Pepsi Throwback

I’ve been on the hunt for non-HFCS soda for quite some time, and most recently have been finding  solace in Red Bull Cola.  Thankfully, Pepsi Throwback is on its way.

I’m Sick of Being Sick!

OK, so maybe I haven’t technically been “sick”, but I’ve certainly not been well lately, and its really starting to wear on me.

It started last year with my switch to new meds for my heartburn, which caused occasional side effects like headache, nausea and stomach pains.  Of course, as my body adjusted, the side effects subsided and everything was fine.

In a follow-up visit to my doctor, after having an upper GI to ensure I was ulcer-free (I am), he noticed that I had an umbilical hernia.  Its not a big deal, but it did require surgery, which I had over 2 weeks ago.  Of course, the recovery from that was pretty brutal, but overall not a big deal.  One of the problems I encountered during recovery, however, was that I carried myself strangely, so as to avoid causing pain to my abdomen.  In doing so, I ‘effed up my back pretty good.

When I mentioned this back pain to my doctor, during my recent surgery follow-up appointment, he checked out my back, and noticed that a few of my vertebrae (in my thoracic region, whatever the fuck that means) are turned slightly, which was causing back spasms.  Normally, he would’ve simply “adjusted” these vertebrae, but didn’t, so as to avoid possibly tearing the stitches in my abdominal muscles.  So, to alleviate the problem, he put me on a steroid which act as an anti-inflammatory.  Of course, the steroid comes with some nasty side effects, most notably headache, nausea, heartburn and dizziness.  I’ve felt like shit since last night, slept terribly and feel VERY hung over.

So, while things could certainly be worse (this stuff is happening when the weather sucks, so at least I’m not wasting valuable outdoor time, for example), I’ve felt pretty miserable in one way or another for weeks now.  Its getting old.

B Needs Sleep

For what seems like months now, but in reality is probably more like a few weeks, I’ve had a recurring issue with not sleeping through the night.  Without fail, I wake up 2 to 4 (and sometimes, though rarely, more) times a night, and while I fall back asleep within a matter of minutes, its still extremely exhausting.  Given how I’ve been feeling as a result, I liken a 2 minute interruption of my sleep to about 15 minutes of lost sleep.  So, if I wake up 3 times a night, that’s akin to going to bed 45 minutes later, which is a lot.  If that happens 5 nights during the week – which has been the case this week – that’s a loss of 3 hours and 45 minutes.  Not cool.

I’ve been proactive about the situation, ensuring I avoid caffeine in the afternoon, getting exercise 3 times a week, making sure its not too warm in the bedroom, not falling asleep to the TV and even taking a shower before bed.  None of this has helped.  Last night was the closest I came to a normal night of sleep, and that’s only because I was already dangerously exhausted before going to sleep 2 hours after my bedtime as a result of playing softball until almost 9.  Even so, I didn’t sleep through the night.

I’m not particularly stressed out, either.  Well, as this shitty sleep streak builds, I’m becoming more and more distressed, but its not like I’m lying awake at night worrying about getting sleep.  On the contrary, falling asleep is not generally a problem.  Its just that I can’t stay asleep.  And this shit is getting old, fast.  My productivity at work is suffering somewhat as a result, and that really bothers me.  This is especially true now, as I’ve got two deadline-intensive projects cooking that require a considerable amount of “busy work”, and I just don’t have the focus and energy that I need.  I mean, I’ll get it all done, but its a daily struggle, to say the least.

And what’s more is that I have stuff that needs attention at home.  Completing the fence rebuild is a high-priority, simply because I need to get that finished before the snow hits.  I’m thinking that I’ll knock out half of that project over the next two weekends, and save the rest for mid-to-late September, when it will be cooler and I’ll have more time.  And hopefully by that time, which will be after our much-needed weeklong vacation, I’ll be sleeping better, and as a result, more rested (and less likely to cut an appendage off).

This weekend should be interesting.  We don’t have anything major going on, but I do have a few personal goals in mind.  I have to try to watch Nixon again (the disc was “dirty” when I tried last weekend, so I watched Platoon via On Demand instead, without attempting to clean the disc first), so that’s 4 hours gone.  And we have to start preparing for our camping trip.  You know you’re “old” when you begin preparing for a trip 4 weeks out.    But really, its necessary.  If nothing else, we have to set the tent up in the back yard and label all the poles and what-not, since the instructions are MIA.  Last year’s camping trip saw us struggling to get that damned thing up as it was getting dark, and I don’t want a repeat of that shit.  Ugh.

But, if nothing else, I just want to get one fucking night of uninterrupted sleep.  Stay tuned…

Maintaining Metabolism

Its certainly no secret that as we age, our metabolism slows.  And it also no secret that smokers are less prone to weight gain, due in large part to nicotine’s effect as an appetite suppressant.  So, it shouldn’t come as a huge surprise that since quitting at the beginning of ‘07, I’ve gained some weight.  Not a ton, but I’ve easily packed on around 15 pounds, which wouldn’t be all that bad in itself, except for the fact that its concentrated in areas where I’d rather it not be.

In the interest of developing healthy life-long habits, Carrie and are establishing an exercise routine that gets us into doing something active 3 times a week.  I think that’s a good, realistic plan, because trying to do more than that seems to be setting ourselves up for failure.  Instead, we’ll do something active on the weekend, again on Tuesdays and then we’ve got softball on Thursdays.  For our non-softball exercise, we’re planning on doing a totally non-rigid mix of walking, bike riding, jogging and whatever else we feel like – perhaps playing catch, tennis (if she’s a good teacher), ice skating, inline skating, and the like.  Again, nothing crazy, just something to get our metabolism up and keep us active, healthy and, most importantly, happy.

This brings to mind one of the few positive aspects of where we live now – access to recreational stuff.  While living in Shelby had us very near a pretty large park, simply getting to that park was a task that required, for example, loading the bikes on the carrier, as well as the requisite park pass.  In short, it was somewhat less conducive to facilitating a regular and easy routine.  Where we’re at now, we simply hop on our bikes and ride a mere 0.7 miles to Rosie’s Park in our neighborhood.  Its much easier and requires less time, so we actually end up doing it.  Go figure!

Hopefully, getting into this routine now will help us stick with it, or some other form of exercise, in the late-Fall and Winter months.  Obviously we won’t always be down for heading out into some Michigan nastiness in the dead of Winter, but the hope is that getting into this routine will make us want to do something substantial, even if its not outside.  And hopefully it’ll mean I can continue to have a similar diet as I do now, only with slightly less of a “bun in the oven” look. 

The Chronicles of Nausea: The Virus, the Scripts and the Coasters

When’s it gonna end?  First, I was feeling off toward the end of last week.  Then came this passed weekend’s illness that left me couch-ridden.  I recovered well enough though, and the vacation went quite well.  Because I’m not as immune to motion sickness as I was when I was a child, I sometimes elect to take Dramamine before a long day of riding, just to be on the safe side.  Its never fun ruining all or part of the day because you feel like shit.

Anyhow, Tuesday went well, with plenty of sun and riding and enjoyment.  In the afternoon, Carrie and I left the park for lunch an also to pick up my prescription for Protonix at Target.  I had actually run out on Saturday, but my heartburn wasn’t problematic at all until Tuesday, and even then it wasn’t unmanageable.  Nevertheless, we got the meds and were back in the park for the evening.  Toward the end of the day, I was feeling a tiny bit nauseated, though not enough to really impact my mood or anything.

Tuesday night was terrible, as I slept like shit.  There were kids partying at the hotel until well past 4:00AM, and I was up probably 3 or 4 times with an annoyed bladder (one of the downsides to drinking “enough” water .  On Wednesday morning, I came down with a rather sudden bout of pretty intense nausea.  I wasn’t sure what the cause was at that point, but I just figured that lots of coasters and crappy pizza and park food were the cause.

Then today at work, about an hour before lunch, I started feeling crappy again.  Its still with me, though the intensity has waned somewhat.  A text message to Carrie confirmed my suspicion that the most recent afflictions – both yesterday morning as well as today – are likely due to my meds.  I had dealt with similar symptoms when I started on Protonix, and because I lapsed in taking them between Sunday and Tuesday, those symptoms are back.  Awesome.

So, I’ve effectively been nauseous, off and on, for almost a week now.  Yay.

Taking Some Time

Being that my birthday is this weekend, and considering how infrequently such a glorious event coincides with a weekend, I’m taking a 3-day weekend.  Carrie is taking Saturday off, and already has Sunday, so we’ll have an uncommon 2-day weekend, instead of our typical… umm… 1.5-day weekend.  She gets home pretty early on Saturday.

I’ve been sort of tired lately, and even felt a bit under the weather, so I figure that this is as good a time as any to take advantage of all these ‘extra’ vacation days I’ve got.

So, happy birthday to me! 

Staying Hydrated

I spent much of the day yesterday outside cleaning up the yard, and doing so happily as the weather was remarkably nice, especially considering it was supposed to rain at least during some of the weekend.  It didn’t happen, and it was actually mostly sunny in our neighborhood.

Needless to say, all the raking, carrying and lawnmower-pushing had me working up quite a sweat.  Carrie, being the awesomest and most thoughtful woman ever, brought me some water just as I was thinking that I was thirsty.  I drank that down and even had some more later on, but not before tossing back a few beers as I took a break from yard work to grill some lunch.

After finishing up in the yard, I took a quick shower to remove the inch or so of dirt-caked sweat from my body.  After that, I settled into my spot on the couch with more beer for the Wings game.  Probably about 3 or 4 beers later, I started getting a headache.  It persisted for a while, and I even switched back to water thinking that I was dehydrated.  Alas, it was too late – no matter how much water I drank, my headache wasn’t going anywhere.  Eventually, at around 8, I couldn’t take it anymore and headed to the bed to try and zen myself out of pain.  Surprisingly, I fell asleep after a half hour or so.

All of that led me to create a new rule for myself: always stay hyrdated.  It seems simple enough, right?  But the fact is that most people don’t drink an adequate amount of water.  After doing some really simple research and trying a few ‘water intake calculators’ that ask for your weight, daily exercise and other such info, I find that I should be drinking at least 80 ounces of water every day, more if my diet is well-balanced and healthy (you get about 20% of your water via food).

So, starting today, I’m going to be extra vigilant with regard to my water intake.  I think I’ll start by downing 20 oz first thing before I leave in the morning, and then another 20 oz every four hours or so, at 9AM, 1PM and 5PM.  That should have me drinking my last bottle on my way home, and being nicely hydrated so I can have a drink or two in the evening without worrying about dehydrating myself.  I should note that one of the ‘water calculators’ I used asked how many drinks you have in a day, since they dehydrate you – I chose 3. 

Finally – a restful Sunday!

For the first time in quite a while, I feel rested following the weekend.  I’m tired and could easily take a nap, but I’m not to-the-bone exhausted and feeling miserable like has been the case recently.  Its probably because of the awesome Sunday Carrie and I had, which consisted of getting out of bed before 6 (if memory serves – I didn’t pay much attention to the clock) eating breakfast by 8 and bouncing around the house getting small, easy tasks done.

At around 12, we headed out to Best Buy so I could spend my B-day gift card I received from her parents and then on to go ice skating at 12:30.  When we got home at around 2, we decided on pizza and salad, after which we took a nap for a little over an hour until around 4:30.

The rest of the evening consisted of us doing nothing, more or less, with me formatting and reinstalling XP on her PC and getting it on the network, and her doing some baking.  We didn’t get to bed until around 10, which is late for us, but even with that, I still feel more awake and energetic than I have in I don’t know how long.

That’s good, too, as I was worried I was gonna be tired, a problem that would compound itself this week, as I have 2 hockey games to watch, both of which are later than normal.

Oh, and go Wings!

You’re never really asleep…

…and you’re never really awake.

Maybe its the time change.  Or maybe its the underlying stress of moving.  Maybe its something else.  But whatever it is, I’m growing very tired of it, and the pun is most assuredly intended.

I can’t seem to get a good night of sleep.  And even when I do start off sleeping soundly, the slightest disturbance wreaks havoc, waking me up and not letting me fall back to sleep.  Its incredibly frustrating, maddeningly tiring and emotionally exhausting.

I crave an entire night of undisturbed sleep.  Is that too much to ask?

How is Babby Formed?

Saw this on a blog I frequent, and had to pass it along.

Someone asked about human reproduction on Yahoo! Answers

And the funniest part:
Someone made a hilarious animated dramatization of the exchange

Its sad when the most correct and complete answer doesn’t rise to the top (especially since who ever asked the question selected the ‘best’ answer), but its pretty hilarious all the same.