Been A While

Winter Bark Park

It's been over a week since I was last at the gym, mostly because the weather's been horrid (to drive in), and there were too many appointments for either me or my kid before the end of winter break. My kid went back to school yesterday and although it is very cold out, it's not snowing, sleeting, hailing or any combination of wintry mix. Temps, however, are forecast to drop into the single digits with wind chills making it feel like negative numbers. 

I've still had to shovel my driveway, walkway, and a path to the woodpile (always finding shed snake skins), and then load up two wheelbarrows worth of firewood. So, it's not like I've been slacking. None of this makes my sciatica feel any better. 

I do have approval from the health insurance gods to get an MRI although it's a bit iffy as to how much this is going to cost me cuz my hubs has changed our plan twice already. We went from a moderate copay with a "reasonable" deductible to zero copay to a high deductible, which meant that doc visits and prescriptions are now hundreds of dollars until I hit that amount. And then insurance will cover it until it hits an arbitrary max amount. Or maybe it's the other way round... 

And then we switched back to the copay lower deductible after I complained that one of my eye drops went from $60 to $600. Sure, I'm gonna hit that deductible really fast (something I don't normally do under the reasonable deductible plan) but I'm balking at shelling out thousands of dollars for meds and doc visits. The high deductible plan is obviously cheaper for the employee (less of a premium hit for every paycheck) but comes to the same amount in total if we hit all the maximums. I think we're back to the lower deductible but my hubs is under the impression that this can be changed every six months. Nothing in the literature says that, but he didn't share those docs with me until yesterday. 

I went to the gym today and did a session of cardio, a set of pull-ups which finally felt "normal" although the sciatica did hit me during the last few reps as I reflexively curled my legs up to assist, and then, most of my routine in the Aerobics Room. Still skipping hip bridges because other movements still make my foot go numb and cause my right glute to throb. The lower calf still hurts a lot when this happens. Honestly, physical therapy didn't do anything for me. Nothing has improved. At the end of the day, I'm in enough pain to make laying in bed very uncomfortable. 

Oddly, the only positive thing I've noticed is that I ran out of fish oil supplements, decided they were much too expensive to buy again, and after 4-5 days, the descending darkness clouding my right eye cleared up. I might have to take that VF (visual field test) again and see if the apparent vision loss progression has, in fact, reversed. Something to cheer about, right?

It's also time for me to apply for Medicare cuz I'm 65 and ain't getting any younger. I'm technically too young for full Social Security benefits but the admin keeps moving the goalposts, so I foresee never being able to qualify to collect on that, even though I've paid into it for years. And I don't expect anything else to change except more paperwork, more spam calls, more scam calls and phishing emails. Cuz these are the interesting times we live in and consumer protections are just a memory. 

20 Jan 2026 12:58-2:07

Frigid Tuesday

Bare Basics

Precor elliptical #1 (1:35)

Program 1

Time: 30 + 5 (5282)

Distance: 2.74

Cal: 299

Avg Hr: 152, 171-71

FitBit: low battery

HGPU 15 (sciatica rep 12 curl legs up)

20 Piriformis/Hip/Pencil Stretch

10 Hamstring/ stretches

DeadBugs 20 x 5 (mild sciatica)

10 Piriformis stretches

Child’s Pose

Cat/Cow stretch 12

Child’s Pose

Fire Hydrants 25 x 2

Bird Dog Planks 60s x 2

Arm rotations 20

Push-Ups 25 (sore lower back)

Air Squats 25

Neck Stretch / eye yoga