The mower woke me up yesterday (I forgot about them and didn’t have the sound machine loud enough) but was due to get up around that time anyway. Have a feeling I’m on the verge of the next shitty sleep cycle where things wake me up more than usual.

Tom always said he wasn’t able to hear those mystery thumps I’ve been hearing but he heard them twice yesterday at around 8 in the morning. He went and looked outside but didn’t see any sign of movement anywhere and couldn’t tell where it was coming from. So he’s just as baffled as I am, though car doors make the most sense, even if he didn’t see anyone coming or going.

There was a time I swear it sounded like someone drove up in back but there’s no way they could get through all that tall vegetation.

What was kind of funny for a change is that thunder woke him up at around 5 in the morning but not me. It obviously wasn’t loud enough to override the sound machine. He doesn’t sleep with any background noise other than an air cleaner if we ever see it again along with the rest of our stuff. The only difference is that he doesn’t mind being woken up. Well, I sure do because I hate being tired. Being woken up doesn’t seem to have such a negative effect on him as it does on me. Hell, I’m tired even when I don’t get woken up. I think it’s because of my thyroid but he thinks it’s stress. I don’t know why stress would have such an effect on me like this when it never used to. There’s always something going on in life so I guess I’m going to be tired for the rest of it. It really sucks because while he can still do the things he used to do when he was younger, there are so many things I could never do now that I used to do. There’s no way I could dance like I once did. There’s no way I could only sleep a couple of hours and go to the beach in New Hampshire with Kim like I once did.

It just doesn’t make sense for me to be this tired so often. The day we left the house and the day we flew out here, I was way more tired than I should have been. It seems too extreme for stress but I can’t believe I have any cancer growing that’s sucking up my energy so that’s why I wonder if it’s my thyroid. It doesn’t have to be that bad to cause fatigue. Yet way too often I wake up feeling not at all refreshed even when I sleep okay. Also, there are many times when I start off with decent energy just to end up exhausted in the middle of my day as if I’d been up for 12 or more hours.

He said it thundered on and off for about an hour and a half. As I said, though, it seems I’m only allowed to go so many days in a row without being woken up, so I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised if something woke me up tomorrow. The question is whether or not it will be thumps or thunder. Those seem to be the two main things here.

I still have my doubts about the soundproofing being effective even though we’ve finally decided on what the inner layer is going to be. He decided he didn’t want to deal with the dust and mess that drywall brings nor the expense and fragility of cork. So we decided to get wallboards that would be more consistent with what’s around the house anyway. Again, though, I have serious doubts about it working. I think it’s going to end up being a waste of time and money just like everything we tried in the last place.

So we headed for Palm Harbor to see the new doctor and it took 45 minutes to get there. If we have to make the trip twice a year, it’ll be okay since he isn’t working and we don’t always have anything better to do. Even when we do, we still have plenty of time to spare so I don’t mind the drive. It’s just that we have to stop and charge the car on the way back. Got a little worried there for a minute but I’ll get to that after.

To sum it up in a nutshell, I need more thyroid meds, need statins, probably need BP meds, need to go to the lab, need a shingles vaccination, GYN exam, mammogram, and colonoscopy.

It was storming when we got there. Instead of a big building or having to go down any hallways to get to the doctor’s office, we just walked straight in the door and up to the reception desk. I checked in and only had to wait a few minutes before a nurse named Amy took me into one of the exam rooms. Tom was with me since it was my first time seeing Dr. D.

I shrunk a bit down to 4’10” from 4’10¾”. What really shocked the shit out of me was that I’m only 161 lbs. Oh, that’s huge, I know, but I really thought I would be at least 165. But to be 161 in a heavy dress and after eating tells me I’m still waking up around 157 which means I really haven’t gained any weight since the move.

I only had to wait a few minutes after she took my temperature and blood pressure the old-fashioned way. I prefer that to the electronic blood pressure cuff. Naturally, they noticed my blood pressure was high.

So the doctor came in and I really didn’t get any bad or good feelings about her one way or the other. She was just there like some of my doctors start off to be. Even my ENT was just there initially and I wasn’t really sure what to think of Doc A at first. I definitely miss them. It’s always comforting to stick with those you’re familiar with and I think she knew and understood this and that I do have white coat anxiety, especially with someone I don’t know.

The doctor was a little above average height with short straight blonde hair and light eyes. She was very skinny as well. Pretty sure she’s listed as being 40 years old but don’t know if that’s up-to-date because she looked closer to the late forties to me.

I was surprised to find a video link of hers on the medical group’s website which is AdventHealth. Well, it wasn’t that I was surprised to find a video with her saying how much she loves being a doctor and all that but I was surprised that she named her husband and two sons. Doctors are usually pretty impersonal much like jail guards and don’t tend to give personal information out.

So it was a pretty typical appointment with no real surprises. In other words, she told me what I mostly didn’t want to hear. She was very businesslike too. She didn’t joke or go off-topic in any way. She was quick to remind me that I’m putting myself at risk of a stroke or a heart attack by not taking statins, having high blood pressure, and taking risks by not having lady exams. Logically, I know that’s correct but I still just don’t believe I’m going to get anything serious anytime soon. At least not anything as serious as a heart attack, a stroke, or cancer. I’m sure Aly didn’t expect to die when she did but still. Maybe I’m wrong in trusting my intuition but I’ve always had a feeling that while I wouldn’t necessarily grow old enough to hit my 80s, I just don’t see myself going before I’m in my 70s.

Nonetheless, even though I have a right to refuse as I have for now, she recommends mammograms, pap smears, colonoscopies, and even a shingles vaccination. I definitely do not want to have that vax after how rough it was on Tom. He still has to get his second one too. He’ll be seeing the doctor in a few months or so.

I was telling her that at 55 and not having something like 50-60 years to live, I just don’t feel as compelled to have all these tests done and put myself through the pain and discomfort when I feel like I’m okay, and of course she didn’t get it or agree, citing that I’m “pediatrics” for Florida, which was the only funny thing she did say.

I told her about the problems I’ve had with my thyroid medication and how 88s would probably normalize my numbers but then I would worry that it would accumulate in my system and push them too low. She said I didn’t have to jump to all 88 and could throw in a couple of 88s a week which made me feel better to hear but I’m not ready for that yet. I think we should find out what my numbers are before we make any decisions, although as I suspected, and as she pointed out, my thyroid not being optimal is probably what’s causing my fatigue. She said something about vitamin B12 as well. I guess maybe I could be lacking in that although I’m pretty sure Doc A tested me for that and I wasn’t. We’ll find out within a couple of weeks when I go to the lab! Then I’ll do labs again and see her again in 6 months.

Tom and I talked about it afterward and we don’t think I need blood pressure medicine. We think that if I just watch what I eat, I’ll be okay. It’s mostly when I get stressed out that it goes up, and as she said, the top number is what typically goes up when under stress.

We talked about my sleep disorder and she’s also given me a referral to an ENT but unfortunately, it’s a guy. Looks American, though, when I looked him up so I shouldn’t have any problems understanding him.

When we were out, Tom had problems with his phone. He couldn’t connect to the Wi-Fi. This was a concern because we had to stop at the charging station on the way back and weren’t sure if it had a credit card insert. Fortunately, it did. We would have really been in a tough situation if it didn’t because we couldn’t have called AAA to pick us up. I’m sure we could have stopped somewhere to use a phone but I’m glad we didn’t have to.

While the car was charging, we walked across the parking lot to Baskin-Robbins and he got a grilled cheese sandwich while I got a maple frosted donut and a small thing of hash browns and bacon.

Then we stopped at Walmart because I wanted a cooked chicken.

What really sucked was that ever since we got home at around 6, I felt anxious. I took my third dose of Lannett, and even though I remind myself that yes, it was just a coincidence that I became anxious after I started it the last time since it has the same ingredients Sandoz has and I’ve had both anxious and calm moments on that brand, I’m back to stressing out about it. Yesterday I had no problem at all, though.