Tag: Tinnitus

One expensive ice-cream

Ate a full Cornetto ice-cream yesterday + froze all night with R hogging the throw and Chewie taking the blanket = a day wasted to tinnitus.

Spent most of the day blankly staring at the screen, not knowing what to do. Took me ages to update and merge PRs that I’d probably made in less time last week. Bailed out of the only meeting I had. Took a long walk and a short nap in the lunch break. Head’s still ringing.

Met a friend on the afternoon walk who pointed out that the crickets were chirping all around. Told him they chirp all the time in my head. And like for him, they were really loud for me too today.

Today

I’ve had an ur-productive day today.

I started work at 6:20 and stopped at 18:10. There were two breaks totalling 3 hours for loo, lunch and S4E6 of Peaky Blinders. Other than that it’s been full focus, highly productive deep work.

I didn’t open email, WordPress, or any other distractions.

I finished today what I’d planned to achieve in 2.5 days.

It’s been awesome!

Continue reading Today

Downs, ups, struggles, smiles

I’ve got a really stiff lower back—I’m barely able to turn sides while sleeping, or easily get up from the sofa. Tinnitus was really, really, really bad last night—I wanted to take drill to my head. It’s still bad, but not last night bad. I’m losing blood again.

The tinnitus drove me to bed early. But sleep didn’t oblige, so I finished off half a book last night. (Phil Knight’s Shoe Dog)

The boy hugged me and slept all night. For an hour in the morning, while I drank coffee and read this week’s Economist in bed, he wrapped himself on my thighs and drifted into deep sleep. I think I got all the lost blood back.

I didn’t run for two days. The heart wasn’t in it. Legs were a bit stiff. The back was really stiff. And it’s been surprisingly chilly.

I did go for long walks with the boys, without headphones. Gave me a lot of time to think. Helped me sort out a few work hurdles. Kept me sane. The boy, I think, enjoyed the walks too; specially after he found a good ball and made me chuck it all through a walk.

Today I ran—at Parkrun and then home after the Parkrun. Amit helped by driving us there and then bringing back my jacket, phone and water-bottle so I could run home freely. Both the runs were fabulous. I took it easy on the Parkrun, still finished under 25 mins. Met lots of friendly dogs too—Jasper and Danny were back at the parkrun :)
(Amit got rewarded with a new parkrun PB himself)

I got a 3⭐ review on my favourite extension :(

Then I got four 5⭐ reviews and a new subscriber on the android app, and another new subscriber on the favourite extension!

At work, I’m struggling with structuring the final opinion note. It’s partly because the meaty issues have already been dealt with so I’m not struggling to focus much. It’s also got something to do with my general inability to focus over last week or so.

I managed to publish an update to the Todo.txt android app—Android 10 compatibility upgrades. I also started work on a new (small) side project.

I ran out of clean underwear. (R washes our regular clothes, I wash our exercise clothes).

I’ve since cleared—washed, dried, folded—two loads of washing, one each of regular and exercise clothes. The dishwasher is on its second run. The backyard is clean. Groceries have been topped up. Bins have been emptied. Boy is happy. And I have load of clean underwear again.

I think I’ve earned myself the super single-dad title.

I may struggle to get off the sofa after publishing this, but at least I’ve got a smile on my face and a content boy sleeping next to me. Little things.

How to cure a headache…

I had a mild headache and bad tinnitus when I slept last night.

I woke up with a headache, and the tinnitus returned soon after. So I skipped the morning work session, and went back to sleep. Woke up late, then spent another few hours reading in bed. The headache had only become a bit worse.

Now, finally, I’ve managed to get rid of the headache.

How?

  1. Treated myself to a mini roll stolen from R’s stash
  2. Went for a run in the woods in lovely weather – 15°C with a light drizzle.

Simple remedy, and one with no negative side effects (other than her cursing me for stealing her dessert stash).

Continue reading How to cure a headache…

Noise notes

Yesterday was a bad day for noise exposure and I’m still feeling its impact today – in higher tinnitus and grinding of teeth. The silver lining is that the social event I was dreading went way better than expected, but I did suffer more than usual at the cafe later.

We had a party at friends’ house. 4 families, one sleepy dogs, and some young kids. It was noisy at times. However, I don’t remember being irritated or hurting from noise most of the time. Even when I was with the kids in their room, or when one of them was playing the piano (for me, and really well!), and another trying his hand on drums (badly). I was happy, and a bit drunk. I guess the alcohol dulled my senses, and happiness kept the anxiety levels low despite the noise.

Later I walked to town for my Sunday evening coffee and reading break. The cafe (Nero) had more people than a usual Sunday evening. I found a comfortable seat but with noisy tables around – chatty teenager girls, and louder-than-usual talkative couples. I tried using my earphones, without anything playing, to reduce the sound. It didn’t help. After a while, I was able to ignore the noise and continue with the reading. But I think the noise stress accumulated below the surface. I was stressed out for rest of the evening.

Finally, before sleeping, I was reading (and wildly nodding my head to) this article about noise in restaurants and cafes. The pain from the noise in the cafe, combined with recurring visual (and aural) memories of several such experiences came rushing back. I got a headache, and the ears started hurting again. I could feel, and not stop much, my teeth grinding and anxiety flooding in.

I had to take a paracetamol (for headache), and use a Calm sleep story (Shipping forecast) to help me sleep. They worked.

I have been awake for an hour, trying to work. The tinnitus is louder than usual. The room is awfully quiet too, as expected at 6:30 AM, so that may be a factor. I’m still occasionally grinding my teeth, and stopping myself when I notice myself doing it. Anxiety levels are a bit higher than usual, but better than last night.