Keith has tested positive for COVID. He’s recovering at home.
Category: Health
ulcer post op – family story
sometime in 97 or 98 this happened… Paul got an ulcer
I found him passed out in the john after a bleed. Shit happened pretty fast after that.
The post op nurse at RCH got my attention after Paul was out of surgery. “This is not the day to have a talk about your relationship! Do not sign any papers, make any large purchases, make any emotional demands and DO NOT let him drive. He appears rational. He is not.”
He FLOATED over the bedside rails, (I know that sounds ludicrous, but I ain’t lyin’) came gently to earth and bounced/floated over to the post op nurse, speaking continuously and in an almost scarily cheerful voice about what a great experience getting his blown ulcer mended was. ‘They sprayed something down my throat and I didn’t feel a thing.’ I looked at the nurse. She nodded, to agree with my mental email to the effect that he wasn’t feeling a fucking thing now, either.
I went to get his post op meds in the same mall as our doc Peggy was (at the time) and after I told him to stay in the car (Stay in the car for Chrissakes I’ll get it, but NOPE) he floated over to the office counter, yelled for the doc to come out and fulsomely thanked her for the surgeon recommendation. He was all but hanging on her neck and crying. I bet Peggy doesn’t even remember that, not that she’s obliged to, but damn it was funny afterwards. (At the time, thanks to my autism, I was suffering TORTURES OF PUBLIC EMBARRASSMENT)
I told him I was going to tie him to the bed to prevent him from floating away but as soon as he got his shoes off and sat down, he said, “I should probably lie down,” and HUT he was unconscious for another six hours – which was a relief, I was scared he was going to get on the phone and start telling randos that he loved them.
If you show your true personality in those circumstances, I guess Paul’s a sweetheart. It really was one of the most adorable things he ever did.
Recovering
Jeff is fine, but it wasn’t a fun extraction. Codeine is good to have if you need it.
12011 words. Things are about to take a turn.
I’ve done my brain exercises this morning. Strangely, I feel better when I do; less foggy, a little more awake.
In honour of Settler Saturday, please support Mari. That’s her paypal link. She is Ojibwe, disabled, the main breadwinner in her household, a writer of some note and @wordglass on twitter. TEETH SHOULD BE COVERED BY UNIVERSAL HEALTH INSURANCE and that concludes this post.
Garbage day
As a matter of some urgency, Jeff needs that tooth pulled. The earliest it can be done is tomorrow. In the meantime, he’s got pain relief. Buster continues to recover from his wound. I tested negative again. I will cease testing at this point until and unless I’m symptomatic.
two kudos – one of those same people left the ever so helpful review “This was great!” but what can you do? Not everyone writes reviews like The Tattooed Archivist, may angels drop pain au chocolat into her upstretched hands. That was for ‘The Reviewer’, which I’ve provided a link to <—- that way. 11456 words on “Totally Boned” – oh, did I not mention that the short fiction I’m working on is called “Totally Boned”? Well, it is.
If you don’t care about my fanfic just skip the next para.
I’m going to stop reporting on kudos etc., unless it’s something choice, because now anyone can go and look at my stats, and I don’t need to wave it around up front to prove that people are reading my stuff. I’ve written 350K words of posted fanfic and another quarter million at least of UNposted fanfic. Still want to post “The Sword That Cries Ruin!” at some point but I have to figure out how to end it without ‘fridging’ Sylvie (an original character/romance interest for Sam Winchester, NOT Eileen, nor, alas Rowena, why is it Sam always goes for older women unless they’re feeding him demon’s blood? I blame in-character childhood trauma) and I kinda already DID ‘fridge’ Sylvie once in the story – she reverts to being a tree and goes dormant, so making her ‘die’ twice seems excessive even to me, even if multiple deaths and resurrections is a ‘Winchester thing’. I’ve been ALL OVER FANDOM and have never found anyone else who made the connection that the angel Cassiel, the one Castiel is based on, has a ‘sword that cries ruin’ and I’m going to use it as a lovely McGuffin to blow up a cosmic witch. She sure needs blowin’ up by the time she’s finished with the Winchesters. There is also a ‘girl with powers’; she’s been adopted, along with the rest of her hunter siblings, by Dean and Cas, and her powers consist of being ABSOLUTELY FEARLESS (her first encounter with Crowley, she almost knifes him and Dean abashedly must ask her not to knife the king of hell, and the second time she comes upon Crowley sleeping in his bath and scares the shit out of him), totally committed to being a hunter (she has her own illustrated book, like John Winchester’s), hardworking and observant. Also a complete ball of mush about Dean. She obeys Cas, but Dean’s got her number. I want to finish that story, but since it’s an AU that stays as close to canon as possible, what I really need is a beta reader familiar with canon.
beautiful day for a pap smear
So I saw the doc, got a pap smear, had to wait an hour and a half. “Everything looks fine down there” what a relief eh.
Something odd came out of the overnight BP study. A couple of hours after I went to sleep that night my BP crashed and stayed there for about two hours. I mean crashed; literally so low that I’d be hospitalized. I guess I just have to be a weirdo. Otherwise the drugs seem to be doing their job and I’m not in Sky High About To Pop a Clog territory any more.
Jeff gave me a no-SMS-card phone so I have a calculator and alarm and game platform and I have now killed both of the chargers he loaned me so I have to replace them.
Got my meds re-upped – yet another change, this time because the drug is literally so old the drug company doesn’t want to make it in that formulation anymore, sounds like me. Anyway that’s set up and I should have enough prescriptions to cover me during an earthquake. I’ll be going off the inderal eventually. Very glad I’ve added vitamin c to the mix of pills I take every morning – as is often the case my teeth hurt less.
Today maybe I’ll get that bloodwork done, but it’s more likely because I have to go to the same building for my prescription,
Katie, Alex, Ryker and I are going to travel to Victoria at some point. This means that M&D have to re-jig their visiting from other relatives which I kinda feel bad about but it would have been hella worse if the unvaxxed baby breathed all over the immunocompromised elder, so at least everyone involved has consent. We’re also going to do RATs before we leave to ensure none of us are actively illin’.
I am not going to comment about the assault at the Oscars because as far as I can tell, with maybe one exception, every single white person whose comments I’ve seen has applied all the intersectionality of non-Euclidean geometry and all the nuance of a cast iron frying pan flung across the kitchen. Given that I am not the great white hope (sarcasm alert…. sarcasm & POOR CHOICE OF PHRASING alert) of contemporary anti-racism activities and thought, I won’t do better and therefore, if you want to know how I feel about it (I have three main points to make) you can ask me in person, and of your kindness, wear the rainsuit.
I am not going to comment as much about the Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine. I’m against it; I continue to donate and send letters and whatnot in the background; Putin won’t give up until he’s dead or deposed; Canada is as involved as it reasonably can be and maybe even more so anyplace it can get away with it; Russia and India and China are now doing a pavane and in the end China will crush Russia. In terms of will, planning, execution and numbers, China can’t do anything else.
The suffering of the Ukrainian people, and the Russians dragged into this war by violent paranoid old bigots, is not imaginable by those not experiencing it; we uphold their courage and denounce the frauds who’ve started this terrible slaughter.
6646 words, still waiting on further oomph to finish it. Haven’t seen any kudos yet this morning. I got the wordle in 5 this morning, but it was a complete bear of a word.
stalled, but only for a minute
6102 words total on the story. Hope to get back into it today, still thinking about things.
2 kudos overnight.
Another sleepy day yesterday. Today I need bloodwork and tomorrow a doc appointment and upping on scrips; I’ll be walking over there when the lab opens.
Still thinking about Ryker and his magical little smiles and total body squirms.
Here’s the MP3 (acapella, natch)
of me singing the ‘Russian Major General’ filk posted previously. As mentioned previously the lyrics were written by @AndrejNkv who hails from Edinburgh.
Ayesha’s buried in the yard
She has Miss Margot, Gizmo, Eddie, Zeek!, Kira and Bounce to keep her company. Paul said he’ll miss her head butts, and her little chirps, and her full body wriggles.
Paul’s grief stricken. I made him a light lunch and Jeff made him tea and we’re just being peaceful and mellow and unutterably sad at 2 pm. (we then watched a documentary about the Concorde and SST and a Hudson and Rex). Now it’s 5:30 and Paul is going home. His blood pressure is troublingly high and I told him to go to hospital but likely he won’t.
There’s more than one thing to be worried about. I left a message with Katie and wrote out the numbers for him and he put them in his wallet.
bp 118 / 78
That was in the doctor’s office yesterday. Nurse says I’m doing well, wish I agreed with her. I’m finding making the lifestyle changes just brutal.
Suzanne sparkled up the house yesterday. Buster loves her when the vacuum isn’t running and then books it to his various hiding places.
Ayesha will be euthanized today. She has a kidney tumour among other issues.
2 kudos this am, no writing.
Food shop this morning. Finally, some more sunflower seeds for the tweety birds. Also, massacre pony cheese (mascarpone).
In the manner of tyrants, Putin has fired or jailed (house arrest) the two senior court officers responsible for the intel on the Ukrainian invasion. (Beseda and Bolukh are their names). Some wags are saying that it’s for a failed assassination attempt, but they’d just be dead if that had happened. So yeah, they cozied up to a tyrant, lied to him because that’s what he wanted, and now they’ve paid the price. Like others.
The man who killed Che Guevera is dead.
poor Ayesha
Paul’s kitty Ayesha is sick unto death and probably won’t make it (her kidneys have failed). I am sad for Paul. I haven’t spoken to him yet, Suzanne my co-grandma told me about it. It’ll be four years two days from now that Margot passed. sad faced primate.
I spoke today with someone whose near relatives are in Romania, and they have their bags packed pending such time as Putin drops the big one. I have this jejune childish urge to become hysterically patriotic and speechify. Instead I set it aside for things I can do that either enlarge someone else’s capacity to do good or enlarge my own. The stoics have asked me to have a care for that which I can control, and so I will try to be kind to other people and kind to myself. The nurse reminded me to be kind to myself; my blood pressure, amazingly, is way down.
Terrible night sleep
Just ghastly. Having your arm squeezed while a compressor goes off in your ear – being forced to sleep on your back? horrible.
Anyway, I have an exciting morning of running around like a fool to medical appointments in front of me, at which point it is my intention to come home, order comfort food and collapse.
One kudo, no work on the story.
quiet day
2468 words, no kudos.
Yesterday: ran, emptied and reloaded the dishwasher, ran two loads of laundry and put all four loads away. Changed laundry detergents recently and I prefer the scent of the new stuff. I used to believe that my clothes wouldn’t fit in my closet and drawers and it turns out (after I took out the sheets I wasn’t using and put them in the hall closet) that I do. M I R A C O L O. Returned the rolling chair to my room. Cleaned a screen on the volcano. Watered plants. Made coffee and tea as soon as I got up.
Today: I have to go almost all the way downtown for a BP monitor test. Grr. I will be travelling by transit and I’m not looking forward. Need more bird seed. Time to REALLY get up, get going, etc. Happy International Women’s Day.
I keep thinking that Putin will get so mad he’ll set off a tactical nuke and say it’s Ukraine’s fault.
Peas rice and chicken
2.5 hours of taxi-ing and sitting in waiting rooms yesterday. When I saw my appointment time of 4 pm I was disgusted, since I knew I’d be on my ass waiting for a long time, but almost two hours was not what I guessed.
Anyway, I’m increasing the dose of one of my morning BP meds and I should have a scrip faxed in (I’ll check later today) and renewals for everything else. We’re hoping this will drop my blood pressure enough that the risk factors for cardiovascular damage drop somewhat.
When I came home, I realized I had some chicken thawed and I’d already made a pot of rice, so I dumped what seemed like a lot of safflower oil in a pan and fried up some chicken and rice and peas and added exactly one tablespoon of soy sauce and nothing else (it was the Most Caucastic stir fry ever, I assure you) and it was actually totally delicious and hit the spot and Jeff even had seconds, which meant it was completely consumed and there were no leftovers huzzah.
Still delightfully clear but cold yesterday, it’s supposed to be much warmer today. It was chilly in the basement these last two days.
One little kudo this morning. I wrote a story about two people who meet while already quite drunk from two different parties and one of them can’t stop barfing but they get frisky anyway. That’s the one that caught praise this morning. It has the funniest title out of all of my stories.
Much better night of sleep last night. As suspected I was twisted about the doctor appointment Tuesday night and that impacted my sleep. I could go on at length about how goddamned rude the people waiting with me were and how variable people seem to be in terms of both quality and usage of masks but there’s no point.
Probably getting a cleaning specialist today, and whether or not we do I’ll be talking to Jeff about whether we’re doing a shop this morning.
I got the strings OFF Otto but have not got them ON. Such a hassle to have ball end strings for the mandolin.
People are dead in the opening shelling of Putin’s war.
I don’t think Putin understands that he’s paved the way for a lot of unrest at home. The rouble’s tanked, foreign exchange is locked up, the army itself is poorly equipped and fed and trained and morale is low, and the suffering of the people on Russian territory as fuel and food and anything from the West skyrockets in price will be most terrible. One half of Russians support Putin’s war. One quarter does not. One quarter is not sure. Those numbers WILL change, and Putin’s going to be pissed when they don’t go his way.
Here’s a good overview of possibilities on Youtube. Make sure you turn subtitles on, that guy talks REAL fast.
off colour
I woke up about two dozen times last night, and I kept feeling nauseous, so either I ate something disagreeable yesterday or I’m sickening with something or it’s psychological because I really don’t want to sit in a doctor’s office across the street from one of the busiest emergency departments in the city later today and in all cases having to go to the doctor today is suboptimal but I will go. I’m planning on taking a taxi unless Jeff volunteers to drive me, but it’s close to rush hour for the appointment, so that seems unlikely.
Eggs and coffee for breakfast.
I’ve restrung Smokey and he sounds BETTER THAN AWESOME. I imagine I’ll go downstairs and he’ll be completely out of tune again, but I ran through ‘Gelis and Niccolo’ full chat and it sounds like god giving advice. brrr, lovely. Managed to thank Mike once again in person when he was here ‘tother night for giving me the restringing tool, which is abso wonderful and speeds things up and makes them much less scary.
I am working in the back of my mind on a song, sadly another hymn.
I am not looking forward to restringing Otto, but I have the strings and it brutally needs doing and as far as I can tell I haven’t restrung him since GAFilk. (A brief Really I should find a decent luthier and have the goddamn frets brought down, or maybe I’ll do that myself with a file.
The weird letters on my earlier posts all came back, I have no idea why.
I would like to read a newspaper headline through your breast
Said the mammogram technician. Anyway, I have booked one for May, and it’s relatively local, so all is good.
Yesterday I did two loads of laundry, and thanks to Suzanne the bathrooms are shiny again. She’s settling into her new apartment at Kingsway and Gilley (SOOOO CLOSE) and is probably going to get Alex for an overnight soon, when her apartment’s all shoved back into corners. Katie helped her assemble all her computer-y stuff like a boss.
Slept FANTASTIC. Went to sleep just after 8, woke up around 4. I may not nap tidday, boys!!!
Jeff bought me a burger and shake from Wet Spot, and it was fantastic.
I am very close to being finished writing Mary’s letter but I think it should be at least another couple of pages longer.
No kudos this morning… what a sap I am. One must be motivated from the inside.
Recent uproars on the internet:
person 1 – I ain’t taking my shoes off in your skanky ass house cause your floors are heinous and I don’t give a shit about your cultural constructs appears magically on line. THERE ARE OPINIONS
(this is all part of the editors in NA on line venues looking for ways to shit on Asian people during the Olympics, how rude)
person 2 – I ain’t putting up with your skanky ass shoes in my house because you fucking people walk through broken glass and dogshit and then march all over my new laminate floors and you laugh when I point out the scratches
person 3 – (allegra) I brought orthotic slippers to help me keep my feet warm and keep my balance, if you prevent me from wearing my indoor slippers you’re an ableist fuck and I ain’t enterin’ your skanky ass house (I didn’t actually say this, I never found a venue, so here it is on my own site) and if your floors actually are dirty I won’t fucking care but if there is a shrine in the house of course I’ll take my fucking slippers off do you think I’m a clod, deaf to the songs of the gods?
Vocabulary review: skanky – cheap, dirty, slutty, low-rent, low-class; – ass – added for emphasis.
Got a comment hijacked by a comment bot on Reddit this morning. Didn’t even notice until someone picked it out of the crap pile for me. It’s one of the funniest lines I ever wrote so of course some witless algorithm steals it.
Jeff and I are continuing to enjoy Peacemaker (it is rude, it is funny, it is freaky, it is scary) and Leverage (well written, clips along, very very formulaic and light hearted, which compared to the grimdark we watch most of the rest of the time is GOOD).
Have some Ice from Iceland to go along with today’s fog. It was 5 degrees and rain blowing horizontal, if you wonder why it’s so dull, almost four years ago, May 2018.
I changed my bedding!
I restuffed my bolster after washing the cover and tied off the ends and now I am very comfy in bed; the weighted blanket is folded at the end of the bed so I can use it to raise my feet.
Suzanne came late due to my communication error but is here now beating bathrooms into shape.
My next assault on adulting consists of booking a mammogram. Ai Yi. Next doctor appointment February 23.