Averygoodun's Personal File

Things are perhaps - knock on wood, do a hail Mary and whatnot - starting to look up.

- Geoff's shoulder is still messed. The orthopaedist says surgery isn't a good option at his age (he's not THAT old, is he?). HOWEVER, he has recently had two injections of cortisone, and movement within the shoulder itself is starting to return. He can now do the PT exercises without having to (figuratively) bite on a wooden spoon. He's under doctor's orders to take it very, very easy on his shoulder for at least a week, but it's better. Hopefully he'll be able to start sleeping through the night very soon, which will help loads and loads in the recovery process.

- Page has been ill, but he does not have pneumonia. Instead, he has thickened bronchial tubes (common in asthmatic patients) possibly caused by bronchitis, and a pleural effusion (effectively a large blister on the lung). The reason we know this is that his shoulder and lung were hurting him a lot when he took moderately large breaths. Since strep and bronchitis have been going around, and the pain wasn't going away quickly, I took him in. The doctor didn't hear any congestion, but sent him for an x-ray anyway. Anyway, since starting the antibiotics on Wednesday, he's improved dramatically, to the point where he's doing his normal "pew pew" bedtime avoidance routine. He's better enough, in fact, that he's at school! First day since Monday! He won't be going to his sax lesson today, though. I'm giving him till Monday to start that back up.

- I don't need a fifth crown! Or, at least I don't need one immediately. Instead, I had a cross drilled into my dodgy tooth. And, since it's a tooth they already worked on (one of the first), they're only charging me for the surfaces that they hadn't worked on (the grand total of which comes to $23). So that's better than the $230 for the first third of a crown...

- The back wall of the basement is ready to be covered. Already, I have most of the pegboard up, so now it's just a matter of getting the paneling. That will have to wait at least a week or so, because Geoff's shoulder needs babying, but that's okay. There's lots of other stuff that needs to be done in the meantime that doesn't require lifting. Or purchasing, for that matter.

- And best, the other day I went to a friend's son's birthday party, not expecting to stay long because of the noise and people factor. Fortunately, this friend knows and completely understands about sensory issues, so besides an understanding smile or two, I was able to retreat now and again without notice. Anyway, while there, but thinking about escaping, another friend came with loads and loads of presents. And it turned out, not all of the presents were for the birthday boy. One, in fact, was for me! She handed me a fairly heavy bag, and in it I found a Nessie tea infuser and a HUGE can of Troika tea.

I nearly burst into tears. I have felt so isolated and... unheard lately, and here she was, giving me a couple things I'd pointed out as being awesome a fairly long time ago on FB. Needless to say, there was hugging involved. And more retreating because I'm an ugly cryer and I needed to get my emotions in check. But anyway, that helped a huge amount. I love this friend, and I hate that we can't see more of each other (even though we live less than a mile apart... She's disabled and not terribly mobile, and I can't go over to see her in cool weather because she has cats). So I have to think of a way to thank her for her thoughtfulness. Beyond giving her more of my plants. :-)

So, yeah. There's still rough stuff, but, on the whole, as long as I avoid the news and politics, life is bearable and sometimes even good. Which, you know, is pretty awesome, considering. This weekend is looking fine, in the weather department, which means that I can get out and finish cleaning up the garden. The strawberries are still plotting a takeover, and I need to nip that in the bud. There shall be no coups in this yard, thank you! ;-)

Cheers!

Coolness! A 13th century French romance features Nature and Nurture as competing influences/characters.

Most of you already know about this, though, don't you?

The appendix isn't useless

http://topics.info.com/Meningitis_4026 "Although not as common, the same viruses that cause herpes, chicken pox, shingles, mumps or HIV can also result in viral meningitis. Typically, viral meningitis is most common late in the summer and early in the fall."

I didn't have viral meningitis. I had Streptococcus pneumoniae, probably caused by the walking pneumonia I had the previous year (and never really got over). BUT, I wonder if the shingles I had four years prior to the meningitis broke down some protective barrier, allowing the lingering bacteria into my spinal fluid? *shrugs*

http://cid.oxfordjournals.org/content/37/11/1527.full (parking here for future reading; not lay-person friendly)

Also something to be looked into a bit further is Vitamin D receptors (i.e. the calcitriol receptor), and how they regulate the body's vitamin D use/absorption.

http://www.weather.com/outlook/weather-news/news/articles/satellite-see-more-than-clouds_2012-02-20

I especially like the plankton eddy.


Well, so far Page has been really well behaved and in a much better mood since Tuesday. I know it's only been two one and a half days, but there are lots of encouraging signs that, perhaps, all he needed was his fears to be voiced and then refuted. Poor kid.

He's still going to counseling, however.


Today is cooking and homework day for me. Bleh. I need to make chicken stock, or stock from whatever the animal bones in the freezer are, and stew. And I probably should roast that chicken, as well, if only to make room in the fridge. Oh, and the requisite jello.

I don' wanna.

I want to go back to bed and get another few hours of sleep. I then want to get up and fritter away my day on the computer playing crosswords and sudokus. I want a day off. But, well, I need to cook. And I need to do my homework reading. And I need to find out if I'm showing in the church gallery in one week or five. And if it's one week, I need to find out where I can get good prints made of lots of my photos, as I don't have enough work to show otherwise.

So, a busy day.

Maybe tea is in order? *smiles hopefully* Yes?

What are gamers good for? Solving at least one of the world's problems, as it turns out.


My hat is off to them.