Weekly Update 01/31/26 – 02/06/26

Things continue to go well at work. I received my second paycheck on Friday, and it was my first full paycheck.

Outside of work, this was very much a medical week. It began on Saturday with new prescriptions for eyeglasses. I hadn’t gotten new glasses since 2022, and my eyes have changed quite a bit since then. When I got home, I went online to 39dollarglasses.com. I’ve been using them since 2004 and have always been very satisfied.

I was pleased to see the improvements they’ve made to their site. These include a new method for measuring pupillary distance, which should improve the performance of my bifocals, and a feature that lets me upload a photo of myself to see how the glasses will look on me. That’s far better than trying on frames in a store. Being extremely near-sighted, I’ve never really been able to see what glasses look like on me without them, and the online selection is vastly better than anything available in person.

I now have four new pairs of glasses on order. Four because I really need two: one pair for computer work and one for daily use and driving. The other two are backups. The last couple of years haven’t been kind to my glasses. I’ve had several accidents that damaged them, and I’ve been relying on backup pairs while waiting to get back to work.

On Monday, I began a three-day heart test. When I was in the hospital in June, I had some chest pain and they noted a heart murmur, so my doctor wanted me to wear a three-day EKG monitor. At lunch on Monday, I went to the clinic and they attached a small device that recorded my heartbeat continuously from Monday through Thursday. I’m now waiting for the results.

Tuesday brought my first dentist appointment since 2022. Unfortunately, the news wasn’t good. I have two standard cavities and three teeth that may require root canal treatment, along with long-standing periodontal disease. This is despite the fact that I’ve had no tooth pain. I’ll have the two cavities filled next week, followed by periodontal treatment the week after. I’m also waiting on a consultation with a root canal specialist for the other teeth.

All of this medical activity made me reflect on how much things have changed for me medically. For most of my life, I lived in terror of needles. Now injections and blood draws are no big deal. I inject myself daily and take blood samples three times a day to manage and track my diabetes.

That brought back memories of how afraid I was of blood draws as a child. I remember being at the pediatrician’s, screaming at the top of my lungs while struggling to get away as they tried to draw blood. My mother was mortified, and the entire office could hear me. The sad part is that those blood draws were completely unnecessary. They were trying to understand why I had frequent nosebleeds and kept getting sent home from school.

What no one knew, and what I wasn’t going to tell anyone, was that I caused the nosebleeds myself. School was a nightmare. Teachers and other students mocked me because of my reading difficulties. I was forced to read aloud in class so everyone could laugh. When the pressure became too much, I’d drop something under my desk and crawl underneath to retrieve it. While I was down there, I would punch myself in the nose. The teachers would panic at the sight of blood and send me to the nurse. Once there, when no one was watching, I’d keep hitting myself to make sure the bleeding continued until they finally sent me home.

Last weekend, I spent some time working with Astra (ChatGPT) on developing a personal logo to be embroidered on hoodies, shirts, or hats—a personal symbol. The logo includes my name, Odell, signed. My signature is unique because I connect the “O” to the “d.”

When I was learning cursive and developing my signature, I began connecting the O to the d naturally. My teacher disagreed and told my parents I was doing it wrong. They would sit me down and make me practice signing my name, telling me not to connect the letters. I refused. I believed I had signed a receipt once (at a toy store, for a refund) and because of that I had to sign it that way LEGALLY for the rest of my life.

They told me I was wrong, and I was hit for continuing to sign my name that way. But they never broke me. Today, I either sign my name as a continuous squiggle, or when a clearly verifiable signature is required I connect the O to the d.

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