busybee fluffy rambles

Fatigue

My fatigue has gotten a lot worse lately. I’m having trouble mustering up the energy to do things, and what energy I do muster tends to go to things that are critical, rather than fun. Gardening (of the basic upkeep variety), getting groceries, cooking food, that sort of thing.

Last Black Friday I bought an ebike (well, two of them, actually, the other one which I bought impulsively and then tried to cancel the order is still sitting in its box and I really ought to sell it) and I’ve had a few rides on it which have gone fairly well, but today I decided to ride it to get groceries and just as I was approaching the store I got hit by a huge wave of fatigue and had to quickly get off the road before I fell over. In doing so I very nearly avoided getting run over by a truck that was turning way too fast. Fun times.

Anyway, I still did my shopping and had to push through it, and afterwards I did manage to ride home safely enough, but it was still, uh, worrying.

I feel like there’s something I could try to do in order to build my stamina back up. I used to play DDR for an hour or two every day, but I had to stop because it was getting to be very hard on my knees, and my plan was to build a lapboard so that I could at least try to build up some upper-body strength but I never got around to doing that either, and I just realized I’ve had all the parts for it just lying around for the last four years. Jeeze.

Music projects

I had gotten some momentum going on my next album, but after recording a few songs I took a break to work on some other things, and now I’m having a very difficult time working up the energy to even go to my recording studio to work on things. And even doing my VRChat gigs has gotten to be difficult. When I first started those, 60 minutes was easy to do, no problem, and now I’m finding that I have to push through it at the 45-minute mark.

A couple weeks ago I did spend a decent amount of time working on my booth for Furality which involved making a bunch of art and also making a minute-long video that was the single most ambitious video project I’ve ever done (yes, even moreso than the previous most ambitious video project). I’m hoping that it at least gets me some attention and some people wanting to buy my music and commissioning me to make more, although, gosh, the prospect of going back to those kinds of hours long-term also fills me with dread.

At some point I also need to get around to building my Nerdy Gurdy. I was so excited to finally acquire one but it’s just been sitting in my basement, and I haven’t even unpacked it yet. My plan was to stream the build on my music YouTube channel but, gah. tired.

Choir

I’ve also found that getting to choir practice is too much effort and doesn’t result in a feeling of joy, so I’ve ended up stepping back from the choir again. Part of it is the fatigue, part of it is because the choir’s just gotten so big and at this point it feels like it’s not satisfying me in the way that it used to. The concerts this year also badly conflict with other stuff that are much more important to me. So removing the weekly “get to the church” reminder from my calendar felt more like a relief than anything.

Hormones

I was hoping that this current fatigue problem was just due to the HRT saga and that getting my levels back in check would fix everything. Injections have helped me with a lot of stuff, and it’s nice that my boobs are starting to grow again even after so long, but the fatigue hasn’t been affected by it at all as far as I can tell. I do have an appointment later this week to get my levels checked to make sure I’m on the right path though. It’s possible the dose still needs to be adjusted.

Other medical crap

The last time I saw my cardiologist he said I should get another sleep study, and he referred me to a sleep clinic within his hospital system. It took forever to get an appointment, and when I finally did, they got me down for an in-home sleep study, but it turns out that the clinic is a 90-minute drive or a three-hour bus ride away (because his hospital system shut down all of their sleep clinics in Seattle for some fucking reason, and they would not refer me to another practice closer to me), and even though the sleep study was in-home they still needed me to come in person to pick up the device and be trained on how to use it. Even more annoyingly, the first appointment they have for the pickup isn’t until August, and their appointments are all in the morning. There is no fucking way I’d be able to do that.

So I’ve asked my GP about finding a sleep clinic closer to Seattle/Burien/White Center. Hopefully I can find something more amenable to my transportation and time-of-day limitations.

I’m not super optimistic about the current state of sleep medicine anyway, though. It’s all about CPAP/APAP, and that has never helped me at all.

Cats

Fiona has officially turned 15 (she’s possibly a bit older but her shelter records estimated her as having been born around May of 2011). She’s gotten so grumpy lately, and finicky about food. But she’s still my lovely little squish. I just wish she’d actually eat the food she’s been given.

Cars

My shitty Corolla is still fulfilling its duty as a decoy to stop people from trying to steal my bike. I’ve moved it all of three times in the past month, twice of which was due to some driveway repair stuff. That’s a whole other mess I’d rather not talk about though.

I wish I could have just gone car-free, because it’s not like I’m even using this car, I’m just constantly beying annoyed by it. I need some better way of signaling that my home is occupied despite there not being a motor vehicle in the open carport. Unfortunately, converting my carport into a closed garage is not a feasible solution, either.

Cars are cool tech but revolving all of society around them was a mistake.

tl;dr

I’m fuckin tired, y'all