Sections
Recent moments
Medium stories
Recent moments
Medium down: Rock bottom earnings 📉
Medium up: Boosted story 📈
My sister gave me her friend’s email address 📧
Blood pressure telephone appointment 🧑⚕️
My son’s need for speed 🏎
Stephanie’s headaches 🤕
Stressful and weird dreams 😴
Evening grocery shopping 🛒
Silent afternoon tea 🫖
1. Medium down: Rock bottom earnings 📉
February has not been a high-earning month for me on Medium.
My low earnings started after I was followed by a huge number of people in January; unfortunately, most have no interest in reading a single story. At times, it has felt like I’ve been shadowbanned since then.
Just when I was thinking it could not get worse, my daily earnings fell further:
25 February: $0.64
26 February: $0.37
27 February: $0.50
Then something happened to cheer me up. (See below.)
2. Medium up: Boosted story 📈
I poured my heart and soul into a story about my late wife’s illness:
It was published on 26 February, in the middle of my low earnings, and it looked like it would flop because it got few reads on day one.
The following day, I was happy to see a private note inviting me to add it to a publication and saying they’d added me as a writer. However, when I checked, I was not a writer for that pub, so I could not add my story.
I replied to the private note but heard nothing back; that left me feeling down again.
The following day, I saw an email from Medium that lifted my mood:
Hi Alan,
Your story, Words With the Power To Terrify Me During My Late Wife’s Illness, has been selected for a Boost. That means we'll share it with even more readers across Medium.
I hadn’t realised how much the low earnings had been troubling me until the boost email made me emotional — almost like someone had thrown me a lifeline.
Whether the boost will help turn things around, I don’t know. I can only hope.
3. My sister gave me her friend’s email address 📧
No, not like that — and I’ve already told Stephanie about it! 😆
I meet up with my sister every 3-4 weeks. We both went to the same primary school, and she was interested in the photos I scanned years ago that I’m now organising.
When I saw her earlier in the week, I showed them to her, and she asked me to email them to her friend. Her aunt is a member of a history group that is writing a book about the school.
The meet-up was pleasant, but my sister somehow managed to mention that she does not ask her 22-year-old daughter (who works full-time) for any money towards utilities or groceries.
At first, I felt bad because I ask my eldest son for his share of the bills, even though I do not charge him rent.
I suppose it’s a different situation for them. My sister has a good pension and lives with her self-employed boyfriend. In their case, it’s two adults and one grown-up child, whereas in my case, it’s one adult and two boys who are nearly 18 and 19.
(They use most of the electricity, with their gaming PCs and long showers. 😆)
4. Blood pressure telephone appointment 🧑⚕️
Medical Advice Disclaimer
This is for informational purposes only. Readers should consult a doctor or other appropriate medical professional for advice, diagnosis, or treatment.
My GP surgery arranged for a clinical pharmacist to ring me regarding my raised blood pressure readings.
They do not seem to consider autism and anxiety. Waiting for the call was excruciating because they said, “8 am to 5 pm”. Could they not have sent a text message shortly before the call or given me a narrower time slot?
After the phone call, I took a blood pressure reading, and it was very high!
I wrote a story on Medium with more details, so I’ll summarise it here.
They said the threshold for high BP is 120/80 at home or 140/90 in a clinical setting. Therefore, despite most of my recent home readings being closer to 120/80, they were still classed as high.
They want me to record my blood pressure at home for four days and submit the readings. They also want a blood test in preparation for medication, which alarmed me!
I want to avoid the need for medication if at all possible, and I feel anxious thinking about it.
From the moment I put the phone down, I decided to shed some excess weight. I cut out all unhealthy snacks — and there used to be a lot of them! I also started making time for more exercise each day.
Much to my surprise, my blood pressure readings have fallen already. Now I’m worrying they will think I’m faking the readings, so I’ve started photographing the machine each time! 😂
5. My son’s need for speed 🏎
Last weekend, my youngest son told me he’d tried to overtake a slow car on a 60 mph road, but they blocked him and braked. He nearly crashed into them before undertaking!
It sounded dangerous, and I was worried, so I asked where it took place and checked the satellite view online. The road markings indicated he should not have tried overtaking there!
I told him what I’d found and can only hope he drives more carefully in future. If he were to get points on his driving licence, he would become uninsurable.
6. Stephanie’s headaches 🤕
At the weekend, Stephanie looked decidedly off-colour when she had a bad headache. It worried me to see her like that.
The doctor does not seem to be doing enough to help — that’s if she manages to get in touch with them. They just give her tablets of various kinds and strengths.
I try not to nag her too much about returning to the doctor, and I’m not sure what else they can do.
In the past, she has wondered if it’s connected with hormones. I wonder if it’s related to the artificial sweeteners she uses, the large amount of tea and coffee she drinks, or the vast number of oranges she eats.
7. Stressful and weird dreams 😴
There have been many recent mornings when I’ve woken up feeling stressed after an intense dream. Old workplaces and people from the past often feature in them, and I’m often struggling to find my way. Let’s not mention toilets with windows or broken doors.
I used to make notes in the morning and planned to turn them into stories. But I only tried that a couple of times on Medium with: Is This Dream Funny or Just Strange? and The Mysterious Garage Waiting Area.
The worst ones are when I wake up with my heart pounding because of the situation I’ve been dreaming about. I wish I could make them stop!
Talk of dreams has made me think of Michael McIntyre talking about his wife’s “really weird dreams” — so I had to find this clip for you on YouTube.
(There is occasional strong language.)
8. Evening grocery shopping 🛒
The autistic side of me likes routines, but my ADHD side gets restless if things stay the same for too long. One example of this is my grocery shopping habits. Recently, I have started going shopping after my evening meal.
My most productive time of day varies, and evening grocery shopping suits me right now because it frees up more time during the day.
(It also tends to be quieter, so I avoid some of the annoying people. Sadly, the self-checkout machines are still just as bad.)
By writing earlier in the day, I can wind down in the late evening rather than writing until close to my bedtime.
I’m sure it won’t last, but it’s working for me right now!
9. Silent afternoon tea 🫖
One of Stephanie’s birthday presents last year was an afternoon tea voucher, and we finally used it this week just before it expired. (She delayed using it because building work was supposed to start at her house last year.)
Before setting off, we had drinks at a small cafe. When we went to leave, we found a delivery truck blocking the exit!
The driver said a bigger car than mine had just gone through, which was hard to believe! My car is not massive, but it is quite wide.
Fearing that we would be late arriving for the afternoon tea, I took a chance and managed to squeeze past, but it felt like there was only one inch of clearance on each side!
The afternoon tea was nice, and we both enjoyed it. However, the room was too quiet. That wasn’t a problem when we were alone, but it became awkward when two others arrived and were seated at the next table.
We sometimes chat with strangers, but it wasn’t what any of us had in mind in this case; doing so would have disrupted a quiet romantic afternoon.
I think we all felt self-conscious about talking — it was like a library. In the end, Stephanie and I started talking to each other about random things, and the noise we made encouraged the others to start talking to each other, mostly eliminating the silence.
I might leave the hotel some feedback and suggest background music!
Given that I’m trying to avoid anything unhealthy, it felt wrong to be eating cakes and scones. But it was booked before my blood pressure scare.
I mentioned to Stephanie about Devon vs Cornwall regarding whether to use the jam or cream first. It came to mind because I commented on a story by CarolF on Medium about this recently: One-Minute Facts: The Cream Tea.
A few minutes later, I heard the people at the next table having a similar conversation about which to use first — although they didn’t mention reading about it on Medium!
Thank you for reading
Alan 💛
Medium Stories
(Click the titles below to read them on Medium.)
Words With the Power To Terrify Me During My Late Wife’s Illness
Childhood memories of my gran’s illness returned decades later
In recent months, I had a nagging feeling that, after all these years, I’d still not told the story of my late wife’s illness. Despite having talked about various moments in other stories, I’d somehow skated around the edges of it.
I never expected this story to be the one that filled that gap. Initially, I was going to focus mainly on some of the words that took me back to my gran’s illness in the 1970s. However, once I started writing, it ended up becoming something more.
Reading the kind comments earlier yesterday had me in tears. I had suppressed much of it for years, and it was hard to delve into my old journals and relive the story when writing it.
Sharing it with Medium friends (both new and old) has made it feel like a weight has been lifted.
Clinical Pharmacists Are Handling Patients Who Would Normally Be Seen by a Doctor.
Will they be too keen to medicate, rather than considering things from all angles?
This continues the saga of my slightly raised blood pressure, as mentioned in last week’s newsletter. (Section 4 of this newsletter has more.)