Tag: health

New Laptop At Long Last!
Posted on
Oct 2, 2024

New Laptop At Long Last!

I’m so exited! Mom bought me a new laptop for my 50th birthday which will be in a month. It’s a Lenovo ThinkBook 16 G6; we bought it online on Monday and it was ready for pickup yesterday afternoon in the store! I of course went immediately! 🥳😍

It’s 16″ and has 32GB of RAM, Ryzen 7 and 1TB hard drive with Windows 11 Pro. I got it all done installing Windows and Lenovo things yesterday and it laptop seems wonderful! I love the keyboard, how thin and light it is, how quiet it is and that it stays cool all the time so far. It also doesn’t that much smaller than my old 17,3″ one which I was worried about – I don’t have a TV so I watch TV on my laptop and it needs to be bigger because of that, and larger also feels more comfortable to do work on my websites or whatever. 

I don’t think I’ve ever owned a computer/laptop that didn’t have problems when just bought – this time is no different. There’s 3 problems:

  1. The mouse pad doesn’t react to clicking its “buttons” but moving the cursor and tapping works normally. I noticed from the settings that tapping with two fingers works to open a context menu (which is a new feature to me) but I’m unable to click a button and drag items or click and select (text) or click and scroll pages. I’m not sure whether this is a Windows 11 problem or a Lenovo problem.
  2.  AMD error notice says that AMD software and AMD drivers are incompatible – I’ve googled a bit and might be some hybrid setting that needs to be on (or maybe off?). I just need to find where that hybrid setting is to try it. Otherwise it needs googling more.
  3.  Colors seem very yellow (although some videos I’ve been watching in MPC-BE maybe don’t but I’m not sure?). I’ve disabled all the “protect your eyes from blue light” settings I could find and that helped quite a bit, but there’s still a definite yellow tint. I particularly notice it in Chrome. This might get solved/be able to solve if and when I can solve #2.

EDIT 1,5 hours later to add: #2 and #3 solved! All I had to do was to install newest version of AMD Adrenalin, and that solved the software + driver being unsuitable problem, and once AMD Adrenalin was working, there are settings there for screen colors which solved the yellow problem ❤️

EDIT October 3, 2024 – today single finger tapping twice and dragging to move and resize windows and scrolling the scrollbar is working and easy to make it happen! I couldn’t get it to work yesterday – not sure if it was me or the mousepad. Either way I can now do everything by the mousepad like in my old laptops even though the pressing on the lower right corner to right-click still isn’t working although I think it should be? Maybe this is actually Windows 11 feature and you’re suppose to use tapping instead?? I don’t know!

The mouse pad problem is only on the mouse pad – I tried my physical separate wireless USB mouse and it worked as it should!

I actually like quite a bit that two-finger tap opens context menu and I’m getting used to it), but it’s cumbersome having to use the keyboard to select text because using shift + arrow buttons to do it are so slooooow. So I hope I can figure this one out quickly!

But I’m very excited and quite pleased (and a little frustrated because of the 3 problems) so far. This laptop seems like mine right away!

In other news, I of course had a migraine coming in since Monday evening 🙁 and it got active going towards night yesterday. Didn’t get sleep really last night because of it, maybe 2 hours plus some resting until midday today. Now feeling better but my head is feels like it threatens to re-start, maybe.

Also, interestingly – I don’t have that as much patience and energy for computer problems solving as I used to have. I have had my previous laptop for 10 years and whatever problems that one had, I solved them 10 years ago and haven’t had real new features or new problems if drivers or anything since then. It used to be I’d be happy as a clam to spend hours/days/weeks troubleshooting some problem, but now I’m kinda wishing I could just bring over the Lenovo to someone who’d fixit for me! Unfortunately, I’m the most computer savvy person among my family and friends, so I’d have to pay for it.

I noticed this as well 3 years ago when Mom bought a new laptop and I set it up as I always do – I was happy to do it, luckily there wasn’t real problems just one or two things took time to teach Mom to do, but I noticed I didn’t feel like spending time to get real up close and personal with Windows 11  like I had with all the other operating systems I or we’d had had (Windows 95 all through to Windows 10 by then, Linux Ubuntu, Linux Mint). I myself have had Windows 10 until this Lenovo so Windows 11 was new to me and things seemed to harder to find than in previous versions. If I didn’t have to, I didn’t really want to explore it just for the hell of it. I just made everything work for Mom and her SO, and figured out and taught Mom the few things she needs to know to do herself. So I guess this is one of the downsides too of not being healthy: not having the mental wherewithal to do explore the same things as before even though I’m still interested.

But yes, I’m excited! I watched some HDR 4K h265 tv episodes and this Lenovo played them without problems! My old laptop can only play 1080p easily. I’m so happy to finally be able to play HDR 4K eps and movies 🥳

Oh, and the Lenovo was on sale – 200 euros off the regular price! So that was really good 🥳

Posted on
Sep 1, 2024

After Many Years, Maybe COVID-19

So… we now think, after 4 years of avoiding it, one of our close family circle has finally had COVID-19! Namely my Mom.

Last weekend she had high-ish fever particularly in the evenings, along with tiredness and feeling off and no appetite, for three days. Then when she woke up early on the morning of the 4th day, she was ridiculously sweaty but the fever had broken and she was, and has been feeling normal ever since! She says the whole thing was weird – no sniffles, coughing, sore throat or anything like that. Just the fever, tiredness, no appetite and feeling off. One of her friends who had a diagnosed COVID-19 a few years ago, said hers was exactly like that too! So we’re pretty sure we’ve had it in our close family circle now finally after many years. Mom’s kind of surprised because she can’t think of where she could have caught it. But anyway. We’re just happy we got through it with just a scare at least this time *knock on wood*

Bathroom Renovations + Health Update
Posted on
Jul 11, 2024

Bathroom Renovations + Health Update

Been meaning to write this up for a month and here it is finally…

My housing co-op is having a bathroom renovation done in all the apartments, and actual work on the bathroom of the first apartment began a month ago on Monday. They start on 3 new apartments every week (Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday). My bathroom started on July 1t, and my bathroom/sauna/toilet has been out of commission since then and will be for another 2 weeks! Washing machine too because it’s in the bathroom. Each bathroom is out of commission for 4 weeks if things go as planned, but if there are any surprise findings such as the humidity measurement shows humidity in the (concrete? whatever is underneath all the tiles etc.) then that might and will prolong the renovation. So far I haven’t heard that there’s been any surprises like that. I did hear that apparently the company doing the repairs has to fix some walls on the apartment side even though they haven’t caused anything to them, because they are made of surface material (the one on top of the concrete) that cracks easily. We have heavy busses going by a few meters away every 7-10 minutes, so a lot of walls have cracked more or less. I heard this “the company has to fix the walls” on Tuesday, but nothing since. The plan as I heard then was to fix it all so that the wall and the bathroom are finished at the same time.

My housing co-op is doing this as an co-op project rather than individual home owner projects that may or may not get done. There’s 5 buildings and all were built in 1997-1998. Just over half of the apartments have the original bathrooms still, with the others’ owners have renovated since 1998 but even of those, the renovations are getting to be 10 years old and a few apartments the co-op had renovated because of water damage from the leaking ceiling (error made during the building so the apartment owners didn’t have to pay the renovation). The original bathrooms are about at the end of life, so the we co-op owners decided to renovate all to get some discounts and ensure no bathroom water mishaps because things start to leak etc. simply because of age.

Continue reading Bathroom Renovations + Health Update

Health Update and More
Posted on
Mar 3, 2024

Health Update and More

I think this is going to be long! My health update, rehab and thoughts about Mom’s SO broken hip’s treatment. Basically, two what-the-fucks and two mostly on the positive side!

*******Insomnia*******

I’ve been having a difficult start of the year. In early January everything was still normal (well, my normal – not good, but okay and I could deal with it for the most part). But the week starting with January 22, 2024 I’ve been feeling bad and uncomfortable so much! My sleep problems went back to insomnia – that week started with the 22nd, I slept only every other night. Then the night before Monday next and Tuesday, I didn’t sleep at all either night. And of course it was just when I supposed to partake in a TE-toimisto mandated short job seeker’s course – which meant I had to go get doctor’s/nurses notes for Tuesday and Wednesday, after somehow managing to get through Monday course day with restlessness, migraine and terrible exhaustion. Continue reading Health Update and More

Posted on
Jan 30, 2024

Health Update

My Mom’s SO slipped week ago on the Monday night outside their home late in the evening, and broke his hip 🙁 It’s been such an icy, slippery weather that’s caused so many falls that they only got to operate on him two days later on Wednesday. He’s still in the hospital. He was moved to the rehabilitative ortogeriatric hospital which specializes in exactly these sort of injuries. He’s been doing well but he’d like Mom to visit every day and she’s not up for it. She needs to rest too! The hardest thing I think for him is that he is a heavy smoker, and can’t smoke at all in that hospital – he can’t get to the smoking area by himself (it’ too long a walk for now) and certainly nurses won’t take him. They say he might have to stay in the hospital even up to a month. They say on their webpage that the goal is to rehabilitate so well that the old person regains his mobility level he had before the fall (or better), if at all possible and so can safely return home and active life. Sounds good! But all is up in the air right now as to what, when and so on and so forth.

I myself self haven’t slept in 48 hours now. I just lay awake and tossed and turned, did not sleep a wink. I tried to take a nap starting a few hours ago, and I think I catnapped maybe? I feel slightly lighter as if I did. I saw a nurse in my health station who had consulted with my GP, and I’m going to try Tenox which helps in getting to sleep. I’ve used it before several years ago when I had bad insomnia and then it helped. So we figured to try and start with that. The triage nurse in the phone was very kind and thorough when she interviewed me when I called in first thing in the morning, took at least 15 minutes to speaking to her. Last week I had only slept every other night, and Monday night I didn’t sleep at all and had 2 migraine attacks during the day then, with another trying to break through the rest of the evening and last night. I hope Tenox helps! It’d be a lot easier and faster than anything else.

Yesterday in addition to the migraines I had a bad day: I was cold, then hot, then cold, restless, couldn’t concentrate on anything, walked back and forth, and my belly hurt due to either having my period or just general Crohn’s Disease fuckery or maybe both, I’m still not sure. The hot/cold thing, restlessness etc. is quite often usual now during certain type of my migraine. The bad thing is I was supposed to partake in a job searching course arranged by TE-toimisto which was mandatory once I had agreed to it, so today when I hadn’t slept for 40+ hours come morning, I had to contact the health station to get a permission slip/doctor’s note to give the unemployment agency. So that’s fun. Bureaucracy. But it’s a good thing I did it – I managed to participate yesterday because it’s a remote course done with MS Teams, but I was walking in front of my laptop and in pain the whole time. And think the properly as I like to do, fill the tasks. I couldn’t have dealt with that today at all. So I’m in sick leave today and tomorrow because of insomnia and it making my migraine worse. The course is tomorrow too but the nurse said the important thing now is to cut off the insomnia because sleep is so important but also because the insomnia is aggravating the migraine and that should tried to be cut off, given my history, so I’ll miss tomorrow’s course too. It’s a 3 day course, and I miss 2 days of it.

I’m actually sad about it – it was about the current jobs situation in my area, and current ways of finding a job which I could use an update on considering the last one I had was in 2017. Also about CVs, how to make an effective application for different types of jobs. The teacher still shares the docs with me because I was on for the first day, and there’s free personal tutoring available with this course, and he said I’m welcome to contact him when I’m feeling better. So that’s nice!