Texty

Dear healthcare professional:

If a patient comes to you with symptoms of a potentially worrisome infection (fever + lethargy + pain in alarming places), being condescending about it means you're an asshole.

I didn't come in because I hoped I had the infection, but because I wanted to rule it out. Oh, and BTW? You didn't actually do that. You just blew me off because you assumed a fat chick who used actual medical terminology was probably an attention whore making shit up.

Fortunately for my health, I'm also stubborn bitch, and made you give me antibiotics anyway.

Oh, and the dig about my blood pressure? Totally uncalled for, jackhole. Yes, my blood pressure is a bit high today. I'm in fucking pain. If you'd like, I can send you 20 gigs of pics of my (basically normal) at-home readings.

Y'know, it's almost like some doctors get angry at me for being fat and yet not about to drop dead. It's like they can't deal with the cognitive dissonance, and so want me out of their offices as soon as humanly possible, rather than taking the time to fix the totally-not-fat-related problem I came in with.

Just a bit more than a week left before I'm back to the cube grind again, so I've been doing what I can to knock out stuff on my final to-do list.

***

Chief among these tasks is health stuff, for me and for the kitties. In my case, I had a sorta physical with my GP, doing some followup screening on the big possible kidney issue thang we were looking at last year. I went off of a couple of meds when we were trying to figure that out, and I wanted to go back on them again, so I decided to get another screening. Waiting to hear back on bloodwork, but the doc seems to think I should be fine. Now to just get in to the endocrinologist again.

***

Got Penny in yesterday for a geriatric screen. Last time she was in (at the old vet), they seemed to think she had a heart problem. This time, however, they said she just has a mild murmur--no need for an ultrasound or anything. Yay! They also said she looks really good for her age (15) and she's a good weight and her teeth (the ones she has left) aren't even in bad shape. Bloodwork all came back good, too. There are two problems: The ongoing dandruff/heavy shedding thing, which they said might be solved with an amino acid treatment and some glucosamine supplements to handle some arthritis, and... she's basically blind. Not just cataracts, which is common with her age, but she apparently has detached lenses. Eep.

This kinda explains a lot, though. If she's having trouble seeing, no wonder she's upset with Otter trying to play with her, and starts yowling at night when she can't see anything at all. Might also explain some of her litter box issues, too. If she can't easily see if she's about to be pounced on, she might feel more comfortable going near the box instead of inside it, so she can dash away more easily. Poor wee thing.

Bummer that she has that issue, but with the rest of her health being basically good for a very old kitteh, she should be with us for at least a couple more years, and I'm very glad about that.

***

Trying to squeeze out what we can from the last bits of good weather, so we took a couple of blue-sky hours this past weekend to go drive around Pt. Defiance park. Neither of us had ever been there before, so it was a nice little trek. M did some geocaching and I tried to do some birding, but didn't get very far because it was a bit too crowded for them to not go off and hide. We did get stalked by some raccoons, though. Seriously: It was creepy. We were driving along, minding our own business, and every 100 feet or so, there was a new raccoon--or maybe it was the same one!--staring at us as we drove past. Like, actually staring. Making eye contact with me and everything. Creeeeeepy!

Hoping we get at least one more good weekend day soon. This dreariness is starting to get to me already.

***

Somehow managed to lose my debit card in the last week or so. This is the card I use for just about everything, including most of my regularly scheduled autopays, so losing it is a giant pain in the patoot. Waiting to get the new one soon and then will likely have to spend an afternoon cleaning all that up. Fortunately, we haven't had any evidence that it was actually stolen or anything.

***

Still have a few more fanworks planned before this is all over, but got a couple more done: A new video and a fun little crossover "episode" thing with Primeval/Eureka/Warehouse 13. And it doesn't even have porn in it. Oooh. ;)

Once I'm done with those, however, I'm going to be back in passive-fan mode for a while. New fall shows are starting up, which is cool, but I don't really feel compelled to be active in those fandoms, so I'll prolly be dialing down the participation in general. At least until the new series of Primeval airs in January.

***

Also still working on the novel, believe it or not. Lots of research done in the last few months. Yes, the actual writing has been sporadic, but I'm getting the ducks in a row for some of the larger-scale mythology, language, accuracy and setting issues, which matters quite a lot for everything else to work as it should.

***

Updated Flickr stuff. Still have a backlog to get through, but there are a few more recent pics there.

I think I need to face the fact that I've become lactose intolerant.

Given my adoration for all things cheese and ice cream, plus considering cereal an appropriate meal for any time of day, I'm completely screwed.

I may try those little pills, I spose.


Also, am slightly disappointed that I got wrapped up in writing tonight and somehow missed M going to bed. Was all ready to go cuddle and chat for a bit a couple of hours ago, and he was already passed out. :(

At least I'm proud of what I wrote, though. Did a very difficult scene--pushed past my comfort zone.


Hanging out a bit with K tomorrow (which means ~4 hours in the car) but also want to write and work on vids, and dig into the Supernatural season 5 discs we're getting from Netflix. Too much to do in my one remaining weekend before I have to start being responsible again.

To briefly summarize this fantastic article about research into the effects of stress on health:

( Stress is deadly, yo )

All of this? Is stuff I've been saying for years. Yet stress is almost never actually addressed in the cultural information flow about health, in favor of the latest superfood or diet craze or magic snake oil that's supposed to make everything better.

It's heartening, therefore, to see that there are at least some researchers out there who are focusing on trying to fix this.

It's also heartening on a personal level. Mostly.


( Sucky childhood = crappy adult health, and there's not much I can do about that now )

I also have to wonder whether the screeching health brigade will pay any attention to this stuff, and start changing how they address health issues. I wonder if they'll ever come to the realization that, for instance, berating fat people for being fat is not, in fact, helping them become healthier and is instead making things worse.

But... Probably not.

Addressing the key cultural factors involved in stress-related illness A) requires addressing the worst parts of capitalism B) Can't be marketed/profited from the same way diets, gym memberships and the latest superfoods and magic vitamins can and C) Requires holding the larger culture responsible instead of blaming people for their own problems (which is, of course, the Proper American Way to do things.)

Besides, it's really not health that these people care about anyway. If it was, diets and gyms wouldn't market themselves as the sure ticket to a more socially acceptable body. What they really care about isn't cardiovascular health, but maintaining the existing social rank by making sure lower-status people feel rotten about themselves so they'll never get strong enough to pose a challenge to dominance.

Yet another day rendered useless because I have a headache that won't go away.

I had Things To Do, dammit.

Naturally, my fickle cranium picked a horrible day to go south on me. I'd been looking forward to the Z-man's baby shower, and then about an hour before we got there, my brain started feeling like it was going to ooze out my sinuses. I only managed an hour at the party--and an anti-social one, at that--before I had to bail. Grrr.

Finally started feeling a bit better a few hours ago, thank goodness, but wish it had happened sooner.

I suppose I'll simply have to go pester Z and his daddies on my own sometime soon. Hrmph.


Hoping I feel more productive this week. I've been behind on my Official Writing Gig stuff lately due to muses living it up somewhere relaxing and fun. Stoopid muses.

Last night's "that doesn't feel quite right" became this morning's "motherfucking ow."

Fortunately, the urgent care clinic was great (the Valley Med at the Landing--highly recommended; great folks) and I am now downing antibiotics and those fun little pee-dye pills. Damn shame the med tech was such a cute little Russian/Ukranian boy. It's always ten times more embarassing to go in for issues like that when the people you're talking to are hotties.

--

Gorgeous, gorgeous day. Will probably spend much of it asleep because I only got a few hours last night, thanks to the issue above.

--

Reminds me that I need to get something figured out for our AC install, though. It's going to start getting warm, soon. We have a whole-house fan that works fairly well, but we don't have much in the way of shade, so the house is likely to heat up quite a lot this summer.

--

Hooked up with the new vet to find out why Fammy's been barfing on the bed more or less every night for the last couple of weeks. She does that fairly often anyway, but this was consistent enough that we got worried. After an exam and some bloodwork, doc says she's fine, but probably has acid reflux or something like that, and needs to be on a hypoallergenic diet. Which probably is healthier for the other two as well.

--

Delighted to have had a nice, low-key afternoon BBQ last Sunday with miss_swamp, livingdeadpan, southplains and mrdorbin and assorted small humans. Need to do that again, preferably when the weather's more like it is today instead of the dreary, relentless grey it was last weekend.

--

Really wishing my hardcore creative jones this week had translated into my nonfiction obligations instead of the mental masturbation ones, but I'm finally starting to settle into a bit of a rhythm with the being-at-home thing. Realizing that yes, I still have months of non-structured time left, and therefore I don't have to do all of my creative stuff in one go. I can do other things with my life, too. Rilly. Cooking, playing more Rock Band, reading, etc. Still feeling just a little bit antsy, but I suspect I'll calm down soon.

--

Still enjoying the fandom thing, though, as well as other generic pop culture ventures. Andrew/Primeval fandom is turning out to be full of really nice, mostly sane people. The fic community in particular is mostly populated with smart, mature and open-minded folks. Such a refreshing change. I dare say that I'm writing all this fic now just because I know there are plenty of folks who will enjoy reading it, and who won't faint dead away at some of the... Yeah.

Also tickled that Andrew hisself started up a FB account just for his fans, and has been posting some fun behind-the-scenes pics and such. There have been a few knuckleheaded fantwits over there, but by and large, we've been well behaved so far. There are only a couple hundred of us, though, so that might change if there are more. Kinda glad that Andrew-specific fandom is fairly small, though. Would hate to see him get huge overnight and suffer for it, because he really does seem like a nice guy.

Having a blast following random celebs on Twitter, too. Loving Neil Grayston (Fargo on Eureka) in particular. Funny, awesome guy with a twisted mind.

I've probably had about four hours of sleep, but they were interrupted by waking up every hour, and I have a raging headache to boot, now. Hoping a meal and another dose of pain meds kills that and knocks me back out again soon.

Should probably check in with work while I'm conscious, though. I feel terrible being out like this when we're in the middle of this new project, especially given that I've been making some stupid mistakes lately. Erf.

So, I apparently managed to seriously injure my shoulder sometime Thursday, but I couldn't remember what I had done to make it happen, since it didn't really start getting stiff and sore until later that evening.

I originally thought maybe it was a shopping-related injury (holding an armful of stuff while I waited in a very long checkout line) or that maybe I'd just done something to it with too much mousing from the nonstop work thing this week. Just muscle strain or something.

But now that it hasn't gotten any better, I think those things just aggravated it, and what I really did? Was screwed up a ligament or tendon or something Thursday morning while trying to put my bra on. I have a vague recollection of the hook side of the strap slipping out of my hand, and twisting to keep a grip on it and keep it from snapping out and thwacking me. Ugh. Of all the ridiculous ways to injure oneself.

And the real bitch of it is that I can't take anything for the pain, since I'm trying to kick my Advil habit in case that's what's causing my (I assume) kidney problem. Heat and rest aren't really helping (which would make sense with a tendon injury instead of just a pulled muscle) So I'm stuck trying to not move my right shoulder at all in hopes that the inflammation or whatever will eventually go away. Which... Isn't exactly easy. M had to actually help me get dressed this morning (though no bra--I figure anyone who sees me on the weekends can cope with my uncorralled boobs.)

It's sort of gotten worse over the last 24 hours, and if it doesn't start healing, I may go get it poked at. Maybe see if they'll give me a steroid shot or something. Grrr. I have plans for this weekend, dammit!

Woke up with headache. Decided to throw new migraine meds at it. Now feeling worse--much worse--than I did before. Headache's still there and horrible, now. Shaky, unsteady and very much on the verge of puking.

And I've been taking so much time off work lately for the move thing that going back home is unlikely to happen.

Crossing my fingers that this passes. Soon. Please.


ETA: Am idiot. Didn't look up info on this before I took it. It's a serotonin agonist. Therefore it's going to do the same horrible stuff to me that SSRIs did when I was taking them. Hoofreakingray.

The nausea and screaming pain is ebbing just slightly, though I suspect that's due to eating a little something. The dizziness, anxiety and feeling of impending doom? Still there. In spades.


ETA2: Went back home, thanks very much to M who kindly picked me up since I was unable to drive. Promptly curled up on the bed and passed out. Feel a little bit better. Going to pass out again shortly.

Suspect yesterday's flu and tetanus shots may be contributors to overall feeling of complete and total suck.