Kathryn
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Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in the "Kathryn" journal:[<< Previous 20 entries]
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05:51 pm
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Bike Accident Update
Remember Erik's bike accident? Where he was hit by a delivery van? More than a year ago? And how OGI (Other Guy's Insurance) said that they would pay for all current and future treatment?
Well, the bills still aren't paid. They stopped paying the physical therapy bills nine months ago. For 90 days they just didn't return calls at all; after I called to find out what was up, they said that the PIP had been exhausted, and ordered an independent medical exam of Erik to make sure the treatment they'd paid for was medically necessary. (The treatment that had been completed four months prior, mind you.) Erik went along with this farce, because what choice did he have? Skipped a day of work, went to the examiner, got told that yes, it was medically necessary. Then another 90 days of saying that the PIP was still exhausted and that they weren't going to cover the remaining treatment. Finally I got on the horn with Microsoft and asked if we could subrogate to them; they said of course, that all they would need is a Letter of Exhaustion from the insurance company.
90 days of me asking for an exhaust letter go by, with no response. Then, on day 91, suddenly the physical therapist gets a huge fax of all the charges they're denying. Seems the PIP isn't exhausted after all! They just are denying all these charges because they were never documented as to their medical necessity. Except, of course, they WERE documented, our physical therapist documents everything. But now she and her insurance gal have to spend 2 days' worth of lunch breaks going over every denied charge and correlating it to the notes demonstrating its necessity and faxing it back to the insurance company, whom I'm sure will sit on it for another 90 days before coming up with the next bullshit reason why they can't just do their goddamned motherfucking jobs.
Oh, yeah, the current health care situation in this country is AWESOME, let me tell you what.
Tags: bike accident, i hate insurance companies
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12:28 pm
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Anti-Drug Ads that Work
http://benchilada.livejournal.com/624283.html CAUTION: contains images of the ads in question, which are graphic and triggering. The "$15" one in particular is like a punch to the gut. Also contains videos, which I have not watched because I don't want to risk Lillian coming in to see what's going on.
The ads are part of an anti-meth campaign, and apparently it's startlingly effective, resulting in something like a 45% drop in meth use. I'm willing to believe that meth isn't 100% addictive, that there are some people who have used it once or twice and been fine, but every single person I've ever known who has used it even casually on an ongoing basis has been drastically negatively affected. I've never seen a drug that scared me more. According to the Economist, the drop in meth use is partly counterbalanced by a smaller rise in crack cocaine use, but it is smaller -- and from the anecdotal evidence of my own eyes, meth is even worse for a person than crack. That's corroborated by some of the drug PET studies my father's been involved with, which show long-term damage to the brains of meth users in areas like the amygdyla and hypothalamus, which regulate emotions and connections to other human beings.
I'm not sure I'm totally OK with these images being on the sides of busses, where my kid can see them. They're pretty fucking awful. But if that's what it takes to halve meth use in the area, it might be worth it.
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12:40 pm
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Dear Olympics Trials Announcers
These are triathletes. They are swimming, biking, and running nearly to the point of exhaustion or collapse. They are the best in our country, which makes them among the best in the world; they are competing for a spot on a global stage. I promise you, every one of them could take you out in a fair fight before you even realized what was happening.
So for the love of little green apples, can you please not call them girls?!
Current Mood: pissed off
Tags: feminism, olympics, the stupid it burns
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11:10 am
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The Popular Monsters
My brother, ![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) daspatrick, is a . . . well, let's just say he's a ridiculously cool individual. I have a whole set of anecdote fragments that I tell to try and convey to people how cool he is without monopolizing the conversation, including the fact that he drove across Asia in a tiny car, that when he was 17 we had UWTV on pretty much constantly because they had a feed from MIR and he had a crush on one of the cosmonauts, that he makes movies sometimes. . . and that he's in a band, the Popular Monsters.
Now, first of all, let's ignore the fact that I have the MySpace page up to link to it, and it started playing Turtle Rock and Lily FREAKED OUT with joy and began to dance wildly while wearing Erik's hiking boots, and how cute that must be. (although I tell you, it's pretty damn cute.) Patrick does most of the songwriting for the band, and as someone who's always fancied herself to be moderately musically talented, it drives me to sick jealousy that he is as good a songwriter as he is. Liberty Lake is a really good encapsulation of that weird period in a group of friends' lives where everything is kind of awesome but it's becoming brutally clear that something's going to change pretty soon; No Love for Plants and Cats is a sweet, sad eulogy for a relationship that ended not with a bang, but with a whimper.
So, anyway, hit the MySpace page and give them a listen, will ya? Maybe then you can realize the Coolness that Is My Brother too.
Tags: family, music, patrick
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01:26 pm
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Pickled mackerel.
I want some pickled mackerel. I want some pickled mackerel VERY BADLY. I had some for lunch the other day, and for dinner last week, and I have actually wanted to eat it every single meal for the whole week but I can't afford saba sashimi every day and Uwajimaya is so far away, even though they'd sell me big chunks of pickled mackerel for cheap.
PICKLED MACKEREL NOM NOM NOM all oily and salty and sweet and briny and fishy and WANT
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01:17 pm
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Kathryn Goes to the ENT
On Friday, when I wasn't getting any more better than I had been, I called my doctor for a referral to an ENT. I asked her to see if she could find someone who had some experience with singers, but stressed that it wasn't a big deal.
Well, she got me a referral to the guy who consults for the frickin Seattle Opera.. Seriously, multiple members of the Chorale had heard of this guy. Dr. Kenneth Faw. They managed to get me in today from a Friday afternoon call, which is pretty impressive, seeing as Monday is his surgery day -- basically a next day appointment, for all that it was four days later. Now, mind you, I am a LOT better today than I was on Friday, but I still have some soreness, so I kept the appointment.
He looked in my throat and basically said "Wow, there is a LOT of healing injury here. You clearly had a very profound event in your throat; this must have been agonizing. But it is healing really, really beautifully. I wouldn't do anything different than what you're doing." He also, to my amazement, confirmed that it was absolutely possible that the whole thing could have been viral, although he thinks an opportunistic bacterial infection is more likely given the timing of what happened after I got the Big Shot. But even if it was viral, he said, the antibiotics were a good idea; while it's typically bad practices to give antibiotics to prevent future infection (because the population impact is so negative in the form of drug-resistant bacteria), my tonsils are already so pitted and messed up and I depend on my throat so much that the risk/reward situation was inverted.
And he took any kind of surgery off the table. Apparently, for a working singer, it can be six months to a year of vocal rehab before you're back in voice, so he only recommends it when either your larger health is being badly threatened or if you are so ill you're looking at months off anyway.
He talked with me some about the black bits of my tonsils, and what happened when they came off and why and how that happens, too. Short form: it's a defense mechanism by the tonsils themselves. When the toxin levels from the necrosing tissue get high enough, your tonsils just. . . shed. Like a newt. And then that's why they hurt so fucking bad afterwards, because that was all raw wound. So what I'm supposed to do now is to get in the habit of irrigating my tonsils and the back of my throat with isotonic saline two to four times a day, and take probiotics for the next month or two to try and take some of the immune pressure off my tonsils.
So, anyway, hooray. I'm so glad I got in to see him. He said if it recurs, to call him first.
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03:13 pm
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This is how it starts
We recorded an episode of Bob the Builder during the Week We Let the TV Raise the Baby. I resisted showing it to Lillian, a LOT. For DAYS. Because it is a boy show.
I bought her shoes that did not stay on securely, that interfered with her ability to run and play, because the only shoes that DID stay on securely were olive drab and navy, or black and silver, or brown and orange. Boy shoes. Mind you, my comfy shoes are white and navy, and I am not a boy.
Months ago, I let her pick out a book at the bookstore. She chose a book called "I Love Trucks." I almost put it back. Because it is a boy book.
What the hell is wrong with me?!!? How can I purge this awful instinct, which if I saw it in anyone else I would rant about it for hours? She's not a living doll to dress up, she's a human being, a strong, tough human being who loves to play rough and hard. Ack.
Tags: gender wars, lillian, parenting
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10:10 am
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this trick never works
"Oh, look, the baby has something potentially disastrous -- but she's having fun. I'll take it away from her sometime in between now and when something awful happens."
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11:41 am
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Let's get ready to ROCK!!!
It's not all dainty little easter dresses around here, oh no!
Those stains on her onesie are baked beans but you can pretend they're whatever you want.
(there's another picture I kind of like better than this one, but my face is in it and you can see exactly how exhausted I am after a week of a liquid diet, so. . . no.)
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02:51 pm
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And now for a change of pace! ONLY GOOD NEWS.
My grandma is fine. It was just dehydration from the vomiting. And my throat continues to improve by the hour.
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10:12 am
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No details unless requested
but my throat, she is getting a LOT better.
(the details? are DISGUSTING.)
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06:24 pm
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Do I have any Rom on my friends-list?
I need to ask a cultural sensitivity question. Namely, if I refer to my ongoing bad luck with illness, or my mother-in-law's catastrophic ongoing bad luck of the past year, as "having pissed off a Gypsy," is that a stunning ethnic slur? I have a lot of favorite stories that have ancient Gypsy curses as a plot point.
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12:28 am
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hopefully last tonsil update
went to issaquah urgent care (thank you saint wrog). doctor looked in my throat and said "oh shit," always reassuring. Diagnosis: textbook tonsillitis, possible quinsy. Gave me a big ol' shot of some nth-generation broad spectrum antibiotic, "the biggest and baddest we have," observed me for 10 minutes to make sure I didn't die, and sent me home. Said of previous doctor, "you never like to speak ill of a colleague, but were he a horse, I'd steer clear of the nether end."
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06:55 pm
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Black tonsils and abdominal pain?
(x-posted from ![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/community.gif) ask_a_nurse, hence the full history)
I've been running a low grade (~100.5) fever since Wednesday, along with a sore throat. Friday I went to my doctor, who told me I had strep based on a visual exam, even though my instant-read culture came back negative. He also said my right tonsil looked necrotic because it was black. He gave me a shot of penicillin in the butt, wrote me a prescription for Keflex, and told me to keep an eye on my fever.
All night Friday and all day Saturday, my fever continued to climb, reaching 102.6 despite ibuprofen and tylenol. By this time, the pain was fairly intense, and I was having trouble staying hydrated it hurt so bad to swallow. As of this morning, though, my fever has gone down to 99.6 or so and stayed there. But now BOTH my tonsils are huge and black, they're covered with white and grey goo, and so is the back of my throat. I had a bunch of episodes while sleeping last night where I dreamed I was drowning and woke up gasping for air. I don't have any trouble breathing while I'm awake, but I called the on-call doctor for my clinic to find out about the other black tonsil. She looked in the notes and discovered that my overnight strep culture was also negative. She was pretty damn concerned and sent me to Urgent Care.
The Urgent Care doctor looked in my mouth, said "hm," reacted to my abdominal pain symptoms with disinterest, and palpated my abdomen -- albeit not in the spot where it's actually hurting. (The pain is about 4" to the right of my navel, and quite sporadic, but goes up to a 6 or a 7.) He wrote me a scrip for prednisone to shrink my tonsils, confirmed that my repeat instant-read culture was negative, and told me it was "probably a virus" and to stop taking the Keflex.
I'll admit to some bias here based on past example. I saw this same doctor just about two years ago, when I was six weeks pregnant with my first child immediately after a miscarriage and having some bleeding and abdominal pain, and he flat out told me it was impossible for me to be pregnant so soon after a miscarriage, despite holding a positive pregnancy test, and refused to even touch me to check out my complaint. So I'm a little ticked off at him. But. . . what virus would cause pus-covered black tonsils? Isn't prednisone an immune suppressant as well as an anti-inflammatory? I really, REALLY don't want to discontinue the Keflex. . . can there be any harm from taking another dose before I see my doctor first thing tomorrow morning?
And finally, if I don't have strep, what in unholy blue blazes do I HAVE?!
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02:01 pm
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Tonsils Episode Three
My quick-read strep test was positive. My overnight culture -- MUCH more accurate -- was NEGATIVE.
Both tonsils now have black spots on them.
I had four or five dreams last night in which I was drowning or otherwise having trouble breathing. Apparently, this all adds up to a Very Concerning Sign, and I am to get myself to Urgent Care posthaste. Whee.
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10:44 pm
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KathrynT and the Necrotic Tonsils
featuring our good friend Streptococcus on drums!
The tonsils look. . . I wish they looked better. They don't, they look worse, with the exception that the black-and-grey bits have gone blackish-purple-and-yellow, which I think is good. My fever continues to climb; it's now 102.3, even with Advil and Tylenol on board. I am considering calling the doctor on call and asking him if this is a bad sign. I just took my 4th dose of antibiotics -- fifth, if you count the IM shot in the ass.
ETA: called the doctor. They say it's not GOOD that my fever is still climbing, but that it can take up to 48 hours for the antibiotics to hit full strength. The fact that my pain is better -- and oh my goodness, it's a lot better -- is a sign that the penicillin is working, which means it's not some horrible resistant beastie.
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07:58 pm
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bad news good news
It is snowing in Seattle in April and I have strep throat, including a NECROTIC TONSIL.
good news, I guess: lily doesn't have it.
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08:49 pm
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Lillian has a message for you, Universe
And that message is OH MY GOD I can't believe how fucking HORRIBLE everything is, what HORRIBLE PEOPLE mommy and daddy are, that the sun has the unMITIGATED fucking GALL to go on the OTHER SIDE of the EARTH when I am still physically capable of going down the slide! No, fuck YOU, dinner. fuck YOU, milk. Fuck YOU, num-nums -- yes, I went there, fuck you, num-nums! FUCK the fucking book about dinosaurs, fuck diapers, fuck jammies, NO YOU WILL NOT put me to bed, Oh my GOD I can't believe you're doing this to me you WHORES, you SONS of FUCKING BITCHES! Oh my GOD you will pay somedzzzzzzzzzzz
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10:18 am
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Book Weakness
I consider myself to be a fairly discriminating reader. I read a lot of good books, a lot of intense books, books that really make you stop and think. Oh, sure, I've read my share of crap, and loved it, but I've never been under the illusion that it was anything but crap. But it turns out that I have a weakness, a horrible weakness. A plot device that, if it shows up in a book, will make me not only passionately love and read and re-read it a dozen times, but also refuse to see reason as to the actual quality of the book.
What is this dreadful weakness? Magical Singing. If you write singers who, by their singing, effect magic or magic-like things, I will love your book forever no matter the extent to which it is drek. Some of my favorite Magical Singing books include:
- The entire Archangel series, by Sharon Shinn
- Crystal Singer, by Anne McCaffrey
- the DragonSinger series, ibid.
- Songbird, by Orson Scott Card
Do you have Plot Weaknesses? If so, what are they? Also, for the love of God, can anyone recommend some more Magical Singing books to me?
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01:00 pm
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Top Chef: How would YOU play it?
The most recent episode of Top Chef featured a challenge in which contestants had to create a dish inspired by their favorite movie. The winning dish was ( Spoiler alert! ). Erik and I always play "what would you do?" with stuff like this, but the problem is that my favorite movie is Delicatessen, and a simple charcuterie plate isn't really enough Cheffin' for this, I don't have time to make my own cured salami out of pork (long or otherwise), and any other interpretation would be horrific.
Then, it hit us: Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Get cavy somewhere; there are cavies bred for food used in South American cooking. Serve it with elderberry sauce, and a coconut sorbet served in its own shell as a palate cleanser. Perfect, amirite?
What's your favorite movie? What would you cook?
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