Not today, sorry.
Started back on the meds this morning, Duloxetine and Vyvance, others too, but these two are what I call my crazy pills. Supposedly, I’m more likable today, though.. I think that might take a few more days to kick in.
I exerted my brain analyzing Shag’s confession last night, I kept having to walk and had to force myself to finish. They just as I went to post I started to have some website issues. At first I thought I was getting DDOS’ed (a type of cyber attack designed to take a website offline.) I spent over an hour searching for identifiable traffic patterns to block. That hurt. I don’t know how I used to do that, to see all the numbers.
Finally I had to stop and walk away, better the site be down than my brain explode. After spending some time to calm myself, I came back and started over. What is the most likely cause? I hadn’t done anything to the server, updated software or anything like that. Looking at my traffic graphs, the server has been doing well with the load it’s under. I couldn’t figure it out and I had to try to remember what I would have used to do.
My servers have always been kind of boring. Most exciting time was back in ’09 when I had a client selling LED lights, and with some SEO magic got himself on the Yahoo front page for Earth Day. Yeah, that blew the heck out of everything until I figured out what was going on. That looked like a DDOS too (tons of incoming traffic,) except it was all good traffic that needed to be served. Once I sized up the server, everything was good again. Other than that, the only time I’ve had database issues is when the disk got to full to hold more log files.
Hmm, is the disk full? It was. Full of logs. I spent an hour and a half beating my brain against the wall because I didn’t check the simplest solution first. There is a lesson in there… and I’m gonna drop, that’s an easter egg for you I guess. After that, I posted and went to sleep.
I don’t know what my dreams have been and this morning I woke dripping in sweat in a full blown panic attack or night terror or I don’t know what it was except unpleasant, very unpleasant. This has grown over the last few weeks as I’ve been sleeping less, typing more, and finally, getting some things off my chest. Each day as I’ve written more of latest story, I wake the next day I read it. Sometimes, if feels like it wasn’t even me writing it, and I devour it like another person writing about my life.
The insights I’ve found out about myself, just letting my mind wander where it will. This morning it all rushed back, the before, the after, the during, the coma, waking up, being “debriefed” on my incident, oh and the PT and failed surgical interventions, the inhumanities that I have had to endure, the pain and the suffering of more than just my body. With that task done last night, I just needed to write a letter to the Sheriffs to begin the investigation. Then, just an email to send the links, all my work is already here in the public light.
That and a phone call with Comcast (unproductive) consumed the entire morning and into the afternoon. Next up the banking issues, I do like the Chime account and it doesn’t work with GoFundMe for whatever reason. I have a new bank account, just a few hundred feet away, opened today with Blue Ox Credit Union. I was happy as soon as I got home, it worked perfectly with GoFundMe.
The bank was challenging. After the hassles I’ve gone through the last few weeks trying to get the Chime working, two days ago I decided to skip it, and just get a new account. So that’s what I went to do yesterday, except it was Wenesday. I guess not all banks have bankers hours. I should have told myself I was a calm and patient person, I needed to hear it.
Wednesdays, they close to enhance customer service by doing additional training. Is it me? How do you provide better customer service by not providing customer service? In front of the door was an A sign with QR code on it. Take a picture to set an appointment (because just leaving the door unlocked and letting customers walk inside is too hard.)
Photo the code and it redirects to an 800 number with a call center who knows where. Put on hold, too l long for me to keep standing there, I walked back home. About twenty minutes in the call, the tech came back and said she’d just have to take my name and number and let the branch call me back when they could. Couldn’t they have done that first?
I got a call back several hours later. I should have told myself I’m a calm and patient person. Instead I gave a lesson on what “bankers hours” is supposed to mean. She tried hard to set an appointment with me and I did not let her. I’m the customer I said, you’re the bank. Tomorrow, I might walk in there sometime during your hours and I will expect service. Either you’ll be able to provide when I want it, or you will lose me as a customer. That is how this is going to work.
Today, this is how it worked. After the morning stuff I walked over, asked to open a new account at the teller window – and I swear I saw a few looks, as he hurried told me that they’d be happy to help. Just a few minutes waiting in a chair, and Trisha called and led me back to her office.
Simple request, I had ten dollars in quarters to open a new savings account, here is my id and ss card. I can’t remember the fist question she asked that started to seem confusing. I think my next words might have been “huffed up” and I found her to be a very direct communicator.
“I just want to let you know that I’m good with about everything, but if you get loud and start to yell I am going to kick you right out of here.”
See that consequence slam down when you set up a proper conditional! She let me have it, hard enough to make me smile and laugh. I apologized and told a small bit of my story, a part that is starting to make me feel more comfortable. I’m sorry, I have a TBI and I might not be very good at communicating effectively. Some people won’t listen to all that I say, and shout their own words back to quick.
She had stopped what she was doing and turned to look right at me as I spoke to her. She listened, we connected and I shared a few bits of my story. After that, she started to talk slower and a notch softer and she let me know she wouldn’t try to rush. I explained again what I was trying to do, I just need a simple account with routing number for my GoFundMe money to go into. I don’t know how long it’s supposed to take, but it was only maybe twenty minutes. More to learn there too.. will reread tomorrow.
She’d written a few notes on the printout paper, and I was able to quickly get my online account setup once I got home- and it works perfectly with the GoFundMe, so I will have access to that soon.
All in all a good day, so glad to have reached a book end and I really do need to take a few days off thinking. Look at my title: blah. Sorry folks, that is going to be what we get the next few days while I settle down more from the last few weeks, as well as get used to these meds again and try not to wonder what my future could be.
When I was young my father, or my stepmother, or my grandmother, or all three used to work at a place called Cedar Knoll. It was a retirement home or assisted living of some sorts, or a home for the mentally insane, I can’t really remember. I was young, and mostly I remember the smell. Oh, the smell of medicine. A deep dank scent of medicine.
Men in wheelchairs, screaming at a blank TV. “Sit on your hands Tom, sit on your hands!” screaming as if at a dog. I don’t know Tom, I didn’t know him then, I do remember him being told to sit on his hands. A few socialites gathered together and the rest, just staring at walls.
Is that what I am, is that what the mirror is trying to show me? How can I feel so much more enlightened inside, yet somehow let less of it out? I’ve started to notice pauses when I speak, like today at the bank. Just in the middle of sentence a word will disappear as it proceeds to the tip of my tongue. A few seconds pause as the gears slip, and one slow breathe until they re-engaged.
Out of tobacco again, going to quit again for a while. Should be good timing with the Vyvance as that will easily substitute the effect. Really, my tobacco addiction was probably my own medication for that. Will sweep up the floor and put away all my pipes and tobacco jar in the cabinet tonight, out of sight and hopefully out of mind for tomorrow.
Time to rest.