1. Vastly better ability to focus and maintain current trains of thought.  It also seems easier to think clearly in general.  I could work on the same thing without distraction for upwards of 40 minutes+, an approximate 10-fold improvement over my doped-free self.  Also, I'm able to do things without getting sidetracked or forgetting mid-stream what I meant to do, both of which were regular occurances for me.
2. Sort of a corollary to 1, but I'm able to ignore distractions much more effectively.  E-mail, web surfing, side coversations, IM all seemed less enticing draws while I was working on stuff.
3. Higher energy level.  I went through a 6-hour interview loop yesterday followed by 3 or 4 hours of finishing my programming assignment.  I really didn't feel tired at all through the whole thing until about 30 minutes before I finally went to bed.

Con's

1. A mild headache that isn't enough to take medicine for, but enough to be annoying.  I had it nearly all day and night.
2. Sleeplessness.  I went to bed at 1 and woke up at 5:30 and didn't really sleep fitfully in-between.  I did chuckle hearing Karen talking in her sleep, in a very sarcastic and caustic tone...hahaha...it's weird, it was like she was condescending to someone she was dreaming about...maybe the dream-version of me?
3. I found myself many times yesterday talking loudly and excitedly.  I had to consciously curtail my chatter...
4. Most alarmingly, a skyrocketed BP increase, post-Adderall in the neighborhood of ~137/97.

 

I'm not sure what % of the perceived pro's and con's are just placebo effect.  For right now, it's not a slam-dunk for me one way or the other, i.e. it's an easy call to keep taking it or not take it anymore. 

I took 2 yesterday and it was too much.  As such, I'm refraining today and I'll have another one tommorrow AM, as per my doctor's actual instructions (1 week take 1, next week take 2, week after that try 3, all the while monitoring BP and stopping if it gets too high)

I'll play the guinea pig just a while longer...=)

 

• Groovin' with Mozart
• Gobbling grapes
• Cranking up the fart-stink
• Getting my stretch-on in Yoga class

As of 10:03am EDT (incidentally, I had to look up here to know the difference between daylight and savings time.  Karen loves factoids about stuff like this, meteorology and geography but I know virtually nothing about any of these things) I weigh 182lbs and my blood pressure is 134/79. 

What significance do those figures bear out?  Well, to everyone who isn't me, basically none.  =)  But in my own little version of Gaithersburg's Biggest Loser, on a daily basis I've been trying to get out to the gym and 182 is about 10lbs less than I weighed before I left Seattle.  Toiling away on the treadmill and the stepmill (which is seriously like some modern day medieval torture device) has shaved 3 or 4 points off my top (systolic) and bottom (diastolic) blood pressure numbers. 

Given my height, 182lbs equates to a BMI of 25.4, so right on the border of "not overweight".
134/79 puts me on the prehypertensive/normal blood pressure border, whereas I used to spend all my time in Prehypertensive-ville.

Apparently, exercise works, so I have to find a way to regularly go to the gym once I'm back in Seattle.  Both sides of my family have heart disease and blood pressure issues and over the next year or so, I'm signing up for life insurance.  A decent weight and blood pressure should help me get a better rate...

Short version: Yay for me!  Almost no more muffin top!

My dad's support system is pretty complex. 

• My sister handles his bills and getting his medicines into his pill container.
• His helper, Mrs. Pei cooks his meals and does some light cleaning.
• His other helper, Mr Sun (sun, mister golden sun) helps him get in and out of his wheelchair and drives him around.  He also helps him go to the bathroom and shower and sleeps in the same room with him overnight in case my dad has any sort of emergency.
• He also has a hospice support worker who comes to check on him, makes sure his meds are delivered, checks his blood pressure and if anything unusual is happening (e.g. pain, constipation, diarrhea, fatigue, etc).  There is also a hospice nurse and chaplain available, though my dad doesn't use their help yet.
  
• There's also oral surgeons (he has an abscessed tooth and exposed bone at the base of his upper jaw), his oncologists as well as his general physician.

Most days my dad just watches the Olympics, has his meals, and takes care of his teeth.  He takes a lot of morphine and I think his general fatigue makes him sort of surly, mostly towards Mr Sun (though, lets just say that Mr Sun is not the sharpest tool in the shed and my dad, even when healthier and happier, didn't suffer fools gladly).  Dad can't remember things, his speech is very weak and he can't hear very well (though that started far earlier).

I spoke a little with the hospice nurse today and just in general, I find the entire hospice vernacular a little defeatist...There's a lot of talk around managing pain and basically no talk about fighting.

Mainly I've spent my time here translating and sitting/listening with my dad in the appointments with his oral surgeons, financial adviser, nurses, etc and also pushing him to eat things that are good for him and generally trying to be helpful/productive around the house here.

People comment or ask sometimes some variation of how hard it must be to see my dad in this condition.  No question, its awful.  My mom last year, my dad this year...I could honestly be happy going the rest of my life never seeing the inside of another hospital.  My dad's face looks sunken-in and fragile and aged and the health decline over the last 6 months has been precipitous. 

But my mom and my dad were exceedingly practical people and sitting around feeling sorry for him, and in a sense for myself, doesn't help anyone.  I owe my dad my best effort in helping him make his life as good and as comfortable as I can right now.  At the end of the day, pity and sadness feel at best like weakness and at worst like selfish indulgences if they don't help me do better for him.

And some pictures from along the way...

1. Jacob
2. Mina
3. Amanda
4. Patty
5. Jin Moo & Ho Joon

"Stomach flu" is a euphemism if I ever heard one.  They should call it "Toilet flu" b/c if you've got it, both ends of you will see the toilet plenty.  I've had more than my share of undignified health/physiology problems; in-the-nostril zits, hemmorhoids, lots of dairy w/o Lactaid (lactose intolerance etc) ...

1. The nose zits are gross and hurt like the Dickens when you bump one while digging for gold, but if you're careful they're tolerable.
2. Hemmorhoids weren't terrible in and of themselves either.  Though, my mom heard from my overly-confiding wife that I had them.  Afterwards, my mom constantly called me for State of the Anus progress reports.  She also took me to a short, little chinese proctologist who worked on my Grampa, and I had the surreal experience of looking through a 6 catalog-style pages of full-page glossies of myriad hemmorhoids (I felt like a bride picking a wedding dress..."Ooh, I like this one...is there a version that's more frilly?")
3. It's inconvenient being lactose intolerant, but I put myself in those situations where I have dairy w/o a dairy pill.  To be frank, it's usually the people in close-proximity to me who suffer more than I do when I don't take a pill...

But, you just feel so bad and so gross during a Toilet Flu that I'd take any 2 of the above 3 instead of it...

 

p.s. apologies to my more high-browed readership.  i try not to sink to bathroom humor, but i haven't posted anything in a while and what can i say...part of my mind will forever remain 13 and amused by low-brow material.  plus it's not like i'm making any of this stuff up...it's just what i got on my plate at the moment.  <insert your own joke about on-the-plate-now-soon-to-be-in-toilet>