Pronoun Trouble

Y helo thar, menstrual cramps; been a while since I've had to deal with you!

(I took a painkiller that I hope will kick in soon. Meanwhile, I'm choosing to dwell on the fact that I don't have to deal with these nearly so often since I got my IUD in. Thank goodness I found a treatment that works for me!)

My episcleritis is responding well to treatment, yay! But it's starting to appear in the other eye as well, boo!

So now I'm attempting to be proactive about treatment, and trying for prevention. I'm guessing it might be related to the passenger side carpet in my car, which got routinely soaked over the course of a month due to bad drainage issues, and I did not have the wherewithal to take the shopvac to it after every rain.

The leak is, as near as I can tell, actually fixed now, but I'm left to wonder if the carpet isn't actually horribly mold infested past the point that I can do anything about it. Once I was pretty sure that the leak was fixed, I vacuumed the whole thing, then tried a baking-soda paste (did not work well) and then sprayed the carpet down with a vinegar solution. Up next I'm going to call my mechanic and see if they're able to replace the carpet there, or if they can recommend someone who can. So that's possible solution number one, and while it will potentially hurt my pocketbook, it's probably better to have it done in the long run (and honestly in the short run as well).

The second thing I'm trying is cleaning my room properly! The aim here is to get rid of the tremendous amount of dust hanging around, and make it possible for me to hopefully keep things less dusty. Even if this doesn't help my eyes, it will still be good for me, and may help my sinuses.

I got a decent start on it yesterday, clearing out huge stack of things by my doorway that had been gradually building up for a while. The problem is that I decided to continue my cleaning streak tonight, and have now probably dumped way more dust into the air than I rightly should have for a good night's sleep. Tomorrow, I will ideally do my cleaning somewhere closer to the daytime, and also I will make sure to set up the box-fan-and-furnace-filter on high speed in my room for an hour or two after my cleaning session.

Anyway, I'm seeing my eye doctor for a follow-up on Friday, so between those three things, hopefully one of them will work.

It has been nearly ten days since Easter, and finally my knees no longer consistently hurt going up and down stairs.

I need to Do Something About This.



(Easter was a lot of walking and lifting and general work at my job. It was compounded by not getting as much rest as I wanted the next day, since my mom had to go in for a colonoscopy and needed me to walk the dog, who was very eager to Go All The Places.)

Hahahahaha! So, around ten years ago or thereabouts, about the time I got my most recent job, I started having (more) trouble with heat. ( Cut for not-quite-gory deatils: TL;DR, what I thought might be some sort of rash was actually chafing blisters )

I just had an uneventful(!) trip to the restroom, and am tentatively feeling somewhat better??? Like damn, I was certain there for a bit that I'd be laid up another day or two and would end up having to see the doctor again.

I'm trying not to count my chickens before they hatch here, but being well enough to go to work on January 1st does not sound like the worst thing in the world to me right now.

I had the deep misfortune today of scraping my thumb on the mechanical dough cutter at work while I was trying to disassemble it for cleaning. This wouldn't be quite so bad, but it was exactly over where the scar from when that same thumb got cut last December. My only words on that are "Ouch," and a weary, heartfelt sigh.

I did end up leaving work a bit early today, since there wasn't much to do; this turned out well for me, since I wanted to drop off my stuff at the ICON art show before it got too late. Luck was really in my favor, because I managed to get everything set up within minutes of the art show closing for the evening, and I sold three items while setting up, already covering the meager table fees. I hope the rest of the art show goes at least as well!

Turns out I'm allergic to chickpeas/garbanzo beans! Whoda thunkit. There were probably better ways to test this than by eating a bunch of falafel to find out if I still find even the plain ones spicy, but I haven't always been the best planner. On the plus side, I never ate falafel or hummus that often in the first place, and can probably make do with couscous whenever I miss the former. (Couscous not being spicy to me, it'll probably taste closer to the way falafel is supposed to taste anyway.)

In other news:

- New theme is up at summerofthe69
- I submitted a bunch of fics for the ML Square Dance event/exchange on the Buffet Line
- I am very tired, possibly from my body dealing with all the falafel I ate; not something I'll be doing again!

No official biopsy results yet (as in,, I haven't been called to discuss them), but the words "benign breast tissue" on the MyChart test result page has left me cautiously optimistic.

With the good news out of the way, here's the bad:

My dad had a very bad fall this afternoon. He's currently in the hospital, either waiting on or in surgery.

Content Warning: Injury details

Mom told me that he fell on his face; his eyeglasses made a cut in his forehead, both of his eye sockets broke, and he has brain bleeding. When she called me about three-and-a-half hours ago, she said he was hooked up to some anti-seizure meds via IV, and would be going in for brain surgery to deal with the brain bleeding.

Mom told me the doctors expect everything to go well, which is about all I can hope for just now.

I'll update when I know more.

Update: 20:14, US Central time: Dad needs to be in the hospital overnight; he's getting a scan at 01:00 tomorrow, after which we'll know more.

Update 21:45: Mom stopped home to pick up a few things and eat something, and shared some more details. Turns out things are a lot less dire than the impression I had! Dad is actually conscious, and has been the entire time. He says he's not having a problem with pain, though I suspect they at least have him on something at this point. They also let him eat something, so there's not going to be surgery at least until that passes; we'll learn more after the 01:00 scan. He's got a whole team of doctors looking after him, and it's a very good facility with very good staff.

Minor update on one of the above injuries

So there's two places he's got bleeding in his brain, one in the front and one in the back. Apparently the doctor says the one in the front has been there "forever" so they're not worrying about it? That one is news to me, at the very least.

Anyway, I'm a lot less worried now than I was. I am now also cautiously optimistic about Dad's outcome, whereas when Mom first told me that the doctors expected Dad to make a good recovery, I had been fully prepared to temper my expectations.

H'okay! I successfully re-named at least thirteen of my fics to End Racism in the OTW as per end-otw-racism's call to action. I still don't know yet if I'll get around to writing an actual fic for it, or what such a fic might look like, but I've done at least a little. I'm half-tempted to start transporting a bunch of my old fic to AO3 with the End Racism in the OTW title as well, but we'll see how things go.

I also had my biopsy today! I get to wear a bra to sleep now. I am not looking forward to that part. I'll get the results from the biopsy within a week.

I did not take Molly the dog on a very long walk today, or even a regular length walk, despite both of us wanting to. The most I did was take her on a quick jaunt around the house right before my appointment. I'm holding off on dog walking until tomorrow as well, since I've been advised not to lift anything more than 10 lbs/about 4.5kg until 24 hours after my biopsy, and I wouldn't be surprised if Molly can clock in at over ten pounds of pulling strength. Hopefully sometime this weekend, though, I'll be able to take her out somewhere for some fun.

That's all I have to report for today, I think! With less than three hours to go until midnight in my area, I'd call it a reasonably safe bet.

That is, specifically on my own boobs, and whether I want to keep them at all, or just at this size.

( Some pros and cons of breast reduction or top surgery )

These are just some stray thoughts at the moment, mostly because Baby's First Mammogram was last month, and they need to take a closer look, even though it's Probably Nothing.