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Short term
As I posted yesterday, I was in to see the doctor about my test results today. My usual doctor is currently away so I saw a different one, who is a registrar (sort of gp in training although not really training). I saw this one before about my fracture in my foot and she was fine then. This time her inexperience was really obvious.
Since my iron stores keep dropping so fast, the plan right now is to have an iron infusion, which is scheduled for Friday. I’ve had one once before when I had iron deficiency from menorrhagia and it worked well. This one should keep me in good shape for a few months and hopefully, answers will be available on the dropping iron before I need another one. I must admit I’m not very confident the capsule stuff will uncover anything but you never know.
Most of the other irregular results weren’t anything to be concerned about in isolation. A couple of tests will need to be done again. And then there is the antibody testing that again showed super-high anti-nuclear antibodies. That’s nothing new though. There was, however, mention of cytoplasmic antibodies and my questions showed this doctor knows almost nothing about them even though it’s a fairly common finding. There is also a positive test on a liver antibody which can relate to autoimmune liver issues. This had a note but was not highlighted and she would have missed it had I not pointed it out. She’s not concerned since my liver is looking really good right now. But in the past, I’ve had an ANA pattern that has had some associations with autoimmune liver disease. If something is developing I would rather know earlier than wait for it cause issues. She’s going to consult with my regular gp when she is back. Also, my liver results are “deranged” which apparently means they are up and down. About every second test shows some abnormal results. While they look great right now, they might not be quite so good next time. I never heard of deranged results before but on searching, I found it’s a common term in the medical community. Weird. They weren’t that high last time so I can’t help thinking my doctor had concerns when she ordered the tests.
All that said, my main concern is the low iron and that will hopefully be sorted, at least temporarily, after Friday.
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Stuff
I am still keeping up with exercise to some degree. That isn’t translating to any weight loss as yet and it also isn’t translating to increased muscle mass. I am a bit stuck on that part because I know I have built up muscle but to stay the same that would mean I’d have to lose muscle somewhere else and I don’t think that’s happening. That said, I am not sure how much stock to take in the scales that do all these fancy computations on the body. I am finding it’s been a struggle to get through exercise sessions lately. Usually, I will start feeling better after going for a while and the rest comes more easily. Not the case recently though.
I don’t think I mentioned here yet that my dad went home just before Thanksgiving and is doing okay. It seems he is suffering a bit of confusion since the second stroke but other issues don’t seem to have changed a lot. I did speak with him a few days ago and had a slightly longer conversation. Still quite brief but he was able to get more out on that occasion.
Game Fanatic has been trying to get hold of a Playstation 5 for some time and the pickings have been limited since its release whenever it was. Then EB Games said they had some available for pre-order last month and I rushed there to get an order in to find out they had sold out. I was put on a waitlist in case more units arrived than predicted. These units were supposed to come fairly soon after the orders were taken but I didn’t hear anything further. So I stopped in one day last week to check on the status. It turns out they were still working on calling people about orders and I was able to collect mine after all. So Game Fanatic now has the monster-sized machine which blocks our tv and was able to add a couple of items to his limited Christmas list.
The Scientist hasn’t had any real holiday from work in ages. I don’t count the time taken off when he had surgery earlier this year. As of tomorrow, he’s off until early January. Here’s hoping the time off allows him to recharge a bit for next year. Also, the Scientist had a birthday last week and he’s now started his last year of his 50s. I took him out for lunch at a Thai/fusion restaurant where they had robots to deliver meals to tables and it was a good meal. Then we went to Holey Moley to do mini mini-golf and a game of bowling, both of which were lots of fun for us.
We still don’t have any definite dates on our borders opening here in WA but it feels like it’s getting close to reality now. I have been playing around with dates for travel for next year and it seems like it might be okay in the second quarter barring any delays from newer variants.
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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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Reading
I’ve mentioned here before that I read lots of books for Netgalley which provides advanced reader copies for new releases. Earlier this year I found I had reached over 20 books and it got to be a bit unwieldy for a while. Also, some requested books didn’t get sent until much later than the request was made and I had to fit those in too. I finally got to under ten books and now I’m down to three books and there are still four that I requested that I haven’t had answers on. One of them I requested in March and still haven’t heard back. Today is the release date. So far the only reviews for it seem to be from librarians so maybe they are the only ones to have access before release.
One of the books I am currently slogging through is a particularly long one from a Nigerian writer who was the first black winner of the Nobel prize in literature many years ago. I say slogging because it’s quite long and perhaps a bit too wordy. I have pondered whether to give it up and not finish but I feel obliged to carry on to some degree. There was a book about genes I read a while back that I had for many months but it was really tough to get through. I didn’t quite finish that one but I felt I had read enough to write a fair review on it.
I haven’t added too many books recently because I need a slow period for a little while. Unless a lot of really good books happen to turn up.
I have also started listening to audiobooks a lot more, mostly from the library. I find it works out well there because I can easily return it if it doesn’t work for me. The first book I listened to early this year was a sequel and that was tough. I don’t think it was the narrator but just the fact I already had preconceived notions from reading the first book and it clashed a bit. I found once I had read it for real, I was able to go back and listen again without too much issue. At the moment I am listening to two audiobooks. One is The Queen’s Gambit, which is a book that was turned into a series on Netflix. The Scientist and I had seen the first episode and it was good. At the same time, I ran across it in the library listing and put it on hold. So far I think the series is a bit better than the book for me. I find the narrator okay when she’s speaking for Beth, the girl in the story. And not too bad for a couple of female characters. But all the male ones sound very similar and often alike and they all sound kind of dumb and slow. I think some of these are supposed to be a southern accent but it doesn’t work for me. I still have half the book to go and only a few days left until it goes back so I don’t know if I will carry on or not. One thing I will note is the tv series doesn’t seem to have anyone with a southern accent despite mostly being set in Kentucky. Strange.
The second book I listened to was The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue by V.E. Schwab and it was just wonderful. Julia Whelan narrated and she really brought it all to life. I didn’t write a review when I finished but I plan to get an ebook and read it and will do a review then. I am curious as to whether I would have liked this as well had I read first it or not. I will never know for sure though since I am sure I will have the memory of the audiobook in mind while reading.
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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.