History In The Making

I hope you kids watched Obama’s Speech last night. History in the making.

And I hope you were able to see McCain pick Palin for his running mate this afternoon.

I know I know – I did not see it either but I did hear it. I would have loved to see it.

So we have a black man and a woman in the presidential election. History will be made in November. A black man or a woman in the presidency.

If you would have asked me five years ago, I would have told you I doubted it could happen – and I would have been wrong.

Senior Moment 32432

Another of those pesky senior moments. Yesterday morning I was visiting a blog of a young lady that went to Iraq for us and celebrates something called HNT. She is also a Steelers Fan so we are natural enemies (not really) and she works for or with the RedSkins (yea!!).

Any way I left her a comment on her blog about her machine and accessories. And tonight she left me a comment on this blog. I was surprised because I do not advertise this blog and I could not figure out how she would have found it.

Later, while I was pondering her astute detective skills I got a message from a friend that wondered how I could possibly talk about 'her' accessories when we did not know each other.

After several 'speakings' of the message I had the reader tell me who the message was directed to. Bright light finally came on.

You know I have several Email accounts that I have acquired while working for several companies and to help me keep the blogs I support separate. Well, I used my personl private account that only about six people know and posted a comment and sent an email.

Luckily the senior moment only lasted for those two mistakes.

If it were not for senior moments I might not have many laughs.

Back To Normal

Well the last two days have been good. I slept 9-10 hours both days from 9 am to 5 or 7 pm. When I wake up my right eye is fairly clear – I can see objects and colors and very, very large type.

I type these posts in a word processor at 28 point and use the magnifier to read about two words at a time.

I picture what I type and get a picture in my mind then after two or three paragraphs I try to edit those paragraphs.

If I cannot see the characters then I use a reader that speaks the keys I press and will speak whatever is on the screen.

It works well but is slow. If at times you see a weird word it is because the spellchecker choose the wrong word and I ‘blindly’ accepted it (pun intended).

After much trial and error I turned off the grammar checker that made things much easier. It took me several days to figure out the voice reader was saying ‘green underline good’.

The program was trying to tell me to use well instead of good. After several hundred repeats I got it and stumbled through the menus.

If I had not taught or used some of these programs for years I would be completely lost.

I did a Google search for vision impair text pages. I got over a million hits (I think it said million) but none of the links I clicked gave me anything I could read or the reader could speak clearly.

I’ve been up about 2 hours today and my right eye is completely clouded over again.

So now I get to listen to TV. Sometime turn the brightness off on you TV and listen to a complete show while you record it. Then go back and watch the video you just head and see if you really understood what they said.

I bet you will be surprised.

No Sleep

I slept about four hours early yesterday morning. I took a nap from 1 pm to about 315 pm then grabbed shower and my stepson took me for groceries.

I have been nodding off since 8 pm last night. I have been to bed three times tossing and turning. I follow the mantra after 30 minutes get up (I have a 30 minute sleep timer on my radio).

I tried no radio, I tried talk radio and I tried music. Nothing worked.

I come back to the computer and TV and nod off. I tried one more time with the TV on and sleep timer. No good.

My eyes hurt, my legs have no circulation, my back hurts and I cannot think.

Here I sit, sleepy but not sleeping. No way, No how, No McCain – how many fucking times do we have to hear it.

I have no idea what is going on. Been a long while since this has happened.

I know, I will make a big breakfast – that should put me to sleep – I hope.

Eye Update

Some days I am blind as a bat. I can see nothing out of my left eye and only light maybe a little color out of my right.

Sometimes right after a shower I can see fairly good out of my right eye. Today was a good day for my right eye.

My son-in-law took me to the grocery store and I was able to see well enough to get most things. Only needed help with a couple of items that look alike but have one word that I need to make sure of.

My biggest obstacle is identifying cans. My daughter uses a black or Red marker and writes a letter on top of the can to identify it. C for chilli beans, p for pork and beans, D for diced tomatoes etc.

I was seeing so good I decided I didn’t need my son-in-law to mark cans for me but after he left I got so overheated carrying everything up the steps that I could not see what the cans contained.

So I just left them to the side hoping my eyesight improves. I buy canned fruit – lasts longer and I don’t have to cut it up plus they have started packing it without all the sugar.

I have been hungry for peaches so I opened a can I thought was peaches. I picked the biggest around can there was because the fruit is usually packed in the biggest can.

I didn’t get peaches. For supper I am having pork and beans – that’s what I had last night.

Oh well, I can always use the fiber.

Staying Awake

I have been fighting sleep for about three hours now. I could probably lie down and be sound asleep before my head hit the pillow.

I have no good reason for doing this. In the old days I would stay awake until I had ten hours left before a commitment. I would sleep for 8 ½ hours then get up and get ready and get to my commitment on time.

If I didn’t do this, I would sleep for 8 ½ hours, wake up and see I still had time and I would go back to sleep.

The only problem was I would sleep for another 8 ½ hours. You could almost set you watch by the 8 ½ hours.

And now when I get tired I fight it until my eyes just will not stay open without help.

I know not why.

Food Stamps

It is not easy living on food stamps. Just when I was getting enough to eat decently, the price of food rose.

I go to the cheapest place in town – my daughter takes me every two weeks. I usually get to see my grandson – not too much play time but I do get to see him.

I am spending fifteens dollars more buying exactly the same stuff. So my food costs have gone up almost fifteen percent.

The biggest problem is having enough money to get through the two weeks. Twenty years ago I bought seventy-five dollars of food a week. Now I try to get by on $50 for two weeks.

My daughter is very sick and does not feel like taking me to the store yesterday or today. I understand completely. The problem is I do not think she realizes that after two weeks I am out of bread, milk and butter.

I have eaten butter-less pancakes for one meal or another for the last five days. Luckily I ran out of mix yesterday but that also means I’ll probably eat popcorn for two meals today instead of one.

I made corn bread (I use add only water for most everything) but I do not have any butter. Luckily I learned how to eat bread and other stuff without butter after my first heart attack but sometimes it really sucks.

I am not complaining – I put myself in this situation by not taking care of myself in my younger years and smoking way too many cigarettes.

Luckily it appears all the beer I drank did not hurt me – at least not yet.

Eyes Act Crazy

Sometimes I can see out of my right eye fairly well, cataracts or not. My left eye was completely black yesterday but is showing some light today.

I was able to read some print on the monitor at max magnification but it did not last long.

I wonder why that is. Sometimes my right eye hurts and others not. It is crazy.

Distracted

I wrote about wasting time. Sometimes things have changed and I want to know why. This morning I had a really bad dream.

I woke up and decided to record it.

Before I went to sleep about midnight, I told the computer to scan itself for problems and turn off when it was done. Normally I just put it to sleep.

So I tried jiggling the mouse but remembered my scan and I hit the power button and went to make tea.

When I got back my monitors were on but all the icons were on the left screen and were very small. For some reason the computer re-configured its self.

Since this was not the first time I went searching for why and an hour later I have no idea why it happened.

And I also forgot my dream.

Distracted – easily done.

Fasting

Sometimes I fast for 24 hours. I don’t do it to save food – I do it because sometimes it feels good. I still take my medicine and still shoot insulin, just a small amount so that my blood sugar does not go real low.

I said sometimes it feels good. My digestive track normally does not bother me but for some reason it feels good to empty it out. ‘It feels good’ is the best way to describe it.

And the next day I am not starving – it’s like I never quit eating.

I heard once that the less you eat the longer you will live. I am sure I am way behind the less/live longer part – all the seconds and thirds I ate.

Hell we use to have contests at family reunions to see how many ‘servings’ we could have. I could eat half a ham and a whole cake and loved doing it.

Oh well, fasting surely cannot hurt me.

Sleeping Schedule

I went to sleep about 6AM Thursday
morning and slept until almost 3. I
went back to bed at 8 PM and slept
until 2 AM this morning. And I am
still tired. My blood sugar is a
little high (185) but otherwise
everything seems fine.

I just don't get it.

So Tired After Eating

Each time I eat (especially right after I have shot up with insulin) I get very tired. So tired I can fall asleep at my desk even when I am in the middle of something.

I am not sure why. I do know that if I only sleep three or four hours I am extremely fatigued. If I get six or more I feel pretty good until I eat.

I tried going longer without eating but when my blood sugar drops low I have to eat or they tell me I can die.

So if I just seem to fall off energy wise, you’ll know.

For an update see this post: Tired After Eating

Cold Fish

I like to bake salmon in aluminum foil for about a half hour then broil it for three or four minutes with a fresh coating of butter and lemon. I do this all in the toaster over.

Tonight I followed my normal routine. When the timer went off at thirty minutes I melted the butter in the microwave and got the lemon juice ready. I opened the oven to get the fish and it was empty. I looked around the counter thinking I had already taken it out but my brain disagreed.

When I had wrapped the fish and turned on the oven I had put the fish on TOP of the toaster oven instead of in it. I corrected and laughed at myself. The timer went off and I opened the package to season it. I turned the oven to broil and set the timer for five minutes.

When I got back into the living room something triggered my brain. I went back and sure enough I had put the tray back on top of the oven.

Another senior moment to share. The high point of my day.

Eating Disorder

Ever since heart surgery I never get full. One day not so long ago, I got a bag of 3-Musketeers fun size candy bars.

I opened the bag at my desk to eat just two. I was entranced with the computer and Internet doing what I do not remember.

At some point I realized the bag was empty. I ate the whole bag in one sitting. I was NOT full.

Many times I will eat a good-sized portion of a meal and 30 minutes later I am eating something else. I know it is bad for my diabetes but it is not a conscious decision to eat. I just eat.

I never feel full just hungry. So now I eat a perfect portion and take a nap. When I wake up I no longer have a craving for food.

Whenever I sleep I go for as long as I can before I eat after waking. Once anything passes my lips I’ll eat continuously until I go back to sleep.

And I never feel full.

Waste of Time

Sometimes I will spend hours solving one little problem. Last night I spent four or five hours trying to figure out why a text-editing program I have would not display certain characters.

I’ve used this program for a couple of years and never cared before but now it works right. It felt good to solve the problem.

This morning I wasted a couple of hours trying to move an icon on this web page. When I realized I was wasting time again I gave up – for now.

And with no eyes I can spend an hour trying to figure out what I am doing on the screen. Many times I get completely lost so I have to log off/on to reset things.

A pain in the ass but more fun then sitting around listening to the stupid TV or radio.

The Gigantic Web

I was surfing the web and ran across a blog with a guest blogger. I loaded the author’s blog in the background then got sidetracked.

I had to reboot my browser and lost the link but the reason I even wanted to read it was the headline that caught my eye: Because Everyone Is Entitled To MY Opinion.

I figured it would be easy to find that phrase and associated blog so I let Google do the hard work.

324,000 hits – I sure am hell am not going to look through them to find the one (1) entry I want.

I do like that headline tho.

My First Memories

I have two brothers and two sisters. We lost Mom twenty years ago this year due to cancer.

I had many, many questions to ask her that I do not feel comfortable asking Dad about.

Like how they met, how did she feel when she found at she was pregnant with me, etc.

I have two or three first memories. I am not sure of their order but this is what I think they were.

I remember a place we lived that had a set of stairs leading up to at least my bedroom. I remember climbing those stairs. Dad says I pushed my younger brother down the stairs. I do not remember that.

Next I remember trying to ride my bike behind a furnace or coal stove – for some reason I thought it was my maternal grandparents house but my dad says it was probably my uncle’s house when my younger brother was born – Xmas eve.

And last I remember wanting to go bowling with my grandfather and dad. But I evidently soiled my pants and dad told me the only way I could go was to wear a diaper.

I remember being upset because I was a big boy but I must have loved bowling more because we went.

The last memory came to me when I took bowling class at junior college. I had just bowled 8 strikes and wondered if I got my skill from my grandfather – he bowled in leagues or something – seemed he bowled all the time.

I was getting ready to throw the ninth strike when I thought back to previous times I had bowled in high school and sucked.

I was thinking that if you want to do something you need someone or something to teach you.

Then the memory came back. I missed the strike and the last ball I hit a 7-10 split (is that right?). Never came close to a perfect game again.

Sleep Schedule

Last summer when money was tight I started cooling only one room at a time. Living room if I was watching TV/Computer and bedroom if I was sleeping but I found that as long as I had a fan blowing on me I could sleep in 82 degree temperature.

It dawned on me I did not have to be awake during the heat of the day – I could sleep then and save on A/C. And it worked well.

I like working in the early morning hours – always have. So I go to sleep around noon, when it is starting to get hot and get up at 7 or 8 when it is starting to cool down. Plus the best TV is on at this time and old movies during the overnight.

This year June and July were extremely hot so I did not save much. August has been so-so but the last two weeks have been wonderful – 80 during day – 50 at night – almost no A/C use at all.

So if you wondered why I didn’t return calls between noon and seven or why I always seemed tired during that time, now you know.

Apology For Long Post

That last post (should be one under this one) was fairly long. I'll try to keep them shorter in the future and not so darned detailed.

I’ll come up with something so you don’t have to page through long pages on the main page.

UPDATE: I came up with a method and accomplished something I've been wanting to do for a long time - show just the post titles, tags(labels) and date posted. I like it so far.

First Problem

My first problem may lead to readability problems and unusual text placement.

For all practical purposes I am blind. I have cataracts - my right eye can see light and color and ‘big’ objects like cars and furniture. But any bright light hurts – I see glare all the time.

I cannot read or see any details. I cannot use it to go up/down stairs and I can’t see raised concrete while walking along a sidewalk.

It will let me know something big is coming at me but usually too late. For the most part it hurts from the glare.

My left eye also has cataracts but not as bad – I could (notice I didn’t say can) read printed material and the computer screen using great magnification.

I could see just enough detail to see facial expressions although I questioned many of them.

About two months ago I had another breakout of shingles. One thing I want to quote before I go on:

Yes, it's contagious. Just like the chicken pox you had as a kid, shingles are contagious. As a result, until the blisters crust over, you need to be extremely careful around infants, pregnant women, people with weakened immune systems and those who have never had chicken pox. If you are going to be in contact with anyone in these groups, cover your blisters with a bandage and avoid direct contact in order to prevent spreading the virus.
Here Is The Source Page

Two years ago I woke up blind in my left eye - almost black. My right eye was just beginning to have major problems. I also had a headache that was so bad I could not concentrate on anything.

The doctor looked into my eye and asked if I had any cuts or open sores. I showed him the two places on my back that had been diagnosed as shingles in 1998. They break out about three or four times a year.

He immediately called the nurse and the attendant at the front desk. They all washed their hands for several minutes in a weird brown solution.

He made a phone call and asked if the vaccine would help if shingles had already appeared and shook his head.

He asked for treatments and wrote a few things down.

He had me get off the examination table and sit down. He told me shingles probably infected my eye.

There was no treatment since they had already appeared but most treatments were ineffective anyway. They might shorten the cure time but not by much.

He could give me prescriptions and some painkillers but otherwise the outbreak would just have to run their course – about six weeks.

He also warned me they were very contagious and to stay away from babies and people who were sick or on chemo.

He told me that I could infect other parts of my body if I touched the blisters when they broke open– I did not know.

I went to get the prescriptions filled. I do not have insurance and the topical cream alone was almost $200. The other pills he recommended were even more expensive for six weeks.

The painkillers were $50 for a month but he could only give me so many at a time to prevent overdoses and abuse.

I brought the painkillers and since the other medicine would probably not do much I skipped it.

Nine weeks later I got most of my sight back but it was hazy.

And now it is infected again. Without my left eye I have very little vision. A neighbor has setup my computer with two screens – I already had everything I needed – and found a program that reads just about everything to me.

One screen is the built-in magnifier at its highest magnification. When I hover over a link or icon, I can see different colors and have learned to recognize many icons since the computer speaks its name.

I managed other blogs at Google so I am very familiar with the process of posting but I do most of it by simply emailing the posts to the blog.

Simple. Sometimes I cannot understand what the computer is saying so I am not sure I have typed correctly.

Earlier in this post I was a key off and the computer was speaking gibberish – if you see something that makes no sense you’ll know what happened.

So that is the first problem. I’m sure glad I like challenges.

Why I started this blog

I decided today that I might not be around very long. I’m 56 this year and have several present and past medical issues that have greatly affected my life.

I also determined that some of the stories I have in my memory might be of interest to my – this is about all they will inherit. J

So sit back and prepare to be bored to tears or brought to tears but hopefully have a good laugh once in a while.

It has been interesting life but don’t we all think that? I’ll let you judge.