(written on the 21st)
The day started with a little trip over to Walmart after getting up and leaving the Maverik. I bought food and and A new ice bin for the cooler, as while I was cleaning out the cooler, the old ice bin fell onto the ground, and because of the cold, cracked pretty good instead of just flexing.
Cracked ice bin is not going to do very well at holding the liquid inside of it. 🙃
So I bought another one, this one supposedly with a waterproof lid, which should help keep melted ice from sloshing out around corners and what not
🤞
After running the errands at Walmart, A stopped off at the bank that is Kitty corner, depositing a fairly large amount of cash into my personal account because I was concerned about having it confiscated going over the border into Canada and back.
I’ve seen too many accounts of government agencies and law enforcement seizing cash simply because it’s suspicious, with some people never getting their money back even though they’ve never done anything wrong.
By depositing the cash, I also reached my… tier-1 savings account interest accrual goal, so that’s nice. Having interest rates as high as they are has made it easier to get to that goal.
It’s still not necessarily much to write home about, but it’s nice to at least reach that tier-one goal, so to speak.
With today being my MRI day, I had something happen that seems to happen every time I get ready to go in for an important test.
Majority of my pain and nerve issues were absent.
😶
I mean, that’s great and all, but I wanted everything to be inflamed for the images, so that It would be easier to see what was going on.
I needed to do some Auto work anyway, so I figured it would be a good way to maybe aggravate my spine and nerve issues, so I drove to the AutoZone on State Street in South salt lake where I had the belt ordered for pickup, tentatively planning on replacing my rear brake pads, as they were getting thin, and I wanted to get those changed before getting back on the road again.
So I went to pick up the belt, and it turned out that once again, the order was done incorrectly, so the belt that they had ordered for me to pick up in South salt lake had actually been sent to the store that I bought it from. Fortunately, they had another one in stock at that store, so they just handed it to me.
Then I headed out to the parking lot, and started pulling out all my tools and jacking up the van and taking the wheels off and what not. I specifically chose to lift things that I wouldn’t normally lift, and in ways that weren’t so great on the body in an effort to aggravate my issues so that they might be inflamed for my MRIs, But no matter what I did, I could only Get the symptoms to mildly present themselves.
And I guess I should say the additional symptoms that I’ve been dealing with over the last few months. I think my regular symptoms, pudendal stuff and what not are pretty much always there, but the additional pains in my back and shoulder and arms and neck and what not… Those had diminished so significantly over the last several days, that I was worried that maybe The MRI images wouldn’t show everything that they could have shown.
Anyway, ran into some issues changing out the brakes. On the driver side rear, one of the caliper guide pins was rusted and mostly Frozen in place, but I was able to break it free and clean it up and grease it and put it back in.
Such was not the case on the passenger side rear, unfortunately. Once again, one of the pins was frozen in place, but this one was frozen so badly that I couldn’t unstick it from the caliper. I tried and tried and tried. I used PB blaster. I used a sledgehammer, but there was nothing doing.
In my efforts, I accidentally broke off the Caliper bleeder nipple…
😕
Fortunately, you don’t need a bleeder nipple to function properly. You just need a bleeder nipple to be able to bleed it, and my thought was that if I needed to bleed it for some reason, that would be because I replaced the caliper, so I didn’t worry too much about it.
What I did do was buy both rear calipers to be prepared, just in case. I thought about changing out the one that had the completely Frozen guide pin, as I didn’t want to burn through the brake pads faster normal, but I was running out of time before my mri imaging appointment, so I decided to just leave it as it was, guide pin completely Frozen, and just crossed my fingers and hope that it would be okay for a good while, hopefully making it through the whole trip.
🤞
Once I finish up The brake work, spending a little time helping another gentleman in the parking lot who is trying to replace his sway bar links, I headed to Murray to get myself signed in for my MRIs.
I arrived I think maybe 15 or 20 minutes early, so I spent that time trying to lift things and carry things and move things around and aggravate my back and neck issues, but it was nothing doing.
I was able to mildly aggravate my mid-back just a tad, but it was uncanny how The severity of my symptoms that I’ve been dealing with over the last few months had gone down significantly.
Anyway, the time came for me to actually go in the building and check in, so I went in, started answering some questions about my history, specifically about potential for metal in my body, one of the questions caught me a little off guard. I didn’t think I had any metal in my body, but The MRI tech asked me if maybe I’d ever gotten metal in my eye, since I was a mechanic, and the answer to that question was yes. Certainly while grinding stuff, I’ve had metal flecks fly into my eye, and it was concern enough that they sent me over to another imaging Center To get a couple of quick x-rays of my head to make sure there wasn’t any metal in my eyes.
I was about 99% sure there wasn’t, because I’m usually pretty good at getting stuff out that enters my eyes, but they were concerned enough, and I wasn’t 100% sure, so I went over, paid the 80 bucks to get the two x-rays, had them burn them to a disk, and then headed back to the MRI place.
They verified that I didn’t have any metal in my eyes, so I got changed again and began the 1st of three MRIs in a row, Cervical first, then thoracic, then lumbar, I think it was.
I was tired, so I nodded off a handful of times during the tests, but was still able to keep myself super still throughout the 45 minutes, or so, of the imaging. I think I had my leg twitch once and my arm twitch once, but other than that, I was pretty much a stone, so hopefully that means the images will be The highest quality they can possibly be. The lady seemed to think that everything was great, so I’m just waiting for the reports now.
From the MRI place, it wasn’t very far to where my friend Cory was working on a job, so I swung by to visit him. I did some JustAnswer work along the way, answering I think a couple questions before I got to him.
Gratefully, I’ve definitely been doing better at working for JustAnswer, So that’s taking a little of the pressure/stress off me.
I chatted with Cory for a little bit there, and then We headed back over to his place so he could take a shower. While he showered, I worked on cleaning out and organizing Rover a bit.
We ended up going to a Mexican restaurant near his place, and just talking all while we were there, which was a good little while, and then talking for a long time sitting in the grass across the street from his house.
I miss being able to spend time with him.
We talked about a lot of things. I’m really grateful that he’s so patient and understanding with me in my struggles. Most of the time, throughout our friendship history, we’ve talked gospel things, and I really miss that.
Gospel stuff is still what fills my heart. I just… There’s so much pain and anger and discouragement and fear and uncertainty and… on and on in my relationship with God that I just… Can’t hang on. My relationship with god is pretty much everything, and all other spiritual/religious stuff is ancillary to that.
I miss god. I miss that friendship. I miss that closeness. I miss the light.
But there’s a form of PTSD, I think, with that relationship.
One of my sisters recently recommended a book (entitled What My Bones Know) that talks about a sort of accrued PTSD (that The book description calls “complex PTSD”), from ongoing traumatic experiences over time.
I haven’t listened to the book yet, but it’s an interesting concept, and given everything that I’ve experienced over the last 15ish years, feeling like these incredibly challenging cycles just keep repeating, and given that I have sort of felt like I’ve had a mild case of PTSD for a good while (I always hesitate to say full-blown PTSD because I don’t want to diminish the experience of others, not knowing what severe PTSD really feels like, whether it could be applied to me, or whether My experience would be mild or not even considered PTSD at all), I wouldn’t be surprised if my own experience falls in line with what the author talks about.
Anyway, I talked to him for a little while and got his feedback on some things. He’s more familiar with the most challenging part of my life than anyone else besides my mother, I think, And it’s something we’ve talked about many many times over the years, so there’s some comfort In the familiarity, having walked portions of that part of my life with him.
As I think about where I might move, Utah has, perhaps surprisingly, perhaps unsurprisingly, returned to be one of the locations in the running.
That love-hate relationship that I have with Utah the place, and then so much history, so much pain.
After leaving his place, I headed over to the Walmart supercenter that’s closest to my other brother’s place in Herriman, as I planned to stop off and visit him in the morning.
There was a police officer parked with his lights on right there in the entrance, but I drove in anyway. There was a big sign in the front of the parking lot, and I don’t know if it was related to Walmart or not, So I wondered if I would get kicked out.
I think I ate some food and veged a little bit, did some question answering for JustAnswer, and then crashed for the night.
~ stephen
Lift the World 