Had the biopsy done yesterday and now I have a line (almost an inch long) of tiny stitches in my cheek. Naturally, I was starving for spicy crunchy food after the surgery and I'm not allowed to eat that yet. I can't open my mouth wide without compromising the stitches but I'm good at the Boston Clinch - talking with my teeth together. I wore my bite guard to bed last night and was actually able to sleep with it in, something I'm usually not able to do. I think it kept me from chewing on my cheek just fine.
Still can't eat in the mornings. Both my intestine and throat protests every morning so nothing can go in and too much goes out. Luckily I get hungry later in the morning so I'm not too fainty, though it makes going to work a little shaky. And I eat fine in the evening, but I don't eat much anymore. Just can't do it. I lost four lbs in eight days between two doctor appointments. My face is thinner and my baggy jeans are REALLY baggy now. Not the best way to lose weight but I hope I can keep it off this time. Actually, I want to lose more weight but I'm not wanting to do it with bad health.
Sold my guitar for $50 at Guitar Center. They didn't want my banjo because the neck was warped so I left it there anyway. Left the nice cases, too. Another part of my life from the late 60s is now gone forever.
Going to the rheumo today about the 'lump' in my throat. Had a CAT scan done by my GP Xmas Eve eve and he found nothing lumpy in my throat. I suspect I have Sjogren's Syndrome now, due to my dry eyes and throat.
I do my back exercises every other day. It takes a half-hour to go through the series and rat does all the timing for me so I can concentrate on the actual exercises. I regret it if I don't do them.
We're still cleaning stuff out but I've lost a lot of momentum after emptying a bunch of boxes we had since the last move. I suspect we'll still move eventually but the smoke poisoning is somewhat under control now so it's not as pressing.
We're going over to our best friends' place tomorrow evening, as usual, for our New Year's get-together. It's nice and relaxing.
We're having a blizzard, in Dallas, on Christmas Eve.
Go fig.
I doubt we'll get even an inch of snow sticking, though it's been blowing pretty steadily for four hours. A lot melted as it hit the ground. But now that the temp has dropped from the mid-40's to 30, with a windchill of 18, the snow is sticking.
It's a bit of a shock - a white Christmas!
So here are a few of my favorite holiday songs:
I wish the Roches had put out the sheet music on this when we were caroling every year. The music is available for free now, at their website.
Gotta love minor Xmas music...
And my all-time favorite version of "Silent Night" - makes me cry every single time.
There were no holes behind the dishwasher so we can't figure out how the smoke is coming in there. It's definitely coming from the kitchen cabinet and nowhere else in the apartment.
We looked at a smoke-free house that would be perfect but we are hesitant about the $125 more a month in rent. It's really a great house but we'd have to get a refrigerator and other things to get set up, which costs money. rat really wants to downsize but we can't find anything.
All I had to eat yesterday was a little truffle thingie and half a can of Campbell's soup at my folks' place.
The smoke starts around 8pm and ends around 11pm every night and starts up around 7am the next morning. During the day it doesn't seem to be in the place, but we leave the back porch door open (below 30 outside) and blow a fan toward it.
I got only two and a half hours sleep last night. Got up early today to avoid the 7am smoke so I could eat and I was retching as I tried to swallow. Had to use a lot of fluids to get only half a frozen breakfast down but at least I finally got my daily arthritis meds started again after missing four days.
Naturally, there's no smoke this morning.
This morning we're going request to borrow the key to the apt next door for a few days to sniff test it.
Went to the dentist yesterday and they discovered something suspicious in my mouth so I go to an oral surgeon this morning for analysis, maybe biopsy. Could be cancer.
It is currently 26 outside and our back door is open so we can breathe.
I've cried more this past week than I have in years.
They taped under the sink and it was better.
Then it started coming through the dishwasher.
We're waiting for them to tape behind the dishwashers in both apartments. We requested it yesterday but they didn't do it so we sent another request that it HAD to happen today. The smoke last night was crawling over the floor.
This morning when we turned on our heater the smoke started pouring into our bedroom, which had been smoke-free until then. That means we're screwed if our air handler is attached to the attic. We know the smoke is in the attic because I smelled it coming out of the outside vents one evening. Attic smoke happened last time we fought apartment second-hand smoke, the time we almost got evicted.
We're living in a freezer with smoke creeping along the floor so we have to keep the windows open just to get some fresh air. I wasn't able to run the space heater last night because it was pulling the floor smoke into the room where we were sitting.
We have box fans going.
We're spraying an industrial Febreeze-type product, which is strong in its own right so I have to only do a small spritz or it makes me cough, too.
Last night around 10pm I had to stand outside for five minutes and breathe the fresh air so my lungs would stop hurting so much.
Please ask your deity(s) of choice to help us with this so we don't have to move, or if we ARE forced to move, to find us a smoke-free place to live and lots of nice people to help us move quickly.
I am being poisoned in my apartment and there's nothing we can do about it.
It started with a smell in the kitchen and we found the stench under the kitchen sink. We have sealed and resealed under there and the smell is still coming through. It's also coming out from behind the refrigerator.
The rental office told rat to get some Lysol or air freshener. The property workers all smoke so they can't detect ANYTHING, so it's pointless to call them about it. The last time we complained about smoke coming through the vents we almost got evicted.
We talked to the neighbors Saturday after I broke down crying because I was feeling so sick. I have a big lump in my chest and I know I have bronchitis now because I know how it feels. Breathing is very painful. My throat burns. My stomach is screwed and I'm having the stomach flu-like symptoms I get when I'm around cigarette smoke. I'm going to get so sick I can't work but staying home is what makes me sick.
They swear they're not smoking in their apt but the place reeks of it as it pours off all their belongings. You can stand in the doorway and pass out because it smells so disgusting. She mentioned Febreezing but they would need the entire place doused in it to kill the smell in all their things. She also said she'd be willing to move to a different apartment on the property if someone would pay to move them.
Since their belongings are saturated with smoke, it is leaching into our place above them. It is all over us now because someone at the doll meetup today SMELLED IT ON ME.
So we have all the ceiling fans on plus the back and front doors open in 40 degree weather to keep me from completely dying in here.
rat is looking for someplace else to move. We can't afford a rent house at $1200 a month. We currently live in a place with gobs of closet space and other places have only 1/8th of the closet space.
So tomorrow we're going to the office first thing and see what we can do to get her moved. If there's not a place for her to move, maybe a place for us. However, the empty apartment next door to us is attached to the apartment on the end where I smelled smoke coming out of their window and we smelled the smoke up in the attic vents outside. So there's a chance we're being poisoned from the top and the bottom.
If we can't get her moved, I have no idea what we're going to do.
As I took off my coat at work this morning I felt a tug at the back of my neck and the chain holding my heart was suddenly hanging down on my chest. It immediately fell to the floor and I picked it up and put it on my desk.
The heart was gone... again...
After searching the office, going home and searching the area where I keep it (in case it hadn't been on the chain in the first place), shaking off my clothes, checking my office again, it looks like it's gone, and probably for forever this time.
Naturally I'm upset and it compounds when I have to deal with the smoke coming through the kitchen vent and making my lungs and eyes burn while making my body think it has a stomach flu. rat is going to talk with them again.
As to a replacement heart? I'm to the point I can't take the heartache of losing something - again - anymore and I told rat to not bother replacing it.
The new neighbors below us smoke. It's coming up into the apartment through the kitchen. Here we go again.
rat went down for a friendly chat and the woman said she only smoked outside. We still smell it periodically but rat didn't tell her about how it makes us so sick, yet. It's really tempting to buy her a few bottles of Febreeze and suggest she spray her furniture. I'm letting him handle this because I get smoke rage - the stuff makes me violently ill and I can detect it many feet away and in another room with closed doors.
We're both getting sneezy and headachey. I suspect I'll be royally sick tomorrow and can't make it to work due to this.
We got rare snow today. Here are some crappy videos I took with the junk camera.
Thanks: --> to Lia, my sensei, who has inspired me to draw again. I
wouldn't be doing this without your support, Domo Arigato!
--> to Talon, for sending me her fabulous fics, inspiring me with her writing to draw my first
illustration for a story and actually liking what I drew.
--> to Dasia, for her words of encouragement when drawing her original chara.
--> to Joules, a wonderful epic fic writer, for liking my art enough to want to post them with Talon's
and her own stories.
--> to Lutra, the other half of the epic team, for being so supportive.
--> to Jacque' & Becca Raddittzu, we met on eBay as bidder and sellers and now we are face-to-face
friends. You showed us the real DBZ with your fansubs. It's all your fault the house is full of
doujinshi! *LOL*
:: welcome to bakayaro onna's mindless ramblings, rants & raves :: 
