So one of the casualties (sort of) of the remodel is the fact I haven’t been able to reach my tank to do maintenance, or when I can, we’re decorated for Christmas, or I’m too tired. But a reactor (tube) of gfo (granulated ferric oxide) has been filtering water since October and has cleaned up the algae (gfo binds phosphate which is released by the rocks and fuels algae) in the tank. So on that level, it’s improved. But getting a little algae now and pretty sure the rocks are still leaching phosphate. Our makeup water is 0 tds, (total dissolved solids) so it’s got none.
A tub of water below provides freshwater to make up for evaporation; and the skimmer (a bubble chamber that produces froth that binds amino acids) cleans the water. And the gfo reactor is the third part of what goes on down in the basement sump that improves the tank water. Well—say I—we change out the gfo for fresh and that’s my deed for the day, while I run some more reverse-osmosis filtered water for the tank. So all is well. I rinse off the new gfo to be sure we’ve got the rusty dust off, I put everything back together, and—the water pressure blows the hose connector loose. A fountain of salt water is erupting. Right into the power strip. I make a move to stop it, I’m standing there with, yes, rubber soles, but wet—and zap! I got bit by electricity. Just as the GFI circuit blows (ground-fault-interrupt). GFI’s are a great idea around water. It could have been much nastier.
And I could have blown a pretty spendy skimmer, and the topoff monitor—but apparently (and to my great relief) the only damage was to the pump for the reactor. I popped the gfi button back in (now that it’s dried out down there) and everything works except that pump, which either had an impeller (fan blade that pushes water) break off or is just pretty limp.
Can’t believe that I didn’t double-check that hose before I turned the power on. You really wrestle with that reactor getting it reloaded and all the tubing and interior plates where they need to be, (you have to stick a pencil through one restriction plate to get it seated on a contrary tube, and if you don’t know that trick you can spend an hour swearing at it)—but at least it’s running at a trickle. In a few days, I’ll have a pump that pushes it as it should be. And a spare impeller in case I can repair this one.
Adventures in tank culture.
You lead a very exciting life. Mine is very ho-hum and low-key by comparison, but then that’s about all I can handle right now.
I decided my hair was a hassle and got it cut Wednesday. Sat down in the chair and told the stylist I wanted a haircut. “How much do you want cut off?” she asks. “About a foot,” sez me. It’s man-short/man-is-it-short now. Don’t know if the chemo is going to make it fall out, but the lymphoma and just plain age has already thinned it significantly, the ends were all chewed up anyway, and it was so flyaway. For now having it this short will make my life way easier, and every little bit helps.
My hair came out during the first two or three cycles of chemo, then stopped. It started growing again during the fourth one – it’s still short, but it’s long enough to have direction.
Tuesday is the sixth-and-last chemo session. (Next month, follow-up mammo, then a visit with the condescending surgeon, for which I want to get a copy of the radiology report so he’ll maybe stop treating me like I’m a high-school dropout.)
My sis has very short hair; she worked in clean rooms for years, then in extreme-precision optics. I think she uses a quarter-inch comb on the clippers.
The drug they had me on didn’t cause all my hair to fall out, but it got very thin and patchy. Definitely spots where my scalp shines under the vanity lighting. I only finished Taxol on Jan. 8, so it’s just starting to fill back in. My dermatologist says that it won’t do well until I finish radiation treatments which won’t be until mid-March. I bought an inexpensive wig at Paula Jones, but have only worn it 2 or 3 times. When I’m out and about I wear a hat.
And P. J., I count myself lucky to be here in Baltimore with access to wonderful women doctors. That’s one of the first things I look at because I’m SO TIRED of the attitude that some male doctors have.
I’m also in Baltimore and also stick to women doctors whenever possible. There are a lot of good ones here.
Comment My hair all fell out after second chemo treatment. I have to say that was the worst part of the whole thing. I am not particularly vain, having not much to be vain about, but that was the time I cried. It did come back, for the most part, eventually. Not as thick, and I decided not to dye it any more so I went from being nearly redheaded to bald to an old white haired lady in three easy stages. WOL, I send many hugs and good wishes. It’s a bummer but you’ll get through it.
Maybe some soft caps for winter would be nice. Here’s a pretty one. https://www.amazon.com/Qunson-Womens-Printed-Slouchy-Beanie/dp/B07579YD2F/ref=sr_1_7?ie=UTF8&qid=1518911791&sr=8-7&keywords=Hair+Loss+Hats
I knit myself a slouchy hat from sock yarn. It’s free on Ravelry: https://www.ravelry.com/patterns/library/sockhead-slouch-hat
You’ll need a 16-inch circular in size US2 or US3, a marker for the end of the round, and about 400 yards of sock yarn (fingering weight yarn). It’s easy knitting, though.
Hats I’ve got. I’ve been knitting hats for quite a while for the cancer treatment center I’m going to now. Already knitted me one. This one: https://knitsfromtheowlunderground.wordpress.com/2017/08/25/hemmed-toboggan-with-internal-ribbing/
Having been a medical transcriptionist for 27+ years, I speak the language. It’s interesting to see different doctors’ reactions to somebody who understands what they’re talking about. Some quietly sigh with relief, some have a hard time speaking docspeak to a patient — they’re too used to speaking patientspeak to patients. Interpersonal skills vary from person to person, and doctors are no exceptions. Some doctors have great interpersonal skills, and some not so good ones. I had a great conversation with the radiologist who put in my port and the nurse who assisted. I turned them on to ambient music. They had no awareness there was such calm, tranquil music out there.
Surgeons and cardiologists are notorious for having “attitude.” Other medical personnel as a general rule don’t like dealing with them. I suppose it takes a certain type of chutzpah to think you can do what they do, and I would imagine there’s a tremendous amount of stress involved, but still. . .
The staff at the chemo place don’t like the guy, either – they do like their own (and so do I). I’ve seen the surgical guy twice, and he really didn’t tell me much either time – it was 15 or so minutes alone in a room that was too cold for the paper gown, then five minutes with him and out.
(If I have to read the reports to find out what’s really going on, then he’s not doing his patient-handling job well. As a science nerd, I’m interested in the reports anyway. And I’d really like more pictures.)
Best wishes to both of you, WOL and P J Evans. We’re thinking of you.
Hey, just tell ’em bald is sexy. Or attractive. Or very punk and avant garde. — If Lt. Ilia, Grace Jones, Lt. Ripley, the Borg Queen, and G.I. Jane can all get by with the bald look (or crewcut) and still turn heads, well, there must be somethin’ to it. You could accessorize, go for the black leather and silver studs, or very pastel, or whatever suits you. And hey, yeah, caps / hats are good.
Wear it proudly, turn some heads and make a few people uncomfortable enough to have to rethink a thing or two.
But mostly, I really hope you feel well enough soon to be able to rock the look. That takes more grit / brass than most people, no matter how macho / butch / etc. they think they are.
Please feel better. You’re appreciated around here.
If it helps during recovery — When I searched Amazon for a men’s (beard) electric razor some months back, links also came up for electric razors for one’s scalp, for folks who shave their heads or do crewcuts / buzzcuts (and so on), as considered separately from home barber kits. These scalp shavers fit in the palm of your hand and have a shallow inward arch to fit to the scalp without worries. Such shavers come with attachments to get the desired hair length, or to shave the scalp bald entirely. — I had done this a few times while my budget was at or below zero, with only an electric razor and a Gillette or Schtick or similar hand safety razor (similar to the ones women use to shave their legs, not the (eek) bare, scary-lookin’ ones). — So I decided to try the electric scalp razor. Wow! If my (beard) razor worked that well, I would dislike shaving less.
So this could be a good option if you think you might need it for several weeks.
By contrast, I’m no happier with my (beard) electric razor than the last one, and I will replace it soon. I really dislike shaving, but if I don’t, then I get a scratchy beard and have to fuss with trimming it just so (usually not to my satisfaction). This wasn’t a problem when I didn’t work for myself from home. (Unless it gets too long, I prefer a hand razor, and no, not the scary-bare-blade kind, the modern ones, which have become danged pricey.
I have never been able to withstand letting my hair grow long enough it might get a ponytail or queue, à la atevi or Sebacean Peacekeepers, or possibly Tully. It always bothers me when it gets in my forehead, over my ears, and on my neck, and I’ve always ended up cutting it or getting it cut, for neatness, and because my hair is very, very wavy, so unless I keep it very short, it does odd things or looks…er, I’ve had people get gender-confused over it before. (Very disconcerting when I was a young, impressionable college kid struggling with my orientation anyway, and then had a couple of people mistake me (from the back) for a young woman. Gee….)
The first time I got frustrated enough to shave my head, then shave it bald — I then had a much more personal sensory appreciation for how a new cadet or an azi must feel (it brought to mind the scene at the start of Serpent’s Reach or 40,000 in Gehenna, where a lot of azi are newly shaved and waiting to go aboard ship.) And it felt very odd, being out like that. But I got used to it.
Here, in summer, a very short haircut makes sense, and for several years now, men and boys seem to have all gone for medium to ultra-short hairstyles, with only a few still wearing their hair longer.
So, if a shaver helps, go for it. Rock the look. Sensible and compassionate people will understand or may get a smile from you being aggressively and fashionably bald or crewcut. People who don’t understand it these days really need an attitude adjustment anyway. IMHO.
I can see Ari being very, very precise fixing such a situation, and Florian and Catlin being very, very quiet and making sure nothing needs her attention in the next little while. 🙂 (And possibly banning her from tank maintenance)
Wednesday an old friend brought me a UPS he didn’t need, and we connected it up, then went out to lunch, leaving it beeping because the battery pack was dead. We thought. Wednesday evening some time it stopped beeping…it had charged up. (Which, for batteries from 2004, is a surprise.)
(Lunch was at a local southeast Asian place: yellow curry soup, with chicken and onions and noodles (he got egg noodles; I got rice noodles). It’s slightly spicy, and we forgot the plate of additions they brought. Would go again, would get this soup again.)
I love curry. I have various sorts of it. And a certain person gave me some very wonderful Mexican spices that have a lot in common with it. I experiment a lot.
Curry is generally delightful. Last night we had butter chicken for the gaming group, which. although it isn’t truly curry, has many of the same flavors and was well received.
My back elected to act up again, so I really need to start doing my assigned stretching and core exercises on a regular basis. OTOH, the thing that made my back painful this time was sitting on a backless stool at our local diner for breakfast. DH and I fell into conversation with a delightful gent also sitting at the counter; he was a mechanic who had worked on the SR-71 Blackbird. The conversation was sparked by DH’s SpaceX shirt. We meet more interesting people sitting at lunch counters!
Jane, watch the mail for a CARE package. I believe Wiishu will be giving you strong hints on what to do with it once it gets there…
Oh, my! I’ll tell her.
Anyone else a fan of cubeb?
Tommie, are you referring to the spice that is — I believe (but am fetching semi-far back in my memories of when I cooked medieval feasts)— of the spice that is a close relative of black pepper? I know of it through medieval recipes, but not through personal usage. What do you like about cubebs… and where do you get them?