It was another busy medical day today. Our chiropractor returned from vacation, so we made sure to get to his office early to avoid having a long wait, and it worked.

I had an appointment with my allergist at 11am and got there right on the dot. They’re still adapting to their new electronic medical record system, I guess, because I didn’t get called by the receptionist until 11:30 and didn’t get to see the nurse until 11:55am – and the doctor was still working with the previous patient. But when he finally got to me, he spent a long time with me (close to an hour). He looked at my CT scan and wasn’t surprised by what he saw – infection, fluid where there should be air, and other issues; he even showed me what he was seeing.

At the end of the appointment, I had prescriptions for prednisone, an antibiotic (Biaxin), and an antihistamine (Atarax) to help me sleep when the prednisone kicks in. Somewhat to my surprise, CVS was able to fill them all by dinnertime tonight, so I’ve already started on my new regimen – it’s complicated enough that I made a spreadsheet to keep track. And I decided I’d best put off my Hepatitis A vaccination until after I finish the prednisone (and maybe the Biaxin, too – I’ll be taking it for a full month).

If I’m testy for the next couple of weeks, I’m blaming the medications!

Diane and I want to be vaccinated against Hepatitis A before we go to Africa this fall. She definitely needs the first shot soon (and the second shot after we return); I’d rather avoid unnecessary shots.

I’ve made two trips to regions which have a high Hepatitis A risk – Brazil in 1993 and China in 2005. There was no vaccine available in 1993, so I went to the Santa Clara County Travel Clinic and got a gamma globulin injection; I also avoided uncooked fruit and vegetables like the plague, even though they looked delicious and I was staying at a five-star hotel.

In 2005, I think I got the Hepatitis A vaccine before my trip, probably at the Travel Clinic, but I can’t find any record of it. I can see the immunization record card in my mind’s eye, but I can’t find the real thing (nor a copy of it). My doctor’s office shows me getting a dose of the vaccine in 2006, after the China trip, which would give me lifetime immunity if it was my second dose but is useless to me if it wasn’t.

The Travel Clinic has been closed since March of last year, so I can’t check to see if they still have my records, so I guess I’ll get the shot anyway. Costco offers the vaccine at a reasonable price, so we’re planning to make our first post-pandemic in-person visit to Costco this week. I expect we’ll visit the wine aisle as long as we’re there, too!

The weather today was very pleasant, though we’re in for a hot weekend. I enjoyed the cloudscape on our evening walk, too.

SPOILER ALERT — If you are only part-way through the first season of Ted Lasso, stop reading and come back when you’ve finished the season.

I grew up in Richmond, Virginia, which was named after Richmond, England, so I had a little bit of extra affinity with AFC Richmond while watching Ted Lasso, and I was sorry when they lost the last match and were relegated. I’m looking forward to the next season to see if they can get back to the top rung.

I also play trivia in Learned League – I’ve spent the last 10 seasons in Rundle A (the top level of five). Yesterday was the last day of the season; I was sitting in 24th place and looking at relegation. I could avoid it if I had a better result than the person ahead of me – so naturally, I wanted to win. I was disappointed to only get 4 of 6 questions right, but I had hope – and when I woke up this morning and checked the results, I was happy to find that I’d won. So had the guy above me, so I got relegated anyway.

But there was something curious about my win – my opponent had NO correct answers, after getting all six right the day before. A zero match day is very unusual in an A Rundle – it usually happens if someone is expelled for cheating, withdraws, or dies. And when I looked on the Memorial Wall, my opponent was newly listed there.

Being relegated was much less important after seeing that news.

I had fewer emails today touting Prime Day bargains than I’ve gotten in previous years, but the ones I got were effective. I bought an additional Amcrest webcam for about half the price of the ones I bought at the peak of the pandemic; I also bought a 60-watt Anker power brick for my laptop to take on trips, since it’s significantly smaller than the Apple brick.

I was tempted to buy other power supplies, but when I looked through the gadget bags, I realized two important things:

1) I didn’t need another power supply
2) I didn’t need the Motorola G6 phone I’d gotten to use as a Google Fi hotspot, especially since Motorola had stopped providing updates for it, even security updates.

I found a place to send the phone – 911 Cell Phone Bank; they’ll either provide it to someone as a no-cost emergency-only phone (all cellphones can call 911, even without a SIM) or recycle it. They even paid the postage to send it to them!

I’ve been noticing an interesting batch of flowers every time I’ve driven past Lester Square (a small strip mall near our house) so I walked over there today for a photo. I may have been a day or two too late to get them at their peak, but it was a lot cooler today than over the weekend – much more pleasant for walking than it was a couple of days ago.