PB Survey in 2025

I got it backward. I thought I’d have to wait forever to see a pulmonologist but get right into an ENT. Well, obviously, it’s the opposite. I’ve already seen the ENT, but the pulmonologist is booked until March. By the time I see him, do the sleep study, get the CPAP, and hopefully adjust to it, I could be looking at being tired until May. But hey, I’ve been tired for half a decade now, so what’s a few more months? Tom thinks getting my allergies under control will give me more days where I feel perkier. I just hope I can adapt to the CPAP and that it resolves most of my fatigue. I can’t entirely rule out the possibility of chronic fatigue, though. Thankfully, it’s unlikely, as that would feel like a partial death sentence. I’m trying not to let my mind go there. I’m telling myself I’ve got this and not to think the worst. Hopefully, I won’t be kidding myself in the end.

My heart has been racing, and I feel warm and flustered at times despite the cold, so it’s time to skip another dose. It seems that when I was in the 160s, 88s were slightly low for me, but now that I’m in the 150s, this dose feels a bit high. Not high enough to warrant dropping to 75s, though—that might be too low unless I unexpectedly lose more weight. Still, I’m not sure I want to bother trying to lose more. One thing at a time—let’s see if I can restore my energy and get my allergies under control first.

The ENT insists that the air pressure from the nasal pillow should push the valve open and force more air through my nose. I don’t recall having issues inhaling through my nose; it just felt weird and like I had to breathe more, even though I didn’t really need to. Sleeping with it wasn’t very comfortable, but a full-face mask would be worse. I don’t know if I could ever adapt to that. Anyway, if it works as the ENT said, along with the proper allergy regimen, I shouldn’t need to use strips or dilators.

I was horribly tired yesterday, so I took a whole clonazepam before bed. Plus, I’ve been on edge as my heart rate climbs into the triple digits. These days, I’m smart enough to skip a dose rather than let it get worse. I’ve always been told that as long as my TSH is under 10, I’m okay, and there’s no need to let it get over that.

I love nap dreams (as long as they’re not bad) because they’re so vivid. In one dream, we lived in a couple of other places. One had a loft, and I was looking over the edge at the rat who was out getting her exercise. There were stairs leading up to the loft on the right, and she headed over to them. I called her to come up, and she started hopping up the stairs.

In another dream, it was dark and very early morning. We were in an older, small house—maybe with just one bedroom and one bath. There were other houses on the sides, just like in real life. It must have been pretty quiet because the bedroom had no soundproofing in its windows. Instead, I could see light from the neighboring house through the slats of the blinds. The house was so vivid and detailed that I could draw it. The living room was in front with a long covered patio outside. It was a rectangular room with the door on the left side. Straight across was the doorway to the kitchen. There might have been a bathroom and utility section on the far left. On the far right was the bedroom behind the living room with no windows facing the street.

Tom is out picking up my antihistamine spray, and the steroid one will arrive soon. It wasn’t that they tried to bill the wrong insurance; the idiots sent it to the wrong Walgreens even though I specified which one to send meds to. He called and was able to transfer it to the one we use. He’s also picking up paperwork from his new doctor’s office. I don’t understand the obsession with paperwork these days and why it’s become so crazy with doctors. They only asked what medications I was on and had me sign maybe just one paper back in Springfield during the late ’80s to early ’90s. They definitely didn’t ask what years my parents died, LOL. You can tell most of the healthcare down here is tailored to older people. He remembers when his dad died, but I had to remind him that his mother passed away in 2015 at age 93. His dad was 84. I can’t imagine being a widow for 20 years!

He gets $75 in free stuff every month from Medicare. We looked at the catalog and it’s quite a list, though no breathing strips. I teased him about getting testosterone cream to see how much of a boner he’d get.

Thanks to one of my favorite cyber buddies, I got to do a PB survey I didn’t realize was going around. It’s about how we use the site and what we’d like to see in the upcoming year, but I don’t expect much. I’d like the option to allow friends-only comments and even anonymous comments, rather than an all-or-nothing approach. I’d also like to select multiple entries to move at once to other books and custom backgrounds like on Blogger.