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Part-time contact lenses
It’s been a few weeks since I started a contact lenses trial and while I’ve not worn them daily, I do find they fill a need to some extent.
I never followed up my previous post to share my experience of the monovision contact lenses, which is the alternative to the distance lenses. I tried them a couple of times and they just didn’t work for me. The main problem is they didn’t work very well for driving and I felt I was better off wearing my old glasses. The biggest reason I like wearing contacts is the addition of peripheral vision, particularly while driving. Also, my close up vision was too weird and trying to do close-up things made me feel a bit sick.
My optometrist had ordered another brands of contacts for me to try and there really wasn’t much of a difference with them to the original brand. In the end I opted for the ones that were cheaper and I should have those available by the end of the week, assuming no delays.
The optometrist has also ordered a pair of multifocal toric lenses for me to try out too. These have to be custom made and they are monthly which has both plusses and minuses. The positive is there would be far fewer resources required for them, being changed every four weeks as opposed to daily. I really prefer this option, especially if I find they are useful. The downside, of course, is the higher risk of infection. There’s no foolproof way to do it but I believe I should be okay so long as I use good hygiene practices while using them. These take a month to get in so I won’t be trying them out for a bit. I’m rather hopeful they will work for me but I don’t have any plans for them being part of my eye care at the moment.
Meanwhile it’s just a matter of using the remaining trial packs up. I think I’m going to have quite a few of the mono-vision left lenses left over though, since I can’t really bring myself to use them much. Maybe I can save them for a rainy day? :D
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I can see clearly now, sort of…
I was overdue for my eye examination and the Scientist was long overdue for his. We finally made appointments and saw an optometrist last weekend. I knew my vision had gotten worse, particularly in my left eye, so I guess it wasn’t too much of a surprise to be told my left eye had worsened by one dioptre, which is kind of significant. My right eye was worse but not by nearly so much. I think the vision change happened not far into last year so I should have seen to this long before now.
I ordered new glasses which haven’t come in. The Scientist got a message yesterday that his were ready but today I found out mine had to be redone due to a problem with the coating. Mine are far more complex than his, though, so this doesn’t surprise me too much. I’m just anxious to have them again.
I haven’t been offered contact lenses for a very long time, presumably due to the dry eye problem I have from the Sjogren’s syndrome. But this optometrist suggested I have a trial of them and see how I do with them. So I did and I was “fitted” for them today. The appointment was for an hour but I didn’t need that long. My history is mostly linked with rigid gas permeable lenses but that was off the table this time. Still, I remember quite a few of the important parts of wearing contacts, particularly the hygiene. I’m trying out disposable soft lenses that will correct my astigmatism. One thing I came away with this time is a proper way to remove them from my eye. I didn’t do well with soft lenses in the past because I kept gouging my eye trying to get them out. Getting them in wasn’t a problem at all. It’s pretty similar to the harder lenses except there’s a lot more coverage of the eye.
I have two different variations to try out with these contacts. The first one is wearing them for distance only and using readers for close up work. The second one is using one contact for distance and one for close up.
Going in I felt like it would be best to go with two distance ones, but I am not so sure after wearing them for the better part of the day. I will say they were pretty comfortable for most of the eleven hours I was wearing them. I did use eye drops once when they started to feel dry but otherwise it was fine.
Seeing at a distance is absolutely brilliant. I shudder to think how poor my vision has been all this time and I suspect that I shouldn’t have been driving when my left eye was so off. I can only hope my right eye has compensated to some degree. I could read the computer screen from a fair distance, which is something kind of new for me. At least I don’t recall having such crisp vision from so far away.
Seeing up close is really tricky. I can still read unaided pretty well but with the contacts in, my close-up vision was impossible. I couldn’t even look at my phone properly and squinting is no help at all. I did buy some reader glasses from the pharmacy to use for close up and that makes a huge difference but putting them on an off to read things up close is kind of maddening. Still it’s mostly doable that way.
The real issue came when I sat down at my computer. That middle distance is too close to see with just my contacts but the readers aren’t all that effective either. I was getting blurriness both ways and it was kind of exhausting too. I will be giving them a few more times before I throw in the towel with them just to see if I can work with them in the longer term.
More realistically, I suspect I will have to hope I can work with the other configuration with one eye for close up and one for distance. I have a vague recollection my mom had this set up many years ago and I think it worked okay for her. It sounds a bit crazy to me but possibly not so much as being so impaired on my close up vision.
One thing that struck me after I got the contacts in and wore them a bit was how wonderful it was to see again. It was like I didn’t know what I was missing and was a similar feeling to when I first got glasses as a teenager. I don’t know how bad my vision was at that point but I recall being thrilled to see so many things properly again. The best part of all is the peripheral vision. With glasses that pretty much goes out the window and I did adjust to it but I like being able to see off to the sides. I will admit that if I decide to stick with contacts I will need to buy some sunglasses again. I haven’t worn them for ages because my glasses have had transition lenses the last several times which has worked really well for me.
Anyway, I will update again after trying out the other set up for my contacts and after getting the new glasses.
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Still coughing but…
That’s about all that’s left of the crud going through our house for a while last month. Interesting is that Lego Lover had the shortest version of bug and is probably the most recovered even now. Most of the coughing is currently done by Game Fanatic and me…we seem to be the ones who get the long-lasting cough these days.
My cough comes and goes and is often triggered by cold foods and spicy foods and sometimes warm foods and sometimes cold air…fun. It won’t last forever but it’s aggravating.
Anyway, I am getting more regular exercise again. After my pool exercise last week I took another break and then restarted exercise again. This week when I was at the pool I was fine with the deep breaths so I figure my lungs or something was still healing the week before. I was in the pool twice this week and both times I felt pretty good afterwards. The other days I’ve been walking or using the spin bike. Tomorrow I’m kind of hoping it’s sunny enough to ride my bike. A bonus would be if it’s not too windy also. I didn’t do as much exercise today because my knees were bothering me a bit. Not painful but a bit sore after walking around in Fremantle for while today. So I didn’t end of burning off as many calories but I am going to try to not obsess about doing a minimum each day just yet.
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Restarting
This week I am back to exercise again and it’s not been all bad but not all good either. I’m trying to meet my daily calorie commitments set on my watch but came up just short on Tuesday. I did get exercise but it wasn’t the sort that easily is recorded on the watch. So this week won’t be a perfect one but I did get some exercise.
Today I did a short walk before going to meet my carer client. That went pretty well. It wasn’t exactly warm today but not really cold either. I walked on a path that has been a regular one of late and it’s mostly in shade. But I didn’t need my jacket so I think it was okay. If I’d been out longer I probably would have needed one since the sun was rapidly setting. It was only a twenty minute walk and I was walking a pretty quick pace and felt okay for it.
The real fun happened when I took G to the pool. I mostly was just walking laps but also did some laps (half laps sometimes) where I was doing kicking my feet and using my hands/arms to propel myself. I wouldn’t call it a swim exactly since I wasn’t doing proper strokes or movements but it wasn’t walking since my feet were off the ground. Anyway it’s 25 metres across and I managed to go to the other end the first time and was exhausted at first. I did more walking and then tried again and managed to go across and back to the start a few times. My arms and legs were fine but the breathing was really painful once I started taking in deep breaths. And then I end up coughing a lot. At one point I accidentally inhaled a tiny amount of pool water and that got me spluttering quite a bit. I decided to stick to just walking across after that since I’d already been in the water for a while.
Meanwhile at the Lorikeet house, the Scientist is mostly better now and the boys are still feeling pretty rotten. I think Game Fanatic had improved a bit during the day but tonight he’s really coughing a lot.
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Purple
I meant to post about this a few weeks ago but forgot about it.
I had kind of jokingly said to the Scientist that I was considering coloring my hair purple a while back and he was all for it. A few weeks later I noticed hair color on sale at the supermarket so I had a look at what was available and there was a violet shade included. I went ahead and bought it and then did it before I had time to procrastinate on it too long.
My hair is definitely darker and obviously lacking in the grey hair department for the time being. It’s also got hints of violet/purple in it. In certain light it is quite obvious but in other light it looks more like I just dyed it a darker shade of brown.
The response has been pretty positive from most around me. The Scientist really likes it and several friends says it looks good. The boys are pretty much indifferent aside from Lego Lover vehemently disliking the odour of the colouring agent. It’s only meant to last about eight weeks so I have my eyes peeled for an alternative once this wears out. I didn’t think I cared much about the grey hair…and I still don’t. But I kind of like the non-grey look for now.
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Sick and Tired-The Sequel
It’s been almost two weeks since I started with this nasty bronchitis/sore throat/cough/cough/cough…I turned a corner earlier this week when I stopped coughing up half a lung a few times a day. I thought I was suddenly much better…and while I was, I also wasn’t recovered. I kind of hoped to get more exercise but taking in deep breaths hurts a bit. Not painful, exactly, but definitely not comfortable at the moment. So I will just take it a bit more slowly and accept the lingering cough which may hang around for weeks.
Meanwhile I’ve managed to pass along this lovely beast to everyone in the family now. Lego Lover finally succumbed yesterday when he woke up early with a sore throat. If the course of his illness is anything like mine, it’s going to be awhile before he feels better. Sigh.
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Sick and tired
That sums up how I’ve been feeling for most of the last week.
Last Thursday evening I had a bit of a scratchy throat which turned it much more a scratchy throat by the next day. By Saturday I was feeling run down and stayed in all day. I think the cough started some time on the weekend and the scratchy throat subsided a bit. By Monday night I had the beginnings of the killer cough and found myself getting an old Ventolin puffer from the car as an emergency measure. I really shouldn’t have used it because it expired in January but it was a horrible hour and I was desperate. It didn’t get rid of the cough but it seemed to clear up some of the congestion and eventually the cough settled enough to get back to sleep.
The sore throat came back by Tuesday. Actually it was less a sore throat as something swelling enough that it was hard to swallow. And the cough continued to get worse. I still worked on Monday and even went into the pool and did some light walking in the water. On Tuesday night I still went to tai chi and mostly did okay but was worn out pretty early. Not to mention many breaks to drink water and go out for another hacking attack.
Funnily enough I woke up yesterday and I felt okay at first but then I got up and stuff shifted and the coughing really ramped up. It was the worst day and night so far. I had trouble settling down enough to go to bed and then once I got to sleep I’d wake up a couple hours later and start up again. I was coughing hard enough that there was blood coming up with the other stuff but that fortunately didn’t carry on after that. Just the cough.
I had a run of about three months of days where I’d done a certain minimum amount of movement and exercise each day and was pretty pleased with myself. Yesterday I had to let that go because I just wasn’t up to the effort of reaching the goals…This all comes from an app on my watch and it’s been steadily increasing the number of calories to burn every couple of weeks. I even went ahead and accepted a higher goal this week even though logically I should have held off until I was well again.
Today I went to the pharmacy and asked for a cough syrup to take at night. I know it’s best to let the body do its work but when your chest hurts and you are short on sleep, it’s time to get some help. I’m not quite sure what exactly I’ve got but I have been spared fever so I suspect it’s some sort of viral thing. Maybe it’s some sort of bronchitis? Anyway, hopefully the worst will be over soon.
Meanwhile I seem to have spread this on to the Scientist. I guess it’s not enough I’ve kept him awake with snoring and coughing for many days. Now he gets to share in the experience…sigh. Here’s hoping this will by-pass Lego Lover.
I forgot to mention that I’ve also been sneezing quite a bit over the past few days. At first I thought it was just a cold but it’s more like hay fever sneezing than anything…Who knew I’d end up with allergies in early winter.
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Iron infusion
I had my iron infusion last Friday and it wasn’t what I was expecting. Well, I was told to allow an hour, which was fine. I took my iPad and my Kindle with me to use while I was waiting for it to finish. Alas, I got there and the nurse put my purse and my iPad on the bed opposite to where I was located so I didn’t have access to it. When I have donated blood or plasma in the past, that’s how I passed the time and it went really quickly. Instead I ended up overhearing the minor dramas in the triage/nurse area.
The actual procedure went pretty smoothly. I thought I’d be sitting in a reclining chair but instead was given a “bed” to use. I offered my right arm since I have a good vein there but the nurse said there was a bump on the vein and wasn’t keen to use that for fear of damaging it in the future. I think the needle is kind of big…probably much like the needle for plasma donations, I would think, since a similar process occurs. Well, at least part of it is similar. Anyway, after consulting with the doctor, it was decided to use the vein in my wrist and that went fine. In fact it hurt less than the blood drawn for my calcium test earlier in the week. I think that’s pretty good for that location and a big needle.
I had to fill a prescription ahead of time for two vials of iron and bring it with me. The nurse added those to some saline solutions and it was all connected up by the doctor. It was rather boring but it took less than half an hour to finish and then I was on my way home. I had no side effects at all. I thought perhaps I’d had the metallic taste in my mouth later on but that didn’t happen either. I did have a bit of a headache for a couple of days but I have no idea if that was related to the infusion of just my body’s reaction to the wintry sort of weather we had on the weekend.
It’s been almost a week and I don’t feel any different so I don’t really know when I might feel any improved effects. Or perhaps it will be quite gradual…or maybe I won’t notice much changing. I have to do another blood test a month after the infusion to check my iron levels so I will see that is going at that time.
Meanwhile, my calcium test result came back and it was normal so I started taking the vitamin D yesterday. I’m not sure when that will be tested again but rather imagine that it will take a while for that to increase and for my parathyroid level to go down…assuming that’s what happens with it. Hopefully my body will be in better balance of all these things soon.
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A new post
I just noticed it’s been over three months since my last post. I really seem to go in dribs and drabs at the best of times.
Life carries on at the Lorikeet household.
I am working more hours these days. The man I am a carer for got lots more funding this year and my two hour shift doubled to four. Plus I have taken over for the other carer on several occasions, and the pay is quite a bit more for weekend days and even more on holidays. Anyway, I’ll be adding an extra eight hours over two more days in a couple of weeks to cover for the other carer who is unable to continue with that work load at the moment. This is to continue until November although there is always a chance I will keep some of those hours. It’s not quite as many hours as I’d like but it’s still so much more than the measly two I’ve been doing.
Also, I did stints at two campuses of counting people in rooms for a utilisation survey in March/April. Each last a week of fours hours daily. The first week was quite easy, thanks to my much fitter body. The second week was pretty exhausting since it covered a lot more ground. I think I was walking something like 10 kms a day for that job.
I am still doing pretty well with my exercise regime. I did fall off the wagon on doing more strength training but I am getting cardio workouts several times a week right now. My biggest challenge has been eating habits. Around Easter I started going heavy on carbs and I could tell a difference with overload. I have settled back down from that but still find I’m eating too much junk so need to work that little bit more on improving eating habits.
We recently started a new term at tai chi and the Scientist and I starting to learn tai chi sword. We’ve already learned two styles of fan and the regular tai chi set. I was a bit hesitant on this one for concerns over the weight of the sword but decided to give it a try. I’m having to do it right-handed because it’s tricky for the teacher to teach a lefty…I’m sure she would try if it’s impossible for me…so far I’m okay but the movements have only just shifted to using my right hand so it’s early days. Also the advanced group is learning Beijing 24 which is a competitive type of tai chi that has been standardised between various styles. It’s different so far but kind of neat to be learning something pretty different.
Health-wise, I have been mostly okay but have a couple of issues. Some body hair loss was noticed recently and it’s quite obvious in one area so it seemed worth checking out. I don’t think the hair on my head is falling out more than usual although I could be wrong. Since it’s long, it always seems like I’m losing lots of hair. I had a whole bunch of blood tests run just over a week ago and a few came up abnormal although most weren’t terribly so. The worst affected is my iron levels. I don’t think I’ve had a normal transferrin sat level in nearly three years and the ferritin is also often below normal. The actual iron is more normal although right now it’s on the lowest possible normal it could be. Anyway, I’ve been offered an iron infusion to help that along (hopefully) and that’s scheduled on Friday and should take about an hour including the doctor visit. Hopefully this might get me back on track for the first time in a long while. The doctor I’m seeing suspects this might be the problem with the hair loss so it will be interesting to see if this helps things along in that area too.
The other tests that are in question are my vitamin D level (too low) and my parathyroid level (too high). Apparently the parathyroid level can be properly understood without a calcium test so I had that done today. The gp I’ve been seeing told me to take vitamin D tablets but I understand that it’s important to find out the reason for my parathyroid first…This doctor is young so I guess she has little experience in this area. I’m holding off on this until I know that my calcium isn’t high. My father has issues with his parathyroid and he has problems with his calcium being too high which poses lots of problems in treatment due to other medications he takes. I honestly have not heard much about parathyroid issues over the years, except for when my father had his. He has a tumor on his parathyroid that can’t be removed due to closeness to some major artery or something like that.
Which reminds me that a few weeks ago, I also had a blocked tear duct which got rather swollen all of a sudden and sent me off to see the doctor on a Saturday morning. That’s cleared up but it’s interesting because it’s a common issue in Sjögren’s syndrome and this is my first time experiencing it. Since that started, my eyes have been particularly dry so I am so glad to have artificial tears available.
I’ve been doing a lot more reading of actual books lately, mostly on my Kindle. I must admit I find physical books less appealing lately, especially at night when I need some light to read. I resisted the Kindle for a long time because I hate that it’s a proprietary format. But after trying other e-readers, I find it works better than others I’ve tried and, of course, it’s got a very established database of books. I find I am downloading lots of the free books and some of them are quite good. One of my latest books I finished was a light novel I found amongst a bunch of manga titles. I can’t recall if it was free or very low price…but it was a pretty long book and I really liked it.
Well that’s quite a long read and it’s kind of late so I will quit for now and hopefully remember other things I want to write about later on.
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Health and fitness
I’m pleased to share that I’ve made it to one of my longer term goals on my fitness and weight loss journey. I started back in August, I think, and I’ve lost just over seven kilograms which is pretty significant. I am not rushing the progress and trying not to get too tied to rigid routines because that seems to cause my downfall most of the time. My biggest improvements have been in my diet because I’ve been able to restrain myself from overdoing it a lot better lately than in the past few years.
My exercise has also been going pretty well too. I’ve been mostly cycling and walking for exercise up until now. I find I have a lot more stamina for climbing hills doing either and I can sort of keep up with the Scientist when walking with him. He walks really fast so I am still slow next to him even at my fittest….so he slows down for me and I speed up for him as much as possible.
I notice a couple weeks ago that I have a lot of sagginess in my arms so that motivated me to finally get on to doing some strength work after all this time. It’s still early days on this (only done it twice) but I started out using the Wii U Fit for some cardio work and then moved on to various other exercises including some using light weights. I’m mostly using a .5 kg dumbbell and it’s sad to see how even that is a bit of a strain after a couple of sets. Hopefully I will sort that out soon and be a bit more balanced overall.
My clothing size has definitely dropped in this time. I still need the same size tops but I can see it won’t be long until I move to the next size down. I’m just rather top-heavy so the fit isn’t quite right yet. On the other hand, the shorts I’ve been wearing have been just about sliding over my hips with almost no movement so I went out and got a couple pairs of shorts that are one size down. I do have some smaller ones here but I haven’t gotten down far enough to wear those yet.
I did have a couple instances in the last couple of months that seriously could have derailed my efforts. On one occasion I started out fine and I even felt as though I was exerting little effort for the first fifteen minutes. But then my heart started racing while climbing a hill and no matter what I did, I couldn’t get it to come down until I completely stopped riding when I stopped at some markets about half an hour from home (by bike). I walked around there and got a drink and then bought another drink along the way. I had made the mistake of forgetting to take water but that shouldn’t have caused the problem. Anyway, I started to feel better so decided to carry on with my ride and went to another suburb where I was again struggling with racing heart and struggle to get to the shopping centre there to get more fluids. I did feel a bit better but not particularly great to ride home. Fortunately the most direct way is a mostly downhill ride so I was able to coast most of the way and then go slowly the rest of the way home. I’m not quite sure why I had such a bad time of on that day because I didn’t feel unwell before I went out and I did feel unwell for a day or two afterwards.
Interesting thing is the next ride was totally opposite and was a good experience all around. It took me a few days before I tried to cycle again so it was a relief that it went so well that time.
Last weekend I bought an Apple watch, in part so that it would be easier to look at my stats while riding or walking instead of constantly looking at my phone. I’ve used it for cycling twice and it worked really well except for the fact the app I use somehow switched my activity to walking. I was able to change this before I stopped the app and it seems like it shows cycling as it should. I think this happened when the activity tracker accidentally started on the phone, which sent it to the watch, where something must have moved the digital crown and changed the activity there…and that made the change on the phone…sigh…will just have to be careful in the future about that. I don’t think there’d have been an issue had the app not started by accident.