A King’s Ransom

It’s been a weird week. Things were naturally busy after a shortened Thanksgiving week. Then yesterday, I couldn’t log in remotely. In truth, we all log in remotely to our cloud server in the sky. It’s that cumulonimbus floating by right now. See it? I don’t have many details, but it sounds like somewhere along the way, we were hacked. I don’t think it was us specifically. I think it was one of the programs between us and that puffy white void. Apparently, it’s ransomware. There’s no real estimate of when we’ll be up and running again. And then we’ll have to notify our clients that their personal information may have been compromised.

I was sort of lounging around today, playing games and not really paying attention to much. We ate lunch and Lion asked if I’d written a post. Nope. Not yet. I went back to my desk and forgot all about a post. Lion is writing his for tomorrow morning so I thought I’d write my own. I don’t have much to say. We didn’t do anything last night. I was achy and tired. And cranky. But the crankiness might be due to the achy and tired part. Or maybe not.

I take a serotonin-norepinephrine reuptake inhibitor. I asked for something for anxiety many years ago and, as it happens, this drug also helps with pain. Unfortunately, that class of drugs also messes with libido. I had no idea. When I went to the doctor, she said it’s the likely culprit. However, I can’t just stop taking the drug. Aside from the fact that you have to taper off, I still need it for pain and anxiety. The compromise we came to was to add in a non-serotonin-norepinephrine reuptake inhibitor and back off from the evil one. The additional drug does not help with pain. And don’t I know it.

My nieces have asthma. When they were younger, they had to be rushed to the hospital a lot for severe asthma attacks. On TV, they always tell people having an asthma attack to calm down. I’ve always thought that was impossible. If I can’t breathe, I’m going to panic. And if I panic, I’m not going to be able to breathe. I feel the same way with this drug change. Am I anxious because I’m in pain or in pain because I’m anxious? Do I just need to get used to the new dosage or does my body need the higher dosage.

To be clear, the pain is not debilitating. It’s not constant. It’s insidious. It’s always there, waiting for me to screw up. Oh, see? You moved wrong. Pain. Did you really think you could mow the lawn without feeling like you’ve been run over? Nope. Sorry, but thanks for playing our game.

Ironically, exercise can help. It also causes pain. I keep thinking I can start walking to get some exercise and then we go to Costco and I’m wiped out. Sometimes, and this sounds weird to say, I’d like to trade for big pain. You know, just to change it up. The big pain, like a broken leg, would eventually stop. The nagging pain doesn’t.

Okay. So that’s my story for today, boys and girls. Tune in tomorrow for another exciting read.