![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ysobelSeveral of my Ravelry forums have a thing where you can declare "thread bankruptcy", usually with fast moving chatter threads, which basically means "I'm so far behind on this thread that I have no chance of catching up so I'm just going to start reading/interacting here, and I know I may have missed things but I'm not ignoring on purpose"
I realized that part of why I have trouble re-engaging with Dreamwidth peeps is that I'm so far behind (at least a year now, aside from random spurts with individual journals) that the backlog is overwhelming, but I feel obligated to catch up old stuff before I start reading regularly. But there's no way I'm going to catch up with everyone I care about.
So I'm declaring "Dreamwidth bankruptcy". I'm going to pretend there is no backlog, and just start fresh.
If there are things that have happened in your life that you want me to know, or that is important in your life, please comment! You don't even need to go into detail (if you give me clues of when to look in your journal, I don't mind specific archive-diving). I care about y'all, even though I've been quiet đź’ś
My version of catching y'all up--
Health
I have new bone growth in my back, which is slightly changing the position of my left arm -- there wasn't any mobility in any of the joints (shoulder or elbow) but there was some amount of flexibility in the shoulder blade, and that's changed so my arm is somewhat more retracted. It makes things like holding my choir iPad, or crocheting and knitting, harder and more awkward.
(It's also painful, especially when it presses against the chair back or the sling I use for transfers. My right hip and thigh are also super cranky because of bone buildup. Turns out having lots of extra bone where it doesn't belong tends to be painful, who knew.)
I also had a really craptastic couple of weeks starting just before Thanksgiving. I don't know how much was FOP, how much was atypical stomach bug, how much was maybe atypical migraine, and how much was atypical UTI. Details, including some amount of tmi, under cut...
=BEGIN TMI=
The adventures:
* Sunday before thanksgiving (Nov 24): got very very bad neck pain (9.5 on 1-10 pain scale) and ended up vomiting. Miserable night with pain and nausea. Vomited again Monday morning. Tried doing liquids, even though and a bit of white rice; vomited again Monday afternoon; the thought of water gave me nausea. MyCharted with my doctor, who said if I still was having problems Tuesday that I should go into ER for fluids and tests.
* Tuesday through Saturday: Kept stuff down, mostly water and mint tea, some white rice and some jello. No appetite for much. Stomach felt severely empty but I would take three bites and feel "full". Low level nausea but I don't know how much was lack of food. Had no brain (literally couldn't figure out whether 48 was bigger or smaller than 36). Neck hurting, not as badly but I was only comfortable tilted sideways with my head resting against the wall. Literally did nothing but stare into space. I call this zombie week. There was no fever (i was, if anything, *under* normal) and I had no idea if stomach flu or food poisoning (both of which usually involve fever and diarrhea, neither of which I had) or what.
* Sunday (Dec 2) morning: felt good enough to go to a scheduled thing (visiting puppies). Sunday afternoon: spent two hours increasingly freezing -- despite two layers of clothes, a microwaved hot pad around my neck, two blankets, and a hat, I was cold enough to be shivering violently -- and getting more flushed, including my scalp. I'm not sure if my thermometer is accurate or not but it read around 104-105. Vomited again.
* Monday: went into ER around noon, there for almost 8 hours. Got fluids and various tests (getting the urine sample was ... interesting). Potassium was super low, so they did some by IV and some by mouth; don't know whether this was cause or result of any of the problems. And I had a UTI, which was weird af because I had none of the standard UTI symptoms.
* Ten days since then: took antibiotics (last dose yesterday). Very low energy and exhausted. Neck still hurting, especially after some amount of time in bed -- it kept feeling like there was a lump, at the spot it's been hurting. Two nights ago i tried shifting the pillow so it was under my head and the right side of neck but not left side; neck muscles spasmed because of lack of support. Last night I tried doing the shifted pillow but with a soft microbead neck pillow to see if that provided enough support without pressure; no. Tonight I'm trying propping up the entire left side of my body so I'm leaning slightly right; we'll see.
I still have no idea (and probably will never know) exactly what happened. I know that some of it, especially the fever spike on Dec 2, was the weird silent UTI, but I can't see how the neck pain is connected. My current theory is a) fop flareup in neck, possibly pressing on nerves, leading to vomiting episodes, leading to dehydration; UTI either started then or got worse, but more in the kidneys than in the urethra; zombie week was part not having much in the way of food and partly UTI; exhaustion since then has been part recovering from barely eating for a week, part recovering from UTI, part general antibiotics fun.
I can't remember how long it's been since I've been quite that sick, though. Maybe 20 years?
Oh, and not only did my period kick in the day after I first got sick, it was a period from hell. It's remarkably unfair that I could be dehydrated from nausea and then lose that much fluid (and iron) through my uterus...
Anyway. That's the end of the tmi. I promise.
=END TMI=
Teal deer = the last month or so has SUCKED healthwise. But I'm alive, so yay.
Pets
Fur family is still good, even though they're getting older -- both Yahtzee and Monkey seem more inclined to snooze than be active. Loki is a dork face, as per usual.
And speaking of: I'll do a proper post about this, but I am getting a puppy (PUPPY!!!) to train up as a new service dog. Er, obviously I can't do puppy myself, so am hiring a puppy raiser + trainer, but it's super exciting. Litter is eight weeks old, English (cream) golden retriever, absolutely freaking adorable.
Other stuff
Mental health issues (depression and anxiety) are still problems, though Impending Puppy is a decent antidepressant (except when I'm being anxiety-flaily about all the things that could possibly go wrong). And I've found a new phone app, Woebot, that is a robot that does CBT exercises with you; it's pretty awesome.
I somehow managed to maintain my Duolingo streak even with being sick (there was one day I missed, but streak freeze caught it). It's a crazy high streak. I'm mostly just idly refreshing Spanish, but not with any major effort.
Haven't done much crocheting or knitting lately. (Scary thing about zombie week: I was so sick I didn't care about yarn. Not just didn't have the energy to even fondle yarn, let alone work with it, though both those were true, but didn't even care about it. I'm pretty sure someone could have come taken my entire stash and my reaction would have just been "...whatever". Of course, I'd've been pretty miffed once I recovered, but.)
Haven't done much writing, either, though a few of my story wips (especially "no-magic-cure variant of Secret Garden" and "disabled Beauty and autistic Beast") are still rattling around in my head.
And ... um ... think that's it. Cookies for anyone who read the whole thing!
What's up with y'all?
I realized that part of why I have trouble re-engaging with Dreamwidth peeps is that I'm so far behind (at least a year now, aside from random spurts with individual journals) that the backlog is overwhelming, but I feel obligated to catch up old stuff before I start reading regularly. But there's no way I'm going to catch up with everyone I care about.
So I'm declaring "Dreamwidth bankruptcy". I'm going to pretend there is no backlog, and just start fresh.
If there are things that have happened in your life that you want me to know, or that is important in your life, please comment! You don't even need to go into detail (if you give me clues of when to look in your journal, I don't mind specific archive-diving). I care about y'all, even though I've been quiet đź’ś
My version of catching y'all up--
Health
I have new bone growth in my back, which is slightly changing the position of my left arm -- there wasn't any mobility in any of the joints (shoulder or elbow) but there was some amount of flexibility in the shoulder blade, and that's changed so my arm is somewhat more retracted. It makes things like holding my choir iPad, or crocheting and knitting, harder and more awkward.
(It's also painful, especially when it presses against the chair back or the sling I use for transfers. My right hip and thigh are also super cranky because of bone buildup. Turns out having lots of extra bone where it doesn't belong tends to be painful, who knew.)
I also had a really craptastic couple of weeks starting just before Thanksgiving. I don't know how much was FOP, how much was atypical stomach bug, how much was maybe atypical migraine, and how much was atypical UTI. Details, including some amount of tmi, under cut...
=BEGIN TMI=
The adventures:
* Sunday before thanksgiving (Nov 24): got very very bad neck pain (9.5 on 1-10 pain scale) and ended up vomiting. Miserable night with pain and nausea. Vomited again Monday morning. Tried doing liquids, even though and a bit of white rice; vomited again Monday afternoon; the thought of water gave me nausea. MyCharted with my doctor, who said if I still was having problems Tuesday that I should go into ER for fluids and tests.
* Tuesday through Saturday: Kept stuff down, mostly water and mint tea, some white rice and some jello. No appetite for much. Stomach felt severely empty but I would take three bites and feel "full". Low level nausea but I don't know how much was lack of food. Had no brain (literally couldn't figure out whether 48 was bigger or smaller than 36). Neck hurting, not as badly but I was only comfortable tilted sideways with my head resting against the wall. Literally did nothing but stare into space. I call this zombie week. There was no fever (i was, if anything, *under* normal) and I had no idea if stomach flu or food poisoning (both of which usually involve fever and diarrhea, neither of which I had) or what.
* Sunday (Dec 2) morning: felt good enough to go to a scheduled thing (visiting puppies). Sunday afternoon: spent two hours increasingly freezing -- despite two layers of clothes, a microwaved hot pad around my neck, two blankets, and a hat, I was cold enough to be shivering violently -- and getting more flushed, including my scalp. I'm not sure if my thermometer is accurate or not but it read around 104-105. Vomited again.
* Monday: went into ER around noon, there for almost 8 hours. Got fluids and various tests (getting the urine sample was ... interesting). Potassium was super low, so they did some by IV and some by mouth; don't know whether this was cause or result of any of the problems. And I had a UTI, which was weird af because I had none of the standard UTI symptoms.
* Ten days since then: took antibiotics (last dose yesterday). Very low energy and exhausted. Neck still hurting, especially after some amount of time in bed -- it kept feeling like there was a lump, at the spot it's been hurting. Two nights ago i tried shifting the pillow so it was under my head and the right side of neck but not left side; neck muscles spasmed because of lack of support. Last night I tried doing the shifted pillow but with a soft microbead neck pillow to see if that provided enough support without pressure; no. Tonight I'm trying propping up the entire left side of my body so I'm leaning slightly right; we'll see.
I still have no idea (and probably will never know) exactly what happened. I know that some of it, especially the fever spike on Dec 2, was the weird silent UTI, but I can't see how the neck pain is connected. My current theory is a) fop flareup in neck, possibly pressing on nerves, leading to vomiting episodes, leading to dehydration; UTI either started then or got worse, but more in the kidneys than in the urethra; zombie week was part not having much in the way of food and partly UTI; exhaustion since then has been part recovering from barely eating for a week, part recovering from UTI, part general antibiotics fun.
I can't remember how long it's been since I've been quite that sick, though. Maybe 20 years?
Oh, and not only did my period kick in the day after I first got sick, it was a period from hell. It's remarkably unfair that I could be dehydrated from nausea and then lose that much fluid (and iron) through my uterus...
Anyway. That's the end of the tmi. I promise.
=END TMI=
Teal deer = the last month or so has SUCKED healthwise. But I'm alive, so yay.
Pets
Fur family is still good, even though they're getting older -- both Yahtzee and Monkey seem more inclined to snooze than be active. Loki is a dork face, as per usual.
And speaking of: I'll do a proper post about this, but I am getting a puppy (PUPPY!!!) to train up as a new service dog. Er, obviously I can't do puppy myself, so am hiring a puppy raiser + trainer, but it's super exciting. Litter is eight weeks old, English (cream) golden retriever, absolutely freaking adorable.
Other stuff
Mental health issues (depression and anxiety) are still problems, though Impending Puppy is a decent antidepressant (except when I'm being anxiety-flaily about all the things that could possibly go wrong). And I've found a new phone app, Woebot, that is a robot that does CBT exercises with you; it's pretty awesome.
I somehow managed to maintain my Duolingo streak even with being sick (there was one day I missed, but streak freeze caught it). It's a crazy high streak. I'm mostly just idly refreshing Spanish, but not with any major effort.
Haven't done much crocheting or knitting lately. (Scary thing about zombie week: I was so sick I didn't care about yarn. Not just didn't have the energy to even fondle yarn, let alone work with it, though both those were true, but didn't even care about it. I'm pretty sure someone could have come taken my entire stash and my reaction would have just been "...whatever". Of course, I'd've been pretty miffed once I recovered, but.)
Haven't done much writing, either, though a few of my story wips (especially "no-magic-cure variant of Secret Garden" and "disabled Beauty and autistic Beast") are still rattling around in my head.
And ... um ... think that's it. Cookies for anyone who read the whole thing!
What's up with y'all?
no subject
Date: 2019-12-15 07:53 am (UTC)spot a major theme of my writing this past year or so
(other major themes of etc include "escaping abusive households", but somebody synned Gabriel Agreste's A+ Parenting to Bad Parent Gabriel Agreste and therefore it is not the same use case as the above, and "pushing people to the breaking point such that they'll give up anything as long as they don't have to break their most trusted person's heart", but I haven't come up with a clever freeform for that yet)
no subject
Date: 2019-12-15 09:27 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-12-15 01:12 pm (UTC)That was a hellish experience.
Date: 2019-12-15 03:17 pm (UTC)The good thing about comment amnesty for me is the folks who reply here created a subset to backread, and I then follow interesting comments from those posts. This helps maintain that cozy community feeling which is why I treasure Dreamwidth so much.
Sneaky UTIs are sneaky and whenever my MIL’s health went south we always said “check for UTI” and 90% she had one.
Hooray for a service puppy!
Our girl Bella (icon) almost died and is making a slow recovery. I had a (very tiny) religious epiphany. Read some good books. Posted a silly poll.
Have you updated to iOS 13 yet? Not that I’m recommending it — I haven’t done it. They’ve sent out 7 updates since its October intro —13 was snakebit, who would guess? However it does offer complete voice control as well as dictation, and hands free iPad could be useful.
no subject
Date: 2019-12-15 06:05 pm (UTC)It was miserable and I really sympathise!
no subject
Date: 2019-12-15 09:34 pm (UTC)I cut my hair and dyed it purple, and had my gallbladder removed.
no subject
Date: 2019-12-16 01:37 pm (UTC)PUPPY! What great news.
no subject
Date: 2019-12-17 08:39 am (UTC)