Yes, I know I haven't done an entry since the 22nd. I didn't think I was going on Hiatus for Thanksgiving Break. It's just worked out that way. A number of factors have conspired to keep me from actually posting and keeping up to date with this record.

First and foremost, is sleep. Or the lack thereof.

Since about Sunday of last week... well, I haven't really slept. One or two hours here or there does not a true relaxed sleeping effort make. I might drift off for a bit, but I never actually made it to full out deep sleep. I went home early to get some rest, but it was a day when I was going to see my doctor, and I needed to be up to make it to that meeting. Mason, who had sent me home (yes, I know I'm his supervisor and he's not mine. What's your point?) was under orders to call me and make sure I got up to get to the doctor's office.

Well, he called and my alarm went off. And finally, he came over and hammered on my window until I got up. I made it to the appointment, but I was still exhausted. But after the appointment....

Well, I couldn't sleep. That remained true right up until Saturday. Saturday, I spent most of the night trying to fall asleep, and I made it around eight a.m., and I woke up around four p.m. So I lost all the daylight (night comes fast in these pre-December days) but got some decent rest.

Not so last night. Went to bed and right to sleep at eleven o'clock at night, and found myself up at two-thirty, and awake for the night.

But let me backtrack a bit. Back to that doctor's appointment.

I had blood drawn the day before, and a Nutritionist's appointment. Both went fine. (Bloodwork doesn't squick me. I usually watch the little vials fill because it's kind of cool. It's like you're being tapped for Maple Syrup.) I met with my Doctor, and told him I wasn't sleeping, and talked about the troubles I've had with weight loss in the past, and my shortness of breath, which had been getting worse. (I get congested when I lie down, too.)

So, he got me a referral to the Dover Center for Eating Disorders. They're supposed to be good, and he's concerned about the why I can't lose weight. And so am I, and heck, I'm up for almost anything.

And he did an EKG. An electrocardiogram.

Which found abnormalities.

Whooph.

Things that hit you like a carp in a wind tunnel: Heart disease.

The upper left chamber of my heart may be enlarging, dangerously. It's not a good thing.

It hit me like a death knell. This is it, Eric, I found myself thinking. You couldn't lose weight, and now you're going to have massive heart attacks until you die.

It's not as bad as that. Yet. But it's an unpleasant feeling.

On more pleasant topics, this is the Week Of Presentations for me. It started today: I gave two workshops on The Internet and Professional Development here at the Academy. Mostly, I discussed effective care and feeding of search engines and I upsold Britannica.com. Not bad at all. The second session went very well indeed. Tomorrow, I'm off to the Christa McCaulaffe conference, where Devon McLaughlin and I will defend Appleshare IP and MacOS X Server in a round robin on servers. (Last time we did this, it turned into us agreeing cheerfully that everyone else's could do most of what the others could, except Windows NT which sucked. I expect the same. It was a fun time, though.) Tomorrow night I'm going to be in Maine, at least for a while, as it's my father's birthday.

Wednesday morning at 8:30 I have an echocardiogram to help work on what's wrong with the thing, and I have meetings with Alan over the presentation he and I are giving at the TABS conference in Washington DC. We both fly down for that on Friday of that week, staying at the Renaissance Mayflower -- a swank hotel just four blocks from the White House. I'll hopefully get to see my friend Philip Moyer while I'm there. We do that presentation on Saturday, and then I fly back and... well, die, I'm sure.

I just hope I sleep tonight -- but not too early. I have prep work to do....