The Medical Report

The very brief medical news is: Yesterday, the doctor was considerably more concerned about my high blood pressure than my hands. I’ll be starting on some new medication for it. I have a followup appointment Wednesday morning where bloodwork will be done and they will see if my pressure is still in what they casually referred to as the “stroke zone.”

They did an EKG and I got the distinct impression that if the readings had gone poorly, I might very well have been strapped to a gurney and carted to a hospital right then. But apparently the result was acceptable.

With my hands, I think it’s going to be an ongoing process of trying different stuff and observing what happens. She ruled out obvious things like carpal tunnel and broken bones. She gave me some exercises to help with a kind of tendinitis called “De Quervain’s Disease” which seems sensible, though it only sounds like part of the story to me. Incidentally, they continue to improve gradually regardless of the diagnosis.

On a different note, Blaugust officially begins tomorrow. I have a list of topics that I may or may not use, and I’ll give you fair warning that most of them are about me. I don’t normally write much about myself, but there was some discussion in the Discord channel about introductory posts and About pages and it occurred to me that I don’t have an About page on this blog, and I’ve never said much of anything about who I am or where I came from. So I thought a bunch of short posts themed around my life and history could serve as my About page in the future.

In that vein I’ve also been digging up some random camera photos I’ve taken in the past 10-15 years to use in Blaugust, mostly landscapes and animals, because I just can’t stand the thought of publishing a post without at least one thumbnail-friendly picture in it. Naturally I’m starting with a photo I didn’t take, but it was taken with my camera so I’m claiming ownership of it. :) It’s from one of the war memorials near the Washington Mall, but I don’t recall which.