My fiance's dog is managing to growl and snore at the same time. It is a VERY bizarre noise. Snoring inhale, snoring-and-growling exhale.

Kinda wishing I could capture this sound for posterity, because boy does she sound weird!

Obviously, having the presidency, the House, and the Senate all go red is a frightful occurrence for many of us. My Facebook and my LJ are awash with fear and anger, from people who have good reason to fear and be angry.

There have also been a lot of people asking, "So what do we do now?"

Most of these people aren't fighters. Those of us who are, well, most of us already have our chosen organizations to work with, and if not, we know how to find them.

One of the plans I've quietly set into place is that of having my guestroom available as a landing place, so to speak. Many of my friends are LGBT or disabled or both, and many of them live in red states where the repeal of the ACA will leave them without any kind of healthcare and not eligible for Medicaid. As I live in California, and specifically in a cosmopolitan part of California where being LGBT is comparatively safe, I've set out the invitation: if you know me and you need to flee, for your safety or your medical coverage or to protect the legality of your marriage, or to make sure your partner will be treated as your next of kin/power of attorney in time of need, or any other reason, I will put you up in my guest room until you can get hooked up with the various social services if you're eligible or for a couple weeks to find a place to live if you aren't. (Due to the fiance's allergies and our dogs, we can't accept any pets, unfortunately. Have to keep my family healthy to do anyone any good.)

But my setting out this offer for my friends is a small thing, and one that...I think it's a step in the right direction, but perhaps not one that will end up actually being useful.

It occurs to me that one of the things we need right now is a network that makes this sort of thing possible. The thing about this offer I've put out is that the most vulnerable often can't afford to flee. The cost of getting out of where they are is more than they have. So what is needed, in addition to other landing places in safe places like my house in California, are waystations. People who will put you up for the night, feed you, and maybe even put some gas in your car to help you keep going. For people who can't put folks up, donating towards gas and food and moving expenses (possibly trains or flights for folks who don't drive) would also be deeply necessary to this plan.

What do you guys think? I don't know of any organizations doing anything like this, so I think it's something important and needed. If you've got ideas to add, I'm all ears. If you know people who might like to be part of this, great. If you want to be part of this, wonderful. I....well. I probably shouldn't be the person running this, I don't have the kind of connections this wants for, but maybe I can trade on my having worked with the Mazzoni Center in Philly to get people to help.

I'll be doing things locally as well, possibly working with the local Lambda Legal office if they want me and I can get my body to behave, but I think that this needs to happen, too.

I think you guys all know that I love Hudson, I think the school I got him from trained him very well and selected an excellent match for me, both in terms of the skills I needed him to have and personality.

There's just been this thing that makes me really uncomfortable. In the 7 years Hudson has been with me, there has been a LOT of turnover in staff. Every single trainer who was there when Hudson and I went to the school has now left the school, including the program director. Not only did all of the trainers who were there 7 years ago turn over, there were also another...I think 3?...in the years since then who left.

It kinda makes me wonder if something hinky is going on. It seems very odd to me that they've got the level of turnover they have. Maybe it just looks bad because it's such a small place? They have 3-4 trainers at any given time (typically 3). They don't seem to have as much turnover in their office staff (which is bigger than the training staff because it's a charity, which means coordinating volunteers and fundraising and relationships with other organizations and professional certification and the breeding program, not to mention there are non-office staff who do things like the puppy raising program and taking care of the kennels and building our harnesses). I don't know what to think about it. Maybe they just aren't offering high enough salary and benefits packages? That's kind of an uncomfortable thought, because I'd like the people who trained my service dog to get a wage that is commensurate with the field, and a living wage.

I dunno what to think. But the turnover makes me uneasy, especially as I do intend to get Hudson's successor from the same school. He's just so good, and no one else makes harnesses like the school - they are made in house, designed by them, and for a dog who is bearing some of my weight and the things I would put in a purse, I think it's extremely important to have the best harness I can. The school's harnesses are based on horse saddles, so that they do not put any pressure directly on the spine and distribute the weight along a large area of the muscles of the back. The other harnesses on the market tend to have very limited contact points between the harness and the dog, which means that the weight put on the harness gets focused onto small parts of hte muscles of the back, which means much more pressure per square inch, and a higher risk of injury to the muscles the harness rests on.

I'm trying to figure out whether there is someone at the school I can speak to about my concerns and see if there is a reason why all these people are leaving. The trainer who left today was the program director, and had been with the school since I think 1990 - so over 25 years.

Of course, since it's such a small group, it could just be coincidence. I know that Hudson's trainer left because she was starting a family. But all of the others...I have no clue why they left, as the school just told us 'personal reasons'.

We're getting more money for the car than it was worth. Blue book value on it is around $2500 or a bit less; insurance is giving us $4600. So we're not getting completely hosed on the loss of an older but well cared for car. It's still money we'd prefer to not be spending right now, but that helps a lot.

Also, my parents are giving us $3k towards the new car, because they gave my sister her current vehicle. So that helps, too.

The past 6 weeks or so? Seriously, you're fired.

First there was that new medication that was working even faster than they normally tell you it will....and then gave me an allergic reaction. Itching, and having to give up the promise of that new med and the relief it was already giving me.

Then there was the wisdom tooth extraction. One of my wisdom teeth had its roots wrapped around a nerve, so it had to be broken up even smaller than my other teeth, and it still irritated the nerve. I still don't have all the feeling back on that side of my face, though it's better than it was. They tell me it should all come back by about 2 months. I can't take most NSAIDs, so the surgeon put me on a steroid without telling me that it'd increase my risk of dry sockets. They also didn't warn me that being on birth control increases that risk; I could have stopped that a week before the surgery with no real problem. I got 2 dry sockets, one only partial, one pretty bad.

Dry sockets. Such an innocuous term. What they really mean is that your jawbone is bare and exposed, and bone pain is seriously nasty, penetrating stuff. It also often includes an infection in that bare bone, because bone just isn't meant to be bare like that - it needs to be wrapped in flesh and immune system and protected. As someone who has had a LOT of kinds of pain, bone pain just cuts through you in an electric way that other stuff doesn't. Because of the dry sockets, I couldn't restart my autoimmune modulators, or start the new one I'm now due to start, theoretically as soon as my rheum gets back (she's been out of the office for a week, due back tomorrow, but I was still having issues the last time I talked with her office).

The extraction also flared up my TMJ very, very badly indeed. So badly that the TMJ was at least 50% of the pain from the surgery, albeit not the same kind of sharp, searing pain the dry sockets caused.

We ordered a fancy new mattress from online, because ours is wearing out a bit. It apparently had some sort of quality control issue, because it was supposed to have minimal to no outgassing and it smelled like an open can of latex paint. So we've been sleeping in our guest room for almost 3 weeks. They asked us to give it a bit to air out, and after 2 weeks they sent someone out to pick it up and mailed us a new one. It has been here since Monday, but we only got it unrolled yesterday. It already smells less than the original mattress did after 2 weeks, so hopefully we'll be able to use it soon, but for now...stuck in the guest room, which is warmer and noisier than our bedroom, and doesn't have an en suite bathroom. Annoying.

I finally started recovering from the TMJ and the dry sockets at the very end of last week, and was just beginning to eat normal food again.

We went out to dinner with friends from Philly on Saturday. We haven't seen them since we moved out here 2 years ago, and they're really lovely people. It was a very nice evening, though I kind of pushed myself to my physical limits to spend time with them. I forgot my stomach meds, but I figured, I'll take them when we get home, no big deal, I'll just have a bit of reflux tonight, I'll deal.

Except that there was a cigar smoker right next to our car in the parking lot. I didn't see him. I thought the first bit that hit me and started my lungs closing up was just an errant puff, probably from someone smoking outside of the restaurant. It happens all the time. I slowed down a minute and pulled out my inhaler. Took a nice deep breath...and then spotted him, right next to my damn car. Fuck. It tripped what was admittedly a quite bad attack. The nasty coughing sort, which are rarer now that I've moved out here where fewer people smoke and the weather doesn't get so cold in the winter.

So we went to the ER. The attack freaked out the ER staff, and they were very aggressive dosing me with asthma meds. I've never been given more than one breathing treatment; they gave me 2 1/2, and at that they only stopped because my heart rate was 154 and I was visibly shaking all over. I spent the next hour and a half with my heart rate above 140 because I had so much medication in my system. They really should have paused after the first one and given it a few minutes to work; they definitely should have only added ONE dose to the nebulizer after and waited, instead of dumping in two more. But I was pretty shaken up, it was admittedly a nasty attack, so I didn't argue with them. I had finished the breathing treatments by 9:30PM; I didn't stop shaking until about 6:30AM. I only slept in 60-90 minute bursts when I finally did sleep, which is quite unusual for me, and I had trouble staying asleep from all the shit in my system. Not to mention, one of the medications apparently can cause hypersensitivity, which I seem to get from it. Everything HURT, like someone had just turned up the amplifier. Especially all the muscles that were sore and cramping from having been shaking for 9-10 hours.

And then this morning, my fiance crashed my car. I'm so frustrated with him. When we met, he was frankly a rather scary driver - not real aware of where his car was or where things were around him, easily distracted, etc. Over the years we've been together, I've managed to make him into a much better, safer driver, with ONE exception. If the other people on the road aren't going the speed he expects to be going, he creeps up and creeps up. I have to tell him, slow down or change lanes, but stop it. I've told him this dozens of times. He still does it. I've counted out for him a 3-second following speed. He still does it. Well, today, there was an accident several cars ahead of him on the road, in moderate traffic - the exact conditions he's the worst at this with - and he couldn't stop in time. The cars ahead of him all stopped in time, but not him. I suspect that there were multiple cars a little closer than they should have been, and then him...too close, and not great reaction speed.

My car is a '02, so it's almost certainly totaled. I'm really angry at him. I think I'd be less angry if he was hurt, because I'd be worried. But he isn't hurt. He's just done the damn thing I keep telling him to not do, to be more aware of. Gah. I'm sure in a couple days, I'll be less angry, but right now I'm really mad. And I'm having to try not to show it because he's depressed and not doing well with THAT, and he knows what this is going to cost us (we were planning to wait until after we get married in 2 years to replace that car). Granted, yes, it's an old car. But that also means it wasn't monetarily very valuable, even though I'd taken good care of that car and babied it so it drove like a much newer car, even has the interiors in good shape. And it's a Honda, so I was expecting to get 2 more years out of it and STILL be able to sell it as a car that worked well.

It's also that it was MY car. My car that I bought new for myself when I was 18, and fond of. My car that I drove to Renaissance Faires and service dog school and all kinds of other things that were really good experiences for me. My car that drove me to college and grad school and law school. My car that was half paid for by my inheritance when my aunt died (she had no kids, so she had all of her nieces and nephews on her life insurance policy). I know it's stupid. But there it is. Like I said, I know in a few days, I'll be less angry, but right now, I'm just mad.

So this past 6 weeks can just fucking go to hell. Seriously. It's been one thing after another. I'm tired and frustrated, and I've been in elevated levels of pain since...hmm, I guess the start of last month, when I had to go off the new med because of the allergic reaction and then stay off both of my immune modulators for weeks because of the wisdom tooth extraction (had to not take the shot a week before it, and then haven't had it since because of all of the health stuff going on that meant I needed my immune system able to act).

This allergic reaction keeps spreading and getting worse. I'm itching all over. Seriously close to losing it. I'm on Benadryl and Allegra and Zantac (while it's most commonly used for stomach acid, it's an H1 blocker - that is, it blocks one of the receptors for histamine, which is the pathway for allergic reactions), along with hydroxyzine for the itching. I've got hives everywhere from the middle of the ribcage up, with the exception of the palm side of my hands. I'm totally miserable. Everything itches! The hydroxyzine does help a little bit with the being upset and agitated by all the itching.

As if that wasn't enough, I've got a broken tooth. I actually broke it a month ago, the night before we moved. It's one of my wisdom teeth, which I've been slowly working on getting removed*, so I didn't have the tooth repaired because it makes no sense to pay for expensive dental work on something that's just getting yanked out anyhow. itself didn't hurt for the first couple weeks, but it's got a very sharp edge that happens to press up against one of the muscles in my jaw. So it's making my TMJD much worse, to the point where it's really very painful and I have to ice down the side of my jaw multiple times a day. I bought some orthodontic wax to cover the sharp edge, and that helps a little bit, but it's still pretty painful.

I see the new oral surgeon on the 7th, and they can theoretically get me in to pull out the teeth on the 12th, so I just have to survive the next two weeks.

Ugh, I'm really regretting the years of putting off my wisdom tooth removal. I wish someone had explained to me when I was 18 that the surgery is typically easier the younger you are when it is done; I didn't realize that until I started moving towards taking care of this last year. And that's without factoring in this damn broken tooth!

*Getting my wisdom teeth removed has been a bit more complicated than I'd expected. The first oral surgeon I saw decided that because of my heart condition, he didn't want to do the removal outside of a hospital. Well, my dental insurance won't cover the hospital, and my health insurance will only cover the hospital if it's a Kaiser hospital. The surgeon is only willing to do it at the hospital he normally works with. I called and asked if he would do it in his office if a cardiologist cleared me for that. He said yes. So I booked an appointment with a cardio and then called the surgeon's office back asking for the soonest appointment after my cardio that I could get, because this damn thing hurts and I wanted it gone! The surgeon's office says oh, no, he'll only work on you in a hospital OR. So now I have to find a new oral surgeon who will do this in the hospital if my cardio clears me, or at a Kaiser facility if the cardio agrees that my heart is unstable enough that the surgery needs to be done in the hospital. Odds are very high that the cardio will clear me; my heart condition really isn't dangerous unless I get extremely dehydrated or extremely hot. As long as my hydration and my temperature are maintained at reasonable levels, I shouldn't be any more difficult on that count. They'll still be dealing with my connective tissue and my joints being more fragile than normal, so there is a possibility of my jaw dislocating or my mouth getting more torn up than expected, but I think that's the sort of thing the surgeon is supposed to be able to manage in office.

Well, I have now officially failed Enbrel. I've got either small hives or a raised red rash (I don't know how to tell the difference) all over both arms, my upper back, and my upper chest. It may also have been the cause of angry red irritation in mre intimate areas.

Blah. This sucks, I so wanted this medication to work! I guess there is a small upside to this: the next medication on my rheum's list means only one injection a month.

So I'm trying to start reaching out to people again. I know I've been pretty much radio silence for a long time. It's been...complicated. For one thing, I've been sick and sicker and sicker for years, and that makes it hard to connect to the people you used to spend a lot of time with. It's hard to be around people who knew your old, healthy self. Because being sick like this, it does change you. And, well, what do you talk about when you do nothing of importance all day? I don't work, I don't go to school, I don't volunteer, I don't...anything much. I read and I watch TV and I write a bit and I knit and make new patterns (I'm writing one as I go right now - I'm making a stuffed monkey for my nephew, and writing it all down so I can maybe start selling these patterns). For another, well, I've been very limited on how much time I can spend out of bed, and when I'm in bed I lay on my side, and I haven't figured out a way to use my computer without hurting myself. So I only have the hours when I'm out of bed to be on the computer. I get up around the time we have dinner, and then I'm up for an unpredictable number of hours, depending on how active my back problems are. Until my fiance goes to bed, we rarely have our computers out because we spend the time together, usually watching TV (and me knitting).

Anyhow, I'm trying. After Chris goes to bed, I'm going to start pulling out my laptop. I'll probably be on until sometime between midnight and 2 am. I have to shut the screens off then, or else I can't get to sleep - lighted screens make my insomnia worse.

I'm also on Facebook, as Kali Blaze. If you want to look for me, I've got my current city listed as San Diego, and my profile pic is an image of Hudson running on the beach. I can probably talk more there, as I can manage Facebook on my tablet while I'm laying down.

So, I don't remember if I mentioned that early last month, I started a new medication (Plaquenil) along with a course of prednisone in an attempt to make my immune system play nice. My rheumatologist and I decided to retry it secondary to the methotrexate, which has not been controlling my very cranky immune system well enough, especially not since the end of this summer. I failed it in the past, for two reasons. Firstly, it didn't do anywhere near enough on its own. Secondly, it seemed to be destroying my stomach, but in retrospect I think that was the beginning of my gallstones, and my gallbladder is now safely gone. It's a last thing to try before we bring in the really big guns, biologicals, which of course we don't want to do, seeing as they raise things like cancer rates. The methotrexate made me nervous because of its side effects, but I was reasonably sure it wasn't going to kill me. The chances that biologicals could is rather higher, and my family already has pretty awful frequency of skin cancer (not to mention that I got badly sunburned as a child, which also raises your rates, as if my ultra fair, red-headed, blue-eyed complection wasn't risk enough).

A week in to both, I was feeling better than I had in...I don't even know how long. I went to my cousin's wedding 4 hours north of here, stayed as long as my sore, tired fiancé could, and came home feeling fine. Yes, we broke the journey overnight about halfway both directions, going to my parents for the night, but still. I did fine, in less than ideal seating. I did fine even though we forgot my pillows, which has been a recipe for disaster in the past. But I was good. For once, the reason we left when we did wasn't me! (Though I was more or less ready to go because the dance floor was too crowded for me to risk getting on it, with how much it sometimes hurts me to be jostled, not to mention the dog and the fact that my fiancé doesn't like dancing in front of people, especially strangers.)

Sadly, I had some scary visual effects - my distance vision started going blurry. My glasses are badly out of date, but I couldn't read things on the tv I could definitely read two weeks before, and I was seeing stars around lights in twilight conditions. So we stopped the Plaquenil, and my vision improved a bit. This happened at the same time I was titering down my prednisone, which will become relevant in a moment. I was a bit scared, but I had stopped the presumed culprit and I already had an eye exam scheduled a couple days after the wedding. The eye exam was clear, but the optometrist was concerned, so he sent me for more testing.

My vision improved over the next week or so, but my immune system came roaring back to attack. I hurt a lot. So my rheum upped my prednisone again while we waited for the optho test results. I didn't make the connection then, but a week or so later my vision got blurrier again. I worried.

This week, I finally had the rheum appointment I scheduled months ago. We talked about the eye stuff, she read the optometrist's exam notes, and then rather casually she said that prednisone could cause the blurring I experienced. Suddenly, the rebound of the blurring made sense.

So I'm back on my meds. I woke up on my own today at about 9:45, which is earlier than I have in years, and I woke up feeling fine. I got less than 8 hours of sleep last night when I've needed 10-12 for years. I'm a little sleepy now, like I under-slept a bit, but there isn't the bone-deep exhaustion, mental blurriness, and increased pain I normally associate with under-sleeping.

I'm kind of holding my breath on this, but I'm excited. I'd really like to start getting a life back. The last 2 years, I've spent so much time trapped in bed, and the past several years I've been so far off my mental game. I'm...hopeful. Very hopeful. Uncomfortably hopeful. I haven't felt this hopeful in a long time. I don't expect to be capital-w Well again...but being able to prep for and take the Bar, work even if it's from a home-office, maybe even dare I say it take up casual (rather than competitive) ballroom dancing again...that idea is very exciting.

Did everyone on my friends list suddenly go silent for nearly a week at the same time, or is LJ's friends feed bollixing up? I haven't seen anything from any of you since the 2nd. Very odd. Anyhow, I'm curious if anyone has posted anything since then. I can't remember the last time everyone went silent for that long - I don't have a huge number of friends, but I do have a couple who tend to be rather prolific.