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Have some lower back/hip discomfort, comes and goes. Some pain is muscle, some nerve. Last week while sleeping had pain in hip that woke me up. Told doctor, had X-rays of hips. Bones look good, likely a nerve being impinged upon. Referred to ortho hip surgeon, want to get MRI to see what's going on. May need to see spinal surgeon, but we'll see.

Walking buddy had her hip replaced this morning. by the guy I'll be seeing. She had other hip done earlier this year. Called me and said surgery was a success, no more pain. We'll start walking together again in a few weeks. Start small, with walker, build up.

Today got another graphic reminder of just how fortunate I have been in life, even if I don't always think so. Look at obits from home-area newspaper every day. Today saw obit for a lady I went to high school with, graduated a year before me, in June of 1971. Very attractive girl. Very nice. Learned she sustained traumatic brain injury due to an accident in August 1971. Spent the rest of her life at home, with family. Obit said she "enjoyed a full life" despite the injury. I would disagree, but suspect the injury reduced this young lady to a child mentally. Trust this lady is getting the things in the next life she didn't get in this life. Very sad to read the obit.


Added: Very warm today, may have hit 80 before the afternoon breeze came in off the Pacific. Got some more nice days coming up. The May-June-July period is my favorite time of year, with the long days.
 
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I have my exam today which is worth over half my grade for this course. I feel better about it now than I did a week ago but I'm still really nervous. I really could've used an extra month to prepare but I guess it's too late for that now. Hopefully my professor doesn't put any stupid trick questions on it but you just never know. Honestly I just want to pass this course and be done with it because it's been really stressful having to learn this material in such a short time.
 
I have my exam today which is worth over half my grade for this course. I feel better about it now than I did a week ago but I'm still really nervous. I really could've used an extra month to prepare but I guess it's too late for that now. Hopefully my professor doesn't put any stupid trick questions on it but you just never know. Honestly I just want to pass this course and be done with it because it's been really stressful having to learn this material in such a short time.
Good luck, mate. The only thing you can do is your best.

Woke up at 6pm, after sleeping 15 hours. I finally got in to see the sleep specialist a couple weeks ago, who thinks that the 'excessive somnolence'- the 15 hour sleep marathons that I've been indulging in for the past year or so- are down to my psych meds. He told me that he'd get in contact with my psych and recommend a full medication review. I'm not sure that's even possible, because I've been on pretty much everything, and it's either bounced straight off or I've needed such high quantities that it became dangerous. Either way, my appointment with my psych is coming up and the closer I get the more I dread it. Either I'll be told that life as it is now is as good as it gets, and that will be absolutely miserable, or I'll be on medication review, which means I'll be taken off everything I'm currently on and random drugs will be thrown at me in the hopes that something will stick. Medication review is absolutely horrendous and it terrifies me. What if something goes terribly wrong and I end up on a psych ward? I can't bear to think about it. But I can't live this way either, going days where I'm only awake ten hours, and then randomly once a week or so I don't sleep at all for forty hours. Damned if I do; damned if I don't.
 
I’m a bit frustrated with where I am right now. I’m literally waiting for call backs from jobs and just learned it can take about a month for a response. I just wanna start working full time so I can set up a routine and start working on healthier habits.

I’m happy to know retirement for me would just be working part-time.
 
Said this in the dreams thread but I've had night terrors all night and even all day as I tried and tried to get a decent sleep. I feel like shit and I'm legit afraid to close my eyes like something out of A nightmare on elm street. No joke, but ironically I looked into it and one possible reason why I had such vivid night terrors was because of sleeping pills. Apparently prolonged reliance on a chemically educed deep rem sleep can really mess with your subconscious. Bordering on the scientific and almost otherworld aspect of sleep. It can really make your subconscious open up and show you some really messed up stuff.
 
Said this in the dreams thread but I've had night terrors all night and even all day as I tried and tried to get a decent sleep. I feel like shit and I'm legit afraid to close my eyes like something out of A nightmare on elm street. No joke, but ironically I looked into it and one possible reason why I had such vivid night terrors was because of sleeping pills. Apparently prolonged reliance on a chemically educed deep rem sleep can really mess with your subconscious. Bordering on the scientific and almost otherworld aspect of sleep. It can really make your subconscious open up and show you some really messed up stuff.
So long as you're not getting out of bed and acting out your dreams you'll be fine. And even if you are, night terrors shouldn't make you walk far. Make sure the space around your bed is clear (pacing around the bed in your sleep is common) and that there are no mirrors around. (During a stressful time, I woke up three nights in a row about to punch out my reflection in a window.) Also, check with your neighbours that if they've heard you bellowing, they haven't gotten the wrong idea and think that you or someone else in the area is being abused. That can get... messy, if you are of the female persuasion.
 
So long as you're not getting out of bed and acting out your dreams you'll be fine. And even if you are, night terrors shouldn't make you walk far. Make sure the space around your bed is clear (pacing around the bed in your sleep is common) and that there are no mirrors around. (During a stressful time, I woke up three nights in a row about to punch out my reflection in a window.) Also, check with your neighbours that if they've heard you bellowing, they haven't gotten the wrong idea and think that you or someone else in the area is being abused. That can get... messy, if you are of the female persuasion.
I think if I just stop relying on pills to sleep I'll be fine. As I said, using them to chemically educe yourself into REM sleep can make your subconscious open up and show you things, the dark side of yourself and everything you are. Thankfully sleeping meds have one of the shortest half lives of any medication and the body metabolizes otc ones in a couple hours. As for sleep wandering and noises? AFAIK no it wasn't making me wander around or disturb anybody.
 
Back from my exam. Honestly I have no idea how well I did. The first half was piss easy and I know I probably got those questions 100% correct. Then the second half hit me like a ton of bricks. I'm a little pissed at my professor because last week I specifically asked them if a certain type of problem would be on the exam and they said no because we didn't cover it fully. Well lo and behold it actually shows up on the exam and I have no idea how to even go about solving it. I tried to solve it anyway but it wasn't pretty. Anyways hopefully I was able to get enough marks from the first half and some part marks from the latter half to eek out a passing grade. I'm pretty sure I passed but you never know and I'd hate to have to retake the class again since it's required.
 
Back from my exam. Honestly I have no idea how well I did. The first half was piss easy and I know I probably got those questions 100% correct. Then the second half hit me like a ton of bricks. I'm a little pissed at my professor because last week I specifically asked them if a certain type of problem would be on the exam and they said no because we didn't cover it fully. Well lo and behold it actually shows up on the exam and I have no idea how to even go about solving it. I tried to solve it anyway but it wasn't pretty. Anyways hopefully I was able to get enough marks from the first half and some part marks from the latter half to eek out a passing grade. I'm pretty sure I passed but you never know and I'd hate to have to retake the class again since it's required.
Mate, it's over, you survived, you didn't spontaneously combust, you didn't faint in your seat, you knew at least a decent percentage of the content. Well done, pat yourself on the back. Now have a beverage and do something utterly time wasting and enjoyable.
 
Best friend had a stroke of luck while browsing the internet and found the guy I'd crushed on/been ghosted by years ago. Totally different person. He was 1000% a catfish. Stole this guy's pictures and videos, did a fantastic job of picking someone hard to google, but it's definitely "him".

Sorting through a pile of weird feelings. Stupid? Thinking everyone's that stupid (or at least guilty of wishful thinking) at least once, and I shouldn't be so hard on myself? Glad I have an answer? Weirdly disappointed but relieved that the reason the guy stopped talking to me is definite now, and not because I came off neurotic. Tired. Wondering why I'm not mad, while also understanding that not giving a shit enough to be mad is one of those adult growth moments everyone wonders about on that eternal maturation journey. I guess I'm free. I don't have to occasionally wonder if I chased off The One or if things could have gone differently. So long asshole, I've had better things since you came along.
 
Seeing spinal surgeon Tuesday. Suspect sciatica is returning. Discomfort has spread to upper thigh. This morning when I got up had a couple of small muscle spasms, some discomfort but the memories of the agony of last year came back. Expect there will be imagery, of various types. Very much hope another disc hasn't herniated and is shedding fragments. Walked a couple of miles this morning, did pretty well. Got home and the discomfort in upper thigh started again. Just like last year, this shit is moving fast.

Really don't want to go through three more surgeries in thirty days, like last year. We'll need to look at all the imagery and you can be sure I'll ask if my case is again different from other people's. May end up with another spinal fusion but would want to just do that, vice two partial laminectomies. At this time don't see injections as a viable option. Have been doing the back exercises prescribed in November, didn't do them today due to spasms. So not sure if physical therapy will help.

Still consider myself fortunate. No problem being seen quickly. Shit gets bad enough, will get surgery quickly. Then my walking buddy and I can shuffle down the street in our walkers together for a while, then canes, and so on and so forth. Her hip replacement Tuesday went well, got home last evening.
 
I’m a pretty good engineer and I’m a pretty damn good mechanic. That didn’t always use to be the case and it took me becoming good at the latter to really excel at the former.

I wasn’t brought up around this kind of stuff and I really credit two men with helping me on my way. One was a British guy who I worked with back in the day and the other was an old man, Rick, who lived a street over in my old neighborhood.

We went to the same bar and when I got my first old car he’d sit there and walk me through what was going on with my ride for hours on end. He’d randomly show up at my house (probably because he was tired of my litany of stupid questions) and show me how to rebuild the distributor on a 50 Plymouth or how to dial in the single barrel carter ball and ball carburetor. He didn’t just teach me how to set points, he taught me how to attack a problem.

As he got up there in years a few of us from the old neighborhood kinda kept an eye on him. He was an intensely proud and an intensely private man and his home life wasn’t going so well. Crackhead daughter, shitty grandkids, house was starting to fall apart.

Over the last few years, I think I made it past his front door once. I tried to get him to come stay with us during the freeze (his central air/heat was fried ) but he refused. He ‘didn’t want charity’ he said and despite me saying that I owed a lot of the success I’m enjoying to him helping me out back in the day, he’d still refuse. But I’d still meet him at the bar or try and help him with his car or his computer when he needed it (you’re not that spry in your 80’s) and I’d still pick his brain on whatever antiquated vehicle I was tinkering with. At 81, his hands and his body were shot but his mind was still there.

Tuesday morning he texted me at 4:30AM and said that he needed help with something and to call him later that day when I got a chance. This wasn’t in character for him so I reached out to a couple other folks who lived closer and were more involved (I moved a few years ago) but no one knew. I, probably foolishly, was hoping that he wanted help getting the house in better shape and was planning to call him from the truck on the way home from work that evening.

I never got to make that call because sometime around 10AM his house caught fire and he didn’t make it out.

Something like this just leaves you with questions.

Some you may not want answered, like did the smoke kill him before the fire did? I like to believe it did because the alternative is too terrible to contemplate.

Logically, I know it’s not my fault but I wonder if I had heard my phone go off at 4:30 and answered him, would the course of events that transpired between then and now have changed enough that he’d still be here.

And I wonder what he needed help with.

I’m not going to lie, this is fucking me up more than I thought it would.
 
I’m not going to lie, this is fucking me up more than I thought it would.
What is fate?
Look at it this way. If you or someone else might have made it TO the house would their life have been in danger?

If this still makes you think, reach out to his family. Maybe there is something you can help them with.
Anyway, hopefully it get's better.
 
What is fate?
Look at it this way. If you or someone else might have made it TO the house would their life have been in danger?

If this still makes you think, reach out to his family. Maybe there is something you can help them with.
Anyway, hopefully it get's better.

His oldest daughter OD’d. His youngest owns the house but really wasn’t part of his life (you don’t buy expensive purses when your octogenarian dad is living in a house without A/C) and his son lives inAustralia. It was people from that bar looked after him. He’d have been more receptive to help from the family… it never came.

After I moved, I let him sleep in my old house a few times (We were renovating and I had a keypad lock and gave him the code) because things got rough with the crackhead daughter in his house. I think he did it more than a few, but I don’t know (stuff would move).

A couple other folks would take him grocery shopping once or twice a week (I had moved about 40 miles away).

Suffice to say, the family wasn’t really worth a shit. I could go on, but I won’t.

That being said, if I had called him that morning instead of texting him asking if he was still up… maybe he’d have woken up. Maybe he’d have seen what started the fire.

It’s all hindsight and was unforeseeable in the moment. It’s just sad.
 
I've been going through what's easily the worst time of my life. Frankly, my world is kind of falling apart on all fronts other than physical health. I can't remember a night where I've wanted to wake up the next morning.
 
Ok let me be 100% honest things have been rough with gf have met another girl at a work trip, but I have not told gf even though we are basically through but I am going on a trip with new girl this coming Thursday what do.
 
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