Happy Wednesday morning, boys and girls! It’s almost 3 a.m., and I’m waiting for Sam to wake up because I think I’M STARVING TO DEATH. He usually tumbles out of bed by 4 a.m. to enjoy a big pot of coffee and go for a two-hour walk while it’s still dark outside
— retirement rocks! — but today I desperately need food before he gets involved in his regular routine. My request will include a toasted English muffin with pepper jack cheese, one large navel orange, a glass of iced tea and an excellent classic movie:
Bombshell (1933) starring Jean Harlow and Franchot Tone. (This is actually an adorable screwball comedy that parodies Harlow’s life.)
I’ll be crossing my fingers about the food, though. Please see the following paragraph for an explanation.
My
STOMACH IS OUT OF WHACK and I haven’t had much of an appetite for at least a week. Yesterday I ate two bites of lunch, got sick to my stomach and barfed it into a big plastic bowl. That was around 2 p.m., and I haven’t eaten anything since … mostly because I’m also having that goddamn
SWALLOWING ISSUE again. You know, where food doesn’t go down all the way and I feel like Wile E. Coyote with an anvil on my chest … and sometimes that intense pressure can last for
hours.
But wait, friends …
there’s more! An overview of today’s wide range of health complaints* includes:
- Frequent HALLUCINATIONS.
- SLEEPING far too many — 12 at a time! — hours every day for too many consecutive days … sometimes even falling asleep mid-sentence.
- ZERO APPETITE and/or the inability to eat more than a few bites even when I think I’m hungry.
- The SWALLOWING ISSUE.
- Demented FLAVOR CRAVINGS; and
- I can’t think of anything else.
I’ll let you know what my hospice nurse says after I see her later today, but please don’t hesitate to resume your everyday routine in the meantime.
I have a follow-up! Holy crap … Sam and I learned something mighty important when my hospice L.V.N. was here today. Leslie said three of the health complaints enumerated above (items 1, 2 and 3) are actually symptoms of an advanced, untreated URINARY TRACT INFECTION … and she promised to requisition wee-wee lab work to confirm what’s going on. Please stay tuned. Thank you.
You may (or may not) have noticed during the last few weeks that I’ve been tweaking the Howdygram’s color theme, the font size and certain elements in the banner … but now I’m pleased to introduce a MAJOR OVERHAUL due to getting bored and needing an injection of
creative stimulus. By now, though, I’m sure you’ve observed the most obvious changes to our overall appearance and color theme. For example:
Specifically, I changed the text color from dusty blue/gray to
aqua and the subheads, small caps and captions from navy blue to
charcoal gray (technically, it’s 96% black). I will continue to use
bright red for links and
gold foil for occasional snazzy accents. (Everybody needs an occasional snazzy accent, right?)
In case you’re interested, the new turquoise text color makes me very, very happy. I actually used this color theme (aqua, charcoal gray and red) once before, when I developed a website — a precursor to the Howdygram — called Baloneyland.com. I loved these colors then and I love these colors NOW!
An article two days ago on CNN’s website left me dumbstruck. Apparently scientists have found a link between certain prescription drugs and an increased risk of
dementia.
A study published in the journal JAMA (Journal of the American Medical Association) on Monday suggests that the link is strongest for certain classes of
anticholinergic* drugs … particularly antidepressants such as Paroxetine or Amitriptyline, bladder antimuscarinics (anti-spasmodics) such as Oxybutynin or Tolterodine, antipsychotics and antiepileptic drugs.
“Anticholinergic” refers to a drug that opposes the actions of the neurotransmitter
acetylcholine, which inhibits the transmission of nerve impulses and reduces spasms of smooth muscles (for example, muscles in the bladder).
If you’ve been keeping up with my ongoing health challenges, you might see where I’m heading with this.
The upshot? Researchers found “there was nearly a 50% increased odds of dementia” when an older adult (such as yours truly) takes an anticholinergic medication daily for at least three years, and this is a double whammy for me because I currently take TWO of them … Amitriptyline (for eight years) and Tolterodine (six months).
What the fuck.
My life is complicated enough. I refuse to worry about shit like this.
I’ve got a lovely herd of free fonts for you today … everything from quirky display fonts (“Mermaid Magic”) to hand-drawn fonts (“Fluffy,” “School Story”) and a versatile script (“Scott Script”) with hundreds of fancy swashes and curlicue letterform endings. I can’t wait to experiment with them!
Woo-hoo! Incidentally, “Scott Mistic” and “Scott Script” are part of the “Scott Helpy Font Family,” which contains seven fonts altogether. (I only installed the two fonts pictured below on my iMac.)
I’ll include download links after the graphic in case you want any or all of these for your private collection.
I’m not having a wonderful day. Two nurses from the hospice showed up this afternoon to do my monthly catheter change, but the procedure didn’t go very well. An hour after they left I finally began peeing again … except I’m pishing into the catheter bag AND all over myself at the same time, which is making a big sloppy mess and feels even
worse. It’s 6:30 p.m., and we’re waiting for a third nurse — one we’ve never seen before — to come over and start from scratch.
Jesus.
Thank you for reading this. I want to grab a short nap before someone starts yanking on my tubes again.
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