Tired Tired Tired

Today is going much better than yesterday, tired is all that can describe yesterday. I dreaded doing an entire day out because of how easily I get fatigued. I had an MRI in the morning and an appointment with my neurologist in the afternoon. Mostly what I dreaded was the MRI; I hate those. As it turns out that was the easiest part of the day.

Apparently Mercy Hospital has been so busy in the MRI department that they needed another machine. There wasn't anywhere to put it so what they have is a mobile MRI unit. It's in a sort of fancy trailer at the dock. This made me feel right at home! How many years did I spend in a truck at docks? Heh. I told the lady technician I found that very cool. Also, this newer machine was much roomier and also shorter so you could leave your arms laying at your sides and you didn't have to be so far in. Unbelievably more comfortable and didn't make my back hurt at all, the way MRI's normally do when I lay flat like that.

After the MRI I managed to lose my valet parking ticket (Mercy has free valet parking, which is extremely nice). The valet people found my truck and I drove to the next parking lot and went to see my doctor. He compared yesterday's MRI pictures with the ones from a few months ago and verified that there are new lesions, new activity with the MS. It's not nearly as bad as before, obviously since the symptoms it's causing now are much more minor, but he said he wants to get it under control better and prescribed me a new medicine, an immunosupressing thing like the chemotherapy they did but this is just a pill. Sounded good to me, I like pills better than infusion.

So I went on my merry way, exhausted by now. I get so tired so easily. It's annoying but I figured I'd just call in the prescription to make sure they had it in stock at my pharmacy and then I'd drop it off and grab lunch while I waited. First I dropped the prescription when I was getting my stuff into the truck, then I found one of the pieces of paper, fortunately the one for the actual medicine, so I could call and check on it. Still don't know what happened to the second script with the order for the weekly blood work he wanted done when I start the new medication but whatever, figured I'd deal with that later.

So I called the pharmacy and find out this is going to cost FIFTEEN HUNDRED dollars. WTH. Doc we need to have a chat. I had already told him I still have no insurance until next month. Sigh. However I was so completely wiped out there was no way I could walk back inside and talk to him right then. I just came home and slept for something like 4 hours. That didn't entirely get me feeling rested up but after a good night's sleep I feel much more able to deal with things. I put in a call to the doctor and am still waiting to hear back from him. Chances are they won't call until tomorrow morning but whatever.

I was too tired to really look at the new lecture in my fiction class last night but I read it this morning. I wanted to listen to an audio short story too which was listed in the discussion section by the instructor but it put me to sleep, ha. I'll try it again later, I think my thinking skills are better in the morning really. I'd also like to read the chapter in Gotham's book on writing fiction that involves the same topic as this week's lecture. I think this class is inspiring me more than the first one I took because I am anxious to get started on a short story and maybe something shorter for my grandpa to put in his newsletter, though I'm not sure of exactly what I'm going to do for either project yet.

Random Thingies

Wow has my blog gotten the cold shoulder from me this week. This bad habit of mine, namely forgetting my own blog, can often be attributed to the World of Warcraft, otherwise known as WoW, popular MMORPG, addiction of many, and this week is certainly no exception. They released an expansion pack on November 13th, a sizable addition to the game two years (ish) in the making. When they do these monstrous expansions they add so much new content from new levels to new lands to explore to new items found, earned, and crafted...well it's like a whole new game that provides endless hours and days of fun. So yea...I got caught up in that and the blog got pushed to a back corner of my mind.

Not to be totally discounted as far as reasons things didn't get done, I think there is a good possibility that I'm in the middle of an exacerbation (flareup) of my MS. My balance is more off than ever, my muscles are being contrary and uncoordinated (more so than usual) and some new places (like parts of my face) have decided to be numb and tingly (like my hands and feet always are these days). My neurologist was less than happy to hear about it (and that I didn't tell him sooner but hey it's not like it happened all at once and I didn't think too much of it, every day stuff can happen or unhappen with this wacky medical condition). At any rate he ordered an MRI a.s.a.p. with an appointment to see him right after. Joy. Just can't get enough of being stuffed in an extremely small space and lying perfectly still while my back starts hurting more and more from lying flat while someone takes pictures of my brain with a very very loud machine. Oh yea.

Despite my own blog getting ignored I have been reading other people's. And one I go to often is The Daily Snooze, a blog by someone whom I first found in AOL's J-Land. I go there far more often than he even posts just to listen to the personal radio station he has embedded in his blog. Love it. I like to keep up on good ol' Scalzi as well. Never a shortage of interesting material (and humor) there. That doesn't even come close to my full list of blogs I enjoy but random thingies don't include full anything.

I got a letter from my grandmother the other day and it included a copy of their church newletter, with something I wrote on the front page. I was surprised and proud. It seems that something I printed out and gave to my mother for her friend that expressed interest in seeing the results of my class...well it ended up in the hands of my grandparents who liked it so much they put it in the newsletter. Just wow. Grandma even mentioned that Grandpa is expected to come up with some little story or poem or something once a month for the front page so if I ever had anything else they'd love to see it. Hmmmm. Contemplating doing Grandpa's homework for him, sometimes anyway.

Last thingy for the day is Feedjit. I found this through someone's blog, though God knows whose. I can't remember now (my neurologist tells me this isn't a memory issue so much as faulty processing in my brain...as in stuff comes in and stuff goes out, doesn't always get properly processed and stored for later retrieval). Regardless how it was found, I am liking this feedjit thing very much. It has various things it can show but what I like the most is to see where visitors to my blog are from geographically. Very interesting.

Jitters

Hello, my name is Xendra. I am an elf and was born in the forest nearly 400 years ago. I don't remember my parents; my earliest memories are of being taught by my elders how to help preserve the balance of nature in our land.

One of the many things they have taught me is how to draw from the earth to cleanse and to heal others. I have also learned to supplement my own abilities by using plants and flowers to create concoctions that will help those who have been injured, or fortify the strength of those who have not been hurt but need help to get them through trials and challenges.

Technically I am not employed, but I make it my job to help any friendly creature who needs it by whatever means that I can. Sometimes I do go on expeditions with others to accomplish greater goals than I can alone. Some of those trips have been highly successful while others have been less so, but always I have pulled through and made it back to my beloved forest where I find peace in the shade of the ancient trees by the still lakes.

Often I travel alone and have made my way far and wide across our land, learning and growing, and have helped many. I try to avoid unpleasant beings as best I can, or at least I have always aimed for that in the past. Lately, I have found myself entering into more and more situations where there has been strong opposition. Fortunately I have managed to pull through and to enhance my skills in the process.

In the future I hope to continue my travels. However, it grows more and more difficult as ill-willed creatures unite in attempts to take over our peaceful lands and I fear that someday we will not be able to fend them off.

This, of course, is not about me. As much as I've thought it would be fun and interesting to be an elf, I've never been one. This is my first assignment for the new writing course. I felt after I'd turned it in that it lacked detail and that is pretty much what the instructor thought, though he didn't use those exact words. He said that while he thinks it is a very creative bio he is left wanting more, wanting to get more of a sense of who Xendra is and of the world that she lives in. Basically that's what I was thinking when I felt that it lacked detail.

I may try to rewrite this at some point and make it better. For the time being though, I'm putting all of my imagination into my next assignment which involves character. I have two basic characters to pick from and to flesh out and portray to the readers, who will be the entire class this week. Eep. Characters can be fun and interesting and endlessly entertaining. The trick is to get that across in writing. I'm sure (at least pretty sure) that I can do this. I'm just finding this particular assignment more challenging than others. And I'm nervous about posting it for the whole class to see! From reading the bios I feel that this is a group of highly intelligent, highly interesting, highly experienced people. In comparison I feel under-educated, less than extremely interesting, and inexperienced. Again I say eep!

Butterflies

I made up my mind to get my assignment for this week in writing class finished today. I was torn between the idea for a biography of an elf and another idea I had for writing a biography of a cat. The elf won out so I put it down in print. I just hope it's a decent biography.

I felt like it needed a little more detail but I wasn't sure what to put in to make it better. We'll see what the instructor has to say.

I'm a little nervous as in looking at the booth scheduling it seems I'm one of the first that will have to put work in the booth. The longer class works a little different from the 6 week course I took. Instead of one assignment being posted for everyone to see and leave comments on, each student is scheduled to post different assignments there, twice during the 10 course.

If I understand the schedule correctly, it is the very next assignment that I will have to put up for everyone to see and critique. It's not optional as it was in the last class I took. So, yeah. Few butterflies in the tummy over this upcoming assignment.

Ideas from the World Around Me

My new writing class started today and I think I will enjoy it just as much as the first one. Today's lecture was about fiction, literary vs. genre, and about writing what you "know" and getting ideas from all around you. The first assignment is simply to write a 300-400 word fictional biography.

I am finding that, contrary to my own opinion, it's easy to get a multitude of ideas for things to write without ever leaving my own home. I just went over the lecture a short while ago and already I have at least four possible ideas.

I've thought of doing a short biography on an elf, like the ones I play in my online game. I've always found elves to be fascinating creatures. I also had an idea about a tiny hunter, hunting lady bugs. This came from watching one of our cats intently stalking lady bugs in the living room. Other possibilities I've thought of are a small town waitress (an idea that sprang from a game that my mother plays, and that I know a bit about, having lived in small towns and having waited tables myself, though not in those small towns), and a maid. This last idea came simply from picking up a piece of trash and throwing it away, and led to memories of going to a neighbor's home with my grandmother while she cleaned it.

I'm rather amazed with the number of ideas that have popped into my head so quickly without ever going anywhere exciting. All of my ideas do have the element of something I "know" to some extent, whether it be from games, reading, or actually experiencing. And to think that I couldn't think of anything that I "know" besides trucking!

I definitely think I need to finally follow another suggestion from the instructors of both of my writing classes and get a small notebook for jotting down ideas when they come to me. Whether or not I ever use the ideas is not important. Making notes of flitting ideas before they flutter away is.