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Forum Name: General
Topic ID: 1536
#0, well, that's not ideal
Posted by Gryphon on Mar-05-18 at 00:55 AM
LAST EDITED ON Mar-05-18 AT 00:56 AM (EST)
 
Actually a couple of things are not ideal.

1) The ISP providing my home DSL service seems to have forgotten how to route traffic to this website. I can get to it from my phone, or (as I have done to post this) by using the phone as a wifi hotspot, but the house network can't see it. This has been going on for a week now and is annoying me, but not nearly as much as the other thing that has been going on for a week now, to wit

2) I've had a succession of sinus infections (or possibly just one that the first two rounds of antibiotics failed to knock all the way down) since December. Last weekend I finally started to feel like I was getting over it...

... and the fingers on my left hand started to go numb.

This has progressed over the course of the week, to the point where on Friday afternoon, my neurologist informed me that based on my description of the symptoms and their lack of response to the short course of oral steroid he'd prescribed on Monday, he's pretty sure I'm having my first full relapse since I was diagnosed with relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis in the summer of 2009.

Eight and three-quarter years between attacks is really pretty decent, but I think I could probably be forgiven for not regarding it as quite decent enough, particularly as the doctor went on to drop, almost casually, the further intel at the end of the conversation that he expects the condition, having reawakened fully, to remain active for "at least the next five to ten years." I'm supposed to have spent the weekend considering which of the other treatment options I want to try next, since the one I've been using since my diagnosis has now failed. I... haven't spent most of the weekend doing that, if I'm honest. I've mostly just been wallowing in self-pity, when I haven't been trying to distract myself by replaying Subnautica or helping my father build a new kitchen table. With one hand.

(Well, OK, to be fair, my left hand still works, I just... can't really feel what it's doing most of the time. Have you ever gotten super glue or model glue on your fingertips? You know how annoying that feels? Basically my whole hand feels like that. Actually, at this point most of the left side of my body feels like that. Including the ass cheek! More information than you wanted, I suspect.)

So, uh... anyway. If you've been wondering what happened to that burst of activity you saw around Christmastime, the answer is basically that. I've been sick for most of the time since then, and now, evidently, once my immune system finally got around to doing something about that, it got a little overexcited and started chewing on my white matter again. And, because this is the way RRMS works, we don't know when it's going to stop. Or really if it's going to stop, although statistically, in patients my age it usually does eventually. For a while.

Elon, stop showing off launching your toys into space and get on that robot body replacement thing already. Fuck's sake.

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.


#1, RE: well, that's not ideal
Posted by drakensis on Mar-05-18 at 03:18 AM
In response to message #0
Well that puts my own difficulties this weekend into perspective.

I hope your doctor is being overly pessimistic.


#2, RE: well, that's not ideal
Posted by Star Ranger4 on Mar-05-18 at 09:59 AM
In response to message #0
Well UGH.

Definitely !not Ideal. Wishing you a west coast best hopes for managing to convince your immune system back into spec quickly.


#3, RE: well, that's not ideal
Posted by TsukaiStarburst on Mar-05-18 at 07:53 PM
In response to message #0
...not ideal indeed. Are you going to be writing any more, given your condition now? I know this sounds eerily similar to a question I asked a couple months ago but I do love all of UF and your work and would hate to see it just dry up from here.

#4, RE: well, that's not ideal
Posted by Gryphon on Mar-06-18 at 02:26 AM
In response to message #3
>...not ideal indeed. Are you going to be writing any more, given your
>condition now?

Shit, I hope so.

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.


#5, RE: well, that's not ideal
Posted by MoonEyes on Mar-06-18 at 07:29 AM
In response to message #4
You're not the only one!

And, so very not ideal. Hope things resolve to the best possible in the shortest possible, as it were.

...!
Stoke Mandeville, Esq & The Victorian Ballsmiths
"Nobody Want Verdigris-Covered Balls!"


#7, RE: well, that's not ideal
Posted by TsukaiStarburst on Mar-07-18 at 03:13 AM
In response to message #5
That's good! I'm very glad to hear it.

#6, RE: well, that's not ideal
Posted by NHO on Mar-06-18 at 10:13 AM
In response to message #0
Well, suboptimal. I don't know what to say about your situation here...

Speech Recognition Software for dictating your fics instead of writing them? But you then can end up in the Weber hole...

Good luck with your health.


#8, RE: well, that's not ideal
Posted by Terminus Est on Mar-09-18 at 01:36 PM
In response to message #0
Shit, man. They're just talking about cutting bits of me off, this is orders of magnitude more suck. I have family members with MS, I know how hard it can screw with your life. Best wishes.

#9, RE: well, that's not ideal
Posted by Spectrum on Mar-14-18 at 00:09 AM
In response to message #0
Aw, that's terrible. Hope things improve, at least in some small way.

#10, quick update: state of the G
Posted by Gryphon on Apr-08-18 at 11:47 PM
In response to message #0
Realized I hadn't checked in for a while, so let's recap. Since my push to get The Fall of Petrograd out and repack part 1 of Our Fighting Fleet over the holidays, the following status effects have been applied to me by the GM:

1) sinus infection, treated with antibiotic 1
2) sinus infection, treated with antibiotic 2
3) mysterious bout of chest pain that the ER determined was not a heart attack, but couldn't identify any other cause for
4) sinus infection, treated with antibiotic 3
5) my first official MS relapse, which began on the very day sinus infection 3 began to clear up
6) resultant neurologist order for change in MS medication, from the one that takes one injection per week to the one that takes three; you can imagine how big my happy hat is about that
7) nuclear perfusion cardiac stress test to investigate item 3) above, which is not nearly as cool as the phrase "nuclear perfusion" may tend to suggest it should be
8) presently, what the ER doctor thinks is probably cellulitis (a staph infection of the subcutaneous soft tissue) or possibly a severe reaction to the new MS medication in my right shin—though that's nowhere near any of the actual injection sites, so we're assuming it's cellulitis (the lab may get something on the blood cultures* tomorrow and let us know if we're right) and treating it accordingly with a fourth different antibiotic. This started completely at random last Thursday evening and has been really pissing me off all weekend.

Oh yes, and the relapse noted in item 5) above is still going on, because actually treating what the disease does is not what the medication is for, and there is in fact no medication for that, apart from gorploads of corticosteroids, which my neurologist declines to prescribe because it's "only" sensory impairment at this time, not pain or motor disruption. Which is why I can still more or less type with my left hand, even though I can't really feel anything with it.

He wants investigatory MRIs, of course, but the only MRI machine any of us has been able to find that won't send me clawing at the walls like the guy in The Cask of Amontillado is 150 miles away and out of my health insurance's network. Oh yeah, and I can't have MRI contrast any more because I only have one kidney, so the two scans he wants will take upwards of 45 minutes each.

In the midst of all this, I have somehow managed to pull an all-sixes-out-of-six annual review at my day job and, despite the fact that the Student Accessibility Services office at UMaine declines to take any action with regards to the course I'm enrolled in right now because the professor told them its in-person participation component is totally non-negotiable, I have not yet missed enough of the sessions to insta-fail it. Yet. If I'm not cleared to drive and sit around for hours without my foot up when I talk to my regular doctor about this leg thing on Tuesday, that may change.

I had high hopes for the rest of this winter after the success of the December push. I guess that's what I get for optimism.

--G.
* holy cow they've gotta draw a lotta blood for these things. four regular lab vials AND four little bottles like the ones wine comes in on airplanes
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.


#11, RE: quick update: state of the G
Posted by NHO on Apr-09-18 at 01:26 AM
In response to message #10
Holy fuck.

Stay strong. And good luck.


#12, RE: quick update: state of the G
Posted by Vorticity on Apr-09-18 at 01:33 AM
In response to message #10
> Elon, stop showing off launching your toys into space and get on that robot body replacement thing already. Fuck's sake.

Are you sure about that? I hear that there's a planet out there where you can get a metal body for free.

Can you get your doctor to classify your issues as a disability? Even a temporary one? If so, your university might be a little more responsive if the Americans with Disabilities Act comes into play.

So far as the sinus infections go... yeah, that sucks. I've been diagnosed with chronic sinusitis, and had surgery about a decade back. It just makes everything else worse.

> He wants investigatory MRIs, of course, but the only MRI machine any of us has been able to find that won't send me clawing at the walls like the guy in The Cask of Amontillado is 150 miles away and out of my health insurance's network.

All in all, just another brick in the wall. Best wishes for you.


#13, RE: quick update: state of the G
Posted by Gryphon on Apr-09-18 at 01:35 AM
In response to message #10
(Oh yeah, I probably should have noted that six out of six across the board is good in the review system my day job uses. That and not having failed a class yet are the good parts, such as they are.)

-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.


#15, RE: quick update: state of the G
Posted by McFortner on Apr-09-18 at 01:47 PM
In response to message #10
>"... the professor told them its in-person participation component is totally non-negotiable, I have not yet missed enough of the sessions to insta-fail it. Yet. If I'm not cleared to drive and sit around for hours without my foot up when I talk to my regular doctor about this leg thing on Tuesday, that may change."

I might be wrong, but with your health problems I'm thinking that the ADA kicks in and he has no choice. But I could be wrong.

Michael C. Fortner
"Maxim 37: There is no such thing as "overkill".
There is only "open fire" and "I need to reload".


#14, RE: well, that's not ideal
Posted by Trscroggs on Apr-09-18 at 08:18 AM
In response to message #0
Having experienced a similar reaction not that long ago myself all I can really say is yuck.

Here's to a swift recovery.