Barack knew something terrible had happened to the time-space continuum, but he just couldn’t put his finger on it:

[link]

And this image from the Australian fires made my allergies act up: [link]

Harvey cat agrees with me about the Koala.

And this image from the Australian fires made my allergies act up: [link]

I love that one, the way the koala has his paw on the man's hand.

java, the old car needs a metric assload of repairs we can't currently afford

Ah, got it. I hadn't realized that you hadn't already sold the other car.

I got my blood drawn this morning (in the midst of a rat-tastic cold, dammit) to find out why I've had utterly no energy for over two months. The doc's guess is thyroid disease. That's something I just take a pill for, yeah?

The doc's guess is thyroid disease. That's something I just take a pill for, yeah?

Depends on what the cause of the thyroid problem is, but for the most common causes, you just need to take a pill.

Thanks, Hil. I hope it's that easy.

Oh, if you get sent to get an ultrasound of your thyroid, be aware that, in order to get one of the views, they need to press the ultrasound thing hard enough that it cuts off your airway for a few seconds. When I went for that, the tech didn't warn me, and I totally freaked out. Not breathing! Not breathing bad!

Steph, when my tooth went horrifically bad, I actually couldn't localize it when it was on fire. I could when it wasn't full on, it was either that tooth or two teeth up because I have weird nerves. It was an electrifying pain that came in waves fighting against enough ibu to do damage. That's when I wasn't doing something to exacerbate it: when something warm hit the tooth, it was immediately incapacitating and radiated out from the tooth into my whole head. Cold sweats and gasping and crying and INSANE. Immediate relief -to the point of managable, not gone- if I kept my mouth full of ice water (when you are in the grocery store with your parents at 33 and they are buying you a freezable teething ring...it's sad.) Orajel actually was excrutiating when applied.

When I got to my dentist she told me that if this ever happened again, to call as soon as the pain started, because antibiotics would have helped (and the vicodin too! But the anti-bs would help bring down the irritation.) So regardless, those might help.

And hon, it took me a decade+ to get to a dentist, so I know the drill and guilt and all that other weird shit. I wish I could send you to my practice, they were great about not doing the whole "you shoulda" and went strictly with "this is what needs doing and what you can expect."

sigh. Shoulder has gone from ow to whimpering in pain. I took some motrin, but it's not doing much, and I don't have anything stronger here. I guess i could go to the ER, but i know that they'd want to give me cortisone injections, and I hate those enough that I'd have to go from whimpering in pain to screaming in pain before I'd say OK to them.