life is happening. I’m still keeping up with my exercise and have been attending regular fitness classes. I have taken a liking to one that incorporates tai chi, pilates and yoga that happens each Wednesday. I also like doing a spin bike class although I probably will avoid the Wednesday class since it’s a bit much exercise. The other class is pretty full on and I got quite a workout this morning. Yesterday was even worse as I did my clinical pilates and a weights workout before 1.5 hours of tai chi last night. That won’t be usual but I was off schedule due to missing exercise one day on the weekend.
My foot/toes are still healing, I guess. I noticed I get bruises on my toes with minimal activity and that’s frustrating. My foot was feeling a lot better yesterday but this morning it was sore and I noticed one of the injured toes was bruised and then there’s a bruise on a toe on the other foot, totally unrelated. Not sure what that’s about so I guess it’s something to bring up next doctor visit.
Otherwise my body is feeling pretty good and my efforts to work on core exercise seems to be paying off a bit. I just need to stick to it more. I have a plank exercise at the gym that goes for 40 second intervals but was able to increase to a minute when I was there yesterday. I do a modified version to avoid stressing my toes.
Our weather has been off kilter again with cooler temperatures than usual for October. That’s due to change tomorrow with a major increase to higher than usual, I think. I guess nothing is typical in these times and I hear similar anecdotes from my mom about what’s happening in Texas…although her theories on reasons don’t quite gel with mine.
My dad is doing well with his speech therapy and I spoke to him briefly this morning and he was able to get through a lot more talk than he has on previous conversations. He goes three times a week for that so hopefully that continues to make a difference. He is doing really well with occupational therapy and was talking about dropping those sessions due to the co-pay required for each visit. I’m going to provide some funds to help ensure he can stick with it.
I think I had more to say but now I’m drawing a blank so will stop now so I can post this finally. :)
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Body and Soul
I was going to do another spin cycle class today but was feeling a bit too sore from all the exercise yesterday. But I did go and try out a class called Body and Soul. It’s a fusion of tai chi, yoga, and pilates, and it was pretty interesting and rather tough at times. It definitely got my heart pumping faster so I guess that’s a good thing. What was good is I was able to work more of the core muscles in the workout. Not so good was the need to use my toes so much. My right foot didn’t like it much at all so I had to adapt a bit.
On a related note, I noted my toe with the fracture looked a bit bruised and swollen tonight. To the touch, it feels like a bump has developed there rather than swelling. Weird to see but will wait and see what happens.
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Springy
Spring is moving along and trees and plants are in bloom in a big way. We are lucky to have blooms all through the year but there’s just something about seeing so much new life around. I got out into the yard today and did some more mowing. We managed to get a couple more batteries to use with the mower but I think I may have overdone it today as the mower wouldn’t restart with a change of batteries. Or maybe the batteries had lost charge. I’m hoping that’s the case and it all works next time. There’s a lot more mowing to do and lots of tall grass and weeds to get rid of. Will need to use the line trimmer for some of it and the rest might just require lots of pulling of grass.
My exercise program is going fine for the moment. With my membership, I have access to fitness classes, gym, and pool. I haven’t used the pool yet but will soon. Last week I finally tried out a spin class at another location. They don’t offer this at our local gym but it’s only a ten-minute drive to one that does. I arrived slightly late as there was some event going on and parking was difficult. The class itself was okay but it’s always hard to start late. Anyway, I did another spin class today and it was pretty tough. It was a different teacher and a more rigorous workout so I am a bit sore tonight. On top of that, I had a clinical pilates class this afternoon and I was so sore that my legs were trying to protest quite a bit. Normally we have tai chi on Tuesdays but we are on term break this week and next. I had wanted to try out the yoga class locally but was a bit too sore to attempt it. I will plan to do it next week, which should work since there’s no pilates.
I’ve been reading a lot of books on Netgalley this year but have had to cut back on requests because I am too far behind schedule. I enjoy reading the books but it gets a bit unmanageable when you have too many waiting to be read and reviewed. I had over twenty at one point and now it’s down to seven. Plus there are a few that I’m still waiting to hear whether they’ve been approved. I’m expecting to get one or two approved close to release dates, which is kind of annoying. One was requested in March and is due to be published in November so it’s going tricky if approval does come through.
Today both the boys had their first COVID vaccines. They opened up vaccines for their age group last month and initially we couldn’t go through the gp. I had made other arrangements but then found the gp is doing them. The old appointments were canceled and I keep getting reminders to make an appointment again. I need to see if there’s any place where we can indicate we got a vaccine elsewhere. The second vaccine is in three weeks, which lands the day after Game Fanatic’s birthday. Well, it’s due on his birthday but I decided to go for the day after so it’s three weeks and a day.
We are thinking more seriously about getting a new vehicle. We have our sights set on a Rav4 Hybrid so now it’s a matter of checking them out and test drives and all that stuff. We’ve had our current car for twelve and a half years and it’s starting to cost a bit more money. So upgrading makes a bit of sense at this point.
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Unusual
It was my mom’s birthday yesterday but she was busy with various things during the day and I decided to call her in the evening (my morning). I set my alarm so I would be up and called her and we spoke for about twenty minutes before hanging up. I lay in bed for a little while reading and then I realized my nose was bleeding. I have had this happen once in a while, especially when it’s allergy season and I’m on antihistamines (which I am on now). But this one went on for about fifteen minutes and was heavier than I’ve experienced before.
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A few things
Just a little update from my last post. I’ve been going to the gym for over a week now. In fact, I went eight days straight with no break. Yesterday I didn’t go because I had a clinical pilates class with the physiotherapist and tai chi on. I’m glad I missed it yesterday because my muscles were pretty weary by the time I did the pilates and 1.5 hours of tai chi (which includes fan class). Today I took the day off from exercise and tomorrow I go back and do my weights routine. I’m trying to make that an every third day routine with cardio workouts the other days. I do the pilates every second week as it’s expensive but helpful and my insurance ran out on it months ago and the tai chi is only during school terms (two-week break coming up). I’m hoping to do a bit of swimming instead of the cardio soon.
My dad is doing well at the moment. He had his 80th birthday on Sunday and it was a low-key kind of day. He started occupational therapy on Monday and today he starts his speech (moved up a couple of times). The speech is what he needs most as he struggles to communicate. That said, he’s much improved since just after his stroke.
I finally contacted the clinic where I was referred to about osteoporosis and it turns out I just have to wait to hear from them. This is part of the public hospital system and they send out appointments. I’m hoping I don’t have a long wait and I hope I get an appointment time that can fit into my work schedule. I am a bit embarrassed to say I had a bit of an accident at the gym on the weekend when I stepped off a machine and tripped over the one next to it. I had forgotten how far off the ground it was and my balance was way off…and this is the sort of thing I need to be careful about with my bone health. I’ve got a bit of a bruise on my shin now but it’s nothing terrible.
I managed to move up the boys’ Covid vaccinations by a couple of weeks by getting appointments at the gp office. Previously I couldn’t book them in as the allowance didn’t cover their age group yet. But yesterday I checked and was able to get them set up and then I cancelled the other ones. This will be a lot more convenient and easier for the boys too.
I’m trying to decide whether to upgrade my phone now that the new iPhones are coming out. I’m a bit annoyed they haven’t brought back the fingerprint scan as the face login doesn’t work in the dark and with a mask on (I can overcome the mask issue with my watch though). It’s not that I don’t like the face login but it’s not really enough on its own. That might be a deal-breaker as this was something that has been mentioned as a change. My phone is only two years old so it’s not an immediate need. I am, however, considering the new Apple Watch since it’s supposed to be a major update this year.
I didn’t mention this earlier but we got a Roborock vacuum a couple of months ago and the Scientist takes great delight in it. He had a great time programming it to vacuum in certain rooms. It’s not set up to clean the entire house but it is taking care of several rooms now. The only snag is the fact our carpet is really old and it keeps unravelling so that the vacuum gets caught in it regularly.
Well this ended up longer than I expected…
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Something
I guess I didn’t have much to say for the past several months. Not that there hasn’t been anything much happening. In fact, quite a bit has happened. Currently, we are just coming out of winter after a fairly mild season. Funnily enough, we’ve had two days in September (spring), today included where it’s just been cold but didn’t have more than one day like this through the winter. But we had a few days of much warmer than usual temperatures earlier in the week that made me forget all about winter.
Anyway, spring has sprung and with a particularly wet July, plant life is really blooming. The bottlebrush trees are already flowering when that usually starts late in September. Pollen is everywhere and so the anti-histamine regimen has also begun.
After the better part of the year spent not doing much exercise, I decided I needed a kickstart and joined the new gym that opened up in our suburb this month. We’ve had a pool for 20+ years but no gym despite our suburb being one of the largest in the state. Not that there’s any shortage of gyms around here. Plus there are a couple of others opening up this year nearby. But I decided to go to the city-run gym because they have a pool and membership includes two free months. Well, it did when I joined as an early bird foundation member. The gym is high-tech with the machines all hooked to Bluetooth and the internet on many of the machines. It opened on Monday and I started off that morning. Last week I met with a trainer to do a plan and I got through the full plan. I was just a bit sore on Tuesday but went back and did some rowing and cycling and I was still quite sore. It was only today when I could say the soreness had properly gone away for the most part. So this morning I went and did another workout that will likely have me sore again tomorrow. I plan to do some cardio tomorrow. There have been some hiccups with the gym such as the fact that phone coverage inside is pretty poor, which makes it hard to access my online music service without downloading songs to the phone first. Some of the machines won’t connect online and so they don’t work with the online programming that is supposed to happen. This has slowed down my workouts a bit while I try to work out the bugs that can be sorted…or switch to a different machine. One of the treadmills was listed out of order on day two and is still not fixed. I am sure these things will get fixed but it’s a bit frustrating too. One of the downsides of having everything connected online, I guess.
Due to the rain in July, our yard turned into a jungle and I wasn’t able to mow earlier because the “key” for our lawnmower (battery-powered) got lost. New keys now exist but the motivation has been iffy at times for some good reasons and not-so-good ones. But I did get out and mowed a big section of the backyard and side and then got the front yard mowed this past weekend. The batteries don’t last long so I had to choose the most important parts. We do plan to get more batteries so we can do more mowing in the future.
About six weeks ago, I was leaning across the sofa to reach for the remote control when I hit the top of my foot and toes on a footrest that was slightly out from its closed position on our recliner sofa seat. It really, really hurt at the time and then it bruised up but I thought it was getting better. Weeks later I was still having problems and went to the doctor and then had an x-ray and ultrasound. Turns out I fractured my foot with that injury and it’s still healing. And I also had a mildly sprained ankle that needed to be looked after too. My doctor sent me to get a Dexa scan as a fracture with minimal trauma as occurred was not normal. Results say I have low bone density but because I have had a minimal trauma fracture, they are calling it osteoporosis and I’ve been referred to a specialist due to my young-ish age. It runs in my family so not totally surprising but I honestly thought the results would show nothing special as they usually do…I guess my luck has run out there. Anyway, the new exercise will help with that and I need to put more calcium-rich foods into my diet. The fractured foot has made my exercise options kind of limited but hopefully will heal soon and allow me to do more walking and other weight-bearing exercises.
Meanwhile, my father had a stroke about three weeks ago and due to negligence at the VA hospital his outcome was worse than it should have been. The emergency room staff were quite good but once he was admitted it seemed his care really went downhill. He was left in a room for a day and they didn’t do the MRI that was scheduled by the ER doc (or anything else) and constant attempts by my mom to get in touch with the doctor went unanswered. She finally checked him out of that hospital and moved him to one closer to home and the care was amazing there. My brother flew out from Charlotte for a few days and was also able to help things along in some areas. My dad has just gotten home after a stint in a rehab center and is doing okay, all things considered. His mobility is okay but his speech has been very affected and his right side is also impaired. Most of that has improved but the speech is still a major issue. And he turns 80 in three days. But at least he’s home now.
I sent a birthday message to a friend who has been out of touch in recent years and got a lovely message back. I was fairly sure she had just retreated from the world but it is hard to know when you are out of touch for long periods. I’m glad I was right about that. It will be good to be back in more regular contact again.
I guess it’s hard to write about current events and not write about Covid-19…We are doing fine here. We have had a few very short lockdowns this year, lasting three to five days each. We are fortunate it did not spread widely. The last time was in June and we had four local cases total and I think all were the delta variant. I suspect some luck was involved in the limited spread along with some effective government regulation. (I’m mostly happy with our local government’s response to COVID although they do have a lot of issues with the health system, in general, that need a lot more care.)
On a related note, potential visits back home are still kind of distant future. I had moved thoughts to middle-late spring next year but I imagine it’s going to be later than that.
Also on a related note, I am fully vaccinated. I had my first jab in May and the second last month. I got the Astra-Zeneca version which apparently is showing as better protection against the delta variant. The Scientist had to wait to get his due to surgery he had in May, and he got the Pfizer one which is now the preferred one for under 60s. (This changed after I had gotten my first one.) The boys are both booked to get their first jabs next month.
I think there was more for me to say but I guess this is a good start.