Sunday, May 20, 2007

Note

Since I don't know how to post more than 4 pix at a time, I'm putting these in a long series of posts.

Some people will find the pix gory. I'm showing them to illustrate what it's like to go through a long series of biopsies, and to show what some of these infections look like today.

My computer has temporarily misplaced the photos of the tenosynovitis surgery. But you can still see those, by clicking the links to the posts I wrote around that time.

11 comments:

Joyce Ellen Davis said...

What are you doing up at 2 o'clock in the morning? Can't sleep?...your dreams miss you! :) (None of wasps, I hope!) I hope they are finally getting a handle on this thing, and will find how to take care of it.

My thoughts and prayers are with you, m'dear. And YOU take care. Love ya!

Joyce Ellen Davis said...

How do you get to and from the doctor?

Jean said...

I wonder how many people I know who would tolerate and focus and fight... through all you do!
I doubt it is very many. Not sure I could.
You call ME strong... pshaw!
Knowing that typing can be miserable for you makes me appreciate, even more, the time and thought you spend on my blog.
Bless you, dear.

I hope they find a good formula for you, soon.

k said...

ah, miss assassin...Well, as it turns out, I was actually up till around 5am with that post. I wanted to finish it, so I did.

Sometimes I get my sleep schedule to regularize pretty well; other times, it just bops around at will. I'm trying to keep it to daytime sleep right now, but it's not cooperating with me.

Next week will tell me some things at least. The IgG booster may take a little longer, including just finding out if it's feasible. But we're all working on things together now, and I am fortunate indeed in the quality of my docs, these days.

Your question about how I get to the doc's is pretty perceptive there. Sometimes I have to cancel. The way I schedule it during pollen season is this: It must, must, be in the mornings.

For me, the pollen starts spiking with the rising sun. It gets worse and worse throughout the day; it builds, accumulates, in the air.

Now add the hot Florida sun to the asphalt. It melts some, and expands as virtually all things do when they're hot, right? And then that asphalt releases petrochemically based gases, which are really bad allergans for me.

This all comes together in what I call *4 O'clock Meltdown.*

So I avoid that problem by booking appointments in the AM. And, sometimes, I'm okay driving there, but the additional exposure from leaving my home air environment makes me too sick to drive myself back home. I've ditched my car here and there, and had Walter or kmom or the Horacios or other friends come get me, or taken a cab if that's all I can do.

Jean, the older I get, the more it seems to me that most people can adapt to most anything. I think it's easier when we're older, too. Kids have a rough time adapting to nasty childhood treatment by their peers and family, right? As adults they seem to tolerate it better.

Dealing with health issues is a little different for me. I don't have to take them personally. That's just life throwing its curve balls at us.

When people deliberately hurt others - now, that's a different story altogether. That's when you'll see me get mad.

So I can be patient with my infection problems, but angry at the HMO who dragged their feet in a way that ended up really damaging my arm.

And, very much angry at Michael. Selfish and malicious was his intent. Health problems aren't like that, they just happen.

Kids can be remarkably tough about dealing with health issues, too, right? How often we've been inspired by their stories.

I made a very deliberate and conscious decision about all this a while ago. It's why you hear me advocating *Fun* so often. I decided to live as best I could, and enjoy myself, and try hard not to get caught up in the aggravations and social pressure people can toss at you.

What I mean is, I work at it. I approach both health and happiness as a job. And that seems to do the trick.

The arm's not all that bad, really, for typing at least. Although I do have a little *fantasy fix,* about getting a hemorrhoid pillow for that arm.

See? That sort of silliness - but which is also true - makes me grin.

I've noticed that my having such a perverted sense of humor really helps. ;-)

Anonymous said...

You are amazing. To go through what you do and still have such a positive attitude. I salute you.

Desert Cat said...

k, to post more than four, you click the "insert photos" button multiple times. Click once, pick your four files and upload, then lather, rinse, and repeat until they're all uploaded. Then add your text wherever you want and post the entry.

k said...

ummm...the reason I can't usually do that? You need a url to put in this little box that wants a url and asks for one.

Sometimes I can stumble across one of these urls, especially whilst swiping pix off the net. But it's not so easy for me to do on my own pix.

Ummm. Okay. Rumor has it one can get a url of one's own photo by making such things as *folders.* And, I guess, *files?* If they're different from each other.

I don't know how to make files. Or folders.

I don't know what they are.

(hides)

Desert Cat said...

These photos that you take and post in your blog posts, how do you post them?

I assume that when you are at the screen where you would be composing your blog post, you click the icon on the toolbar that looks like a picture and that says "Add Image" when the mouse hovers over it, correct? And then a window pops up with two choices: "Add an image from your computer" and "Or add an image from the web", right? (It is the "add an image from the web" option that requires you to enter a URL.)

But I assume that when it is your own photos that you want to post, you click the "Browse" button under the "add an image from your computer" choice, and choose your images from the list of image files that appears in the next pop-up window, right? (These are the images that you transferred from your camera to your computer.) Then right above where you added that image file, there is a link that says "Add another image", and you can click this link repeatedly until it allows you to add up to five images (files) at a time, right?

Now here's the secret: As soon as Blogger is done uploading those five images and it returns you to the starting screen where you are editing your blog post, you can go right ahead and click that "Add Image" icon **again**, and it will allow you to add another five photos (files). You can keep clicking "Add Image" and picking your image files until you have dozens of photos in a single blog post if you want.

k said...

No. Now I see why you'd think that I could do more than four.

What I do is this: I take the little card out of the camera and put it into the card reader for the desktop, and also then put it in the laptop. Double saved.

I use Picasa.

When looking at all the day's pix, I "star" the best ones. Then, I pick 4 at a time and click "hold." Then I hit the Picasa button that says, "blog this."

Picasa only sends four at a time. This, the eternal 4 pics per post.

I compose using gmail as my text editor. (I THINK that's the right word.) gmail does NOT eat my work like everything else I ever used does.

Then I cut and paste where ever I want to put portions of text by whichever picture.

Then when I run out of my 4 pix?

I go back to Picasa and choose 4 more photos, and do it all over again.

I don't really mind except it's choppy and it's hard to link, since there's multiple posts where there should be only one.

Well, and, sometimes even *I* can get a little embarrassed at my techno-lameassedness.

Luckily, though, I am virtually unembarrassable.

Desert Cat said...

Hm. It did cross my mind that you might still be using Picasa.

If you know where to find your images on your computer, give that other way a whirl sometime. You might like it better. You can still cut/paste your text from gmail if you want.

k said...

Okay. Clearly it's finding the images that's the key to this whole thing.

I may go exploring a bit here, in the next few days.