Done Since 2018-11-18

[mdlbear]

Not too bad a week, modulo the fact that Colleen has been in the hospital since Monday; she went straight from her nephrology appointment to the ER. Her kidney function is recovering, thank goodness, and she has fired her old urologist in hope of finding someone in the Everett/Providence system who can do a better job of it. (Notes may include medical TMI, so be aware of that. On the other hand, we had the whole family together for Thanksgiving, both in Colleen's hospital room and the house. We'll end it with music in Colleen's room. this afternoon.

We've done quite a bit of singing, so that's good too.

In NaBloPoMo status, I missed posting Friday (and posted what I'd intended to post then on Saturday). So I'm still on track with number of posts, but not posts per day. Blarg. (For writing every day, I could count the work I did in the Rails tutorial.)

Anyway, not much to say this time. Probably the top link is One Atom of Justice, One Molecule of Mercy, and the Empire of Unsheathed Knives, by Alexandra Rowland, by way of this comment from kyleri on last week's s4s about "The Mary Ellen Carter". It's about "hopepunk", which seems particularly appropriate for this week.

Notes & links:

1120Su
  * up 6:30; W=199.8, S=7:32;
  * AMEX (due 1118)
  ~ 10am wake N if she hasn't come in by 10
  * singing:  Bells of Norwich, Hymn, Lies - work on scripting, The Mary Ellen Carter
  : N left wearables (bathrobe, laundry) etc. (Kwa) in her box.  Determined to make this a
    second home.
  * SL long-handled pruner -- trim trees, cat food, cat litter, kibble; turkey baster,
    chili beans(kidney, black), sandwich bread, English, coffee, bag of ice
  @ One Atom of Justice, One Molecule of Mercy, and the Empire of Unsheathed Knives –
    Alexandra Rowland – Optimistic Indie Roleplaying Hopepunk, via this comment from kyleri
  % nose very congested.  Grump.  

1119Mo
  * Awake 3:30 for about the usual hour or so
  * up 7ish; S=7:03;
  : V arrived about a quarter of 8
  @ The Joy of Tech comic... Zuckerberg's pet good one.
  * Tandi
  @ The Best Way To Save People From Suicide - The Huffington Post
    Now Matters Now
    cf Boggle the owl inactive since 2014-07
  ~ 10:30 Jaryd Malbin of DDG https://duckduckgo.zoom.us/j/521290024 rescheduled.
  @ Un bureau spécialement conçu pour accueillir votre chat quand vous travaillez
    Ascend Desk on Behance
  @ World's first fully 3d-printed motorbike
  * 11:40 C Dr. Thao Pascual, Snohomish Kidney Institute.  3901 Hoyt Ave, Everett.
  ~ 2-2:45 CrowdStrike phone screen Sat Nath, Senior Manager, Engineering
    https://jobs.jobvite.com/crowdstrike/job/osFN8fwM/apply -> rescheduled
  : Colleen went from her appointment with the nephrologist straight to the ER.
    Providence, because they have both an ER and a dialysis machine
  * 3:30 Ben Rifleman Tango Card.  Senior Platform Software Engineer phone
    https://tangocard.applytojob.com/apply/dho1mS/Senior-Platform-Software-Engineer
    The interesting question:  "If you were going to come here to teach something, what
    would it be?" <- ~"Git.  Depending on the audience I might teach why git is awesome
    and why you should use it, git workflows, or git internals."
  * about 2/3 of the way through Chapter 7 of the Rails tutorial.
  : 21:23 Just heard from Vivian -- Colleen's in a room 815D; she's been getting IV fluids
    and her BP is back up; the doctors will be coming by in a couple of hours; we won't
    know anything until then.  Vivian's on her way back.  I'll go over in the morning. 
  
1120Tu
  * up 5:35; W=199.8, S=6:13;
  * left 8:30ish; arrived 10:30 after taking the 9:30 ferry
  * C Providence room D851.  Take headset for interview. oops.  But seems to be working
  * 11:00am Ryan Neal of Netlify.  Google hangout: https://meet.google.com/hwv-srpz-vff
    Seemed to go pretty well.  Small team - 4 people; will grow to ~8.  It's claimed that
    the on-calls (weekly rotation) are light.
    Once again, no audio on my end.  Mic worked fine.  Speaker test worked from the
    control panel before trying to connect, but not while connected, and it isn't working
    now either.  Infuriating.
  : When I got back from lunch ~1 C had been taken downstairs for a PICC install
  : 3:45 C finally got back to the room.  Needed a central line this time.
  * SL fresh cranberries (we have the rest of the fruit), vanilla ice cream, stick butter,
    steak sauce, TV dinners, half-and-half, tomatoes, deli ham, garlic black bean sauce,

1121We
  * Up 5:30; W=200.8;
  : 11:28 C out of bed and in her recliner.
  : creatinine 6 (was 7 yesterday; goal is 2)
  % 12:30 beginnings of a sugar crash; Started noticing just about the time C told me to
    go down and get lunch.  Decided to have cranberry rather than frappuccino
  : 1:30 back into bed.  Still has not gotten loperamide
  : C fired her urologist because she'd brushed off the UTI.  I have no idea whether that
    was a sane thing to do.  I'm helpless here.
  : nurse(RN) - the plug is mucus.  Mucus plugs are a thing.  Saline flush fixed it.
  & been fighting obscure bugs in the rails tutorial.  There's almost no relationship
    between the actual error and the error messages (partly because of all of Rails'
    implicit conversions)  
  ~ L SL: eggs, Bell's poultry seasoning, 1 jar turkey bouillion, kosher salt, TP,
    broccoli, chicken stock
  * Called the kids.  Chaos is looking at graduating after they catch up on math; I think
    next winter or spring.  Called Mom.
  : Cygnus's "e" key seems to be going the way of the "s".  Probably time to at least
    order a new keyboard.  Much as I'd like a slightly newer machine, maybe an X220 or
    X230, I can't quite justify it to myself.  Cygnus does what I need it to.

1122Th Thanksgiving
  * up 5:55; W=200.8, S=6:16;
  * 7am start turkey prep.  Oiling the inside of the bag may or may not have been the
    right thing; some recipes say to use butter, and that's close enough.  preheat oven to
    375; rub bird with poultry seasoning.
  * 8am put turkey in oven.  Wants 15-20m/lb -> 2:15-3:00 (actually the recipe says 13-15)
    Kidd Kraddicks Famous Brown Bag Turkey Recipe - Genius Kitchen (minus the
    stuffing, and rubbed with poultry seasoning as well as olive oil.
  $ RE 54.91 (paypal) to eBay for MXL 2008
  * 11ish, turkey done.  Spent the next hour on "carving" (in quotes because it was
    falling apart and basically deconstructed itself), gravy, etc.  Moments before leaving
    C called to say that she was NPO, so stashed her share.  (She's back on food as of
    this evening, so that's good.)
  : Just missed the 12:30 ferry
  : Firing her urologist seems to have done C a lot of good emotionally.
  & N rode up to the house with me.  I miss the times when we used to commute together.
  % I seem to be a little shakier than usual.  Going down the stairs in the parking
    garage; sitting down more slowly; ... weird.
  * finished Chapter 7: Sign up | Ruby on Rails Tutorial (Rails 5) | Softcover.io
  % for some reason I'm earworming a couple of lines from "Lament of a Dry-Town Bride".
    Huh?  I'm hearing them in Cyndi's voice, too.

1123Fr Black Friday
  * up 6:30; W=200.8, S=7:26; cat boxes
  * finished Chapter 8: Basic login | Ruby on Rails Tutorial (Rails 5) | Softcover.io
  : K coming over for a sleep-over.  G going home after dinner; will meet in K's room
    Sunday for music.
  : C probably discharged tomorrow or Monday.  (which will be complicated)
  <- Molly
     Electric blue.  The
     Only possible color.
     Skip the drywall jokes.  (finished 1124; not posted today as originally intended)

1124Sa
  & awake 5ish
  * Up 6ish; S=; shower
  * conversation with N
  * set up Cudy RE300 repeater as rainbows-end-apt; works flawlessly.  Not bad for $15.
    It's a different network, so there may be problems with Amazon dots, printing, etc.
  * Music:  Kf:  The Mary Ellen Carter, October Country, Ship of Stone, Lord of the
    Buffalo, Gentle Arms of Eden.
  * I made a totally unnecessary amount of pasta (2 lbs) and sauce.  Had to transfer the
    pasta to a larger pot, and add water to it.  Fortunately that worked.  There's a lot
    left, but left-over pasta does eventually get used, though perhaps not as quickly as
    rice.

Word counts for the week:
   1445 2018/11/18--done-since-1111.html
    125 2018/11/19--cat-desk.html
    194 2018/11/20--moms-cranberry-relish.html
    177 2018/11/21--update-on-colleen.html
    353 2018/11/22--thankful-thursday.html
    207 2018/11/24--a-random-haiku.html
    348 2018/11/24--s4s-band-practice.html

NaBloPoMo stats:
  15374 words in 27 posts this month (average 569/post)
   1513 words in 1 post today

Comments

[jesse_the_k]

What a week!

"Beginnings of a sugar crash" indeed--three phone interviews and C in the hospital?

You are a pillar of strength.

[mdlbear]

As for pillars, more often it feels like Rodan's fallen caryatid.

[jcfiala]

Sorry to hear C is in the hospital over the holiday - that sounds rough. I hope she's home soon.

[archangelbeth]

*reads notes*

I strongly validate firing any urologist who brushes off UTIs. Those things climb into the kidneys and they can be fatal ("as you know, bob") -- and even just a lingering bladder infection with minor symptoms can be pretty draining. (I made my spouse go to the doctor t'other day, and while the test didn't really show infection signs, they put him on antibiotics and OH HEY HE FELT BETTER.)

I'm glad kidney function is improving!

Also, crossing fingers on making microphones work and such.

[mdlbear]

Yeah -- scary stuff. It's looking like the best thing would be to remove the bladder altogether and go with nephrostomy tubes. Which is a massive inconvenience, but way better than either the current situation or dialysis.

[archangelbeth]

Holy yikes! Extreme, but if there's enough damage that UTIs would keep happening, then yeah, far better than dialysis or other "so I have my own room at the hospital and the nurses don't have to look at my files to greet me by name" situations.

[mdlbear]

Colleen's thinking, too. Compared to dialysis or to a catheter that's constantly getting clogged, leaking, and causing infections, a little external plumbing sounds like a good idea.

[archangelbeth]

Yeah, if those are the options, I definitely see that a bit of external plumbing has some distinct advantages over the other two. Here's hoping all goes smoothly and on a good schedule!

[amaebi]

Oh, my, I hope Colleen's doing better now?

[mdlbear]

Yes; she's doing considerably better, and expects to be home tomorrow.