There are many petty things in this world that drive me up a wall. Here are some of them: Cold coffee or tea. Why can’t it just stay perpetually hot? Clogged fountain pens. My love of fine nibbed pens does not mesh with my love of shimmery inks most of the time. The pop machine being broken or out of what I want at the Wawa. Napping. I used to like naps, but I’m mad about how many that I’m needing right now....
But first, a few silly & not-so-silly updates. I have made a critical change in how I manage my stuff between my work desk and my couch. I bought an inexpensive but nice-looking bag. An upgraded tote bag, if you will. Right now it has my pen case (which holds 6 fountain pens and 4 highlighters and that’s pushing it), my personal planner, my medical/health planner (more on that in a minute), my commonplace book, and a book I might want to take a break with if I feel the need to do so....
It’s been a busy month around here. Day job is pretty busy and I’m building some cool stuff. It’s not all technical debt! I’m doing some more formal learning about the different kinds of code I write and have learned that I have the fundamentals of Vue.js down pretty good. Now, when it gets complicated I kind of flail a bit. Google also decided to eat my medical appointments calendar which is the exact reason I keep a paper backup....
I’m going to try something new–I mean, a resurrection. I can’t do a links post weekly like I used to, but I can certainly do something monthly. I think. 😄 So here’s a handful of things I read last month that I found interesting, thought-provoking, or that I just plain liked: Peanuts and the Quiet Pain of Childhood: How Charles M. Schulz Made an Art of Difficult Emotions Maria Popova reposted a couple of links a few days ago on Mastodon in celebration of the centenary of Schulz’s birth and this passage really hit me....
I have finally, finally started to taper down on the Provera, which has a fun side effect brain fog–in addition to the brain fog from not getting enough oxygen. And the bleeding? With the Mirena and switch back to Eliquis, and the extra progesterone from the Provera–it has stopped completely. Hallelujah! I’m finally starting to think more clearly, but it’s a slow process and I’m trying not to overtax myself....
My body’s doing what it says on the tin. I am very, very, slowly getting better. My hemoglobin is up to 12.1, which is on the low end of normal for people with uteruses. I am still very disappointed with my hematologist and his practice for their lack of follow-up after they punted me over to gynecology; at the very least they should have been consulted when I was hospitalized and they should have been monitoring my various blood counts and hemoglobin....
God. I am so tired. I was finally re-prescribed Eliquis last week and it was like turning off a faucet–within 12 hours of the first pill, I swear to God. One which is still kind of leaky. But the leaking is slowing down a lot (like a lot a lot) so I’m going to start tapering down on the progesterone tomorrow. I’m just exhausted. I am still anemic–my hemoglobin was at 11 just before my appointment for my final Injectafer infusion....
Meaning, that is, I almost bled to death the week before last. Content warning: Medical Grossness. Things stabilized a bit after the Mirena was in place and I was on 20mg of Provera every day, but it didn’t last. I was able to go to Capclave, which was wonderful. Got to see friends and opine on panels and did I mention that I got to see friends? Friends are the best...
It’s been a hot minute, hasn’t it? A lot’s been going on. Let’s see if I can summarize. Health Stuff: It took a bunch of insurance ping-pong to get the Mirena ordered; my insurance uses CVS Specialty for those things, but for some reason they bounced it to AllianceRx, which is Walgreens’s specialty pharmacy. Then two days before the Mirena was due to go in, the Liletta apparently yeeted itself out of my body and let us just say that there was more blood than I ever want to see ever again....
I chose not to watch the Hugo Awards ceremony last night as it was too painful but today, the morning after I have a couple of opinions. Because of course I can’t not have opinions. And I am going to fucking name names because BURN IT ALL DOWN. Hugo Awards are not Pokémon, you don’t need to get them all and relentlessly campaigning for them every year at this stage of your career is…unseemly....