Why is it that I can’t seem to remember to do things until after the time I should already be in bed? Yesterday I remembered to FAX some forms to my bank. Today I’m thinking I should really order some new contact lenses. I really should check the online pharmacy for some refills, too.

Well, I went out to dinner with my brother-in-law’s family tonight for a celebration dinner (good medical news) and while that really has nothing to do with my give-upped-ness tonight, I think I’m going to hit the hay rather than do the things on my “list”. I’ll just add to my todo list that I always forget to look at and call it good. Hooray.

I’m having a problem with directions lately. There’s never a clear, concise description of what I need to do. There’s either a form with directions scattered all over the page like stock transaction forms (I’m trying to put money in my Roth IRA) or there’s some email thread I get put on where I have to read all the voluminous back-and-forth before I can figure out what’s really going on. And so very often I’m not getting it right.

I mean, is there some sort of tech writing program that tells you to write instructions like:

1. Do something.
2. Before you do the thing in step 1, do this other thing.
3. On in this special case, remember to do this before you do anything else.
4. These instructions weren’t really for the thing you want to do and now you have to call an 800 number where you’ll have to start punching in a lot of numbers and you’ll have to wait for at least 20 minutes.

So back to the Roth IRA. I used to go down to my bank and they’d have me fill out form after form. Then there was a period of time where I didn’t make much money and I didn’t put any money in the IRA (I know, bad idea). This year I had some money so I went to the bank and waited. And waited. And they told me that now I couldn’t do anything there, I had to call in and do it on the phone. When I called the phone number, I was told I had to do it all online. But instead of just filling out web forms, I had to print them out and fax them in. Is this progress?

My stomach feels better and my back hurts less at night (though still not perfect.)

I just saw the Australian cop movie Noise and I’d recommend it.

I had to edit this post and add an “almost” because my friend Megan (who was diagnosed with breast cancer just before I was diagnosed with CML) reminded me that all of this happened towards the end of the year. Oh, well, we’re close to five years!

So I shouldn’t be so public about my health problems, but it’s too late now. I really don’t want my employer to know anything much about my health, and google will be available for any health insurance company to see my problems, etc. But I have a big mouth and I’ve opened it already.

In any case, I was looking up the side-effects of the two prescription drugs I regularly take and I realized a couple of things. The hay fever medicine lists:

• nausea, diarrhea, upset stomach (no percentage listed)
• menstrual cramps (1.5%)
• drowsiness, tired feeling (no percentage listed)
• headache (10.3%)
• muscle or back pain (2.5%)

However, the frequency of these problems for the general population was fairly low.

My other medication lists:

• fluid retention (usually swelling around the eyes or legs) (59%-81%)
• diarrhea (39%-70%)
• nausea (47%-74%)
• vomiting (21%-58%)
• fatigue (30%-53%)
• muscle cramps (28%-62%)
• muscle or bone pain (30%-49%)
• abdominal pain (30%-40%), and
• rash (36%-53%)

I also see on a bulletin board that weight gain of about 25 pounds is very common as well.

I started thinking about all this because I started having back pain, muscle pain, and stomach problems about the time I started the hay fever medicine, even though the other medication should have been bothering me more. But the other medication with all the side effects is KEEPING ME ALIVE.

I just noticed that it’s been almost five years since I was diagnosed with CML and the prognosis before Gleevec (the wonder drug with some side effects) was 3-5 years. Now, who knows? They don’t see any abnormal chromosomes in my blood tests even with nested PCR (knock on wood.) And like I told a couple of people who emailed me about it in the past five years, keep your spirits up! That’s the advice I got early on, and I’m still kicking!

So I hate to say that I’m dragging my ass around the gym because of the effects of my drug use, I mean, medications, because really I’m a lazy 44YO (almost) geek who usually sits around and only ever exercises his mouse arm. And my diet is doodie, if you consider cheeseburgers to be doodie and not manna from heaven like I do.

For some reason I couldn’t do many pullups today. Not many at all. I’ve been feeling a little off lately, and I blame part of that on my hay fever medicine and hay fever in general. I looked up some of the side-effects of my hay fever medicine and there’s a lot of them. My actual theory is that it just compounds the side-effects of the other medication I take and there’s a huge list on that one. I’m still sneezing a lot at work, so I’m going to keep taking the hay fever medicine. At its worst, my hay fever is a lot more miserable than just sneezing a few times a day.

I finally saw a picture of the alleged key to Eliot Spitzer’s downfall and the first thought I had was wondering how much money I had in my bank account. I figure I haven’t had a girlfriend since 2001 so I’m not cheating on anyone. In reality I’m going to sublimate my urges by eating cheeseburgers. I can get a whole lot of burgers for one high-priced hooker.

Besides, despite the gym’s efforts, cheeseburgers aren’t illegal. They’re not even morally reprehensible.

UPDATE: OK, my left leg just about gave out because of the weird cramp I got. I’m blaming this all on the hay fever medicine and I’m going without it for a while. We’ll see how that goes.

I’m not really bored, just a geek, so I figured out how much it costs me per session at the gym. It’s $115 for a month and, I think, $15 per class if you pay for it that way. So, I spent a bunch of time in LaTeX composing a table because I’m a geek.

So right now, I think I’ve made it to the gym six times this month, so that means I’m paying $19.17 per session. By the end of this week I should be ahead of the game. I’ll probably never look at this table much, but for some reason I felt compelled to make it. Like I said, I’m a geek.

Now compare this to how much I’m paying at LA Fitness. I paid $719.76 in December and I’ve been there once. That’s $719.76 per visit.

Normally, the hardest math I do at the gym is calculating how much I’m deadlifting. Weights on one side + weights on the other side + the bar. Simple addition, but for some reason I get tired and screw it up. Some time after calculus I stopped being able to do math and had to carry a calculator with me all the time.

Oh and if I were on a diet, it’s gone all pear shaped again. Yesterday I had an Al Pastor burrito at Don Pedro’s with a bottle of Mexican Coca-Cola. Yeah, the stuff with the REAL SUGAR in it. Today, I had a torta from Don Pedro’s with another bottle of Mexican Coca-Cola. I gave up normal Coke a long time ago for Diet Coke and non-Diet tastes way too syrupy to me now. But the stuff with the real sugar is spectacular.

If you don’t know what a torta is, it’s a loose meat sandwich and I think they soak the bun in grease. Whatever it touched, it left a stain, and it was also spectacular. I think cheeseburgers would probably be a step up.

So today when I avoided the gym (because of a stomachache) you would figure I’d just sit around and watch TV. But what I did was FINISH MY MOM’S TAXES. No fun at all. In the middle of it all, I had to go put out the garbage and then go searching for her checkbook. When we had that little break-in last year, I hid all the check books. Hers is the last one I found (and fortunately I found it).

The worst part about putting out the garbage was picking up the trash across the street. Buncha punks parked over there left a bunch of bottles and takeout boxes from Del Taco in Hillsboro. Why do they have to come all the way into town from Hillsboro to dump their trash in front of my house?

Now if only I could get going and finish my own taxes.

I’m on some medication that sometimes gives me sharp stomach pains. I think that’s why I was having troubles today, but I did eat a cheeseburger substitute last night so I wasn’t taking any chances today. In any case, I was in a position where there wasn’t much choice so I ate it and I enjoyed it. Sounds kind of like I’m trying to justify my decisions, but I just gave into temptation.

So today is one of the 3 days a week that I’m not going to the gym. I think I’m supposed to be resting, but what’s the point of that? What I did was help a guy make a wood pile for some slash burning. He’s doing some logging before he builds a new house in the woods. Well, one woodpile was probably 15 feet of branches (not stacked very well) and we spent most of the day playing with fire. Let me tell you, a giant woodpile on fire is VERY HOT even from a distance. Last time I did this I got something that looked like sunburn from the heat.

Well, I better pretend to get some sleep tonight, since it’s not really the time that the clock says. At least it’s light out later so you can spend all day helping a buddy play pretend logger and not have to drive home in the dark.

Now I’m being told not to say bad things about the gym I’m going to because the guy who runs it is reading my blog. OK, then, NATHAN IS A DOODIE HEAD. Actually, he’s a really nice guy and the only problem there is probably me and my big mouth. My sense of humor isn’t any more offensive than what I hear on NPR, but I suppose it would be bad for me to scare off any of his other clients. I suppose NPR is probably plenty offensive to the right-wing.

Now that I have that out of the way I can’t remember what else I was thinking about. My head, after all, is hurting. I wonder if it was today’s new cheeseburger avoidance that did it. First, instead of having this cheeseburger, I had some mediocre Chinese food. And honestly, the restaurant was pretty scary, with boarded up windows and a blackberry filled parking lot with tire-eating potholes.

I went out to dinner with my mom, and this time I avoided the cheeseburger with a garden burger and some semi-inedible potato salad. Someone forgot to cook the potatoes. My mom ordered a SINGLE pancake, and it was big enough for several people.

The gardenburger was much better than I thought it would be. It was actually tasty rather than just rubbery and odd. I may have to eat more of those things.

Well, you could have guessed that I am a moron. I have been reading the Portland Hamburgers blog and even though I’ve already had dinner, I’m really jonesing for a burger. All this work at the gym and I’m really supposed to be eating better but I’m just looking at blogs about cheeseburgers. Yeesh.

Oh, and I’m not going to sleep early enough, either. I forgot about some work I had to do and so I was doing WORK instead of sleeping. What a maroon.

I wanted to get to sleep early yesterday. Springtime is taking its usual toll and I’m sleepy all day long. It’ll be worse when hay fever season hits for me. In any case, it’s not always my fault that I don’t get to sleep on time. Just most of the time. Yesterday I was catching up on watching Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles. I didn’t realize it was a two hour season finale, so I missed the first hour. That meant I had to go back and watch both.

Today I had to listen to my friend complain about how his Mac doesn’t print correctly. He has some jacked up network with Linux hippie servers all over and he couldn’t print. I think he just wanted to whine about it to someone. Once again I’m up later than I wanted to be.

Fortunately, bananas aren’t on my list. Onions and apples, I think are on my list. My stomach felt fine today, but not perfect. For some reason yesterday’s stomachache gave me the same crawling sensation in my stomach that I have when I’m nervous. So when I was at the gym today, getting ready to do the “thruster” (also known as the squat-to-press), I felt apprehensive. It uses a lot of my core muscles, which need a lot of work anyway. We also did some rowing, which also got my core muscles complaining.

I’ve been trying to eat better, but eating in the Megacorp cafeteria isn’t doing me any favors. Today my lunch just made me sad. It was an Asianish dish with noodles, rice, chicken, and vegetables. The vegetables were celery and broccoli that looked like they taken from the garbage. The noodles were overcooked and black. The rice, for once, was OK. The chicken was just swimming in hoisin sauce.

The last time I was at the grocery store with my sister, the woman behind us in line was buying a bunch of things including Trojans and Fred Meyer brand hoisin sauce. I never thought I’d be all that judgemental in the grocery line but seriously, Fred Meyer brand hoisin sauce?

P.S. I’m done for.