I dropped off my new-ish Model X this morning at the Santa Ana service center. The passenger-side rear door is still messed up, even after they replaced the ultrasonic sensor. Once again, they gave me a loaner even though the car should be ready today.
This time, I got an older Model X. It still has a physical gear selector and turn signal stalk. I just started getting used to the new control schema but now I am confused again. At least the stupid wing doors work perfectly on the loaner cars.
Bob Hope Airport in Burbank is the smallest of the five commercial airports in the LA/OC area. It is also the only one I have not been to before. Last night, I went to pick up a friend traveling from San Jose on Southwest Airlines. It was about fifty miles away from my house and took over an hour each way, even at 9:00 pm.
Interestingly, both runways at Bob Hope Airport are longer than the single runway at John Wayne Airport, even though SNA has three large treminals. From the airport diagrams, it seems that SNA has a lot more private aviation traffic too based on all the hangers.
I attended UCLA and graduated in 1990. That was a long time ago, but I am still a proud alumnus. I am very disappointed and angry at these “pro-Palestinian” protestor who vandalize buildings and attack Jewish students across the country.
This is the front of Royce Hall, the iconic building of UCLA. Police finally cleared out a bunch of tresspassers in the quad between Royce Hall and Powell Library last week. I support protests but not this. I do not care what your cause is, but if you are vandalizing public buildings and threatening innocent by-standers, you are a fucking asshole. I am usually an independent on politics, but I am 100% behind Ukraine against Russia, and 100% behind Taiwan against the CCP. If you do this while protesting against Russia or the CCP, you are still a fucking asshole in my eyes. It is totally uncalled for.
In the current case, have any of these “protestors” said anything negative about Hamas? I think not. They protest about genocide but all of them want to wipe out Israel and the Jewish population. If the Canadian or Mexican military came across the border and did what Hamas did to Israel, I would support kicking the shit out of those countries, even though I am a Canadian citizen too. Has Hamas released all the hostages they took? Returned all the bodies of Israeli citizens killed in Gaza? Until they do, even thought it hurts civilians in Gaza, I support Israel 100%. Fuck Hamas and these bullshit protests.
Happy Cinco de Mayo!
I have three weeks of physical therapy left. My therapist went on vacation this week, so another therapist helped me with massages and workout. I do feel there have been major improvements over the past five weeks, but it still bothers me a lot to walk. I can walk without a visible limp, but pain comes pretty quickly to my heel. Therapist said I need to put more weight on the front of my foot when I walk.
Unfortunately, the ankle seems to be permanently swollen. The surgeon said the swelling is normal, but for how long?
I mentioned in several posts that I am retiring soon, and that date is now only two weeks away. My boss told me that they will throw me a retirement party on my last day, and I found out it will be lunch from 1:00 pm to 2:00 pm. I told this to a former co-worker who also worked twelve plus years at the same company. She quit right after maternity leave so she did not receive any going away party. She said she wanted to come so I asked my boss’s assistant, and they said okay. My first ex-coworker friend said we should also ask another ex-coworker to come. She also worked at the same company for twelve plus year, quit after maternity leave, and did not receive a party either. I actually met the second ex-coworker from a previous company, so I have known her for nineteen years.
I hope that was not too confusing. I really did not want a farewell party, but now I am looking forward to it. I hope there will also be some acknowledgement of my two ex-coworkers since we were really the foundation of the current department, and it was kind of sad that they left after maternity leave without coming into the office again.
There are a lot of recent hires so most of them probably will not know who we are anyway. Just come for the free food!
I saw this movie in the theater today. I believe it is the first time I paid money to watch a non-English film. I watch plenty of movies with subtitles, but typically at home on streaming sites.
My Korean friend suggested we go watch this. Initially, we were planning to go to CGV Cinemas at The Source OC in Buena Park but found out the movie was also playing at AMC Orange 30. I have never been to CGV Cinemas, but their rooms are tiny. I checked one of the shows and it said the room capacity was only fourteen. That is like watching movies in a home theater. You pay for the big screen and loud sounds, so we decided on AMC instead.
Overall, the movie was surprisingly good. This is the fourth movie in a series. I have downloaded the other three but have not watched them yet. The subtitles were large and easy to read. There were only about a dozen people in the theater, and I am likely the only non-Korean person in the room.
Tickets for the show were $15.49 each for adults. I found a ten-year-old AMC green voucher and managed to get one seat for free. I should go and get a few more discounted movie tickets before I quit.
Since this just happened, I may as well post about it. A medium-small earthquake just rolled through ten minutes ago and the epicenter was about eight miles from my house. It was initially rated a 4.3 but got downgraded to a 4.1. Magnitude 4.1 does not sound like much, but it is pretty large if the epicenter is close. Here is the USGS site and map:
Having lived in California for close to forty years, I have been through many earthquakes, the most famous being the 1994 Northridge earthquake. That was 400x larger than the M4.1 just now, but realeased about 8,000x more energy.
A picture fell over on a shelf in the room I was in. I need to go cheek the house in case anything else fell over or off the wall.
Today I learned that Easter in Ukraine is this coming Sunday, May 5th. I had a call with my friend in Kyiv this morning and he mentioned it. I had thought Easter was celebrated on the same day everywhere. I also asked my Ukrainian-Korean-American friend, and she reminded me that it is Easter for Eastern Orthodox Christianity. I felt so American, that is, ignorant of the rest of the world. She also told me Orthodox Christmas is January 7th.
I found out a month ago that Ukraine switches to daylight savings time on a different date too.
I posted earlier that I am picking up my sister at around noon Monday, April 29th from the Pacific Crest Trail. Well, earlier this evening, she called and basically said to come get us now. Luckily, I was already charging my car, but had only about 78% battery charge when I left. After driving almost two hours and about 100 miles, I found them in the middle of nowhere, with 42% battery charge left.
What happened? The weather on Sunday was hotter than planned and the group had run low on water. Deciding that they did not have enough water for the final half-day hike, they went to a “hostel” next to the trail. This was really just some guy and his wife’s house, and he lets people camp on his property. He also lets people use his shower and has a stocked pantry. Since the way back to the path was steep, my sister’s group ended the trip there, and asked me to pick them up. The house was down a long dirt road, so the hostel guy graciously dropped them off at the nearest paved intersection when I got near.
For most of the trip, I used the full-self-drive (FSD) feature in my Tesla. It performed well, even when it was super dark outside, and the road was narrow and twisty. The car did tend to speed, and I was not able to control the set speed. It regularly drove over 60 mph when the speed limit was only 55 mph. However, even at those speeds, FSD was much smoother than me driving.
After picking them up, we stopped at Denny’s in Temecula and had dinner/breakfast. I ordered a 55+ omelet and was disappointed when the waiter did not card me. Since portions of highways 74 and 241 were closed, the way back was longer. When I dropped off the hiking team at their cars, I only had 10% batter charge left. I found a mostly empty Supercharger site and was able to charge at 210 kW. That is the fastest I have ever charged my EVs.
Overall, the entire trip took about six hours. With about four hours of driving, over an hour at Denny’s, and maybe 40 minutes charging my car. Along the way, FSD got mad at me for looking at the map too much and shut itself down. This is rather stupid since using FSD and autopilot were touted as better drivers than people. I also had to use my injured ankle to drive since no FSD also meant no basic cruise control.
Also, the really stupid passenger wing door is somehow even more broken after Tesla Service. How is that possible if they replaced the ultrasonic sensor and supposedly tested the repair?
This is the lates x-ray image from April 22nd. My primary surgeon said it looked fine. Initially he wanted me to keep wearing the walking boot after I told him my physical therapist said not to wear it. However, he changed his mind and gave me an ankle wrap. It is a lot less bulky, and I feel it does help support my bad ankle a lot.
After four weeks of physical therapy, I can definitely feel more flexibility in my ankle, but overall movement will be very limited since the entire joint is fused. I can walk further than before, but there is still soreness in the ankle and calf muscle, and some pain and numbness in the heel. I am still wearing a travel compression sock on my right foot and using a special pillow to raise my lower leg when sleeping. I have four more weeks of physical therapy left. I hope I can walk longer distances without pain and without crutches.
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I do think the surgery has aggravated my peripheral neuropathy. I am experiencing much more pain when I lie down, especially if I sleep on my side. I have finished all the Norco prescribed during the ankle surgery, and I find that the oxycodone does not have any effect, even though it is supposed to be a more potent painkiller. Luckily, I found a vial of Norco prescribed to my mom back in 2020. It has long since expired, but they are still able to dull the neuropathy pain. Since I do not have a current prescription, I am using it sparingly on the most intense nerve pain attacks. I should ask my endocrinologist for a refill since she offered to prescribe me gabapentin previously.
Fallout is one of my favorite video game franchises. I will admit I did not get into Fallout 1 & 2, but I played the heck out of Fallout 3 on the PS3, plus Fallout: New Vegas and Fallout 4 on the PC. I only have statistics on Fallout: New Vegas and Steam tells me I have spent 192 hours playing it.
On the other hand, I did not play Fallout 76 at all. I was somewhat disappointed in Fallout 4, and after reading some reviews, I decided not to buy Fallout 76. I did spent some time on Fallout: Shelter on my iPad but ended up deleting it since it was just a microtransactions trap.
Now I found out Amazon has produced a Fallout TV show. I do remember seeing an ad on Amazon Prime TV, but I was not expecting them to dump all the episodes at once. Now I need to binge watch all the episodes. Please let it not suck.
The Pacific Crest Trail is a 2,661 mile trail that stretches from Mexico to Canada, and goes through the states of California, Oregon, and Washington. My sister and friends started hiking this trail last year, and they are hiking this weekend as well. I believe they started at Warner Springs yesterday morning and they will hike until Monday noon. Here is their progress so far:
I am tasked with picking them up Monday from a random dirt lot near the junction of highways 74 and 371, very near Paradise Valley Cafe, next to the town of Anza. I will have to charge up my car fully and drive four hours round trip. I think my Model X has enough range for this.
The Pacific Crest Trail is part of the national trail system. Here is a map of all the hiking trails.
My niece needed some photos of the ocean for her high school marine biology class. This is the second time I went with her to Corona Del Mar State Beach for this class. I thought the teacher would want some photos of actual wildlife instead. We did not go on the sand but just took some pics from the edge of the parking lot.
I have wondered how it would feel if I got a really bad neuropathy pain attack while wearing a cast? Luckily, even though I did experience a few attacks while wearing a cast, none were too bad.
Well, one of the worst attacks just started about twenty minutes ago. Unfortunately, the location is in my right foot, near the top of my inner sole. The pain level is probably nine on that pain scale. It is at the “involuntary screaming” level, and I have experienced that a few times before. However, in the past, my entire lower leg was not swollen and sore from physical therapy. I tried using a percussive massage on the location and of course, I can barely feel the massager. Even worse, the pain attacks are coming in fast, sometimes every ten seconds. I already took an oxycodone pill, and it is not helping at all. Other than lying down and screaming several times a minute, I do not know what else to do.
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So, it has been almost three hours and I have not been able to sleep. The oxycodone pill did nothing for the pain; I think it has gotten worse. Additionally, another two locations on my right foot are starting to experience pain.
What is worse than super painful neuropathy? Super painful neuropathy in three locations.
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I have tried to massage the pain spot so much that I have broken the skin, and I am now bleeding. The wound is pretty small, but I still had to put a bandage on it. The pain intensity has not decreased in the past four hours.
Fuck.
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In the past, sometimes I would shake 0r swing my lower leg vigorously, and that would alleviate some of the pain. I think it gets more blood into my lower leg and foot, though I am unsure why that helps. Today, when I tried to do the same thing, my lower leg and ankle would swell up due to my ankle injury. My entire foot is numb now from the constant nerve pain. I am still unable to sleep or even feel tired. I also do not know how long I have to wait before taking more painkillers. In addition to the worst neuropathy pain ever, I may get addicted to opiates too.
Fuck. Fuck.
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My right calf is so swollen and sore right now.
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Updated: Saturday, April 20th, 2024
I ended up falling asleep around 3:00 am Tuesday and woke up at 6:00 am. The pain was still there but more muted. Throughout the week, I would get occasional flare ups at the same spot, which has not happened. This evening, six days later, the pain came back in the same spot, though around a six or seven on the pain scale. I had finished taking all the Norco I was prescribed for my ankle operation, so I tried taking 5 mg of Oxycodone. Even though it is supposed to be stronger than Norco, I really do not feel any difference in pain afterwards. Maybe I need to take Tylenol at the same time? It has been two hours since I took the pill, and again, I cannot sleep. At least the pain is not as bad as Monday’s attack.
Happy Tax Day! Today is also my first day back to work after taking a twelve-week medical leave for my broken ankle.
After two weeks of physical therapy, my ankle is still very swollen. My physical therapist has been adding weight and new exercises each time I go into the clinic/gym. I can walk short distances normally. but the ankle swells quickly and becomes quite sore. I am still not wearing the walking boot, but I am carrying my crutches in my car.
I have an appointment with my orthopedic surgeon on April 22. That will be after three weeks of physical therapy so hopefully everything is on track.
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I bought a lot of travel compression socks while I was on dialysis and I am wearing them again, if only just on my right foot. I feel it does help keep the swelling down, and give some support when I walk around slowly.
I like coriander (cilantro) in my dishes. However, Pizza Hut Japan introduced recently introduced a limited time “Too Much Coriander” pizza. I think it is too much since the taste of cilantro is overpowering and you will not taste anything else if you put that much on a pizza.
I still would like to try if it is available the next time I visit Japan.
My sister-in-law has the gene that makes cilantro taste like dish soap. She said this is what hell looks like.
I may have mentioned this before, since I have been on disability and medical leave so many times. Our company provides some supplemental benefits via The Hartford insurance company. My understanding is that the benefit is two-thirds of weekly salary, up to a $1,600 maximum. The maximum is also affected by what I receive from the State of California for short-term disability. Previously, California provided up to $1,357 per week so I received several hundred dollars per week. However, the state cap is now $1,620 per week so even though I filed a claim with The Harford, I pretty much ignored the process after finding out the maximum benefit was less than what the state offered.
Today, I received a call from The Hartford asking to confirm my disability end date. I provided it but asked why it mattered. The customer service representative (CRS) said I should have received some checks. While she was still on the phone, I checked all the unopened mail and found about $450 in checks. Strange. I looked at the statement closely and discovered that there is a minimum benefit of $50 per week. Even though I was paid more than the maximum benefit, the minimum benefit must still apply. It is not a lot of money, but it is better than $0.
I started this blog to vent about living with dialysis and heart failure, but it has become my regular blog. My previous blog had a lot of posts about politics, especially about how shitty the Chinese Communist Party is. Politics is stressful. In California, there is no choice for independent voters since everything is run by Democrats. That in itself is not bad, but with our hyper partisan political environment, any place with a supermajority, either party, is going to see terrible and unaccountable politicans and policies.
I spent almost my entire career in finance, and doing cost versus benefit analysis is second nature. Every business needs to generate enough revenue to cover costs and hopefully generate some profit. I remember the first thing we were asked in business school, “Why is this company in business?” You can talk about all sorts of secondary goals, but the primary reason a for-profit company is formed is to make money. Given that, are there tasks in the company that does not contribute $20/hour to the bottom line? Maybe.
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I just saw a new story from NBCLA that mentioned the author of the $20/hour law was in fact SEIU (Service Worker International Union). They seem to have the support of the entire Democratic Party in California to sponsor shitty laws. These are the same assholes that tried to blackmail the dialysis industry three times with bogus voter initiatives. I was on dialysis during that time and all the nurses and technicians said to vote no on the initiatives. All three initiatives failed.
The law has only been in effect for a week, but the train wreck is coming. Unfortunately for those of us living in California and vote independently, we are unwilling passengers on this train.
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The last part of the story mentioned that no politician is taking responsibility for the law, even the ones that sponsored the bill. Are we letting unions write laws? The story also said that the SEIU had every politician involved sign a NDA. How is this legit? Are there not transparency laws in California? I guess we will see during the next election which Democrats the SEIU paid off and are responsible for tanking the California economy.
I got this text message today. It is obviously a scam since there are no other merchants on Target’s website. Other red flags? Using WhatsApp as a communications platform, and the bullshit about reviewing my background/resume. I am not sure what the scammers are after. Your personal info? Maybe a fake check scam where they send you a fake check and ask you to buy office equipment? So lame.
This is such bullshit. My endocrinologist recommended the InPen to me and I got one last year. The pen connects via Bluetooth to your phone, and there is an app that calculates how much insulin you need depending on your glucose reading. Medtronic’s website claims that the InPen is a “smart” insulin pen, but the intelligence is in the app. The app tracks injections and calculates dosages; all the pen does is communicate how much is actually injected. Since you can manually enter shots, there is really no need for the pen itself.
What is the scam? The pen’s battery only lasts one year, and the battery is non-rechargeable and cannot be replaced. WTF? It is a nice pen, made of what looks like anodized aluminum. The condition of my pen is pristine so why do I need to throw it away? I checked online and the retail price is $400-$500. Since I have insurance, I paid a small copay. I may get another one while I have insurance, but I can always use my old manual insulin pens and just log doses manually.
Life w̵i̵t̵h̵ ̵D̵i̵a̵l̵y̵s̵i̵s̵ post-transplant (and CABG) 