Gaslit E

 I made the decision earlier this year to switch my primary doctor to be the same one that Dom has.   I had one doctor that I've been going to for the last several years but I've felt like he hasn't been giving me the best care.   It seemed that his service has been pretty impersonal.   Also the last few visits I've noticed that he's been looking haggard and gained a bit of weight.   I felt like if he's not taking care of his own health then how can I expect him to care for mine.

Dom has been praising his newer primary doctor that he's had for a year or so.   He had wanted a male primary but the one he had wound up passing away.    He had a hard time finding another male doctor so settled on his current one.    

I had complained about my current primary and he suggested I switch over to his.  I was reluctant at first mainly because I wasn't sure about having a lady primary doctor.   I remember Mama always wanted a lady primary for her.   When she was in the hospital I remember her insisting wanting a female orderly to look over her.   In a lot of ways I was having the same hang up.   But then Dom pointed out that doctors hardly do physicals the way they used to do them.   So I decided to let go of my hang-up and officially switch over to his primary.

So far I've had two sessions with Gupta.   I will say that I don't know if I've noticed much of a difference between her and my previous primary.   Oddly enough though the two times I've visited her, my blood pressure readings both times were in the normal range (120/78 - 80).    That seemed so weird to me.   I had been adding a few more supplements including nattokinase which is an enzyme extracted from fermented foods.  I will say perhaps the extra walking when going to the office has helped.

However I've been off my routine for a few days and when visiting Dom's Mom and using her wrist blood pressure monitor to measure my blood pressure, it was reading 170/133 which is full on heart attack mode.    So I can't help but wonder if I'm being gaslighted at my primary.   But as I said I have been off my routine for a bit and maybe I need to get some exercise back again to see if things improve.

Incidentally I've taken two weeks off from work though I've still had to briefly check in since I had a few cases that were still in my name.   It's not like when I worked at my previous corporate job where taking off two weeks meant not logging in at all.    But I believe I've gotten things under control so hopefully I should be able to enjoy the rest of my time off.   Dom has not been happy with me still checking in for work.

Dom and I plan to early vote tomorrow even though Indiana usually winds up going Republican.   But I do hope maybe enough folks who identify as Republican wake up and realize that Agent Orange needs to be impeached and the only way to try and do so is to go blue.   I'm not holding my breath but miracles do happen sometimes.

Blessings Bestowed

As long as we wake up breathing it's another day where life seems to throw so much to deal with.   This has been a crazy year so far with Dom's health issues, the court drama, power outage, and our radiator going out.   It just seemed to be one problem after another.    But we managed to navigate through it all.

Every once in a while we get reminded that life has a way of throwing blessings as well.   Two of those blessings came our way this week.   The first was getting to see my friend Doug again.   I mentioned previously that he was in my neighborhood last week training for a new job that he started last week.   He was back in town this past week and he was determined to see me.   He mentioned Friday would be the best day.  

My plan was to work from the office Friday but I had a work issue that required me to be in the office on Thursday.  I thankfully was able to get that resolved.   Also on Friday I needed to get blood work done for an upcoming doctor appointment on Monday.    So I had to be home on Friday.   I took care of that and was blessed to find most of my results were in line save some minor abnormalities.

Doug wound up calling me around 10AM Friday.   He was able to finish his training early and just so happened to be in my area.   He just needed my address which I provided.    I was so excited when he rang the doorbell.    I went to answer the door and we spent the first minute or two just laughing and being excited to see each other and how we changed.    He reminded me that the last time we saw each other was when I visited him in Atlanta in 2013.

He got the chance to meet Dom for the first time and we had a chance to briefly catch up.   He was doing good and mentioned being on a health kick since he needed to have hip replacement surgery.   He reminded me of my health kicks that I used to do.   It was so great catching up with him.

He needed to leave though since he had to be at the airport by 1pm.   Things were oddly Meta though when he mentioned his phone needed charging as it was almost dead.   When I went to see him in 2013, I recalled my phone was near death as well and died just when I was in his neighborhood.   I had my charger with me though so I was able to charge it as soon as I found Doug's home.   Doug didn't have a charger it seems.   I unfortunately didn't have one that worked for his phone since he had an iPhone.   I directed him to a nearby Walgreens before he left and prayed that he would make it back to the airport on time.    Everything thankfully worked out and he made it back to Atlanta safely.    It truly was a blessing seeing him.

Dom received an unexpected blessing as well.   Our favorite bank (NOT!) Centier is going through an upgrade of their systems which is requiring a temporary login when they get back online Monday.   It just so happens that Monday is when our monthly mortgage payment is due.   They mentioned that access to check balances online would be disabled after 6pm on October 2nd.  I transferred some money that was due to arrive in our joint on that day.   

With everything that happened earlier, the excitement of seeing Doug, work, and losing our internet an hour after Doug left, I didn't get a chance to check that the transfer went in.    Thankfully the internet came back after I called them around 4pm to get it fixed.

Around 5:30 I remembered that I needed to check the joint account to verify that the transfer went through and there was enough money for the automatic mortgage payment on the 5th.   My transfer did go through but something else put me in shock.  I saw that our joint had over twenty grand in it.   Apparently the Social Security department sent a one-tie back payment to Dom.   I believe it may go back to one year.   It's the most money the joint account has ever had at one time.

I questioned if it was real but apparently it's a thing.   This is definitely a blessing that wasn't expected.   Dom plans to use some of it to pay off his medical debt including the recent settlement we had in court.   He also said he wanted to give me $5000 to help cover my credit card debt and pay back some of what I've paid for his hobby.   It is definitely a nice gesture and it should help make me whole again. He even asked me about the mortgage.   Technically some of it could pay off the remaining balance which is currently $1500 (so crazy that it's almost paid off).   I told him not to worry about the mortgage since I already am on track to paying it off by January 2027 at the latest.

I always kept thinking how nice it would be to have an extra $10K fall in my lap.   Technically it fell in Dom's lap but close enough.   What a blessing indeed.