Eseme's Den

I miss LJ so much, the communities, the writing...

I had a really dark period in my life, and I am now about 8 months behind on all of that. And then they changed the TOS while I was gone too.

So Dreamwidth it is! Most of my friends from LJ have journals here, and I think I should be able to find communities and catch up on reading, and POST STUFF!

Yay! Patience while I read through and catch up on stuff.

The colors will start soon, which is the second time of year that the drive to work is extra special.

Does fall look good in your part of the world?

The lupines are blooming again. I think they started last week, but as I worked from home Wednesday through Friday I wouldn't know. Some very awesome person in the Department of Transportation must have decided to not mow the grass by the highways until late June, just to show off the flowers. They grow best along roadsides, and the drive down the highway to work has patches of purple with the odd pink or white stalk. I love it, and it starts and ends the day nicely.

My sister got the book Miss Rumphius for one of her birthdays, and I really liked the story about how she became the Lupine Lady and made the world more beautiful. I had ideas about that as a kid, none of them panned out. Still, great story.

Wikipedia has some good pictures, if they don't grow near you.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lupinus

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Edited for typos that showed up thanks to posting on a tablet

Thank you aldersprig! The lovely blue mitts you knit me with the leaf pattern were very happily in my bag on this very cold and snowy day.

The snow is lovely, it is just very cold in this bit of the office.

I know I haven't said much lately, life is busy and not much has happened. I am still here, and will try to mention more of the good things in life. Like hand-knit presents.

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Thank you once again to everyone who replied to my earlier post with info and advice.

The Angel had been feeling extremely exhausted lately, and was able to see his doctor and get a referral to an endrocronologist (yeah, that is likely spelled wrong, sorry).

She was able to see him the next day! Timing was amazing. She got out a calculator, and was able to do some math based on his last TSH level and body weight... and the 200 MCG is still likely too low, he may need 260.

She also determined that they were not testing for his T3 levels, just T4 and TSH. So she is requesting a full battery of tests. She suspects this his levels are not good and wants to see the results before changing medication.

This is GOOD. I really want him to not feel exhausted all the time, I think it makes everything else in his life so much worse.

You guys were all a huge help, and it was good for him to know he is not alone in all this. THANK YOU.

Halloween got cancelled, for the most part, in our household, due to sick.

This was rather saddening, as we were fortunate to have Kiddo at our place (due to scheduling, this is unlikely for several more years) and were really looking forward to trick-or-treating.

However, with Angel sick since last Wednesday, me getting sick Friday, and Kiddo arriving with a very stuffy nose and coughing in his sleep, it was decided that the best option was to stay home and watch Star Wars movies.

We did let Kiddo pick out a bag of half-off Halloween candy the next day. He wanted the bag of chocolate balls whose wrappers were designed to look like eyeballs. He is, indeed, his father's son.

Hope everyone else had a wonderful weekend.

So there were brain weasels last night, I got all these ideas in the shower and had to sit down with my laptop, download Audacity, and speak until I got all the stuff out of my brain.

I think it is trying to write again, but I don't really have any free time to speak of, so I just have this long audio file.

I suppose it is seasonally appropriate (Hello, NANOWRIMO) but I know I cannot manage over 1,000 words a day.

I need to figure out what to do with that.

Also, I am reading a friend's translation of a novel from Russian to English and pointing out bits that are rough or confusing. It is neat.

The Angel, who is a very important part of my life, has thyroid problems, among other things.

He has very bad thyroid problems, from what I can tell.

He started on 25 mcg of Levothyroxine, which is a generic of synthroid (I think).

They keep checking his thyroid hormone levels, and while his medication has been stable for sometimes half a year, it keeps going up. And up. And up.

He is now on 200 mcg of the same medication. This is due to thyroid levels creeping back up to 3.9 at his last blood draw about a week and a half ago.

He had been diagnosed with Hashimoto's Thyroiditus, which is to say his white blood cells are attacking his thyroid as a foreign object, and at this point neither of us is sure he has a thyroid anymore.

He has been utterly exhausted lately, likely due to this. On my urging, he tried to look up Facebook groups for thyroid issues, to maybe find other people to talk to who have the same issues and who may have advice on dealing with chronic fatigue.

He keeps finding groups open only to women, or who blatantly describe Hashimoto's as a "women's issue." And that is WRONG and extremely alienating for him.

I know there are at least three people on my friends list who also have thyroid issues. Can I ask for some info?

It is me, or is that a really high does of the meds? I am really worried that his system is not in a good place, to need that much of the tyroid hormones.

Are there other meds he can ask his doctor about?

Are there any good online support groups or websites you can recommend for chronic fatigue and chronic pain (we suspect arthritis, and he also had a traumatic brain injury about 18 years ago and gets very bad headaches)? Ones that are less women-centered and more helpful?

He has not until recently thought of himself as disabled, and many of his family and friends do not think that way either. He is not used to managing energy levels, which can result in him running out of "spoons" suddenly.

While I know several people with chronic pain and chronic fatigue, and I know about the spoon theory, I thankfully (and am very grateful for this) do not have those conditions myself. So can't really offer advice or insight that he really needs. I'm appreciate anything that you have to offer. He does not currently have an LJ, and is on Facebook all day. However, if there are better groups or resources on LJ or Dreamwidth, I will encourage him to sign up (and will start using my Dreamwidth as well).

Thanks everyone!

The view from the couch is of small dark birds silhouetted against an intensely blue sky, perched in the dead branches at the top of the tree out front.

The morning includes nonstop commentary on Lego battles and strange noises from a small boy. All the energy, no coffee needed.

Plans for the day include finding a Halloween costume, the possibility of a Peter Pan movie, and dinner out. A good day.

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I cannot post much on the Kobo tablet, but I have decided to post anyway. Short stuff, but hopefully interesting. I am not good at short, I tend to think in paragraphs.

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