Real Life and What's Happening...

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So don't feel bad. My wife just doesn't like my snoring and has an overdeveloped worry sense. Maybe I have issues but damn the idea I'm supposed to sleep well on my back (when I sleep in my side) with 12 electrodes dandling from my head, neck, chest, legs and a cable on my finger, tubes up my nose just seems daft. It's like the worst setup for me to sleep. I'm 0retty sure I'm tired because I go to sleep too late and little people wake me up all night.

But we'll see.

There are home sleep study setups that are much less intrusive, like the WatchPat, which just attaches to your wrist and finger. They're not quite as good at tricky stuff but they work in the majority of cases. I feel like sleep labs are a bit of a racket; yes they do serious medicine but they could keep up with demand and charge much less if they did more home sleep studies.
 
Getting a CPAP machine has been life changing for me. I have super severe sleep apnea. When they did the sleep study they were like. Ok, so 30+ episodes an hour is severe. You are having 100+. Once I got the CPAP machine it was like my life changed. I wasn't tired all the time, I didn't have constant migraines. Etc. etc. etc. I felt like superman.
I don't feel bad- I just have to have it done for my surgery. I did my sleep study last night at home, and I'm hoping it's good enough for me not to have to do it in the lab. I went to sleep at 11PM, and started having a dream that my alarm went off and I was supposed to end it. It was only after I turned off the machine that I looked at my clock and realized it was 5AM. :sad:

There are home sleep study setups that are much less intrusive, like the WatchPat, which just attaches to your wrist and finger. They're not quite as good at tricky stuff but they work in the majority of cases. I feel like sleep labs are a bit of a racket; yes they do serious medicine but they could keep up with demand and charge much less if they did more home sleep studies.
I really liked doing the home sleep study- the one in the lab was inconclusive that I did a decade or more ago because all the wires and such kept me from really sleeping. With this one, I didn't have any problems with it.
 
There are home sleep study setups that are much less intrusive, like the WatchPat, which just attaches to your wrist and finger. They're not quite as good at tricky stuff but they work in the majority of cases. I feel like sleep labs are a bit of a racket; yes they do serious medicine but they could keep up with demand and charge much less if they did more home sleep studies.

I don't feel bad- I just have to have it done for my surgery. I did my sleep study last night at home, and I'm hoping it's good enough for me not to have to do it in the lab. I went to sleep at 11PM, and started having a dream that my alarm went off and I was supposed to end it. It was only after I turned off the machine that I looked at my clock and realized it was 5AM. :sad:


I really liked doing the home sleep study- the one in the lab was inconclusive that I did a decade or more ago because all the wires and such kept me from really sleeping. With this one, I didn't have any problems with it.
So I did the at home one first. Insurance likes to do that because I guess in 80% of the cases it finds the problem and that's that. I didn't have any problems with the at home one so they sent me into the sleep lab to see if they missed something. I thinky sleep there was so not representative that I'm worried they will make a decision based off it but I really don't want to do it again. It sucked balls.

The at home one was awesome. Hardly noticed it.
 
My wife did an at-home sleep study because she was convinced she had sleep apnea. Turned out she didn't, but she does sleep very lightly and semi-wakes up a number of times a night to take a sip of water from the glass by the side of her bed. She's not awake enough to be aware, though.
 
Picked up $200 worth of groceries. Which seems like a lot of money to drop at one time, until I remind myself that it will go a whole lot further than $200 worth of restaurant food. Been dealing with some profound capital-D Depression lately, so achieving basic shit like getting groceries feels like a major accomplishment.
 
Picked up $200 worth of groceries. Which seems like a lot of money to drop at one time, until I remind myself that it will go a whole lot further than $200 worth of restaurant food. Been dealing with some profound capital-D Depression lately, so achieving basic shit like getting groceries feels like a major accomplishment.
If you want to feel better about that I can tell you what you'd get for $200 at the grocery store where I live. Your sense of accomplishment will double.
 
Lots of drama at work but luckily I've been largely on the sidelines and things have settled down.

There will have to be a change at the Management level sometime soon but that's above my paygrade and as long as the drama doesn't render my work and the workplace unbearable I think I can ride it out...

I also always have the option of switching departments, which one of my senior supervisors offered to me but I told them I'd give it a bit more time to see how things shake out.
 
Getting a CPAP machine has been life changing for me. I have super severe sleep apnea. When they did the sleep study they were like. Ok, so 30+ episodes an hour is severe. You are having 100+. Once I got the CPAP machine it was like my life changed. I wasn't tired all the time, I didn't have constant migraines. Etc. etc. etc. I felt like superman.
Sometimes I'm ready to throw my CPAP machine out. I don't remember how many episodes I was having, but enough to get put on a CPAP. For the first couple months, I did start sleeping solidly through the night. Then I got a cold and the CPAP kept ramping up to max and blowing out trying to shove air though my congested nose. Since then the CPAP feels like it does nothing for me. It does dramatically reduce my snoring which my wife likes. But I am just as tired as ever.

But part of my tired is really that the only way I could get the 7+ hours you're supposed to get is if I went to bed shortly after the kids. Put the kids down. Finish chores. Go to bed. No quiet time with my wife. No TV. No gaming. I could get a bit of evening time in on weekends.

I do need to get back to the sleep doctor and probably do another overnight test, this time at the facility instead of at home.

It would also help if I could get to an allergy doctor.

The thing that has actually had an impact reducing weariness has been using prescription blue light blocker reading glasses at the computer. I no longer am rubbing my eyes at the end of a work day. That and the fish oil and dry eye drops the eye doctor has me doing.
 
Met up with a friend I hadn't seen for nearly a year to see the D&D movie. Had a really strange moment in our pre-movie conversation where I mentioned I had recently been to Hawaii and she said "Did you go to visit your brother?"

Since the only place I can visit my brother is Evergreen-Washelli Cemetary, I was quite confused, and just said "...no... I went with my parents..."

People have an odd habit of mixing up facts about me and facts about my best friend, although we are rather distinctly different people, and my best friend's brother does live in Hawaii. So it turns out that's what she was thinking of.

I usually just go to the little independent theater in my neighborhood, but tonight we went to the big ol' 14-screen megaplex. Which meant we waited in line for popcorn for 20 minutes... which they sold out of right before we got to the front of the line.

Anyway, the movie was pretty fun and it was nice to see my friend.
 
After 1 week in Recovery and 2 weeks in a nursing home for revalidation, I have come to the following conclusions:
- public WiFi sucks. Bigtime. The Dank Memes were all but impossible to read.
- being single is all great, until the day you become dependant on lots of support. I'm glad my family was there to help me.
- I don't want to spend my old day in a retirement home. There is a lot of solidarity among the residents (from 65y to 102y), but the home itself is understaffed which means the people have to help each other. So while I wasn't allowed to do any strenuous activity, it became my duty to help some wheelchair patients to and from their rooms, help them with dinner... because the regular staff just didn't have the time or hands to do everything. Also, some of the older folks only left their rooms for diner, but for the rest spent their days looking out the window. There are some organized activities but still... if you don't get regular visitors you are on your own.
Nah, then I'd rather go out the Corwin way (at an old age, in my own bed, crushed by an elephant while banging a hot girl).
- heart surgery is not fun. I'm lucky they could perform my procedure pre-emptively while I was in good health, and not in an emergency when it is already too late, but having your chest opened is not something I can recommend. I hope now I'm back home, recovery will be relatively easy and in a month I can look back at this post with a smile and some 'whiner' comment.
- three weeks without central heating really cools down your house. After 24 hrs the indoor temperature is finally beginning to reach comfortable levels.
 
- being single is all great, until the day you become dependant on lots of support. I'm glad my family was there to help me.
That matches my experience.
- heart surgery is not fun. I'm lucky they could perform my procedure pre-emptively while I was in good health, and not in an emergency when it is already too late, but having your chest opened is not something I can recommend. I hope now I'm back home, recovery will be relatively easy and in a month I can look back at this post with a smile and some 'whiner' comment.
It really isn't, and mine was also when I was in reasonable health (aside from the 'heart's threatening to pack it in' thing) and fairly young for a heart op (under 50 - I got ripped off!).

I hope you continue to recover well, and that everything heals up nicely.
 
So I did the at home one first. Insurance likes to do that because I guess in 80% of the cases it finds the problem and that's that. I didn't have any problems with the at home one so they sent me into the sleep lab to see if they missed something. I thinky sleep there was so not representative that I'm worried they will make a decision based off it but I really don't want to do it again. It sucked balls.

The at home one was awesome. Hardly noticed it.
I had the same problem with the sleep study when I did it in lab. They said I had severe apnea but weren't sure so needed to do another. I never went back because the insurance wanted me to foot it.

The readings from mine this time were enough to say I had mild apnea... he's prescribing a cpap to be on the safe side since I'm having surgery
 
That matches my experience.

It really isn't, and mine was also when I was in reasonable health (aside from the 'heart's threatening to pack it in' thing) and fairly young for a heart op (under 50 - I got ripped off!).

I hope you continue to recover well, and that everything heals up nicely.
My in laws told me they will help when I have my surgery as did my ex. But it makes me twitchy depending on people who have no real ties or real reason to put you over their own needs
 
My in laws told me they will help when I have my surgery as did my ex. But it makes me twitchy depending on people who have no real ties or real reason to put you over their own needs
I spread a wide net of contacts, friends, neighbours, colleagues, family, and gave them overlapping tasks so I knew that if one couldn't perform (or forgot) a task someone else would pick up the slack.
 
Turns out the concert I have tickets for tonight is not, in fact, in Chicago, and is in the separate municipality of West Chicago. Which isn't really a problem, but just isn't what I was expecting, either.
 
This came up last week with my family. I’ve not been in many homes, but by food I remember all of the times. No way in hell. I’ll mountain bike off a cliff without a helmet first

I've visited donors in retirement homes for work and there are some that are insanely nice.

Being rich tends to fix a lot of problems.
 
I spread a wide net of contacts, friends, neighbours, colleagues, family, and gave them overlapping tasks so I knew that if one couldn't perform (or forgot) a task someone else would pick up the slack.
Yeah, I'm still building up that network. That was one of the things that made the split so hard- she had that network, but she was it for me.
 
Sometimes I look over at my cats sleeping all day except to eat and play and realize they're living my best life.
We've had people unironically say that they want to be reincarnated as one of our cats.

Then lard-o flops down on my foot and I get to go back to igniring humans if faver of belly rubs and chicken bits.
 
Today's lesson from work is that kids that start using substances often get stuck in the mentality of the age at which they start using. Only once they fully recover do they start to act their own age again.

A secondary lesson from work today is that there are some people out there that do truly heinous and down right evil shit to children. I have heard things at this job that will make your stomach boil and skin crawl.

A tertiary lesson from work today is that kids are sometimes absolute ducking idiots. "Hey this bad thing happened to me but don't tell anyone that can stop it from ever happening again because I don't want to get in trouble, even though I did nothing wrong."

Truly an educational day. I fucking love my job (not sarcastic).
 
Today's lesson from work is that kids that start using substances often get stuck in the mentality of the age at which they start using. Only once they fully recover do they start to act their own age again.

A secondary lesson from work today is that there are some people out there that do truly heinous and down right evil shit to children. I have heard things at this job that will make your stomach boil and skin crawl.

A tertiary lesson from work today is that kids are sometimes absolute ducking idiots. "Hey this bad thing happened to me but don't tell anyone that can stop it from ever happening again because I don't want to get in trouble, even though I did nothing wrong."

Truly an educational day. I fucking love my job (not sarcastic).
Glad you are loving it! I’m glad I’m not listening to #2, as I have a bit of an issue with people doing bad stuff to children. I’m glad you are helping them work through it though.
 
A secondary lesson from work today is that there are some people out there that do truly heinous and down right evil shit to children. I have heard things at this job that will make your stomach boil and skin crawl.
Even unintentional and/or subtle stuff can be seriously damaging. Let alone horrible abuse like that.

Hitting your children has only been forbidden by law here since 2007, even though there's plenty of proof that it's harmful.

A tertiary lesson from work today is that kids are sometimes absolute ducking idiots. "Hey this bad thing happened to me but don't tell anyone that can stop it from ever happening again because I don't want to get in trouble, even though I did nothing wrong."
The power of shame and self-blame is not to be underestimated.
 
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I’m glad you are helping them work through it though.
That's why I love it, for all the horrible things I have to hear about, for all the crazy bs I have to deal with, I'm helping these kids recover and get a second chance at life.
The power of shame and self-blame is not to be underestimated.
Oh for sure, shame is an absolute SOB. It's just frustrating when kids get angry at you for having to report something they said.
 
You know those surreal experiences where you're just thinking about something random and then it pops up the next day? I think I've just had a personal best for the most obscure subject one could have thought about and had this experience with.

So it occurred to me the other day that you could control a pipe organ through MIDI, and wondered if you could use MIDI to control the stops.

I just had a video pop up on my YT recommendations about controlling a pipe organ through MIDI, and it turns out that you can't in fact control the stops through MIDI.

Now you know.
 
Just got back from running LARP at the Student National Roleplaying Championships. Went spectacuarly well. Generally, the players were so strong I genuinely couldn't tell which of them hadn't any previous experience of LARP.
 
Sometimes I look over at my cats sleeping all day except to eat and play and realize they're living my best life.

This book looks like a joke but Gray is a really good philosopher and writer and makes it a serious discussion of what we can learn from the way cats live their lives.

He also discusses cats in literature which gave me a list of books to track down.

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Late last week I got an email warning about a software package which is fairly important to my job. Now I'm back and there are literally dozens of replies, replies to replies and replies to replies to replies, all variations on the theme of 'please remove me from this list'.

Back in the Wild West days of IT, I made a habit of sending personal replies to each and every one of those in the form of "thank you for replying to the listserv so that everyone could see your email. Please enjoy this photo of a spider eating a bird'. But there are Rules Against That now. Possibly because of me. Just gonna have to suck it up and wait for an admin to disable further replies.
 
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