onacliffbythesea

Yesterday, Ken and I went to the hospital to provide another blood sample required by my rheumatologist. I was supposed to drive there but my fingers, especially on my right hand, were still terribly inflamed so Ken drove instead. With moderate traffic, it’s only about a 15-20 minute drive from our apartment. Once we got there, it was a rather smooth process, I must say. I think it was because Ken was there. So when we went in, I put my hospital card in the machine so that I could get my itinerary. Then, following this itinerary, I had to visit a customer service window to confirm that I did not have Japanese health insurance. Then, I went to the second floor where blood and urine samples are collected. Went to the counter there, was asked to put my hospital card in another machine that dispensed my ticket number. We waited for a few minutes, then I provided three or four vials of blood. Afterward, we went back down to the first floor, waited in line again at the window so they could process my bill. Finally, I went to one of the payment machines, put my hospital card in, paid for my bill using my credit card, then I received my invoice, receipt, and future appointment ticket for December 21. There were people behind us in line so I was too anxious to take a photo of this process, ugh. As we left the hospital, I encouraged Ken to get Starbucks (located in the hospital!) but he felt bad that I couldn’t drink my favorite white mocha, so he ended up not getting anything. I had mentioned to him that it was okay, that I would just drink vicariously through him, but he wouldn’t have it.

Toward the end of August, I started noticing that my arthritis pain was getting more frequent and intense. The following month of September was pretty much a series of flareups that killed my mood to blog. If it wasn’t my fingers or wrists, it was my ankles, knees, elbows, or shoulders. Actually, it was so bad this time around that even my hip joint hurt. Two of those flareups were caused by significant dips in atmospheric pressure, so it had absolutely nothing to do with the foods I ate. The most recent flareup was so bad that Ken had to help me shower because I couldn’t bend my right elbow.

Fasting helped for a while, but then I noticed my body was burning through its meager stash of vitamins and minerals and I wasn’t feeling so great. As a result, my intermittent fasting is currently on hold while I’m making an effort to eat meals that (1) avoid sugar, gluten, and milk, and (2) contain good fats, protein, and spinach. I was going to say leafy greens there but in reality, spinach is the only dark leafy green that I actually like. I’m also taking Vitamin D3 (2,000 IU) and Magnesium Complex supplements. So far, I’ve noticed that the intensity and frequency of my pain have significantly lessened. The only major factor that’s left for me to correct now is making sure I get at least 7 hours of sleep each night, which is proving difficult for me. I’ll think about exercising once this pain is under control.

On the plus side, because I fasted a lot during September, I managed to lose a good chunk of weight. As of October 4 at 7am, I weighed 125lbs, which is a total of 26.2lbs lost since April 2019. I’m almost at my happy weight range of 110-115! I swear the remaining ten pounds is in the spare tire hanging at my midsection.

Friday night, just when my right hand was getting better, I started experiencing the tell-tale snapping-crab pain in my ankles, where it feels like an army of crabs are constantly snapping at my ankles with each painful step. Well, after Friday night and into the weekend, my right ankle faired worse and I had to call in sick to work for today (Monday). It got so bad that I had a hard time walking around the house and Ken would have to help me get around. The area feels warm, tender, and extremely painful with the slightest touch. Any movement or pressure on this ankle is painful. Putting a light blanket on my legs elicited pain from this ankle. It doesn’t look very swollen in the photo, but even Ken said he could tell that it was swollen. Needless to say, I had to call in sick again for tomorrow.

It was yesterday night when I started to wonder about the air pressure and sure enough, it was below the green zone of 29.9 inHg or 1010 hPa. This week is supposed to be rainy with some thundershowers. There seems to be so many ways to express air pressure that I’ve been confused, but for now I guess I’ll just stick to hectopascals or hPa, since apparently that is the international unit for measuring atmospheric pressure.