I watched last Star Wars trilogy just as I had scheduled during my 7th, 8th, and 9th day off last week. Those were awesome, as expected, and it was a fun 9-day trip I really enjoyed during my week off. I was back to work this week, and resumed my regular work schedule.

My Dexcom G6 situation is still constantly evolving. It’s a fairly complex system, consisting of a sensor (each lasts 10 days) and a transmitter (each lasts 90 days). A receiver is also an optional component, since you can use your own smartphone as the receiver, but they apparently ship it to you anyway as part of the prescription–but with a $120 co-pay–so I reached out to them and arranged for a return, explaining that I don’t need the receiver, and I got my $120 back. And with sensors only lasting 10 days each, my first 3-pack of sensors (which also had a $120 co-pay) were recently used up, and my doctor didn’t have refills on my prescription, so I had that issue to work around. But that worked out nicely, since I just found out that I could order a 90-day supply (9 sensors) for the same $120 co-pay as I did for the 3-day supply. To me, that’s like getting 60 days (or 6 sensors) free! That’s quite a relief. The only catch is that I have to wait a few days with no constant readings before the shipment of sensors arrives. Back to finger pricks. Ouch.

And speaking of the Dexcom situation, my diet has been evolving quite a bit as a result. We are now constantly watching the fluctuations in my numbers, when they occur, and exactly what I’ve eaten to cause each of the changes, then Sandy makes adjustments and we try other things. As a result, my blood sugar numbers are much better these days, my weight it dropping, and I’m feeling much better overall. In fact, our Director bought pizza for our department Friday and I didn’t touch it. They really put me to the test too, by having all of the pizzas lined up on our hallway table as they ate them. I have to walk past this table several times a day to get from my office to the restroom, so it was quite a test of my self-restraint…but I passed it! I also started taking Apple Cider Vinegar and drinking Red Wine recently. Both of these have been found to lower blood sugar and provide several other benefits for diabetics, and Sandy and I have also confirmed these effects ourselves, so I’m sticking with them. Some red wine during certain evening meals makes quite a difference for me, and the benefits of Apple Cider Vinegar in my diet continue to slowly evolve, and we just found a Apple Cider Vinegar pill that I just added to my daily meds, which is also helping.

In entertainment news, this week I watched Chaos Walking. I enjoyed it, and I’m waiting to see if it ends up being a trilogy of movies. It’s from a series of books, so it wouldn’t surprise me. It stars the “SpiderMan” kid, Tom Holland, and the “Star Wars” kid, Daisy Ridley. Just that combination alone sparked my interest in the movie. It’s about “New World”, a new planet that humans are trying to start populating in the future after we have totally depleted our World’s resources to a point where there was no turning back. New world looks awesome, but has some disturbing side-effects. The two biggest ones being that all male humans’ thoughts are automatically visual and audible to everyone else, and the planet’s native beings are violent killers. I thought the movie was very well-done, and I heard it combined a lot of elements from the entire series of books, which is another reason I’m wondering if it’ll continue for two more movies. I guess, like everything else, it all depends on how popular the movie is and how much money it makes. Good stuff though. A link to the trailer is at the bottom of this post.

In other entertainment, I’ve been playing more in VR this week as well as getting re-familiarized with a few past games I still really enjoy a lot – These include Burnout Paradise Remastered, The Crew 2, WreckFest, and GTA V. There’s a pattern there, I know…I love that type of game. Then there’s Reaxxion – based on the classic breakout-style games of the past, but with a modern twist. The VR games are very vast at the moment, I don’t really have a focus on anything specific there, just playing everything I can all over the place and looking for those “true gems” I love and want to just keep playing. Everyone’s recommending Half-Life Alyx though, so I plan to dig into that one soon. SteamVR Home isn’t really a game, but that one’s my most frequently played at the moment. It’s basically just an interactive social VR ” home environment” where you hang out with your friends and meetup to go play other VR games. But it’s so customizable, and they offer 5 free hidden “giveaway” items each week that I don’t want to ever miss out on a week. It’s addictive to me. And I’m also constantly switching between my Valve Index and the Quest 2, still unable to favor one over the other… they both have their own unique advantages and disadvantages in many different areas and both are constantly evolving. It’s just really fun to be included in the ride.