Bill Roper's Journal

Got my first shingles shot this morning. So far, not too bad. My arm is sore.

We'll see how I'm doing tomorrow.

It took a few tries, but the last set of contact lenses we pulled seem to be doing the job. I'm reading the computer screen without eyestrain and my distance vision is still good. When I was at Wrigley Field on Friday, I was able to focus on and resolve the individual squares in the netting behind the plate from my seat in Terrace Reserved.

My eyes are still a bit less flexible than they used to be, so it takes a few minutes to shift from "best close vision" to "best distance vision" as I shift focal lengths. It's not as noticeable in bright sunlight, because my iris stops down and improves my depth of field. At night, it takes a little longer to stretch out -- not that my vision is bad; it's just not as *good* as it can be.

All things considered, we'll call this a success.

I had an appointment for the post-lithotripsy follow-up with my urologist today. The X-ray showed an all-clear, so we are planning a check up in a year just to make sure that the problem hasn't decided to recur, but with any luck, it won't. He was impressed by the collection of stones that I sent him and is sending them to the lab to find out what variety I was sporting.

Unfortunately, due to short sleep and some sinus trouble, I was a wreck this afternoon and finally decided that the best thing to do was to crawl back into bed. I am feeling much better now, so tomorrow should be productive, I hope!

After yesterday's stone fall, I am feeling *much* better today. This is good.

It also means that I have no excuses for not finishing up the mountain of things that should have gotten done in the last two weeks but didn't because I've been under the weather. First up: finishing the taxes.

I decided to take today easy and see if I can encourage things to improve. We'll see how this strategy worked tomorrow.

Today, the pain from my kidney stone went away (happily!), but my lower digestive tract decided that it wanted to get in on the fun. And I think I am *still* trying to pass some more small stones. The net result was that I got less done than I had hoped to today. The bills are paid, but the taxes still aren't finished. But I don't have that much to do, so I should be able to finish them up in the next couple of days.

Except...

The wired network connection to the office has gone down. Now the work computer (on which I am typing) has Wi-fi, so I have fired up the Wi-fi, gotten on the VPN, and will actually be able to work for work tomorrow.

The old desktop computer (which I still have not finished moving off of) does *not* have Wi-fi. The new one does, but this isn't much help at this very moment, although it's giving me a strong incentive to finish moving everything over.

In the meantime, I have ordered a new Wi-fi dongle for the old computer. It should arrive tomorrow.

And then maybe I will be able to get some work done while I figure out what has to be done to fix the wired connection.

(The wired connection looked ok in the basement when I investigated there. The network socket on the upstairs end has been under a lot of strain for some years. I got K to get down and unwire the socket from the wall. I eventually managed to get the socket out of the plate (where it had been misinstalled in a way that was creating the strain), but I think I killed the socket in the process, so that is going to have to be rewired to see if it was the source of the problem.

I *think* there is a spare socket in the basement. However, there is no time to do the wiring now, so...)

All things must pass.

In this case, it was the large remnant of the kidney stone that got beaten up by lithotripsy on Monday. This particular bit was hard, elongated, and the length compares favorably with the .8 cm that was quoted as the size of the original stone. I was able to retrieve it, so I'll be able to take it in to the urologist at my follow up appointment.

We'll see if anything else shows up, but with any luck the problem is now taken care of.

Yesterday, I felt pretty good after the lithotripsy.

Today, everything hurts. Sleep will be good and we'll see how everything feels tomorrow. :)

Today was the matinee performance that was the finale for "The Little Mermaid" over at Maine West. The sound problems were at a minimum today and the cast did a fine job of wrapping it up.

I got a chance to chat with the director after the show and he was very pleased with the job that K had done as a student director, which was great to hear.

Everyone is now fed. This is good, because tomorrow I will not be eating for a while as this is the scheduled day of my lithotripsy. I am not exactly looking forward to this, but I am hoping that we can get the rest of the stone in this kidney.

Fingers crossed!

I went off to the doctor for my pre-op physical. It turns out that both my blood work and EKG from my previous physical are recent enough to be used to qualify for this, which saved a few tubes of blood from being drawn today (although we drew for an A1c check). And my lungs sound fine, despite the persistent cough, so I should be good to get my kidney hammered with ultrasound in a few weeks.

The doc commented that the remaining stone may not be solid, but a pile of rubble that could shed a tiny bit at any time, so trying to get it out of there seems like a good idea to him too. Me, well, he mentioned that and I started visualizing this *tiny* little asteroid in my kidney, since so many of those are rubble piles too.

Maybe we could do the whole "Fantastic Voyage" thing, except with Bruce Willis and "Armageddon" to take care of it...