Hypertension 38: I'm Tired, So This May Not Make Sense, But At Least I'm Not Invading Iraq

It's 10:48 p.m. My day started at 6:50 a.m., when the alarm woke me. Outta bed, shower, remember to take my blood pressure, remember to eat breakfast, remember to wait on drinking coffee until I get to work, remember to take my meds. Drive my lovely daughter to high school, my lovely wife drives me to work because she is sick and going to the doctor.

At work set up my laptop, turn on my work computer, set out chocolate to encourage staff to come by and visit. Pour a cup of coffee. Sit down on the thick pillow with flowers on it that I bought yesterday (one of the biggest problems returning to work has been, of all things, a sore butt: too much time sitting on comfy chairs for six months has not prepared my bottom for sitting all day in an office chair).

I'm about to start typing up the notes from an interview with a client late yesterday, it ended at around 4:30 so I did not type them then. The phone rings: another client. We talk. I get a phone number for him, and call back on his cell and leave a message, with the number. I type a memo to file about the calls, recording his information. I email my manager with a query based on the new information. Then I type the notes from yesterday. Then I make two follow up calls from the notes, arranging a meeting with a witness for next week. I memo the file about those calls. Then I follow up a letter from a client received yesterday with a phone call to the client, which leads to another call involving that client, to set up a meeting for next week. I put notes on those calls in the file. I look up. Two and a half hours have passed.

I go to get lunch. My legs ache. Lately they've been aching, and my wife worries it's a reaction to the statins I'm taking which could lead to permanent leg damage--I push up a doctor's appointment from three weeks to next week. Eat lunch at my desk, take out Japanese, very good. Go back to work, reading a new file. I write and send out letters to the two clients associated with the file. Then I begin to prepare an investigation plan based on the file--what the issues are, what questions to ask. The plan involves detailing all the issues on the file, what parts of the law they involve, the positions of either side, what questions I must ask, what documents I must seek.

My wife phones. She went to the doctor, she has mild pneumonia and is on antibiotics. I tell her don't drive downtown to pick me up, I'll take the bus. I look up, about to continue with the investigation plan: it's already 4:30.

I pack up, trudge, no heck let's be cheerful I sorta skip, through the snow to the bus stop. Yes, it's snowing. I think maybe I'm starting to feel sorry for myself. I take the bus home, grab my gym bag. My daughter asks if we can go shopping. I'm kinda grumpy about that request, given I'm about to go out and exercise, which I'm not fond of.

I drive to the gym, change clothes, and spend forty minutes on the elliptical treadmill. Check my weight: 225, I've gained a couple of pounds (I've been eating ice cream since returning to work--have to cut that out). Phone my daughter, tell her I'll take her shopping if when I get home she's ready to go. Drive home, she's ready to go. We have a good time shopping. There is always something to buy.

Come home. Wife is going upstairs to sleep. I make two low calorie frozen meals for dinner, have them with a glass of milk. Spend two and a half hours on emails, my book review blog, the time goes fast. Now it's bed time, and to sleep. For an hour or two: since starting the new meds, I seem to wake up every two or three hours.

Tomorrow I'll spend the evening after work with my 90 year old mom. She is a great woman, but is 90. She does not remember what's happened during the day very much, and often drifts off during conversations, so being with her is both pleasant and sad. Once she babysat me, now I babysit her, and I worry about how that sounds to you, but it's true. Maybe we'll watch The Departed, the Scorsese film, on DVD, which is about living someone else's life.

Hey, she's still alive. I'm still alive. I earn good money, I live in a great country, where it is relatively safe and peaceful. Plus I have cable and a cell phone.

There is more to be grateful for than to whine about.

We have to be careful not to trudge through life, but to waltz. Even when our legs ache.