I had a chance to sync up with my primary doctor recently, because my latest A1C had gone up and he wanted to talk about it. I got to explain to him that it was on purpose — between the time we started chasing the vertigo symptoms last July and the time we finally figured them out about three months ago, there were times when things were just not a lot of fun, and I found myself really worn out emotionally. To help manage that, I gave myself permission to not worry as much about the diet, especially since a lot of this was going down from U.S. Thanksgiving through early January. Where I normally gain 1-2 pounds across the holidays, I ended up gaining about 4. Even though I got my diagnosis and treatment marchine orders in April, it wasn’t until July that I started feeling like I had things well-managed and knew what I was doing. Such is the reality of things like Vertigo and Migraines, which act very differently in each person and there’s a lot of fussing and testing to come up with what works best in each situation.

Even the last few months have had a bit of up and down, but July things kind of clicked in, and August mostly repeated that, so I finally feel like I have a handle on it. There are still some aspects I don’t understand, like how things will react when I travel, but I now realize that my first trip (which didn’t go well) last spring was before the treatments had really had time to take effect, so I don’t think I can base much from how poorly that went.

But in July I did feel good enough to start tamping down on the diet again — and to be honest, I didn’t exactly go wild when I relaxed, maybe 200-300 calories a day on average, but it was enough to feel better when lost of other things were dragging me down. Self care matters (and fortunately, my doctor totally gets that).

By the time I talked to my doctor, I’d taken 2 of those pounds off. As I write this, I’ve removed 4. Next A1C test I expect to be around my target of 6.8-6.9, based on my current testing.

We talked about a number of other ongoing things. Unfortunately, I was hoping for better news on the knees, but some of the newer technologies I’ve been watching he hasn’t seen great results from: there’s a new injectable gel that’s effectively artificial meniscus, but he says it’s been less effective than cortisone for his patients (and I really don’t want to go back to cortisone). We’re going to do x-rays, since it’s been about 5 years since my last set, and I’ll consult with the orthopedics, but there doesn’t seem to be a magic help thing here for me. So, it’s continuing to do what I can.

But that chat got me thinking about some things that I’m doing. On the plus side, in the year since I retired I’ve raised my average step count over 25%, to where I’ve been averaging > 5000 steps a day (vs 3800ish) across a month. On the negative side, I had a knee injury in July that laid me up for almost two weeks before I could walk normally, and so the numbers took a hit, and they’ve been slow to get back to that 5000.

And I realized that the last year, while we were sorting out the vertigo, and where I was spending a fair bit of time feeling, well, bleah, had conditioned me to let inertia push me towards passivity and inactivity. I’ve let the workshop go dormant again, I’ve found myself delaying various tasks and projects, and just generally getting comfortable with more sitting and less doing.

That’s the way of inertia. You’re gliding along in life, and it helps you stay in that glide.

As I told my neurologist while we were working on the migraine evaluation, I don’t want to become a house hermit. And that made me realize that it was time to start fighting the inertia again.

So in the last few weeks I’ve been making starts. I started a photo project (see below) that I’ve put off for over a year. I’ve gone chasing a few birds (a rare Great Egret here in Kitsap County has eluded me so far, but I’ll keep trying) and I’ve been going out and scouting new birding spots and found a couple that I think will work well for me this winter. I’ve also been putting in effort to do some longer drives to see how well I do with the migraines, and so far, that’s encouraging. I expect to head back out to Port Townsend next week with the camera to chase the Red-footed Booby again.

And I have to say it: Birding is one of the few hobbies out there that allows me to say to Laurie that I’m headed out to chase a booby, and she doesn’t get angry at me.

I need to decide on a shop project and get going on it. I have some ideas, but I have to actually pick on and get going.

And I’m going to get the e-bikes serviced and back into usable form. They’ve been in storage in the garage since we moved, in part because of the vertigo, but there are at least two good birding spots that I struggle with where the e-bike will make them accessible again.

And I need to see if I can get that step count on its way to 6,000. I’ve given myself many excuses why I can’t, but it’s time to start pushing the limits again and see what happens.

It’s time to fight the inertia again.