kayray.org

Check it out, I recorded another chapter. A very long chapter.

https://archive.org/download/kayrayreadstoyou9/OverSeaUnderStone_12_128kb.mp3

Chapter 11 of Over Sea, Under Stone:
https://archive.org/download/kayrayreadstoyou9/OverSeaUnderStone_11_128kb.mp3

I found a cool website-and-app today: trakt.tv. “Trakt is a platform that does many things, but primarily keeps track of TV shows and movies you watch.”

Netflix and other streamers usually keep track of where you are in whatever series you’re watching, but when I watch stuff on my own hard drive I often have a hard time remembering where I am, especially on repeat viewings, so Trakt will be handy for that. I also like that it displays a list of the shows you’re in the middle of, so you don’t forget to watch the next episode; and it shows what’s airing next, for series that are currently airing; and it allows you to track multiple viewings of the same show/movie. I like DATA.

Pro-tip — when you make your account, add only what you’re currently watching, not everything you’ve ever seen. Otherwise your “up next” list will be all cluttered. I learned this the very hard way.

At long last, here’s the next chapter of Over Sea, Under Stone:
https://archive.org/download/kayrayreadstoyou9/OverSeaUnderStone_10_128kb.mp3

Happy August! Another pleasant Sunday of lunch at our Falafel Corner, snuggling, and talking for hours. Heavenly.

In 2016 I figured out how to watch the BBC’s Olympic coverage and it was astonishingly good. You could watch literally every minute of every event. The commentators weren’t disgustingly nationalistic like the US ones, nor were there endless gross Human Interest packages.

This year I’ve been doing the same thing (thanks, smartdnsproxy.com!) but the coverage is sadly lacking in breadth. The commentators are still excellent but only a handful of events are shown. Tons of taekwando, lots of rowing, no equestrian cross-country, no surfing, etc. Did some googling and it turns out that Discovery bought the UK broadcast rights this year (subscription-based, of course) and left the BBC the crumbs. Greedy jerks.

So tonight I set up my laptop to pretend to be in Canada and now I’m watching the excellent CBC coverage — every minute of every event like the BBC of yore.

Equestrian cross-country! YESSSSS!

My appointment with Dr. Nguyen went very well. He’s an amazing doctor. He always has time, never seems rushed, listens, cares, understands my complicated health issues.

He agreed with my diagnosis of dyshidrotic eczema on my fingers and prescribed clobetasol ointment, which will also soothe the adhesive irritation (I still have horrible red itchy places from hospital stick-um).

Back in 2019 when everyone thought I only had a year or two to live, we decided I didn’t need the regular maintenance stuff anymore because there was no point. But today Dr. Nguyen said I should start up again because it would be too ironic for me to die of cervical cancer now! Lol!

So he did a pap smear and removed my old IUD (ouch), and gave me orders for a mammogram.

He says the zit I’ve had on my nose for three months isn’t nose cancer.

I think I have a new health problem lol. Ever since Sunday, the sides of two of my fingers are covered in dozens of tiny painful bumps. Doctor Google says Dyshidrotic Eczema:
https://nationaleczema.org/eczema/types-of-eczema/dyshidrotic-eczema/
which is painful and annoying but harmless and should clear up eventually.

I have an appointment with my wonderful primary care doc, Dr. Nguyen, today so I can get a real diagnosis. It’s actually a follow-up appt for my hospital fun last week.

I also have a zit on my nose that has been coming and going for nearly three months so I’ll ask him about that, too. Hope it’s not nose cancer.

Dave the Best Boyfriend Ever came over today to hang out. He had a couple of zoom meetings which he attended from my room, and we had our usual lunch, and snuggled and talked for hours, and went to see a house he was thinking about buying. The house is a nope but it was a ton of fun to walk through it!

Today watched the women’s street skateboarding finals!! So exciting, so cool, and the tiny 13yo Brazilian girl got silver! So thrilled for her. Hope to see her again in four years. Also lots of men’s gymnastics. The rings just BLOW my MIND. Humans are AMAZING.

I’m so impressed by the camera work.

A fairly tired day but nice all the same. Lunch and hanging out with wonderful Dave, then my daily hour of Bach over FaceTime with Mom, then I ate my leftover lunch, watched the women’s skateboarding qualification, watched an ep of Arrested Development, super sleepy now

I was kinda ignoring the Olympics because I’m appalled that they’re taking place in a global pandemic and I’m pissed off at the general misogyny and racism of the IOC.

But Kirsten asked if I knew how to watch the BBC‘s coverage… and yes, dear sister, I do :D

So I took my laptop out to the living room and we all watched together— men‘s gymnastics, some cycling, some rowing, and a whole lot of skateboarding! It is SO COOL that skateboarding is an Olympic event now! It was super interesting and exciting to watch, so I’m glad Kirst asked or i would have missed it.

Looks like surfing is an event now, too, which should be fun!

I like seeing events that literally any kid can try, regardless of income or parental involvement.

And the BBC‘s coverage is stellar. No ads, almost no goopy Human Interest packages, and there isn’t as much icky nationalism as on US channels. Why, the BBC shows athletes who aren’t British! We saw Egyptian, Irish, and Israeli gymnasts! On US tv you generally only see US athletes (and their Arch Rivals, eyeroll) and events that the US is good at. It’s lovely to get a broader, more international view.

Not sure if I’ve complained about my adhesive allergy here recently. It is HORRIBLE. My doctors and I have tried EVERY ADHESIVE KNOWN TO MAN and I react to it all — hypoallergenic, made for babies, nothing works. So guess what happens when I go to the hospital? They stick things all over me and then my skin begins to burn and itch and develop bumps and get all red and my entire body gets itchy.

On Wednesday, the second day I was in the hospital, I removed the just-in-case unused IV port myself. I’ve asked them to do it in the past, and they give me this whole speech about what if there’s an emergency and we need to put drugs into you really fast, and I tell them that’s fine they can start a new IV if that happens (I have easy, excellent veins), and then after a lot of arguing they remove the IV port. So I just did it myself when my skin started to burn under the adhesive. Don’t think they even noticed.

Two days later and my skin is still killing me there. Burning, itching, swollen, hurting. My corticosteroid ointment helps for about ten minutes and then it starts up again.

And of course I had all the monitoring electrodes stuck to my skin, must have been eight or ten of them over those two days. So I have eight or ten burning, itching, swollen circles on my torso. Haven’t had enough energy to shower, and even though I tried to wipe off the stick-um with alcohol wipes the damage has been done. I am sooooo itchy.

Anyone out there have this problem?

In other news, after feeling tired but basically ok yesterday I slept badly because I kept half-waking, gasping for air, but I never woke up enough to think of a solution. I was using 5 lpm of oxygen (I usually use 4 at night). When I woke up and checked my vitals, my heart was basically ok, fairly steady and about 80-90 bpm, which is normal for me, but my blood oxygen saturation was much too low at around 88%. So I turned on my second oxygen concentrator and stuck that cannula in my nose, too, for a total of 10 lpm. Oxygen level rose up to about 92% which is still not good enough, and I felt “funny”. Not dizzy, no pain, just Not Right. Soooo I checked to see if Marcos (brother-in-law) would be available to drive me to the UCSF hospital where they understand my condition and can cope with my crazy meds without trying to kill me. He only had one meeting today, so that was a relief. Also left a voicemail message and a mychart message for my pulmonology team up there, describing what was going on.

Pretty quickly after that, my oxygen levels started climbing back up to a normal level, and now I’m back down to 5 lpm and 95%, which is good enough and nothing to worry about. Still quite fatigued from Hospital Adventure and Stress, but I no longer feel “funny”. Lay in bed and rested all day.

Nurse at UCSF just called me back. We discussed. She told me to take an extra 20mg of Lasix (diuretic) over the weekend to help flush extra fluid from my body, and check in with them next week. And go to the emergency room if things get weird.

I think I’ll be ok now.

I hope I’ll be ok now.

I would like very much to still be alive for a while longer, thank you very much!

In 2013 I wanted to die. I very much wanted to die, or at least to not be alive. But things got better. And then things got better again and again and again. And then my mental health got a LOT better (Yay for therapy, everyone go to therapy). And now I’ve met the man of my dreams, I have a brilliant spark of a granddaughter and another due to join the family any day, a big warm family that loves and supports me. My life is great except for being at death’s door all the time. Ha.

If you have depression too, hang in there. Things will get better. Just hang on.

Still ok but tired. Rested all day. Dave came over to bring me lunch and keep me company. To quote Buddy the Elf: I’m in love and I don’t care who knows it!

Home home home home home

Still in hospital. They’re really just observing me at this point — there isn’t anything they can DO. My heart is acting normally again and we’re waiting for my lungs to catch up. I’m still only at 88% blood oxygen saturation (usually mid-90s at home) but I’m not getting worse and I’ll bet a night of real uninterrupted sleep will help a lot.

Nurse just came in and said the doc said I can go home tonight! Hallelujah.

I’m in the hospital again, tra la la.

This morning my heart started going bananas, my blood oxygen saturation dropped scarily —couldn’t get it out of the 80s— and my BP dropped. Cold sweats too. Called 911, lovely squad of paramedics came and whisked me to the hospital with lights and sirens!

ER doc gave me diltiazem to calm my heart down, and tons of oxygen. Ran lots of tests. They think it was an episode of atrial fibrillation. I feel fine now but my oxygen saturation is still not where it should be and they want to keep me overnight for observation. It’s all good. I have my phone, my charger, and Lily Bear. They gave me a nice dinner of bland vegetarian slop. Hospital food, amirite?

Update: the drugs wore off and now I feel horrible again. Glad they didn’t send me home. It is intensely frustrating to be dealing with this.

I started recording Heaven to Betsy today! Here are the first two chapters:

01 The Farm

02 Butternut Center

However, when I uploaded them to my archive.org collection,  I realized that I never finished “Over Sea, Under Stone” and the second book about a certain English nanny!  Oops.  I’ll try to remember to alternate.  Tomorrow it will be Susan Cooper’s turn. (Over Sea is my least favorite of the Dark is Rising series so it’s a bit hard to get motivated, but with Betsy as a reward I’ll get it done)

Slept fairly well, feeling fine today.  Migraine is gone. It’s warm and summery but not boiling.  I have excellent nectarines to eat.

Lovely day. Warm enough to wear a summer dress but not hot. Lunch with Dave, then hours of talking and cuddling. He’s so interesting and easy to talk to, and I’m not usually much of a talker. And we whipped through a cryptic crossword too. Tired now with a small migraine so time for some Taskmaster and bed. I was just watching a hilarious ep — let’s see if I can find it on YouTube… s09e04… Ah yes!

Did laundry, washed my hair, sewed four soft burp clothes out of some bits of flannel I dug out of my stash. Played WoW for a couple hours — I’ve been having a lot of fun doing leftover beginner quests with my highest-level toon, a lvl 53 gnome warlock. I finished up Azuremyst and Bloodmyst today and have moved on to Teldrassil. Very enjoyable to one-shot everything with just my wand :D I get no experience for such easy kills and only a TINY bit for handing in quests, but it’s very satisfying to see the gray exclamation points (markers for low-level quest givers) disappearing from my map and it’s sooooo relaxing and stress-free.

Now I’m going to knit while finishing my current audiobook, “Strangers on a Train” by Patricia Highsmith. Yes, the “Strangers on a Train” on which Hitchcock based his film, which I’ve never seen.

Woke up better today. Thank goodness. Finished sewing a sleep sack for the little one — due in four weeks but almost certain to arrive a bit early like her big sister. Exciting!

View post on imgur.com

My first go at an improvised henley placket following this tutorial:
https://www.heyjunehandmade.com/henley-placket-tutorial/ I should have offset the slit so the snaps would be centered but oh well, next time :D

Dave came over to take me to lunch and hang out for a few hours. Gosh he’s great! I’m so lucky! He’s calm, warm, loving, open, honest, kind, understanding, generous, gentle, witty, intelligent, curious, creative, snuggly, fun! *heart eyes*