(no subject)
Other than that, I regret not writing here more and just putting lots of short bits on Facebook, but writing things at length requires more of some kind of energy than I usually have, and putting lots of short stuff here feels like it would be annoying. I'm not sure why that latter part is the case.
The second appointment with Miriam's new rheumatologist is coming up next week. It turns out that the labs who do bloodwork here just completely failed to do one of the tests the doctor requisitioned. We've tried to follow up with the doctor's office a couple times, and they have finally figured out that the test never got done. They contacted LifeLabs, the place that does the blood draws, and LifeLabs said that test was not ordered. This has happened before, so Miriam had a picture of the req form on her phone to send to the doctor, complete with a big red arrow pointing at the test.
But at this point, it's not going to be done before the appointment, and if this causes another month or two of delays in diagnosis and treatment, I'm going to be very angry. I fervently hope, if that's what happens, that the doctor will make a special appointment to follow up after the test, but I'm not holding my breath. Miriam has suggested that maybe her x-ray results are sufficient for a diagnosis already and that's why the office hasn't followed up yet, but I suspect that's wishful thinking.
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She and I went out to a local winter festival here in Regina called Frost. There was a stand making maple syrup taffy: she wanted to share that with me since it was something she had on field trips growing up in Ontario and I'd never had it before. It was fun. It was tasty. But the experience was also sad. The limitations she has going to things like this just keep reminding me that things will quite possibly never be the same for her as they were before the progression of this illness, and by extension, very often will not be the same for me either. I miss just being able to do something as simple as go grocery shopping with her without worrying whether the activity will cause her pain for the rest of the day, or if she won't be able to stay with me in the store because of pain. We did go to CostCo together yesterday and it was a nice little trip. Some days and some activities are worse than others at different times and it's hard to know why.
The winter festival also had a few metal firepits going, burning wood and making a cheery warmth and glow. I caught the scent of woodsmoke once and felt a surge of fear and did my best to avoid them the rest of the time we were there. There's another way certain things may never be the same for me.
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Despite the above few paragraphs, my mental health has been better of late. Regular attendance at the weekly online Still Coviding group I've been going to, regularly having a group of people who understand a big part of my situation in ways that most other people don't, has been a blessing.
I've been trying to connect with other folks in other ways, but without much success. I wrote someone who posted on the REddit T4T community who is on the US west coast and described herself as a "Covid-conscious cutie looking for flirty friends." We exchanged a couple of messages, but I haven't heard back in a couple of days. She's a little over 10 years younger than me, so that may be an issue.
I posted on the Discord channel for the local trans support group. I said that it's been hard for me to attend the online meetings because health concerns for my partner mean I need to minimize Covid exposure, and it hurts to listen to people talking about all the things they're doing that I can't do. But, I said, being around just one or two people who are masking is an acceptable level of risk, and I would *love* to have a person or two to get together with and which anime once in a while. I got one message of sympathy and an offer to talk, but no interest in actually getting together.
I've looked at other posts on T4T lately, but haven't found anyone I felt like making contact with. It's funny; I am actively wishing for flirty/sexual connections with other people, and I'm a lot less demisexual than I once thought I was, but contacting people who seem to *just* be looking for people to sext with, or to get on video for sexytimes with, is not appealing. I need there to be *something, anything* beyond that. And the ages of most of the people posting there means my options are fairly limited. But I'm still looking.
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My mental health has been good enough to get absorbed in a couple of hobbies. It's really good to break out of the vicious circle of mental health not being good enough to get absorbed in anything that's good for mental health. I got parts together to refurb the vacuum tube-based audio generator I bought from a Kijiji seller last year, but before they arrived in the mail, I got started on coding LED control algorithms. My friend Posi sent me hardware to do some of that after the fire happened, but I just hadn't been together enough to figure it out. We got on voice chat together and he walked me through setting up the software, soldering some wires to an Arduino and an LED strip, and basic use of existing libraries to make them light up.
Since then, I've spent a lot of hours writing code. I still have a lot to do and learn, but I did manage to finally get trans colors scrolling up and down on the front of the case the way I've imagined since putting this computer together more than a year ago, and it makes me happy. In general, my computer increasingly looks like unicorns and faeries are holding a rave in there and I am pleased. Here's a short video of one of the effects I have working:
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/fVvkrH4GTj8
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CW: food/body/weight talk
I was managing my eating really well for quite some time, and am currently at my lowest weight since 2018 (which is still 40 pounds or so heavier than I would like) and I've been really happy about that. In the last week, though, I've had trouble again. I think it's possible that as this appointment for Miriam gets close, it's causing me a lot of stress, fear, anxiety, and anger at the medical system. It's so easy to use food to deal with those things.
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Last but not least, I finally got that new piercing done that I've been planning to do with birthday/Chanukah money from Miriam's family back in November. I decided my mental health is finally good enough to take care of it, and I now have a helix done on my left ear. So many elf-girls in fantasy art have piercings in that area - probably a way for the artist to emphasize the exotic ear shape I suppose - and I want to have a pretty elf-girl piercing too. I'm also glad to have piercings connected to both my parents and Miriam's parents; that's really meaningful to me.