Meta Watershed

Tuesday, May 21, 2013

LOLCATS WEEKLY ROUND-UP FOR 21 MAY 2013

Here's the weekly best of what I've gleaned from I Can Has Cheezburger efforts. There are some really creative folks out there.

Type rest of the post here

Sunday, May 19, 2013

HAITCH TWO OH AND HYPERGONADISM, ETC

Skwirl con cajones gigantes

I still am not sure how to evaluate what the nightly oxygen is doing: Mostly good, certainly going to continue it. I wake up with daily headaches but they are lessening. My morning sugars have plummeted, is that related? I am frequently sweaty at night. I am sleeping longer but still desperately needing daily naps. So something else is still going on. At least Scoutie has now, finally, relaxed about the new Monsser at bedside.

In fact, Scout had a major breakthrough this week -- she can now leap up onto Dinah's eyrie. So keeping her from Dinah's wet food is a fucking issue again, and Dinah's weight gain (another tenth of a pound this week) may be in jeopardy. Further, in figuring out the route aloft Scout sent a massive stack of books and boxes crashing to the floor in the study. After that happened, Dinah refused to answer my calls or come within sight for 12 hours overnight, leaving me to imagine her lying dead or dying beneath a heavy pile. I once again lay awake for hours, sick with dread, wondering whether to wake up Win and Sheldon for an energency call. But at 9 am, Tammi arrived and said Dinah was in the other room, smirking as I begged out her name. It is a real piece of work to love that cat.

I spent some time last night reading what turned up for a Google search of "squirrel testicles". We had a new raider at the burd feeder, a squirrel with unbelievably engorged scrotal balloons in variegated colours. My research revealed this is their high breeding season and yes, they do swell and change hue when the hormones are in full use. But I could not find an image to compare with our guy, whom I have named Zucco Skwirl. Even the examples in the attached video are only half the gonadal size of our Zucco Skwirl. He joins our recognition list, along with Mama Skwirl, Finger Skwirl (one of the fingers on her right front paw is deformed into a permanent fuck-you finger), and the late Overreaction Skwirl, who died horrifically in front of Margot the first day of her visit here last month. No, you do NOT want to know what happened.

I decided to not hand on the note nurse Jessica wrote to the tweaker about my Foley mishandling. Earlier I'd asked the tweak to read aloud some cooking instructions on a bag of rice, and I realized while she is technicall literate, I could argue against full reading comprehension. And Jessica's note was emphatically angry. Instead, I set aside any impatience and kindly, creatively taught her how a Foley functions using some spare nasal cannula tubing and a poet's vocabulary. She got it, she really did, and her hands-on cleaning of me shifted. We both felt triumphant. I'll have to re-do it next weekend, she cannot retain, but such is attendant reality.

I also took this morning's shift to pass on what I know about cooking potatoes, rice, and aromatics. Wound up with some great dishes for lunch and dinner, imparted real food skills maybe she will use elsewhere, and feel grateful to have had enough extra energy to manage it. Oxygen? It's a GOOD thing.

Wednesday, May 15, 2013

BORG BY STEALTH

We are Borg. Moreso than ever.

Lots to report. I got several test results back yesterday. Most of the blood results were good or better. In particular, my non-fasting glucose was 113 and my hemoglobin A1c was 6, which the nurse said was dead-on normal and they could not be happier about. This means my blood glucose for the past three months has been under impeccable control.

My hematocrit was slightly off, which may simply reflect dehydration that day. My thyroid was also elevated, but that has some possible accompanying symptoms. So we'll be retesting both of those and following up. Easily treated if there's an issue.

No word back on my cardiac echo.

However, my overnight pulse oximetry showed dangerously low oygenation while I was sleeping. Dr. Matt immediately ordered oxygen and it arrived yesterday evening; I am to sleep with a nasal cannula on for 10 hours each night. She is also trying to figure out a way to get me a sleep study, given my lack of portability. At this point, I would welcome trying CPAP or BiPAP: Anything to get restful sleep.

Unfortunately, the O2 machine has completely fweaked owt our ginger kitten. Scout hid in Dinah's deepest cave for several hours, totally pissing off Dinah, and only emerged in the middle of the night to beg me for reassurance from the side of the bed opposite the hissing monster. She is intrigued by the cannula and would accept that as a new toy, but the machine itself has her utterly unnerved. It is off at the moment, and she is here beside me as I type. When we turn it back on at 7, well, send her your prayers or whatever.

Zach, my grocery shopper from MoW, gave sudden notice, and I met with a possible replacement for him, named James, over the weekend. James is a 30-something divorced dad of a 4-year-old for whom he wants to model giving back to the community and embracing diversity. He explained to me that he was born in Sweden and raised in Canada, and therefore his social consciousness is left of center. He shops organic himself and I feel good about this fit. Still, it will mean breaking in another new person. I am grateful to Zach for filling in when he could: People can be so generous.

Over the weekend I had two small episodes of urethral pain, both after the Tweaker had cleaned my Foley area. I passed this on to Jessica the nurse and she immediately checked my Foley. I heard her swear, something she simply does not do: Turns out the inflated bulb that keeps the Foley inside had lost 10 cc of pressure, enough to mean it could have slid out and was likely causing small damage to my urethra. She refilled it, with immediate relief, and wrote a furious note to the Tweaker with step-by-step instructions on how to clean around a Foley. The thing is, the Tweaker won't retain it. I'll have to go over every detail every time she's here.

I am sick of being in charge. I want to let it all go. This is hammering the spiritual path I need to follow. With Tammi, I can leave it all to her, or if Margot is around. Otherwise, I have to stay vigilant to keep my health intact, make sure I get real food and household items are not destroyed (Debra's trick when I ask her to do something she doesn't like doing -- currently she seems bent on wiping out the planting Margot made while she was here.)

Today Tammi called in absent but they replaced her with Patricia, an expert who stepped in and did bath/shampoo/linen change with rapid efficiency. I was able to zone out and appreciate the body comfort.

In other news, I watched the first episode of "The Fall" last night on Brit TV and it was absolutely stellar: What Scully could have been if she got Mulder out of her hair. Gillian Anderson at her Bleak House best, though of course chillingly modern. Check.It.Out.