meds

Back To Normal?

For the past couple of weeks, I have been feeling much better than I have in at least a year. My new meds are finally working pretty good, even great in comparison to the last 2 horribly failed experiments. I can breathe. My body is not completely taken over in every way possible. I can work. I can leave the house.

Still, things do not feel completely normal yet. This weekend, me and K went to a party to celebrate one of my Sensei’s promotion from Godan (5th degree black belt) to Rokudan (6th degree black belt, Master) and a bunch of other promotions too. Rokudan is a pretty huge deal in Cuong Nhu. There are only 5 in total and only one woman (my Sensei). I wasn’t sure I would make it, but I really wanted to go. It was a great reason to celebrate and I miss my dojo very much.

It occurred to me that the thing that would make my life feel “normal” again would be going back to class. Besides from loving martial arts, going to class was the only regular contact I had with other people. A dojo is a special place and I have been very lucky to find such a great school with the most amazing teachers I could ever imagine and a bunch of nice people in general. I have been a student there for 10 years.

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Dedicated $erver

My new meds are still working much better than the last ones. It is still hard to concentrate, work, play, and read, but for the most part, I am feeling about a million times better than I was just a short time ago 🙂

It is easier to be with people. I had a really good weekend that turned out to be very social and I didn’t even hate it at all. On Friday, I met D at the White Horse for a little while. It was very nice to see her. She is one of the very few people that I can ‘talk geek’ with. It is a rare and beautiful thing. We have other things in common too that make it easier for me to hang with her than it sometimes is to hang other people. She came over and had dinner with me and K.

After dinner, we all went to Velvet to meet Lorena and Tess. It was a good night. We played pool even though we were all sucking pretty bad, even D who is actually good at pool. There were a few obstacles like a giant pole and huge speaker in the way of making certain shots. Still it was fun, even though my knuckle is still a little swollen from smacking it into the giant pole while trying to shoot around it. Eventually, I completely lost all focus of what was going on around me and went into my own special world where it is quiet and stimuli is almost non-existent. I think D ended up in some other world too. I am lucky to be able to do that. Otherwise I would have needed very badly to get out of the bar immediately.

Yesterday, me and K went to Spin’s birthday party. That was lots of fun too. Happy birthday Spins! Nice people and a custom ‘Pin the Tail on the Tigger’ game with Spin’s features imposed on Tigger and magnetic tails for pinning that was made with obvious love for her by her guy. He even had a special ‘tail’ for himself which was actually a heart that matched the heart on the card that he gave her (at least I assumed that card was from him. Only saw the outside, but it had an identical heart). Very sweet 🙂 Other than that, me and K did some errands and even had a little bit of quiet time to watch Prehistoric Planet and for K to start a puzzle that she has wanted to do for a while, but hasn’t had the time.

And then, tragedy struck… (not really. just having a sudden flair for the dramatic)

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Server Load, Share-This, and No Trip

Earlier today my site started loading crazily slow. I checked other sites on the server, and they were all like that. I called LiquidWeb and they told me that it was because of having a really high server load and using more memory than I am allocated. Hard to pinpoint the exact cause because it depends on everything that is happening on all of my sites. The guy said that if it keeps happening, I will have to move to a dedicated server (on a VPS now). I really hope that doesn’t happen! It will cost at least twice as much per month as the VPS. Not sure what to do, especially since my next client site will be using tons of bandwidth for playing huge mp3 files and I already agreed on a hosting price of $100/year because I had no idea about the server resource problem. I also didn’t know how gigantic their mp3 files were at the time. Dang.

I finally got the Share-This plugin to work nearly right. Problems in IE. Surprise. Sending email returns people to a blank page. I give up!

Sometimes, I really hate being me. Usually, I like it okay. I am very lucky in a lot of ways. Most ways. But once in a while, I get very down on myself and very jealous of other people. I get tired of having a hard time doing basic things like reading, traveling, talking, leaving the house, working, even playing video games! It makes me feel like an idiot. I know that there are lots of things I am good at, and that sometimes those basic things are not hard at all, but when they are, it is very annoying. How can it be hard to play video games? That is completely ridiculous!

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Good Things

I am finally feeling better! It’s only been a few days, but I am hoping it will last. So far, I haven’t had any trouble breathing at all with the new old meds. It has been easier to think, easier to work, easier to play. Still can’t read, but maybe that will come later.

Last night, I did something that I haven’t done in a really long time. I actually called people to see if they wanted to go out. K and A and R were going to see AC/Dshe in the city (San Francisco). I didn’t want to go because the show didn’t start until 11pm and I thought I probably wouldn’t want to be out in the city that late.

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New Old Meds

So much going on. New meds. Well, not exactly new. Same as the last meds only in a different formula and dose of pill. Started yesterday. So far, so good. I can breathe. Hopefully the new kind of pill will not give me the same kind of allergic reaction as the last time. I realized when I picked it up this time that ‘trouble breathing’ is listed in the package insert as a possible allergic reaction, not as a side effect.

The good news is that the side effects of strattera are finally wearing off. My body feels more normal and the strange sores that I’ve been getting underneath the skin on my hands and feet has almost completely disappeared just as suddenly as they appeared shortly after I started taking the meds. Mystery solved. All those blood tests for nothing.

It has been very hard to work. Even hard to play. I am half playing while I am writing this. Turning in quests. It has been fun playing warcrack with the mac guild, the Reservoir Dogcows. Nice folks. I still haven’t played much in groups, but when I did, they were very helpful. Tsayad the night elf hunter (that’s me) is almost level 40. That is a cool thing in world of warcraft. For hunters like Tsayad, it means you can start wearing mail armor instead of leather. It also means you can get a ‘mount’, which is an animal that you ride on so you can go a lot faster. For a night elf, the standard mount is one of several giant cats. Cool.

I have so much work to do. I sure hope these meds kick in soon! I wonder if I will ever be able to read again. I suppose I should be patient. There are good things too.

We got a harness and a long lead for Nikkyo and have been taking her outside in the backyard. She likes it 🙂 Mostly she sniffs the other cats and eats grass. Cats sure do like to eat grass.

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Duct Tape, Plumbing, and Bad Medicine

Our house is held together by duct tape. Ordinarily, I am a huge fan of duct tape, but using it to hold floor tiles together, lock doors, and replace drywall is getting kind of old. On the other hand, it works pretty well for all of those things, so I am also thankful for it.

Unfortunately, duct tape will not fix everything. After a month of increasingly regular visits from roto rooter, we now have a lovely home video of the inside of our pipes which was taken by them yesterday. In the line between our bathroom and the city main, there are several breaks, some roots, a couple of fractures, cracks, and one large hole. Nice. The entire line needs to be replaced if we want to be able to remove roto rooter from speed dial.

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Macworld 2007 :: Day 1 | It Begins

I am at Moscone Center. Just got my badge for macworld. No lines today. Exept for food! There are endless lines at the 2 food stands. The power tools conferences must have just broken for lunch when I got here and the food stands were just opening. It is a good time not to be hungry. Nothing going on here today besides from registration and the first round of power tools conferences. Even though I am not signed up for any of those, I thought i would take advantage of the free wireless while I am here.

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Strattera

First, for the mac people…. Try this: hit ctrl-opt-cmd-8 on your keyboard. It is my new favorite mac thing.

Medi-cal approved my new meds! Very exciting. I’ve been taking them for about a week now. Hopefully they will work. I always have so much hope. Strattera is the new drug and it is usually prescribed for ADHD. Apparently, it sometimes works for autistic people too. I sure hope so. So far, I only feel side effects. They are not so bad as usual, but still pretty strange.

I have been very tired and falling asleep at random times, which is not something I usually do. Also, a little dizzy and nauseous, but not as bad as I usually get from switching drugs. The strange part is that everything seems kind of surreal. I have been more spaced out than usual and feeling very ‘out of body’, even when I am doing things that are completely in my body, like walking or driving. It is a strange drug induced haze that I don’t really like, and can’t really get out of. I am hoping it will go away when the meds start to kick in and am avoiding increasing the dose until it isn’t so bad anymore. I am still taking my ‘old old’ meds along with the Strattera. If things go well, I may be able to stop taking them at some point. That would be nice.

Sometimes I am so tired of living in this test tube and having no idea what life will be like from day to day. It is really hard to make plans for anything. I want to go to Florida/Baltimore in April. Soon it will be time to get tickets but I have no idea if I will be able to travel. My 40th birthday is a month from today and I have no idea what I want to do. I like birthdays and am especially excited about this one. It seems like an accomplishment, even though it is really just another day. When I was younger, I never thought I would make it to 40. I don’t even think I wanted to make it to 40. As it turns out, I am glad to still be here.

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December

Red Wave
I dropped my classes. i am very sad about that, but relieved too. It was too much. So much work and trying to deal with meds (or lack of them). I just couldn’t keep up. It is very similar to what has always happened when I’ve tried to do school, but with one major difference. Since we actually learned by doing things, I still know everything I learned and can use it for my work.

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thought interrupted

thought interrupted
split second -chop- to another
thought -chop- next </stop> come and gone
can’t even open a website what was i was going to do?

stuck can’t go out. have to go out. have to get out of here. can’t do anything here. typing. time goes by. can’t do anything. just type. have to get out of here. homework to do. can’t do it. at least final project is done. just a few more things to hand in and one peer review.

accidentally failed the database design class. thought the final assignment was due on sunday like in every other class, but it was due on thursday and grades were posted friday. confusing. but all the due dates were posted on the first page of the class at the top. green letters even. sux. i needed that class. have to take it again now. only half price. teacher said if i hand in assignment, i can still use it as a prerequisite for another class. maybe i’ll do that if it’s not too late. but i can’t even do it. it’s not even so hard. just can’t do it.

so hard to do things. stupid meds. fish oil didn’t do anything. went to see the doc a couple of days ago. increased dose of old meds. hopefully that will help but it takes a few weeks to start doing anything. no side effects yet except for being very tired. i hope it works. now it is 2/3 dose of old meds and 2/3 dose of new meds. can’t take full dose of new meds because it makes me stop breathing. old meds can have side effect of sudden fatal liver damage. wtf? supposedly it is less likely to happen if you are taking the drug for a long time. I have been taking it for a lot of years. i hope new dose works. things have been hard for so long. at least i can code.

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Stones and Metallica

Things are good 🙂 My client site is just about done, my meds are stabilized for the moment, and the Rolling Stones and Metallica rocked last night! The highlight of the Stones show was when Mick and Lisa Fischer did a duet of Ray Charles’ “Nighttime is the Right Time”. I had never heard of …

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Take Some Deep Breaths

I decreased the dose of my old meds again recently, and I am having the very scary side effect of having trouble breathing. It is not new, but has gotten a lot worse lately. It is a side effect of the new meds. I get short of breath and light-headed until I can catch my …

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