Archive for the ‘tremor’ Category
OK, let's see if I remember everything
May 2nd, 2008 | 
Author: Local elections were last night. Now, Economists Don't Vote (which is shorthand for "your vote has a vanishingly small chance of affecting anything, so it's a waste of time", which, like many things that can be proved with maths, is true but would cause catastrophe if people actually acted on it; see also…) is very much false in our ward, which is always a close scrap between Lib Dem and Tory, turning on less than 100 votes the last couple of times IIRC.
My mother and brother both went to the vote count, separately: mother because she's been doing volunteer stuff for the Lib Dems and brother because he moonlights as a reader for a lady called Marie, who was going. The Lib Dem candidate got in, and by a bigger margin than previously. In the wider world Tories are generally gaining at Labour's expense (shock horror), Lib Dems slowly gaining as usual.
I saw a consultant neurologist at 10:00 today, having been lucky enough to score someone's cancelled appointment. My tremor, blast it, was behaving itself perfectly, and my speech was fine too, so I had to hope the doctor would believe me that the symptoms can get a LOT worse. Apparently my performance on the reflex, follow-my-finger-with-yours, now-touch-your-nose tests she got me to do was normal. (Even though I felt extremely clumsy, as ever, and my reaction times have always been inferior. It's possible that I'm a competitive perfectionist, in the way of a fat girl concluding she's anorexic because every time she looks in the mirror she sees a fat girl.)
There's nothing nasty left that it could be and she's not concerned about any of the symptoms. She seems to think they'll sort themselves out as I get further with my… other current course of treatment (speaking of which, next appointment is on the 16th). So she's prescribing beta-blockers and 100mg of wait and see.
And when she puts it like that, I'm curious to know if that'll turn out to be true. I could do with the depression lifting, anyway; been considering getting put back on an SSRI, but putting that off while all the other stuff's going on so's not to complicate things.
And, in a real BBC moment, I just saw Johnny Vegas in the canteen. Maybe they're making another series of Ideal up here. (Surreal comedy series about a drug dealer, filmed in a sorta realistic and grubby style.)
edit: Oh yes, that was the other thing. Our team here at work is moving to be part of a larger team, which is great for me because there'll be other geeks to talk to, and I've just been told that I'm going to get to shadow a CSD, get some training if needed and basically start doing something closer to what I consider real coding.
Which will be awesome. Perhaps I can finally shed my (deserved) self-image as a geek-lite with no skills and basically no clue what he's doing.
(Then I'd just have the other side of the self-image to deal with, the one that weeps a bit whenever I walk past any tall, slim man with perfect hair… yes, I'm that shallow some days.)
Posted in 
Rent-pups and scritchy-scratchies
[edit: This was written yesterday and I forgot to publish it. Whee!]
Rent-a-dog! Fantasy Fuff: about as close to a real relationship as hiring a prostitute, imho. Inclined to agree with the RSPCA person.
Cloned sniffer dogs are after your Mary-Jane!
Arrest warrant issued for Darth Vader
I was reading this (short) experimental report on chimpanzee grooming. It's from 1958 and laughably patronising, not to mention a bit unimaginative. (Didn't E. ever think of grooming Malcolm in return?)
Also, these things. PRATCHETT things. (David Tennant is involved, for all those who inexplicably find him attractive.)
And finally, a sad tale. Because it's official: I can't hear that damn Metallica song without my fingers twitching. (I'm not a guitarist or guitar-gamer, I point out; I would probably hurt myself if I attempted this track on Easy.1)
Slen has five-starred almost everything in GHII and III's career modes on Expert (with only that Slayer auditory fart and Misirlou left to go, I think—not counting DragonForce because that is solid damn.) All this has had the effect of making me vaguely itchy to play an actual instrument.
Also, we only have a righty bass guitar, but I'm strongly lefty by instinct. Boo. >:( (cf achirality, which I have in heaps, but I'd really really rather not pluck with the hand whose fingers seize up. Oh well, sucks to be driving this body, I guess.)
1 Well, my claim to the realm of not suck can be that I got 70% into TTFAF on my first attempt at the game, on Easy obviously. I attribute that to beginner's awesomium coupled with knowing the real song very well. I also epically failed Slow Ride mere minutes beforehand.
[also, edit: must stop air guitaring to Cliffs of Dover in lift.]
Boring medical update 10/04/2008
There are Springwatch/Breathing Places/Dirty Hippie Squad people in the Club bar today, persuading everyone to plant baby wildflower seeds in biodegradable pots and take them home for the bees and butterflies. It's cute. I have duly acquired a little cardboard pot of black stuff and seeds for me mum.
(The seed packet says: Corn cockle, cornflower, corn chamomile, corn marigold, corn poppy, night-flowering catchfly (aha, that sounds more like it!), lady's bedstraw, meadow buttercup, ox-eye daisy (how unutterably vulgar and maudlin), red campion, toadflax, yarrow.)
I hate flowers.
Boring medical updates
03/04/08
Within normal ranges
04/04/08
Within normal ranges
05/04/08
Tremor was particularly unhelpful when I was trying to help pin up a dress my mother's making. Accompanying loss of vocabulary.
Boring medical recordkeeping 31/03/2008
I begin this again 'cause a medical professional asked me to.
Random boring medical update
The tremor continues too. It's affecting my mouse clicking particularly; I click once, the system interprets it as a double-click, or I click and drag to select and the system deselects it again. (I know it isn't the mouse; tried replacing that, cleaning it, etc.) So that means tremors at a lower level than I can detect, more or less constantly. As well as the stress-induced macro fuzzies.
So, affecting my productivity? Check. (As if we didn't know.) Really must get onto the GP and harry someone to look after me.
It's freezing in the office today. Am sitting here in my cheap scallyish puffy coat and considering putting on my hobo gloves. In the middle of the office, in the middle of the day. …Yes, I will put on the gloves. Fingerless typing gloves for the win. *throws up topless horns*
Important edit: Despite strange random letters (which I'm told I shouldn't have got in the first place without being warned beforehand), I'm assured that I will still have a job come end of March. :)
All was a-shake and a-shiver glints and gleams and sparkles
I concluded the couple of weeks of health updates with nothing in the way of interesting detail to gawp at, but have to note that today and last night, both during periods of intense stress (exacerbated), my tremor's been going like a fuggin' rocket. I call it a high 4. The cut on my index finger from a moment of clumsiness a few days ago still hasn't fully healed, and I almost dealt myself another last night.
Knew it would be a bad evening. I'd planned to watch my new DVD and then go right to bed. Uh, yeah.
I'm going to see The Water Horse tonight. No spoilers plz *covers eyes while linking to IMDb*. Monsters are nice. Even if the eponym does turn out to be a kelpie, it won't be wasted time. (If the film's as crap as Eragon, it will be wasted money.)
