[Twister's Scrapbook] Total Turbulence

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[Twister's Scrapbook] Total Turbulence

Postby Translucent on December 15th, 2013, 3:17 am

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Hiya twister! I will be thinking about you on your surgery day as well. My father was diagnosed with Type-1 Diabetes when he was 4 years old. Unfortunately he had some pretty horrible parents who didn't teach him how to manage it, plus this was back in the 60's when there wasn't as much knowledge about things like carbohydrates turn to sugar in your blood etc. Long story short by the time I was born and knew my Dad he was pretty far gone, always gaunt and thin, and had a list of problems a mile wide. All because he didn't take care of his body. He relied on the insulin to do that, while he lived on mountain dew and snickers bars. He passed away when he was 33 years old.

I am so glad that you are taking proactive steps (you too Dae!) to manage your diabetes, and am giving you all the support I am able in doing so. !


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[Twister's Scrapbook] Total Turbulence

Postby Twister on March 21st, 2014, 3:03 pm

I realize I never gave an update regarding that hospital visit.

First off, we didn't go to the first one in January. Car-related problems made it so, unfortunately, but I did go there on the 6th of March together with my grandmother. It was a very awkward visit, but at the same time it offered a lot of insight into the procedures to come and put me at ease since many of my worst-case illusions about my future were shattered, completely and utterly. Did you know that once you've gone through with this surgery, you don't actually eat a lot of fruit and vegetables? You've got pills perscribed to you for the rest of your life to replace all the vitamins and minerals you should've gotten from a varied diet so that you can focus on eating meat, fish and dairy products. Lots of them, too. Protein, protein, protein.

They also said that hamburgers aren't that bad. Just the bread and dressing. That was a gem.

The best part about this informational meeting was the fact I had my grandmother with me. She's gone through overweight surgery in the past (gastric band, or whatever it's called; when you tie a band around the stomach sack to reduce the usable size of it--they never do that surgery on anyone today) and had her own ideas for what was right or wrong post-surgery. Even she was surprised by what the doctors were saying during the meeting since they popped a lot of bubbles formed by your formal beauty and health tips as well as experts on diets and the like. All in all, it was very enlightening for everyone present and it made me feel much more optimistic about the future.

We did find out that the process is going to be very long, however. They told us that we could count on a minimum of six months delay before we got to actually meet a surgeon who would tell us if we were clear for the surgery or not, going to meetings with nurses and psychologists in the meantime and working on piffying up our day-to-day habits between the meetings so we're prepared when the time comes (and provoke a bit of pre-surgery weight loss, for a variety of reasons).

Once the informational meeting was over, we got to eat a test-lunch that was about the size of what we would be able to eat after a gastric bypass surgery. A single small potato and beef with some tomato sauce. We were gathered around a few different tables and informed that we were supposed to take 20 minutes to chew and eat that potato and beef. ... See, if we go through with the surgery, we're supposed to learn to chew and eat our food very slowly. We'll be doing with our mouths what our stomach sacks did for us, before; process and portion the food before it proceeds down the bowels. After the surgery, most of the stomach sack will be completely removed from the system, which means many of its functions are lost to us and we have to make up for that in other ways.

One way to do that is to try to eat one potato and beef over the course of 20 minutes.

It was extremely awkward, I'll tell you. We were seven women around a single table, chewing away quietly at our potatoes while occasionally glancing awkwardly at eachother or the clock on the wall above the door. The awkwardness built until we were all giggling away about five minutes in, and we figured out we could chat with eachother to make our slow eating easier, since it wasn't that important that we were chewing nonstop during those 20 minutes. The most important part was that we chewed every bite properly and swallowed a little at a time and took our sweet time finishing the meal since, post-surgery, eating too fast will clog up the system. It's extremely painful, or so I heard. There's also the phenomenon called "dumping", which to some feels like you're about to have a heart attack except you're completely fine in reality.

Oh, yeah, I didn't last the full 20 minutes. I finished my plate after 15, but at least I wasn't first! ... I may or may not have made sure someone else finished first before I took that last bite of my beef. :'3

All in all, it turned out to be a pretty good day that I finished off on my grandmother's couch, snoozing to some random TV show.

PS.

As it turns out, my grandmother's nagging of the poor nurses at the hospital after the informational meeting saw to it that my first appointment with a nurse is on the 4th of April, halving my expected waiting time. She's frighteningly good at that.

Nagging, I mean. :)
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[Twister's Scrapbook] Total Turbulence

Postby Twister on August 20th, 2014, 5:00 pm

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Hey. I thought I'd break out Abstract's awesome template for this one. I never had a chance to really use it yet. Unfortunately it's for another one of those depressing hospital stories, but I really want to write it. For my own sake and for others.

Anyhow. As some may have noticed by my occasional posts in the OOC thread in Sunberth and from my snippets in Chat over the past couple of days, I've been stuck, once again, in hospital for a while. I didn't publicly announce the last time I was stuck in a hospital, mostly because it wasn't a big enough deal for me to remember to write about it. It was the middle of June where I went in for a very bad ear infection and the hospital decided to keep me for a few days. I didn't remain a full week, but they sent me back home a few days after taking me in once the infection had died down and the pain was gone. Their antibiotics made quick work of the infection, thankfully, so it wasn't such a big deal in the end.

Not compared to this, anyhow. On July the 30th at 2 AM, me and my mother went to the hospital in the middle of the night. I had been dealing with severe pains for the past couple of days and swelling that wouldn't stop. I couldn't walk, sit, lay down, or really exist in any sort of state without being in constant pain. We went in, sat in the waiting room, and a nurse appeared to take a blood test and my temperature. I had a fever at the time, which surprised me. It was at 39,8 degrees Celsius when we first came to the hospital. The blood test was a pretty typical one, too. A quick test where you measure the amount of proteins in your blood. Increased amounts hint at infection. Being below 10 is normal. With an active infection you can be between 40 and 200. Above 200 and you have a severe infection. My reading came up at 470+ when we checked in.

Turns out, later, that I'd came down with Necrotizing Fasciitis. The doctors here just called them "flesh eating murder bacteria", since that's what the tabloids like to call them. Rewinding a bit... I came to the hospital at 2 AM. They took my temperature and blood test. Then I sat there waiting for five and a half hours because the only available doctor in their department didn't answer the nurses' calls. None of the nurses took the time to look at me any closer, but lounged about their break room, sprawling in their sofas watching TV. My mother and I waited for hours until the ordinary emergency room three floors down opened. It wasn't long before a doctor saw me once we came down to the emergency room, though, so that's good. The doctor took one look, called in another doctor from another department who also took a look, and within half an hour I was in a hospital bed, being driven by nurses at high speed across half the hospital with my mother running after them to keep up. "Every minute counts", they told her.

The first week at the hospital is a blur to me. I was fighting the infection, and at the same time I was struggling with high fever. Reality was fuzzy enough and I admit that I saw things that weren't there. I even had an episode, or vision, where I was visited by my great-great-grandmother. Looking back at it now, it's kind of fascinating. Mostly because I have had to realize what a close call it was. I'm still struggling with the reality of it all, that I'm lucky to be alive right now. I was hours away from death. Or, at the very least, the amputation of my left leg (which is still partially numb). The infection spread like a wildfire, and if they hadn't hooked me up to the antibiotics when they did... Well, I don't really know what would've become of me.

These past weeks have been very harsh. Both on me and on my family. A lot of people, friends and family, have reached out to us to show that they care and wished us well and for a speedy recovery for me. It has been surreal. I still can't wrap my head around it all. I have many stories from my time in the hospital so far and no doubt I'll have a few more before I'm out of the woods entirely. Today marks three weeks of being here, and I've had a total of 8 surgeries in that time. I'm having another tomorrow. It's not such a big deal anymore now, though, since I've been through the procedure so many times. I'm just silently hoping that I'll be out of the hospital soon. My family's occasional visits have been life-savers. Without them, I would go insane.

So, that's about it, for now. I don't know what else to say. I just needed these things to be said for my sanity's sake. I'll finish off with a hospital picture and that one song that always keeps me going, and by saying that... No doubt, this is going to be a big part of my day to day for months to come. I'm glad I'm still alive.

(When I uploaded it, it had the appropriate CAPTCHA "cliff-hanger".)
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[Twister's Scrapbook] Total Turbulence

Postby Twister on September 26th, 2014, 5:41 pm

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I cried like a baby. :) It's too touching not to share.

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[Twister's Scrapbook] Total Turbulence

Postby Twister on September 29th, 2014, 9:34 pm

So, those who saw me in Chat today know that I'm very excited about something. About a week ago I submitted an application for the position of Writer for a start-up indie game company here in Sweden, stationed in Stockholm. The ad for the position was posted in early August, while I was still in the hospital, and a friend tipped me off to it the same day I submitted the application.

After I sent in the application I was afraid I was too late, since it was over a month since the ad was posted. Today I got a mail back from them telling me that they liked the excerpts I sent in and that they wanted me to take the recruitment test for the position, which means I'll be competing with the other applicants for the job by proving myself as a writer through performing a number of set assignments with a set theme. A theme I really happen to like, I might add! I ran up the walls in excitement and I was even shaking, I was so excited. :D

I'm not sure what my chances are of getting the job, but I'll sure as shyke try my hardest! Squee!
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[Twister's Scrapbook] Total Turbulence

Postby Twister on October 13th, 2014, 6:43 am

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I will spread the awesomeness that is this song to the masses.

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[Twister's Scrapbook] Total Turbulence

Postby Twister on October 15th, 2014, 2:37 pm

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So. We have kittens. Or had, rather. I kept failing to take pictures of them and my sister beat me to it, posting the pictures above on Facebook yesterday to announce we were selling. Three of the kittens are "gone" now; one's claimed, and two have already been picked up by their new owners. Only the black and white in the bottom right hasn't been claimed, and the grey striped cat in the big picture hasn't been picked up by the one who claimed her yet.

I'm kind of glad that they are moving to new homes now. It's a shame, though, since they were kind of adorable. ;) But, well... I can't keep that many cats in my room, and dad's allergic so we can't have them in the main building. Now that they're leaving, we still have the two boys from the previous litter here. We're giving away the mother to the four fuzzballs above, too, so we only have the males. No more kittens for us. It's just as well, since we're due to have puppies around Christmas. :paranoid:
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[Twister's Scrapbook] Total Turbulence

Postby Twister on October 16th, 2014, 12:35 pm

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I never lost a friend before. I've roleplayed about it, and I've had pets die. Sure, they were my friends too, in a way. I just never formed the same kind of relationship with them that I'd have with a real friend. I've just never felt that loss when someone you love dearly has to leave. Until today, that is.

Alba is a dog. We've had her since early 2000, which means I was just a kid when we got her. I remember going to the kennel with mom, and this adorable little puppy falling asleep in mom's arms. There was no question about it when we bought her and brought her back home, and since then she's just always been there. She's been a part of the family for so many years and I just can't remember anything else. Lately, she's been sick and weak. We thought we'd have to give her up a couple of years ago, but she got better. She had her periods of illness after that, but every time she got better again we decided to give her one more summer. One more winter. One more Christmas.

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But even if we decided to give her more time she just steadily got worse every year. We always knew it was just a matter of time and some of us even got into the habit of taking an extra look if she was still breathing when she was laying down on the floor. I've prepared for this for months, but it came really suddenly today that she rapidly got worse. Mom even had to pick me up early from my workplace (where I'm an intern) because they had to call the vets so suddenly. She suddenly gave up. Got worse rapidly. All the kids were picked up from school early and brought home to say their final goodbyes, hug and cry.

Right now she's in the car with mom, going to the clinic. The rest of us weren't allowed to go because she thought Alba needed some peace. Not to be surrounded by mourning family just the moments before she leaves. Besides, she needed me and my oldest brother at home to watch the other kids if they need someone to lean on. Dad went with mom to be her support. They'll come back home with Alba later so we can bury her at that special place we've prepared for her in the garden under the wild apple tree, next to my cat who died while I was in the hospital.

Not sure how much this is going to affect me. This was much harder to prepare for than I thought it would be. I apologize in advance if I take a bit of time off.
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[Twister's Scrapbook] Total Turbulence

Postby Twister on October 17th, 2014, 10:51 pm

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You know what helps when you're grieving?

Roleplay and exciting news, that's what.

I went to a recent friend's place in the town just over from where I live. It's just a five-minute bus ride, so it's practically next door from my small excuse for a village that I live in. Where I'm an intern, I was lucky enough to find a few others who both LARP and RP tabletop, and I started discussing joining their tabletop game already before I went into the hospital. Now that I went back there, I picked up the discussion once again and that lead to me being invited to play this weekend. We played all afternoon today and we'll play some more tomorrow morning. It was a lot of fun. I don't think I've laughed or had such a good time in quite a while.

Our group is a collection of LARPers and dedicated roleplayers, both, so the in-character moments were plenty and hilarious every single time. I loved it. It took me a while to really get into my character to feel comfortable enough to send judgmental glares all around, but once I got comfortable with my character and the group dynamic... Well, fun times were had.

As for the good news... Me, my mother, grandmother and father are going to a mass-seance next weekend. 500 people, for 5 hours, with the spirit medium Terry Evans. I'm excited beyond words. I think he's so cool, and I am looking forward to it already. I even gushed with one of my roleplaying buddies immediately after receiving the call from my mother while we were having dinner.

I'm feeling great right now.
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[Twister's Scrapbook] Total Turbulence

Postby Twister on October 20th, 2014, 3:55 pm

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That thing I mentioned on the 12th in my Scrap? I didn't get the job, but I'm happy anyway. :)

Turns out I was going up against established and published authors, and there were a total of 100 applicants. Only about 20 of those were actually offered the opportunity to take the recruitment test, and I feel privileged enough to have gotten that far. While I wasn't a top candidate, I got the feedback that I was among the better applicants and they wanted to stay in touch, just in case, so that's good! That's at least a C+, I'd wager. :D

I'll definitely be keeping in touch with them and keep an eye on their website. I might even try to advertise their game!

Welp. Time to move on and look for other opportunities!
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