Day seven of my respiratory infection.
My younger brother showed up last evening no earlier than 9:27 p.m., so all we were to have time to watch (via our Android TV Box) were an episode each of Marcella and Inspector Morse.
I suppose that it was into the second half of the midnight hour when I put myself to bed, but I had to contend with coughing for awhile before I finally found some sleep.
Overnight I was having to deal with these episodes of coughing whenever I would enter into a wakeful period, for it was only in sleep that the urge seemed to abate for any length of time. Then while I would be asleep, mucous would accumulate and congeal in those reaches of my respiratory tract that vigorous coughing could affect; and once finding myself awake, heartily involved coughing would possess me and thereby dislodge much of that rather disgusting matter.
It was a cycle.
My night may have been the severest thus far where this coughing was concerned. I actually wondered on the possibility of rupturing a serious blood vessel.
This morning my brother had to leave and pick up his girlfriend Bev at 9:45 a.m. to drive her to a medical appointment for some tests. She lives maybe just over two miles from us, and her appointment was perhaps a mile or so back in this direction.
He had to wait fairly nearby in order to drive her to work after everyone was done with her ─ this time, perhaps a half mile back in the direction in which she lived.
He was back home by 11 a.m., which was earlier than I expected. But at least I had in that while undergone 15 minutes of (electric) nebulized hydrogen peroxide therapy, deeply inhaling the mist to cause as much damage to the virus or whatever other malevolent vector was presently making my life a trial.
Plug-in nebulizers are superior in performance to their weaker battery-powered brethren, so this is the type of device I use.
After 15 minutes of that ─ and the general clean-up of my nasal passageways that always ensures ─ I felt able to handle some exercise out in the backyard toolshed. The prospect had seemed near to being impossible earlier, for I was simply too ill.
Nevertheless, I found myself unable to perform even one pull-up or chin-up ─ but that was due to doing some curls yesterday with a 20-pound dumbbell while wearing blood flow restriction (BFR) bands tightly-drawn just above each bicep.
I have not used the bands since at least as far back as last September, but I became newly inspired yesterday after watching strongman Jedd Johnson trying them out back in February of this year in this video. He was to write thereafter that his "arms were toast for 2 days."
I could never afford the fancy pneumatic cuffs as advanced by KAATSU, so I looked into buying far cheaper bands that can be tightened just like car seat belts. I had read that they ought to be around two inches wide for the thighs, and 1¼ inches for the arms.
When I checked out the cost of these bands, my financial status is such that I didn't even like what Amazon would cost me to place an order; and so I ended up buying mine at AliExpress, even though I would have to be patient in awaiting their arrival.
You can see a sample AliExpress advertisement at the bottom of this post for the exact TAVIEW brand that I bought, although I cannot say any longer if the advertisement belongs to the same seller ─ I bought mine possibly two years ago, and no longer remember. But apart from how less expensive the bands are than what are advertised at Amazon, AliExpress was not charging for shipping ─ this was irresistible for me.
You can compare the prices with a search I made at Amazon U.S. at the top of this post ─ anyone in Canada can do their own search at Amazon Canada (the prices are much worse).
I think that I fell away from using them last Summer after the house got to be so danged hot that exercise was impossible. I have to exercise upstairs in a bedroom because I require total privacy for such activity; and the bedroom, unfortunately, becomes like an oven in the afternoon because it is on the side of the house that catches the full blast of the Sun until it finally sets.
Then in October I became severely ill with "COVID pneumonia" and was hospitalized, and became so weak that I could not even stand on my own ─ I even lost the ability to walk; and I dropped so much weight that the last time I was that light, I was 16 years old (I am now 72).
So I am somewhat newly discovering use of the bands with the one-arm curls I did yesterday. I led off with 30 curls of the left arm, then 30 of the right; then 20 of the left arm, and 20 of the right; and finally I did 15 curls ─ left arm and then right ─ twice.
I am not Jedd Johnson ─ I think that he was also using a 20-pound dumbbell, and pretty much hit his limit. But he held quite strict form, whereas I started to have to lean and start to heave the weight upward to reach the higher repetitions.
As I said, I could only do one arm at a time because I only have the one dumbbell; even so, I took no breaks and went directly from one arm to the other until I was finished.
My arms are so sore that I found myself unable to even pull myself halfway up when I tried pull-ups and chin-ups in the toolshed this latter morning. Sure, I am quite sick; but my arms felt like I was risking potential rupturing of a tendon if I truly tried to force myself up.
Also, the contraction of the muscle fibres in my upper arms felt as if they were suffering a paralytic electrical shock that was virtually making the exercise impossible. The best I could do was slightly crook my elbows and hang for a fairly fast seven to 10 count.
Anyway, now that I have once more experienced exercising with the bands ─ and I only did the curls ─ I will try to continue to do so two or three times per week.
We shall see, at any rate.
After my brother was back home this morning, we watched two videos using our Android TV Box.
The first one was 21 minutes in duration, and had been uploaded to Odysee on May 4 by Ice Age Farmer: Food Supply Shutdown: Deer, fish, pigs euthanized; crops not planted.
An observing alien species would ask itself, "Why is humanity destroying ALL of their food sources?" In this special Ice Age Farmer broadcast, Christian has a candid conversation about the overwhelming number of attacks on our food supply. With crops unplanted and with more food facilities burning down, the media runs stories about "food fire conspiracy theories." And it's not just chickens -- the state is also killing deer and fish in the name of stopping diseases. Start growing food now.
I find reports like this to be so discouraging because for years I have realized that I am just a sitting duck awaiting oblivion. I am too deeply mired in debt that has been accrued in my name by my wife because I could not gainsay here in the beginning as I should have.
And now my sense of responsibility to her and her sons keeps me hostage, unable to forsake them and depart to some essentially hinterland part of the continent where I might have a fighting chance at survival ─ even at my age.
I have resigned myself to the inevitability of just giving up and dying.
The second video we watched was the 2022 documentary 2000 Mules.
Documentary on the alleged criminal voter fraud and ballot stuffing during the 2020 USA presidential election, which may have changed the legitimate outcome.
The video was just shy of being 1½ hours long. If you are interested, I am sure that other free sources for it exist, but we watched it at BitChute here.
And of course we watched it on T.V. and not some cramping computer screen. If we had to watch these videos on a computer, then it simply would not be getting done.
My brother seems to be experiencing occasional extended periods of the deep coughing that I am suffering. It makes me unable to understand how it is that he is still able to go forth in the afternoon to resume his daily 'socializing' in a pub or bar ─ I would feel too humiliated to be coughing as I am in some public place.
Clearly, he has some unnatural drive to both drink and to be doing so in the company of other drinkers.
As ill as I am, I do intend to try and have an early a.m. five-mile walk tomorrow ─ I hope to be getting up at 2:30 a.m. so that I can be on my way before 3 a.m. Thus, I will not be sitting up late this evening. If he does show up by the (secret) 9:30 p.m. deadline that I have in place for him on the eve of these planned outings of mine, I will only watch an episode of just one ─ or possibly two at most ─ of the T.V. series we presently follow in common.
By the way, after that toolshed exercise this morning, back in the house I stripped down till naked for a weigh-in: I was at least 192 pounds. That was one further reason why pull-ups are so infernally difficult, especially when I am fully clothed at the time.
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