Tag: no rebogs please

Awesome combo already: Eczema and hot* weather!

How can we make it even better? Make that infected eczema. That you have to keep wearing compression stockings over. (Which probably had a lot to do with it getting infected to begin with.) While trying to heal a freaking leg ulcer 😱

Chopping this foot and ankle off wouldn’t help the overall situation much, but it’s feeling too tempting about now.

(For an extra level of fun, what set off the outbreak and made my skin start peeling off in the first place was some cohesive wrap with latex in it. Never reacted to latex before, so of course that’s the perfect time to start. Turns out that this isn’t an uncommon thing, with the existing ulcer inflammation making it so you can get sensitized more easily to just about anything. Of course.)

* Even British-hot weather, when you’re not used to it anymore. At least it’s not 90F+ like when I was a kid, is all I can say.

Not the best all-over body day so far, but at least I did make it up the street shopping a little while ago. Both the cats and I should be good for very low spoons food until tomorrow, if not Saturday.

I should probably try to get a grocery delivery set up for over the weekend, for items I can’t get without a bus trip otherwise. But, I really don’t have the spoons for even that right at the moment. (Which is part of how it keeps not happening, but hey 😑)

One benefit of being on my own, though: not feeling many qualms about piling up and resting if I need to. No responsibilities to anybody but the animals for the time being, and nobody else’s scheduling needs to try and work around.

It is of course frustrating again that trying to stay fed, etc., on my own for a couple of weeks is even a challenge. But, I really am trying here. Also frustrating to keep needing to tell yourself that, but again doing my best.

They made “several attempts … to de-escalate the encounter through the use of less lethal force,” including a Taser and a “foam impact round,” Johns Creek Capt. Chris Byers said.

Impressed yet again. When your idea of how best to “de-escalate” things when someone is already in crisis and not in good control starts with shouting at them a lot and then attacking them with “less lethal force”? No forseeable problems there…

What keeps getting me even more is how they (usually rightly) expect this type of excuse to fly.

I’m actually pretty glad to live with someone who was apparently taught to sit (common some places!), wipe, and wash those hands afterwards.

I mean, the first part isn’t as directly relevant to personal hygiene as the other two, but it’s not nearly as likely to create other messes. Which is kinda the point.

(Nah, and that’s mild compared to pretty much the rest of the first page of search results. A much bigger affront than being asked to wash your hands.)

I do have some OCD germ stuff going on anyway–which I do recognize is connected to OCD, and not just other people being nasty (unlike my grandmother). I was also trained that just walking into a bathroom means you need to wash your hands before leaving. As was my uncle, for that matter.

Wouldn’t necessarily recommend that approach, for the sake of your hands if nothing else. But, there is some healthy middle ground there.

Reminded again, with the “hostile environment” anxiety kicking up?

At least we are in a better practical position right now than most people the Home Office has been going after.

(Mostly for length.)

The US may be a no-go indefinitely, including for me. (Unless I want to be penniless, unable to work, with even worse access to healthcare, and best case crashing on some relatives I’m not on great terms with now.) Mr. C obviously couldn’t go there on short notice–though at least I don’t think giving up on the visa application before would bar him from applying again for 10 years or whatever. It wasn’t rejected, the process was just hung up way longer than Then-Employer was willing to wait.

Still, an extremely shitty option in a lot of ways. Not least the political situation; out of the frying pan, and all that. It galls me even worse as an actual Native person, but going back home would be a terrible idea overall now. Much less by myself, without many survival-level prospects.

But, luckily there are several countries where we could both go without any paperwork hassle/waits required in advance. Not just Sweden, with the reciprocity. Also he’s in a pretty high-demand field, and keeps getting felt out for offers as it is. (At least partly with the “Ouch, Brexit! You’re probably wanting to get away, and this could be win-win” factor, yeah.)

I don’t like ending up needing to rely so heavily on anyone to begin with. Thanks, disability! :/ It’s extra nerve-wracking, though, when that also extends to your immigration status (as an EEA family member now), and the uncertain “hostile environment” future there.

Of course, I also keep worrying even more that if things turn even more difficult with the Home Office added on top, he might decide that yes, he’s fed up with the extra hassles. And my dead weight bullshit in general. Probably not that likely, but it’s hard not to think about the possibility.

Even if there weren’t the flood of Brexit-prompted applications backed up, and the freaking DVLA hadn’t lost my passport with documentation I would need? I want to apply for British citizenship even less now than before, and I wasn’t exactly rushing to do it already. I do not want to stay somewhere that I keep getting treated like garbage, day to day, besides other stubborn considerations. He seems to feel the same way. Was considering going for citizenship before, but not if you paid him now. Less day to day hostility for him, but we both know where we’re not wanted.

Anyway, I also end up feeling bad because I know that I’m in a much better position right now than most of the people targeted. More decent options, and I’m not about to get bounced out with nothing like the Commonwealth citizens who have been here most of their lives and are getting done that way. I keep feeling like I don’t even have that much to complain about, by comparison.

This whole situation has still not been great for my mental or physical health, let’s just put it that way. Pretty sure the stress really isn’t helping my blood sugar levels, besides anything else.

And it’s probably been less bad than for too many others who are facing worse prospects. Which makes me very angry in a helpless-feeling kind of way.

Just thinking again with the “And thats not even on the reservations. Thats just in farming communities of the Lumbee. And we are doing well by comparison to other groups.”

My mother felt a need to comment more than once that at least our folks didn’t have the level of drinking problems like seems so common out West.

Totally brushing over the number of bad situations over the years just directly involving our own family where alcohol was like gasoline on a fire. Never mind other people we knew.

I mean, I recognize that this probably came as a direct result of growing up around some “higher functioning” alcoholics, where you weren’t supposed to notice much less talk about any problems there. (Including at least one very close relative now.) Still exasperating, though.

I am getting very, very tired of that contender for the most ridiculous seizure trigger ever.

It will just suddenly kick in at about the most troublesome part of the cycle, with no obvious warning. So even if I do drop everything and manage to get out of this part of the house/grab headphones and get them going pretty quickly? I’m already fucked up for hours. Spacey, totally exhausted, uncoordinated, and migrainey even if it doesn’t make it into full-blown seizure mode. My nervous system still gets flash fried enough to make things hard.

No getting around it. And it’s pretty much every day, sometimes more than once.

In here trying to put together some supper now anyway yet again, because what else are you going to do? When it is a regular occurrence.

Things were already hard enough, but this additional layer really isn’t making things more liveable right now.

Struck again by that last commentary on the eatin’ sock, that I really am pretty glad I grew up around some more matter-of-fact attitudes about actually a lot of things. But disability definitely included there.

Not that this set of approaches can’t carry its own failure modes. (Ask my brainweasels, or rather please don’t rile them up more.) But, it would honestly never occur to me to get all creepy about the need for an eatin’ sock. Whether it’s for a cat or anybody else.

I still get shocked sometimes, when I think I understand just how different a set of assumptions some other people are working from. That can also make for extra fun when you’re encountering them aimed at you, of course 😵

And I know this is one of those things that people with sufficiently different experiences would have a hard time believing.

Why would anyone expect to find European fair folk there? Not their tramping ground either.

That’s also just about the same explanation as the Devil, in context, for “stuff I have no other real framework to understand or develop stories about”.

Not that I would actually expect much unusual to happen if I went there, but let’s just say that European mythological beings would not feature in even the 5th possible explanatory story springing to mind. (Counting assorted versions of that old standby, The Devil, in that category too.)

I realize that appealing stories are the intention there, and this is another case where I’m not even wanting to single anybody out–because it is such a common type of thing.

But, that makes another example even more disturbing, in a way. Few settlers seem to even consider some implications, or why some things might not always go over well. Just one relatively small illustration.

Time for another round of something that sounds like a lot funnier problem than it really has been to deal with.

I’ve been dealing with an issue lately which makes it a good idea to prop one leg up a lot more than I’ve been managing to. The main complication there, besides the usual trouble with staying still?

The best, halfway comfortable way of getting the leg up is to mostly lie back in the bed. So, I’m almost immediately fighting going to sleep 😪 No matter what time of day, or when/how much I’ve already slept.

Reading or even playing games has me out like the proverbial light. Usually watching something that grabs my attention is a better plan.

So, last night I still managed to zonk out within maybe 20 minutes of getting down for the first time that day–halfway sitting up, with my headphones and reading light still on, watching a show. Stayed out for around 6 hours again, before I could force myself up to go to the bathroom and take care of a few things (like the fish lights 😑) that I passed out before I could deal with earlier.

That’s the most disorienting and inconvenient episode so far, but it’s been a problem. I’ve just been avoiding even sitting down much at any time of the day that I really don’t want to risk falling asleep for who knows how long.

Anyway, it’s hard to figure out how much of this crap is coming from (a) general illness-related fatigue, (b) keeping trying to push through the ongoing compound burnout situation, © both meltdowns and seizurey shit happening multiple times a week if not more often recently, and/or (d) some unknown different factor.

Don’t know how much I can do about any of those possible factors, but it might be useful to figure out wtf is going on. Pretty much spoiled for choice right now, though.

I am inclined to mostly blame last night’s episode on the fact that I managed to have a meltdown earlier in the day partly set off by frustration at not being able to avoid a seizure trigger not long after getting up. (There goes the day…) Whatever else, that one-two punch definitely did not help the energy levels. To say the least.

At any rate, it’s kind of frustrating. And I don’t think just taking a nap every time would be a great solution, if I want to get basically anything else done.

(Just needing to vent some, BTW. Not looking for advice at all.)