I just realized almost everything I've posted for a while has been locked to some degree, so I figured I'd throw up a quick update.
Back in Atlanta, and my mom's also moving back as we speak (assuming J doesn't kill her in-route...she flew him up there to help load the truck and to drive it down, and it's evidently been a bit...intense).
Head's not really doing better, although I had some tests done over the last week and I find out the results the week after next. Maybe they'll be helpful. From what the EEG tech said, it sounds like they'll at least be helpful in improving my quality of sleep. Since my brain, evidently, is not really so on top of things with that. My feet started weirdly retaining water just after the move and puffed up really big, but now they're almost down to where I can wear real shoes.
And I got my first rejection from social security (no surprise), so I've got an attorney and we're doing the appeal. So in the meantime, trying to find something for at least SOME income. I thought I had a couple of tutoring students, but they disappeared...
Back in Atlanta, and my mom's also moving back as we speak (assuming J doesn't kill her in-route...she flew him up there to help load the truck and to drive it down, and it's evidently been a bit...intense).
Head's not really doing better, although I had some tests done over the last week and I find out the results the week after next. Maybe they'll be helpful. From what the EEG tech said, it sounds like they'll at least be helpful in improving my quality of sleep. Since my brain, evidently, is not really so on top of things with that. My feet started weirdly retaining water just after the move and puffed up really big, but now they're almost down to where I can wear real shoes.
And I got my first rejection from social security (no surprise), so I've got an attorney and we're doing the appeal. So in the meantime, trying to find something for at least SOME income. I thought I had a couple of tutoring students, but they disappeared...
I know I haven't posted in a while, and I'll post an actual update eventually, but life has kind of beaten me up, so there's a lot going on right now. But this was too good not to share:
Worst thing to hear from your dentist: "Now, don't let me drown you..."
And holy crap, getting a crown on a tooth is worse than the freaking root canal. I wish I had an adult-sized mouth to go with the adult-me. They try to get these drills in there (this was the VERY back tooth on top), and there's only so far my mouth opens. And only so many places my tongue can go and still allow breathing. He kept telling me to put my tongue in the back, but when you're almost upside down in the chair, that's how you choke on your tongue, methinks.
Edited to add: Huh. Almost exactly a year since my last entry.
Worst thing to hear from your dentist: "Now, don't let me drown you..."
And holy crap, getting a crown on a tooth is worse than the freaking root canal. I wish I had an adult-sized mouth to go with the adult-me. They try to get these drills in there (this was the VERY back tooth on top), and there's only so far my mouth opens. And only so many places my tongue can go and still allow breathing. He kept telling me to put my tongue in the back, but when you're almost upside down in the chair, that's how you choke on your tongue, methinks.
Edited to add: Huh. Almost exactly a year since my last entry.
Just an update.
Funeral's over and done. No less than FOUR preachers, and my biggest issue was that, instead of talking about my grandfather, and his life, and what an amazing person he was, they just used it as an opportunity to preach about hell and such. But graveside we had JROTC girls from one of the nearby schools to fold the flag from the casket and present it to my step-grandmother.
My uncle Perry is doing much better. They did a tracheotomy for the respirator, but he's actually breathing on his own now, so they're using the trach to get moisture down in the lungs to help them heal and get the junk out. But he was smiling at my aunt, and being obnoxious to the nurses (he's one of the most stubborn, obnoxious people I know), so that's a good sign for his recovery. I assume they've told him about my grandfather (it happened while he was knocked out). They're moving him out of the ICU today, or yesterday, or tomorrow, or something like that.
I've been starting to do better, but then this storm blowing in knocked me on my ass this morning, so I'm going to go in late and do a partial work day. Training this afternoon, so I need to be there for that. Don't want to try to have to make it up later.
I've had crazy dry eyes for a while, to the extent that my regular eye doc couldn't even get a new prescription for me. So I've been wearing my old glasses, which probably hasn't helped the headaches at ALL. She said my corneas looked kinda like pitted/frosted glass. After a couple of months of eyedrops constantly, she sent me to a specialist, who plugged the tear drains in the corners of my eyes, to try to keep the tears on the eye longer. But they're still pretty dry.
When I mentioned this to the doc that manages my fibro and migraines (well, his PA), she thought it might be an auto-immune disease, Sjogrens, which is mostly characterized by dry eyes and dry mouth (which I have problems with occasionally), so they did a blood test for the markers that would show up with that, along with other stuff. It came back positive, along with me being low for Vitamin D (to which J said "duh", given the general white and see-throughness of my skin and the fact that I'm indoors most of the time, even if my skin COULD absorb the sun) and having low thyroid function. So we're treating the vitamin D immediately, I've got an appointment with the eye specialist again to see what to do about my eyes (there's no cure for Sjogrens, but there are some treatments we haven't tried, now that we know what it is), and J wants to talk to them about the thyroid. Apparently once you start treating thyroid function by adding what it's not producing enough of, it will slow IT'S production of it, and not come back. So if the thyroid is fine and is just getting wonky signals from somewhere else, fixing it this way could screw me up. So J's coming with me when I go back to talk to the PA again.
Not much else going on. I found a new author that I LOVE. James Lovegrove. Bought his Pantheon trilogy on a whim, and it's freaking awesome. The books are The Age of Ra, The Age of Zeus, and The Age of Odin, and they're not really a trilogy in the traditional sense, as being one story together, but rather as being companion books with similar concepts. In Ra, the Egyptian pantheon has killed off all other gods and split the earth amongst themselves. In Zeus, the world was just like ours, but then the Greek pantheon showed up, and started telling people what to do, convinced they were being benign dictators (they HAD to destroy all of Hong Kong as an example, otherwise no one would take them seriously, right?). In Odin, vets are being hired for this "Project Valhalla" with no idea what it is, in the midst of a 3-year-long winter. Which, if you know anything about the Norse mythology, is part of the lead-up to Ragnarök, their armageddon/end of the world. And they're all very well written and almost impossible to put down. I HIGHLY recommend reading them. But only if you've got time to not put them down. :)
Funeral's over and done. No less than FOUR preachers, and my biggest issue was that, instead of talking about my grandfather, and his life, and what an amazing person he was, they just used it as an opportunity to preach about hell and such. But graveside we had JROTC girls from one of the nearby schools to fold the flag from the casket and present it to my step-grandmother.
My uncle Perry is doing much better. They did a tracheotomy for the respirator, but he's actually breathing on his own now, so they're using the trach to get moisture down in the lungs to help them heal and get the junk out. But he was smiling at my aunt, and being obnoxious to the nurses (he's one of the most stubborn, obnoxious people I know), so that's a good sign for his recovery. I assume they've told him about my grandfather (it happened while he was knocked out). They're moving him out of the ICU today, or yesterday, or tomorrow, or something like that.
I've been starting to do better, but then this storm blowing in knocked me on my ass this morning, so I'm going to go in late and do a partial work day. Training this afternoon, so I need to be there for that. Don't want to try to have to make it up later.
I've had crazy dry eyes for a while, to the extent that my regular eye doc couldn't even get a new prescription for me. So I've been wearing my old glasses, which probably hasn't helped the headaches at ALL. She said my corneas looked kinda like pitted/frosted glass. After a couple of months of eyedrops constantly, she sent me to a specialist, who plugged the tear drains in the corners of my eyes, to try to keep the tears on the eye longer. But they're still pretty dry.
When I mentioned this to the doc that manages my fibro and migraines (well, his PA), she thought it might be an auto-immune disease, Sjogrens, which is mostly characterized by dry eyes and dry mouth (which I have problems with occasionally), so they did a blood test for the markers that would show up with that, along with other stuff. It came back positive, along with me being low for Vitamin D (to which J said "duh", given the general white and see-throughness of my skin and the fact that I'm indoors most of the time, even if my skin COULD absorb the sun) and having low thyroid function. So we're treating the vitamin D immediately, I've got an appointment with the eye specialist again to see what to do about my eyes (there's no cure for Sjogrens, but there are some treatments we haven't tried, now that we know what it is), and J wants to talk to them about the thyroid. Apparently once you start treating thyroid function by adding what it's not producing enough of, it will slow IT'S production of it, and not come back. So if the thyroid is fine and is just getting wonky signals from somewhere else, fixing it this way could screw me up. So J's coming with me when I go back to talk to the PA again.
Not much else going on. I found a new author that I LOVE. James Lovegrove. Bought his Pantheon trilogy on a whim, and it's freaking awesome. The books are The Age of Ra, The Age of Zeus, and The Age of Odin, and they're not really a trilogy in the traditional sense, as being one story together, but rather as being companion books with similar concepts. In Ra, the Egyptian pantheon has killed off all other gods and split the earth amongst themselves. In Zeus, the world was just like ours, but then the Greek pantheon showed up, and started telling people what to do, convinced they were being benign dictators (they HAD to destroy all of Hong Kong as an example, otherwise no one would take them seriously, right?). In Odin, vets are being hired for this "Project Valhalla" with no idea what it is, in the midst of a 3-year-long winter. Which, if you know anything about the Norse mythology, is part of the lead-up to Ragnarök, their armageddon/end of the world. And they're all very well written and almost impossible to put down. I HIGHLY recommend reading them. But only if you've got time to not put them down. :)
- Current Mood:
sick
My grandfather (mom's father) just passed away this morning. This is the first death in my family I've ever had to deal with. I'm still not sure I comprehend that I can't go back and spend another weekend listening to stories of his time in the Navy.
My mom's brother-in-law (she has one sister, this is that sister's husband) is in the hospital (went in about the same time as my Grandpa), with H1N1, another flu strain, pneumonia, and adult respiratory distress syndrome, which is a bitch. They've got him sedated, and it will be weeks-to-months before he is out of the ICU and not having machines breathe for him.
My cousin, the daughter of the two mentioned in the last paragraph, also had her first offspring, a daughter, a week and a half ago.
My family is so stressed at this point, people just bust out into tears at random on the phone. I have very little leave left because of the medical issues I've been juggling, but I've got to be there for this. I'll just have to go and come back home really quickly.
My mom's brother-in-law (she has one sister, this is that sister's husband) is in the hospital (went in about the same time as my Grandpa), with H1N1, another flu strain, pneumonia, and adult respiratory distress syndrome, which is a bitch. They've got him sedated, and it will be weeks-to-months before he is out of the ICU and not having machines breathe for him.
My cousin, the daughter of the two mentioned in the last paragraph, also had her first offspring, a daughter, a week and a half ago.
My family is so stressed at this point, people just bust out into tears at random on the phone. I have very little leave left because of the medical issues I've been juggling, but I've got to be there for this. I'll just have to go and come back home really quickly.
I've been on LJ a lot more lately, having realized that there is quite an awesome community of writers on here (I started off following 
msagara and markdf, and now I'm following seanan_mcguire and karenmiller as well). Even though I'm not doing much writing right now, seeing the author's perspective is absolutely fascinating. And the non-writing stuff is also fascinating which makes sense, since I already knew I liked Michelle Sagara's and Mark Del Franco's fiction writing.
Also, for those of you who aren't on Facebook and I haven't gotten ahold of some other way, Jeremy and I are engaged!!
msagara and markdf, and now I'm following seanan_mcguire and karenmiller as well). Even though I'm not doing much writing right now, seeing the author's perspective is absolutely fascinating. And the non-writing stuff is also fascinating which makes sense, since I already knew I liked Michelle Sagara's and Mark Del Franco's fiction writing.Also, for those of you who aren't on Facebook and I haven't gotten ahold of some other way, Jeremy and I are engaged!!
My mom's moving to Richmond, VA sometime this month. No clue how we're going to get everything moved out of the house...
Not quite sure how I feel about it, actually.
Not quite sure how I feel about it, actually.
The computer is dying. It bluescreens about 10 times before I can get it to actually boot. :( It's still in warranty until March, so I've got a tech support request in to Dell. Hopefully they'll replace the thing. Because in addition to whatever memory problems are causing the blue screens (I've had other errors about memory that weren't blue screens), the case around the screen is cracked...
I'm thinking of getting a Toughbook next. Since I seem to end up cracking my laptop cases all the time.
In the meantime, I'm thinking it may be time to resurrect the desktop. Like, tonight, maybe...
I'm thinking of getting a Toughbook next. Since I seem to end up cracking my laptop cases all the time.
In the meantime, I'm thinking it may be time to resurrect the desktop. Like, tonight, maybe...
I think I've tried to do this before, but I'm going to try to keep it up more this year. So, books I've read so far this year:
1. The Moon is a Harsh Mistress by Robert A. Heinlein
I had been putting this book off because the language made it kind of hard to read (apparently, long-term use of the Moon as a prison colony will get rid of the unneeded words in the English language), but once I got into it, I couldn't put it down.
2. The Cat Who Walks Through Walls by Robert A. Heinlein
With this one, I read things out of order. I should have reread Stranger in a Strange Land and Methuselah's Children before this, and read Number of the Beast. So I'm reading them now, and I'll reread the last 1/3 of this, which is the part that actually overlaps. Sometimes Heinlein gets a bit chaotic and it's hard to follow all of the characters and history and such...
3. The Number of the Beast by Robert A. Heinlein
Helped make some of the bits of The Cat Who Walks Through Walls make more sense. Although I didn't like it as much as I liked some of his other stuff.
4. Star Wars: Medstar II: Jedi Healer by Michael Reaves & Steve Perry
Simple book, quick read. Wrapped the story up quite nicely.
5. Greywalker by Kat Richardson
Reread this to remind myself of the story before reading the 4th book that I got with Christmas money. Really well written urban fantasy. And not of the squealing fan-girl stuff that's out now.
6. Poltergeist by Kat Richardson
This was cool, because it pulls on some of the experiments that have been done in the past to try to create supernatural phenomena using the human mind.
7. Underground by Kat Richardson
This one pulled on Pacific Northwest American Indian stories, which was really cool. Richardson does a very good job of doing her research. There's a short story just after this that uses Mexican mythology surrounding the Day of the Dead celebration
8. Vanished by Kat Richardson
This was only half of the story - I can't WAIT to read the rest of the story. It explains a lot of what the others have been building up to in the background (up 'till now, they've been stand-alone stories with some ongoing stuff in the background), and sets up a 5th book to be the showdown with the bad guy...
1. The Moon is a Harsh Mistress by Robert A. Heinlein
I had been putting this book off because the language made it kind of hard to read (apparently, long-term use of the Moon as a prison colony will get rid of the unneeded words in the English language), but once I got into it, I couldn't put it down.
2. The Cat Who Walks Through Walls by Robert A. HeinleinWith this one, I read things out of order. I should have reread Stranger in a Strange Land and Methuselah's Children before this, and read Number of the Beast. So I'm reading them now, and I'll reread the last 1/3 of this, which is the part that actually overlaps. Sometimes Heinlein gets a bit chaotic and it's hard to follow all of the characters and history and such...
3. The Number of the Beast by Robert A. Heinlein
Helped make some of the bits of The Cat Who Walks Through Walls make more sense. Although I didn't like it as much as I liked some of his other stuff.
4. Star Wars: Medstar II: Jedi Healer by Michael Reaves & Steve Perry
Simple book, quick read. Wrapped the story up quite nicely.
5. Greywalker by Kat Richardson
Reread this to remind myself of the story before reading the 4th book that I got with Christmas money. Really well written urban fantasy. And not of the squealing fan-girl stuff that's out now.
6. Poltergeist by Kat Richardson
This was cool, because it pulls on some of the experiments that have been done in the past to try to create supernatural phenomena using the human mind.
7. Underground by Kat Richardson
This one pulled on Pacific Northwest American Indian stories, which was really cool. Richardson does a very good job of doing her research. There's a short story just after this that uses Mexican mythology surrounding the Day of the Dead celebration
8. Vanished by Kat RichardsonThis was only half of the story - I can't WAIT to read the rest of the story. It explains a lot of what the others have been building up to in the background (up 'till now, they've been stand-alone stories with some ongoing stuff in the background), and sets up a 5th book to be the showdown with the bad guy...
And I don't have a whole lot to say, now. Life is much less dramatic now that I'm responsible and have a 9-to-5 (well, 7:20-to-3:50) job and a boyfriend and 1.5 cats (you pick which one is .5 :P ).
The break went pretty well, although it was much more chaotic than past holidays. I think we might need to pick fewer stops in future years. Managed to work myself into a mild fibro flare, which is taking a few days to die out. Mostly just want to sleep a lot and had to up the painkillers a bit. Fortunately, don't have a whole lot going on at work right now. Things are still ramping back up since most people have been off since before Christmas.
Also, it is cold as FUCK. I'm ok with a turtleneck sweater, fleece, and winter coat, except for my hands. I'm going to try liners with my lined leather gloves tomorrow. See if that helps. Since my engine gets warm roughly when I'm showing my badge to get onto the yard, at which point it does very little to turn the heater on...
The break went pretty well, although it was much more chaotic than past holidays. I think we might need to pick fewer stops in future years. Managed to work myself into a mild fibro flare, which is taking a few days to die out. Mostly just want to sleep a lot and had to up the painkillers a bit. Fortunately, don't have a whole lot going on at work right now. Things are still ramping back up since most people have been off since before Christmas.
Also, it is cold as FUCK. I'm ok with a turtleneck sweater, fleece, and winter coat, except for my hands. I'm going to try liners with my lined leather gloves tomorrow. See if that helps. Since my engine gets warm roughly when I'm showing my badge to get onto the yard, at which point it does very little to turn the heater on...
Had a good Thanksgiving. I had to work Wednesday and Friday, but it wasn't too bad. Sarah came down from Maryland for the holiday Wednesday night and stayed 'till this morning (she has some huge project she's working on). It was good to see her, and it was short enough that we didn't start to fall into the sister squabbling. :P We had Thanksgiving dinner with the family of a friend of my mom's from high school who has helped me and Jeremy get settled in the area. Mom's got some big project at work so she couldn't come up, and Dad just finished moving out to Oklahoma (he got laid off early this year and hasn't been able to find work yet, so he sold the house and is staying with his parents while he looks for a job in the midwest, where there's a better job market).
Had a mole removed off my leg on Wednesday, which has been annoying as hell. It's a 4.5cm long incision with 9 stitches (external; I have no clue how many they used on the inside). Doesn't really hurt, but I can't use regular bandaids or anything because the adhesives make my skin break out and the ace bandage I'm using to hold the bandage on keeps sliding down. And I've got two weeks of the stitches that I have to keep covered. :(
Had a mole removed off my leg on Wednesday, which has been annoying as hell. It's a 4.5cm long incision with 9 stitches (external; I have no clue how many they used on the inside). Doesn't really hurt, but I can't use regular bandaids or anything because the adhesives make my skin break out and the ace bandage I'm using to hold the bandage on keeps sliding down. And I've got two weeks of the stitches that I have to keep covered. :(
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