Tag: health

Another scariest day of my life

On By Michel McDonaldIn HealthLeave a comment

I wrote a health blog post in October 2021 called the scariest day of my life. That day I woke up and went to the bathroom, as you do, but I was having issues urinating. I stood up and looked in the toilet and it was nothing but blood. I went to the ER and they did a CT scan and told me it’s possible I have bladder cancer. They didn’t know why I was urinating blood. I was told to see my regular doctor and a urologist. My doctor gave the referral and I saw a urologist who said I had an enlarged prostate. He gave me Flomax and suddenly I was able to urinate easier, and he ran a camera into my bladder and I could see the inside of my bladder and it didn’t look like there were any issues. They didn’t know why that happened to me.

This week on Wednesday June 18th, 2025 I woke up and everything was normal, but then later in the afternoon I went to the bathroom and I was standing up, but I wasn’t looking in the toilet. I went to flush and saw all of the water was red. I tried going again later, but it was difficult to get anything out, but there was some blood dripping out. The doctor called and told me it sounds like I’m passing a kidney stone. They told me I had stones at one point, so I guess they assumed that’s what was happening. She told me to go to the emergency room immediately, and so I did.

We went to the emergency room at around 6:30pm and they asked for a urine sample. I went to the bathroom and it was a struggle, but I managed to fill the cup with blood. It was so dark that it looked more like a paint sample.

They brought me to a room to find out why I was there, then they did a CT scan, and then they took blood and after several hours they brought me back there to the desk where they look at your insurance information and wait for the doctor. There weren’t any beds, so I saw the doctor while sitting in the chair and he told me there were blood clots in my bladder, so no stones. I told him I couldn’t urinate easily, because pissing out blood clots hurts like hell, so he said we can irrigate your bladder, and so they did that.

Finally around 11:30pm they brought me to one of the beds and told me to remove all of my clothes and put the gown on and they set me up on the bed to get ready for hell lol. It was not pleasant at all. They had to insert a catheter and oh my freaking God, that was so painful. At first he started putting it in, but then took it out because he said it was too big, so then he put a smaller one in there. Holy fucking Shit! That fucking hurt going in, but once it was in, I was fine. They had 2 huge bags of what I can only assume was gallons of saline water. It wasn’t the normal IV bag you see, these bags were huge. You see the tube of saline going in and then there was another tube with blood going out. That took about 2 hours. Then he took the catheter out and it still hurt for several minutes after he pulled it out.

I was told I had a UTI and that could be the cause. I was told the last time I had a UTI before I urinated blood, but not much was done for me, and then I urinated blood, but this time they gave me an IV with an antibiotic and they prescribed an antibiotic to take twice a day for 7 days.

Ok, so I came home and had the urge to urinate, and not thinking anything would happen, I stood in front of the toilet and let the gates open, and I screamed bloody murder because it felt like my dick was on fire. 3 or 4 blood clots immediately shot out like a rocket and some blood and urine came out and I clenched so fast to stop the flow and that hurt too, but even more.

The guy who inserted the catheter told me I will be in pain for the next 4 days, but I didn’t understand until I came home and went to urinate like nothing had just happened. The next day was hell every time I had to urinate, then the next day, and today is day 3 and it still stings a little, but it is getting easier. I didn’t realize this would be the result of having a catheter. Even though I hate that I’m going through this now, I don’t regret having them irrigate my bladder because I would’ve had to suffer from pushing out all of the blood clots on my own at home like the last time.

I am seeing my doctor on Monday morning and then she’ll put in a referral for the urologist and they’ll probably go in with a camera again like the last time to see what is going on. Was it just a result of a UTI that I had no idea I had, or is it something worse? I was told by the nurse who inserted the catheter that this is typically happening because a patient has bladder cancer, so even though I don’t want to accept that it might be cancer, I’m not ruling anything out. I won’t have a choice but to accept whatever the outcome is when they examine my bladder.

This whole thing really sucks. I don’t know why this is happening. I just turned 55 years old. This getting old bullshit is pissing me off lol. I don’t want to do it anymore. Is there a way I can go backward?

Update: I saw my doctor and she gave me a referral for the urologist who is so busy that I have to wait 4 weeks to see them. My doctor told me that she isn’t convinced I have a UTI. I actually took all of the antibiotics that they gave me and a few days after I finished it all started again. I was urinating blood for another 24 hours. I told my doctor and she said I think you are passing kidney stones. I’m better now, and she told me she tried to reroute my referral to expedite the appointment and the referral department told me to call the urologist and they told me no, they can’t expedite or reroute my appointment. My appointment is still the same and I just have to wait and there’s just no getting around it. So I guess we will see what happens in August.

Let’s try this weight loss again

On By Michel McDonaldIn Health, UncategorizedLeave a comment

I quit smoking in 1996 because I was trying to be healthy, and I was just getting tired of smoking. I discovered food tasted so much better and I traded one bad habit for another and literally gained 50lbs in the first 2 months, which is the reason so many people won’t quit smoking. Gradually over time the weight went up, and now I am more than 100lbs overweight.

I have tried losing weight in the past and I have logged it here in my blog. I did the Noom app and ate Weight Watchers Smart Ones and one year I lost 70 lb in 6 months. That didn’t last and the weight went up eventually and I gained it all back and then some. I think the problem then was I had lost my motivation because I stopped losing weight and it didn’t seem to want to drop anymore. I just went back to regular eating and eventually overeating again.

In late April we went to the clinic and met our new doctor. She saw from my medical history that my blood sugar has been high and I showed her the “True Manager Air” log for my True Metrix blood sugar gadget and the highs were pretty much 180 to 200 daily. I take a medication called Trijardy for blood sugar because at one point it was in the 500’s. The Trijardy has helped bring it down, but it was still too high. She suggested trying something new.

She told me about a medicine that I can inject into my stomach that will trick my brain into thinking I’m not hungry which will make me eat less and some foods might make me physically sick or give me nausea. I said sure, sounds great. It took a while getting it because the insurance wouldn’t pay for Monjaro, so she changed it to Ozempic.

We went back to the doctor for my follow up appointment which was supposed to be after taking it for a month, but because it was difficult to get the medicine, the follow up was after 3 weeks instead.

Y’all! I cannot even begin to tell you how happy and excited this doctor was for me that I had lost 14lbs after just 3 weeks. She was more excited for me than I was. I really love her. I hope she will be my doctor for a long time. I hate that this clinic goes through doctors like TicTacs.

So she had me on .25 mg to start me out and after she saw I had lost weight, she changed the dose to .5mg. I am wondering if I have not gotten a lot of the side effects on the .25 mg that I might get the side effects from the .5 mg, maybe even more so. Not looking forward to that.

She told me the side effects could be nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, constipation and I forget what else. I can handle constipation and diarrhea because I’ve been dealing with that for a long time anyway. I hate vomiting, but I won’t vomit if I don’t overeat. I don’t mind the nausea because the nausea will tell me hey, maybe don’t eat that. We were actually walking through the grocery store in the bakery department, and something, I don’t know what it was, made me feel so sick to my stomach and I almost retched right there in the store. I couldn’t get away fast enough from that smell. I hope it wasn’t something that I loved.

So, in the past 3 weeks that I’ve been on this Ozempic, I have actually not been very hungry. I’m only eating lunch and dinner because I know I have to eat. So it really does trick my brain into thinking that I’m not hungry. Today we decided to go to Taco Bell and one taco literally filled my stomach. I couldn’t eat another bite after that. Which is great because it was only 170 calories.

I’m eating the Weight Watchers Smart Ones frozen dinners again and I’m snacking on low-fat string cheese and I told the doctor that and she said that’s great. Keep doing that if that’s what works for you. We also buy bags of frozen vegetables from Aldi. They don’t have a lot of calories and they will fill me up and the fiber from the vegetables is probably going to help me with the constipation issues lol. At least I think that’s how vegetables work. I’m not sure.

So the doctor told me that some people have lost over 100lbs taking this medicine and that’s great because I am 100 lb overweight. I was 115 lbs overweight, but now I’m only 100 lb overweight. I don’t expect to get back down to 150 which is what I used to weigh because I have built muscle over the years since I used to weigh 150 lb, but I would like to get back down to at least 160lbs if that’s even possible.

I just can’t stand this weight anymore. It’s like carrying around a child and I don’t even have children. Not being hungry all the time will definitely help me lose weight. The method for which getting this medicine into my body is injecting it into my stomach once a week. The needle is so tiny it doesn’t even hurt, I don’t even feel it. I have to press it into my stomach while pinching my skin (and fat lol) and press the button on the pen to make the medicine go into my stomach, and then I have to wait I think she told me 10 seconds, but I can’t remember so I hold it in for 30 seconds just in case. They said to hold it in for a little bit longer just to make sure that all of the medicine gets inside my body.

Suddenly I finally have motivation to lose weight and continue trying to lose weight until it’s all gone because I have something that will make me not feel hungry all the time. And that’s my problem. I’m hungry literally all the time. We will go to a restaurant and I will come home stuffed and literally an hour later I’m hungry again. I don’t like being hungry all the time. My stomach must have expanded so much that it needs more and more food. By not eating so much food all the time, my stomach will shrink down and I will get full faster by eating normal portions. Once that happens and I’ve lost enough weight, then I will be able to continue living my life and eating like a normal person and be full a lot faster than I do now.

So, I was 265 lbs in April when she first weighed me and as of this writing I weigh 248 lbs. I would like to get down to 160 lbs at least. My blood sugar like I said before was between 180 and 200 and today it was 105. Normal is between 80 and 120.

So my weight loss story will continue and I will update my progress.

Update 7/27/2023: I’ve lost 50lbs total. I’m working on a video and have updated the video.

Update 8/11/2023: I’ve lost 60lbs total.

My Triglycerides Are Super High

On By Michel McDonaldIn HealthLeave a comment

My triglycerides have been an issue for a long time. I gained weight when I quit smoking in 1996 because I was tasting food for the first time, or at least it seemed that way because I was actually getting the full flavor of the food for the first time. I guess I had just forgotten what food was supposed to taste like and I went a little overboard. I was 150lbs and gained 50lbs in the first 2 months when I quit smoking. Over the years I gradually gained so much weight until I was my highest at 262lbs in 2013. I lost 70lbs, but I stopped losing weight, and nearly all of the weight came back.

Last month the doctor told me to get my blood tests done a week before our appointment. I was supposed to go in last week on Friday, and we did come in, but the guy just left for lunch and we didn’t want to wait an hour for him to come back, so we just went home and decided to come back on Monday morning. When we went to our appointment today, the doctor told me that my triglycerides were extremely high. He said they should be 150, but they are 332 or so. That’s more than double what they should be.

He told me it’s from eating too many fatty foods, but the problem isn’t the foods that I eat, because I don’t eat fatty foods that often. In fact, it’s very rare. We had Burger King twice this month, and that’s the first time we’ve had Burger King in years. We don’t eat fast food, like ever. When we go to the mall and we get hungry, I always get Subway. That’s about that only fast food I will eat because it’s supposed to be good for you. We don’t eat Subway that often, but when we do eat at a fast food restaurant, it’s usually Subway. At home, I am usually always eating skinless boneless chicken breast and I cut out all the fat. I don’t eat red meat, chicken is the only meat I will eat.

Here’s my issue, I’ve been going to Planet Fitness for 5 weeks. I don’t eat fatty foods. I think the blood report he was looking at wasn’t the new report from Monday, but from my last report from several months ago. He had me do more blood work today, so next month I will find out the results.

Fish OilI asked him what I can do to fix this and he told me fish oil. So, I went to Albertson’s when we came home and bought some fish oil. I read the directions and it says to take 3 pills with a meal every day, so that’s exactly what I will do for the next month. It’s a 30 day supply, so it looks like I will be taking 3 pills a day for the next several months until my next blood report. Hopefully that will lower my triglycerides enough to bring them back down to normal.

The doctor told me that there is fat on my liver and that’s why the numbers are high. The bottle says that fish oil may reduce the risk of coronary heart disease. I Googled triglycerides to see what it is, and this is what I found.

wpid-2015-10-23-00.35.14.png.pngStroke??? Holy cow! Yeah, I don’t want to have a stroke, so this fish oil better do what it is supposed to so I don’t have a stroke. That’s a scary thought.

So we will see how things go. My next blood test will probably be in 3 months, and I will find out the results in probably 4 months from now. I will definitely keep this blog updated on the results. Wish me luck.

Sleep Apnea

On By Michel McDonaldIn Doctor, Health, WeightLeave a comment

bipap machine

My aunt in Simi Valley and my other aunt who lived in Palmdale at the time (2002 – 2004) both told me when I visited them that I gasped for air in my sleep and that I snored REALLY loud. I never took the snoring issue seriously because I’ve always snored loud, at least that’s what people always tell me. I remember when I was 19 and lived with my sister and her husband in Tujunga and I fell asleep on the floor while watching TV and my snoring actually woke me up lol.

When we lived in the little house next door in 2004, I would wake up in the middle of the night gasping for air. Not like a little gasp and being able to breathe like normal, I mean I was choking and I could not get any air at all. It was frightening, to put it mildly. Just imagine not being able to breathe for several minutes and feeling like you’re going to die soon. What happened was, when I was sleeping, my airway would close, causing me to not be able to breathe. Try as I might, I could not get any air. I would even vomit during this. Vomit was able to leave my mouth, but then my airway would close up again. Eventually the airway would open and I could breathe, and then I would have really bad acid reflux. My doctor gave me a inhaler, and that would help until I could get a sleep study referral, which took a long time to get.

I was diagnosed with sleep apnea in 2005. They told me at the sleep study that I would stop breathing for 25 seconds, then breathe for 35 seconds (or maybe it was the other way around) and this went on every minute. I don’t recall if they told me that I gasped for air or not during the sleep study, but I’m sure I did. Thankfully I didn’t vomit lol.

I received my BiPap machine in September 2005 and I used it faithfully every night until 2013 when I lost 70lbs. I was told that if I lost enough weight, I wouldn’t have sleep apnea anymore, and for the last 18 months I didn’t. The last week I’ve had to start using my machine again because I would wake up in the middle of the night with really bad acid reflux, which is always an indication that I need to use my BiPap machine.

One of the concerns I have is that if I don’t use my machine, I could die of a heart attack or stroke in my sleep. My mother was overweight and she died of a heart attack in her sleep. I don’t know if she had sleep apnea, but I do remember that she snored really loud, so I am only assuming that she did, and that was how she died. I was told that sleep apnea is genetic, and that the reason I got it was because a family member had it. My aunt in Palmdale moved to Texas and was also diagnosed with sleep apnea. She and my mother have the same father, but different mothers, so perhaps this was bestowed upon us by my grandfather, who also gave me the gift of male pattern baldness lol. I’m not complaining, I wouldn’t have it any other way, and every time I look at it in the mirror, I see him and it makes me smile because I loved him.

So I called Monitor Medical today and told them that I was using my machine again, and they made a note in my chart. I would really hate to leave this world and leave my partner because I was dumb enough to stop using my BiPap machine. It’s very irresponsible of me! I hate that I have to use it, but it keeps me alive. I would love to go back to losing weight, but it will happen if it is meant to be. In the meantime, I was continue to use my machine until I don’t have to use it again, but honestly, this is probably going to be with me until the day I die.

If you or someone you know has really bad snoring issues and they might gasp for air, tell them to get to their doctor for a referral for a sleep study. Sleep apnea is a matter of life and death, so when you see someone snoring, don’t laugh at them or ignore the problem, tell them to get to a doctor stat! You will thank me later.

Oh and by the way, the machine at the top, that is a stock photo, but it is the machine that I have. And in case you are wondering about CPAP vs BIPAP, the CPAP uses one pressure and the BiPAP uses two. These two pressures are called inhalation pressure (IPAP) and the exhalation pressure (EPAP). Everyone I have spoken to who has sleep apnea uses a CPAP and they tell me they’ve never even heard of BiPap before. So now you know.

Ascent Fluid Trainer

On By Michel McDonaldIn Bike, Cycling, Exercise, Health, Weight1 Comment

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My Ascent Fluid Trainer from Nashbar arrived via UPS on October 29. Setting it up was a breeze and my bicycle looks really nice on it, but there is a huge downside, and that’s the noise it makes. Holy crap that thing is loud. It’s not really that bad if I have music playing in my ears, but everyone else can hear it. You get used to it after a while.

I installed my bicycle computer on the back wheel and reset my computer so it can start over from scratch. I rode on it for a few minutes and burned a total of 19 calories lol. But let me tell you that this trainer is so good that my thighs were on fire. I had to stop and start again, again and again and OMG.

It was definitely worth the money that I paid. I was hoping this could be something that I could do in 30 to 60 minute intervals throughout the day, like after every meal or something. I was hoping to clear a space in the dining room for it, but that’s totally out of the question because of how loud this thing is. I wanted to put it in my bedroom because I can watch TV in there while I’m on it, but I don’t think that will happen any time soon. If I had a 10 speed then that would be one thing, but I’m not bringing my mountain bike in the bedroom because I still need to use it to go to the grocery store every now and then, and it’s too much of a hassle to walk it through the kitchen and hallway and through 4 doorways. If it’s not a permanent fixture, then it’s not going to work out. If by chance I do find one, then that would be awesome and I will try it.

One thing that I didn’t realize about this thing is that when I switch gears, my back wheel moves and hits the right side of the resistance unit roller. I did that and found it was especially difficult to ride, so I got off and looked and saw a bunch of black dust on the ground. I was grinding the rubber off my wheel. Oops! Well, so much for changing gears. I read that you are supposed to position the wheel on the back of the trainer so it provides you with the resistance you need, then switch gears on the bicycle to make it easy or hard. Well, that’s not going to work with my bicycle lol.

IMAG0728The next time I rode my bike on the trainer, I noticed that as I was riding, the bike would move and the wheel would slide on the roller and it would grind the end of the roller as if I had switched gears, but I hadn’t. I would get off and move it back into position, but it would do it again and I didn’t know why. I then thought that perhaps it was because where it screws onto the axle, it didn’t have anything to hold on to. There is an Axle Support Cup that wasn’t able to grip onto anything. The right side has the nut in the Axle Support Cup, but it wasn’t able to grip the nut on the left side. I was having a difficult time thinking of how I was going to fix this if I didn’t have a 2nd nut to screw on to the left axle. My partner suggested that since my front wheel doesn’t move, why not take one of the nuts from the front, and use it on the back, so that’s what I did and it worked. Maybe I can switch gears now.

I’m glad he suggested that, because I could have continued to ride the bike without that nut on there and with my luck, I could have broken either the axle, or the trainer itself, and perhaps I would end up having an accident and end up breaking a bone. Wouldn’t that be just my luck? That’s all I need lol.

Anyway, I hope to get a lot of use out of this thing because I need a lot of exercise. If anything new happens or I get new information I will blog about it.

Nashbar.com / Fluid Trainers / Ascent Fluid Trainer

Parotidectomy Surgery Complications

On By Michel McDonaldIn Doctor, Health, Pain1 Comment

glands

It has been 3 weeks since I had my surgery and everything seems to be healing well.  My scar isn’t red and it isn’t too noticeable, except for the scar from the hole from where the tube was draining the fluid for 2 weeks which is quite visible, but disappears with a Band-Aid.

My face and ear are still numb, although the feeling is coming back slowly, but it is coming back.  But it still feels very strange.

The only thing that seems to have gone wrong is that I still have a saliva gland that seems to still be producing saliva with nowhere to go.  According to the image, there are three glands.  Parotid, which was removed, Submandibular and Sublingual.  The Sublingual gland is under the tongue, no problem.  The gland that is still producing saliva is my Submandibular gland which is below where the Parotid gland used to be.  It is still producing saliva, but it is not releasing into my mouth.  Instead of releasing into my mouth, it stores the saliva.

This is a really big issue because that is what my Parotid gland was doing.  It wasn’t releasing the saliva, so I was having to push (or milk) it out of the gland and into my mouth.  I have been trying to do that with this gland, but it is not releasing into my mouth, instead, I can feel it releasing under my skin.  I can tell because it tingles.  I don’t want it to release saliva inside of my body, but if it doesn’t get milked, it just gets bigger and bigger and next thing you know I will be rushed to the emergency room because of how painful it is.

The surgeon told me when I came back last week to have the tube removed that it was just some saliva that will be absorbed by my body, but I had no idea it was still producing more saliva.  I only know it is producing more saliva because I could feel it getting bigger and under more pressure when I ate some chocolate the other day.  Sweet and tangy are what seem to generate a lot of saliva for me, which over the years has been a major issue for me because when I start generating a lot of saliva after drinking orange juice, my saliva gland would get backed up and it wouldn’t release the saliva into my mouth.  That’s what I was trying to get surgery for, forget the stone, I want my saliva to be able to release into my mouth as it normally would without me having to milk it.

I can live without orange juice, which I have lived without for years because I know that sour causes this issue.  The one thing I don’t think I can live without is sweet, because I have a sweet tooth.  I love sweet flavors, such as sweet tea, or sweet coffee, or sweet oatmeal.  I can live without chocolate and cookies and so on, but I can’t avoid other sweet flavors because there is almost always something sweet.

My next appointment with the surgeon isn’t until March, but my next appointment with my regular doctor is next month and he will advise me on what to do.  I just hope by then it isn’t too painful.

I was hoping that my last post on this issue was my very last post.  I guess I jinxed myself by saying it was my last post.  This seems to be a pattern with me though.  I say I will never have to worry about something again, but then it comes back and I have to worry about it some more.  It’s a “if it can go wrong, it will” type of thing.  Murphy’s Law.  Why does Murphy seem to always be hiding in the shadows cursing me?  Darn you Murphy!

I will certainly update this issue if it becomes too unbearable and I end up in the ER or when I see my doctor in January, whichever comes first.

Happy Thanksgiving

On By Michel McDonaldIn Friends and Family, HolidaysLeave a comment

Today is a day that most people spend with their families, watching football, having uncomfortable conversations about their love life or gossiping about the black sheep (that’s me) who did or said what to who. Eat great food and open the button on their pants and unzip their zipper to let their stomach expand so they can breathe and it’s perfectly normal. There might be a fight, someone might come out of the closet, but at least you are with the ones you love.

I miss that.

We’re going to Hometown Buffet today with Venda then we’re gonna go see the movie Unstoppable. I have seen a commercial or 2 about it but I think it came out a long time ago so it’s probably in the little tiny theater. It’s not my choice but that’s what we’re going to see.

On Thanksgiving people usually say what they are thankful for. Well, I am thankful for my health (generic I know but it’s true) and my freedom. I am thankful that I have little drama in my life. You know us gays, always with the drama. Well, not this one. I try to keep all the drama out because what’s the point really? I am thankful that we have the cutest dog in the world who loves us. I am also very thankful that we have a home, a roof over our head with food in our pantry and fridge. And most of all I am thankful that I am in a relationship with the most wonderful person and that relationship has lasted over 16.5 years and is still going strong.

Well, it’s time to go. Thanks for reading and have a wonderful Thanksgiving day with your families wherever you are. Stay safe and don’t drink and drive!

Bokni Magus

On By Michel McDonaldIn Games, PSPLeave a comment

Yay!  I finally defeated this bastard.  And it didn’t even take me 2 weeks like someone posted on a message board that it took them.

As I said in my previous post about Untold Legends (Warriors Code) I was just experimenting to see what would happen if I exited the game, then came back but when I loaded my character instead of clicking continue that I’d click restart chapter.  I thought it would take me back to the beginning of that zone that I was in but instead it took me all the way back to the very beginning of the game.  But my advantage was that I was still level 16 and I still had all my weapons and armor and trinkets.

That sorta helped me and in fact as I went along going back to the Bokni Magus I was being upgraded for my level with equipment.  But when I did get back to the Bokni Magus last night he was just as hard to kill as before.  But, this morning I went back to the monastery and bought some upgrades from the merchant along with some new augments and I was able to beat this Bokni Magus once and for all.  Because the new augments were Petrify for 4 seconds and Charm for 4 seconds.  Along with 3 Health Drain.  So those helped me a bit.  Those effects are on my weapon.

So now I’m finally on chapter 2.