Returning to Steem #ulog

It’s been a long time since I’ve been a regular visitor/user of steem. Life got in the way in a major way and I wasn’t really feeling like posting or commenting too much.

The biggest thing that happened was the death of my mom. We lost her back in July after a fight with a rare, aggressive form of lymphoma. She had been sick with it for a couple years, having been to the emergency room, through surgeries, chemotherapy, etc.

I think the most heartbreaking thing for me was how strong she was and how hard she fought, and how things were looking up towards the end. She had had her final surgery to extract a piece of tumor from her lung so they could determine what exact subtype it was for accurate treatment. A week later, we were back in the hospital with unwelcome but not surprising news; the cancer had spread back to her colon and was inoperable.

We brought her home to be more comfortable and for the next few days took turns in shifts watching over her to make sure she was comfortable during her last moments on earth... 😢

After mom passed, things felt really surreal and strange. About an hour or two after the fact, my little brother and I ate two little Caesar’s pizzas in like literally 5-10 minutes... Just thinking about what had just transpired was crazy, despite knowing for a couple years it was a possibility, and for about a week that it was a certainty.

Also, I got an extreme toothache/mouth pain during the time we were caring for her at home that lasted a good month or two afterwards. It got so bad I was taking dozens of ibuprofen pills a day to keep the pain at bay... Eventually I was able to make it go away by switching from tooth paste to tooth powder. I’m not sure why, but it helped a lot to keep my mouth pain free.

I also got a massive rash on my hands a few days after we laid mom to rest. At first it was a mild annoyance, but it slowly got worse and spread to cover most of the top of my left hand and in a splotchy sort of pattern on the top of my right hand. I’m still dealing with it till this day but it finally seems to be under control and is slowly clearing up.

Today it’s only just a slight discoloration, but sometimes it turns purple and stands out quite a bit, but I think that’s just from cold exposure, or possibly if my sugar is out of whack.

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Anyways, to catch up more to present time in my life, work has been pretty busy. I've had mostly six day work weeks since June/July, and I'm really looking forward to next week and a four day weekend due to the Thanksgiving holiday. It will be a nice time to actually slow down and relax a bit!

Today started out very cold and bleak, with the air being very dirty. The smoke from the fires up north has finally made its debut down here and it seemed to all show up at once. I couldn't see any mountains around me, which is unusual because even with the normal dirty air around here you can see at least a few, or the foothills at least. Today it was just all a big grey and brown blur (see top image).

Oh, I also got a new phone finally! It's an iPhone Xs, and I love it!

I also stumbled across the actifit app last night, not sure exactly how it works but the basic principle seems interesting, and also motivating to keep track of my daily physical activity!

Not really sure exactly how I'm supposed to post for it, so if anyone has any pointers, I'd be glad to hear them!

Until next time...