jinjifore

Diagnosis: CFS

Sun, 05 Feb 2012 17:14:37 GMT

I have been to the rheumatologist, and the verdict is 99.99% officially Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. No one was really surprised. They have to test me for stuff they're pretty sure I don't have, just to make sure I don't have it (TB, HIV, Hep B). In the absence of any other indications of disease, deficiency, or imbalance, though, and with me having several of the items on the checklist of CFS, it's a fairly straightforward diagnosis, unfortunately.

I know CFS was in the news a lot a couple of decades ago, but the Center for Disease Control has a pretty good page about CFS as it's being treated and diagnosed now. The most under-reported news, in my opinion, is that every attempt to link CFS to a specific retro-virus (Or, you know, any virus. Or common factor at all.) hasn't yet been borne out in repeated studies. Anyway, if you're at all curious, the CDC page is a good resource.

( Prognosis; or, There are Two Kinds of Statistics... )

( My exciting exercise therapy )

Onward and upward.

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"Virus" Update, In Which I Make A Long Post That Can Be Summed Up By The Cut Tags

Tue, 24 Jan 2012 20:20:27 GMT

Update on my Mysterious Illness. Such as it is.

( The short version is that I'm going to a rheumatologist because all my blood work is perfectly perfect. Just like me. ;) )

( But my migraine meds are making my hair fall out. Frankly, I consider this an acceptable trade-off. )

( Still, I'm stuck in my house, with a tea kettle and two cats for company most of the day. )

( But that's okay, because I bought a light box and It Is Awesome. )

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Evil Virus of Doom. Maybe.

Tue, 13 Dec 2011 00:55:49 GMT

About a month ago, I made a Facebook post to explain to the people I see everyday why I had dropped off the face of the planet. I've backdated that post and re-posted it to my journal so I can explain what's going on now. You can read the other post for full details, but the short version is that I've had some kind of (possibly viral) illness that's severely laid me up since mid-September. Time has marched on, and I wanted to touch base and give the LJ world an update as well.

( It's still probably an Evil Virus of Doom )

( Or it could be my meds )

( Or it could be Chronic Fatigue Syndrome )

The good news is that I'm feeling pretty good otherwise. I invested in a light box, and it seems to be helping a lot as the days get shorter. Maybe it's just a placebo effect, but as it seems to be a really effective placebo, I don't much care. So, even if I'm worried, I'm still fairly cheerful and I feel that even if this turns into the worst-case scenario, I can figure out how to cope.

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Book Review: Those Guys Have All the Fun: Inside the World of ESPN

Mon, 30 May 2011 23:42:51 GMT

I just got finished reading (most of) Those Guys Have All the Fun: Inside the World of ESPN by Jim Miller and Tom Shales. Yes, I bought it because of my not-so-secret crush on Dan Patrick and his voice (he's actually not in the book very much, but I suppose it says a lot about the book that I didn't care), but also because I used to watch a ton of ESPN, especially in the 90s. (I will never forget, Dan and Keith, the footage of the avalanche substituted for every one of the avalanche of goals scored by the Avalanche that one night. Thank you.)

( It's a book about a business! And sports! And a sports business! Told in first person by 500 people! Try to contain your excitement. )

This can't really be an unqualified recommendation, because I'm not going to say "Oh, you will all obviously love to read 700 pages of interviews about sports and business and people who run a sports business!" but I did want to praise Jim Miller and Tom Shales for their work. This book is the culmination of years of effort, and I was truly impressed both with the skill that they showed in putting all the pieces of interviews together, and in their philosophy of what to put in and what to leave out. I'm also impressed with their skills as interviewers. I know that Dan, for one, didn't really want to talk to them (Miller said, possibly joking, that Dan was one of the hardest people to get an interview with). They also managed to get access to ESPN, and for that alone they deserve a ton of credit for sheer perseverance. Good job, Mr. Miller, Mr. Shales.

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Signal Boost--Calling Blood Donors

Wed, 06 Apr 2011 18:38:04 GMT

I got a call from the Red Cross yesterday because I had just become eligible to donate blood again, and the gist of the call was essentially "OMG O-neg person please come in PLEASEPLEASEPLEASE." Apparently the Red Cross has used up a lot of whole blood reserves because of the various storms across the US, and the system a couple of days ago has only made it worse.

So, if you feel you can donate and you would like to, now would be a good time.

http://www.redcross.org

http://www.americasblood.org/

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Reporting In

Fri, 25 Feb 2011 14:45:28 GMT

Just wanted to report in and say that, despite the tornadoes in Nashville, me and mine are fine. This church with its roof torn off is about half a mile away from our house, but all we got were high winds and rain. We feel pretty darn lucky. We're supposed to get more rain today, but hopefully it will only make us soggier, and not bring more wind and floods and tornadoes. Here's hoping.

Anyway, I just wanted to check in, and I hope that everyone else is doing well. Take care!

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LibraryThing: Common Knowledge

Fri, 18 Feb 2011 21:21:58 GMT

Since I last did any extensive updating at LibraryThing (over three years ago!), they've switched things up a bit. Now there are these "Common Knowledge" fields for the works which contain things like the publication dates, editors, characters in the books, alternate titles, and other tidbits of useful information. It's all nifty, and I'd like to add some information to the Common Knowledge pool.

There are two problems with this ambition.

First, I have about 4,500 books in my catalog. That's a lot of entries to go through. Clearly, some of them will already be up-to-date on their Common Knowledge (I suspect, for instance, that some of the other 50,000+ people who have copies of the Harry Potter books will have taken care of them), but when I've got the only copy of Suffering and Evil in the Plays of Christopher Marlowe, that'll be on me to fill in the fields. This is, of course, the point of the exercise--to add my unique information--but it brings me to my second problem:

LibraryThing no longer allows me to sort by the number of copies. In the Olden Days, you could sort your catalog by the relative popularity of your books. This would be a really useful feature to have right now, since it would allow me to bump all my unique works right to the top and work through them first, instead of having to scan through all 4,587 entries to find the ones where mine is the only copy.

(Okay, there's sort of a workaround, in that I can put Common Knowledge fields into my catalog viewing and then sort by the fields, so at least I won't be constantly clicking on works that already have stuff filled in. But it would really, really be a lot easier to go to works that I can be almost sure no-one has filled in because I know no one else has the book.)

On a completely different topic, if you look at the cover I scanned for the aforemenioned Suffering and Evil as an example, you will note that all the book covers I scanned in and uploaded three years ago suck. A lot. I think there was some miniscule size limit, and boy does it show. I just uploaded a cover for The Mad Scientist Affair that doesn't even qualify as "high quality," but it's about a billion times better. I may have to go back and re-scan some of those covers (another task that that "sort by popularity" thing would be useful for).

Busy busy....:)

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The State of the Jinjifore

Sat, 05 Feb 2011 17:48:27 GMT

( Weight loss stuff )

( Other health stuff )

So, yeah. Everything's good. :)

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First Line iPod Shuffle Meme

Fri, 10 Dec 2010 06:13:59 GMT

I was going to make a meaningful update, but then coreopsis and instrumentality posted this meme and I remembered that months ago I had carefully shuffled my music and written it up but never posted it. So, here it is, the first lines iPod meme:

First Line Meme

Instructions (which have been different for every person I've seen post it, which is as it should be): Put your iPod on shuffle. Take the first 20 songs. Post only the first lines of the lyrics of those songs and see if anyone can guess what songs the lyrics belong to. No Googling allowed!

( First Line Meme )

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The Purse Meme

Thu, 26 Aug 2010 15:59:59 GMT

The Purse Meme, most recently seen from 51stcenturyfox.

The Purse, fully contained:

I bought this purse primarily as a receptacle for my crossword puzzles. Of course, I had make sure that my crossword stash would fit. The natural solution was to take my ratty ziploc bag full of dog-eared newspapers into Dillard's and Macy's and try to fit it into various purses. For the record, I was not thrown out of either store.

The Purse, open to show that, yes, all the crap actually fits into it:

And now, under the cut, the actual crap I carry around:

( What I carry in my purse )

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There Are Two Kinds of Statistics

Fri, 06 Aug 2010 02:54:57 GMT

Things I have learned in the last 24 (or so) hours:

( Or, as Archie Goodwin once said: There are two kinds of statistics, the kind you look up and the kind you make up. )

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I R Smart/Dumb

Sat, 31 Jul 2010 20:43:45 GMT

I am a genius! And also, amazingly stupid!

One of the problems I was having with my old computer was that all kinds of image files were getting mysteriously corrupted while in my New Fic folder. This did not happen to them while they were in any other folder, just the New Fic folder, and it only happened to files that had some kind of images with them, like .pdfs or picture files. Since there were Other Issues with my computer, I figured that this was probably just some thing with the hard drive going wonky.

I've had my new computer for a few weeks now, and so far all has been well with images and such in the New Fic folder. Until today. I opened a .pdf to read it, and lo! It was wonky. So was every other image and .pdf in the folder.

( If you're going to screw yourself over, at least be able to figure out how you're doing it. Eventually. )

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In Good News

Thu, 29 Jul 2010 01:23:25 GMT

Since I peppered you with all the bad stuff in the winter and spring, I thought it would only be fair to share at least three awesome things that have happened to me lately:

( Three Good Things: My Vacation, Weight Watchers, and Parenting Validation )

So, three good things and counting. :)

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Weight Watchers and Cats

Sun, 20 Jun 2010 17:41:21 GMT

I think I said I was going to talk more about Weight Watchers, so I will, a bit. So far, it's really working well for me. I've lost a little over 11 pounds in five weeks (\0/), and it hasn't been impossibly difficult, just a bit of a paradigm shift.

It's mostly been a matter of substituting things I really like to eat that have fewer calories and fat for the other things I really like to eat that have tons of calories and fat, and keeping track of how much I eat of everything. I mean, yeah, I love french fries, but I really will be just as happy with a baked potato with a dab of sour cream and butter. Not to mention that on Weight Watchers I can have the fries every now and then, because WW treats me like a grown-up and gives me extra points to use for occasional treats and snacks.

In other news, we have, at last, released Tom into the house. It seems like forever, but I think the slow introduction with letting Tom live in the spare room a couple of days to let his scent in and then letting them "visit" through a cracked door has paid off. There have been isolated incidents of hissing and growling, but it's kind of hard to take it seriously when both cats are sprawled a couple of feet apart looking so relaxed it's hard to tell which one's making the noise.

Greebo has been doing most of the growling, but so far they seem to be fighting for who's going to be the submissive cat, since mostly they hiss, growl and then run away. There was one point when Greebo was working up a really intimidating growl and then had to stop to cough up a hairball. Not his most dignified moment.

In short, they're getting along as well as could possibly be expected at this point. I'm sure that there will be actual contact fighting at some point, but two days in it hasn't happened. They might not end up as buddy-buddy as Greebo and Sylvester were (see below), but that's okay, too.

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:( vs. \0/

Thu, 27 May 2010 16:45:42 GMT

I have had an...interesting few days.

The set-up:

On Friday, I joined Weight Watchers, finally. I may post in more detail about the actual program later, but here the point is that I went in and signed up and got the materials so I could start going to meetings the next Monday.

Over the weekend I finally sat down to order to the new computer I wanted. My old laptop has been very faithful, but it's starting to glitch in that "my hard drive is dying" way, not to mention that I have to restart Firefox at least once a day to keep it from eating up all the RAM. And the backlight on the screen shorts out about three or four times a day. Little stuff like that.

To make the purchase, we had to transfer funds from the savings at my husband's credit union. Although the credit union did finally upgrade a few years ago from the Commodore 64 computer that used to run the system (that's 64K, by the way), apparently they haven't upgraded to having anyone on hand to make larger transfers on the weekends. So, we had to wait until Monday. No big deal, right?

Yeah, right.

( Monday, May 24, 2010-- :( = 3; \0/ = 0 )

( Tuesday, May 25, 2010-- :( = 1; \0/ = 1 )

( Wednesday, May 26, 2010-- :( = 0; \0/ = 3 )

It's now Thursday. All I've done so far today is forget Boo's lunch. Small potatoes. ;)

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Trademarks, Patents, Copyright and the Kuiper Belt = 1; Spelling Test = 0

Thu, 13 May 2010 16:26:23 GMT

First things first:

As I previously mentioned, my family was relatively unaffected by the flooding in Nashville. But I know someone who lost her home and possessions and every day I learn about new groups of people who are having difficulties getting back on their feet. As always, it seems that those who can least afford it have lost the most. elizah_jane has a very good post with resources and links for making donations (thanks to coreopsis for the link). There is also a follow-up post with more information. Tomorrow I plan to take my O-neg self down to the Red Cross. It's been so long since I've had the energy to even come close to qualify for donating, and now seems like an excellent time to go back.

In more benign news:

This morning, Boo asked what "If your cat likes Cat Chow they might like this" meant (it was written on our bag of cat food). Since we had been discussing proprietary formulas the day before (don't ask), this led to a talk about brand names, which led to patents, which led to trademarks, which led to copyright. That took up the first half hour of the forty-five minute drive to school, after which we switched to the Kuiper Belt.

The problem? I meant to review the words for her weekly spelling test today.

So, yeah, she'll be fine if the teacher asks her about trademark law, but won't be able to spell "butterfly" or whatever the hell it is I was actually supposed to help her with. Crap.

( In other news, the cats are well )

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Soggy But Undrowned

Mon, 03 May 2010 12:55:25 GMT

Those of you in the US who are watching the weather--or possibly the national news--are likely aware that it's been raining a bit here in Nashville. The weather service issued a flood warning several days ago, before the rain even started, and apparently they knew what they were doing. The mayor issued a civil emergency warning two nights ago asking people to keep off the roads because the flooding was just that bad. I live in the southeast part of the city, near a lake, but I'm not on a flood plain. (It should be noted that in Tennessee, "lives near a lake" also means "lives near a dam." Although that's pretty much true for "lives in Tennessee" as well.)

There's no school for Boo today. My husband tried to get to work and discovered that the entire area around the complex where he works is blocked off. Not surprising, really, since the Cumberland river flows right by and it's been breaking its banks since last night. So, he's home, too.

The sun is shining this morning, but supposedly there's more rain in the offing in the next couple of days. And of course the really nasty flooding doesn't happen until all the runoff gets done getting into the rivers. The river I live near, as I said, is dammed, but the parts of the Cumberland that go through downtown and the Harpeth river always flood, and the Stones River in Murfreesboro always does some damage, too. So, yeah, hoping the rain holds off a bit.

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Trees...

Mon, 26 Apr 2010 21:18:47 GMT

Dear Trees and Your Pollen,

I realize that you are an important part of my daily existence. You are beautiful and stately and I know that I would find it difficult to breathe without your lovely oxygen-producing qualities.

Right now, though, I'm going to hate you and your stupid pollen for about forty-eight hours.

Miserably yours,

Jinjifore

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In a Post-Apocalyptic World, I Could Pick Out the Good Tobacco...

Thu, 08 Apr 2010 18:30:22 GMT

It is finally the end of the Longest Passover Break Ever. Boo's school was closed from March 26 until this morning. I have lost count of the number of games of Clue I have played.

Actually, I was a crappy mom for most of the first week. My allergies were horrible and I spent a lot of time stuffed with antihistamines, rousing only when prodded by little hands for feeding time. Boo was really great about letting me sleep off the stupid allergies and mostly amused herself. I did take her to my knitting group and we had a play date with a knitting pal's grandkids, so I wasn't 100% crap in the mom department. I also made it up a bit this week with the aforementioned Clue marathons and with taking her out places. It's really amazing how nice mom/daughter time is when mom doesn't feel like crap.

( Parental Visitation )

( Useful Post-Apocalyptic Skills. Or Not. )

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Reading Utilities for Fanfiction

Tue, 30 Mar 2010 22:50:49 GMT

Because I was stupid and managed to give myself the same cold/fever again with my own toothbrush (don't ask), I decided to make productive use of my lying-in-bed time by making a post to share some of my favorite fanfic-reading Firefox utilities (plus a couple of random things). Unless otherwise indicated, everything works on both Mac OSX 10.14 and Windows XP running Firefox 3.5 or 3.6 (some of the add-ons need to be the latest version to run on Firefox 3.6).

( Firefox Add-ons )

( Greasemonkey Scripts )

( Other Stuff )

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Beokitteh

Sun, 14 Mar 2010 01:49:25 GMT

Someone posted a rant on fanficrants about the difference between Early Modern, Middle, and Old English. This led to the reposting of a partial translation of Beowulf. Into LOLcat. (Courtesy of aesc.)

Hay thar! We can has knowingz of teh c00lniz of
teh Spearcats, teh kingz of teh pplz, in teh old daiz,
how teh prinzes wuz all FTW!1!! \o/
Wif ninja cats Scyld Scefkitteh
stoled teh mead-benchiz (whut??) of many doggiz
an skared lots of pplz. Aftur he wuz
founded bukkitless he got cookies cos he was sad kitteh,
he growed up an pwned c00l stuffs
so all teh doggiz in teh hood
an cross teh see did whut he sed
an gave him cheezburgrs. Taht wuz gud king, srsly.

Beokitteh, 1 tru !1

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Supernatural Surfacing

Wed, 10 Mar 2010 15:49:06 GMT

Um. Hello. Yes.

So. It's been approximately 10 days since I started watching Supernatural. Watched the latest aired episode last night. I think even for me that's a record for mainlining a series.

( First impressions, which, if you have been a fan of the show for more than five minutes, you have no doubt read a million times already at some point in the last five years )

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Free! Free at Last!

Fri, 15 May 2009 17:26:57 GMT

I am pin-less, cast-less and have the ability to be splint-less at will. I still have a couple of stitches in (literally, like, two stitches), but those will be coming out next week. I'm cleared to do pretty much anything I want so long as it doesn't hurt beyond certain parameters. At the moment, those parameters are very small, but it's nice to be able to eat a meal without worrying about breaking my pins lifting a soup spoon.

( Medical Details )

( Personal Details )

The timing of all this good-feeling is fortuitous, as it turns out. Boo's school is going to be closed today and Monday because more than 30 kids (about a quarter of the student body) and half the teachers are sick with the flu. They haven't specified if it's H1N1 or suspected H1N1, which irritates me greatly because, hello, I'd like to know, but the school is advising everyone to avoid other people for a few days. The Jewish Community Center will be taking kids from Metro schools in the daycare-aftercare program, but kids from Akiva need to stay home. That means it'll be just me and Boo. As much as it's inconvenient, and as much as I don't want Boo or me or Al or anyone else to get sick, it's also kind of nice to be able to take care of my own kid for the first time in weeks. :)

We have also released Tom back into the wild. Or tried. We opened up the garage door for him, but as of a few minutes ago he was still hiding under his favorite shelf. He seems to be very well healed up, no sign of his injuries apart from a slight bald patch on his foot. Boo has been taking care of his medication for that last few days, and has proved a very able assistant.

~~In other words, the household is on the mend. :)~~

ETA: I should really learn not to tempt fate by posting things like the previous sentence. Right after posting the above I realized that I didn't actually feel that well. Current condition: sore throat, aches, fever 100 degrees.

I would headdesk, except that would hurt. I'll headpillow instead.

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My Day in Cats

Tue, 05 May 2009 02:16:58 GMT

I suppose you may remember my not-cat. You know, the cat who I took to have neutered, who I've been feeding for two years, who hangs out on my deck and who is emphatically not mine. That cat. (His name is Tom, by the way.)

Today, when I put out food for the cats, Tom was limping and had blood on his paw. Since he's not my cat, I of course took him straight to the vet. (Being the lawless feral stray that he is, it took me about a minute to get him in the carrier one-handed, and that was only because it took thirty seconds to chase him down. At a walk.)

( Fortunately, he's not badly hurt. )

Tom, of course, acted like the aforementioned lawless stray at the vet's office. He protested really, really loudly the whole time he was in the carrier, and on the (two-mile) drive to the vet, and for about the first three minutes in the exam room. By the end of it, he was lying sprawled on the exam table, purring up a storm while the vet poked at the cut on his paw, and not even flinching when he got his shot. He's a big sweetheart. :)

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