leejacksonaudio

I got tired of listening to most music and decided to start writing my own. <evil grin>

I completely missed out on posting on my birthday this go-around. Granted, that was almost 2 months ago, but eh... I've hit 59 now. Will flip the 60 switch later this year.

Got the first half of my clearances - medical approval - for surgery to fix my torn right rotator cuff today. However, it comes with a referral to a nephrologist, since my kidney numbers are worse than they were last time. Still waiting on cardiac approval.

Eh, it's close, but it's not anything that you could say they infringed on me or I infringed on them. They're both unique enough pieces that they stand out from each other. Thanks for posting it, though!

"Lo Wang's Rap" from the 3D Realms game Shadow Warrior now has transcribed lyrics! Former employee Joe Siegler has taken the lyrics I transcribed from the rap and added them to his upload of the song on YouTube as Closed Captions. To see them, go to the page for his upload, turn on Closed Captioning, and enjoy! (You might have to restart the playback to see everything if you have autoplay on.) Here's the link: https://youtu.be/H7V7vMMLE7U

Yes! I made a medley out of four songs - "Kalinka," "Grabbag," "The Broad and Rolling Steppe," and the Russian National Anthem. To my knowledge, all of them (except for Grabbag) are Russian folk songs, and are public domain within the United States.

My eldest brother-in-law, James Baker, and myself, taken at the Baker Family Christmas Gathering on December 26th, 2022. He is an announcer for KPAC 88.3 FM classical public radio in San Antonio, TX. Me? Well, I'm just this guy, you know?

Had a follow-up with my hematologist the other day. More blood work. Turns out my "iron stores" are back up in the normal range, but I'm still technically anemic since my hemoglobin and hematocrit levels are below normal. She's going to wait 6 weeks and test me again. If I'm still anemic, she's going to do a bone marrow biopsy on me to figure out what's going on. Fun!

Bought some large roach baits and some heavy duty bug swatters off of Amazon. The palmetto bug roaches are starting to rear their ugly heads, thanks to the weird weather swings we're having here in North Texas. I need the roach baits to kill them off from their hiding places. That, plus I need new swatters - we misplaced our old one.

Thanks for the mention. Much obliged.

I said to hell with my medications for an hour and had a dram of the 110 proof Port Askaig single malt Islay scotch whisky, softened by a wee measure of water to open it up, right at Midnight CST. It was worth the effort, even if it did have a bit of a burn to it. 'Tis to be expected at 110 proof.

MY CT SCAN GOT CANCELLED. I was told that it was cancelled earlier in the week because they couldn't do the scan at their facility on account of my allergy to the CT contrast medium. It's got to be done at a hospital, where there is rapid access to ER facilities in case I have an anaphylactic reaction. Now, why nobody contacted me prior to today is anyone's guess: they say they told my doctor, so it's the doctor's fault. I don't care whose fault it is, this shouldn't have happened. Now I've got to do it in a hospital after my catastrophic deductible resets, which means money out of my pocket. Thanks, guys.

/b/ was never good.

I'm undergoing a CT scan with contrast media today of my lower abdomen and lower extremities. As simple as this might sound, it's in fact a rather risky proposition. You see, I'm allergic to contrast media. It makes my chest tighten up, and it makes me wheeze. So, I've got to be pre-medicated. They've got me taking several doses of prednisone (oral steroid) prior to the scan. Only problem there is I've had allergic reactions to oral steroids in the past as well - they've given me atrial fibrillations. Not good for someone with HFpEF. In order to get around that, they've got me taking Benadryl with the prednisone. To say I'm nervous over the situation would be putting it mildly. I've already taken my first prednisone/Benadryl dose. My next dose is at 7am CST, followed by a last dose at 1pm before my scan at 2pm. Here's hoping my heart holds together until then, in spite of the whole HFpEF situation.

We're dealing with global sprawl here. In NZ/AUS, it's closer to the new year.

Web page updated: https://dleejackson.lbjackson.com/2022/12/heart-issues-under-investigation/

Well, hell. I just had my follow-up with the cardiologist concerning the echocardiogram. Turns out it did not rule out heart failure, or so he said. What he now suspects is something called "Heart Failure with Preserved Ejection Fraction," or HFpEF for short (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3056204/). It's a tricky little deal where, as he put it, the heart builds up fluid, but also gets stiffer. We think. Anyway, he's ordered more blood work and a nuclear chemical stress test on me for some time in the next week or so to further diagnose the situation, as well as to try and give me cardiac clearance to FINALLY get my torn right rotator cuff operated on come January 19th (yes, all of that came down today!). Until the tests, I'm on an 81mg aspirin per day regimen (baby aspirin). It's moving at warp speed now. Good lord.

Had my evaluation for the lymphedema pump - they're going to get me one and have someone come out to use it on me, starting in January. They'll also be putting something on me called "unna boots" to reduce the swelling. Hope it all works.

Getting evaluated for Home Health services today, specifically those related to a lymphedema pump for my legs. We're going to get medieval on my leg swelling, most likely. I'm not 100% sure what it'll entail - will report back.

Brazilian light roast coffee. Lotsa cream, lotsa Equal.

Had surgery today - bilateral lumbar rhizotomy to reduce lower back pain. Went well, I guess. Still waiting for it to kick in. Trying to get anesthesia out of system. Groggy most of day. One big plus: we get Schlotzsky's after these operations. Good stuff. :)

Happy holiday (happy holiday) Happy holiday (happy holiday) While the merry bells keep ringing Happy holiday to you We had a Christmas breakfast party with my son and his wife's family this morning. Exchanged "Secret Santa" presents. I got a set of four 8oz. crystal "lowball" cocktail glasses and a bottle of goji berry liqueur (can't recommend - even my son's wife said it tastes like Robitussin). I gave a set of heavy-duty plastic storage shelves to my son's father-in-law. He was happy with what he got, as was I despite the Robitussin.

Only some cats. Ours cringe and hide when we open the front door.

Ah, but the opposite! We have different hearing losses, so we have to make sure we don't pick up the other person's devices. She's got one color (don't remember), and I've got "diamond black."

My wife and I are both getting new hearing aids: https://www.soundly.com/product/oticon-more-3 This will be her first pair of hearing aids. She's got a hearing loss profile that shows some loss in the low and high frequencies, with a spike of normalcy in the 2kHz range. As for me, this is my second pair. My hearing is perfect in the low frequencies, but then starts dropping off around 4kHz and becomes more profound around 8kHz. (I guess that explains my proclivity for bass lines in my music. ). It's gonna be interesting.