look at me still talking when there's science to do

have returned home from urgent care world. conclusion is 'unknown viral infection'. as it turns out my oxygen intake was totally normal - i don't know, maybe i strained a muscle or something that made it feel harder to breathe? i don't know.

dear locals: don't go to swedish 1st hill if you want to be seen somewhat promptly. apparently they don't know when to say no (this is the assessment of the medic. chris made a somewhat unflattering comparison about his mother here. not inaccurate. just unflattering.) next time i'll just get them to take me to cherry hill. (hopefully there will not be a next time. at least not for a while. there's a reason i have a tag for 'adventures at urgent care world').

tired. kid ended up at hospital with us after school (his teacher brought him over, fortunately we were just about done by then). they tried to make him wear a mask over his nose and mouth. that lasted about six seconds.

thank you for all the concern. <3 i'm not reading back on my flist because i don't want spoilers for House, so put a linky linky to anything you want me to read in the comments please?

health: still sick. sick in this instance means 'somewhat stuffed up with sore throat and kind of wicked feverslightheadache combo package'. i've had worse sick. joints are fantastically sore. general exhaustion.

craftythings: imagining a kind of crocheted bucket hat with yellowyorange (no, it's nicer looking than you think) and turquoise linen yarn. problem: do not exactly know how to crochet yet. fortunately i have books and a big wide internet to teach me these things. also several amigurumi patterns. do not know if i have energy to do this today, however. nts: buy stuffing at sewing place during upcoming saturday sale. or something. also thinking about stuff

writingthings: percolating. have a few ideas in mind. must research poetry markets at some point. (hate researching markets but enjoy getting money.)

things i want: a small rolling table. i have many ideas which would greatly benefit from having one, so i could roll it up to the sofa and use it easily.

things i don't want to do but may have to find the energy to do anyway: find a new podiatrist. see why the mail order pharmacy phoned this morning. call and make an appointment with the kid's new dentist.

how are you?

good: neuro's medical assistant faxing referrals.
not good: stupid elevator broken AGAIN. biopsy negative, so now we're back to square one with that. today's plans derailed entirely. what to do now?

today is biopsy day. given site of biopsy (salivary gland) am very, very nervous. have good pain pills and no-panic pills and it won't take long. am taking a cab there and back and the boy is coming along (and his manager is very cool with him working from home or taking some days off if need be. manager's wife has a similar possibly also autoimmune condition so he understands how this stuff works.)

clickies brought to you by fayanora

woman, 86, made burglary suspect cry..

stephen hawking resting comfortably in hospital, under observation.

mrf. time to get ready to go.

Again, a really good day. as much as this 'insisting on getting off internet and to bed by/at 10pm feels kind of annoying socially, i'm getting much better sleep and am able to get up earlier, so it's a definite win in the end. I have no plans for the day, which is even better! I'm hoping to actually write. i have a FABULOUS koan in mind for the monastery AU (i have a few saved up but this one is PERFECT and needs to be done SOON) so if you're into the monks you may look forward to that. and there's another awesome fic in the pipeline. and hopefully some original stuff too (that is to be given some attention today).

Annoying thing that might end up being good: they all of a sudden (like, this morning) changed Sean's bus route so that he was dropped off about 20 minutes earlier. This freaked me out, largely because (a) i have things set up appointments-wise that relied on that time being 20 minutes later (and that makes a LOT of difference for those types of things and more coming due to new therapists), (2) i hate hate hate getting no notice for things and (iii) i have things set up a certain way with the old driver accomodationswise.

Calls have been put in with the director of transportation and he is meant to be getting back to us by the end of the day. Because they can't bring the kids to the door except at the end of the route (and me waiting outside for him = problem) they will put him at the end of the route again. may not be today due to trickle-through the pipeline but will definitely be by the end of the week. s'good (esp. since that may be later in the day - he adores bus rides so that's awesome for him too.)

(Also i need to complain about the Assholes today. Will do that soon before i get to doing things).

argh. i cannot stand these 'entrepeneurs' and 'media enthusiasts' and all that that keep adding me on twitter (i darenot say it on twitter because that just leads to more of them). dear people of twitter - if you have added me through a random keyword search i probably don't want anything to do with you.

regarding this teabag thing: i think that standard practice for all buzzwords and media compaigns should be running any possible adwords through a class of fifteen year olds. if they think it's funny, then you should find something else.

clickies today are from bernie_laraemie, gizmometer, mactavish and topaz_eyes.

eNature has TONS of nature guides, including a new version of Sibley's Guide to Birds that's fully online (including birdcalls)!

kutner_love is having a kutnerfest! (i know most of the mods are on my list and i love you all but the first person i saw this from was Topaz. <3 It looks excellent and i'm definitely entering. There are tons of categories <3

for seattle locals: capitol hill's top blossoms apparently this weekend is going to be nice. we may take seaners to cal anderson park on sunday if anyone wants to hang out there with us? not sure what time but we're flexible other than it needs to be over by about 2 because i have an mri late sunday afternoon <3

scots church volunteer is online singing sensation

cheese nips SCRABBLE edition! so much win.

5 cm fir tree removed from patient's lung. OMGWTF!?!

robber gets stuck in shop window

russian city to rename all soviet streets to christmas streets.

dolphins join fight against somali pirates in gulf of aden SO COOL!!

stephen colbert gets consolation prize from nasa he didn't get his name on the space station; but they named a treadmill after him. <3

Seaners got some tea tree oil on his hands today. there was a bit spilled (several drops) and we could smell it all the way in the back. that stuff is STRONG.

i hope you all are having a great day.

clickies brought to you today by foxestacado and tourmailine1973 <3<3<3

summit feast for troops and staff After the summit in Thailand was cancelled, rather than let the food go to waste they served the journalists, guards and various staff members the dinner. I don't know much about thai food (yes, i realize my license to live in Seattle is now under jeopardy - there are about seven thai restaurants within a three block radius of my apartment) but it sounds lovely. <3

twilight advertises using contact lenses okay, no matter what you think of the movie or the books, that's seriously fucking creepy. Look at the model. the whole idea gives me chills.

passenger lands plane after pilot dies. OMG.

icebreaker mission sets sail scientific american is starting a series of posts done by a couple of journalists on an icebreaker on the Bering Sea. This is the first one. (for extra bonus fun note pedantic comment which is pedantic at the beginning there.)

Found new ice-cream dessert thing (cookie bottom + ice cream + fudge) by Ben and Jerry's at grocery store. bought two packages. ice cream = srs bzns. Have new toe up socks book to play with: am pondering ripping apart caston row from just-started socks to try toe-up. Will probably do this as i tend to cast-on tightly and have found that it cuts into my leg if i do it that way. more room at the toe to play with.

Despite that i am grouchy and tired of people today. Some random person patted me on the shoulder as she got past me in the post office line. Do not like being touched by complete strangers.

have picked up 'the open focus brain' from the library. looks short. therapist asked me to read it for next session (2 weeks away). some people have asked me to review it, which i will try to do.

tomorrow visit from new neurologist. scary thing: only missed circling 3 of the dozen or so symptoms on 'neurological complaints' list. do not want. appointment is at 9:20 tomorrow morning, which is also nervewracking.

pain up to eleven today; also bad for last several days but not this bad. probably why I've been feeling awful and emotionally screwy all week (not helped because sleep is broken etc.) methadone + celebrex + two percocet + heat help some but not a huge amount. exhausted. lowgrade fever? something. sweaty anyway, pain in all diodes down left side and some in right.

taking today lightly. tempted to rebook tomorrow's psych appt. (thursday night plans good for emotional health and would be kind of depressed if missed. anyone else want to come and see a documentary about Antarctica with me and the (larger) boy? 7PM showing at the Grand Illusion (50th and University Ave); cute little independent theater. my friday plans will help a good bit with pain actually. and also mental health.

blood tests came back inconclusive. getting saliva test w/ dentist (better indicator than blood test).

resting.

cool stuff:

from awils1 (who frequently finds extremely awesome stuff) synthetic biology, ethics and the hacker culture.

from my beautiful and amazing girl: arctic unicorns (narwhal).

eta: found movie on dvd. cancelled that. have nothing until friday (which is at spa so will help w/ pain).

First appointment: orthopedic surgeon.

Short answer: complete waist of freaking time. Nothing he can do for me. Suggests I go back to rehab clinic for more antispasticity meds. Considering that when I initially went in to rehab I could walk mostly normally (for someone with CP, that is) and actually get up off the floor and use my arms to pull myself up on things and not fall down or have to lean on something constantly, I am saying that the antispasticity meds can go fuck themselves with my compliments, and the botox can help (considering the lack of leg muscle control for the first few weeks after the botox treatments has leflt me in some extremely humiliating situations which I would rather not discuss. All I really wanted at the beginning for all of that was physical therapy. I have the stretches the PT taught me and I have information on water fitness classes. I think I am done with rehab, THANK YOU AND GOOD NIGHT.

Then I came home (no, really, it was actually much easier to come home between appointments) and had decent but not fantastic mexican food, coffee and mini cheesecakes. Went to local lesbian bookstore; did not pick up lesbians, but did manage to get some cards for people and a very nice book on the best buddhist writings of 2008. I'm hoping to get either enlightenment or material for new monk stories.

Second appointment: rheumatology.

They got the test results back. Some of them are abnormal. Now we have to run those tests again. Preliminary diagnosis based on bloodwork and some preliminary questions/facts about me point to sjorgren's syndrome (which wins the award for the least intuitive spelling in an autoimmune disorder) which (i'm guessing) is probably comorbid with some flavor of arthritis given that it looks and feels like my grandmother's arthritis that started when she was about my age. Also I probably have restless legs syndrome and they can give me something for that, which is nice because it feels like lightning-based needles are running through my thighs, which is a bit distracting when you're trying to get a bit of a nap.
So I get tested for that, and I have to go back to the dentist and do tests on my saliva, and eventually I may have to get a cheek biopsy (not looking forward to this part).

But yes. surgeon useless (except possibly in the 'feeling better about not requiring surgery for quite some time' bracket, so not so useless i suppose) and rheumathologists have fun theory that explains things, and the theory has been brought over by (it looks like) Swedish people, which wlil make bork either happy or sad, i'm not sure.

hi, how was your day? the inauguration was cool. ooh, a shiny thing -