Category: Personal

Posted on
Jul 7, 2020

Washing Machine Broke + Old Household Stuff

My 30+-year old washing machine finally gave up the ghost last Wednesday, and we went and bought a new one yesterday. It was delivered and installed this morning! I’m speechless that I got it so quickly – in our experience, it’s usually taken 1-2 weeks!

I’ve been expecting this for like the past decade – computers ares my only newish machine that I’ve replaced frequently, and that only because my programs either stop running in them or become painfully slow. But things like washing machine, kitchen table etc… if it works ok, I’m not going to buy a new one just for the hell of it. Even if money wasn’t an issue all the time, I wouldn’t – I was brought up to avoid unnecessary buying. I’m just surprised that it was the washing machine that went first – for some reason I kept expecting it to last forever, literally, and that the fridge would be the first to go. My Mom bought the washing machine in the latter half of 1980s when my Dad was still alive but very sick with cancer, and we knew he wasn’t going to get better and how long was the only question left. I’d say 30+ years of service is respectable time – they don’t make them like that anymore :/

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Posted on
Jun 26, 2020

Heat Wave + Health Update

It’s the third heat wave week here, and I’ve been dealing with it better than ever before (even than when I was healthy!) this year – last night was the first night I felt like the heat didn’t dissipate inside after sundown. And so it was too hot to sleep – I was able to lay down only for about 4 hours, and I do think I dozed off but none of it was proper sleep. So now I’m feeling like a zombie. Good news is that Sunday should be the last truly hot day, Monday should be warm and then onwards as far as the prediction goes, 20 degrees Celcius or below, which these days to me is cool. I can’t wait! 😀 *dances happily*

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Posted on
Mar 18, 2020

Finland Has Declared State Of Emergency Because Of Coronavirus Disease 2019

My country Finland has declared a state of emergency because of COVID-19 starting today (March 18, 2020) until April 13th. I’m okay so far but I belong in the high risk group because of three of my chronic illnesses or their medications, and in addition I’ve been having a Crohn’s Disease flare since early January so I have been mindful already the last few weeks, and will continue to take as many precautions as I can going forward to avoid getting COVID-19.

Right now, I’ll continue to update sites and making wallpapers etc. as normal, but should I disappear for a bit, it’ll probably have to do with COVID-19 and/or Crohn’s Disease.

The nationwide shutdown of services is going to be weird – due to my illnesses, I don’t go out much because I don’t have the energy and my migraine is ofteen too bad or it would make it worse, but still! I’m used to going to the rehabilitation activity and talking to people, as well as to library every week and always having at least a few new books to read! Now I’ll have to resort of e-books, which is a huge relief that they exist! I think it’s also think it’s going to take a toll, staying home because I have to, not because I want to and not having face-to-face social contact. (I live alone).

My Mom is 75 and her SO is 80, so they’re both also in the risk group and they have some illnesses. I’ve been trying to talk them into either taking advantage of their neighbor’s offers to grocery shop for them, or to do grocery shopping via the internet and have them delivered home. So far, nope. They think they’re ok going to the shop in the off-peak hours ;/ I might be able to talk my Mom over to online shopping, but she said even if she did, her SO wouldn’t. He’s stubborn.

Also it’s kind of scary, being in a national state of emergency, when I think about it! The last time that was declared was WW2. So it’s a whole new thing. Although I did consider during the swine flu, remembering the bird flu and liking The Walking Dead and movies about epidemics, that it was only a matter of time until outbreak big enough to cause societal interruption would come along. So it’s not a total surprise, and I feel like I’m at least a little prepared, mentally.

Posted on
Feb 18, 2020

Health Update + Star Trek

Health update after a long while.

I’ve been flaring since early January, with my Crohn’s Disease symptoms somewhat worse in general but getting out of hand particularly when I’m on my period. I had my yearly Crohn’s Disease control labs and doctor’s appointment in the university hospital on February 3rd. There’s inflammation in the bowel and I’m not surprised because of said increase in symptoms, but at least for once it happened right when I had to have the labs done anyway, so didn’t need to do anything extra! The doctor upped azathioprine back to the original dosage and added in cortisteroids for three months because azathioprine takes that long to start to have an effect. Labs every three months and in August I’ll hear if the inflammation has improved. If not, the doctor said we’ll have to consider starting a biologic.

I don’t know yet whether cortisteroids has helped the inflammation any, but I’m certain it’s made both my chronic migraine worse as well as my sleeping problems. Because headache and sleep problems are among the many side affects listed, and both have gotten very much worse in the two weeks since I’ve been taking it. My basic, daily migraine headache pain has gone from 3-4 to 5-6, and I’ve averaged obly 3-4 hours of sleep a night for 1,5 weeks now, not all of it even continuous sleep. I’m having trouble both getting to sleep, and staying asleep, and I’m having a lot of dreams again. These two things are currently really making my life hard. I’m not sure whether I should be in contact with the IBD nurses – the last time I was on cortisteroids, I was in bad enough shape with the migraine and sleep that I didn’t feel any additional effects regards headache or sleep from cortisteroids, or just didn’t have them. But now that both my daily migraine has been somewhat better and especially sleep has been a lot betterer, although not good like it was when I was healthy…. this now feels very hard to endure, and I’m not sure whether I’m supposed to or not? I’m also a little worried that the side effects won’t go away after ending cortisteroids. It was a long road to decent sleep, and I despair thinking it’s gone away again 🙁

So far, I have missed one rehabilitation day (with a doctor’s note) out of three because of the flaring, and would have missed more if there hadn’t been a break in rehabilitation for most of January. I have a rehabilitation day tomorrow (Wednesday), I’ll see how it goes and the rest of the week and then maybe contact the IBD nurses if I still feel as bad? Maybe I actually should be on sick leave?

If I go silent for a while, and don’t make any updates, my health is why. I’m so tired I made an incredible number of spelling and wrong word mistakes while writing this, hope I caught most of them!

Other thoughts... it feels really strange to be finished with capping Star Treks DS9, VOY, TNG and TOS! (Never have had plans to cap ENT or early seasons of VOY, so I’m in effect finished except for new eps of PIC and DSC) Feels like there’s this huge hole now because the need to cap them has been in the background for like 20 years. Good thing there’s Picard, and Discovery. Also, this is the first time in my life when I have ready and easy access to currently airing Star Trek. That feels so weird too!

I’m enjoying Picard a lot, I love the slow, considered space that gives the characters time to breathe! I’ve always loved Romulans, so I’m happy to have much focus on them. And I love that we’ve been getting glimpses of life on Earth, and civilian life too. I don’t think any other Trek ever showed more than brief glimpses of that and it was always with guest-stars, too. And I squeed when 7of9 beamed in in the last few seconds of episode 4 – she’s been missed!