norwich36

So it's been kind of a weird month. In April I might have had a TIA (transient ischemic attack), or perhaps it was a panic attack, or the neurosurgeon today said it could have been a complex migraine (brief weakness on the right side of my body) that sent me to the ER, where a head CT revealed I have 4 meningiomas (benign brain tumors), so I was hospitalized overnight for a bunch of tests, including an MRI, and was referred to a UCSF neurosurgeon.

I had the meeting with him today (over zoom) and the good news is that I probably don't need brain surgery? Which is good, because I made the mistake of googling, and...the potential side effects are not good even if it's successful. My brother the ER nurse says afterwards people almost always develop seizure disorders. The neurosurgeon asked a lot of questions about potential symptoms that could be caused by the location of the specific tumors, and I don't have any, so mostly it's watch and wait and get another MRI in 6 months and then annually to see if they're growing. Which is good because the location of one makes it mainly inoperable. But that one is also wrapped around my carotid artery, which is the most concerning thing, and I need another CT angiogram to see how concerning. So.

Anyway, I haven't really posted about this on namespace social media and I'm not sure I want to, but I wanted to tell someone, so I'm telling you all. It's kind of a lot. I guess better news than it could be, but still a lot.

Anyone who knows me IRL knows I live in the area affected by the Butte County fires. At the moment my home is safe and my town is not currently under evacuation, but just so I could sleep through the night without worrying I would have to flee I am temporarily staying with friends in San Francisco. Just wanted to let people know.

Thanks very much to talitha78 for the Christmas card! That's a fantastic picture of your family!

I was napping, and just woke up from an incredibly vivid dream in which I was going to see a special extended edition of Captain America: Winter Soldier with a group of friends, only it turned out to be some sort of virtual reality/audience participation version, and in one of the climactic action scenes I was Captain Marvel battling some giant female monster with multiple heads, only I was insistent we couldn't kill her. That turned out to be good because when we turned the de-mutant ray on her, it was Lilah Morgan (!) (you know, from Angel?), only not the Lilah from our universe, but a Lilah from a parallel universe from the future (5048 to be exact) who was a hero. And to confirm this was all true, Wonder Woman showed up to verify Lilah's identity. And then we were apparently out of the VR simulation, because everyone was cheering at Wonder Woman's surprise cameo, partly because we knew this was setting up for her appearance in the next Avengers movie, and I didn't recognize the actress, so I needed to get on IMDB right away to find out who was playing her. [Apparently they don't run credits in VR simulations].

I don't even know where my brain comes up with these things, but it was fun!

I haven't seen any posts about this and I think people who knew her would want to know. Last month ciaan posted that she had been diagnosed with cancer, and she had the comments turned off so I assumed she didn't want to be deluged with emails, so I sent her a card [we had exchanged holiday cards once, so I had her address, though not her actual name]. Today I got this letter in the mail:

Dear Nora,

ciaan really enjoyed your card. I am sorry to tell you that she died in the hospital on June 25 with her parents at her side. She was only sick for a couple of months--long enough to know how many people loved her. If there are mutual friends who may not have heard about her illness and death, please let them know.

[Her mom]

I'm afraid I don't have any other information to share about memorials or where to send condolences--if anyone does, please leave a comment and I will edit this post so people know.

Edited to add: morgandawn started a stub for her on fanlore; it's here if people want to share memories.

Edited again to add: The memorial to her from the sv_ledger is here, and some posts by friends of hers responding to her death are available here and here and here.

Dear folksy guy at the farmer's market: When I ask you for specific sodium content for a jarred product that I know very well you just redistribute for a larger agriculture company, not make yourself, a helpful answer is NOT "just take more blood pressure medicine, you'll be fine!"

Dear young women in midriff-baring blouses at the farmer's market: please tell me these are shirts you've owned for a long time and not a return of the worst fashion trend of the 00's, please!

Dear Steve/Bucky author: while I approve of any and all Steve/Bucky fic, it strains credulity when the whole premise of your plot comes from a movie that wasn't made until 70 years after Steve committed said premise. (I checked the OED to confirm this--a minimum of research it doesn't seem to have occurred to you to do!)

Dear Bruce Willis: I hope you made a lot of money for the ridiculousness of the latest Die Hard movie, because rsadelle and I both agreed that Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters had a better plot. (I will say it is one of the funniest films I've seen in a long time, though the humor wasn't generally deliberate.)

So as my long family trip winds to a close (I'm flying home tomorrow) I got to spend most of my day with my sister-in-law, who is a very cool person. She and my brother are trying to go vegan for health reasons, so if anyone has recs for good vegan cookbooks, especially kid-friendly ones (she has seven and nine-year-old daughters), that would be awesome.

I also introduced her to the concept of fanfic (I can't believe this is the first time we've talked about it, but on the other hand we're usually hanging out with her kids or my extended family), and as she is a pretty big Dr. Who & Torchwood fan, I am seeking recs. She doesn't seem to have any strong Doctor or Companion preferences, so any recs (or good rec sites) would be welcome. Preferably stuff you would rec to pimp someone into a fandom, since she's never read anything fannish before.

So I was having a moderately good day--I accomplished lots of things I'd been avoiding at work today, so I was rewarding myself by going to a new ice cream shop, pondering whether or not to try the avocado flavor, when I misjudged the height of a curb and tripped and fell in a spectacular and extremely painful fashion. (The plus side to living in a small California town--a ridiculous number of people rushed to my aid. I once sprained an ankle in St. Mark's place in NYC and while I actually tend to think New Yorkers are extremely friendly, that is not a place to have an injury if you want assistance).

Anyway, I seem to be mainly ok outside of very sore and scraped hands and elbows, but I banged one of my knees up pretty badly. I'm hoping it's not anything serious--I was able to limp the quarter mile home, so it's definitely not broken--but as I sit here icing and elevating and all that good jazz, I started wondering why exactly you are supposed to use the RICE method. I mean, I know it prevents swelling, but now that we are so focused on our bodies' natural healing processes etc., it makes me wonder if swelling (increased bloodflow, all that jazz) isn't nature's way of healing things, so why do we try to stop it? Is it just for pain reasons that we do the RICE thing? Faster mobility?

So I've only been checking the local theater website for Avengers showtimes for about a month now, and until yesterday they only had the midnight show listed. (Which I really can't go to since I have to be at work at 8, and I really really can't take the day off).

But now they have showtimes for next weekend listed and they are all 3-D! [I am blind in one eye so I can't do 3-D at all]. I am very confused, though, since one of the 2 midnight shows is non-3D. So they're just doing one midnight show in 2-D, and no others? Why, why, why universe??! Am I really going to have to take a bus to [large California city] just to watch this movie?

For those of you who have been following my dad's medical saga: it turned out he had blockage in several arteries (one 100%, one 80%), so he had stents put in today and the procedure went well enough that he'll probably be released from the hospital tomorrow. Now my mom just has to persuade him to wait until the weekend to drive home. Thanks again for all your good wishes.