seven weeks since I last posted.

Why? because there has been nothing to post about, exercise wise anyway.

I have five classes this term in two states. That's my excuse for not working out. It stinks. And I could work out with that schedule, I've done it before. And there's actually a few places I'd like to check out including the poetry walk at NCC.

Physically I'm in shambles and have just had the worse week of my life. Most days when I went to bed I was unsure if I'd wake up in the morning. And of course that just makes things worse.

The downward health spiral started around Thanksgiving/birthday. It was a perfect storm. 

Ball 1: I work in Jersey for one of my jobs. They offer life insurance. I know I don't qualify, but I have to jump thru the hoops. I did the mini application,  full application, and just received the "we need to contact your doctor" letter. The next letter that comes should be the rejected letter.

Strike 1: Back in October I signed up for a Part D RX plan. But I informed the state one day late and they auto enrolled me in a second. In the meantime, "my plan" sent me a letter saying I had to pay a late enrollment penalty because I didn't sign up for Part D when I signed up for medicare. Surprise. Then I got the letter saying welcome to the second plan. Two calls to a call center in India yielded no results so I ended up calling medicare. The person that answered the phone assured me that my plan was in place, and told me the price. About $9 more than I planned. Yep, that late enrollment penalty fee.

 

Strike 2: Then it was time to look for healthcare. I had till Dec. 7. You've seen all the ads. Old celebrities that Boomers loved in the 60s and 70s touting the benefits of Advantage Plans. And hip seniors touting the benefits of mainstream supplement plans. My mailbox got hit pretty hard by Highmark.

What a pain in the ass. I was not doing an advantage plan. Though you pay nothing up front they nickle and dime you with copays. I guess that's fine if you want to pay in small increments. I decided that I was just going to use the supplement service my sister's use. Easy peezy. Or so I thought. First I needed to sign up for AARP to get a discount. Then auto pay was another discount. When I started the price range was $137-$287 or something similar. With the discounts in place it dropped down to $110. Her plan, C was no longer available for people applying after 1/1/20. I start the application for G. They want a full medical history. The screen says it will take 20 minutes. I buckle down to work. I clicked AFib and the screen flashed. Odd. I clicked glaucoma and the screen flashed again. When I clicked to go to the next page I found out what the flashes were. The price going up. It was over $380, and I was five minutes in. My blood boiling, I hit cancel. I have gotten an email every day since asking to finish my application.

So then I started looking at the others. I signed up for one. It will increase my health care costs a month by about $250. (Plus $550 a quarter for medicare, and $10 for RX.) Maybe. It will be 4-6 weeks until I am approved. If not, it's back to paying that 20% copay.

Strike 3: Stress has been building in my classrooms. At the Jersey school things were okay. Their software is old, it's not really stressful. At the Pennsylvania school another instructor had the latest version of the software installed on the machines mid-term. I think it screwed with my projects. But students magazine projects were failing and I didn't know why. They were coming back from the printer with things missing from the pages. These were the best students, not the weak one. Was it that upgrade? 

In addition students are blowing off deadlines. They will make awful employees. Apparently another instructor is hammering them with a lot of work. They call him the "professor from hell". I wonder what they call me? They ask a lot of questions because they aren't listening, and they don't watch the videos. They need their hands held. Emails and Team messages will often be about "is this okay". I want to say figure it out yourself. I blame K-12. They are so busy studying to pass standardized tests that they no longer think independently. They just want it to be correct. 

You're Out: Last Monday night was stressful. I was pulled in five directions all at once. But I had walked from my remote parking space and back no problem. Tuesday I felt okay. I stopped at Angel's between classes and had some middle eastern food. Another stressful night at school. Damn I was tired when I went up to bed. The stairs kicked the shit out of me. Wednesday I was headed to Jersey and stopped at Wawa. I parked, walked in the door and barely made it past the register before I felt like I was going to collapse. I was so short of breath. I recovered pretty quickly and went back to the car and headed to school. All the stress kicked up the ducking AFib. Shit. I started deep breathing to calm my heart down. At 8:30 in the morning it's easy to park. I had to stop twice to get to the door, and I used the elevator. I stopped again on my to class. When I got to Pennsylvania, I used Pat's card and parked in the handicapped space. Every small walk I was out of breath.

It continued Thursday. In Jersey I again parked in the handicapped space. I didn't think I'd make it from the remote lot. Friday, I took Sharon to the doctor, and she wanted to go to Giant. I took a cart for fish, bread and milk. But I made it and wasn't too exhausted. I am my mother's daughter. I am a worry wort. Visions of hospitals and dying and everything in between were dancing in my head. It needed to stop. I needed to get out of my head. 

I went to yoga. (The instructor is a retired nurse. I told her what was going on.) It seemed to help, as did all the deep breathing. I decided then and there the weekend would be no-stress and kicking AFib's butt. I needed it to convert or I'd have to go have an ablation (I looked it up online. Yuck.) and I didn't want that.

Saturday I went to the grocery store with Pat. Again, I used a cart. I feel like an old lady doing that but I don't want a repeat of Wawa. Again, I did very little all day. I'd get tired walking to the bathroom and the garage. Sunday wasn't much better. I did manage to walk around Target with my cart while waiting fr my RX. And according to my fitbit I took a nap instead of watching skating. 

Maybe it's working. I don't feel as shitty today. I slept all night. Didn't even get up to pee. I walked to the garage without getting exhausted. And I only stopped once walking in from the parking lot. I still took the elevator.  But I walked to my classroom without stopping.

Maybe I converted. If I did it took a week. Let's see if I get a sleep score tomorrow. That's always a good indicator. I hope so. I have classes till the 21st. The worse of the term is over. Fingers crossed.