rowyn

Hospital Again Again

2021-06-30T18:13:38Z

I was supposed to go to Seattle on Wednesday, June 9, but Lut was admitted to the hospital on June 6, after he grew increasingly confused over the course of the weekend.

The hospital never quite figured out what he had. “Maybe pneumonia.” But it cleared up after a few days, and he was discharged on June 9, about the same time the flight I’d originally scheduled was leaving the airport. In theory, I could’ve switched to a later flight instead of cancelling the trip, but by that point I didn’t want to leave Lut alone to fend for himself for several days.

This was just as well, because a week later, he was readmitted to the hospital, for confusion and hypoxia (low blood oxygen).

The diagnosis was, again, “maybe pneumonia”. They gave him yet more antibiotics, and on Saturday, June 19, sent him home. This time, they prescribed oxygen for him, although this required something of a song-and-dance to accomplish.

Nurse: “We can discharge you today, just need to give you the breathing test to find out if you need oxygen at home.”
Respiratory therapist: comes to his room, takes him off oxygen, brings him back a few minutes later. “He did great! Won’t need oxygen at home.”
Lut: lies down in bed
Lut’s blood oxygen: plummets
Nurse and respiratory therapist: futz with two different monitors and sensors to make sure it’s not a monitor problem
Nurse: “Well, we can’t send him home with his blood oxygen this low.”
Me: “You mean you need to send him home with oxygen, right?”
Nurse: “No, we can’t send him home with oxygen because he passed the breathing test so insurance won’t pay for it.”
Me: “... can I just buy oxygen? With money?”
Nurse: “Sadly, no.”
Me: “So insurance will pay for additional days at the hospital but not for the much cheaper “send home with oxygen”?”
Nurse: “I KNOW RIGHT??? It’s so frustrating. >_<”

By now, the respiratory therapist had left. About an hour later, the nurse came back and took Lut off oxygen. “The RT will do the re-test in 10 minutes and presumably he’ll fail it then.”

An hour passed, of the oxygen monitor beeping because Lut’s was too low. Finally, the RT returned. The nurse and I coached Lut to fail it. “Breathe shallowly! No deep breaths!” The RT brought him back in thirty seconds. Mission accomplished.

I’ve been monitoring his blood oxygen closely since we got home. He does well enough while using the oxygen that I don’t bother with readings while he’s on it. Whenever he’s sitting without wearing it, I check it every hour or so -- we have one of those little pulse-oximeters. On the first two days after he was discharged, he still had the occasional reading of 89 or 88 (they want 90+, and when he left the hospital he was more like 85 on room air). But since Tuesday or so, I’ve only had one reading of 89, and that went above 90 immediately.

We talked to his general practitioner on Thursday 6/24. He said to keep an eye on it and experiment with leaving it off as long as oxygen levels stayed high. But even if he didn’t need it at all, we should wait 4 weeks before calling to return the equipment. You don’t actually buy oxygen at all. You rent an oxygen concentrator. While the patient is at home, the patient uses the oxygen concentrator with a 50-foot extension on the cannula so that they can move around the house. When you go out, you take a tank with you to use. There’s a machine that goes on top of the concentrator that can be used to fill little portable tanks that fit in a shoulder sling, which is a lot less annoying than the big tank on a wheeled caddy that the hospital sent us home with. We have three of those tanks, too, but those are “in case the power goes out” rather than designed for travel. The little tanks have a special valve so that they only dispense oxygen when he inhales, instead of continuously, so they last just as long despite being much smaller. I don’t know why the big tanks don’t have the same kind of valve.

After a hospital stay, they always send out home health aides, so he’ll get physical, occupational, and respiratory therapy starting next week.

My little victory during all of this has been getting back to regular exercise. Over the course of the last year and a half, I’ve dropped from 5+ times per week to 3-4 times. Every month this year, I’ve had “exercise 20 times” down as a stretch goal, and for the last three months I have ended up at 16-17 instead. In June, I exercised for the first three days, and then Lut grew sicker and I didn’t exercise for a week. On June 11, I looked at my list of stretch goals and thought “It is still technically possible to make this goal. I will do the thing.”

And then Lut was hospitalized again and I thought “okay, Imma lower my bar for what qualifies as exercise.”

So I started counting stuff like “did one 10 minute beginner’s aerobics video” or “did 30 minutes of pacing while on the phone” (Google Fit measures how much pacing I do, and I make an effort to pace as if I were walking, by going from one end of the house to the other and then back.)

Doing this reminded me of when I used to trick myself into starting to exercise by promising myself I could stop any time. “Just five minutes. You can always stop.” And then once I got started, I’d always continue through to my usual end.

Except that this time, I was letting myself actually stop.

I made it to 21 times in June -- maybe 22 if I decide to exercise later today. But I’ll take it, either way. My overall activity level this month is higher than at any point since October 2020. “Anything is better than nothing” is a good strategy to keep in mind.

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Pokemon GO: A Challenging Development

2019-12-14T16:13:33Z

I'm still enjoying Niantic's recent additions to Pokemon GO and the development of Team Rocket. It's been effective at getting me out of the house and exercising, even if I don't love that I'm often driving to the Plaza to get that exercise. It'd be nice if Niantic would make Team Rocket spawns more likely per pokestop in areas with few pokestops, instead of forcing you to a major urban center to find them.

One of the new additions is a new special research quest, "A Challenging Development", focused around finding and defeating Team Rocket. With the new quest came changes to the gameplay: when you defeated a Team Rocket grunt, you now got a Mysterious Component, and combining six Mysterious Components let you assemble a Rocket Radar, which you could use to locate the hideouts of Team Rocket Leaders.

I didn't focus particularly on finishing the tasks in the new quest, but I spent a lot of time hunting Rocket grunts and then hunting Rocket leaders anyway, simply because it was a fun new thing to do. There are three different leaders: Cliff, Arlo, and Sierra. In my first encounters with Cliff and Sierra, I lost the first few rounds with them, but I changed up my strategy as I saw which pokemon they were using, until I could defeat them. Arlo was harder still; I won once against them, after 5 tries, then ran into them again but with a different lineup. That instance, I gave up on on beating them after a half-dozen tries.

Much later, I found out by chance that there was an actual set of tasks for "defeat each leader", but that I needed to get past the "win 3 Great Trainer battles" task first. "Trainer battles" are PvP, and there's no proximity requirement for them: you can do them with anyone with whom you have achieved "Ultra" or "Best" Friends status. I have something like 50 people who meet this criteria. It is easy to arrange for battles with exactly 0 of them.

So I badgered three different people until they let me win one battle each with them (I could have done this with the same person but it would have required one person to have the time and patience to do this a minimum of three times, or several more if they wanted to actually battle and not just forfeit to me by bringing three 10 CP pokemon.)

Now I had assigned tasks to do something I'd already done (once in the case of Arlo, and several times for Sierra and Cliff): defeat each team leader.

On Saturday, I made my preparations by researching (a) which Pokemon work against which leader combos and (b) which Pokemon of the ones who work that I actually had. This was the list for Sierra:

SIERRA

slot one: KICKROCKET or the lucky SCIZOR

slot two

vs Hypno: BITE CRUNCH or METEORMERRY

vs SableEye: BITE CRUNCH

vs Lapras: find another Sierra

slot three

vs Houndoom: ROCKETDEATH

vs Alakazam: BITE CRUNCH

vs Gardevoir: METEOR MERRY

"KickRocket" is a Blaziken (3rd evolvution of Torchic) with Counter (a fighting fast attack move) and Blaze Kick (a fire charged attack). Like RocketDeath below, good against multiple different leaders.

"Bite Crunch" is a Tyranitar with Bite and Crunch.

"RocketDeath" is a Swampert with Mud Shot and Hydro Cannon.

"Meteor Merry": Metagross with Bullet Punch and Meteor Mash. (o/~ We'll do the mash! We'll do the Meteor Mash! We'll do the mash! We'll mash you with meteors! o/~)

I marked Lapras as "find another Sierra" because one time I had lost like 6 battles to a Sierra-with-Lapras without even getting to see what her third slot held. I'd tried several different pokemon, to no avail. It wasn't even close. Moreover, the most accurate site I could find for <a href=" https://pokemongohub.net/post/guide/rocket-leader-sierra-counters/">"how to defeat Rocket Team Leaders"</a> recommended 4 different pokemon vs Lapras, and I didn't have any of those and was in no position to acquire them.

With Arlo and Cliff, I had some confidence is my candidates for beating each of their possible line ups, however. I had spent my entire reserve of stardust by now, powering up various pokemon so that they could take on the leaders.

Battling Team Rocket leaders is weird in several ways. The CP rating for a Pokemon isn't nearly as important as having the right combination of attacks. Having a charged move that charges QUICKLY is hugely important: their fast attacks can often kill a pokemon before a slow charged move finishes building. Also, the Team Rocket leaders will use their shields (the grunts never do) on the first two attacks, so you need moves that charge quickly so you can burn through their shields. And the charged moves from the leaders are BRUTAL. I have more than once had a pokemon be one-shot by a leader pokemon with a "not very effective" attack.

Armed with this knowledge, I headed for the Plaza. With my existing Rocket Radar, I took on Arlo first and won. Woohoo! They were the hardest, I'd thought. I hunted Rocket grunts for a while until I defeated six and assembled a new radar. With this, I found Sierra with Lapras, and ran away. I went after Cliff instead, lost to his Snorlax, and then tried a few more combos against him and eventually won. I found five more Rocket grunts, at which point I'd been walking around the Plaza for around three hours and decided to call it a day. I could come back tomorrow, find one more grunt, and then locate Sierra. Without Lapras with her.

Sunday, I returned to the Plaza, got a new radar, and saw five Rocket leader hideouts in a four-block area around me. Great! Surely one of these will have Sierra.

The first one had Arlo. The next four had Cliff. OK, guess I'll have to range a little farther. There are two at the edges of my screen, in opposite directions. I walked to the nearest: Cliff. I walked to the farthest: also Cliff.

...

All right then. I was about 10 blocks from the big museum that has a lot of pokestops, at this point, and headed that way. Ranging about the museum, the gigantic park next to the museum, and the art college campus on the other side, I found six more hideouts.

They all also had Cliff.

REALLY.

Is it Cliff day? Did they change how the leaders work? Why is every hideout CLIFF?

By now it'd been almost three hours. I returned to my car, drove to a park half a mile away that has a lot of stops, and ran the Rocket radar again. None of the stops in range had any hideouts. I threw up my hands and went home.

Because I'd done the raid hour two weeks ago, I had an EX Raid pass for the Plaza on Tuesday night. I drove down to the Plaza for that, and stuck around to look for Sierra again. Of the three nearest hideouts, one had Sierra! Success!

She had Lapras with her.

Per my pre-made instructions, I went looking for another Sierra, and found one.

She also had Lapras with her. I ranged farther out, and found a third Sierra-with-Lapras. Past the northern edge of the Plaza, I found Cliff. I started walking to the library southeast of the Plaza, where I'd seen a Rocket hideout earlier (it was off the edge of my radar by now). As I walked, I wondered if I was letting my one experience trying to defeat Lapras, plus the website of "only super-rare Pokemon can take on Lapras" put me off too much. Maybe I'd stumbled onto a Lapras with a move set that neither Raikou nor Magnezone could handle. Maybe my Raikou and Magnezone were bad choices because their charged attacks aren't fast enough. Maybe some other Pokemon could hack it. I researched Lapras specifically.

Lapras is an ice/water type. Sierra's may use ice or water moves, or a normal charged attack. Unlike some of the other Rocket leader Pokemon, It doesn't have any double vulnerabilites (ie, Ice and Water are not both vulnerable to any of the same types.) Magnezone should be good against it, because it's vulnerable to electric and if Lapras is using ice attacks, it's weak against steel. Magnezone is a steel/electric and I have one with electric attacks. On the other hand, my Metagross is much higher CP, has a faster charged attack, and Lapras is just as vulnerable to my Metagross's steel attacks as to Magnezone's electric. OTOH, Water gets some resistance to steel. So it's not clear this would work. But I decided that if the last hideout didn't have a Sierra-without-Lapras, I'd at least try to take down one of the Sierras-with-Lapras that I'd come across. Once I knew which attacks the Lapras was using, I could bring in a Pokemon type that would handle it best.

The last pokestop had Sierra. I brought in a team of Blaziken, Tyrantitar, and Metagross, the last two being each good at least 2 or 3 of her 6 possible Pokemon. She had Lapras with her. I swapped in Metagross and -- behold! Metagross defeated Lapras!

\o/

Her third pokemon was Houndoom, whom Tyranitar could not hope to defeat, so I had to try again with my Swampert in place of Tyranitar. But the new lineup won handily! YAY!

By now, I kind of wanted to go home: it was pitch dark, after 7PM, I was tired, and it was freezing. But I popped a star piece (which gives bonus star dust for 30 minutes) to collect the reward for defeating all three Team Rocket leaders. I could stay another half hour; it'd take 15 minutes to walk back to my car anyway.

There turned out to be three possible Giovanni hideouts on the way back to the car. As I neared the first, I realized I'd dropped one of my gloves after I took it off during the fight with Sierra. I turned around and went back for it, then walked again to the first potential Giovanni hideout. No Giovanni. Second: also not Giovanni. Third: GIOVANNI AT LAST.

As I'd been told, Giovanni is not as tough as his lieutenants, and I won with my initial lineup against him. But by now my star piece had worn off and the reward for defeating him was a nice chunk of star dust. With some resignation, I popped another star piece, and then stuck around for 30 more minutes while I hunted Rocket grunts for a repeat of the same mission. It looks like you can start the quest new every month, and since I'd started it in November I get to start it again in December. Whee!

When my current star piece ran out, though, I stopped hunting and went home. But this is how I use Pokemon GO to convince myself to get a whole lot more walking in than I would otherwise. :D

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The Best Kind of Exercise

2018-12-09T02:04:47Z

I walked to work on Monday. This was the first time in months that I did so. I biked a lot in the summer and fall, and even several times in November. But otherwise, I've been driving. On Monday, it was around 30 F, with a dusting of snow: enough to frost the ground and cars, but not enough to stick to the roads. I could've biked, but decided to give walking a shot instead. I walked a little more than usual, in order to hit a couple of pokestops that are a half-block or a block out of the way each. I soon realized why I haven't been walking to work: after buying the car and especially after getting my new no-physical-keyboard phone, I've been in the habit of bringing my tablet computer to work, so I can write using it during lunch and breaks. Carrying a messenger bag with a tablet computer in it is a lot more annoying than just carrying a lunch bag. If I try walking to work again, I will probably put my tablet and lunch into a backpack or a grocery tote instead of the messenger bag. The messenger bag has a lot of compartments and is heavy even empty. Also, like a big purse, it tends to accrete Stuff because it's big enough to hold Stuff. I do not need to cart all of it to work, though.

That aside, the walk was fine. When I got to work, one of my coworkers let me in and whispered, shocked: "why are you walking? Is something wrong with your car??"
Me: "Oh, I haven't been exercising as much as I used to and figured the walk would be good."
Coworker: "Oh. But it's too cold to walk! Let me know when you're leaving, I'll drive you home."
Me: "No really it's fine, I chose to walk. Thank you for the offer!"

I am still amused by how people react to the idea of going somewhere on foot, even when the distance is pretty short.

Ironically, while I don't walk to work, I've been walking outside for exercise anyway. If I notice that one of the two pokegyms near work has a raid I can solo and it's after 11AM, I take my lunch break and use it to walk over to the gym and do the raid, and hit any other pokestops I have time for. After work, I go to a tiny park near the bank, which has a pokestop and a pokegym and a teensy exercise track.

The walking path is ridiculously small. It's like 1/7th of a mile for the entire loop. I walk around and around it in the evening, spinning the pokestops and getting a little exercise in. I like it better than walking to and from work because of the pokestops, and also because I don't have to worry about traffic, or lugging my tablet computer around.

On Thursday night, I was thinking about the fact that I really don't get nearly as much exercise as I did during the summer, when I was biking to work, and usually half an hour for lunch, plus an hour after work. Now I walk for 30 minutes at lunch and 30 or 40 minutes after work. It's less exercise total, and a less strenuous form of exercise. But I really don't want to use the exercise bike in my basement: I can't spin pokestops there, and Google Fit won't track stationary biking automatically, and the basement is cold and dismal. I also don't want to drive any more than I have to on a work day. I am willing to drive to the park next to the bank for exercise because it's only 2 blocks out of the way from home, and some days THAT seems TOO FAR. I could drive another two miles to walk between four pokestops instead of two, and I don't because DRIVING TWO MILES UGH TOO MUCH.

Jogging would get me more exercise than walking and I could do it in the same place, so the only problem with that is jogging is terrible. Some years back, I got pretty good at jogging, in the sense of "I could jog very slowly for over an hour". But I always disliked it, and while I increased my stamina, I couldn't seem to increase my speed. It was always the slowest jog, like 4mph or even less. I don't technically walk faster than I jog, but it's close.

I tried interval training a few times: the idea is something like "run for 2 minutes, walk for 2 minutes, repeat 10 times". It was the only thing worse than jogging.

But as I was walking the loop, it struck me that my reaction is less "I hate running" than "I hate running for a measurable length of time". Running for 2 minutes is like 90 seconds too long. BUT! The first 30 seconds of running is actually fun. What if I ran until it stopped being fun, instead of until some arbitrary amount of time had passed? So I ran for one side of the tiny loop -- 1/15th of a mile! -- and then slowed to a walk for a while. And then repeated that cycle three more times.

It turns out the speed difference was large enough for Google Fit to measure! It recorded me as doing a "high-intensity activity" for a total of 3 minutes.

This also had the benefit of warming me up and getting blood into my hands so that they were no longer cold, so that was nice.

Saturday, I repeated this pattern again -- "walk a while, run until running starts to feel like work, walk a while until I feel like running again" at the little park near Panera. This time, I added in running from the start, so I did 8 whole minutes of running, and around 45 minutes of walking. I guess the pattern is something like "run 30 seconds, walk 3 minutes".

I don't know if "run until it's not fun" will let me get any better at running. Maybe after a while I will work up to running for a full minute without wanting to stop? On the other hand, it's something I am actually willing to do. And the best kind of exercise is not the kind that is most efficient at building muscle or burning calories or increasing stamina per minute. It is whatever exercise you will actually do.. I stopped at 53 minutes thinking "this is fine, I could do some more but I'm out of time" rather than "oh thank heavens I can FINALLY STOP that was awful".

So I will keep at it for a while.

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Exercise

2013-03-03T14:35:40Z

I've been doing the "8 Minutes in the Morning" exercise routine, plus cardio, for seven weeks now. My diet has been mediocre -- I was eating less for about five of those weeks. This last week I've eaten quite a lot of junk food.

My weight, for the entire last five weeks, has held steady at 160.

So, yes. If I actually care about my weight (it is not clear to me that I do -- it's not as if I dislike the way I look or feel now), I need to change my diet. At minimum, eat less of what I'm eating now. I am unenthused about doing so.

I have no good explanation for why my mind thinks regular exercise is reasonable but eating well is too much work. Maybe it's because I see eating foods I enjoy as a positive good that I will get less of, whereas exercising for a little while is not that much inferior to sitting in front of my computer for the same period of time. So it's not so much that eating less junk is too much work as that it's too much sacrifice. I'll make an effort in the coming week anyway and see if I make any progress.

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8 Minutes in the Morning

2013-01-16T02:07:10Z

I went to see my doctor a couple of weeks ago, to talk to her about a battery of general-health blood tests I'd had done back in August. (My follow-up was originally scheduled for October, but I ended up out of town that day and January was the earliest I could reschedule.

I am pretty healthy -- my doctor littered my results with notes, many of which are smiley faces, because she is awesome -- so she did not have a whole lot of recommendations for me. She suggested fish oil pills and vitamin D (because those things were in the "you need more of these" on my results). And we talked about exercise.
( And now I'll talk to you about it! )

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