DH got a raise!  Neither one of us was expecting it after last year's raise-a-paloosa.  It's more than a cost of living raise of 2% which everyone got at least that much, but somewhere around 3.2%, so a bit higher.  They are trying to create a new position for DH that doesn't exist yet, and that may take until next year, and with that should come another pay bump, but I'm not counting chickens.  This was a nice, unexpected raise of $5200 a year.  I don't have the exact number, because of course when I finally go to write about it, I've misplaced the paper, so chore number 3 for me today, after writing this and paying a doctor's bill, will be to clean off my desk and sort through the paperwork.

So that should work out to $433 per month or $200 per paycheck.  Before taxes.  I'm thinking we should just put the raise into the 401K and pretend it isn't there and then we don't have to worry about it messing up the budget or possibly being bumped into a new tax bracket.  Although all the overtime this year might do that anyway.

Right now we have contributed $16,941.51 to the 401K and have $5,558.49 to go to hit the regular max of $22,500 for the year and we will get that just with his regular pay and the OT will put us over somewhat.  It will be the first time ever we have hit the regular max.  Since we are both over 50, though, we can go for the catch up max of an additional $7500, which would put us at a $30,000 max for the year if we want to try for that.  I don't know if we can get the $30,000 max, but with any extra, it might be wiser to take the extra money and open up a spousal Roth IRA for me.

It would be nice to have some money that has already been taxed to use later in life.  If whoever  is in charge of the government at that time doesn't screw things up and mess with money that isn't protected in a 401K.  I just don't know how much we would have to have to start it up.  I know he can start up a Roth for himself through the same company his 401K uses and his company will just deposit the after tax money right into the account from his paycheck, but I don't know if they will do that for a spousal IRA, too.  We will have to look into it.  The 401K company just sent us some paperwork about him opening a Roth and gave a number to call if we wanted to talk to them about it.

I'm not sure when the raise will start.  DH and everyone else was told it would be on the last paycheck and it wasn't, so who knows?  It might show up on the next one.  They said first paycheck in August, but maybe they meant first pay period in August.

Maybe I'll just bump the percentage up in the 401K until we hit the $22,000 max goal and then when we do that, we can decide what to do next?  We have time to open an IRA for me.  I know I have said that year after year, but this year we might actually be able to do it.

The 401K is finally making serious strides and not only that, the IRA is finally back above $13K.  It needs to hit $13,900 something to be where it was before February 2021.  It's taken a long time to climb back.

$107,392.57 Amount in 401K

+_13,052.63 Amount in IRA

------------------------

$120,445.20 Total Retirement

That is a rise of $7101.69 since the last time I updated my side bar.  That also raises my net worth to $214,619.04.  Maybe if we push hard with retirement, we will have a quarter of a million dollars in net worth by the end of 2024.  That would be amazing, because it would mean we went from paying off $250,000 in debt when you add in interest, to being worth $250,000.  It is an interesting parallel.  Back in the debt days, I never, ever thought we would get close to having that without a positive number in front of it.  Meanwhile, my next goal is $225K. Onward towards that.  I just have to keep our spending in check.

What do you know?  I made it through that entire post without it hurting my hand until the end, and even then it is not too bad.  Things are getting better.  Still lumpy, but better.  Hope everyone is having a great day.

I have tried to write about my experience in the hospital numerous times and one thing or another has led to my draft getting erased, usually be the computer restarting itself.  My computer is falling apart.  It has lost some screws so the hinge isn't working properly which sometimes knocks out the cord and I'm not getting a low battery warning.

Anyway, the angiogram was a horrible experience.  My arm and wrist are not back to normal 4 weeks later.  Driving hurts, writing with a pen hurts, using a stylus hurts, pulling out a drawer, using my phone, resting my head on my hand, carrying more than 2 pounds, typing (though not as bad as it was and okay if I use the brace), brushing and flossing my teeth, stirring food, and even flushing the toilet.  For the first two and a half weeks, bathroom hygiene was agony for my wrist and it shot up to my elbow and sometimes my shoulder.  And when they realized they couldn't get the catheter to my heart they took it out and burned me from wrist to 3 inches below the arm pit.  I guess they were cauterizing or something.

The problem was that my arteries (and my veins), even the main one in my arm, are too little for the catheter wire to reach my heart.  Or as the doctor put it, too delicate and small.  What was really bad, is that my arm never went numb with the local anesthetic they used the entire time the did the precedure.  I cried the whole time.  I told them I was in pain the whole time.  They kept giving me pain killer and muscle relaxants, which worked great for the rest of my body, but my arm never went numb during the procedure.

I almost screamed that my arm hurt.  That's when the doctor said give her more lidocaine and valium.  At that point they were still shoving the wire up my arm and I knew what was going on, but the valium had made it impossible for me to communicate coherently, other than to say ow.  But I knew what was going on.  Or thought I did.  Lidocaine is closely related to novacaine.  Novacaine takes 3 times longer than it should to work on me.  It takes 3 times as many shots.  And it wears off a lot faster than it should so requires more shots mid-procedure.  We've also tried meviticaine and same thing.  Lidocaine was acting exactly the same.  And it didn't start working until I was in recovery when they were dosing me heavily with pain killers and my arm went numb.

After they pulled the wire out, they went in through the groin artery and made it into my heart, but even that artery was smaller than it should be.  I didn't have any blockages, though.  What my problem was, is that with the small arteries and veins, my heart was having to work harder than it should have causing the pressure to be very high.  The enlargement was due to both the Covid virus, which any virus can effect the heart if it is bad enough and you have it for long enough like viral pnuemonia or influenza, and my heart working so hard.

I was fine up until the first time I had Covid in 2020 because I was still getting exercise by swimming and doing water aerobics, but after Covid 2020, it took me almost a year to recover.  I was short of breath all the time, they shut down the pool, so when I did feel good enough to exercise there was nowhere to go, and my back was getting worse due to not exercising.  Then they didn't want us going to the parks or anywhere to walk, but it was getting harder to walk anyway.  I didn't feel good, so I didn't cook.  We ordered takeout, so we ate more sodium, which made the blood pressure get higher.  It was a vicious cycle as I caught cold after cold with no resistance after Covid 2020.  I caught two mild cases of Covid, due to having the vacine make it milder. Which they say made the next mutation even worse.  If I hadn't caught those two, the last one wouldn't have knocked me down so hard.  But at the same time, my BIL nearly died from one of the times I had a mild case.  But he was unvaccinated, so who knows?

When I got a bad version of Covid again Thanksgiving of last year, everything got way worse.  No one could cook.  Every meal was from a can or a frozen meal or delivery.  The sodium was off the chart.  Which made my heart work harder and helped cause the enlargement.

The thing is, all along I knew there was something wrong with my heart.  I insisted on getting a heart monitor test a few months before I got Thanksgiving Covid, but it never seemed to pick up what I was feeling.  So they were like, la la la, nothing to do here.  And I knew.  I knew my body.  I knew.

The other thing that is wrong with me is that I have too much water in my blood, so I've been water restricted, or rather liquid restricted, to 2 liters a day.  And that is really hard for me because I was drinking 3 liters of water a day on a normal day and more on a hot day.  And that was just water.  So now I always feel thirsty and my throat is croaky after a couple minutes of talking and then painfully dries out.  I do better if I suck on ice.

I have had to reduce my sodium intake to 2000 mg.  That isn't just the amount of sodium I add to food while cooking, it includes the amount naturally occuring in food.  So that was pretty hard in the beginning.  Especially since the stuff that sets off my insulin is the stuff with almost no sodium and the stuff that doesn't is higher in sodium.

There are a couple restaurants I can still get food from, but I am holding off on that for a while.  Right now it is better to eat at home and since I have reduced my sodium, I feel like cooking.  Left-handed stirring is something I am getting used to even if it is still awkward.

Today I had an ultrasound done on my arm to see if there is anything going on due to the the catheter.  There's not.  But there is still a large raised bump in my wrist so I am sure some kind of tendon or ligament got damaged or something got dislocated.  Plus my thumb and index finger still have spots without full feeling in them.  Probably nerve damage according to the ultrasound tech.

I just want to know if I go to a bone doctor or a regular doctor or physical therapy or maybe a massage therapist if it is muscular.  It's been 4 weeks and I don't have a follow up with cardio for a week yet.  And that is not with the doctor, but with the PA.  But if I finally have someone who gets eyes on this thing, I might finally get some action.

I do feel better since reducing the fluids, reducing the sodium, and having my diuretic raised yet again, plus getting a much higher prescription strength calcium pill compared to my little on the shelf mineral supplement.  I still don't feel normal, but I have started taking little walks with my walker.  I can't do much yet.  I also am going out to the garden more regularly.  Everyone has been keeping it up for me since I can't really pick anything or pull any weeds.

I'm sorry for any typos.  It took me over a couple days to type this one, saving it in drafts this time.  I need to get ice on my wrist and will read through it later and fix them.  I just wanted to get something up to let you know I'm not dead yet.