Something I learned today: Pain indexing (Punkadyne Labs (Punkwalrus))

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schmidt_Sting_Pain_Index

The Justin O. Schmidt Pain Index is a pain scale rating the relative pain caused by different Hymenopteran stings. It is mainly the work of Justin O. Schmidt, an entomologist at the Carl Hayden Bee Research Center. Schmidt has published a number of papers on the subject and claims to have been stung by the majority of stinging Hymenoptera.

* 1.0 Sweat bee: Light, ephemeral, almost fruity. A tiny spark has singed a single hair on your arm.
* 1.2 Fire ant: Sharp, sudden, mildly alarming. Like walking across a shag carpet & reaching for the light switch.
* 1.8 Bullhorn acacia ant: A rare, piercing, elevated sort of pain. Someone has fired a staple into your cheek.
* 2.0 Bald-faced hornet: Rich, hearty, slightly crunchy. Similar to getting your hand mashed in a revolving door.
* 2.0 Yellowjacket: Hot and smoky, almost irreverent. Imagine W. C. Fields extinguishing a cigar on your tongue.
* 2.x Honey bee and European hornet: Like a matchhead that flips off and burns on your skin.
* 3.0 Red harvester ant: Bold and unrelenting. Somebody is using a drill to excavate your ingrown toenail.
* 3.0 Paper wasp: Caustic & burning. Distinctly bitter aftertaste. Like spilling a beaker of hydrochloric acid on a paper cut.
* 4.0 Tarantula hawk: Blinding, fierce, shockingly electric. A running hair drier has been dropped into your bubble bath.
* 4.0+ Bullet ant: Pure, intense, brilliant pain. Like fire-walking over flaming charcoal with a 3-inch rusty nail in your heel.

Posted in: bees , health , medical , pain

Update of takayla (Punkadyne Labs (Punkwalrus))

So, yesterday was all of her deep scanning tests. In the morning, she had an EEG, then ultrasound on the carotid artery on the right and left side of her neck. Then she got a Doppler scan on her temples, eyes and the base of the skull. In the afternoon, I caught up with her to be with her when she got a 35 minute MRI where they scanned for pretty much everything.

The second the MRI machine turned on, all the iron in my blood rushed to the front of my head, and I passed out onto the floor. Apparently these vitamins I took were very high in ferrous minerals.

Okay, that's a lie, but it woke some of you up! The MRI was actually very dull, and takayla slept through part of it. The staff was VERY NICE, and I want to point out the Russian-accented technician was a sweet man, in particular. He knew how to deal with nervous patients, and let me sit in the room with her during the scanning. I read my CompTIA Linux+ exam prep book most of the time, looking for signs of panic, of which she had none. The only complaint she has was her shoulders got sore during some of the initial process, and the pressure waves made by this thing in the air actually lightly vibrated my exam book at first.

The scanning was just a precaution to make sure she didn't have anything else wrong before they prescribe "migraines" as the official reason. Posted in: health , medical

Update on takayla (Punkadyne Labs (Punkwalrus))

Well, it's a mixed bag. On one hand the neurologist (who was a super nice guy, but a McCain supporter) doesn't think it's a stroke or epilepsy, so yay for no complications associated with that. He said it was the classic symptoms of an "aural migraine," which is like a shock to the brain (the same symptoms caused by epilepsy, but with different roots). They will do some more tests and deep scanning next week to make sure they didn't miss anything. The downside of this is there's no cure, and no warning it's going to happen again, if it ever does. So... that kinda sucks. She's not exactly pleased with this news, despite so many people replying to the diagnosis with positive enthusiasm.

Now I have migraines, and man, did I learn a lot about them today. I was diagnosed before my favorite doctor, and I never asked the last two doctors about them. Mine is more of a classic kind, with headaches and shocks that leave me partially numb and paralyzed on the left side of my body during the most extreme attacks (which I rarely have these days, thanks to medication). I learned about stuff apeyanne would have probably told me (if I had asked I am sure) like how the brain cells have a positive and negative side, how they can be "neutralized" and how they are essentially like capacitors. Suddenly, this part of my mind awoke with a "Zzzz... huh? What?? Oh, god! Save this info!" As a computer geek and troubleshooter, the human organism is just a vastly more complex computer to me.

She starts a treatment for the after effects tomorrow, and gets the deep scanning next week. Wish her luck. Posted in: headache , health , medical , migraine

takayla update: still working on finding a neurosurgeon (Punkadyne Labs (Punkwalrus))

No news yet. I stayed home with her today, because she's tired and worn out all the time. She still has episodes of confusion, but they are pretty mild, like aftershocks. My view on it is that she's improving and almost back to normal, but there's no prediction if this is a one-time thing, or something that could happen again. This is extremely serious, and I think takayla has accepted that now.

The recommended neurosurgeon was, sadly, some guy who operated in a hospital very far away, so we called our doctor's office and are trying to get referral to one close to us.

Again, this has been medically determined not to be a stroke, micro-stroke, or anything related to the classic stroke of a blood vessel in the brain bursting, getting clogged, or having loud parties near the cerebrum. She's had a CT scan, had blood work, and so on and was ruled it out pretty quickly. It's definitely neurological. She has a genetic tendency to have these things, since her younger sister died from MS, her mother had severe and crippling arthritis, and she has osteoarthritis that has affected her nerves before.

People have offered to help, and I don't know what to ask for. Um, prayer? I don't know.

[Last update for today:]
- Doctor finally called back at like 5:15
- He recommended two doctors
- He also said, "If they don't get back to you right away, you come to my office tomorrow and get the tests started."
- He's not fucking around, either. Like most doctors (including my previous one who I loved but retired), he's a great doctor, but has a terrible staff, which explains the delays in getting back to us Posted in: health , medical

takayla hosiptalized - she's home now (Punkadyne Labs (Punkwalrus))

A few of you know, via the grapevine, that takayla went to the hospital last night. Before I start off on this, let me summarize by saying she's back, and sleeping now, but we're unsure about what's going to happen over the next few days. She's currently "fine" in the sense that her symptoms have gone away, but the next few days we'll hopefully have a better idea what happened. What I am about to tell you will lead to a premature conclusion, so to be fair, she did not have a stroke. But we are not sure what happened.

It started at about 7 at night. She had been out most of the day, and felt no different than any other day. But as she was making herself dinner, she started to go blind. It started with a peripheral vision, but within a few minutes, she couldn't see out of one eye. We were watching the new Futurama CD, and she had to kind of scroll around the TV screen with her remaining vision.

I was really alarmed by this, but she pooh-poohed it. I said fucking around with losing sight is a very bad thing, and we should go to the hospital, but she wanted to wait it out. Then I got a distracting phone call from a friend who was visiting his mother in the hospital after a very close call with a serious bacterial infection in his mother's bloodstream. I was not aware she was even ill. But I did my best to be sympathetic, but I was watching takayla while she was on her laptop on the bed next to me. At one point, I started to see her left side droop a little, which is a symptom of her Bell's Palsy, a childhood ailment of hers. Maybe droop is the wrong word, I would say "stop moving" would be a better description. She seemed to be frozen in place as she was on her laptop, like someone hit her with a stun gun. Then she came back. I wondered if I had imagined it. But I got this... sixth sense... that something was wrong. She called the doctor, and got the answering service.

When I got off the phone, she said that she was having numbness spreading down her arm. Then it spread to her face. She also expressed difficulty in speaking, like she could think words but not say them right. The doctor's answering service called back and said to go to the hospital.

At this point, I went from "we should go to the hospital" to "I am going to call an ambulance." She talked me down to having someone drive her there, which started this circus of finding a ride. We tried to call Anya and Brian, but they were out doing something with the Korean relatives from out of town, and unreachable. Then I tried to call stodgycat, but he and his family were out of town. Luckily, our long-time friend Gay was available, and she said she'd drive us to the Fair Oaks hospital. Before she got to our house, all the weird symptoms faded away, but I was convinced she was having a classic stroke. She just didn't look good, either. She felt very tired, like she had been drugged, and was thirsty all the time.

So we went to the hospital, and everyone there was very nice (which, as you know how I bitch about customer service these days, was a welcome refreshment). They did blood work and a CAT scan, and determined it was not a stroke because while the symptoms seemed like it, there were some classic signs they look for that said it definitely was not a stroke. First, the blood work came out clean. Next, the CAT scan showed nothing wrong with any blood vessels in the brain. Plus the symptoms were not consistent, and affected both sides of her body, moving around, which seems more like a pinched nerve or something else wrong neurologically. They briefly touched upon epilepsy, but said it was too early to make such a serious diagnosis (along with all the complications involved in declaring someone epileptic). They sent her home a few hours after we got there.

So she's being referred to a neurologist, and that's all we know for now.

She couldn't sleep because I snored, so I am in my den, hoping maybe to sleep during the day or something. Posted in: health , medical

Bleah, pollen, asthma... bleah. (Punkadyne Labs (Punkwalrus))

I am staying home today because my asthma is still not better. I may ask for higher meds if this does not improve, like go on Advair or something. An annoying side effect of asthma, for those who have never had it, is belching. It's because you strain so hard to breathe over a long period of time, you swallow lots of air. I have been burping so much, my throat hurts. I still don't think I am sick, per se, because I don't feel achy or feverish or anything other than a standard asthma attack. Maybe it's being sneaky.

I am also missing-a da Pope Mass. Posted in: asthma , health , medical , pope

For the medics among you (Punkadyne Labs (Punkwalrus))

I thought you'd like this, from a user "DiePilot" from the Ars Technica board, who is a medic with the military. He has these things called "fentanyl lollipops," which is a lollipop form of a painkiller drug with a potency approximately eighty times that of morphine.

I get the mega 800mcg ones, tape them to the casualty's thumb, and then tell them to suck their thumb when it hurts. They do this, then pass out eventually. Their thumb falls out of their mouth, and I don't have to worry about overdoses while they're in the helicopter.

Brilliant. Posted in: ars , fentanyl , lollipops , medical , painkiller

Still not at 100% (Punkadyne Labs (Punkwalrus))

I think I have been "well" since Tuesday morning, but my lungs are still trying to collect gunk. I have had this happen before I feel better from a "minor cold" and a few days later I got pneumonia. Of course, that's not a forgone conclusion by any means, it's just after a few times of this happening, you get scared every time. I keep taking an expectorant (Mucinex), which seems to help. Perhaps I am worrying too much.

Last night I was well enough to catch up on some of the backlog of housework (laundry, dishes, trash) and moving my stuff from my old den to the new one. CR now had half of my old den available to him, including my old desk. I miss that desk because it was very functional and useful, but it was a particle board thing from Office Depot I got in early 1999, and it barely survived the move from Reston to Fairfax as it was. The base is split and sagging. But I paid $149 for it and it lasted me 9 years of good service, which is roughly $16/year. That's a good value in my book. Posted in: desk , health , medical , move , sick

We lost power last night (Punkadyne Labs (Punkwalrus))

Apparently power loss freaks Widget out. He was on the bed, shivering. We didn't get power back until I think 3 or 4 the next morning, which was fine with me because it went out at 10pm, and I wanted to sleep anyway. Kudos to me for buying a new, atomic clock synchronizing clock radio last month. It came back up, set itself, and my alarms went off on time.

I am recovering from the bad cold. The rattling in my lungs has diminished, and I broke fever last night. I still have a very stuffed head, I am dizzy from the stuffed head, I don't feel like eating, and my nose is seriously chapped, but I think I should be back to normal tomorrow or Wednesday at the latest. So far, takayla and CR did not seem to get sick.

In other news, I am one of many DC residents anxious to get a new package from Libertyville, Illinois. Shipping to us has been erratic. If you have no idea what I am talking about, it's a surprise. If you're waiting for one, too, or know what it is, don't spoil the surprise in the comments section. Posted in: health , medical , olpc , power , sick

Out sick today (Punkadyne Labs (Punkwalrus))

Whatever cold I got kicked my ass. I was sick Monday, then got better, then was a little out of it Wednesday and by Thursday evening, I was really starting to slide downhill.

Friday I spent trying to sleep, but work kept paging me. I didn't have to answer because people were there, but we have this customer with 4 servers and a monitoring station that had all these Windows updates, and they kept going up and down, up and down, up and down with each update. I'd be paged when the went down, when they came back up, and then the monitor would also page to say it hasn't heard from the machine that went down. On no wait, there it was.

On top of that, people kept calling the house. Over and over.

Then later, I had to go out and get party supplies for takayla's party tomorrow. And I need to set everything up, including house cleaning, decorating, and other preparation.

I am up at 2:30am because I got paged again, and I can't go back to sleep. I have a fever, my nose is running, I keep sneezing, and I ache all over. Posted in: medical , party , sick

Health report (Punkadyne Labs (Punkwalrus))

I know this may come across like gloating, but I don't want my blog to be all bad depressing news and cranky rants. My tests came in.

Blood count: Normal
Metabolic: Very good fasting blood sugar.
Kidney and Liver: Normal
Cholesterol: Excellent, normal HDL and LDL
Hemoglobin: Very good diabetes control, continue Metformin
Thyroid: Normal
Lycanthropy: Negative.

Yay! Posted in: medical

Tales of Mystery (Punkadyne Labs (Punkwalrus))

So, last night, I had a migraine, and I went to bed as soon as I got home. Ahfu, as usual, jumped on the bed to sneeze in my face, but as I petted him, his tail looked funny, and his fur seemed crusty. So I turned him around, and saw his right flank was matted heavily with blood. It looked like a larger dog had taken a chunk out of him, although with all the matting it was hard to see the size on dept of the wound. Ahfu seemed like he didn’t want you to look at it, but didn’t seem to be in any pain.

takayla and CR dragged him to the sink, and washed him off. In my head, I was trying to figure out how he could have gotten such a wound. He is never exposed to large dogs except the ones next door, but they are fenced in. Maybe one escaped and bit him. That’s happened before, the escape part, but the dog (Rosie, a German Shepherd mix) is so submissive, she runs off with her tail behind her legs when you come out, and none of the dogs ever cared when she got in. But we fixed the fence. And how come Ahfu, with such a huge gaping wound, is not limping or anything? I tried to picture how he could have gotten wounded in such a way without being bitten, like tore it on some jagged metal or something like that. How badly was this going to cost me in vet bills? Then I got the news from the washing crew:

It was actually raspberry jelly.

Now, after a breath of relief... more mystery. How did he get so much jelly on his flank? We don’t even have raspberry jelly in the house, and the blueberry, blackberry, and lingonberry jellies and jams are in the fridge. And why on his hind leg and not, say, his face? He would have gladly eaten any molecules of raspberry jelly he came across, and in just a huge amount, he would have ended up with it in the folds of his peka-face. So this means he either sat in, or rubbed against a decent quantity of raspberry jelly which still may be lying around in some dark corner of my house. Where did that come from?

I don’t understand my house.

Now I am waiting to see if one of my cats gets smeared with peanut butter. Posted in: ahfu , medical , vet , wound

Flu shot? (Punkadyne Labs (Punkwalrus))

I never get flus shots. I used to get them, many, many years ago, but I found that flu shots made me sick. It would get what would feel like a mild cold for 3-4 weeks: sniffles, achiness, mild dizziness, and I felt ridiculously tired like I had run for hours. I guessed this was because they gave you something that competed with the flu and while it gave you a cold, you'd never get flu-sick, and I was just overly sensitive.

Later I heard that most flu shots inoculate you against a limited set of known flu strains anyway, and you're SOL is you get a new strain or one it doesn't cover. The whole thing seemed like more a miss than hit, so I have declined ever since.

This last doctor's visit, they asked if I wanted one, and my knee-jerk response was "NO," but later that night, I wondered if they have improved flu shots, and if I am now 39 and not in my early 20s and should consider it. My doctor said, "Well, if you want it..." and seemed surprised I declined, but didn't press the issue when I said I always got ill from them. I also though, "Man, what if I get the flu, but become a carrier and not get sick, and give it to dozens of other people like a Typhoid Mary?"

What do you guys think? Should I get all shot up and flu-free? Posted in: flu , medical , medicine , shots

Doctor checkup and the gore of poor bloodwork (Punkadyne Labs (Punkwalrus))

My doctor's office was very scatterbrained because their computer system was down. Why? Virus. I think that qualifies as mildly ironic. I do love my doctor, Dr. Phillips, though. He always seems to have students helping him out, which I cool, and pretty much everyone in his staff is nice, too.

The news is mixed. Asthma is in check. Ankle A-OK. The rest? Not so much.

More bloodwork. My last checkup I had high blood pressure (as always), I am overweight, and my eye has developed a nervous tic (stress). They did an EKG, and found while my heart was okay, it seemed like there was an enlargement, which is normal for high blood pressure, but not a good trend in any case. I am being referred to an eye doctor, and to get some heart stress tests and a ton of other heart thingees. The heart thingees is normal, considering what he sees. I am not worried. They'll find I have a heart defect which is responsible for the enlargement, tell me being fat is bad for me, put me on different meds... and in 5 years, come around again. No pills I have ever been on lowers my heart rate. I have made peace with my heart. If it stops working, it did as best it could. I have learned to live with high blood pressure, and as long as I have meds to keep down the migraines, and eat right... I should be okay. Die young? Most certainly. But everyone dies anyway. I really can't worry about it anymore, I worry about far too much.

Which is why he wants me to see a psychiatrist. For the tic. But find me a therapist that takes my insurance, and has weekend hours that work around my on call schedule. And then one that isn't crazy! I hope apeyane can back me up on this, but most therapists are nuts. I think they mean well, and a good patient-therapist relationship is a rare and beautiful thing. I know, I have had one. But most of them, in fact, were crazy. And it's sad.

The bloodwork was the WORST, though. I have had this done dozens of times, and never had much more than a prick, some pain, blood drawn, game over. I have had a few bad ones, but this... this was torture. First, the nurse lady was rather stupid. The patient before me was from Brazil, and the nurse commented that many Chinese people (she was Chinese, I guess) had emigrated to Europe. The woman said Brazil was in South America. "Oh... oh..." said the nurse. She didn't speak English so well. "Is that near [I couldn't hear it]?" "No, that is also in Europe." "Oh... oh... and you're from Europe?"

So then she came to me. Now, my insurance is in my wife's name. Holy cow, was that had to get across. The nurse spoke very bad English, but I don't think we had a language barrier as much as I got mired in a stupidity zone. She just couldn't get that my wife and I had the same last name. She couldn't get past it. She totally got stuck in circles at what I'd think was a very common event in a bloodwork lab that took insurance. She didn't know who I was, Gregory or Christine, either. She kept asking that over and over. I just repeated it back to her slower and slower, and she'd go, "Oh... oh..." like the Japanese people did at AOL's Japanese help desk when they didn't understand you but agreed just to get past the knot in the communication. Finally, she just gave up in frustration. I bet you ANYTHING my bloodwork will be under Christine.

Then she saw I needed to do a urine test. Oh my god. The task she had was to get a urine specimen jar. Keep in mind, I had to go pee for several hours at this point, because I was saving it for said blood test, but my doctor's visit had already taken 2 hours. I really had to go. But the plastic jars were in a clear trash bag with a large knot in it. She undid the knot okay, but seemed unable to complete the act of putting her hand in the bag to get one of the jars out. Either she kept missing the opening and her hand went into a fold on one side, or she... man, it's hard to explain this, but she had issues with holding onto the jar and pulling her hand out of the bag at the same time because she didn't seem to know what to do with the other hand: hold the bag open, or hold it off the floor. It wasn't like watching a drunk person do it; at least a drunk would know WHAT do do, but couldn't. It was like watching a toddler attempt this task. It took her almost a minute to do this, and then got stuck because she was holding the jar with one hand, and needed to close the bag. It took her about 10 seconds to realize she had to put the jar on the counter, and then use both hands to re-knot the bag and put it back in the cupboard.

And this woman was going to draw my blood.

Needless to say, she screwed it up. Big time. First, she couldn't find a vein. I don't know why, I have big fat ones. High blood pressure, remember? So then she decided to take blood out of the back of my right hand. What? AND I had to squeeze the stress ball while she did this. I don't have to tell you how fucking painful this was, and how it didn't really yield much blood but a few spatters across the needle and vial. "Oh... oh... sorry. So sorry... is not working." NO SHIT! Now I have a bruise across the back of my hand, and it hurts like hell to clasp objects and lift them.

So finally, she found a vein in my left arm. That got her the blood she needed, but she scraped around in my elbow and now I have a very dark bruise spreading. The bleeding did not stop until a few hours later. I have never given blood, even at the Red Cross, where I have soaked the little gauze they put over the wound. Fuck. And the wound looked like someone had stabbed an apple with a stick. When I got home I had to trim it with some mustache scissors to make the wound a little less ragged. I keep sterilizing both wounds, too.

I have gotten better cat scratches that left less damage behind.

Then I had to remind her I had a urine test. She then gave me wrong directions to the bathroom. Then when I returned, she seemed lost as to who I was, and that's when it clicked that Christine was my wife! "Oh...! You didn't look like brother and sister. I didn't say anything."

takayla told me that she has never been that bad with her. Which means this girl has worked here a long time. :(

Butcher.

I sulked at Red Robin, eating my first meal in 20 hours. Why? I was told to fast since 9am the previous day. I asked, "You mean 24 hours?" "Yes." Okay... I forgot, and had a soda at 4pm the previous day, but it was moot because Dr. Phillips said, "No no! As long as you didn't eat past midnight the day before. What, she told you 9am? Ha ha ha... oh, I am sorry. You must be starving!" Posted in: blood , doctor , fasting , heart , medical

punkwalrus @ 2007-11-27T15:56:00 (Punkadyne Labs (Punkwalrus))

CR finally got his hair cut. It had been very long, and I think it was starting to bother him. He got it cut short like mine, and he looks very nice. While I didn't like him having long hair, he always kept it clean. The way I saw it is that this was the time he could have long hair and not worry about the stigma you get as a male adult.

He's still sick, however. Well, I am not sure it qualifies as "sick" anymore, because now it's more of long-lasting thing with his asthma. He sees the pulmonary specialist again on Thursday.

The progression to move my den to his room and vice versa still goes on. It's slow going because I am the only one who can move anything, and I am down to furniture and boxes. Actually, part of the problem is I am out of boxes. But the last 4 day weekend gave me enough time to move myself to his old room, so I am hoping that the rest of the move will go quicker. Posted in: asthma , cr , den , medical , move , room

CR so far (Punkadyne Labs (Punkwalrus))

CR is doing worse slightly, so they have upped the steroids and the doctor approved him for 6 months homebound schooling. They have some theories as to what it is, and think it might be a medicine they need to put him on (and forgot), or it might be a severe mold issue. They took a lot of blood out of him for testing allergen counts as well as deep allergy testing purposes (they can't do a skin reaction on him because of the steroids). He is going to have a CT scan for his lungs instead of just his head. Now we just have to convince the school to agree to home schooling, and we're set as far as that goes. I suspect CR will lose his job which he only had for a few weeks, but oh well. :(

He is going to move into my den. The cleaning of my den is going very badly. I had so much packed in here, that it's unfolding in mess like unwadding a tight ball of paper in the fact it covers more space with the same amount of stuff. I have generated 5 bags of trash, packed several storage bins, and it still looks like I have done very little. It's really depressing.

Lastly, an apology might be in order. Sorry, patches023, but I was late getting home and I abruptly left you while rushing for the train. It sounded like you ran into someone saying goodbye to me, and a nasty exchange ensued between him and you. I hope that wasn't your voice, and it was some other woman's, but if I caused you to run into that guy, I deeply apologize. I also apologize for sort of ending our conversation in mid sentence when I realized that I needed to be on that train. I am scatterbrained on the Metro, ask mysticpaws. It was nice seeing you, though! Posted in: asthma , cr , hospital , medical , mess , metro , room

CR is home (Punkadyne Labs (Punkwalrus))

First thing CR did was take a shower. He had been showering in the hospital, but they didn't have anything but baby shampoo and a mild soap. He's on many meds, has a huge list of instructions, and we visit the pulmonologist again later this week.

His breathing was much improved, then took a downturn when we came outside, but it recovered. He still gets dizzy and out of breath rapidly. He demanded we go to the Olive Garden, where he snarfed a lot of food because the hospital left him starving. The diabetes thing has been reduced to Metformin while he's on steroids, but apparently they had some nutritionist come in and discuss things with him.

While he showered and settled in back home, I followed takayla around and helped her find some of the elements to her "Lady Luck" costume. She's going to a costume party after we hand out candy on Wednesday. I can't go, I am on call starting Monday until the Monday before my birthday (standard 2 weeks). I shopped for the rest of what I am putting in the goodie bags: full sized Milky Ways, Reeces Cups (2 pair packaged), and Charms Blow pops. I wanted Tootsie Pops, but they were out. Sadly, they also reduced the number of bars per box from 48 to 36. We usually get about 50 kids, and I try and have two things per bag, so I am doing a mix, getting rid of the chocolate first before I eat them all. If I plan this right, I should end up with just Blow Pops left.

I also got some stuff to fix a lot of my... necklaces. I have collected a lot of them over the years, and one large one had been a lump of various objects that I need to separate. I got some satin string and a few pretty beads to space things. Now 4 necklaces can become 7! Wait...

Two friends volunteered to help move CR from his room to my den, which will put him in a smaller room (which he asked for) and put me in a bigger one with carpeting (yay). But they are coming next weekend at 3, so I have to rush like mad to sort through my shit in my den, and clean up his room more so I can put it in.

Oh, last night we celebrated Samhain a little early with some friends. It was great; we spoke of many people who had passed, celebrated our pal Kenny's birthday with some cake, and generally raised a lot of good energy. I really hope the New Year will be good to me because this year sucked something horrible. Posted in: asthma , cr , hospital , medical , room , samhain

CR Update (Punkadyne Labs (Punkwalrus))

He's well enough to be released on Sunday, they think. He's now been reduced to "diabetic tendencies," and will be on Metformin. No idea what happened or why he got sick. No assurance they cured anything that won't just come back next week. Another lecture on weight and we should get rid of cats and move to another house "just to be sure." While the conversation started out pleasant, the doctor because rather sarcastic and alarmist rather quickly after I asked her more detailed questions about what went wrong with his breathing in the first place. I was having issues with an answer like, "These things sometimes happen." It was apparent she was taking my questions personally, and not as queries, and I had to repeat in a calm voice I was just asking because nobody seemed to have a plan except "keep taking medications." What should we look for, are there breathing exercises, should he wear a mask, what long term strategies do you have besides "watch his diet" and "get exercise" do you have?

The whole thing seemed rather "take two pills and call me in the morning" to me.

She then switched tactics and made some assumptions about how we raise him, and kept telling me, "He has to keep taking his medication!" I know! I never said he didn't; I watch him do it every day. He knows too! And yes, my wife IS aware, *she's* the one who handles the prescriptions in this house. Stop saying that, you are answering a question I didn't ask. I asked only once, "How do we reduce his dependencies on medication and replace it with diet, exercise, and so on?" and she just assumed after that I wanted him off his meds like I was some herbal loonie or Christian Scientist or something.

"JAY-suz shall HAIL mah sun... and no med-dee-CAY-shuns shall the devil bring..."

Very frustrating. Posted in: asthma , cr , hospital , medical

CR Update (Punkadyne Labs (Punkwalrus))

Well, they are waffling on the diabetes thing. First they said he had it with a blood sugar in like 400 or so. Then the next test he was 90. Then they said it was the steroids. Then he was at 330. Then they said steroids would only increase the count to maybe 50, not 300. So they have cut all salt, sugar, and carbs from his diet. So when I got home from work to visit him, he was on steroids, starving, getting insulin shots, and got the whole, "So you're fat..." set of videos (but no VCR to play them). He was all sorts of pissed off; both chemically and emotionally.

They still don't know why he has trouble breathing, but he's breathing more normally now. He's on a steady set of nebulizer treatment, steroids, antibiotics, insulin, and getting his blood drawn every 12 hours. The current consensus is that they will adjust his medicine a little, but not much. Our biggest fear is that he'll be let go without any plan beyond the hospital stay and be right back to where he started. We fear he's been defined as "fat" and they may just stop diagnosing anything else.

I managed to cheer him up a little, explaining why he was fat, how the world sees fat people, and what we should do about it. I have a huge speech that goes with this, but it's almost 2am as I write this, so I am not going into it. But he was in better spirits when our friend Gay dropped by to chat. We stayed until about 10, and then Gay gave me a lift home. Posted in: asthma , cr , hospital , medical

CR is doing better (Punkadyne Labs (Punkwalrus))

The steroids have kicked in, and he's breathing better, almost normally now. They still don't know what's affecting him, but they are totally going to re-arrange his medicines.

There was a diabetic scare there for a bit, but they think the elevated steroids have made him test a false positive in blood sugar levels.

He's not coming home soon, though. The earliest he'll come home is Sunday with no guarantees.

My biggest worry through all this is that he's almost 18. When he becomes an adult, we can extend him on our medical insurance for a few years while he's in school, but after that? What the hell is he going to do? All of what he has is "pre-existing" at this point, and I fear he won't get covered for anything the way the industry is clamping down.

Maybe he should move to Canada or Europe. :( Posted in: cr , health , hospital , medical

Sad news (Punkadyne Labs (Punkwalrus))

CR is in the hospital. We took him to the pulmonary specialist, and he was doing much worse, so she wanted to hospitalize him for the next 48-72 hours. She put him on some super-steroids and other meds, and he's under 24x7 watch. His oxygen is good, but he is still having a lot of trouble drawing breath.

I really don't have much else to say besides that. We won't know anything until tomorrow. Posted in: asthma , cr , hospital , medical

Problems I have with shows (Punkadyne Labs (Punkwalrus))

Some shows I like, but have reservations

There are two shows I have liked since I was a kid, and sometimes tape (much to takayla‘s annoyance): The Avengers and Mission Impossible. I am not a big fan of action shows these days because they are sometimes a little more complicated than I want to deal with. I am not a fan of subtext character drama. I want to see a group of people with intelligence and cunning solve a problem. I don’t want to see them in love with one another, and I really don’t care much for back story where it’s superfluous to the plot.

Like a lot of shows of that genre from the 60s and 70s, there seems to be a strange kind of disconnection from death and unconsciousness versus any form of reality. People get knocked unconscious fairly easily and often recover quickly. Many of them from moves that don’t even involve the head, like a karate chop to the shoulder blade. And they often recover quicker and have all their facilities more than most people with a concussion would have. No long periods of dizziness and nausea, disorientation, deafening ringing in the ears, or splitting headaches that last for days. Nobody has trouble with bright lights and memory loss. No, just a rub on the back the head, and within seconds they are no more out of it than someone waking up after a mid-day nap. “I must have been hit from behind,” says John Steed. It’s never, “Shit... what the fuck... owww... dammit.... what happened? Where am I? I think I’m gonna die...[barf]”

Ladies and gentlemen, *I* have been hit in the head several times enough to knock me out, and believe you me, that’s not something you recover from easily.

Next is the speedy recovery from gunshot wounds. Now, I have never been shot. I have been stabbed, which is a lot less than a shooting (I assume), and I had a lot of trouble using that arm for weeks. I would imagine being shot in the hand or arm would mean if I don’t get to a hospital pronto, no amount of macho field wrapping is going to make me survive to diffuse that atomic bomb with delicacy. On TV, people who get shot never have a messy exit wound, either. And people get shot in the shoulder, and yet can still use that arm. In fact, it seems that people who have been shot quickly recover even without proper medical care. Nobody ever bleeds to death, although their shirt or pants leg is soaked with enough blood to cause unconsciousness. Recovery for gunshots in some films involves maybe a few days in the hospital, and then good as new.

Not many characters ever seem to keep scars, either. I have seen some people get cut up pretty bad in the face, but in less than a few days, no scars. My son banged his brow in the tub when he was 7, and he still has that scar on his eyebrow. I still have stab wounds on my arm, and scars on my knuckles and knees from various accidents and beatings I got when I was a kid. Posted in: concussion , guns , medical , mission impossible , the avengers , tv

Carpet cleaners are here (Punkadyne Labs (Punkwalrus))

And yiiiccch! Are my carpets filthy. I wish I was a better housecleaner. I keep meaning to keep the house and yard clean, but I can never seem to catch up. I am kind of trapped in my den while they clean the carpets. I haven't eaten yet today because we're low on food and I can't have anything delivered while these huge hoses go in and out of my house.

Thanks for the kind comments about CR, guys. He's about the same today, which is better than previous days. Some things I have found while doing research that might be of interest to others involved catching colds:

http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a4_104.html

I have always told people that just being cold or whatnot does NOT make you more likely to be sick. They have done tons of studies since the 1970s, and still I hear people go on about this. Posted in: carpets , cleaning , cr , health , housework , medical

CR health update (Punkadyne Labs (Punkwalrus))

CT scan shows nothing abnormal. But he is responding to the new antibiotics and the second dose of Predisone. Not to be a pessimist, but this is much of the same, and I fear we are going to have to try other things. He's taken to sleeping downstairs because it's cooler down there, and there's no carpeting. That's part of why I cleaned last night.

If he hasn't vastly improved by Monday, we start all over again. Posted in: cr , health , medical

CR is sick again (Punkadyne Labs (Punkwalrus))

After 4 days in school, he’s back out due to what might be a massive sinus infection. There’s a good chance now he will flunk this quarter, at the very least some of his courses. That doesn’t mean he’ll flunk the year, mind you, but now it’s like chaos with the school. takayla and I have also lost work over this.

Yesterday, he went back to the doctor, and they prescribed him more pills and put him back on steroids (which he hates). They think it’s possibly a massive sinus infection, so they put him on antibiotics, and he has a CT scan scheduled tomorrow. If there are chronic sinus issues, they may have to do an invasive procedure to clean it out.

I hope the poor guy feels better soon. :( Posted in: cr , medical , sick