The Thessaliad Redux

"Opinions are like testicles: you kick them hard enough, doesn't matter how many you've got."
--Varric Tethras

This quote has come to mind a lot lately, as I've been lurking Tumblr the last ... what, couple of months? (Hi, fellow Tumblrs!) Tumblr's got the best bits of Livejournal (decent character limit, immediacy of picture posting rather than link-clicky) and Twitter (encouragement of brevity, immediacy of update so you're not spamming F5, easy reblogging), but it also has the worst bits of both venues ... which are frankly the same worst bits of every online community: the "audience + anonymity = arsehole" factor.

Add fandom, and it becomes a complete f'ing disaster area.

Fandom is great. Really, I love it. It allows like-minded people to enjoy the thing they love, as in-depth as they want to make it, in the company of their peers. People have opinions! Opinions are good! ...Well, mostly they're good. I mean, they're all valid; just some of them are made on some really flawed and frankly arseholeish grounds. Like, "This character I think is really really hot hooks up with this skanky nympho whore character and I think it's really gross!" ... for example. If you can't see a pairing, that's entirely up to you (or at least it should be; more on that later). If you can't see a pairing and think it's somehow so disgusting that you have to use that kind of dehumanising language to encompass your hatred and indirectly tar everyone who likes that pairing with the same brush? That's not cool. In that case, if I was going to speak against that opinion, it'd be about the language and grounds for the dislike, not the dislike itself.

...Mostly because I'm a little bit sick of being judged for not getting or liking some pairings and characters myself. I dislike the idea that every character with a passionate relationship - friendly or antagonistic, sibling or close friend, any relationship - automatically has to be screwing with the other party. However, the difference is, I don't hate ships of that nature - I just don't get it, and I don't seek it out. When asked, I'll say I don't get it and I will explain why in terms that don't actively call someone names for daring to like something that I don't understand. If no one asks, then it never has to even come up because I'm not going to jump on anyone who sees something I don't. It's their headcanon, not mine. I reserve the right to disagree - politely - and extend them the same courtesy.

Are people so sensitive about the opinions of others that, when given the chance to attack anyone who disagrees (that won't get them a smack in the mouth, I mean), they'll take it without hesitation? Is it so important that everyone agree with them that they'll lash out at people who don't? Are they that insecure, that desperate for validation?

I will lash out at people who act like bigoted, abusive, narrow-minded fuckheads, in the main. But I'm not going to lash out at someone who thinks that two fictional characters are boning when I disagree. I'm not that insecure, and I feel sorry for those who are that insecure. They can get the hell off my Tumblr dashboard, though. I don't need hate for my opinions, when I am expressing them in a non-hateful way. (Thankfully none of them do thus far, but you know what I mean.)

In other news, my belf pally discovered Deepholm last night. It's like Hellfire Peninsula, but worse. So far my main choices for completing my crawl to level 85 on my main are Underwater Nightmare (which is at least pretty), ForestForestForOHLOOKFLAMINGDEATH! (which has some pretty), or the Bowels of the Earth. Well, at least the XP is good in Deepholm, from the few little quests I actually did last night.

Also, I'm still ill. Still dragging myself into this blighted job feeling like hell every day. I think I'll be glad of the Christmas holidays mostly because of the four-day weekend it allows me. Blegh.

Dear registrars,

I understand that you somehow feel that you are above and beyond the digital dictation system and that you must dictate everything on tiny transcription cassettes. Fine. However, there are a few rules that should really apply if you're going to circumnavigate a system that's put in place for your own benefit.

1) If you do not have a dictaphone, find one.
1a) Ditto dictaphone tapes.

2) If you are going to borrow a dictaphone from your colleagues, take their tape out of it first.

3) If you cannot find a tape and insist on dictating an entire clinic on top of the one the other registrar has already dictated on that tape, for the love of every god, mark it down on the tape's envelope.

4) Likewise ... leave us the gods-damned notes for the clinic you just dictated.

If you do not follow these simple rules, the following things are very likely to happen.

- Secretary finishes typing long clinic
- Secretary notes that there are no more notes
- Secretary thinks that tape is done
- Secretary erases tape
- Secretary dumps tape back into collective of tapes for use of registrars
- Letters do not get typed
- People get in trouble
- You look like you never dictated it

In other news, I finally dragged myself to the doctor for this vicious 'this is worse than a cold' thing that has been plaguing me for the last three weeks. I don't like seeing doctors for this kind of thing, mostly because it has been amply demonstrated to me that they honestly don't give a shit. You wait two hours for someone to actually see you at all and, despite the symptoms that have not gone away and have only worsened over the last two weeks, I got a shrug and a "come back if it gets any worse". See, there's always a question in these scenarios whether the infection is viral or bacterial. Thing is, if you listen to patient history, it's generally easy to tell which it's likely to be. So, when even a cursory Google search tells you that you're at high risk of things like this being strep throat if your immune system's being overtaxed because of fighting off a cold (which I have been) or by a terrible lot of stress (hello; my job), and the patient tells you that they had a cold a few weeks ago, started showing improvement and then suddenly got worse, odds are high that it's strep throat. I know that we're supposed to be careful about using antibiotics on things that don't need them so as not to breed antibiotic-resistent bugs, but on this one, handing over a penicillin prescription is playing good odds. Except they're not, in this case. I cannot afford to spend another two hours in a waiting room for someone to tell me to do what I was already doing when things got worse.

I should be more charitable, I know that. For the most part, the NHS is there when you need it. It's not the NHS itself I'm annoyed with - it's those parts of it who really don't give a shit so long as they don't get complained about or fired. I've had some bad luck with doctors lately in that I get the ones who handwave stuff I can't afford to just let sit around, and it really puts me off seeing anyone unless it's by ambulance. When it's something like some of the migraine shit I've been going through, or something like strep where the bacterial infection can spread to some pretty important bits of the body if left untreated, that's not the kind of thing I really want to think about.

I see a lot of different sides of the NHS, and I wouldn't be without it, but it does need a major overhaul. Let's start with sacking a few useless managers and all of the individuals who only still have their jobs because of how hard it is to fire people from the NHS (particularly the ones languishing in admin jobs of all pay grades; I'm talking gross incompetence and outright laziness here as sacking offences) and hire people who will actually do their jobs properly.

Essentially, all I want at this point is colleagues who don't linger for 45 minutes over overloud conversations and a qualified medical person who is going to actually pay some attention to the fact that I might actually be sick with something that requires more than paracetamol and vitamin C to treat. I can't afford to be this far off my game, not even if Christmas is coming up. It's not like I get anything but the bank holidays off...

Day 3 of the stomach flu from HELL. And I can now just about manage to sit upright for extended periods. ('Just about' meaning I can faff online for a little while but don't ask me to move or I will probably throw up or worse.) Seriously, this is vile. I can just about keep food down if I'm careful but ... well, let's just say that the aftermath isn't much fun. On the whole, I can't imagine what anyone can actually do about this, doctor-wise, but if I'm still this way come Monday, it's back to the GP. Whoo. Gods, can't I be healthy for five minutes?

I dunno what this does for this week's schedule on Chaos Magic podcast. I can probably record, but man am I not in the mood. I may improve over the weekend, or I may just get it done anyway. However, I can't imagine that the editing is going to be any fun. Not that it ever is, but I can't feature spending three fucking hours editing breaths and coughs and suchlike out of a podcast when I feel this crappy. I suppose I could do it in stages... Oh, hell, I dunno. Right now all I want to do is go back to bed but then again, I also don't. I am so bored it's unbelievable but I don't actually have the energy to do anything. So there am I buggered twice over. And all the while I feel like crap.

Maybe there should be a hot bath or something. Might help. I also might risk a cup of coffee on the grounds of needing to get some enjoyment out of life.

I'm not sure where the gibbons are - Royal Mail, the local NHS Trust central appointments office or the local NHS Trust hospital's post room. I'm not home yet; I haven't seen a doctor yet. I am in the local library (where I had to go to return some books anyway, but still), which at least have free internet facilities, to give an update on the gibbons.

I turned up at the hospital and found main outpatients with 20 minutes to spare. Go, me. As I arrived, some lady was being told that her appointment had been rescheduled and they'd tried to tell her but she'd recently moved and her address hadn't been changed on the system yet. I had no sense of foreboding whatsoever as I handed in my appointment letter and said I had a 10am appointment. I should have had, really, because the next thing that happened was the receptionist telling me that my appointment had been rescheduled. For yesterday. I don't know why the totally random reschedule - no one bothered to tell me - but what they told me was that they'd typed up a letter on 3rd March that never got to me. Yeah. That's helpful. So like I say, I don't know where the gibbons are. Anyway, since it was a new appointment and I got marked as Did Not Attend through no fucking fault of my own, a DNA letter got sent to my GP and they removed me from the system. And according to the receptionist on duty, the earliest they could fit me in again was July.

I swear, I nearly cried. I tried not to give the staff a hard time, but I did have to explain that I had been going through this for months, there have been Casualty trips and I could not wait another two months to be seen because my situation was deteriorating in a quick and worrisome way. Thankfully, the secretary who was called on to pull up my notification-of-reschedule letter was very nice and basically told me that she would see what she could do to get me seen today. There's always one, I suppose, to make up for the receptionist who just wants people to go away, from the look of her. In any case, in the meantime, a nurse took my blood pressure and so on to get it out of the way in case I could be seen that day and I was told to wait.

And so I waited. And waited. And waited. And watched the receptionist and the secretary converse with what I assume to be some sort of doctor (registrar, probably - too young to be a SHO and certainly too young for a consultant, which I only say because he looked about half my age). The receptionist took the line of, "She has another appointment! Everyone's busy!" and the secretary took my side. Long story short? I have an appointment with the registrar at 2pm today. By that point, there was no point whatsoever in going home, so I hung around Barnet for a bit, and now have to head back so that I can make my hard-won appointment. I'm tired, hungry and all-around miserable, and I hope this whole rigamarole was worth it.

*voom*

So today, I woke up with a total inability to deal with any light source. I mean, at all. Currently it's better, but my head is still killing me and I'm lethargic, slow of thought and tired despite having more or less slept through all those nasty daylight hours. dodgyhoodoo has suggested that I try going to A&E (Accident and Emergency, for all you non-Brits) as a shortcut to the whole "I can't see a neurologist for two months" issue because this is making our financial situation more and more untenable.

So I went to NHS Direct to see what they had to say about the matter. Clicked on the little "How to handle this particular health problem?" quiz-ish thing they give you to keep people from needlessly ringing for an ambulance or something. First question when narrowing it down to adult headaches? "Do you have a headache that is not going away and is preventing you from doing anything?" Answer, of course, is 'yes'.

Solution: "Ring 999. Go directly to A&E. Do not pass go, do not collect £200."

...Um. The GP never told me this. So I decided, "Hey, the headache does die down sometimes, even if it never goes away", and tried again. After that, they ask about rashes - obviously worried about meningitis. No rash, moving on. "Are you incapable of dealing with light sources, have a stiff neck and/or back, or are you sluggish, tired and/or confused of thought?" Um, yes, yes and yes.

Solution: "Ring 999" again.

.....Oh fuck. Okay, why did my GP not say anything like this? If the faceless website that is trying to discourage people from cluttering up A&E is telling me to ring for a fucking ambulance, how is the GP not saying, "Um ... right. Go to A&E; tell 'em I sent you" instead of asking for a referral that he knows (hell, that I know) is going to take weeks to come through? Though it's possible that the GP did ask for an emergency referral and the Appointments office at Barnet just didn't oblige. That and the blasted headache is the only thing that's keeping me from really wanting to firebomb the entire GP surgery at this point.

In short, I'm not ringing an ambulance. I've managed to get through the last several weeks without dying; I don't think it's all that bad. But I am going to Barnet's A&E tomorrow because hell's bells, maybe they're just trying to catch meningitis sufferers early and that's why they're really careful about people with long-term headaches but either way, a headache that lasts with only bits of waxing and waning for months is probably more serious than a two-month wait would suggest no matter what the cause.

Which means, in short, that I'll be spending my birthday in an emergency department waiting room. I should've checked sooner, I really should've. It would have spared the household a lot of problems and me a lot of pain.

I don't know what's worse - the pain, the other symptoms, the fret or the rampant screaming boredom.

The issue at hand here is that I cannot actually focus on anything. While normally during my bad migraines, the only way to ignore the pain is to wholeheartedly throw myself into something else - reading, writing, RP, FFXI, even idiotic flash games - that just isn't working at the moment. I can't focus enough to really do anything for any distinct period of time, when I keep seeing weird I-dunno-what that isn't there out of the corner of my eye and there's flashy spots in my immediate field of vision. This is making me ever so slightly nuts.

Then there's my sleeping patterns, or lack thereof. Now, I'm not great about this sort of thing at the best of times. However, last night was particularly bad in that, despite getting to bed at a 'normal' hour and actually being sleepy, I simply could not get to sleep because of this ringing hum in my right ear that lasted for a good four hours. I still haven't had enough sleep because when I woke up at about half-ten, after four-ish hours' sort of interrupted sleep, I decided that maybe just not napping in the day, no matter how tired I am, might help. I doubt it, but I can hope.

I meant to actually go out today, but I only made it as far as Waitrose on the grounds of it being an effort to walk a straight line. I'm feeling a bit better, but that's partially because I've been stationary for the last few hours. Headache, yes, and feeling a little woozy, but better. Still, you can bet that if I move, it's going to be bad. If I had the energy, coordination and stamina, I'd be throttling someone or clawing the walls about now.

I remind myself of beepbeep's situation at times like these. Sure, it's frustrating that the NHS takes awhile to get referrals out, particularly in cases like these when it's starting to be less an inconvenience and more an actual worry, but the fact is that if I were living in the US right now, I'd be screwed to the wall. I'm not going to be one of those infuriating patients who insists that everything get done RightNowThisMinute when it's literally impossible under NHS policy, mostly because of how long I've worked in the NHS. I know how it works. I know that there are waiting lists and clinic lists that can't be overbooked and other people in straits similar to if not worse than mine and that these things take time. I certainly don't expect a referral letter in under a week. However, this does not mean I am happy about any of this. I'm bored and frustrated and hacked off and worried. I try not to be, at least that last, but I am. And I'm not actually capable of fixing the boredom. Arrrrrrgh.

This week is more or less a write-off, I think. I may risk the painkillers again - given my conversation with my GP, no one's going to accuse me of this all being analgesic overuse headache, mostly because I don't generally use analgesics because they don't help very much. Still, anything is better than nothing at this point. That and more idiotic flash games because I can't focus on much else and Sims 2 takes too damn long to load and is too iffy in any case.

I love my supportive, shiny-happy linkshell. I really, really do.

See, I decided to unlock Scholar in FFXI today. ( Cut for slightly long-winded detail. )

Now, the point. After all this, I went to cheer to my linkshell about my accomplishment. The response I got? "Enjoy a job that doesn't let you have a spell 'til level 4 and is useless 'til level 10..." They did admit that the job is great at higher levels, mind, but ... c'mon. I was all excited. There could have been at least a "Good for you!" or "((Congratulations!))" *sigh*

In other news, my sinuses are killing me, I'm still snurfly as hell, I can barely lie down without needing to hack my lungs up, which means I can't sleep until I'm literally flat out exhausted and then my sleep patterns get screwier than usual. *whine* When will the stupid flu end? However, I have Lipton chicken noodle cup-o-soup, my favourite comfort food in such situations, so it's not all bad. I should forage for dinner, though. Cup-o-soup is great, but it's not ... you know, solid food.

I know it's 5am. I know I'm tired. I know my head is fucking killing me and I still feel nauseous.

I also know, however, the following things:

1) That I have enough paid leave accrued to cover three days of sick leave.
2) That Obama has won the US Presidential elections, after the last tally of 333 votes to something like 158 at last look, due to a quite classy concession speech by McCain.

These things are what will allow me to sleep, more or less peacefully, for the first time in days.

THANK YOU, UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.

Regards,
A Now Far Less Stressed Canadibrit

After a relatively long span of decent health, I is ded of flu. We're talking shaky, achy, tired-but-can't-sleep, probably slightly feverish, bad sinuses, gribbly everything flu. I am not overly impressed by this. However, I am determined that today at least will not only be spent in bed with a book and a whimper.

Today, damnit, I am going to at least try to get some writing done. Little world-building for the NaNo here, some extraneous other-story work there. If nothing else, it will alleviate the infernal boredom.

Note, however, that I said 'try'. I don't know how good a job I'm going to do when my sinuses feel like they might explode and I've typoed every other word in a simple journal post. Still, I've had less than three hours' sleep so maybe that's vaguely understandable.

Deathgnome went to Aht Urghan yesterday. I dunno why; I just had a yen to actually see the place, so after a trip out to Selbina to pick up a spell scroll I needed (Haste) and a fishing trip on the ferry from Selbina to Mhaura, I just waited for the next ferry and headed out to Aht Urghan Whitegate.

First thing I noticed were the beasties on the ferry. They conned as Easy Prey, when I finally got up the nerve to go out and check (I didn't know if they aggroed, see) so after some fairly unsuccessful fishing, I decided to go out and kill one of the crabs, which couldn't be that bad really, right?

...It took down Stoneskin in two hits, Blink in another two and nearly killed me before I killed it. And the worst bit? I didn't even get credit for killing it because by the time it was falling over, we'd arrived in the city and it didn't register. So ... suck.

Aht Urghan is crowded. Mostly with people at a rather higher level than me. It seems that someone with the full complement of Tele spells could make a killing in that area, but beyond that, all I got were quests. Lots and lots of quests and missions and things. I'm debating actually doing them, but I might wait until I'm a bit higher level. You know, for the lack of death. As it is, I think what I'll be doing next is Tele'ing myself out to Dem and doing another bug broth mission, as I blew 20k on Haste and another 10k on maps of the area, so ... at about 45k gil, feeling a bit skint. Then again, I want to at least see the scary funky zones before I Tele myself out of the area, so that's what'll happen when I'm next on.

In other news, went to the doctor today. Antibiotics for the lose. But at least I got the good GP, the one who never dumbs things down for me because he knows I'm a med sec and is efficient while still being thorough. He listened to the symptoms, listened to me breathing, prodded various bits and bobs for any danger signs "just to be sure it's not something really sinister", wrote me up the same prescription as dodgyhoodoo got for the same thing (and when told that's what he was on, he grinned and said, "Heh; doctors really all just say the same thing, don't they? Sort of comforting.") and sent me on my way. So with a little luck, these won't take as long to kick in as they're taking for dodgyhoodoo. That'd be a bonus. Really all they're doing at the minute is making me sort of nauseous.

So I'm sick of being sick. How're you?