Image Stream - Ephemera

A random collection of new pieces off the tip of my digital "crayons."


Dead Man's Party
"You’re late," Dax rumbled.

"You started without me."

"Negative. They started it." Dax ignored the incredulous look Liya spared him as she reloaded.

"I suppose you just ‘returned fire,’ then?" Liya scowled. "Self-defense, was it? May want to duck first next time, cowboy."

Dax’s sigh turned into a groan as he handed her another round of shells.

"I’m really going to feel this tomorrow."



Caladorn
"Caladorn -- Tree of Light, he calls you."

Laurel is in trouble in the Dreaming again -- or is she? An enchanted harp in the hands of a bard ...



Siren
Character portrait to replace an old one that I got lazy on.

I hate trying to paint webbed hands. The gills turned out nicely, I think, but the hands ... meh.


Coming of Shadows
I don't know WHO put this particular expression on Liya's face, but I sure hope they've got really good insurance and have made their peace with whatever God they believe in.

Objects at Rest

Do you know what it's like to wake up, get out of bed, move around, get your morning caffeine, check mail, and take a shower without effort or pain?

I had forgotten what that was like.

Oh, sure, my body still aches, but I'm used to that, been living with it for so many years that it's nothing for me. It was the headaches that really got to me, and made me almost completely unable to function. Never have dealt well with pain above the neck; earaches, headaches, toothache, etc. Over 300 days of headache, well, you forget what "normal life" feels like.

The injection sites are still tender, but only really ache when touched -- like taking a shower. But it wasn't bad, just caused a few winces.

Got a party to go to tonight, and I'm actually looking forward to being social for a change. It's different, when your brain isn't trying to explode and ooze out your ears and eyes.

I have another appointment at the pain clinic August 4th, to start the actual pain management program, total profile, complete workup, and they're getting all my MRI results. I really liked the doc, too. I'm finally getting real help with conditions that are never going to go away.

Shiny!

Post-Op Update

I'm home.

The initial local has worn off, and the sites are a little sore, not bad. Got an icepack on it now, lounging in bed.

BUT ....

My head doesn't hurt.

I mean Does Not Hurt. I can turn my head without turning my entire body, and pain doesn't explode. I can look up. I can look down. I can COUGH without my head detonating. For the first time in a year (without the one day where I had benefits of morphine), my head DOESN'T HURT.

Still a little fuzzy from the Versed, but otherwise, things are looking pretty shiny.

T.M.S.

Not TMI, TMS -- or Too Much Shit.

So, I was looking in my purse of holding (just ask Jon -- and yes, Jon, I'm still using that same brown stressed-leather purse I had in DC), trying to find ... well, something, that completely escapes me now like most thoughts do these days.

Now, keep things in mind. In DC, my purse not only held all my vacation need stuff, but all of Jon's while we were out as well, with room to spare.

On the way to Houston for Christmas, knowing we had to go through some Really Bad Places to reach my parent's house, this same purse, along with all my necessary road trip stuff, held the Beretta, along with 3 full clips.

The asides done, as I went in, just digging and not looking (hey, we females usually don't have to look, we know what's in there) and my hand kept hitting metal. A lot of it -- and it wasn't the same thing, over and over. Curious.

So, in the spirit of "What the hell", I dumped my purse out for a regular cleaning. And found:

-- my mini-Swiss army knife
-- my Mini Pal punch blade
-- a 4" hooked Fury serrated knife
-- 4" serrated Gerber knife
-- and that I was missing my actual Gerber multi-tool.

I have four knives in my purse. Why in the name of screaming sweet baby Jesus do I have four knives in my purse? I could not tell you.

There's also a blow-torch lighter, my metal credit card Bill of Rights, an LED flashlight, and a bottle opener. Two pens, a notebook, copy of "Get a Grip on Physics", bottle of meds, 4 shooter's earplugs, bandaids, hairbrush, dental floss, powder compact, lip balm, packet of tissues. And a purple crayon.

Yes, not just any crayon, but a single lonely purple crayon in my purse.

Huh. So, I examine my bedside table, where I'm sitting.

-- 7 bottles of meds
-- three candles, two lit
-- 2 bottles of eardrops for chronic swimmer's ear
-- EIGHT tubes of lip balm
-- 2 bottles of moisturizer
-- scissors and hemostats
-- resin 'goblet' with half a dozen orphan jewelry bits
-- an uber powerful Sylvania Dot It LED light for emergencies
-- Oh, yes, and a fully loaded Beretta.

This makes me really not want to look at my desk.

1 am. Happy Birthday to me. I'm going to clean up my mess as a present to myself.

Now where the hell is my Gerber?

Objects in Motion

We're not in such a great place right now. Okay, a pretty bad place. Husband has lost his job, which means no money, no insurance -- well, you get the idea. Without insurance, my meds alone are 1200 a month. He's diabetic, which means he needs meds too. Which he's ignoring, but I'm used to that.

He COBRA'd my insurance so I'd have it through July, which actually enabled some real progress to finally be made with my last neurologist visit.

Bad News: Add Occipital Neuralgia to my list of Things Wrong With Pooka

Good News: It earned me a trip to (wait for it) ... A PAIN CLINIC!

My appointment at the pain clinic is this Thursday for a nerve block on my occiptal nerve, which -should-, theoretically, take care of the worst of the break-through and OMFGSBJ Can I Die? headaches.

I'm supposed to be there several hours. I already got the phone call, with the "no food after 8:30, clear liquids only" orders. So I know it's not just a background and history visit. People trying to HELP me. Whodda thunk it?

So it's going to be two days late to be a 'real' birthday present for me, but who counts when it's a GOOD present, right?

Pain relief. Better than freakin diamonds, as far as I'm concerned. Oh, who am I kidding, I don't really like diamonds anyway. Better than a new 260 gb hard drive and a 21" flatscreen monitor. Yeah, now THAT works!

Yep. I'm turning 38 tomorrow.

No fretting over aging at this point, I mean, I'm already poking 40 with a short stick, and my body is going about its unnatural business and aging faster than my years spent breathing anyway. Maybe it's a flux in quantum mechanics, or my body is going by "mileage" instead of "years". I suppose that would quantify out why my body is definitely trying to push the 65+ range instead of a nice perfectly normal 38.

So, the List:

--Reflex Sympathetic Dystrophy/Complex Regional Pain Syndome (RSD/CRPS)
--Fibromyalgia (which I argue with after the new findings)
--Thoracic Outlet Syndrome (same argument, just symptoms misread)
--Osteoarthritis
--Arnold Chiari Malformation I
--Cervical Spinal Stenosis
--Peripheral Neuropathy
--Occipital Neuralgia


Quite a doozy to look at, huh? And of course, I'm already wearing bifocals, which I knew I needed, but never realized how much till I had them, and suddenly I could read things again without doing the "find the right distance" dance.

The List sort of destroys the whole "aging gracefully" concept. There's very little graceful about me anymore. I stay bruised from stumbling, bouncing into things, and half the time not even feeling the impacts that leave the marks.

About the only part that IS aging gracefully is my face. Which is weird, since that's one of the places that usually shows signs first. But no, you can look at my hands and tell, but I am surprisingly free of most wrinkles and lines on my face. Granted, my face is now so gaunt that there's not much to help make wrinkles visible, but trust me, I've LOOKED for them, and I really don't have the things.

I guess you take what you got, and that has to be good enough.