rowyn

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.

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.

I biked to the bike trail and several miles along it today. I am not sure exactly how far, because my exercise app paused at some point during the ride and missed a few miles. 17-20 so far, and another 8 or so to get home. A nice ride. A few weeks ago I did a 40 mile ride which was pretty grueling towards the end of the trail portion, in large part because I ran out of water about 8 miles from the nearest spot on the trail to get more. x_x This time I brought 64 ounces (courtesy of Telnar, who after listening to me whinge about the lack of water because I was on the phone with him during the last ride, had Amazon send me a nice new 32 oz bottle so I'd be able to carry more without stopping.) This is continuing in the "I guess I'll go for a 25 mile bike ride because I can't play with dragons" vein. -_-

I'm at Panera now, sitting in one of the two comfy chairs in the corner near the door. I usually get a meal and a frozen mocha here, then do some writing. I ate my meal -- even the apple! which often gets fed to Lut when I get home instead of me eating it -- but I seem to be unmotivated to write fiction. So I have written this little diary bit to get me started typing instead. I'll take a stab at working on book now.

1. FRIDAY. I am sure I have used this one before. It is still a good thing.
2. This has been an unusually good week for writing -- I am actually up on buffer since Monday, and I still have the weekend to write in (and I've been doing more writing on weekends than during the week, in general).
3. I've been making extra half-size portions of the mug-cake recipe, pouring them into microwave-safe plastic containers, and then taking them to work to nuke there. So I can have fresh hot cake at work. :9
4. To offset 3, I actually exercised in my basement tonight, doing both the 8-minute routine (which I have been neglecting for weeks) and using my exercise bike (also neglected, though I've been biking outside when the weather is nice. Which it is not tonight. Cold and rainy.)
5. I walked to and from work today for the first time since I injured my leg last Tuesday. My calf is still swollen and bruised but it hardly hurts when I walk any more, so that went fine. Yay!

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.

The car pulled up alongside me, not quite stopping. "Are you jogging for your health?" The driver sounded somewhere between incredulous and disbelieving.

"In theory," I panted in reply. I had about 25 seconds left to travel 8 hundredths of a mile.  It didn't seem impossible.  Unlikely, maybe.

"Do you need a ride?" she asked.

"No, I'm fine." I attempted a smile.  She raised her eyebrows and pulled away.  I checked Cardio Trainer. 5 seconds to go 5 hundreths of a mile.  Yeaaaaaah I don't think so.  I plodded to a halt at 12:04 and 0.96 miles. Close!  But not quite.

So I went home to get my bike and make sure the Paperboy Quest (Expiring Soon!) hadn't expired yet. Because if I'm going to ride a bike for 20 minutes after running home as fast as I can, I want to at least get ONE quest out of it.

Yesterday and today, my legs felt as stiff and sore as if I'd run five miles. I was like, "Really, legs? One crappy 16 minute mile and you're gonna be like this?"

My legs: "We hate you so much.  Suffer like we do, torturer!"

Me: "Fine. You want to hurt? I'll give you something to hurt about!"

So after work today, I jogged around the neighborhood next to my bank. My plan was to jog it twice , then head home, for about a 2-mile jog. Still not the 3.1 I need for the quest, but I figured I needed to work my way up to it. It was warmer than Saturday, but not yet to Lut's "You are not jogging in THIS heat" level. A nice breeze and the additional shade in this neighborhood made the climate overall better.

At about 3/4ths through the second lap, I checked my progress.  The laps were a bit longer than I remembered, more like .75 miles than .6, according to Cardio Trainer.  I wasn't feeling particularly tired.  I considered doing a third lap.

My feet: "You need new jogging shoes."

Me: "Yeah, I do." My current jogging shoes are probably a thousand miles past their expiration date.

My feet: "No, really. Or at least wear your good socks. Because OW BLISTERS."

Me: "... fine, fine, I'll head home."

1/3 of the way home:

Feet: "We're not kidding about the blisters. Stop jogging."

Me: "C'mon. Frodo walked to Mordor barefoot!"

Feet: "Frodo walked everywhere barefoot!  How big do you want your blisters to be?"

Me: "It's only like another half mile!"

Feet: "ARE YOU PLANNING TO USE US FOR ANYTHING AT ALL TOMORROW? BECAUSE WE WILL MAKE YOU PAY."

Me: [stops jogging]. "Dammit."

So 1.75 miles today, and much easier than Saturday -- probably because the neighborhood near the bank isn't as hilly as near my house. Possibly because I'd eaten real food.  I'll get there yet! 

Maybe after I get new shoes.

And break them in.

I did not blog about it at the time, but a month or two back, I decided to see if riding an exercise bike 4-5 times a week had gotten me in adequate shape to ride a real bike. 

My routine on my exercise bike is to warm up for a minute or two, and then spend the remainder of the period biking at the maximum resistance.  Usually biking very slowly, 9 mph or so.

Using an actual bike alternated between 'Wow this is ridiculously easy' and 'this isn't even exercise' and 'OMG I'm gonna die.'  The first two are on level ground and downhill slopes.  The last one is on uphill slopes.  I still cannot bike all the way up the horrible hill of doom north of my house.  Maybe two-thirds of the way up, I am forced to dismount and walk my bike the rest of the way to the top.

I am not entirely sure what the difference is.  One possibility is that 'highest possible resistance' on my exercise bike is still not as hard as any reasonable grade on a hill.  Another is that I can't keep up enough momentum to stay balanced on an uphill slope: a reclining exercise bike does nothing whatsoever for one's sense of balance, after all, and the 8-9 mph I can sustain uphill may simply not be fast enough for my meager sense of balance. A third is impatience: I exhaust myself on real hills in an effort to get up them faster, and ultimately can't sustain even the slow-but-steady pace of the exercise bike.

On the theory that it's the second, I am attempting to sustain a faster pace at maximum resistance in my basement.  So far, this is indifferently successful. I think I'm keeping at about 10 mph, average.

Honestly, I bought myself a programmable bike five years ago, and could never be arsed to program a routine in it. If I had any sense at vall, I'd look up the directions and figure out how to get it to change the resistance for me, and to sound an alarm if I dropped below the target mph.

Incidentally, keeping to 10-11 mph at max resistance is MUCH HARDER than keeping to 8-9. Ow ow ow ow tired.

Must keep journaling or will stop biking.

The other new idea I have for exercise is to try to get back to the one-hour workouts I was doing back in 2006-2007.  Because 4-5 times a week of 30 min on exercise bike + walking 1.5 miles per day to work is not enough to maintain my weight.  9.9   So it's change my diet again, or exercise more. I am currently attempting both. I'm going to eliminate the (tasty, tasty) sausage from my spaghetti sauce (a major staple) and I am changing my snack-at-work from cookies to granola and yogurt.

Bringing the bag of granola to work was probably a mistake. Granola is not low in calories, and I've been nibbling at it by itself as well as mixing it with low-calorie flavored yogurt.  Still, I'll give it a week and see what my 'natural' consumption rate works out to be, in calories.

I think my first half hour at 'trying to up the pace' works out to a little under 10 mph.  If I can get another half mile in the next three minutes, though, I'll give myself credit for the full 10 mph.  (The problem is that my warm-up is faster than the full-resistance slog.)

The other thing that the real-world bikeride reminded me of is a study that said that alternating a minute or two of intense exercise with a minute or two of easy exercise (eg, raising and lowering the resistance on an exercise bike)  burned dramatically more calories than simply maintaining a steady pace that should have (algorithmically) burned the same number. Actually, I don't remember if they were measuring actual calories or if they had some other measure they were using. The point was that variable intensity appeared to be better than consistent intensity.  That would certainly match my impression that, while at least 3/4ths of my outdoor ride was much easier than my typical exercise bike ride, the ride as whole left me feeling much more exhausted.  Maybe even more exhausted than I am now, after peddling about 5.5 miles at 10 mph at maximum resistance.

*kicks resistance down from 16 to a nice leisurely 13*

Okay, another 23 minutes to go, at easy pace.  Let's see if I can bring myself to write about something less banal than exercise for the rest of this.

I arrived in my basement bearing my netbook and my iPod, and sat down at my exercise bike for my workout. I plugged my iPod into the speakers, and took a few idle peddles, glancing at the tray table. Rats. I forgot to bring a drink. Oh well. Too much work to go all the way upstairs to get one now.

...

Okay, in what universe does that make sense? I'm going to stay down here and exercise for an hour but walking up a flight of stairs for a drink is too much effort?

I went back up for the drink.

PS: In the realm of things which are apparently take more effort than exercising: moving the exercise bike a couple of feet so the sun from the window doesn't hit my eyes while I'm on it.

Forecasted nighttime lows for the week: 78-80. Daytime highs: 94-97.

Looks like jogging home after work is not going to be my prefered mode of exercise this week. Guh.