Breathing is about all I can do today

I've been doing some research and so far, this Adjustable Standing Workstation and this Anti-Fatigue Mat are winning the What Looks Best To Me competition. I'm going to send those to the chair of the department today to see what she says about purchasing them.

Because everything else health-wise is shit right now, I keep forgetting to talk about the success of the vibration platform mckitterick bought for me. It's totally working y'all. Nothing that's noticeably helping my current woes, but I have visible proof that even occasional use is improving my circulation. My varicose veins are disappearing. The large one on the inside of my right calf has diminished by probably half. I need to take pictures. Wish I'd thought to get some before I started, but I didn't even think about them being affected/improved by the vibration platform. They're just spider veins right now, so they've never caused me pain or itching, but I'm sure they would have eventually and if I can avoid the horrible varicose veins that my mom and nana have, that'll be a Really Good Thing.

That's the only thing going well for my body at the moment. Yesterday I walked down to Malott Hall to pick something up from the_lucky_nun and on my way back to my office I had to rest after two flights of stairs because my legs were so weak. When I finally got up to my floor my legs were shaking and I was gasping for breath. I would have cried except my embarrassment was worse than my grief and so I didn't cry about it until this morning when I related the incident to mckitterick. So, hurray for another "cried before 8am" day.

The September Sisters launched a petition on Change.org regarding KU's response to the problems with sexual assault (and the consequences thereof) at KU. It currently has fewer than 1,500 signatures.

Talking about the Tai Chi breathing exercises with someone in the comments to yesterday's post, I mentioned the drill that my voice teacher used to help me develop breathing from my diaphragm (I would stand with my back against a wall and she would press into my diaphragm with the spine of a dictionary--I had to push the dictionary out toward her when I inhaled before a phrase). It reminded me that hardly anyone who knows me knows that I used to sing--and sing well. When I started private lessons at fifteen, I had nearly a four-octave range and we attained those four octaves by the time I quit lessons when I graduated high school. Then I came to college, stopped singing, and started smoking. I haven't let anyone but a few select people hear me sing more than basic humming to pop songs in years. Sometimes it makes me sad. I can't even stand to hear myself sing a lot of the time, much less subject others to it. It's one more physical thing I've lost, but it's not something I'm willing to work to recover. Maybe if I wasn't working on recovering so many other things.

Thank gods I've got another four-day work week. Off tomorrow. We'll see if I have the energy to work on the car.

Update: This morning I typed up the minutes from Tuesday's meeting in readable format, filled out the pre-registration forms for the 2015 CSSF summer stuff, and called my HR department for clarification on flu shot clinics and how to increase the amount of money I put into my retirement. After that I was mentally exhausted. This is ridiculous and unacceptable.

Now I get to call my PCP to confirm they sent my followup request for an appointment to KU Med because nobody has called me back after I canceled the appointment with the endocrinologist and I get to call my naturopath about the possibility of some new blood tests we haven't done yet (testing for indicators of inflammation levels and oxygen saturation).