TIO

Tio

my personal place

Just some updates

Just some updates

Family problems.

For the past months life was not easy for me. Many health issues or concerns, mainly with my father that also affects my mother and us. He had another stroke a month or so ago. Had difficulty talking and moving his fingers. Now he has recovered more or less.

But the entire experience has traumatized us a bit especially since my parents retired and went back to Romania, where the healthcare system is a world apart from Spain, where they worked for the past 2 decades.

In Romania it is a hassle…especially in small towns. Understaffed hospitals, nurses that get their diplomas just by paying some money…very bad. You have to go to the private clinics that want to suck every penny out of you. Call this doctor, call this relative, call more people, make appointments…is a total disaster.

I cannot even start to explain to you.

But basically now my father has a ton of health issues that need to be managed with many pills and he walks a thin line between fainting often and having his kidneys destroyed, or having another stroke or a heart attack. My mother is a 24/7 caretaker for him and is very hard for her.

Anyway, this entire situation has a big impact on me since I feel sorry for my mother mostly. She has to deal with a lot. My father has some brain damage and maybe because of that he does not seem to be that affected by the entire situation.

My health problems.

I also had to deal with health issues. Lower right abdominal pain since June last year. Comes and goes, and feels kinda bad. A combo of someone twisting your right testicle + punching you in the gut + having a mild food poisoning. Not fun.

Luckily I have access to a very good and trade-free healthcare system here in Spain. But my problems seem complicated. They thought it is inguinal hernia. I was sent to the surgeon to be told it is not a hernia. I was sent to the urologist to check my testicles. Not much was found. Maybe is a muscle or bone issue. I will be sent to see a specialist but can take up to a year for that. I have another appointment with the hernia surgeon next month for more checkups…and I can insist to go to a gastroenterologist the following months.

I am fine I think. But all of this time I have also thought about what bad things I may have. What if I have cancer for example? That is a stressful thought. I think it is for sure something to do with a muscle/bone since I can kinda feel that when I do some movement, but it does not explain all of the pain I am having. Of course cancer is rare for my age, but cancer is also a deadly motherfucker. Honestly I do not seem to have any symptoms that point in that direction but I had these thoughts before I went for these checkups. I think it is normal to get worried about these things…

Currently I am not too stressed but it is something I had to deal with and still have to deal with….

Motivational problems.

It is already hard to motivate yourself in this shithole society to do anything good or interesting. I tried and tried and I will try more. I was fantasizing about buying this DJI Pocket 3 camera with a good mic and start to make videos for TROM.

My only camera is my Pixel 6a which is shit in low light and I was planning to film inside the motorhome at night when it is more quiet…

I watched pretty much every review about this little camera. I think because I also liked to be distracted by that to not think about my health issues or my parents…. But it seems like a really great and useful camera, tho I know is not the camera that matters, is to be motivated and do something that matters.

In any case I’d love to be able to transform the drafts I wrote recently into videos. We will see. I may make a donation campaign for that Pocket 3 to buy it second hand.

I did have some sparks of wonder these past days when I felt alive again planning some amazing videos, cool project ideas, etc.. Just like back in the days when I was active. It seems I still have that inside. That is good.

Money problems.

I have around 1.300€. Monthly I barely get around 380€ from donations a month and from Webape.site around 330€. I have to pay for our servers around 100-150€ a month and for Webape around 130€. Maybe I am left with 400 or so euros. Now try to live with that every month….

The savings I have are getting lower each month. I would like to have 1.000€ put aside in case something bad happens with the motorhome and needs fixing, since it is my only home.

The gas is now so expensive that it makes me not want to drive anywhere. Change the oil, filters, do the car inspection twice a year, insurance, etc…add up to quite a bit of money too.

Not fun.

But it is the best alternative for me, so it is what it is.

Luckily I share the costs with Sasha or at times she pays for these big expenses…else idk what I would do.


(we cleaned the trash again – feels good to see a nature place without garbage)

Future?

These days we will go for a little adventure somewhere in Spain around some mountains and lakes. In 2-3 weeks we will come back to Estartit. I have a doctor appointment and Sasha will go for a big adventure on her on in May and June. I am very happy for her. She is one of the most humans of humans. She loves nature and she goes to meet nature. No matter what :). I wish I had the same drive.

But in this time when she will be gone I will try to perhaps make some videos for TROM. Something that seems impossible to reach but at least I will try.

I am deeply concerned about the situation with my parents. Any day can become worse. Today my father fainted in the kitchen and lightly hit his head on the floor. My mother got very scared because she thought could have been another stroke. She lives in a sort of terror all the time. Idk what will happen if my father would have another stroke and won’t be able to walk or who knows what….I may have to go there and help them.

That would destroy my soul but I would always help my parents when they need help.

The future for me is unstable. I will try to do my best to stay calm and happy. My health issues may not be too bad, but is indeed uncomfortable to live with that pain. The money situation was always bad for me, so will see how it goes. And if I may not do anything new for TROM, so be it.

But I am not done trying. I will try more. There is a lot of wonder out there to be wondering about. The night sky, the other worlds, the amazing creatures here, the atoms and cells. Life is finite anyway, it only matters how you live it. You may die in your 90s or 30s…you never know. All you can do is make the best out of now. And that is hard, but keep trying.

I took this photo the other day:

2 Replies to “Just some updates”

  1. Hi, there! Fellow online stranger here! It’s funny how I always keep coming back to TROM, and everything you’ve built with it, and I end by finding interesting and useful stuff over here. I think my first contact with TROM was one of those proxy frontends for Youtube, or Twitter/X, I’m not sure. I still remember how reading “The Origin of Most Problems” made a great impression on me : it made sense for me, it expressed greatly what I thought (and still think) about the internet development and the online environments, and it made me realize that this dissatisfaction could be extended to our physical world. You see, since 2021 I have a directory in my computer with a lot of small videos I found here about data collection… “data brokers”, “data selfie”, “data and the home” etc, because they felt important to me, a really well done and precious content, that should not be lost. Anyways, all that to say that, indeed, even if sometimes I stayed years away from TROM, since I found it, part of it remained with me ^^. And today, once more, I remembered about it, trying to find a medical news dissemination website that I’M SURE it was recommended on trade-free.org, but I couldn’t find it. Instead, I kept browsing all its collection, all TROM websites… remembering once again how this all has always amazed me, full of interesting content, of purpose… and I ended up here, on your blog. A branch of TROM I never knew existed. And I couldn’t read it all (I should be sleeping! haha), but I’ve read this… and I realized I’ve found so many intellectual joy here, so many useful resources, that it was time to give something back. Not as a trade (!), of course, but because I wanted to, and I felt it’s right.
    So, from someone who never writes YouTube comments, who does not even post photos or stories on Instagram… Thank you! You were able to make me write this. I hope this comment, and my (brand-new!) monthly donation, find you well 🙂 you’re not alone!

    1. Hey online stranger Gabriel! 🙂 Thank you so much for this message, it means a lot to me especially now when I find it hard to create more content for TROM or manage the world inside my brain cells. I’ve red your message several times, thank you so much! And thank you for the monthly contribution!

      That “medical news dissemination website” maybe was part of our TROMnews.com – a website I had to shut down a few months ago….idk. More about here https://www.tiotrom.com/2025/05/bye-bye-tromnews/

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