00goddess

Check out this entry on my blog to get the full story:

http://00goddess.net/2013/05/clockwork-couture-supports-misogyny-and-rape-culture/

My friend Katherine, aka opalcat, died a few months ago, as I mentioned. Katherine was an active member of the SDMB, a message board connected to the Straight Dope column. She had been on that site for almost 20 years, I think.

SDMB is a HUGE community, it has thousands upon thousands of members, and inevitably, there are some who do not like each other. But, there are limits of behavior. As a result, some disgruntled members apparently started a website called the Snackpit, where people who have been banned from SDMB go to complain about people on SDMB who they don't like.

Katherine was a nerd, a woman, and a person who was very open and, more importantly, UNREPENTANT about the fact that she had a mental illness and had also been a stripper when in her early 20s. She was one of the first camgirls, when "camgirl" meant "a nerdy chick who has a webcam at her desk" rather than "woman who masturbates in front of a webcam for money".

You know something Katherine never was? Mean. She was never mean, she never tried to hurt anyone's feelings. She wore her heart on her sleeve, and sometimes other people hurt HER feelings, but she never lashed out in return. She had a pretty good sense of not giving a shit what haters had to say, but like any human, she wanted to be liked and to be treated well.

She also happened to be very kind. She was generous, and she was loyal. She had a sense of right and wrong. Many years ago, a mutual acquaintance of ours assaulted me, and then he and another mutual acquaintance spread rumors that it was my fault, because I "led him on." She immediately cut off all contact with both of them. She had the courage to say "That's not okay."

Anyway, there are some people in the world who just really hate people who don't wallow in shame or hide their feelings or be ashamed of stripping, or whatever else these people thought Katherine was supposed to do. So on their Snackpit, they have devoted their time to talking shit about her in sad, hateful ways. And these peopel recently took it upon themselves to swarm my website, where I had written a little post about Katherine.

These total strangers have decided that it is up to them to convince me that a)Katherine was a bad person or b) I am a bad person for being Katherine's friend. Initially there was some bullshit concern trolling, but I am not a moron: I knew who these people were, where they came from, and what their intentions were. Then they moved on to negging me, one of them saying "If you don't know what an attention whore she was, there's no point in even engaging with you any longer." This dude's intention, of course, was that I am supposed to melt from sadness and try to convince him that I *am* "worth engaging with", even though his entire fucking intention of engaging with me in the first place was to talk shit about my dead friend. (When dudes try to neg me, I just laugh at them, because seriously, that shit is so transparent.)

When I decided not to let any more of their comments through, they started barraging me with comments insulting me, insulting Katherine, and in fact blaming me for her death. Apparently, being friends with a mentally ill person means one is responsible for their mental illness and every decision they ever make. Who knew?

And now, since I am not letting the insulting comments through, they are leaving even MORE comments saying that it's because I have accepted responsibility for Katherine's death, I know it was my fault, blah blah blah.

I honestly don't understand why anyone spends their time on shit like this. How on earth can it really make anyone's life better to obsess over someone you don't know, even someone who is dead? What joy do they get from attacking her character? it is messed up and it also makes me think they must have very empty lives.

To recap: Opal has an infection in her toenails. I discovered it in I think February. She had a heavy, very dark brown, hard but gooey crust growing on all of her claws, and the skin around them was bright red, sometimes peeling. Some of the claws were also cracked or thickened in places. I took her to the vet and the vet took a sample of the crust, and found under the microscope that it was bacterial rather than fungal. Several varieties of cocci bacteria were infecting her.

The vet said that these infections can take a long time to heal, because very little oxygen gets to that area; the outer area of the claws is dead, so gets no circulation, and the claws are usually withdrawn, so they are wrapped in skin and don't get air.

She prescribed a long course of Clavamox and regular cleaning of the claws with diluted Chlorhexidine. I eventually switched from Chlorhexidine to hydrogen peroxide as Opal seemed to do better with that; after switching I found that it seemed to work better too, I suspect because peroxide generates oxygen as it decomposes. (Note: if Opal had an open wound, I probably wouldn't use peroxide, unless it was a deep wound, as cats are prone to abscess because they heal very quickly.)

So, fast forward to today. Opal has been on antibiotics for 8 weeks straight. She is clearly improving: the crust is still there, but on some nails it is gone, some it is very small, and on a few it is still heavy, but not as heavy as before. Also it comes off more easily now when I clean her nails. She is clearly feeling much better: her mood has consistently improved on the antibiotics. She is more playful than she has been in many months; she is almost kittenish! She plays with Serena often, and she plays hard.

However, the vet did want to see her for a recheck, because she had initially estimated 6-8 weeks of abx and Opal is still not "all better." I took her in for the recheck yesterday. The vet was really pleased to see how much better Opal's feet are. She checked all of her claws and kept saying "Wow, this looks so much better." She also took another sample of the crust itself. Under the microscope (she took me to the lab so I could see!) the sample showed a big reduction in bacteria. So not only is there less crust, but the remaining crust has maybe 10-20% of the bacteria that the crust initially had.

We are going to continue the antibiotics for at least another month. The vet wants Opal to be on abx for two weeks *after* there is no more crust evident.

So, Opal is improving and she feels great! 

So, this is a clusterfuck.

It turns out I probably don't have the flu. I probably have Valley Fever, which is a fungal disease that people get out here. I suspect Valley Fever now because I am still having extreme body aches, persistent cough and congestion, and bleeding from my sinuses. I'm not talking about a little bleeding, either, I am talking about a lot, and it isn't in my nostril, but the sinuses, especially on the right side of my face.

So tomorrow I am going to go back to the NP to get orders to be tested for Valley Fever.

It turns out that my prof wanted me to come in to class today to perform for him and I didn't know, because he emailed me on the weekend and I didn't see that until today, so I missed that. That is supposed to be my final project.

I've still not finished my final for my fibers class, hope to do that tomorrow. But I have to take Opal to the vet and also go to the NP myself. So maybe tomorrow night or Wednesday morning. If I cannot find myself a tiny vibe motor to use in my project, I will need to go borrow one from the local hackerspace. It looks like Radio Shack has them though, yay. Will run over there and to print shop tomorrow.

I just asked my performance prof if I can have an incomplete and do my performance for him in a few weeks on the basis of Valley Fever.

I am so sick of not being able to breathe.

Basically, the last several days I have been sleeping a lot, and when I am awake, I do things like cook dinner or do laundry and that exhausts me. 

I've had the flu since last Thursday. A bad flu. I got the fluvax last fall but I have since learned that it wasn't very potent this year.

I've had a fever between 100-101 for days (even with fever reducers, they weren't getting it below 100), been unable to sit up without assistance (pillows). Today I think I am on the mend, but my whole body feels weird and shaky still. Most things are exhausting.

B has been taking good care of me, and Nurse Opal and Candy Striper Serena have been on duty as well.

B is now fighting off the same virus, but the man has an AMAZING immune system. All he has are some body aches and tiredness.

Now we are waiting on Chinese food to be delivered.

Not a great time to have the flu, it is finals week.

If you aren't checking http://00goddess.net, that is where I am posting a lot of things lately.

Lesson learned: criticizing Melissa's behavior bad, sexism and sizeism good.

The back story: Melissa McEwen made a blog post decrying the sexism she has experienced in the "paleo community", sexism directed at her personally. I left a very poor comment (which I freely admit in the comments on my blog: I was tired and run-down and I just shouldn't have commented at all in that state) and she responded, then deleted the entire thread before I could respond to her comment.

Then she found my blog (which I didn't link to on her site, so that took effort heh) and left a comment in which she made untrue accusations toward me and pulled out the typical white-person trope of how much it hurt her feelings that I pointed out the racism in her statements, that it hurt her more than all the harassment she had experienced from paleo guys. (Because you know, it hurts white people really bad when we point out their racism, way more than their racism hurts us, so we shouldn't do that.) Oh and it hurt her especially because she thinks we are of a similar ethnic background, so she expects me to be her ally (yes, folks: she made this statement in the same comment in which she argues that she has no racism. The mind boggles.)

I tried to be kind, but I am also really annoyed by her double standard and false accusations and EVEN MORE RACISM. It makes me tired. She deleted my comment because it "made her unhappy" but all the misogynist and sizeist comments that crop up there every day, those are okay. So I am posting this here because this is my personal place where I can express annoyance; I would rather that serious discussion go on the comments to that post, where it might do some good

In 2000, I deeply scratched the back of my hand on a piece of furniture. It was hard to heal, being in an area tht flexes a lot, and I ended up with an ugly scar. It's a typical EDS-type scar, white and funky. I've never liked it. For years I found it upsetting, then I tried to get over it. I tried Mederma and I tried Vitamin E oil and nothing was really helping it, though it became less prominent over time. It is white, slightly raised up (I'm not sure I would say it is keloided, but it has significant texture) and the skin on it is distorted.

Since I started eating meat, I've seen a change in the scar. I first noticed it about a monnth ago. It is much flatter and much less visible now. I bet that now, someone who didn't know it was there wouldn't even notice it unless my hand was right in their face.

Just now B pointed out that a scar on my shoulder, one from having a mole removed in like 2009 or so, is less noticable too. This scar was kind of big and lumpy because I had a bad reaction to the ointment and bandage that were used on it, so I had to go without and heal it dry for most of the healing. Now it, too, is barely noticeable, it is almost flat now. it is still bright white, but not lumpy.

One of the factors in me leaving vegetarianism behind was a website I found, by a woman with EDS and FMS. She said that she had tried being vegetarian for many years but found that eating meat improved her wound healing and other EDS symptoms. Honestly, I don't think my joint pain or hypermobility has in general been improved, but this is a nice improvement and I'll take it. I hope that these are signs that I am healing internally as well.

I wish I had an old pic of the scar to compare.

Also while my nails all broke off midwinter, they grew back and have been in good shape for at least a month now. I think maybe the breakage was due to the hypoglycemic state I was in for a month last fall.

ETA: I do have a pic! will update by adding it and a recent shot tomorrow. But interestingly, the reason I have a pic is that I severely burned the same hand in November and I expected the scar from that to last a long time, especially as I kept forgetting to oil it regularly. But it is almost gone.