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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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I am an idiot
It’s been my habit lately to drive up to my mother-in-law’s house every Wednesday to check the mail and house while she is overseas for a few months. It’s easier for me to do it than the Scientist who is gone for a long part of the day. There haven’t been any real issues so far aside from the starting up her car each week. Last week it took quite a while to get it to turn over but it eventually did. All was well.
I went there again yesterday and started the car for a few minutes and checked through the house. I also grabbed some frozen meals from her freezer. These are meals she’s bought from other Sri Lankan and usually gives them to three boys/families (she’s vegetarian and these meals are usually not). Anyway, she has asked for us to take out the remaining meals and to turn off the fridge. I grabbed several this time leaving just a few more for the Scientist’s brothers. Or I will take them next time and clear things out of the fridge and freezer. I took the stack of meal boxes to the car and opened the trunk up and put them into a chiller bag while holding the keys. The car key dropped from my hand ( I realise this is what happened now) and out of habit I closed the trunk…With the car key still inside…That was my first bad move. I won’t say it was totally foolish because I normally hold onto the key when I am putting things in and this accidentally fell.
So there I was with only the key to that house and a gadget connector to recharge my phone in the car that I was holding for some reason. I recall that just before I shut the trunk I heard the car lock automatically. I think I had unlocked it, anticipating putting something in the front. So there I was with no key, no purse or phone. I went inside and tried to use the landline but it had been unplugged so was useless. I did have a good idea to use my Apple watch to access my phone. I was able to call the Scientist at work while standing outside the car. It was kind of weird to be talking into my watch right then but that is how these things work now. It worked and the connection wasn’t too bad either…at least from my end it seemed pretty clear.
I was able to confirm that the other car key was still at home. There is another spare key here just in case but it doesn’t have the remote locking features on it…I guess that really didn’t matter because the trunk wasn’t key locked and I could have opened it from the car. The issue was getting home to get the key. I did make a couple other phone calls in hopes of finding someone who could get to our house and bring me the key but that didn’t work out. I had contacted the mum of the guy I assist as a carer to let her know the situation and she said not to worry about it.
Next I went into the house and looked for any money that might be around. There may be a spot where she leaves spare change but I never found it. I was looking all over the place and then I even went to her car to look and see if there was anything there…That’s when it finally dawned on me that I could use her car to come home and get the key. I wasted a good half hour on other options when the most obvious solution was right there.
The trip home and back took about less than 90 minutes and I was able to drive from there to my job, arriving just about an hour late.
I won’t berate myself too much for closing the trunk on the keys but it sure was ridiculous that it took me so long to figure out the simple solution.
Well I hope that turns out the most idiotic thing I do for a long while anyway.
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New furniture
It’s actually portable furniture we got recently.
Years ago when we got our current sofas, Lego Lover wouldn’t sit on them. I’m not sure of his reasoning back in the early days but since we’ve had the dogs, the chances of him sitting there have reduced to zero percent. For years he’s been dragging his chair from the kitchen table around and sitting on that in other rooms. But that chair is now unusable due to a part breaking and we are looking for another chair to replace it. Actually the chair has lasted a lot longer than I expected because somebody who was rather large-sized had sat upon it years ago and it has slightly cracked. It was still usable because Lego Lover was still small at the time. In fact, the part of the chair that is currently broken is unrelated to that crack. Anyway…
We looked at Ikea for possible replacements and found some possibilities there. But we really need him to be there to check it out so didn’t want to commit at all. Then we happened to notice Ikea had a foldable armchair for sale. It wasn’t cheap but it certainly seemed to fit the bill for what was needed for Lego Lover. I went to Ikea and checked it out and it was surprisingly solid despite looking a bit like an outdoor lounge chair. It was far more comfortable than some of the other chairs too. Anyway, I went ahead and bought it and brought it home. It’s kind of heavy but still was small enough for me to carry alone to the car…with a few breaks along the way. I got it home and unboxed it and it was practically ready to use from the box. Lego Lover liked it and is now using it regularly. To his delight, he can fold it up and keep it away from the annoying dogs.
While I was checking out that chair, I noticed they also had a two-seater sofa version and thought that would be useful in our games room where there is no proper seating for when watching tv or playing video games. For the tv this isn’t so bad because our treadmill is in the games room and that is often used while exercising. But for playing video games the set up has been poor and Games Fanatic was sitting on the floor or an exercise ball to play. With the tv screen so high up it was bad all around. That weekend the Scientist and I went back and got the sofa version of the chair and it is working out quite nicely. We are keeping it set up right now but it’s easy enough to fold it away too.
We have some other furniture we plan to buy soon but it’s mostly storage units and it’s big so we will have all of that delivered when we finally make our selections.
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Purchased
After further research I bought a flight ticket from Singapore Airlines. While it’s not the ideal ticket, I think it works for most of the important things. Anyway, the cool part is I have a short stopover in Tokyo on the way and one in Seoul on the way back. These are mainly refuelling and cleaning stops and there won’t be time to do anything. Just enough time to say I was there and be off again.
Singapore Airlines has long been highly rated for its economy class service so it was a bit of a no-brainer when I found flights that were reasonably close to those I’d found elsewhere. Plus there is no risk of dodgy travel agents or anything like that. I decided to go for it because the number of seats remaining is pretty small and I feared losing out on any seats if I had waited.
The big negative is I will be going through Los Angeles after all. And the only place with any notable layovers is LAX. That said, they aren’t the worst they could be. Four and a half hours on the way there and six hours or so on the way back. I guess if I have to have one that long, it’s better to be early on in the flight.
I was drawn in by the lure of several flights where I managed to hit about six cities each time but the layovers in total were too much. As it is, I will be unlikely to get much sleep during this time and it’s not like there will be enough time to do anything.
I was already able to choose my seats and it looks like I will have window seats the whole way through. That’s an advantage of flying alone since I don’t have to share the opportunity to see out the window with anyone. I also already chose meal service options too. I found out after I had done this about the standard meals and found out they are pretty neat so I am going to stick with those on the long flights and only choose special meals on the Perth-Singapore leg. My US flights are on Virgin America and I don’t plan to eat anything on those. I can eat at the airport on the way there and I imagine I will eat before I board when I depart.
Anyway, I leave Perth early morning on October 30th and will return on December 1st around midday.
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Travel research
I’ve been keeping watch on airfares from various sources since my brother gave me a heads up on the wedding date. Initially my idea was to try to get a fare going Qantas straight through to Dallas. That’s the most direct flight available but it does mean a longer flight from Sydney to Dallas. For a while this was the longest flight in the world but I think there’s another one that outdoes it now. Plus I think there’s a flight from Perth to London that will be happening which is even longer. Anyway, I was really inclined to get there as quickly as possible.
But then the idea came up that it might be difficult to handle such a long haul flight. I remember when Lego Lover and I went back seven years ago I was in horrible shape on arrival and that was only the leg from Melbourne to LA. Also, Qantas’ reputation isn’t what it once was and the seating space is pretty small.
I’ve been looking at many different websites to find out about airfares and have noticed some interesting things happening. The first day I looked at several of these websites (mostly aggregators for other travel sites) and saw some really cheap deals. Well, some weren’t as cheap as I thought because they weren’t in Australian dollars. But many were cheap. I can get some really good airfares flying Emirates or Etihad Airways too. I have had to rule both out as they both fly through the middle east and would mean severe restrictions on electronic devices for the leg from Dubai or Abu Dhabi to Dallas. Both have really good reputations for flights so it’s a shame and those flights are almost as quick as the Qantas route.
I also found some weirdly routed flights going through Singapore and Seoul outbound and Tokyo and Singapore inbound. Both stops are short and just mean a change of planes. I though that would be kind of cool, especially if they landed or took off during the day time. Those flights have disappeared from the results since. I also found flights on Japan Airlines which are kind of appealing because they have more legroom and supposedly more comfortable seats. It’s just a bit too much extra to justify it. If I felt it would make a significant different to my ability to handle the travel, it would be fine. But IÂ rather doubt that is the case at all.
I just remember there was one flight on Emirates, I think, that stopped in Singapore then went on to Colombo, Sri Lanka before going to Dubai. It’s pretty amazing because Colombo is definitely not the sort of place that you would expect a plane transfer. Then there was one flight home that started in Dallas, went to New York and then to either Chicago or San Francisco before heading to Los Angeles to return to Australia. They were all short stops…I could have done a tour of the country on the way back…lol.
Over the days, I’ve noticed heaps of changes in results. The airlines that are showing up are quite different to the first days of checking. It’s like the airlines pay the companies to include their results or something. Well, I rather imagine it is a bit like that anyway. Some of the actual travel agents had really limited airlines they work with in the results.
One change from my previous trip home is that I can pretty much avoid flying any of the airlines in the US which I’ve found are pretty unpleasant…even the best of them…although I can’t say I have that much experience from recent years, of course.
One other option I am considering is taking Air New Zealand. If I time it right I will have a layover in Auckland for enough hours I could take a bus into the city and spend the day there. The Perth to Auckland flight arrives at 5:25am and it’s already daylight then so I’d be free to do my thing for several hours and then head back to the airport ahead of my flight. Then I could fly into San Francisco, which would be at least a change from LAX…
Anyway, I am back to leaning towards taking that direct Qantas flight right now. It’s generally one of the better fares and it’s direct so it’s almost a no-brainer…The longer I wait to make a booking, that option is likely to be the easiest. Trying to work around the Thanksgiving holiday is kind of tricky…although at least it’s a bit earlier this year and should allow me to be home in time for the Scientist’s birthday on the 1st of December.
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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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Grumble, grumble
Just a short bit of griping here. I looked at my Facebook feed tonight and saw that a family member has posted something derogatory about Democrats/leftists/etc. I won’t share exactly what it said but it was wrong on so many levels. So immature. Fortunately I had little temptation to reply to such childish posts.
I will have to brace myself before I go home later in the year. Even though I have full intentions of avoiding any discussion of any sore topics, I suspect this one family member will cause a problem anyway. I will just grit my teeth and bear with it.