who only by moving can balance

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Bonus thyroid notes: staying on the current dosage despite the subclinical hyperthyroidism, rechecking bloods in ~2 months. (Which, conveniently, is the number of pills I've been given.)

I don't appear to have actually mentioned here that one of the reasons I've not been around much this autumn/winter is that as of about October I have been dealing with fatigue of the "sleep 16 hours a day" variety, which was diagnosed by local-GP as anaemia; I was given iron supplements and sent on my way, no further investigation required or so they said.

The iron helped quite a lot for a fortnight but I've just had another span of days where I just... need to sleep a lot. There's various other Health Misc going on that might be inflammatory/autoimmune-cluster nonsense or might just be coincidence, but given my family history of pernicious anaemia I... am going to get a second opinion from a different GP in a fortnight or so's time?

Like. Fundamentally that won't help much with the bit where most of why I've been writing more here over the past fortnight is I've been aggressively ignoring PhD writing, but it might help with some of the limited-energy-for-anything.

Two major things: Yet More Lung Tests (I get to find out results on the 26th) and pain clinic psychologist assessment (physiotherapist will be happening tomorrow afternoon).

So far so good on the fluoxetine -- I'm not now getting BV every time I spend more than about two hours using a wheelchair (I am still managing to set it off occasionally, but by "occasionally" I mean "when spending all day travelling internationally after a solid preceding several days of Out And About In A Chair", which is consistent with other folk I know seeing slooow returns to baseline after discontinuing mirtazapine due to unacceptable side-effects). I'm still under-medicated (in that I'm irritable and weepy), so that's not brilliant, but I'm seeing my GP on Thursday, whereupon we will bump up the dose.

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1. Oral-B Pro-Expert Clean Mint toothpaste. Blue, sparkly, and cinnamon-flavoured. I don't understand why it's called Clean Mint. It contains, as best I can tell, no mint, apart from a slight cold sensation. The flavour compound is cinnamal. It is blue and sparkly and cinnamon.
   
2. UltraDEX mouthwash (previously RetarDEX). Optional mint-flavoured sachet. Absent the optional mint-flavoured sachet, it tastes slightly of chlorine.

(I am Not A Fan of mint-flavoured things if they are anything other than field/garden mint, in which case I love them; peppermint and spearmint are Not My Friends because, approximately, they taste too loud, and given that I am utterly unwilling to floss because hands and only reliably brush my teeth twice a day if I'm living with someone who will coax me on the topic at bedtime because executive dysfunction and also hands, my dentist is much happier when I am using mouthwash. I am aware that other people feel similarly about mint, and a partially overlapping set of people are in a similar position with respect to this specific healthwork. Here are the things I use, people, and may they bring you if not actual joy then at least diminished resentfulness.)

OKAY SO I have a 20-minute appointment on the 29th with my GP. To discuss whether a PTSD diagnosis might be relevant for me.

Consequently I have promptly forgotten all of the reasons I think it might be relevant! Erm. Do you feel like crowdsourcing concrete examples of Me Doing An PTSD so that I don't have to think 'em up myself? Much obliged.

(Here is absolutely not the place to get into debates about the validity of self-diagnosis. Like, if you want to have this fight, I will win, but right now is not the time. Okay? Okay. Find me after.)

0. PHILAE. xkcd on the topic is fantastic. As we approached landing o'clock, the rest of the kids in my pod gathered around the person with the most monitors (three goodness knows why) and we watched the live coverage en masse, on the grounds that anyone who didn't want to know about SPACE ROBOT LANDING should probably not be on an open-plan floor full of geology PhD students. I have done some small cries - my feelings about space robots are v similar to my feelings about life boats. Quoth my supervisor, on the topic of the live coverage, "This is like some messed-up space version of Eurovision - there's that lady who came on stage and was all 'and now, Germany...'". :D

1. We have changed ISP; the switchover will happen on the 24th, at which point I might have a more reliable internet connection at home (as of this morning still no connectivity, nor has there been for a week).

2. I am listening to Hymn of Acxiom on loop, partly because of something recessional said and partly Just Because; I am currently comparing-and-contrasting with Collecting You by the Indigo Girls.

3. Last night I made mattar paneer for the first time; some things I would change, but fundamentally a plausible thing (I was genuinely baffled by the oddly specific quantities in many recipes I found - 6-7 cashew nuts? really???) that I can make again in future.

4. Also pear-and-cinnamon-and-hazelnut brownie! Much as previously discussed, only this time I stuck in a good teaspoon of ground cinnamon, coarsely diced two slightly underripe pears to have small lumps, didn't add any extra sugar, and replaced 100g of the flour with roasted hazelnut meal. Friend-whose-face-I-get-to-put-my-face-on approved.

5. ... friend-whose-face-I-get-to-put-my-face-on. During yesterday's conversation I realised to my horror that in much the same sense that vocal conversations can suffer from miscommunications arising from ambiguous or incorrect bracketing, the ways I communicate involve meaningful whitespace. (This is clearly not unique to me, but I was briefly very distressed that spoken interactions involve meaningful whitespace, because it was the thing that scared me off python for years. :-p)

6. FWFIGTPMFO fixed the lights in the kitchen -- I had replacement bulbs, but I'd had about five people (including myself) look at the wretched light fittings and be completely baffled as to how to extricate them; this is something we have been trying and failing to fix since we moved in at the beginning of January.

7. sebastienne enthusiastically livetexting me reactions to Orphan Black and Elementary because I can't do my normal watch-along wossname over IM given hometernot <3

8. ahhhhhhhhhhh part one of pre-Ancillary-Justice short story available!!!

9. Some science progress today in lab! And uh mostly lab-progress because I've spent the rest of the day going AAAAAAAAAAAAH SPACE ROBOTS and grinning ridiculously (rather than making algebra bend to my will) BUT more of that will occur tomorrow... and in fact this evening if I want to hit milestone goals from supervisor >_>

10. Osteopath yesterday morning positive. She was competent at going "... you want to be seeing an NHS hypermobility clinic, not me" and is telling the GP who referred to me so; she agrees that I obviously have hypermobility syndrome; and is impressed by my feet + ankles being basically fine given what my knees and elbows and hips are like. Have been given some hypermobility-focussed physio (practising balancing on one leg; do for both sides, 3x45s per leg per day, shut eyes if I can manage it, one finger only on supportive surface for balance; if doesn't cause problems, move up to balancing on ball of foot instead of foot flat to ground).


Tomorrow I have follow-up on the depression-related bloods, and tomorrow evening I have counselling...

Worst period pain in ages: yes, self, that is because you are currently on less-than-half-dose ibuprofen (because mefenamic acid supply problems; because insufficiently regular GP appointments; because lack of executive function/stubbornness combining to (1) prevent making a sooner appointment and (2) prevent buying more ibuprofen).

Really truly honestly there are reasons you are on every single med you take, really, and skipping any of them leads to you feeling worse, and that is why you still take them even though you resent it. Make NSAIDs a priority in tomorrow's GP appt, yeah? xx

recessional on appearing high-functioning.

I've got a loosely-organised collection of around 10 people who remind me to do basic self-care, visit me so I have a reason to prepare food when my housemate's out, do the laundry, help make groceries happen, definitely who facilitate sleep, prompt me to do housework that makes me feel better (see yesterday's todo/tada), and so on, and so forth.

All of this is work. I am simultaneously much less and much more independently functional than I look.