…is a known side effect of the type of chemotherapy I was on last year. It’s called peripheral neuropathy and affects hands and feet. Symptoms very from numbness to tingling, hypersensitivity to cold, swelling, pain, prickling, and some impairment of motor function. Even nicer news, it’s damage to circulation and nerves by the chemo, and while it’s pretty sure what causes it, it varies in severity and in duration. In some, it’s lifelong. In some, it partially goes away. In some it goes away. The culprit is the ‘novel platinum analogue’ part of oxaliplatin. But since it saved my life, I’m figuring it’s cheap at the price.
The fact it has highs and lows, good days and bad, indicates to me that there is healing going on—or at least change, and it has been on an upward curve since about December, when it was at its worst and I couldn’t feel the little pills I’m supposed to take for another problem. Now I can. And I can type far more accurately. Cold water is still painful, but I can stand it when I have to, and the swelling in my thumbs and first two fingers has mostly gone. So it is still improving.
That’s what’s delayed getting books done. But Alliance 2 (title uncertain) is underway again, our publisher is endlessly patient and sympathetic, I’ve caught up to where I was when the cancer intervened, and I’m back at work in my work station for hours on end. For those of you new here, I had colon cancer, which threw Jane off her schedule to get 2 hips replaced, while she took care of me (and my biweekly sessions in the chemo lab and two days later getting the inserted line disconnected) until I was through chemo, then a gallbladder attack sent me taking her to the ER clinic at 3 AM in a snowstorm and she ended up having emergency gallbladder removal at 10:30 the following morning. A week before her rescheduled first hip replacement. So that was how we spent OUR 2020. She’s now had her second hip replaced, and I’m recovering nicely, past the tests, and we’re both vaccinated and will be fully-aged-and-immune come this THursday. Yay!
Anyway, yep, I’ve tried 2 editions of Dragon and it still can’t punctuate or paragraph on its own. So I will type while I can poke one key at a time on the keyboard. Jane is doing her final edit on her book, Homecoming Games, before I hand her the half-completed Alliance for HER gothrough and writing of the next scenes in our collaborative effort. Then I’ll take it back, etc, etc.
Frell. I can’t finish setting up my iPhone because I can’t see what it’s telling me in that step. I’ve got to wait until that friend notices his email. If not by tonight, I’ll send another email. I had to find out how to reset the iPhone’s passcode. This (unfortunately) involves wiping the phone to factory defaults and restoring the last backup to the iCloud (and hoping that was recent). It looks like it did backup whatever portions yesterday, so maybe I didn’t lose too much (Contacts / email / phones list being my main concern). It appears to think I’m putting in the password (not the same as the passcode) incorrectly. But unless I’ve accidentally told it to make a new account rather than use my existing one (oh please no) then it’s a typo in the password entry. So I’m stuck part-way through the process, I think near the last step or two of getting the old contents.
This means I’m without a phone until Billy M. realizes I need help, from my reply email to his call yesterday. My phone is unusable until this is straightened out. Frell.
My grocery order did arrive OK, but yes, items were not available when I ordered, so I missed out on a few things I’d wanted / needed. I will wait until next week, probably, and try both Kroger’s and Amazon Fresh again. This was my second time with Amazon Fresh, with about as mixed results as with Kroger’s. But I’ve now got what I needed most, so it’s mostly a win.
One nitpick: For reasons unknown, Amazon seems to be unaware that people like catfish. I am going to be seriously wanting some catfish by the time I get any. (I got breaded boxed fillets of no-name fish, whatever it is Gorton’s puts out. Heh.) Mostly OK.
I am very down about not being able to get the phone finished setting up by myself. If the screen would stay at a good high contrast or better yet, dark mode, (white on black) and the text were dbolder/heavier and larger, or if it would use text-to-speech, I’d have a fighting chance. If modern smart phones, especially the iPhone would use physical, tactile keyboards in at least some way (old phone numeric keypad) I’d have a good chance. The iPhone is in some ways better for impaired users, but in many ways, all cell phones are still awful about this. — I want their teams of design engineers to find out how it is to do a setup or a call or any operation blindfolded or with blurry vision or other vision problems. And while they’re at it, try deaf and hearing-impaired needs and neurological-muscular mobility needs too. — My brain still works (mostly) OK (maybe), but my eyes no longer work anywhere near as good as they used to. And I am aggravated and worried about it, and up against my own shortcomings, physical and mental/emotional / bad habits. Without enough local friends.
Neighbors, even ones who are normally vocal or around enough for me to notice, are way more quiet this whole month. — I don’t know why, except our city has had a spate of severe crimes, along with much of the country.
The maintenance people have been (I think) changing out facing boards, trim, various things to update the complex. Noisy. Intermittently busy.
Brindle thought the iPhone cord, which must remain connected for an install / restore, was a great invitation to play! This was, er, not ideal from a computing technology point of view, but it was comedy relief which I needed while doing this, even though it was also very distracting, one more problem to contend with. Even so, haha, I love her for it. She was, “Girls just wanna have fun,” as Cyndi Lauper would say. 🙂
My nerves are very frayed, but I lack sufficient ice cream to do that right now. Heh. One of the items that didn’t get fulfilled. — I am going to have some kind of dessert, either a fruit cup or pie filling (without a pie crust, darn it) tonight to unwind. — I lack anything in the adult beverage department, such as margarita ingredients. I’m fed up enough to want something. I am pretty much a tea-totaler. But I’ve had my limit of dren / felgercarb / for the week.
I hope all of you are doing better, especially folks in the path of Claudette or the drought. Hot and dry and sunny and humid / muggy here. Yes, both dry and muggy.
@BCS, could you send an email to the Lighthouse for the blind, asking for help with setting up your phone?
Or ask a neighbor, if neither Billy nor appartment management stops by soon.
Also, can you ask advice from the Lighthouse about text to speech software for your computer?
The mechanical voice is nowhere near as good as a real voice actor, but might help enough in preparing the texts you want to read aloud for your audiobook auditions.
Are you getting any forwarder with organising rental assistance, income assistance, and getting Medicaid so you can get your eyes checked?
If plugs are compatible, you might try plugging your desktop keyboard into the iPhone so you could maybe touch-type the password.
Amazon Prime can be short of items at times. They often have a button to suggest options, or you can search again. You might have to search in Whole Foods for catfish; A. Fresh is pretty vanilla nationwide supermarket food; though, the *ultra*pasteurized milk lasts a month or two.
Speaking of fish, I saw a story that Subway tuna failed a DNA test for tuna DNA. Eep.
More interestingly was a Science Daily article that humans can write new DNA sequences naturally. I’m not clear on what causes it; while it sounds Lamarkian, the great forces of evolution are still Darwinian natural selection.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/06/210611174037.htm
Everyone in my “The Outer Worlds” fandom circles is posting mad memes about that Subway Tuna story (Subway = Spacer’s Choice). It’s pretty hysterical (but also a little horrifying, especially when you consider the game’s plot line with regard to “saltuna”, which I will not spoil here, because it is a wonderful game).
To your last point, retroviruses, e.g. HIV, SIV, FLV, know the trick, so its not too surprizing. Genomes are often found to carry genes from other species, even other kingdoms, i.e.plant genes in animals. More common is methylation, which also smacks of Lamarkism.
They are probably using a cheaper fish and passing it off as tuna.
I would think most likely that some tuna is used. It is a strong flavor/aroma.
The point is that all Subway tuna is cooked. Cooking breaks down the DNA, so you wouldn’t expect to find identifiable DNA in any cooked food. The whole story is based on a false premise.
Update: I haven’t heard from Billy via email or a visit. AFAIK, no one from the apartments has been by, but a couple of times, maintenance people hav been by doing replacement of facing boards and trim on the exterior, but this is random on the whole property, with them takin off pieces, waiting, doing more.
Last time I’d talked to the Lighthouse, I got responses of, oh, we don’t send people out to do that. :-/
I will be trying again to raise a neighbor, but no luck getting anyone to answer last time.
And tonight — Oh boy. Went in to feed the cat, and there is a leak between the ceiling and wall in the kitchen again that has just started, coming (apparently) from the apt. upstairs or else between them, the water line for the dishwasher and washing machine outlet, or else a leak from their appliances, I think. It’s just started, but I sure noticed it. This has happened at least twice before since I’ve lived here. The first one required replacing the kitchen ceiling when it fell through. So, yeah. The second time, maintenance had to enter the apt. upstairs but stopped or repaired it.
No response from the people upstairs, but I think they are there. Maybe I’ll be lucky, they’ll see it and stop it.
If it’s still going tomorrow during business hours, I’ll try again to get a neighbor or maintenance via email.
I’ve just emailed Billy, but not expecting a reply immediately if at all. Very aggravating.
Sincerely hope I don’t have the leak get worse and have ceiling damage again. This is not cool at all. It’s way after business hours, so no chance for any maintenance anyway. Sigh.
The iPhone, nope, wrong plugs so it wouldn’t take a keyboard as far as I know. — I had to shut it down in the middle of the process, since I couldn’t see to complete it. But if I can get help, it should be just completing the screens, or else reset again and store from the iCloud backup by connecting it to the computer. No, ou can’t use the computer’s keyboard to enter the phone’s passcode. It is, for the moment, a high tech paperweight.
Frustrated, but I am telling myself to live with it for tonight. Tired of my own limitations and tired of not enough local support. Still here.
Do hope the leak stops and doesn’t do Amy more damage.
The leak might or might not have stopped. Not certain yet. But plenty wet around where it was leaking. Ack. Maybe I’ll be lucky and it’s stopped. It’d be nice if the neighbor upstairs caught it, if they even know it happened. — Guess I’ll see how the rest of the night goes and hope for better tomorrow. — Light to heavy rain most of today and more of the same through after the 4th expected. Whee. But it’s been cooler than it would be otherwise, so we haven’t had it as bad as the rest of the country and Canada, but we’ve got months to go this summer. Hard to believe it’s almost July.
Got an email reply from Billy, but no idea when he’ll be by. He is/was helping his daughter move out of state for college this summer or in the fall. (Whew, out of state fees versus in-state….) At least I got an answer. :-/ Hoping to get the phone fixed when he comes by, and the mailbox keys. Sigh. So I am incommunicado, but pkg. deliveries to my door still work. (Aarrgh.)
The kitchen is drying out from the leak. A little smelly, but it should be OK, I think.
Neighbors above and on the side of my bedroom and visiting outside were just noisy enough to keep me up way past when I would’ve been in bed asleep last night. It was 3:30am before it was quiet and I got to sleep. So I am showered and dressed but feel like I pulled an all-nighter, because basically I did, just not that active. Today, I am dragging around, don’t feel like doing anything, with stuff I could be doing.
I am instead going to try to write, as that is low-impact and I have an idea or two, even if it’s just practice or if I get something going. I need to do a backup of things since, oh, before May? But will do that when I am alert. I intend to go to bed early tonight to catch up, I hope. Maybe watch a movie if I wake up overnight.
Brindle is fine, bopping around, happy. Her brief stint of sleeping on the bed and with me only lasted a few days, and she’s back to her usual habits, but we’re good. She is just solid, a chunk, and it’s hard for me to tell if she’s solid muscle, which it feels like, or overweight, which it feels like she should be. I am guessing she is related to all the cats in the (former) local colony, including Mystic, Curry, and maybe little Ned, with a more chunky, big but compact build, where Mystic was both chunky, big, and long. Brindle still has a few months until she’s a year old, and will have been with me 34 weeks come Thursday, just shy of 3/4 of a year. It is one week since I gave up Ned, and I have been reminded a lot lately, partly because Brindle is also a brown tabby and is in funny ways his exact opposite in personality. I don’t know how we would have gotten by if he were still here, but even so, if I could go back and undo it, I would have, even though I felt it was necessary to protect Goober at the time. I guess, I hope, I am older and wiser from it. I hope never to do that again without at least knowing for sure there is an owner for the cat. But really, I hope I never have that dilemma ever again. — I am so glad I have Brindle, even though she’s more of an “around you” sort of cat than a “right by you” sort of cat. Odd, given how she started out. But she has a home and a person and does seem happy with me. I’m mostly happy with her. — I’m not quite ready for a second cat, so we’ll see how things go. For now, certainly until I’ve got my phone working again and settled whether I’m moving or what, it’s the two of us, no other cat, dog, or human. I still don’t have space cleared if I were to have anyone move in, or to move in with, and zero prospects on that. Just what-if, I guess.
Trying to resist the urge to go back to bed. Living like this has not helped lately.
I had hoped to schedule getting vaccinated, either from Kroger’s pharmacy if available or somewhere local, but of course, that has to wait on my phone. But I want that over and done with. I’m alone, so not a big risk, but it’s got to be done. It’ll be a priority when my phone’s working, restored, again. I’m expecting a typically quiet 4th of July. There was not much of any celebrating last year, but a few kids being idiots with fireworks. We are supposed to have rain intermittent to heavy and much lower than seasonal temps until past the holiday. I don’t recall ever having a week of highs in the upper 80’s in June/July. Not complaining it’s nice to have the break. But it’s weird not to be in the upper 90’s or into the 100’s this time of year, and for this long. Especially when everyone else is having a heat wave. But we won’t have it this spring-like for long after the 4th, surely.
Take care, everyone. I’m tired but feeling a little less freaked out with the leak maybe abated and having had contact with Billy by email. I hope you are all doing well.
Please get that vaccine ASAP. The Covid Delta (Indian) variant is far more infectious and dangerous. Australia has kept out Covid from the beginning, but they’re losing control of Delta.
Yes, put some priority in getting vaccinated. It would suck to make it through the last year, and then get covid now.
@BCS, I just found this page that might be useful for you, all about screenreaders for mobile phones and computers, for people with vision problems:
https://abilitynet.org.uk/factsheets/introduction-screen-readers
Dr. Amy Kavanagh is a blind historian in the UK who gives good information on such topics, like in this thread: https://mobile.twitter.com/BlondeHistorian/status/1412727879457251333
I’ve learned a bit from her, about some of the adaptive technologies available, as well as from Wheels For Wellbeing which had good information about adaptive ways of moving around under one’s own power while having a mobility handicap.
Hi BCS. You’ve not posted awhile. Hope you are doing ok and making progress with getting vaccinated? Take care of yourself.
My first post – hope it fits the tenor. Put me straight if not.
Commiserations on the chemo after-effects – hope they clear well. Being of a similar age I’ve had recent touches of similar issues – in my case it’s hormone treatments which now have me getting spells of feeling like a lovesick teenager. Love brings joy but love also hurts! All very well, it’s been a long time, but inappropriate to an old man still also very much in love with his wife he’s known for 60 years.
Indeed, welcome! We’re a pretty freewheeling bunch; as long as you aren’t actively or persistently offensive, you should get along fine.
Welcome in, T-in-W!