Week 769
Day 5377 - 3/22 - Ban on cheese
Today I am pretty sad and sick feeling. I am super dumb because last night I had about 3 medium sized handfuls of healthy cheesy bunny snacks. They are a tiny cracker snack and I didn't even thing it would have actual cheese. Well, apparently it does and it triggered close to the nearly worst tummy pain yet about 3 hours after the snack. So for now I am putting a 100% ban on cheese, especially orange cheese. In a few weeks, if I'm ok, I may slightly lift the ban to allow for sometimes white cheese (mozzarella sticks or a rare pizza) as they don't seem to affect me anywhere near as much as orange cheeses. But at least for a few weeks I'm going to try for zero cheese.
I tried to check in with the school doc because I didn't feel as good as I normally would have in the morning, but they basically refused to see me since they 'aren't a primary care physician.' They said I could pay their $10 fee and do a "consultation", but then they would refer me to someone else, so I saw no point in that. If I'm going to need to go to someone else, I'll just do that directly.
I'm exhausted. 
I probably got 1/3 of normal sleep due to the pain. And my muscles are now barely recovering nearly a full 24 hours later. I'll probably get some extra food tomorrow and try to 'catch up'. I didn't eat much today. I barely had a breakfast (over the span of probably an hour) and then barely could eat small soups for lunch and dinner. I was hungry, but didn't feel like eating due to the pains, if that makes sense.
Today all I can do is hope the pain goes away, and try my best to hang on.
Day 5378 - 3/23 - Recovery
Today I am still a bit in recovery. I think it was until late morning that I start to feel normal in my tummy. I got some extra to eat today, so hopefully I can get caught up a bit, if that's a thing. Someone had some extra cookies to give away in little packs, so I grabbed a 2 pack of chocolate cookies without thinking about it. I think it should be ok though, as I had them during lunch, and I had no other chocolate all day.
I finished my big writing project much more quickly than I thought I would. I guess I just 'got into the zone' and did it yesterday and last night, and this morning I just added a tiny bit more. That's good as that means besides doing a tiny thing for the final I'm effectively done and can just be restful this upcoming last week of the quarter.
I'm still confused about the color class. We barely did anything, I think four total projects, and I certainly learned nothing new that I didn't already know. I really feel sorry for everyone who bought the "required materials." At this point I think I've used a tiny bit of four colors of paint that I got on sale at school for $1 each. I didn't touch the one he said I'd "absolutely need" that I paid full $10 price for. But the pack of "required" things was something like $150. I bet probably 75% of all of that went completely unused. Things like an airbrush and it's stuff that it needs aren't cheap and I would be furious if I'd have gotten that pack and had that many unused expensive things. Why were things like that in the pack at all? Those things can't be re-sold back to the store at this point I'm sure.
But my weekend should pretty much be all play time. And then next week is finals, and then the school break for a week before there are classes again. One should be fun doing creative stuff. The other is an online history type like the one I just did, so I should be fairly free to do that on my schedule and not be too cramped on required times. I'm still very worried though, as I think there really aren't many classes I can take after that when things start again in September. I'm in no better a position to get a job than when I started so long ago. And no one I've met along the way really seems interested in helping me find something.
I guess all I can do is continue to take things as they come, and try to stay hopeful my future will be better, brighter, and I can continue to hang on.
Day 5379 - 3/24 - Stable connection, unstable game
Today was pretty good. I was a bit sleepy in the morning, but I guess ok. The connection at the library stayed stable, so that was good. But my game test wasn't. I had to wait in a queue for nearly an hour, played maybe an hour, then got dropped, then had to go back in the queue, repeat. But as the day went on it got as low as only a 15 minute queue, but then later in the day it went back up to an hour. I guess it's fine though. I got to test the class I wanted to check, as well as two others, which was enough to know, as I thought, those aren't the class for me. I may continue to peek at things, but I'll more likely go back to my main class and take an extended look at other abilities to see which build I like the most.
I was a bit oddly hungry, but these past 6 or so months that's kind of always been there. It seems the more odd tummy things I have the more hungry I feel overall. I had maybe more chips than I expected today, but I only had one soda instead of what would normally be 2 or sometimes 3. I just felt really hungry, and kind of not thirsty.
I guess that was really it. I did watch a few shows too, so overall I guess it was a pretty relaxed day. So I guess I hung on a bit easier.
Day 5380 - 3/25 - Probably a last test day
Today was probably the last day I'll test the game that's having a test weekend. At this point I've learned all I can from it and am sure of my choice for launch. And I've played more than 20 hours, maybe more, so that is already a good chunk of playtime value for the price.
I'm a bit tired feeling, though I slept very good last night. I'm not entirely sure why, but since my last big tummy pain I've put a ban on brown sodas after about 4, usually around when I have "dinner", and I just do clear soda or just water after that.
I guess it was a pretty good day. Things were calm and quiet at the library, though it seemed unusually cold. I didn't take off my hoodie until just after noon. The storm that has been here seems settled for the moment and it's been clear, but I guess it's supposed to come back next week. It seems like it's going to stay cold much longer than normal.
But I guess I hung on ok today, though I have nothing really special or interesting to look forward to these days. I think the next few weeks will be pretty basic days. Which I guess, if nothing new bad happens, is a good thing.
Day 5381 - 3/26 - Feeling a little strange
Today I am feeling a little strange. I'm not sure why. It's that feeling like I'm forgetting something again. I guess maybe it's because of the close of the quarter and school being in finals next week and I know I'm going to be thrown off by the week after being at the library.
I guess today was ok. I played the test weekend a bit again. I didn't intend to, but there was something I wanted to check and then it was like, 'well, it's 3 more months until launch, I may as well play a bit more while I can.'
I guess it was a pretty good day. It got more crowded than I would have liked. There were a few coughing near me, not a lot, but I do worry. But I was warm enough and the connection was ok, and that was enough.
Day 5382 - 3/27 - Last Monday with these classes
Today is the last Monday of this quarter. I have a final to do, which is open notes, so I'm not very worried. And then my stupid color class has something on Wednesday that I'll turn in today, and something Friday, which I think is actually past when the quarter really should end. I don't know what the teacher is thinking having something due on what will be beyond the last day for most, and have it be a discussion thing. People will do the bare minimum for it at best, and not care.
Hopefully it will be an easy day and I can hang on ok.
Day 5383 - 3/28 - Last Tuesday
Today is the last Tuesday of the quarter. At this time I should have all of my class stuff done and I'm just relaxing. I expect population to be half or less starting today, tomorrow at the latest, and probably a ghost town Thursday. But school is still the best place for me to be having a shower, micro, and stable and very fast connection. But next week I won't have a choice really, and all I can do is hope the library is ok. And that I can continue to hang on until better days.
Week 770
Day 5384 - 3/29 - Pouring rain
Today in the morning and afternoon it was completely pouring rain. So hard at one point that I couldn't even remember the last time it rained that hard. (Not counting the complete storm a week ago.) By the late afternoon it cleared. And now in the early evening the sky is mostly clear, though I expect once it's night it will probably come back.
Nothing really special happened today. As expected it's pretty much become a ghost town at school. Some were here until around 2, but after that it's basically empty. I think after about 4 I was the only person in my area, and I only saw maybe half a dozen others in the entire cafeteria room.
I guess I had a pretty good day. I played my games, watched some shows, and tried to relax. Tomorrow will be the last day at school, then a week off, so that will be strange. I'll be happy because the library is much warmer and much quieter, but sad because I may not have shower access, and I definitely won't have access to cooking food. And people can sit near me. (At school the tables aren't very close, and they are kind of small, so no one else would sit at my table with my stuff set out.)
I guess I hung on ok today, and I will try to continue to hang on.
Day 5385 - 3/30 - Dry day
Today was a dry day. It didn't rain after the early morning, though it looks pretty cloudy and gray. It got very busy and noisy at lunch, surprisingly so, but as I expected there were only about half a dozen people in all of the cafeteria before and after that. I'm kind of upset at myself for forgetting hot dogs. For a few weeks now I've done that and had my Friday and Saturday food ready to go. I guess it should be fine, but the lunchmeats all seem not the best for my tummy by comparison lately.
I guess it was a bit easier to hang on today, but the next 1.5 weeks are probably going to feel odd.
Day 5386 - 3/31 - Blood in the eye
Today things were closed, so I finally set up my eye doctor appointment for today, mostly to get a new contact prescription and order some, but also to check on my floater and blind spot. I had to do my best to hold it together during the vision check because my left eye saw even the tiny letters just fine, but surprisingly the right was like 'what letters?' At that size all I saw was the lit box area. I could only see the largest of the 5 tested settings. (Edit on Sunday; in good news my right eye seems to have been recovering very quickly since this appointment, after 4 months. I can actually read this text, with difficulty, closing my left eye.)
The explanation got into some very technical stuff about the layers on the back of the eye and things I don't understand. Because of my backing in Psychology I do know a reasonable amount of biology, so I'm familiar with rods, cones, the iris, how the image is flipped, etc. But, apparently one of two things has happened. The first, and most unlikely, is high blood pressure caused things to go bad and corrupt and explode. But due to my statement about the floater being in one place, but since the blind spot has been moving around, this seems the more likely scenario. This gets into the overly complex back layer of the eye that I don't understand, but I guess my eye is maybe not quite normal and the floater grabbed onto something it shouldn't have, tore it lose, and caused a blood spray. That blood is over a part of my eye which is used to see right in the middle.
So the good news is that, yes, eventually that blood splatter should break down and my vision will eventually be clear again. The bad news is there is nothing that can be done to speed it up, or clear, that blockage. And, since I guess the back layers on that eye aren't normal, possibly due to a very bad head trauma when I was maybe 8 or so, it is possible another event like this could happen again in the future, though extremely unlikely, even more so to be right in an area that's my central focus point.
I guess though that blood pressure can alter eye stuff and so I may want to do more checking into if getting back on medication would be covered or not. Though with my life limitations there's not a whole lot I can do to keep the pressure down.
So I guess despite it starting with the day being too cold to spend more than a couple hours outside on my laptop, the news from the eye doctor is good. Though he did make my right eye all wobbly so he could look inside. The left pupil is like 1/3 of the maximum size, whereas my right is like 90% of its fully open size, and looks like a wobbly shaped pizza dough. Things should be normal tomorrow though, and I can now rest hopeful that eventually my small blind spot will eventually go away, knowing this isn't some major issue that will continue to get worse.
Day 5387 - 4/1 - Strange experiment results
Today I have been continuing the tummy pain experiments, and I'm getting some odd results. Since mostly completely banning both chocolate and cheese I've learned two things. First, yes with cheese, I have to be extremely careful. I got a salami and white cheese pack the other day for lunch and dinner that I normally get and after eating only a few 2" round slices of cheese I was already not feeling great. Which is weird that I probably had several full ounces of cheese maybe a week ago and was fine. So that still needs to be pretty highly banned and monitored. However, since my last pain incident my tummy has either felt full or completely empty, like it's lost the ability to judge any imbetween value. But since slightly lifting the full chocolate ban to have some every 3rd day or so, it seems on those days it does get some kind of scale back, and I don't go from full to feeling starving again only 30-60 minutes after eating. The hunger slowly returns, as it should, seemingly on the days I've had some chocolate.
So I don't really know what that means. It seems, like with needing at least 1 soda with caffeine a day, I also need some chocolate? But not too much or it can trigger the extreme tummy pain at night? And how much is the limit? Maybe I'd guess maybe 2 Easter chocolate eggs / kisses worth is about what is on the chocolate doughnut? And if I have that minimum in a day, how much more before it affects me negatively? And do I need that 'dosage' every day? I certainly haven't enjoyed feeling like I'm starving 95% of the time, nor do I want to become 'that guy who's always snacking' like you see in shows or movies.
I guess that was really it for the day. It was basically a normal Saturday at the library other than that. Though I was somewhat aware this is the first of the next 8 days of being at the library. I'm sure that will pass quickly and not feel too weird, but it certainly will feel different.
Day 5388 - 4/2 - Not great leftovers
Today I am very sad about my food. I spent kind of too much money getting healthier cooked food yesterday. I found a machine to check my blood pressure and it showed I was in a pretty dangerous range, so I wanted some better food in the hopes that would help. And even though my eye issue was likely not caused by blood pressure the doc showed me a bunch of pictures of what happened to people who had issues due to blood pressure and other related issues that caused eye problems, so that worries me. But today the leftovers didn't taste great and they upset my tummy a bit. Which is unusual since I've done these leftovers several times before without issue.
I felt kind of off today I guess. I didn't really feel like playing a lot, playing maybe only 60-70% of normal and spacing out with nothings or watching shows instead. I guess maybe I am just sad and worried about my health, especially my vision, and the biggest changes to improve that are extremely difficult, or otherwise impossible, for me due to my sad life.
But I continue to try my best to hang on. And hopefully things will work out ok.
Day 5389 - 4/3 - Library Monday
Today will feel strange. I'll start the day trying to see if the showers are open over at school, but after that my day will just be at the library. It shouldn't be too terrible. Usually there is enough bandwidth and stability to do whatever I want. And the recent connection weirdness seems to have cleared, either directly by tech support fixing it, or indirectly by being force shut down and restarted due to the storm last week killing power for a few days. Hopefully the day won't be too bad. Things certainly could be worse. And so I continue to try to hang on.
Day 5390 - 4/4 - Tuesday at the library
Today will likely be much the same as Monday. These library days during the school break will likely all feel pretty much the same. But I continue to try to hang on, and hopefully will make it to better days.
