Dammit, Linsanity should refer to ME!!!

NOTE: This is gonna take a while, so you might want to get some snacks.

Seriously, go get some snacks. I'm rambly in this post.

NOTE TWO: This also gets a bit TMI, so if you're squeamish, just skip the paragraph that starts with me rambling about being on Cipro. Or stop with the snacks then. You're welcome.

Why that title? Because within the last month and a half, I have not only lived more non-stop than I have in 10+ years, but have also been *able* to live more non-stop than I have in 10+ years.

See, I've dealt with fibromyalgia and endometriosis for 10+ years now, plus have been married (to the same guy!) for 10+ years, and life is greatly improved back to back in the day thanks to new meds and supplements I won't bore to list (except to say praise Shiva for NAC plus the serious cost-effectiveness of generic Deplin and Provigil).

So guess what's happened in the last month and a half?

Let's see... started new awesome job a week and a half before their centennial annual meeting (and fiscal year end, and if that's as stressed out as everyone gets at once then I am hella set as soon as life simmers down)....

Wait a sec. I should probably mention that I haven't been able to work a 40 hour work week since two jobs ago, since before I went to part-time in May 2007. (Yay for better living through chemistry!) I should probably also mention my fifth interview for my new job (phone, panel, boss, HR, boss's boss) started with getting to know some lovely women in a kinda cramped and stuffy restroom over 45 minutes while waiting for some tornadoes to pass overhead. (Everyone who was in there that I saw on my first day even remembered me when I was introduced around the building!)

I've also had the usual May Routine Doctor Appointment Slam-o-rama, except this has been freakin' nutso, even for me. Tomorrow will make the 11th appt in 4.5 weeks. This doesn't sound so bad, except that since I'm new, I can't take any accrued time off until mid-October (my six-month mark), and I'm getting to make up all the time I'm missing by staying late most days. (My new boss is so generously awesome with that, and with letting me adjust my hours to 8:30-5:30 because the stupid Sjogren's/fibro fatigue is so unpredictable and it's so much worse in hot weather and it's been 94ish for some days now and I get more puky than usual since I'm on Cipro... woo, tangent.)

Imagine, if you will, already trying-to-stay-not-so-fatigued me working a full work week, trying to keep working a 5 hr per week part-time job (and having to give that up, boo!), and seeing my primary care PA and rheumatologist and dermatologist and eye doctor and boob surgeon plus seeing some wonderful guys who work me with Active Release Techniques and sports therapy exercises in a non-woo evidence-based chiropractor office many many many many many times for the usual ribs popping out from new desk ergonomics and running way too non-stop in life. With a few evening massage appointments thrown in to help with the A.R.T. and chiro stuff. All within four weeks. While working extra to make up time. And learning LOTS of things on the job and making forms and tools to help me learn things. And I have eye doctor part two tomorrow.

Yeah, Linsanity should DEFINITELY apply to me more than that tall asian guy, dammit. One of my friends commented that it sounded like I was being chewed up like a dead hooker in a wood chipper. I thought this was pretty apt, except it'd have to be after being sliced and diced by my pimp. For reals.

Oh, and last week a relative in my immediate extended family passed away and I wasn't able to go to the funeral or graveside. I'd only seen him twice over the last 6-7 years but I have some great memories of him from when I was a wee bohemian, and he's very missed. I also had to officially give up (for now, dammit) my part-time job full of awesomeness that I'd missed doing for 6 years. Not only am I once again out in the liturgical cold, but I don't get my weekly dosage of awesome gayness. (There is fabulous gay, and there is awesome gay. I'm so friggin' sad about this, y'all.) Not only that, but working there helped me to realize that it was still possible for me to work and be productive in spite of craptastic health crap, and that did wonders with boosting my self-esteem and morale while faghagging. (There is also a definite probability that in the near future, previously kinda mentioned immediate family will meet up with other awesome gay in a business venture, so that's something I'm looking forward to when I can think about having energy again.)

Did I mention that I was in the presence of The Surgeon General of the United States on the same day I was in the presence of The Bloggess? Yeah, that was flippin' sweet! I'll have pics up someday. Check back around Yule. I might have something up then.

Oh yeah, breast cancer recurrence scare. I'm 8.5 years boob cancer free, and the type I had was stage IIA T2 N0 M0 grade 3 triple-negative. The last .5 year has been interesting with surprise spontaneous unilateral discharge (natually on my affected side) and ductogram and Aurora MRI, and let me tell you how amazing it is to talk with health insurance people when it takes 10 referrals before they, ahem, you find a place that does the special MRI that's needed, which was the place your surgeon's office tried to recommend in the first damn place the week prior but they would only talk with you instead of your physician's office. Also, let me share how spectacular it is when 15 different sets of customer service agents in various departments (Claims, I'm looking at you real hard) can't find your certificates of coverage that have been on file for more than a minute. All of these people are special in a really special way. (Note to self: make sure those idiots paid my pcp from that appt last May.)

(And that's special, not special. As in the state of being distinct, not the designation of a species.)

(Yes, my brain is a little tired. It's the feeling-like-crap from Cipro and adjusting pill-up times to avoid taking it with anything calcium/magnesium/aluminum. I couldn't even soak in epsom salts tonight because of my near-shortsightedness.)

Oh yeah, I'm on Cipro (TMI alert; skip to the next paragraph unless you like reading about bodily fluids) because the lump under my arm that I'd noticed that was alarmingly adjacent to a boob cancer scar almost two inches long thankfully turned out to be a sebaceous cyst (which is now an inch long but finally disappearing, yay). And because my boob discharge was alarmingly green after months of being strawish-clear. And because I have my first UTI in a very long while and it suuuuuuuucks. But finally, the Cipro is working because I'm back to strawish-clear boob ooze and starting to feel better while incredibly puky. I was quite pleased to hear from my cancer surgeon that (thanks to my photography) I'd documented the best case scenario for non-standard boob juicery, with it being green and coming out of multiple ducts (like 8 or 9 at the same time, this one time, which was freaky, and I know this because I was reading while sitting naked under a ceiling fan after a shower and noticed the dried evidence when I next saw myself in a mirror).

Oh, and I am apparently aging faster than I should, since my eyes are doing things that should be starting a few years from now, and I'm apparently in perimenopause now with all this gunk, so yay. I'm really flippin' old for 38. I'll be 39 in late August. And 40 next year. OMG 40. Next year. Hubby just turned 37. (Yes, in a row.) Last week. I'm old. Okay, happy thoughts needed stat so here's some nerd love.

In really happy news, I'm so pleased (and many many other adjectives) about season 3 of The Variants. (OMG dudes, they have a Wikipedia page! Someone should add Joe as a producer sometime. Just sayin'.) Hubby and I helped make season 3 happen via Kickstarter! I'm also excited about the upcoming Stella B. and the Busted League and really happy to see The Untitled Super Cool Nerd Show on air. Dallas totally rules the nerd landscape, you people. I'd go on about Dallas Comic Con and other stuff but nah. I'm off to play Sims 3 and calm my mind a little, since my brain is tired. The game I've been playing for the last month or so is in Hidden Springs, and the local unicorn had a habit of showing up at my sims' home until it got adopted, and one time when one sim was fishing, the other came by to hang out since the unicorn was there, and they both got blessed by the unicorn, and they were already engaged so they decided to have a private wedding, and so now I have two very happily married (and hot) lesbian sims with two dogs and a stray cat that adopted them plus the unicorn which was totally cool with joining the household. My Sims are honeyadventurooning in France right now. Gotta keep them away from that damn cat. I swear, that cat is so cute that they play with it instead of going to sleep or eating or whatever. Stupid cuteness.

You know, I'm not even going to bother reading over this and editing anything. 'Cos I'm Linsane, y'all.

Okay, I changed my mind and added a few links, and while proofreading my husband asked me if I was on a Mormon site.

Whaa?

Because he saw the flowers, and he thinks that Mormon websites are apparently full of flowers. Excuse me, *I* took that photo in the background (and he knows this and he knows I'm not Mormon), and it's all watery reflection of trees and non-blossoming lotus paddery so Not Full Of Flowers. I told him he was mean. Because I'm cranky. And need to be playing Sims 3 for 30 minutes before bedtime. And need to be taking my evening meds with a nom glass of Silk Dark Chocolate Almond Milk because screw Cipro, it's time for calcium. Mmm.... meds.

Also, please don't take that as a slam against Mormons. I've had Mormon friends since high school plus we have a Book of Mormon somewhere on one of our bookshelves (along with a Qur'an, the Jefferson Bible, the Bhagavad Gita, and other sacred scribblings), so don't start any shit. Thanks.

Pictures and words

There's a nasty issue going on locally, with the City of Dallas, Dallas Arboretum, and Dallas taxpayers. You can read details at Save Winfrey Point, if interested.

I want to go on record saying that I absolutely love what the Dallas Arboretum has done, and I thoroughly enjoy having the individual membership (currently hubby and I can go for free for a year for only $73, and individual admission plus parking is $17 each time so it's a deal for photo-happy me who's there more than 5x a year anyway).

However, as much as I love the Dallas Arboretum and what they do, they could do and could've done better with this hot mess. I've let them know this too, via email, because hey, they asked. *shrug*

I had to copysnip twice and wanted to make sure everyone
gets that nothing was left out with my posting the email contents.

Amiright!?

I didn't mind being directed to park here one day, but on a rainy day that would've been nasty.
Parking offsite (like at Winfrey Point) is unthinkable to me. I'd just rather not go in that case,
mainly because I dislike being in crowds when I'm getting my zen on. 

I am distraught.

I thought I was distraught yesterday (Friday) when I found out about the passing of M.C.A. (who will always have more rhymes than Carl Sagan's got turtlenecks). That was nothing compared to my shock a few hours later learning about the senseless death of Lightning Medicine Cloud.

Long story short, a non-albino white bison is a rarity, and one with a dark nose, eyes, and tail tip is an extreme rarity. One was born not quite a year ago, and was murdered very recently. His mother was killed not long after, and his father had died a few weeks prior from a lightning strike. I will lose my shit if I say anything else right now, so here are some news links:

Lightning Medicine Cloud, Sacred White Buffalo, Killed and Skinned

White buffalo calf's death investigated in Hunt County

My husband is part Native American (Lakota/Cherokee) and is pretty horrified at this, as are several of my Native friends (especially a dear college friend who is Cherokee and brought this to my attention, which amazes me as she's in Florida and I'm a short drive away to Lightning Medicine Cloud's home in the North Texas area). (I'm not a Native, though according to several people I could pass for one by looks alone.) I am so grateful to have been present at LMC's naming ceremony and dedication, and I have many photos I need to process and share sometime soon. I have many swirling emotions about this whole situation, and I am grieving over all of this way more deeply than most people will ever know, because I've been involved with people in shamanic fields of study, and omg the implications. I plan to attend the memorial pow-wow this coming weekend, and I pray that karma acts swiftly with those involved in these murders.

I came across this while looking for new news on the situation, and wanted to share. Mitakuye Oyasin.

Knocking From Inside: Lament for Lightning Medicine Cloud 

PSA: Go see your dentist regularly. That is all.

This was not hurting me. At all. For almost a month.
For reals.

So yeah, imagine my surprise when I saw this image taken with a pen camera....

See, I'd chomped part of my tooth off a few weeks before I saw this, but I wasn't sure how bad it was because it didn't hurt, and I could feel my tooth was still there. Granted, it felt a little weird, but I chalked it up to my new nightguard. As in, my THIRD hard acrylic nightguard, because it took me like two years to chew through the first one and four years to chew through the second one, if memory serves me correctly. Yeah, I brux. Horribly. Badly enough to actually break this tooth, apparently.

My dentist is The Best Dentist Ever because he's been the only one to offer me nitrous oxide and it so helps me not sever fingers while someone's working in my mouth. All my life I've had dental issues and have been stressed with feeling more pressure and pain than most people. I now know that's due to fibromyalgia (pain processing disorder of the CNS last time I checked), and I've also learned that I inherited mom's "bad teeth" because she almost certainly also had Sjogren's Syndrome. I really did not realize how much saliva I was NOT producing until I took a Numoisyn lozenge to help with that, and holy crap, you people all have way too much goop in your mouths! Yeah, I'd rather have dry mouth and get dental cleanings every 3-4 months than get used to saliva, thanks.

My hygenist commented that since my med wonkiness stabilized the other year when Plaquenil was added to my regimen, my gums have looked a lot healthier. Shibby! I recently went off Cymbalta to try Savella (which is helping my fatigue but making me feel more pain and muscle tightness, but I love it because I can actually get enough decent sleep to function during a day! woo, tangent). The Savella seems to make my gums bleed more since they bleed sometimes when I floss and they bled more during the cleaning. Interesting how med changes change more things than one would think. Anyway, also thanks to the Savella, that feeling more pain and muscle tightness was enhanced by the tooth decay being so close to the root. This caused me to be extra thankful for the extra nitrous I got during the cleaning and I guess during the filling done the following week. This also caused me to get a glass of anesthetic via four shots during the filling, since I felt things I should not have been feeling.

One of these cheeks is not like the other.

It was frustrating for both me and my dentist, mainly because I could feel the nerve and not much of anything else and because the anesthetic seemed to wear off faster. He was also working on the back side of the back tooth, and commented that if he went any further it'd be a tonsillectomy. (Note to self: stay thankful for tonsils.)

Long story short, I survived, and I called with an update the following day since he'd asked me to call. (Incidentally, when I first started seeing him a decade ago, he called me the day after any kind of dental work to make sure that I was okay, since I'd had awful dental experiences my whole life. This happened for like four years at least. Best Dentist Ever, I'm telling ya!)

I mentioned that my cheek had swollen a bit, and he was really sorry that there wasn't anything he could do except recommend an anti-inflammatory (yay Advil liquigels) and some heat. This pic is from three hours post dental trauma last Wednesday. The next pic is from Saturday, when I noticed some bruising in the shape of a thumb. It's almost Tuesday morning and the bruising is larger and about the size of my lips but vertical, and makeup doesn't completely cover it but eh, good enough. It'll disappear soon enough.

I really like the new shower curtain.
I really don't like the bruise or the
bathroom lighting but at least we
haven't exploded yet.

My back teeth on that side are kinda starting to hurt, but I don't feel like getting them checked just yet because my dentist's office is closed this week for spring vacation. I have the number of a more local DDS in case anything goes wonky while they're gone, but meh. Hopefully the tooth will heal up fine. It'd better heal up. It's on the edge between dying and living, so it'd better choose living because I'd rather not have to go through another root canal.

In other news, the wonky bathroom lighting is fixed... for now. There are 10 lights in the master bathroom (5 over each of 2 sinks) connected to a light switch that was tripping a GFCI outlet breaker gadget in the master bedroom. This was fixed, but it kept happening, so it got fixed again. I'm still wary of it popping but so far so good.

In other other news, I am waaaaaaay behind in photo work and website work. WAY behind. As in, summer 2013 looks good instead of having everything done by this summer. We're more unpacked than before but still have maybe 50 or so boxes full of books and DVDs and CDs and assorted papers and assorted crap, but things are dwindling surely yet slowly. Considering that essentially half the stuff from the old place has already gone to Goodwill and a local e-waste place, I'm a bit appalled that we still have so much stuff, but we'll be ready to move again before we're ready to move again. That'll be a nice change. :) That's also likely to not happen any time soon, and I'm good with that. I had a great first day at a new job today, and I'll blog more about that later, but have got to say I'm quite pleased that I have a 15 minute (one way) commute. I don't think I'll ever miss the stupid long 1-1.5 hour (one way) commutes I had years ago. Never. Again.

Swamped yet happy.

I'm still figuring out my phone. I need to dedicate a whole day to it, whenever I have a non-splintered day. Will blog more sometime soonish but thought I'd casually mention that there are 15 outstanding things I need to do for people and I'm aiming to do them all by Sunday, since I start a new job on Monday. Also, I'm reaaalllly excited about this place and think I'll fit in well, since - ohcrapIgottagogetmyhairdid!

I Heart My G-Note!!

I'm eating lunch on the go and had to notate something to myself while reading on my Kindle. Damn this is smooth.

Let the dead rest in peace, dammit. Zombies suck.

I did not know typing my thoughts could make this happen.
(Silverlight has been crashing on me for the last 12,000 years
without fail, so this is definitely not from that. Sigh.)

You know when you think about contacting someone from your past because doing so would be very relevant to your very hopeful immediate future job, even though you haven't spoken in years and the other person likely hates you because of not understanding "friend trying to help you not screw up your life even worse" and you shouldn't have to explain that but then you do, and as soon as you finish typing your thoughts you see your computer screen turn green and pixellate, and it locks up so much that when it's restarted you get a notice that your overclocking failed so you have to go into the BIOS to fix things? Yeah, I hate it when that happens.

As I'm a pantheist (Zen Pantheist Skeptic more than anything else, even though I love me some Catholic liturgy), I think I'll take this as a subtle hint from the universe to keep not talking to him, even though this job I want would entail working closely with someone in a very similar way to how we'd worked together, and I want him to give me proper props like he said he'd do but I kinda want to make sure but now the making sure is not gonna happen because my computer is a bitch to begin with and I don't want to aggravate her further. Balls.

The universe tends to get my attention in a big way when I think about being a nice more-than-decent human being and shouldn't even bother, or when I want to do things I know I shouldn't do. I'm generally way too nice to people to begin with (like Bjork, I err on the side of generosity), but sometimes I get forced to pay attention to what I'm thinking about (or trying to not think about), and that's always interesting. 

The last time anything noticeable like this happened was about a year and a half ago, when I knew hubby and I should've just stayed at home in Dallas one weekend. However, there were exciting things going on, so I pushed myself to attend said exciting things even though I knew better and even with knowing I'd be extremely worn down afterward from having pushed myself in similar ways then-recently, but some of these things interested hubby so of course I wanted him to go too, so yeah, hot messes happened. 

We had a very (literally) crappy weekend out of state while doing a few college homecoming things and museuming as usual when in the area. It was nice to see some of my classmates after 15 years, and it was awesome seeing a kickass production of "Antigone" there, but it was not so nice to be surprised by a wrong way driver heading straight for us on a back road highway. (Yay for being able to get my swerve on while thinking about how incredibly awful I felt.) We should've stayed in our hotel room the first night instead of hitting the big shindig done by the school of music, since hubby's gut was agitated and mine was getting that way, but nooooo, I had to insist on going and had to get Imodium so all would be fairly well. I now know that this was wrong. He felt better the next day, when I missed out on museuming thanks to being in the bathroom for like an hour and a half in literal gut-wrenching agony. 

Naturally it occurred to me then that these things could've been avoided had we just stayed home (especially as the driving scare happened about 20 minutes before getting to said museum). There wasn't anything life-changing going on that we would've missed out on, aside from my really getting what the chorus of a Greek play should ideally be like, and aside from seeing a "Clerks" reference in context in real life, but even those things don't compare to the crap that happened.

The first thought that came to mind when seeing this:
"I'm not even supposed to be here today!!"
Well played, universe. Well played.

Of course, we could've just felt bad from food poisoning, but my gut would've exploded within 4-12 hours as usual instead of waiting 40 hours, so I kinda think not. Still, I continue to not buy chicken from Target, just in case we did have bad chicken the night before we left, even though I know this all was really a gentle prod from the universe to get me to take even better care of myself. Then again, it could be both. It really doesn't matter. None of this matters, except that I really hate when the universe course-corrects me in a big obvious-to-me way.

Okay, I'm really going to the arboretum soon. Today. Because I've been wanting to but changed my mind about it on Monday and yesterday. And because I don't want the universe to kick me anymore for not getting out to enjoy it like I should. (And I apologize if my reposting this a zillion times right now screws up your feed but the text is all fubar and it is driving me nuts, and yes, I know how that all sounds after what I just said. Balls.)