Made of panic

Yesterday I went to the pharmacy, it was my first time outside since lockdown started.

Today I was called in for last minute blood tests they they had forgot to tell me about earlier.

I am somewhat packed.  My flat is not remotely ready to have someme convalesce in it.

I should be more practical and achieving of stuff but instead I watch too much TVNZ On Demand.

I shaved and my face rebelled.  It is too hideous even for me to post pictures of it - and usually I have little shame about looking awful.

Life.

It happens.

Until it doesn't.

I guess at my age they won't bring up the option of a DNR.

Anyway, the nil by mouth is about to begin.

Because I hate myself I have been watching the final season of Black Lightning.  The writing is terrible.

At least I had started the day with the considerably better Postmortem, because Norwegia.

Too much Netflix.  Otherwise doing nothing but panic and a bit of bad singing in case I lose the ability forever this week.

Continuing from the last entry I failed to complete, as usual, right at the part the title for the last one came from

So, late afternoon, after failing to do the things I needed to, I received a phone call from the hospital.

Due to someone else cancelling, they can get me in for my surgery in the coming week.

So, yay.  I will get it done before this thing gets even bigger (and hopefully before it has turned cancerous).

But also, balls!  Lockdown is going to make everything difficult.  Simon has family commitments that mean I probably can't violate his lockdown bubble to convalesce at his place.  Dad is back to work right when I would need him to stay - so can't use him for it either.  So no idea how things are going to sort out.  I don't even get the pre-assessment the night before because of the rush and lockdown - so will go into surgery with no one actually have examined how big the growth is since last year.  And I was given basically no information except an apology that there wasn't time for them to post out the information pack about what I'll need (why don't they have it in email form?).

So then I spent the night over researching the risks.  I now understand why the surgeon wrote the permanent vocal damage off as unimportant as it is usually just lose of precision, taking out pitch control.  So if it goes wrong I would most likely just lose ability to sing.  Next step in badness I would be left horse or soft voiced.  Neither of those outcomes are good, but also reasonable unlikely to happen.  

The statistics are on my side, even though I know that isn't solid protection of any sort.

Then I fell down a catching up on The Flash hole.  Season 7 is terrible, so much of it makes NO SENSE.  I had remembered it being closer to non-terrible than the other CW DC shows, but that may been overgenerous of me.

But it eased me away from panic research.  Not necessarily from the panicking.  But can't expect miracles of bad TV.

Yay, and/or Balls!

So, last weekend.

It happened.  I stayed in PJs the whole time.  Otherwise I have nothing specific that I remember.  Lockdown blurs all the days.

Tuesday I put on some actual clothes for the only time yet in this lockdown, so receive a food delivery from Gilbert's.  $38 spent to garner two breakfasts (of almond croissant), three lunches and a dinner.  All tasty and easy.

Wednesday morning I had an early morning parcel arrival.  My Critical Role merch that I ordered from Australia a couple of days before the lockdown thing happened.  It includes masks, in case there was another lockdown....

Then after lunch a Countdown delivery from Alana.  It had useful enough stuff, though lacked the couple of things I had realised I was seriously low on (like having been entirely out of bread already).  But it was helpful.

This busiest day of lockdown left me with an intense attack of stir crazy, so I finally broken open my Lego Botanical Collection Bird of Paradise set, building the pot.  After a dinner of frozen meal from Alana, I started watching One Lane Bridge for the shameless advertising of Queenstown.

Yesterday, I got up and finished One Lane Bridge up to the currently aired episode, then finished building the Lego Bird of Paradise.  It looks okay.  Otherwise is was just another nothing day.  I didn't even open a computer game, as the morning had left to exhausted.

Today, I had a Countdown delivery I ordered for myself arrive, missing the salad bags it was supposed to have.  Forcing me to interact with the stupid Olive chat bot thing that takes their complaints.

I was supposed to go to the pharmacy to get repeats (though I have more than a week) but it has been raining all day so I have spent it in my PJs doing basically nothing.

 Doing nothing, failing to even write about it

Original three day lockdown done, now for the necessary extension

I have not left my building since Tuesday, though have been down to the mailboxes and today the rubbish bins.

Wednesday, I did..... something.  YouTube mostly.  Actually a quick check of the history shows multiple episodes of Critical Role - so unhealthy amounts of YouTube.  While getting angry at how buggy The Sims 4 is still.

Also much texting with family.  As my sickly uncle died, only days after learning he had terminal cancer.  It got him fast.  I am not sure if it is a blessing or not.

Thursday morning I was awoken by the postie buzzing my intercom to say I had a package and he was leaving it at the building door (not coming in because COVID).  It was a big jar of lollies (M&M's and skittles all mixed up together) from Alana and her family.  I watched much less YouTube, because I napped through some TV instead.  Rewatching My Life is Murder.  But I managed to shower and pretend to human a little.  In the evening my father visited to talk about the whole Invercargill death trip that I had skipped.  It was a weird socially distanced, masked-up visit even though I am a bubble to myself and really allowed to bubble share with him - though I guess he had been hanging out in sizeable group in a hospital past the start of lockdown.  He also brought baking, which is possibly a bit of a vector in itself.

And then getting angry at the dumpster fire that is RuPaul's Drag Race All-Stars.  Too much Ru is one episode just drew attention to how crap the show is and how he appears to have no sense or taste.

Today, first up I awoke to have no running water so had to waste some effort ringing the managers and then the water came on just before the plumbers called with their COVID safety checklist.  So I got to tell them not to bother coming and shall likely never know why I had no water.  Also, I was not feeling great so have been watching a bunch of CritRole's Narrative Telephone as it is comedy that requires zero attention or thought.  In the process I accidentally ate far too much of the jar of lollies, it was sitting beside my on the couch and I didn't realise until I was far too far into it that I was devouring much more than I realised.  Now having a quiet night of bad TV.  The Outpost has added a weird scifi-esque bent to its high fantasy setting, and DC's Stargirl remains semi-crap but watchable.

I am not well prepared for this lockdown.  Meals are going to start getting annoying - I may have to supermarket shop for myself this time.  I am too old to be depending on my dad for groceries through lockdown.

Morbidity and mortality and the rise of delta

I awoke to the news that my least favourite uncle is terminally ill and in late stages.  So I spent a lot of the morning pretending he hadn't been a dick to me every time I ever interacted with him.

I understand this is very sad for my father, but I only have negative memories of that uncle.  Including some pretty spectacularly awful ones, to the point I had discussed him with my shrink before.

 There was interest fungus in my back garden.

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I made it to Artsenta writing group only about 8 minutes late.   Though the short short story I wrote was commended as a wonderful poem.

Walking through town I realised I was paying far too much attention to beardy dorks and fit-for-their-age silver foxes.  Far too much noticing other people.  And judging their husbandibility......  I may have the lonesomes.  But going through town also featured stopped at spec savers to get the loose screw issue solved and got my glasses cleaned in the process (revealing they were messier than I had guessed).  And I actually bought the book I read in the weekend, to support the author.

Brain-poking was considerably about my uncle.  A certain electric fence in my childhood.  And my lack of forgiveness.  Though also had a much worse than usual attack of my brain suggesting he'd be good to hug to distract me from overly hard thoughts.  I know what it is doing, but it is still deeply disconcerting.  And, apart from being utterly inappropriate and not actually an option, he does vague fit my list which makes the disruptive and intrusive thoughts a bit harder to shake.

I failed to buy groceries on the way home as I was in a mood and decided that could be tomorrow-Matthew's problem.  So obviously the evening brought news of an immediate lockdown as COVID had got into New Zealand.  So tomorrow-Matthew will just have to make do on very limited supplies for the run of this lockdown.

Also thought there was an earthquake while I was in town until realising it was just my tremors playing up.  I have been a bit tremor-y ever since.  It had been behaving so well recently.

I caved

Tavendale came around and we went for lunch at Side On (the place on Moray with the cardamom buns), and got nice food while having a pleasantly random chat.  After walking home I got a bit weird on him - not sure why, may have just been unhelpfulness from my brain.  Hopefully he has known me long enough to not hold it against me now.  At least we don't live in the same city, so he is safe from my brain deciding that we could do worse than just settling for each other.  Maybe he could do worse, but he could also do a lot better.

 Maybe (well, not maybe, definitely) I am just overthinking things.  I blame my dinosaur boxers.  Every time I wear them I end up second-guessing if there is 'date' type thinking going on.

Then late afternoon I caved and broke out the deep heat again to get my arm moving.  And then sat around wondering why it is called deep heat, or why it claims to cause heat, when the sensation is all coldness.  but obviously it is because the cold is a lie and the body's response to that lie means there is some warm.  And I am rambling at the zero readers of my blog.  I'm a monster.  Sorry zero readers, I apologise for wasting no actual time of anyone except myself.  And maybe some Russians using this to train bots in idiomatic English.

Then my family declared dinner plans, which seemed a good way to wake myself up for a quiz I intended to go to.  We went to Spirit House and had Thai food dinner watching over the ocean.  It just made me sleepier.  So I came house to do a LOT of nothing.  Haven't gone to bed early - but haven't done anything that involves being actually awake or thinking.

Am generally just feeling very out of it.

And I am making overnight oats with sliced almond and buckwheat in it and pretending that makes it bircher as I have no idea what actually makes bircher different from overnight oats.

It is tomorrow, even if date stamps suggest otherwise.

On Thursday I was moving all awkward and lopsided.  Showering and dressing was a bit of a mission.  But I went in to town for lunch with Oli anyway.  After which, I met my dad at the supermarket to grab some supplies and some deep heat.  It was mostly about the deep heat.

Deep heat is amazing.  It worked so much faster than I was expecting and let me move my left arm again.

Then Thursday dinner was Nando's with Firmin and Simon.  It was nice enough.  We went back to Simon's afterwards and watched, of all things, Romancing the Stone.  It is SO eighties.  But the remaster from film is very nice, almost looks new.  The night ended with Firmin, the only one of my friends who has ever carried my roleplaying bag, lecturing me about cutting it down so that I don't have so much weight throwing my balance off.  Yes, I have been wearing that 15ish kg bag every time I have injured myself on stairs.  But that doesn't mean the weight is the issue....

Friday was the one day I applied deep heat three times (the box says 2-3 times per day).  Otherwise I did little.  Slothed at home.  Made stirfry for dinner (it had kale - so must count as healthful).  Started reading a book about a magic school under Fox Glacier.

Saturday, finished Tim Te Maro and the Subterranean Heartsick Blues by H. S. Valley.  It is so aggressively kiwi.  Though nice to read a book about homos by a brown woman instead of the regular white woman claiming ownership of the gay boy experience....

Sunday, watched youtube and got angry at bad routing in The Sims 4.  Only when showering did I discover I still needed deep heat as my left arm would not comply enough to easily wash my hair.

Today, have pants on before noon and after days of deep heat am trying to go without.

The amount of loud swearing reveals what game I have been wasting time playing. The bad routing and lagginess make me so angry.

I was going to write on Tuesday, I had some insightful thing to share.  My memory has not held what that thing was though.

I think it was about brain poking, or something I had worked out at brain-poking.  But I can't remember anything about the session beyond the ridiculous raincoat my shrink was wearing.

On the way home I was getting angry at the wind somehow blowing wisps of fringe into my mouth even though most of it wasn't that long (stupid balding making all the hair grow at different rates), so I went to Bloke and got a walk in haircut from some twig-creature-child called Liam.  I got a fade thinking it would be a lesson in not doing anything hip, and it is actually really good.  I like it so much.  It may also be getting bonus points for being a haircut that Shitlord would have passive-aggressively punished me for, and for being a haircut that my sister accused me of being a Nazi for having.

That evening I went to the Speight's Ale House for dinner with my dad and sister (thus a chance to be called a Nazi), before we went and watched the new The Suicide Squad movie.

Wednesday I didn't feel good.  I had slept poorly and kept zoning out (even having an accidental afternoon nap in a chair - which is never pleasant or comfortable).  But I got sorted-ish for my game and was preparing to head in.  First I got pretty intensively fat-shamed by one of my neighbours, then I slipped on the stairs, falling and doing a bit of damage to myself in preventing a faceplant.  So I was in a pretty awful mood heading in to game and ended up a little late after stopping at the bus hub for a much needed vent at one of my favourite Claires.  And I had some awkwardness setting up as my left arm wasn't moving a bunch.

The game went mostly okay.  The one on-task player has had to pull out, so the game will be a lot more distractible from here on - meaning I probably don't need to be as prepared.....

Then the game ended and I waiting for everyone else to leave as getting back into my roleplaying bag when much of my body wasn't moving right was an embarrassing spectacle even without an audience.

[stupidly writing too late at night, I should sleep, will hopefully pick this up tomorrow]

Also, see my ‘nazi’ haircut - and shirtless as covered in much deep heat.

My brain hates me

 I woke to snow - not good snow just enough to make the hilltops white and everything cold.

And with a migraine on the left.  Why can't they just stay on the right front where I have learned to ignore them?  Today was very left focused and sometimes even at the back.  It was not a good day.

It was bad enough for a while that my vision was getting distorted and as I lay in bed reading Alexis Hall's Boyfriend Material while my kindle would go all weird and curvy in my vision.

Another week down

 Brain-poking on Tuesday was mostly about Shitlord again.  Which is annoying as I hadn't mentioned him in ages and then his birthday comes along again and rudely reminds me how trash he is (Facebook's memories feature does a bit of this too - reminding me of all the non-subtle cries for help I didn't realise I was making and which my friends ignored).

After the session I got lunch in town and then went to a GP appointment.  Because my doctors office sucks, I had an appointment with a random locum.  She turned out to be most university med-school staff, and lamented she didn't have a student with her as my neck is now interesting enough to be something students should see.  Being told I was medically interesting was a clear sign that I have been inadequately looked after by the health system, things shouldn't have got this bad.  Then being told I should be turning up at ED every time it is especially swollen as the doctor didn't trust the hospital to actually schedule my now-overdue surgery unless I had a right nuisance of myself.

This is not how our medical system is supposed to work.

I know I should feel angry and driven to sort things.

But I just feel....

Defeated.

So defeated that I sort of feel like the correct response is to just curl up somewhere and die - be a statistic of the DHB's many failings.

Wednesday I had lunch with my dad and sister at the Esplanade.  I gave myself mild tomato poisoning with very nice lasagna.

Thursday I had to wash and leave the house to get meds that the pharmacy hadn't had on Tuesday.  I had also had plans with Midget but she'd bumped them a day.

Friday morning Tina came to visit and we went for a morning walk around second hand book stores.  Then had lunch with Midget and spilt butter chicken down my new Watford School of Magicks hoodie.  One of the goats three eyes is still orange even after going through the wash.

I have not left the house since, as not long after I got home I had an attack of full body pins and needles whenever I moved (normally that only happens when I stretch out my back and comes right in like 30 seconds).  So I went to bed and listened to the Sandman audible Act 1 (Amazon was doing it for free as promotion for Act 2, Neil Gaiman had social media posted a link).  But that was Friday evening and much of Saturday safely used up without having move or use my eyes.  I'll take it.

Then some watching of TV and YouTube and some playing of the very buggy The Sims 4: Cottage Living.

I achieve little, but downtime is all I do but somehow I was still too exhausted and needed a deeper level of downtime.

Proud of dumb things

My brain spent a whole day reminding me it was Shitlord's birthday.  I did not text him.  I ignored my impulse to be nice.
Best adulting I have done.

Anyway, otherwise what have I been up to since I last wrote.

The only two times I have left the house since I last wrote were a trip to pakkers on Saturday evening and then going to my weekly D&D game at Ian's tonight.

Otherwise it has just been a bit of The Sims 4 and a bunch of reading.  T.J. Klune's Flash Fire was a fun, if heavy handedly topical, YA superhero romp (it tries to undo the subtle copaganda of the previous book in the series in a way that is occasionally slightly cringy).

And I spent Sunday wrapped up like a culturally insensitive cosplaying of the Inuit people, with my heatpump the highest I have ever set and and still feeling too cold (even though I have had it confirmed it wasn't a particularly cold day) and feeling super sleepy the whole time.  Once it was late enough in the evening that I could go to bed without it being weird, I was too awake, too warm, and ended up sitting in a room that had had no heating, in my my boxers, feeling far too warm.

Not sure if it was a day of germs, or just the weirdness of my thermoregulation going super overboard for the day.  Hopefully once my messed up thyroid tumour cluster comes out that sort of thing stops (though it did start a long time before the thyroid got particularly large - so knowing my luck it will be some whole other health problem).