Yesterday was so long, tiring, and stressful, and well, it was just one of those days. It was dumb of me to schedule an appointment so late in my day. What I thought would be a 2-hour outing was more like 4. That would have been fine if I wasn't so damn tired. That was more of the problem than the point of my day that I was in.

Another lesson we learned is to leave earlier for appointments. Google said it would take 36 minutes. We left an hour early, but that still wasn't enough. We hit unusually heavy traffic at a couple of points during the trip through Port Richey, New Port Richey, Clearwater, Dunedin, and other towns. It's a good thing we didn't have to go all the way down to Tampa. The first traffic jam was because of an accident. I don't know what was backing up traffic the second time around.

When we knew for sure that I would be about 15 minutes late for my appointment, I called the office and, after having to play hold, I let them know. The lady reached out to the office I was going to and then a minute later she told me it was fine and to just keep heading to the appointment.

They were kind enough to see me as late as I was, and they didn't make me wait long either. The doctor and the lady he was training did a fine job on my ear and it was painless as well. For those of you who don't know, I was born with congenital atresia of the left ear. They drilled a canal in the 90s, and it can't shed dead skin on its own. It has to be cleaned by an ENT periodically. They usually use a vacuum, and if it's as loud as it is with very little hearing in that ear, I can just imagine what it would be like with good hearing, LOL.

My good ear looks fine, and of course he looked up my nose and down my throat too. The lady is going to be working in Spring Hill which is closer to our place, so she gave me her name, and in half a year, I'll see if she's in network.

So one appointment down! It's a relief to have this done and already my TMJ is much better.

So can we take my tired ass home from there? Of course not. With only 4 miles to spare, we had to run to the nearest charger but that's the slow charger So we had to wait close to an hour to get enough charge to go to the fast charger to top it off. This was at Whole Foods, so we grabbed some food from their buffet. These grocery store buffets are never that good. Had I known better, I would have just gotten mashed potatoes. That was the only decent thing they had. The rest was either bland or spicy.

Once at the fast charger, he had to pee really bad, so he walked across the parking lot to Baskin Robbins while I waited in the car, too tired to haul my ass along with him. If anything worked out in our favor, it's that it was a cool day for Florida. It got up to 76 but was still around 60 degrees at the time.

He grabbed himself a milkshake and me a small sundae and then we finally headed home. I wasted no time peeling my clothes off and falling into bed. But could I sleep? No, of course not! I was up for just over 18 hours. I'm not as tired as yesterday, but I'm not bursting with energy either, and I don't think I ever will be again in my life.

It turns out that my oxygen saturation levels were high a couple of times during my sleep. I thought sleep apnea was caused by being fat but it’s actually caused by relaxed throat muscles that cause the airway to narrow. Something about it failing the send signals to the brain telling it to breathe. I could still have some form of sleep apnea. I don’t know for sure, but next time I sleep, I’m going to try an experiment and sleep with one of those breathing strips on my nose that help keep the nasal passages open a little more and see if that helps. I didn’t wake up as much last time around. Just had a little bit of trouble falling back asleep when I got up around 9:30 to pee. It would really be nice if I could get more than an hour of deep sleep for a change too.

My OS could also be high because of inhaling exhaled carbon dioxide as a stomach sweeper. If my heart and thyroid aren’t a problem, then it’s got to be connected to something going on in my sleep. The question is, how can they do a sleep study on me in my case? It would have to be something I could do at home. I’m doubly cursed. First, I can’t keep a schedule, and then I can’t sleep without sound machines, so I couldn’t just do a typical sleep study.

The thyroid med is starting to knock some weight off again as it builds back up in my system. The question is how I'll feel in a couple of weeks.

Gallbladder removal surgery consult is now scheduled for March 9th. I’m guessing the bastard will be removed around the end of March.

Happy 61st birthday to Andy!

Still have more to catch up on, but I need a little break for now. Again, my energy level is better, but not up to par yet.

Later...

After hitting the road for half an hour and bringing my ride to 110 miles, I ended up taking a little nap. I really needed it too, even though that may have screwed up my schedule even more. Getting to my scope on the 22nd is going to be a bit of a challenge. But hey, I'm Queen of doing things in exhaustion anyway,  aren't I? Gotta go all the way down to Tampa for this one too.

In a few weeks, Andy is going to Phoenix with his male friend, Ken. He'll be gone for a week.

I was thinking about my old doc's arthritis diagnosis of the "lump" I swear I feel at the base of my neck in front just toward the left where the clavicle bone attaches to the chest. Could it really be a coincidence that it became more noticeable again with the dose decrease? But then if my thyroid was enlarged in that spot, I suppose she would have felt it.

At least the planes are quiet this morning. They were pretty mellow for a few days, and then we had a couple of days where we were right back to the every few minutes thing and it was pretty annoying.

Out of curiosity, I emailed Christiane the other day and told her I hoped that Nane wasn't in Turkey when the earthquake hit. Her quick and simple reply said, no, Nane was in Munich while she was in Austria skiing. That was it. Never asked how I was doing or anything like that. A part of me considered being sarcastic and saying, "I'm doing OK, by the way. Thanks for returning the question." But hey, you can't make people care about you. Like I said a while ago, if it wasn't for my curiosity I'd never hear from her again.

We got a large ugly-looking recycling pail but decided it was about time we did our part here. We won't have enough for them to pick up every single week, so we'll aim for the times when I'll be awake when they come around since they're loud as fuck. We didn't even have a full recycle bin every single week at the other place.

I had a dream where I was speaking or listening - I think listening - to someone speaking fluently in a foreign language and I understood perfectly well what they were saying. I'm not sure what that language was, though. Maybe German.

Last night, I had tons of Alyssa dreams. I love it when I dream of her, even though they're usually weird or just not very good dreams. I wonder why I suddenly had so many dreams of her. Maybe because yesterday was her birthday and she popped into mind. We were neighbors one minute and then in another dream, I was at her workplace. Then she was talking to Tom for a second, and then she began dancing beautifully. She spun around like a beautiful ballerina and I was both surprised and amazed by her talent.

Tom and I agreed to have a “meeting” at the end of next month as far as what we're going to do and where. By then we'll know if his program is a bust or not. Right now it's showing promise and consistency. There's still more testing to be done, though. I realize I really need to start living in the moment and stop planning ahead so much. If I put too much energy into future plans, then I won't get much done in the present. The plan is to either decide where we may move to if the program continues to work out, or what we want to do to make this place more comfortable for the remainder of our life if it doesn’t. I realize it wouldn't be a waste if we put money into making changes in this place because if we ended up having money in a few years that we didn't expect, it would up the value of the house and what doesn't up it will just make us more comfortable while we're here. It's just that we don't have an endless supply of money, especially if things don't work out, and we can't do everything at once. We have a line of credit, but we'd kind of like to keep most of it for emergencies.

If this is our forever home, then when we can, I would like to soundproof one of the bedrooms from top to bottom against storms. I mean literally soundproof everything. Not just the walls. The ceiling, floors, windows, doors...everything.

We also need to redo the floors in this place, and I would like to take out the built-in desk by the door and add an indoor washer and dryer.

Another big thing I'd like to do is add cabinets and counter space to the kitchen.