random updates

The doctor visit went fine... some highlights:

The preliminary checks were done by a young woman who turned out to be pre-med. She asked where I worked and I told her "The University of Akron, webteam." Then I paused and continued, "I'm a geek". She responded cheerfully that, "I'm a geek too - I'm pre-med at UA"

I was a little puzzled by her jumping of the logic tracks, but I went along with it.

The doctor didn't recognize from my last trip there - "That was you?" he exclaimed. He verified that my symptoms were consistent with a bad migraine and gave me a prescription. He said his nurse would help me with a referral for an oral surgeon for my TMJ - though I haven't heard back from them yet.

I couldn't find my insurance card, but it was okay at the doctor's office. However, when I went to get the prescription filled, they insisted on having it. Which is dumb - they could have looked me up based on my last name - there's only three of us in the state. Nope - so, I had to waste a trip back there to get the over priced drugs. Which I'm only supposed to take if my head starts to get really bad.

I've had a couple migraines since then, including one that ran and hid in the presence of motrin, then came back later on the other side of my head. And my jaw is still not quite right.

But, on the positive side of things - I'm swimming even better than before. The boss was gone for the day recently and I took a little longer lunch and did 12 laps. Felt pretty good afterward.

Read some kick-ass zombie books that didn't give me nightmares - then read the book DayWatch - which did mess up my sleep. And it wasn't even as scary.

I beat the game "God of War2" - and was a little disappointed in the ending. It was too much of a set up for GoW3. Sort of like the ending to Pirates of the Caribbean (sp?) - 2. The movie was totally a set up for 3.

Working on a project at home for a big box for my cranes - plexiglass is the name of the game.

Work is busy - but I'm getting a lot accomplished.

I guess there's more stuff to talk about, but I need to get back to it. I'm going to try and get back into the habit of blogging. I think it's good for me.

back to work...

notes and a trip to the doctor

I asked my room-mate to write up some notes on the migraine day, which I've then added to so that I have a better picture of what happened. I've got a doctor's appointment this morning - I'm hoping to get a bit more clarity on what happened to me. Also got some TMJ issues going on and I think I've got a wisdom tooth coming in. Yeah, I'm a mess.

Got a bit for work to do before the appointment - better get back to it...

the purple dude photos

Got some photos of the purple dude:

http://gozips.uakron.edu/~aws/purple2.html

Busy day today, better get back to it....

music, jaw, work

Heard a cool song this morning on the radio and I found it again on youtube - been listening to it most of the day. The singer is Regina Spektor and the song is "Fidelity". Great little song, the video is pretty nice too.

My Temporal Mandibular Joint Disorder (or TMJ) has flared up again today. I yawned this morning and I felt things shift - and not shift back. Which is troubling and not a little painful. I've tried to force it back into place without much luck - I'll try and ice it up later and give it another go later. Until then, minimize talking and eating.

Work has been very busy recently, not sure what's up with that. I think we've finally got enough people that we can do more than just damage control - except that we still have to do the damage control too.

Anyway, that's it for now, back to work...

giant paper, bills, deposit, desk, games

I was in a meeting a while back with the Student Life office and, as I'm known to do, I folded a small person out of paper during the meeting. Though I try to be subtle and do it mainly because I'm a little bored, they were still impressed. They made mention of some banner paper they have and offered to give me some. On Friday, I decided to take them up on it. I got three sheets of about 9 ft by 3 ft of bright purple banner paper.

After work, I took over the conference room and taped the paper together. That, along with measuring and cutting down to an 8 ft by 8 inch square took me about an hour. Another 2 hours later and I'd folded it into about a 6 foot all purple person.

Why would I do it? Because I could. He won't stand up on his own - unlike his more reasonably sized bretheren - and I think I folded the waist wrong, but I'm still pleased at the result. No idea what to do with him - I guess I'll figure that out soon enough. I'll try and get pictures one of these days.

Finally got some bills for the "great migraine of 2007". The bill - which was labeled "not a bill" from the doctor's office came to $15.00 Sort of. The math was way funky on it and the final total of the co-pay is anyone's guess.

The hospital bill was quite clear. And insane. A person could take the amount I was charged for my one night stay in "hotel del wake-you-up-every-two-hours" and purchase a car. Not my car, mind you - a nicer car. With power everything and cruise control. And perhaps, a sun roof.

I'm not going to dwell on what the number actually was since this was billed to insurance and I'm not sure how much the final bill will be - but it was still insane.

Two things that do stand out:

1. Speech Pathology. This lady came into my room on Friday morning to check to see if I could swallow and speak. Valid concerns, to be sure. She fed me a variety of cold substances and placed her hand on my throat (which I despise) to check the swallowing function. She then had me read from a card - which I also did without a problem. All fine and/or dandy. Except...

The night before, they also had me read from the same card and gave me a swallow test before I had some of the most completely horrible food on the planet. I also ate again the next morning before the speech pathology lady showed up. And her final diagnosis was that I didn't need her help. I was still charged over $400 for her services.

2. The MRI. It's a really big and noisy machine. Wildly uncomfortable. And, apparently, really expensive to run. I think it was around $1200 for that session. I get that it's expensive for the hospital and they need to re-coop the costs. But, holy crap, I didn't want to buy the damn thing all by myself! I mean, if I'd known it was like that, I would have gone home and used the really strong magnets off of my fridge.

And, incidentally, I was asked what kind of music I would want to hear. I requested "Contemporary. Top 40's. No country." What do I get? It starts off with country since that was what the last wanker was listening to. Then it switches over to top 40's - from the 1940's. For that kind of money, you get Brittany Spears to come over and sing live for me. It's not like she's doing anything now except waiting for her hair to grow back out.

So, I'm cranky about the bills and waiting for the final total.

In "money coming in news" - I got the deposit back from my previous apartment. And for the full amount - which surprised me a bit since my former room-mate had done some serious damage that was beyond my capacity to fix. So, that will go in the bank and wait quietly to be blown away by my hospital bills.

My room-mate and I bought a desk over the week-end and I put it together on Saturday. It was one of those sauder ones that usually go together like legos, but this one was a bit more complicated. Still, it wasn't too bad and it looks nice, so I think it was worth the money and effort.

I also played some games this weekend - but did not really enjoy them. Kingdom Hearts 2 - a timed boss battle. Those are freaking evil. Took me 4 tries to wipe out his minions in the time allotted, then nearly had him destroyed before he threw out more minions and this time I didn't finish them in time. So sorry, start over. So, I leveled up a bit and tried it again. And did worse. So, I switched to the computer and played Fate for a bit. Then I died and was teleported up three levels, but had to leave my gold behind. Then I fought my way back down and couldn't get past a box on the floor that was blocking the path to where I'd left the money. So, I skipped it and went down another level, where the game promptly crashed. Nice...

Switched over to a Myst-style puzzle game - wandered around a freakin cave writing down numbers for the puzzles. Except, I can't seem to pick up any items for my inventory and I had to go online and look at a walk-thru to find that I could even flip over the blurry photos to see they had fragments of words written on them.

So, I turned off the computer and went to go read a book.

And now it's time to get back to work...

bananas

Last night, I dreamed I was working as a volunteer at a zoo. My job was to patrol the monkey enclosure and in this case to try and a coax a little girl out of the fenced in area, where she had snuck in - after convincing herself that she was a monkey. I was hunkered down near the opening, eating a banana, trying to lure her out - since monkeys like bananas, it seemed like a good plan. I also had to keep the other monkeys distracted so they didn't come after my bananas or attack the girl.

I woke up before I got her out of the monkey pen, but I'm pretty sure I was making progress. I got up to go to the bathroom and realized that I was still tasting bananas. Now, it's slightly possible that I sleepwalked downstairs and ate a real banana in the grip of my monkey dream - but the taste faded out far too quickly to have been real bananas.

It was pretty freaky.

Not much else going on this morning - so, back to work...

headache, swim counter, sister, movie

Had a minor blip on the migraine radar last evening - not sure if it was the real deal, but I took some motrin and slept for a couple hours. It's mostly gone, but there are still shadows of a headache lurking behind my eye. I'm a little reluctant to go back to the doctor - short of drilling a hole in my head I'm not sure what other kinds of tests they could do to tell me that, "no, it really wasn't a stroke and yes, it was a migraine,"

My swim counter worked great on Monday, I'm looking forward to hitting the water again today. I'm getting faster and stronger and I'm feeling a little less obliterated after my workouts each time - which is a good thing. I had half-way planned on lifting weights last night as well, but the blip put a damper on that one.

I traded a couple of emails with my aunt recently, she was asking me about the Great Migraine of 2007. Got me thinking back over that time period and one thing kind of jumped out at me...

I think I wrote before that my sister somehow knew something was wrong way before anyone else did - and that she's done that with other people and difficult events as well. But in addition to some Extra-sensory perception she's also got some pretty impressive standard perception. After the big headache hit - while I was recovering, but before the next one hit - my family was visiting. I was still having some speech issues at that point and though I was fighting hard to keep those under control, each time I'd have a glitch my sister noticed it. The rest of the room would be oblivious to that, but I would catch her eye and realize she'd picked up on it.

I've always known she was sharp, but I guess I hadn't given her credit for being as perceptive as she is. And for someone who prides himself on being aware of the world around him, I'm feeling a bit clueless that I hadn't really noticed it, much less commented on it. So, there we go.

In one last bit of news, I watched a 1970's remake of Dracula last night. It was fairly true to the Bram Stoker story, but the "effects" (and I use the term loosely) were really funny. Especially the paper mache bat on a string that kept banging into the windows. :)

Well, that's about it for now... got a busy, meeting filled day ahead of me. Later...

back in the swim, the Prestige, dryer, othello

So, a week since "the migraine of 2007" and I've got my trunks and goggles ready - time to get back in the pool and put another 1/4 mile under my belt - or drawstrings, as it were. Looking forward to it and I'll report again later if I should happen to drown or something.

I had planned on watching The Number 23 over the weekend, but instead watched the DVD of the Prestige instead. Damn good movie - I figured it out partway through and had the cold chills as the rest of the story unfolded. It was crazy good and creepy.

The dryer went out on Sunday - in the middle of a laundry cycle. So, I took it apart and found that the starter switch was loose and burned. I guessed that the switch got stuck in the on position and then burned out. So, we did a little driving around trying to find a place that sold replacement switches - with no luck. So, one last stop at home depot to find a switch that - while not an "official dryer switch" would function the same way. Got it home, installed it - and no luck. Then it occurred to us to check the breaker - which had also been thrown. A quick reset and a button push and the dryer fired right up.

I did a little happy dance. We've still got a switch sticking out the top of the back of the dryer, but it's not a big deal.

I also picked up the game Othello and tried to teach my room-mate. He'd never played before, but was willing to give it a try. I beat him soundly the two games we played - which is understandable since he'd never played before - but on the second game, he didn't have any pieces left and we hadn't filled the board. I'd never seen that happen before and my sister and I used to play this game all the time. Even the rules were a little vague on that point.

Incidentally, the new Othello board is inferior to the old version. The grid is raised and the tiles - which are not as substantial as the old ones - either sort of float awkwardly on the edges or get lodged in the grid. Neither of which is conducive to a high speed title flipped event.

Well, looks like a busy day here - time to get back to work...