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Life has calmed down just a bit. Not much, but a bit. What we've been up to:
Julia has been conferencing, a lot! Since the last week of Feb/first weekend of March, she's been to four conferences. Four! She's exhausted. And her university is beginning its search for a new president - the old one announced his retirement in January.
I gave a talk on Changing Palates: Changing Uses of Herbs and Spices from the 13th to the 16th C in England at the beginning of the month. I barely got all my data entry done in March and spent the last weekend of the month doing my data analysis for the talk. This was a continuation of research I had done a couple of years ago, so I knew what I'd see in some of the data, but there were a few interesting data points. Like how nutmeg wasn't being used until just before the end of the 16th C then became wildly popular yet mace was popular before that.
The talk itself went really well. Most of my audience were academics so I got really good feedback and some nice encouragement to consider moving my research along for publication. I'm a few years away from that, I think - I want to find a lot of household data to go with what I'm finding in cookbooks, but I'm getting there.
News on the kitty front isn't quite so good. Sable got an eye infection (we think) that has gotten her immune system revved up and started her autoimmune disorder attacking her eye. Or there was no infection and her autoimmune disorder attacked her eye, we're not 100% sure - it can be really hard to tell without cultures and we treated with antibiotics first (so cultures will be useless). What we do know right now is the autoimmune issue is flared up. So my poor kitty can't see out of one eye very much right now; it's very inflamed and the cornea is very thickened. But we are treating it with cyclosporine eye cream and an antibiotic to prevent infection. Once we get that cleared back up, I will talk to her regular vet about adjusting her dose of oral cyclosporine. We can't go full dose or her gums overgrow her teeth, but the half dose isn't enough.
Speaking of her vet, we discovered that the vet has a really good rapport with Sable. How do we know that? Because the demon kitty of the vet visit has been docile the last several visits (which actually had me worried that she was really quite ill). But on this visit, her vet was out and they had a relief vet which Sable Did Not Like. And at the eye clinic, Sable made it very clear that this WAS NOT HER VET. Wow! They had to sedate her to examine her eye so she couldn't bite or scratch them or jerk because they were going to put instruments against her eye during the exam (which is bad enough for people).
But she's doing better. The eye is still angry red, but not nearly as demonic-looking as Thursday.
And things are quieting down here, a little.
S
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Well, I've seen the doctor. He does think what's been going on with the ribs is dystonia. Instead of the dystonia being just the rhombus muscles like we thought (it is there, just not as severe as thought), it seems the dystonia has moved further down the spine and is presenting in the intercostal muscles of my ribs (the muscles between the ribs). That would be why when they spasm it hurts so much to breathe and why twisting my torso can provoke the spasms. So, he found the triggering nerves in my back and Botoxed the pathway there too. OUCH! Those were some of the most painful injections I got on Friday - I couldn't help but flinch (normally I don't move at all except to take a deeper breath - nope, gotta get away from that damned needle this time). So I'm up to 19 injections and 450 units of Botox.
So my diagnosis has changed from cervical dystonia to segmental dystonia since I now have two adjacent body parts (head/neck and back/ribs) affected. That's what was decided last time, but when the botox didn't seem to help, we weren't sure. We are now. Unfortunately, the dystonia is progressing and I'm not happy about that. We don't know how far it could go and I do have some symptoms of general dystonia on top of it all (fortunately only when I'm tired). If it gets too, too bad, there is always the possibility of brain surgery, but it is going to have to get REALLY BAD for me to want to go there. Like Botox and other toxins stop working bad. But we are nowhere near that yet.
But between this progression and the headache progression last year, Julia and I have had to talk about what happens in the future. Right now I'm only working part time by my office's preference. I'd like to work more hours because I have more work than I can get done in the time allotted. But last fall, until we got the headaches back under control, I was missing one day a week due to headaches. While the rib spasms have been out of control, I haven't had as much energy as I did before May. But I think we have both the headache and ribs sorted out so I don't think I will miss as much work as I did last fall, but having the time off to rest has been nice. But I really want to work. Gah!
S
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The wedding went well. The ceremony was lovely with one little bobble. It was a little cooler than anticipated, but adrenaline kept us warm until the end of the receiving line. It was very nice seeing our friends and family supporting us during the ceremony and giving us a standing ovation at the end.
We did most of the photos indoors because I started getting a little chilly. We didn't do many formal pictures - just with family and the officiant/minister. We have candids on some digital cameras to look at yet - once we've reviewed them, we'll put some of them up.
There was some dancing both (nearly) modern and (nearly) period. Lots of talking was had by all and lots and lots of eating! Not as much drinking so Julia and I have a lot more wine and beer left over than we anticipated; fortunately, we bought stuff we like to drink.
Of course, it wouldn't be a wedding if a fight didn't break out.:) At least in this case it was a fencing match between the officiant/minister and another friend of ours. When asked who was defending the brides' honor, they responded, "Yes." They seemed to have been well-matched, splitting the matches nearly evenly.
We had lots and lots of time with family during the days before and after the wedding. Some of it was really busy and some of it was more relaxed. I never thought weddings were a multi-day affair, but I was really, really wrong. I needed to go back to work, just to get some rest again. Wow!
S
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