I’ve been busy catching up on personal stuff since returning from Burning Man.

First, I finally located a primary care doctor in San Francisco.

I’ve been putting it off because I didn’t want to deal with scheduling appointments and figuring out how much it would cost me. But one day when my then just friend Yizhen was working from home with me, he showed me the website ZocDoc that supposedly lets you find local doctors that work with your insurance plan and make the appointment online. It wasn’t quite that easy, as I cross checked with Humana’s website and I found most of the results were actually out of network for me. But I did manage to find one doctor who was in network and also had an appointment available that day, Friday the 6th, two hours from then. So I booked it.

The appointment went fine, but I caused some billing issues. I thought my first appointment and exam would be covered by my plan in full, but since I had some specific issues I wanted to discuss, they did not code it as a “well visit,” and Humana determined I had to pay the full $269.02 after a $60.98 insurance discount. I think the doctor is going to revise this, but I still think it’s silly. Apparently the only way to take advantage of the free yearly “well visit” is to not ask any questions and instead make a separate appointment for those. But the extra costs associated with becoming a new patient are only covered if your first visit happens to be a “well visit,” apparently.

Anyway, I described my longstanding trouble focusing and he ended up prescribing me Adderall. I started with 30 capsules of the 10mg of the extended release type and was told to figure out the dose that worked for me and report back. I settled on somewhere between 20 and 30mg and saw the doctor again this Monday ($148 - $26.36). He prescribed three months of 20mg per day.

And so far it’s been very helpful. I haven’t taken a nap during the day once since starting the medication, and while I haven’t always finished my work during the 8:30 to 4:30 target window, I’ve come far closer to achieving this than in the past. Some days I’m not sure if I feel it and perhaps should be taking more, so I guess I need to experiment a bit more. And some days I wonder how much better my college GPA would have been had I started sooner…

Then last week I had my first appointment with a GI doctor to try to diagnose a tiny cut I have had below my tail bone off and on for almost a year now. Doctors at SF City Clinic have examined it as well, but so far nobody is sure what it is. The GI doctor recommended I get a colonoscopy to see if there is anything odd inside. So I guess I am going to do that, despite it seeming a bit odd.

In other news, I have been seeing Yizhen since about a month before Burning Man, and things have been going well enough that we decided to become boyfriends. It’s a little odd having a somewhat known expiration date with my supposed upcoming move to Tokyo in January, but I try not to spend my life not doing things because something in the future might change. He’s a great guy and I am happy to spend the time I can with him.

Yizhen, who goes by “Ethan” sometimes

To make the most of the remaining months, we decided last night to book a trip to Thailand. It was one of a couple options we briefly talked about, but it sounded good. I really don’t know anything about Thailand, though, except that my friends Taylor and Carolyn went recently and had a great time for cheap. I’m sure it will be interesting! I was able to use my accumulated points from my US Bank FlexPerks Travel Rewards card to book a $962 ticket from San Francisco to Bangkok for free. Woo!

I think that’s it for big things.

Today I worked on an IE compatibility issue for a client, which was not the most fun. Then I went to abs class with Derek, and shortly afterward, my stomach started bothering me. I ended up having to cut the workout short to run back to my apartment and find some stomach medicine. I then rejoined Derek for dinner at Fork, and we talked about a bunch of personal issues. The day ended up being a bit of a mellow day. Not exactly a downer, but not super exciting either.

To cap it off, I watched a few thought provoking TED talks, and one really emotional one.