Category: Health

The #IvermectinInsurrection

They’re coming to town tomorrow, and I’m thinking of calling Keith and asking him what he thinks I should do about it.

A few more kudos this morning, always pleasant to wake up to. Still plugging away at a couple of stories.

Katie sent me a link to one of my favourite music videos and that cheered me up.

I sure hope I’m not getting polychondritis … every goddamned morning I wake up and my ears hurt. I mean it seems fairly obvious that I have some kind of weird stammering autoimmunity issues, with my hot joints and constant weird pains and blurpiness and ghastly overwrought pain and exhaustion response to any exercise but walking. Walking doesn’t present a problem 98 percent of the time.  I could also be the world’s most embarrassable hypochondriac. Oh well, off to the doc virtually on the 7th to get my HORDE OF SCRIPS renewed. Hopefully an adjustment, my blood pressure continues to be unacceptable despite the diuretics. Anyway I’m getting it in both ears, worse on the left.

Symptoms of relapsing polychondritis usually begin with the sudden onset of pain, tenderness and swelling of the cartilage of one or both ears. This inflammation may spread to the fleshy portion of the outer ear causing it to narrow. Attacks may last several days to weeks before subsiding.

 

from another website

WHAT ARE SOME OF THE SYMPTOMS?

Every RP patient is different – they may have some, but not all, of the following symptoms:

 

  • Ear pain, which may include swelling and redness check

  • Nose pain, which  may include swelling and redness check but nowhere near as bad

  • Throat pain, which may include change in voice, shortness of breath, dry cough nope or not much

  • Red, painful, swollen eyes not really; more likely familial dry eye and issues around blood sugar

  • Rib pain and tenderness fuck yeah all the gd time I’ve been complaining of it since my teens (literally whined about it until I got a free xray at the radiology dept I worked at and of course NADA)

  • Joint pain or swelling and this would be different from daily life how… KNEES, HANDS, ANKLES, TOES, HIPS, BACK, NECK, ELBOWS, BACK TO THE KNEES

  • General malaise, low grade fever yes to the former no to the latter

at wit’s end

My doc was a no show for my last appointment, when I was supposed to get my prescriptions updated, and I got victim blamed after half an hour of trying to get through to the clinic for not realizing she doesn’t do phone renewals. I knew that, I just COULDN’T GET A FUCKING APPT and now I can’t for FOUR WEEKS.

I’m about to run out of meds that, if I don’t take them, will cause me to be at risk of stroke or brain bleed so FUCK MY BLOOD PRESSURE DURING A PANDEMIC, RIGHT?

ANYWAY if I die, please ask Jeff who my doctor was so you can send her my regards posthumously. I’m so angry and scared I’m losing it, hard.

AND I WAS SUPPOSED TO GIVE BLOOD TODAY and I can’t because I was reluctantly given an emergency appointment that my doc may very well bail on that falls at the same time. I’M TRYING TO BE SOCIALLY RESPONSIBLE HERE and fuck my life, seriously.

 

continued midsection weirdness

I’m fine this morning but once again had abdominal discomfort last night. Not exactly pain, just weirdness, in more or less the same place as before.

Didn’t stop me from making salad, chicken thighs and baked yams for tea.

Now waiting for the Expanse season/series finale on January 14. Please, no asteroids strike the planet between now and then (although we had another near miss last night, did you hear about that? 1/4 the distance to the moon, that little rock whipped by…)

I am going to quite openly state that although I am not at risk of self-harm and I’m not in any danger, my mental health is as bad as it’s been since the pandemic started. I just don’t feel like doing anything. What’s the point? my poor raddled body brain thinks. So if you get a phone call from me it’s because I’ve bobbed up through this state of mind long enough to contact someone and be civil… the rest of the time I don’t even want to imagine how a phone call might go. And despite all this Jeff and I are prioritizing being civil to each other. The idea of going through this pandemic without peace at home makes me feel like lightning.

I’m so worried for Alex. Ryker is breastfed and his mother’s vaccinated so he’ll likely be okay, but Alex has asthma and I’m so scared for him. Who knows when in class instruction will start again. (oh, apparently it has already o.O)

I was working on a poem about the Moloch energy and now I can’t because the child sacrificer is standing right in front of us all. It’s terrifying.

abdo pain

So… the pain went until about 8:30, 9 pm last night. I very slowly found a position that would allow me to breathe without it hurting. Pain was diffuse and on the right side of my abdomen, with referred pain up to my right shoulderblade.

Was it a kidney stone? Gas? My digestive tract twisting? Grumbly appendix? Surgical adhesions being crabby? Liver pain (and if so, what from??) Indigestion? Some new weird form of heartburn? (Tums didn’t really help, but didn’t hurt either)… it lasted the best part of 8 hours and was really horrible.

Slept until 1:30 and now can’t go back to sleep. Sigh.

I will do my best not to complain…

Normally I spend some time talking to Suzanne while she’s here and I was literally too fucked up to say more than a few words to her. She visited Ryker yesterday while dropping Alex off after a sleepover and she says he’s grown a BUNCH… which as pOp has observed many times, they tend to do at this age.

We’ve started Expanse S6

Tea and toast

Woke up just after three after a restful sleep. Three kudos on my dashboard this morning. Always fun to see what people are reading. Another person has subscribed to my mailchimp account for UPSUN as well. In addition I logged into dreamwidth (the ‘replacement’ for live journal for people who don’t want all their data stolen by the Russians) because I really wanted to read something one of my filk buddies has posted and …. I hadn’t posted since 2018. uff dah. I posted. It was sad having to mention that Tom had died.

Worked on the fanfic a bit, not much. In the portion I just wrote one of the brothers is teasing the other about his new relationship and I very much enjoyed writing that because one of the great wellsprings of Supernatural fanfic is the abiding love (and shittalk) between the bros… it’s very easy to write the shittalk because they are constantly teasing each other (and would die for each other).

Still not experiencing hunger and thirst properly. It’s very strange to be forcing myself to eat, unless it’s something sweet.

The wind is gusting hard and it makes the plastic siding creak in an alarming way.

Ryker’s got a mucousy cold, poor wee tyke. Alex is a snot factory whether he has a cold or not. Just sayin’.

Had to shovel again; the lack of walkway salt was mitigated by the fact that it started raining and melting, so we didn’t get freezing rain. Lawks that was one big raccoon we got through the property night before last though, HUGE pawprints.

It’s very pleasant to no longer be required to run a heater all night in my room. It’s quite pleasant in the house now.

Well, I boiled water but I haven’t made tea, and the toast is still waiting for my work, so time for some foodicles and to start my day. FIRST TASK. Wrestling my weighted blanket back into its cover. This will literally take me half an hour as it’s like a USB cable. First you attach the WRONG zipper, and then you attach the RIGHT ONE, IN THE WRONG DIRECTION, and then omg maybe THIS will work. Heavy sigh. Still haven’t put all my clothes away.

This morning my twitter feed is full of: Trans people commenting (still) on Matrix Resurrections, including the best tweet sized appreciation of it I’ve seen so far; disabled people saying CAN YOU PLEASE STOP TRYING TO KILL US BY NOT WEARING MASKS AND SHITTY POLICY; Glenn Greenwald, may the great Parent of the Universe buy him a fucking clue, saying how twitter doesn’t have the right to eject people from its platform cause free speech, when it’s already been established that it really isn’t. He’s defending Marjorie, by the way. Candidly, clownbag is too kind for that man.

The Cincinnati Beagles won the division (over KC). We did not see that coming. It was a weird game with some patently ugly and bad calls. I mean, how many times is it possible to repeat 4th down?

@ElSangito:

i understand finding matrix 4’s lack of subtlety grating but i would never wanna use metaphors again either if the metaphorical allegory i wrote before got co-opted by far right patriarchal fascists whose whole thing is to eradicate my entire people

 

 

7 am and I’m a tad underslept

She’s only been booted off twitter for a week, but Marjorie Taylor Greene’s bile emissions in twitter form are gone for now thank Christ. One of my faves said good so I wrote a leel poem

alas alas / tis for a week / then once again/  she’ll start to beak.

Then another of my faves said NO IT’S PERMANENT and so…. I bringeth you the newis gladde!

Shoulda put ‘BURMA SHAVE’ at the end of that poem.

Today, a plan of action for all the medical related stuff I have to do. Get my tits squoze for health and science! (Mammogram appointment, the arrangement thereof.) Overnight BP monitoring! I DO NOT WANT IT, NOT AT ALL, EXCUSE ME, because they warn you that you won’t sleep that well, but at least I got my BP down substantially before I’m doing it, which is cheating OR IS IT. Remember that adequate roborative sleep is REQUIRED for lowering BP and then they give you a gadget that prevents you from sleeping properly.

scuse me? Say waht? You’re going to find out what my blood pressure is doing over a 24 hour period during which I have to forego restful sleep, get bent.

Also, getting re-ups on the Metformin and the Crestor and the Inderal. (So glad Jeff nagged me into using a weekly pill organizer, what a difference.) My abdominal pains and brain fog might actually be the Crestor, but didn’t I have that before?? tho’ in general I’m no longer getting side effects (except for the poopiness of Metformin, and I will never forget my convo with mOm about that, it definitely sticks out in the rear view…ahem) from the meds I’ve been prescribed.

Also, a plan of action for THE ADDITIONAL SNOW THAT AN ANGRY DEITY WHIZZED OUT ON US. WHEN WE HAVE NO ROADWAY SALT. grr. AND NONE TO BE HAD IN THE PNW calice tabarnak

I appear to have lost a couple of pounds, hopefully it’ll make that unprofessional ice witch of an RN at my doctor’s office chide me less.

ALSO, more writing, since I’m in the mood again, and I’m in a nicely domestic portion of it. Domestic Alternate Universe (AU) is mah bag. Sleepy cuddles and changing bandages, happy sigh.

One kudo from AO3 this morning, for my second most recent story. That one seems to have landed very well among the fandom. (mOm liked it too)

I keep thinking how weird it is that I literally feel better (less foggy, more energetic) than I have in ages but I really did not get a lot of sleep. Good thing my whole life is configured around my bed. Which I changed the sheets of last night, and restuffed my bolster too. (Had to use my feet, get in there ya goddam pillows.)

Gosh that sounds rude. But it gets ruder still.

“Henry Cavill can stuff my bolster any time. But maybe not with his feet.”

I only say this sexually harassing thing to segue into how Henry Cavill gets sexually harassed (fondled and called yummy etc etc) mostly by young white women bingo callers (callback to Frank Magazine – bingo callers = television personalities) on the tube all the bloody time BUT if I ever met Henry Cavill in real life I’d try to have a conversation with him about his dog (the one he says saved his life) and maybe how he’s a fucking icon for mental health and gaming being an activity for everyone and I wouldn’t say a thing about how his frame is nigh perfect; it’s not the most important thing about him. Nothing about the work, because apart from his grunting and swordsmanship in The Witcher, which is world class, I’m not really familiar with a lot of his oeuvre. He was so very adorable in I Capture the Castle though, I remember that much.

Jeff and I have had a couple of laugh until you cry moments recently. I watched some ads go by on fast forward while Jeff was watching the Rose Bowl and I conflated that Tom Hiddleston and Kate McKinnon were now in a show called the Spy Who Dumped Me. I thought that sounded great and I wanted to watch it and Jeff said, well, you were watching ads for a series of shows and movies on a network and none of the images you saw had anything to do with each other. I felt very stupid but abrumptly we were both laughing our asses off. It was one of those why are we laughing moments. But I try to read meaning into everything and having my assumptions reproved in such a kind way landed as hilarious.

The Spy Who Dumped Me is a 2018 movie with a 6.1/10 rating.

 

busy day

So after I went to the dentist (bill $60, bill that’s coming ~~three grand) to learn that I have two cracked molars in two separate parts of my mouth and need to see Dr. Lee the Endodontist as soon as may be –

I went to Lifelabs and got my every three months pee and bloodwork, and a followup ECG. I thought about picking up snacks and just couldn’t face another queue, so I walked home and more or less collapsed. There might have been a load of laundry in there too.

I just figured it was better to get it over now than later. The teeth I’ve been expecting, I had a vision that all my teeth would need work all at once and that it just wouldn’t stop, I knew it wouldn’t stop after the last crown.

Much hand wringing here, waiting for Alex’s computer with the porch pirates so active.

BP continues to drop a tiny bit.

aphasic episode

I had a lengthy aphasic episode in the Saveon this morning. “Aphasia?” Jeff said helpfully which was actually helpful. I can force a word or two out but it takes all the brain I have to manage it. This was preceded by a lengthy and weird dizzy spell. As long as I was hanging on to a counter I wasn’t dizzy but the second I let go, whoopsy!

As far as I can tell I’m fine now.

Fish and chips for dinner

Not exactly a diabetes friendly meal but I am uncaring at the moment.

Conservatives got stomped hard in the AB election. Yay I guess.

Much laundry is being done. I have taken my Metformin and brushed my teeth, and the world seems to be flinging itself round on its axis as normal.

Update on the fucking asshole naturopath who’s endangering children. And for when the article disappears, a quote.

Bethany Lindsay · CBC News · Posted: Oct 19, 2021 4:00 AM PT

Jason Klop is fighting an order from the College of Naturopathic Physicians of B.C. to stop producing fecal microbiota transplants (FMT) at a facility in the Fraser Valley for use on autistic children at a clinic in Mexico.

He filed a petition in B.C. Supreme Court last month, alleging the college doesn’t have the power to stop him. The college has now disputed that in a legal response.

The college’s response provides new details about a complaint from a former employee that led to this action, saying the alleged whistleblower reached out in April using the pseudonym “Molly Rylene” to express her concerns.

The former employee “alleged the stool donors for the FMT materials being produced at the petitioner’s laboratory were the petitioner’s nephews who ‘bring their stool down to the basement and someone down there freeze dries it and makes it into capsules,’ ” the Oct. 12 court document reads.

“She alleged the ‘household lab’ had no quality assurance or quality control measures and there was no analysis conducted of what was contained in the FMT materials being produced.”

day got better

I saw Tom who was resting comfortably and not interacting and Peggy who had a minute to talk

also my doctor and the RN

also ate in a restaurant but ate healthier

took a taxi both ways

got mistaken for a Mennonite

most of my blood numbers are improved

Spoke to Suzanne about her coming by later to clean tomorrow

shit now I have to go to the bank

I got rid of the medication I no longer require in a socially responsible way

Katie’s lasagne continues to be wonderful, but not for long.

Saw Tom today

He greeted me, and said a goodbye after my couple of hours by his bedside watching him breathe, (Peggy and Ben were there) but didn’t say much else. He’s essentially in palliative care. We’re all sad, but he’s getting the care he needs, very good care thank you very much, for the stage of life he’s in, and there are friends and family with him pretty much all day.

We must love each other while we can.

swithering

Dishwasher is running thanks to me, tea is seeping thanks to Jeff, and I just realized that I didn’t get my goddamned bloodwork done because I was about to go in to Lifelabs and I got an email that Tom is sick and it literally (THANKS FOR NUTHIN ADD and also may I just mention that not getting a fucking email reminder of your pending requisition from the doctors office doesn’t exactly fucking help even if you don’t have ADD) knocked doing that out of my mind. So I must must do that today. Which means I have to walk over to 6th and 10th anyway, maybe I can mail the 9 page (large print) letter I wrote to Mary over the last week, and pick up a coffee for Jeff on the way back since he was hankering for one.

weather is frickin GLORIOUS  I mean seriously.

I have a list as long as my hair (which reminds me, I need to tie it up again or Jeff’s going to be spitting out my hairs reproachfully while watching tv as they drift over his face (sometimes he goes GAAAH and flaps his hands because it’s like having a spider web land on you and then OH THE REPROACHFUL LOOK)) and slightly more motivation than yesterday for attacking it. More laundry, working on Finale writing down songs and messing with the voicing, tidying up the music/guest room, working on a couple of new fanfics, responding to Tish’s letter, actually reading the rent increase notice and diarizing it. A small fraction of the goo sticking to me.

I have subscribed to the NYT for a year, it was 1/20th the normal price so I actually thought that was fair. Jeff, it was the article about Jared Harris that made me subscribe, I am such a celebri-fluffer.

Crows called for food this morning, but I put out sunflower seeds instead of roasted unsalted peanuts so they are sulking. (later, there they go again. It’s four-call, whoever she is)

Keith has apparently had an excellent visit with the grandparents in Victoria. I’ll be meeting up with Paul at some point today to walk and possibly visit Tom and exchange stuff, since items keep migrating between our two households.

Jeff’s car is still in the krankenhaus. The problem can’t be replicated, so we’re beginning to think it’s bad fuel.

I think I have blown through yet another set of orthotics, so that’s going on the list as well. NO DO NOT WANT. I mean I want comfy feet but I do not want to spend 400 dollars even if my fOlks are underwriting it with my remittance woman stipend.

ADD meds day two. I AM ITCHY. Is it allergies? is it medication? LOL who knows. Much imitating of the Archer character Woodhouse saying in his crackly voice, “It’s going to be an itchy weekend.”

I bought some Red Racer Street Legal Pilsner and IPA for Paul so I have something festive to drink while I’m over there. Got some for myself as well. It’s about the equivalent of a piece of bread, for carbs.

I now have a nightgown for every night of the week. And okay, enough potchkeying around on my blog, I have to go have a phlebotomist stab me, baby.