…is helping, because I was able to get out and wind up hoses for the oncoming winter, get the raccoon-scarers packed away, get the abused new lily out of the lotus pond and into deeper water for the winter in the big pond, get the outside faucets shut down and emptied, and get about pretty ably.
I’ll have these treatments at the rate of two a week, and I’m set up for 12 of them. Got a new doc—I’ve had two docs retire on me and one move, so I’ve got to break in a new one. He got one of my prescriptions that has to be name brand as a generic, and I have to get on the phone and get that straightened out. Honestly, if at all financially possible, a name brand is pretty important on thyroid meds, because the variance allowed in the strength of a generic often is too wide for the tiny amount of the actual prescription, ie, it’s so wide it can overdo or underdo, and in something like that—my now-retired doc wanted no substitutions.
SO, well, doing pretty well. No cat fight yet, just a lot of air karate and bluster.
The basement remodel is underway.
Someday we will be able to reach things that stacks of boxes have cut off.We are able to reach the Christmas stuff. But we do have a lot of stuff stacked in what were the aisles of the storage area.
Good to hear that the therapy is loosening up some tight things (WD-40?) My main complaint about the last time I went to PT was that it started after my repeating back problems had pretty much run their predictable course, so it was nearly impossible to tell whether the continued improvement was because of the PT, or just because it was time. I was unimpressed with chiropractic the one time I tried it — any doctor that sees you immediately after the previous patient with no chart checking or asking you about symptoms and goes directly into beating on your back is suspect, IMHO.
Things are proceeding here, slowly. I’m still dragging around, lingering effects of the bug or fatigue/stress last week. Trying to get stuff done. — OK’d a quote for a cleaning lady, which friends say is a reasonable price, but will be the week after next, because her schedule is full. I’m looking up a new vet (old vet retired and hope he can give the new one a verbal update that yes, my cats had all their shots up through right before or right after my grandmother passed away.) But I will need to board my cats while my apt. is cleaned. Also looking up hotels that will take pets. Came up with a pet hotel / boarding place and at least two nearby La Quinta Inns; one is OK and modest rates, the other is good with higher rates. Likely will take the OK one for $30 cheaper per night. The cleaning lady says she can do it in one day, so I might not have a two-day stay. Note, I’ll need a repeat when the fumigator does his thing, and probably a follow-up from the cleaning service after he does. Because I really had my fill of cleaning up after bugs. Ick. But the apt. kitchen has had a first pass and I’m working on the rest slowly.
The new printer got delivered to the apt. offices despite instructions, so a friend is supposed to come by and bring it over for me. Yay, hope so. Need it for those printouts and to try the thing out.
My two cats — are still freaked out from all the goings-on. Today was the first day that Goober has been back in my bedroom for any length of time. He and Smokey have had some tiff, so Goober is avoiding conflict. Smokey is extra-clingy and wants constant attention. Kitty, I’ve got stuff to do. I love you, and you are spoiled and don’t know it.
In the way of things, all the progress I got done hardly shows, because I’ve moved things around again and am going through. But maybe the extra time will let me reduce clutter and organize a little. Maybe. Not sure friends will get over to put anything back in storage, so moving things around may be there for the cleaning lady. — She was unfazed, which I hope is good. Heh.
A friend surprised me: They are planning to get a new dining table, and their current small one fits my small apt. breakfast/dining nook, so hey, I will be getting a dining table and chairs with no effort. This means only a couch and chair and maybe a coffee table, and getting the desk and bookcase put together, getting another bookcase, and I think I’ll be good again. (Never mind the storage space is still to do.)
I doubt the fumigator will get here before Thanksgiving, but maybe at the start of December. I’m not expecting anyone for Thanksgiving or Christmas, so it’s fine.
So…progress is slow, but happening. I am trying to remind myself this is progress and it is good enough.
We had a brief cool spell, fall seasonal temps, but we are back to 80’s in the day, 50’s at night. Really, 80’s do not feel right for fall/winter daytime temps, even here. I’m not sure how it holds with past records, but 70’s, 60’s, or 50’s would be far more usual, and 40’s or 30’s at night would be pretty normal. — Fall and Winter vary here. You can get 70’s at Christmas or 30’s, just hope for the best. Not usually too steep a flip-flop, though. — I’m not out much at night, so I haven’t even had a jacket much. That feels weird.
Telling myself s doing and feeing better.
Whoa, the browser’s spell-check and predictive typing replacement are not helping! This thing just tried to substitute all sorts of nonsense. (“Betrayer’s” instead of “better,” and so on.) Gotta find where to turn that off for the Mac.
Ayupp… when you find a brand/type of thyroid med that works, accept no substitutes. (Tho *sometimes* you can find a generic that’s the same thing by manufacturer name. Frex, generic made by ‘Lannett’ is Unithroid. Mylan also appears under several names, but in my experience runs about 10% under labeled strength. Have not kept track of others cuz the only other one I can take is Lloyd, which is mostly sold as a veterinary product. Ran into one brand-X that was worse than none.)
Allowed variance is 10%, but in the real world is sometimes larger (Synthroid has been measured at 12% under labeled strength). Unithroid is the reference drug and it goes downhill from there. Shelf life is also highly variable (6 months to 3 years, depending — the old-type binders are more stable) and the recall rate on LT4 is ~50% due to manufacturing difficulties. Some people can only take one brand or another, for reasons that remain unclear (tho peering from under my biochemistry hat, I suspect differing behavior by tablet binders, plus how diligent they are at culling bad batches; thyroxine is a ‘handed’ molecule, and the wrong-way-around version acts as a thyroid *blocker*).
Many patients only do well when also supplied with T3. Here brand seems to matter less, possibly because it is much more shelf-stable, better absorbed, and not so subject to binding in the gut.
NDT (natural desiccated thyroid) is much more consistent, and so shelf-stable that one study (at Cornell? I forget) gave up after 17 *years* without deterioration. However, because the makers of Synthroid fund the professional thyroid-docs organization, there’s a great deal of propaganda against NDT as “unreliable” (despite that it has a ~100 year track record, and many patients do much better on it). There again formulations vary between brands, hence so do results depending on the patient. Some people need to take a little LT4 with NDT to correct the T4/T3 ratio and avoid a gradual return of symptoms.
On a day when you do blood tests, do NOT take your thyroid meds that morning; if you do, it will inflate the test values, leading to underdosing. (Even most endos don’t know this.)
Also, what should be required reading about the TSH test:
http://www.hormonerestoration.com/files/TSHWrongtree.pdf
Dr.Lindner is maybe a little fruity around the edges, but I’ve read reams of research and on this point, he’s absolutely correct. (If you look up the cited DOIs, eventually you’ll come to a document that is 128 pages just of research links, mostly JCEM and BMJ. See you in a few years. 🙂
What? No, I’m just getting warmed up. 😀
I’m very glad to hear your therapy is working, and the cats are sticking to blustering instead of fighting. I hope your new doctor is educable about the thyroid meds – I’ll try to remember what Reziac says about the Natural Dessicated Thyroids, for if anyone I know ever starts to need them.
We’ve gone back to winter time, so it gets dark at around four o’clock (and will stay that way till February), but at least the mornings have a little light still, though that won’t last long – in a week or two it’s back to getting up in the dark (and stay that way till well into February, and I’m not an early riser). I really dislike getting up in the dark! If we couldn’t go for a walk in our lunchbreak we’d only be out in daylight on the weekends. I don’t know how most Scandinavians manage without getting depressed, with even less light.
Still, we’ve had unusually nice and sunny fall weather, not much rain and wind nor really bad storms yet, so I shouldn’t complain.
Now that we are back on the “Standard Time” of year (when the sun is high at noon and not 1:00pm), I am happy that the sun is up when I wake up/get up. I get up a few minutes after 7:00am and it has been nice this week to wake up to daylight, even if it means leaving work that evening in the dark. I don’t wake up well in the still-dark.
@Hanneke — this pattern is very simple and easy. https://knitsfromtheowlunderground.wordpress.com/2016/10/26/malguri-morning/
I’ll send you the Najidama Bay pattern if you want it if you will give me an email address. You can contact me through the blog. You can use a wide variety of yarn with it from very thin sock yarn to worsted weight yarn.
Winter weather? I spoke too soon. — The forecast says temps into the 40’s at night for a week, predicted to flirt with 35°F Tuesday night. If it gets there, I’d be surprised. Whether this means we’ll stay cold or bump back to fall weather but with highs in the 80’s, well, I don’t know. This is that time of year when if you don’t like the weather, wait five minutes and it’ll change. 🙂
If it stays cold long enough, I could be tempted to buy a sweater, or pick up that kit and yarn from last winter’s discussion. 😀 (No, that, only after things have settled down here, cleaned up and ready to enjoy again, probably after the start of December.)
Our house isn’t quite as bad as BCS’ apartment, but we’re probably in worse shape than CJ and Jane. The kitchen remodel caused us to have to remove everything from all the kitchen cabinets. We have boxes in the living room, dining room, hall bathtub, library, and both kids bedrooms (fortunately they are out on their own otherwise we wouldn’t be able to walk in the hallway or find our bed). We don’t have a basement so, all available space is accounted for.
We demolished the old pantry and replaced it with a longer wall dividing the kitchen from the dining room. We increased the storage by installing floor to ceiling cabinets on one side of the wall and bar height cabinets (plus hanging cabinets above) in the kitchen. This allowed me to get a work area 32 inches deep. Along with new cabinets and non-porous countertops, we are having a lighting fixture upgrade involving enclosure of soffit from old fluorescent light and installation of new LED light fixtures, plus complete tiling (with decorative six inch wide stripe) of all the backsplash area between the lower and upper cabinets on three walls.
The pantry demolition and wall build (plus soffit enclosure) took a day. On the second day we had an electrician in to remove the old fluorescent lights and install new LED lights. The wall and ceiling texturing to match the rest of the kitchen walls took another (3rd) day. After the texturizer dried overnight, the walls and ceiling were painted (4th day) and we had to wait an additional (5th) day for the paint to dry on the walls and ceiling. The cabinets took two more days (week 2 days 1 & 2) to install, then it took a day for the counter guy to come and measure the counter space, two days to fabricate the counter tops, and another day (week 3 day 1) to install the countertops and the new sink. It took another day (week 3 day 2) to get the plumber in to install the disposer and other plumbing fixtures. While installing the cabinets one of the floor tiles was broken (plus two other tiles we were already going to have replaced), so now, as well as a tile backsplash around three walls in the kitchen we will have the kitchen floor unusable. Tilework was supposed to start yesterday (week 3 day 3).
Until the tilework is done we can’t put everything back into the cabinets or on the counters. Microwave is in the bathroom, coffee maker in the den, dishes in the tub. Tile was supposed to be installed starting yesterday, but although tile was ordered before labor day, the bullnose tiles for edges haven’t arrived and the decorative design tiles have not been constructed (placed on the net backing so the installers don’t have to make creative decisions while installing) contrary to the contract specifications. Our general contractor has rescheduled tile work for next week. I’m truly tired of cooking on the weekends so that we have leftovers all week long. Our GC has promised faithfully that all work will be completed before Thanksgiving week. Fingers crossed so that we can have all the canned goods, cookware, and china placed in the cabinets so we can find the dining table and the living room sofa.
The only remaining task will be to find decorative switch plate covers that will look good with the tile. We have the old covers for the nonce.
Ready, why can’t you put stuff back in the cabinets, if those are finished? Will the tilework create so much dust that it’ll get into closed cabinets?
If that’s the reason, would it be easier to put stuff back and tape the cabinet doors shut with easily-removable painter’s tape the evening before the tile installers come?
If only the countertop stuff needs to stay elsewhere till they finish, that might be a lot easier.
@Hanneke. I am moving stuff into the cabinets that face into the dining room, but I’m waiting on refilling the kitchen cabinets because I had to take out the bracket for my toaster and my coffee mug shelf (both suspended from upper cabinets). I also don’t want to put away food stuffs that will become inaccessible for two days while the broken floor tiles are replaced (especially what I’ll need for Thanksgiving if they are slow getting the work done).
Meanwhile, I’m lining the shelves and roll-out drawers and planning where utensils and small kitchen appliances will go. I’d have more done except readyGuy is instructing young drivers in car control about two hours drive away, and I’m under strict orders not to do heavy lifting or climbing on ladders or step stools. Our dog is great company but he hasn’t learned how to dial the phone for emergency services.
Ugh. We’ve put up with what we have (forest green contractor-grade counter tops and 40 year old cabinets) and too small dining room and kitchen in part because Eri-Guy doesn’t have the patience for weeks without a kitchen. I’d like to take down the wall dividing the two and make one large space, but suspect one of the columns is a ceiling support beam that we’d have to work around. We may still do the bear minimum – refinishing the beat up for all Oak cabinets and replacing the countertops — without any wall removal someday, after retirement.
I remember CJ and Jane’s remodel, and my own. You will likely be happy once all the alarums and excursions are done, but in the meanwhile, it’s one of the concentric cirlces of Hell. When I was getting my kitchen redone (replace lower cabinets including sink [reused old double stainless steel sink basin], install custom tile backsplash and countertops, new dishwasher and stove, repaint upper cabinets, new linoleum tile flooring) it took nearly a month from initial teardown of the cabinets to moving everything back in. We had kitchen supplies on a folding table and a bookshelf on the far end. Paper plates, napkins and styrofoam cups were our friends for that month.
Here on the wet side of the Cascades we don’t get as cold as CJ up on the Columbia Plateau, but we’ve had “first frost” the last two mornings. As I got up this morning a maple tree out side my bedroom window, that had been favoring me with brilliant yellow leaves lately, was shedding as the sun hit it. A slow waterfall of yellow leaves.
Well, I have had plans to mow “soon” to chop and pickup leaves for the compost pile as weather allows. (Apples, cherries and maples are fine, but not the black walnuts. They contain a herbicide called “juglone”.)
I’m going to have to call friends again to get my printer here. Sigh. It’s been hanging out at the apt. offices since Wed. afternoon. I called yesterday to say my friends would be by. They weren’t. :-/ Doesn’t make me or my friends look good with the office.
I still have gastro-intestinal symptoms, minor, but also fatigue going on. Yet I don’t feel “sick” exactly, just dragging around, not so good, not enough energy. I don’t think it’s something that needs a doctor, but if it keeps up, I may change my mind. Don’t know how I’m aggravating it any.
I soaked black beans (frijoles negros) last night and cooked them this morning, with chopped summer sausage / somewhat like pepperoni, and mirepoix and a small can of tomato baste. Nearly stuck, but avoided it. Now waiting for it to cool for lunch. That should have me fixed up for the weekend and into mid-week, longer by alternating with other dishes.
I’m likely to take the rest of the day off from housework and rest and read. Hoping to catch up with what I want done next week, before the cleaning ladies are out on the 19th. — Reading will be a combo of one or two of CJ’s books, with ambitions toward my Spanish textbook and the copy of Andre Norton’s Iron Cage that turned up from unpacking a couple of boxes. — Playing hooky should (I hope) help the lingering effects from the bug, and well, I want to read. It’s been so long since I really sat down and read.
@CJ, Is there somewhere for us to do “account maintenance” hereabouts? I can’t find one. The email address I used to register long ago went out of business. I’ve changed it on Gravatar, but can’t find where to change it on your WordPress site. I tried the registration page with the old email address, which it recognized, thinking maybe doing that it’d let me into account maintenance, but no, it just told me I’m already registered.
p.s. I looked on your index.html webpage. Didn’t see anything relevant there, but that it hasn’t been updated since 2012!
@paul: Once you’re logged in, there’s a tiny greeting notice with your nickname and profile photo at the far right in the black bar on the top of the site. Hover your mouse pointer over your nickname and select the “Edit my Profile” entry in the menu, which should take you to https://www.cherryh.com/WaveWithoutAShore/wp-admin/profile.php and include a field with the e-mail.
I have no greeting notice nor black bar as you describe. At the top of this page I have a green flower on the left, magnifying glass and three bars on the right. But then you gave me the link, so I used that to get there. I fixed it for now. I have the site to keep me signed in, maybe I’ll signout and login again and see what I’m presented. But before I leave, I’d better go to that page again and bookmark it!
I’m still hoping changing my image on Gravatar, as I just did, will shed me of that screaming crab, eventually. Doesn’t seem to want to let go of me yet!
YAY! I can change costumes again!!!!! Figured it had something to do with WWAS and Gravatar not agreeing on the email addy.
Later: Nope. Logged out. Logged in again. Still no black bar as described. Not here, not on the index page. Maybe it’s doing something FF doesn’t recognize? As is well known hereabouts, I use hand-made Linux, not M$ stuff. A nicely labelled button wouldn’t come amiss.
@Paul, you’re a turkey-penguin again, and not a screaming crab anymore, at least on my Android phone…
YES, I AM! Lovin’ it! O’course there’s a seasonal reference there that may only make sense in the US.
Paul, I may be able to fix it. E-mail me your e-mail and I’ll see if I can edit.
I think it’s fixed.
AHA! On the page I get, if I scroll way down to this “Submit a Comment”, in blue as it happens in the color scheme I’ve got, right below that there is a line: “Logged in as paul. Logout?” Turns out those are two separate links. The first one goes to my profile page, the second does as it says. Who’d’a thunk the first sentence would’ve done that?
Paul, if you’re using Firefox, look for a shield at the left end of the address bar, next to the information circle. If it’s there, FF may be blocking gravatar.com or wordpress.com. Or, click on the circled i.
If you use any kind of security or ad blocking, it may also block sites. You should see a black bar at the top with the WordPress logo, a dial for the dashboard, “Wave Without a Shore”; then to the right, “Howdy, Paul”, your avatar, and magnifying glass icon for search.
Good to see the Linux penguin back!
No shield, this is a locally compiled from source code version of Firefox, along with everything else. Know the old song that goes, “I get along without you very well”? Well, I get along with only software built here very well–though I must admit Libre Office is a pig in a tutu! No Flash. No Acrobat. No ad blocking addons, just a little one that lets me shutdown Javascript. I’m very careful of the software I run. My profession was computing. I don’t need to use someone else’s distro, I make my own, “POD”. (OK, I use TurboTax, for which I must have W10 on a cheap little refurb HP box, but that only comes out to play for a couple weeks a year for that purpose only. Other than that, I got off the M$ train in 2004.)
The little info button just says my connection here isn’t secure because it isn’t encrypted HTTPS.
My bookmark comes straight here. I’ve seen that stuff at WordPress, Gravatar, the profile page, but I don’t go through them to get here.
For me, the top of this site currently looks like http://www.ektus.de/bilder/top_of_page.png
That’s in Seamonkey 2.49.5 64-bit on Windows 7.
Hopefully the link won’t be blocked 🙂
Regards
Ektus.