Meds & paperwork update

Theoretically got all my disability paperwork in the other day (yesterday?) for the two-year own-occupation test that will decide about whether they make me 1) try to go back to work 2) keep funding me or 3) try to go back to work. I sent my bit in, I'd seen my doctor to fill out things back on the 24th and called today to make sure they'd sent it in (three weeks later). That went as follows:

Me: looks at the time, it's too early to call. Falls asleep.
Me: looks at the phone, it's their lunch break. Eats lunch, falls asleep.
Me: 2pm! Perfect. Calls, starts to explain the situation, their fire alarm goes up and they say they'll call me back. Sets alarm.
Me: 3pm: Alarm goes off. Calls. Starts to plain situation.
Her: oh yes! My colleague spoke with you earlier, we were about to call you back.
Me: so did you send the paperwork in?
Her: let me put you on hold to look. *does so*
Her: so I'm not sure if they got the ROI signed.
Me: I signed an ROI
Her: yes, but the hospital needs to sign one as well
Me: it's been three weeks and it needs to be in very soon
Her: we have an internal three-month deadline to get them signed
Me: ...my insurers won't wait three additional months after I wait for a doctor's appointment for the information *panicking silently*
Her: just a minute, let me put you on hold again
Her: *comes back* It looks like they sent it on the 24th, three weeks ago
Me: *breathes*
Me: decides not to ask for confirmation and just assume she's right the second time (before I asked for the fax cover sheet because they couldn't seem to figure out if they'd sent it in)

Anyhow that's theoretically done.

I'm on a medication trial for MCAS, which is basically "weird mast cell stuff folks will sell you lots of pseudoscience for"

Symptoms: weird skin stuff like itching, weird gut stuff, reflux, allergic reactions to random weird things, trouble breathing and swallowing, heart doing weird things, brain fog...

Treatment: take antihistamines

The most common way to diagnose is if you start taking a bunch of antihistamines and the symptoms go away, then you stop and they come back, it's probably that. There's a blood or pee test that tries to capture some ephemeral stuff but it tends not to work.

So anyhow, did I ever tell you that about two decades ago my skin was super itchy to the point I was sitting there thinking of trying to cut or peel my skin off with a veggie peeler, it had been getting worse for months, and so I decided instead of self-harming I should go to a doctor. The doctor said, take an allergy pill. It worked despite my skepticism. Been doing that ever since, more or less. There are windows it gets better. There are times the allergy pills aren't quite enough despite my rotating them and I'll take benedryl on top.

Then a couple years ago I started having gut stuff, reflux, food not going properly down when I tried to swallow, etc. I went to the doctor and got prescription stuff for awhile, then ended up with over the counter pepcid which I felt I could take more sustainably. It made things better sometimes but not all the time.

Turns out the medication trial for MCAS is to take: a sedating antihistamine, since bendryl can maybe cause dementia with long term use they go with a different one (which costs a million dollars and isn't covered by insurance, ugh), a non-sedating antihistamine like loratadine, cetirizine, or the other ones I've been rotating for two decades; and pepcid which inhibits something gut uptake histamines something but which is taken at a much higher dose than over the counter.

So I've been kind of doing this already, but now I have access to more information (it can "flare up" like most things can, due to stress or illness or other jolts to the body's equilibrium), to guidance on dosing (it's ok to take everything continuously, and recommended to find a "base dose" and then go up to higher doses when something is anticipated to cause a flare up) and to a prescription (which doesn't help because none are covered, but does help because they're still slightly cheaper than hunting around for sales from london drugs online, superstore, etc).

It's not that it makes everything all better, but it makes a lot of things better. My mind feels a bit less foggy all the time. Combined with the estrogen that means I feel less foggy AND I feel more emotionally stable, which is a very good thing. I'm sleeping more comfortably with less body discomfort and less crawling out of my skin.

My big daily doses of B vitamin complex are somewhat decreasing the other discomfort in my legs, the pins and needles and numbness and burning, if I forget for two days I definitely notice but it picks up again when I start.

So these are modest gains in terms of dealing with the world and life, but pretty substantial for quality of life. Being clearer and more enthusiastic does mean it's easier to do too much and get knocked back to bed. I think my muscles are more relaxed since I'm not always guarding against discomfort; anyhow it seems easier to pull/overuse/hurt muscles even if I'm not doing anything differently.

And finally my thumb stitches have been "fully" healed for a bit. About a quarter of my thumb pad is a weird combination of feeling numb and flayed, not recommended. It requires that after pottery or gardening I check it thoroughly because I wouldn't know if I got an abrasion or a thorn in it. It makes some activities very weird, like rubbing thumb and forefinger together is exceptionally weird. There is a big thick scar under the skin. But! The skin is closed, it's shed layers and toughened up, and I got to keep both my finger and my fingernail bed.

*I was going to post my answers to the disability forms here, then remembered just how often askamanager's sample resumes end up getting sent in as people's real resumes (before AI even) and refrained. I want to, because I hate the secrecy around all this stuff. It makes it both scarier and easier to other folks going through it. But there it is.

First pottery show

Eep!

I have my first pottery show coming up in September. I'll set up the space from the 2nd to 4th, and there'll be a soft opening some days after that, a formal evening reception if I want (I do want! And I will find a way to recline with my feet up, dammit, maybe with my C-shaped cushion and some blankets on the stage). There'll be a small pottery workshop mid Sept, then on the 25th I'll take everything home that didn't sell.

It's at the local lovely little art studio, so nothing huge and fancy and it'll be very comfortable.

Setup will need to include pricing and I'd like to write about groups of things and the iterative process, we'll see if that happens. I'd also like to ask the town photographer if she can photograph everything for me so I have a record. Between what I've given away, sold, and broken I'm losing a lot even from memory, like my favourite red-clay ash-and-turquoise mug full of tea I left on the back of my truck when I drove away from the garden club meeting a couple years ago. Sigh.

I'm also trying to make lots of stuff. I'd hoped to work through July and Aug on it but then cut my thumb too badly to go near mud and water. And unlike my past life I can't just push and then rest; I pushed too hard yesterday and couldn't sleep last night until the second dose of painkillers kicked in and that was only four cups, albeit with fairly dry clay.

This is the perfect opportunity to test some more clays.

The company I've generally bought clay from, Plainsman, is relatively local; that is it's from Western Canada and the only place that mines and makes clay here. They've always had an abysmal website, hard to navigate and without live inventory numbers or anything, though they had descriptions of their clays and pricing, and they had a ton of side information on a related site.

Recently they fired the guy who ran the related site and took down their site "to update and make a better site". Now, this means that no pricing info, clay characteristics, nor even a list of what they make is up, just am under construction sign saying they're making some wonderful site that will be out in some months.

This is the absolute stupidest thing. It's not like they need to take down their basic prices-and-characteristics site in order to make their fancy one. They can make their other one and just not link it in. And they're taking over six months on this project, assuming they finish it in the early fall; it could be much longer, who knows? But if I want absorption or particle size on their clays or even the name of a clay I'm SOL. Between that and some weird stuff with the guy they fired, and the fact that their red clays absorb more water when fired than I really like, I'm feeling very done with them.

So there are two other companies in Canada who do clay. I don't believe they mine their own materials but they do what is more commonly done, buy and mix to make specific clays. They're far east-er than I and clay does not ship cheaply since it's 40-50lbs per block (which here adds $25 per block-ish, and over half a dozen blocks you want to ship pallet freight with a loading dock thinger) but there IS a place in Vancouver area that carries them and Josh is coming up in a bit. AND the new place lets me order online instead of by email, and then pay easily and Josh just goes and picks it up.

Last time he came up he brought two kinds of red clay because Plainsman's red clay is their most porous (which is bad, it harbours mold) and because it's my most favourite type of clay to work with.

So I need to do a throw test on those quick, being mindful of which is which instead of just tossing them on the wheel, and that will help me decide between the two brands. Then he can bring up some more to test, and also some of whichever of the reds I like most.

And I can see how the glazes do on them.

In reality I probably will not end up writing much but will hopefully at least be able to use fabric and branches and whatnot to make a nice setup. I need to get some price stickers (?) because selling some would be nice, and label things as mine and decide on some prices.

I also need a sign which says "PLEASE TOUCH THE ART" and I'd like to number each piece and have a draw box: write down your favourite piece and you enter to win a prize. What people like and how they handle things is as fascinating to me as the physics and chemistry of throwing a piece and glazing it. People's bodies and aesthetic senses are all different and it makes me happy.

Anyhow, even though I have random pottery sitting on most surfaces in my house, including in my kitchen and in boxes in the carport, I feel the need to make a bunch more stuff. So I will be trying to do that for the next two weeks. I want to do little things easy to take home, and a couple big neat pieces that possibly have no actual purpose (!).

Whoah I jhave been writing a lot an just felt the room sway significantly, so instead og putting this away to do pottery I will lie down. But there you have it.