helen-louise's journal

So I haven't written anything here in over 2 months, which is probably the longest I've ever gone without updating this journal since it's existed. Mostly this has been because I've been busy enough to lack spare energy to write about what I'm doing, combined with the fact that what I'm doing isn't even interesting, but also because I need a new phone. My phone is an HTC Desire Z which is at least 4 years old, and it's reached the point of unreliability where it randomly reboots itself with no warning. Also its hardware keyboard (the main reason why I've kept this phone for so long - I find touch screen typing very difficult) randomly misses keystrokes or adds extra ones. To add even more insult, I can't even comment on some people's livejournals because I can't open the "comments" pages from my phone web browser - it just gets stuck in a loop of reloading the post without the comments. Bah.

Some good and interesting things have happened. We went to the Jettblack album release party, which was held in a basement bar in Soho down a terrifying flight of stairs - which necessitated the band members carrying my wheelchair down the stairs! Also we went to see Ginger Wildheart's Songs and Words show in Leeds, which was extremely moving and also hilarious. Since I'm a member of G.A.S.S. we also went to the Meet and Greet where I gave Ginger a t-shirt that I'd seen online and thought he might like the slogan of... and he told us how his youngest child believes that Lemmy is his grandad! The next day we met up with some of my friends from Pokecharms, and went around the Royal Armouries. This was delightful since we're all video gamers and were looking at old swords and armour going "That's like the $fill_in_the_blank armour from Skyrim!"

My chronic fatigue is still crap. I got the results of my blood test back on Tuesday and discovered that my TSH level is now 1.31 - which is well within normal by every reference range I've ever seen! So... it's not my thyroid making me exhausted all the time. Going to get my vitamin D level checked again because a few years ago, the anticonvulsant I take as a mood stabiliser was destroying all the vitamin D in my body. But given that I take a high dose vitamin D every other day, that might not be the problem at all.

Also, the Mirena coil and I are officially Not Friends. ( Cut for those who wish to avoid )

My uterus hurts. It doesn't hurt quite as much as it did on Monday, when I got my old copper coil taken out and a new Mirena coil put in, nor as much as it did on Tuesday when the strongest over-the-counter codeine was barely touching the pain, but it's definitely hurting a lot more than I like.

I believe that the theory is to get all of the pain out of the way now and then it won't hurt much for five years. Especially since copper coils are known to aggravate period pain and the Mirena is supposed to lessen it, but it's like my usual menstrual distress ramped up to ten. Super cramps, dreadfully aching legs, needing to pee approximately every 5 minutes (okay, once an hour), and severe digestive TMI. And this despite the fact I am eating bucketloads of "happy tummy pills" for the over-40s. And I'm only 38! (The "over-40s" pills contain 6 strains of intestinal bacteria rather than only 3).

But it's just that it's gone on so long. If you don't already have a Mirena, then they insist on putting it in during or immediately after your period. And I had the worst bloody period that I've had in years during BiCon. A full week of really bad pain and extremely heavy bleeding by my standards. (I recognise that "heavy" for me is "average" or even "light" for some poor female-bodied individuals, but that doesn't make it acceptable!) And then followed up by another few days of pretty much the exact same symptoms.

Bored of hurting now, can I stop soon?

Have spoken to doctor now, and am starting on 25 mcg (or μg) of thyroxine imminently.

It's all fun when you're as broken as me. They've been rather leery about assuming that I'm hypothyroid over the more than 5 years in which I've exhibited raised TSH because even though I have all the symptoms bar one, they're rather vague symptoms: physical exhaustion, mental fatigue, putting on weight, not being able to lose weight, water retention, feeling cold all the time, dry skin, hair falling out. I'm also on a medication that can cause artificially raised TSH (carbamazepine). ( Read more... )
Anyway. Apparently I've now had enough blood tests to exclude pretty much anything else that could be causing the symptoms AND have hit the magic threshold, I'm going to try thyroxine. The worst thing about going on thyroxine is that I am going to have to, finally, after years of resisting because it makes me feel too broken, set up an app on my phone with dozens of alarms to tell me to take pills at different times of day. (I have the app already, don't need recommendations, thanks). Thyroxine has to be taken 4 hours before vitamin pills containing calcium or iron (which is every vitamin I own), and I think before CQ-10, but there's no way on earth that I can be conscious for 4 hours without my vitamins. I kinda rely on them to wake me up. So I'm probably going to have to set an alarm to wake me up to take the thyroxine, then wake up again four hours later to eat and take vitamins. ARGH! And I already have a venlafaxine alarm because the 37.5 mg tablets don't come in extended release in this country...

Look, I know it could be worse. It's not even first-world problems - there are plenty of first-world countries where it would cost me more than a total of £104 a year for every medication I take. (I believe that if I need to continue on thyroxine for life, then I'd get a medical exemption certificate and would never have to pay for any prescription ever again, but I'm not sure how bad one's hypothyroidism needs to be to qualify for that, the website is rather unclear). HIV only a few years ago involved well over 20 pills a day just for that, many of which had to be taken at fixed intervals apart from each other. So does cystic fibrosis - and that comes with a death sentence if you don't get a lung transplant before a certain age. Being on thyroxine and having to time my meds? Not the end of the world, and it's very likely to make me better. It's just... one more thing to make me feel weird/broken.

Also, soya is supposed to be Bad For Thyroids, ( Read more... )

So why wasn't this all over my friends list: Pope condones condom use in exceptional cases? His actual comments are given here. The Vatican is trying to play down his remarks, but they are, quite frankly, amazing. Especially when viewed in light of some of the misinformation that has been believed? - well, certainly spread - by other Catholic bishops. In 2003, Cardinal Alfonso López Trujillo of Columbia claimed that the HIV virus which causes Aids could actually pass through tiny holes in the rubber of condoms. And in 2007, Archbishop Francisco Chimoio, the head of the Catholic Church in Mozambique told the BBC he believes some European-made condoms are infected with HIV deliberately. There have been others - these are the two which I could find references to easily, courtesy of Bad Science.

Here is the Pope, after all these years, mentioning the ABC theory: A - Abstinence, B - Be Faithful, C - Use a Condom, with the obvious assumption that he believes that condoms can prevent the spread of HIV. Not that they are the way to prevent it, or the only way to prevent it, but that they do work. Moreover, "There may be a basis in the case of some individuals, as perhaps when a male prostitute uses a condom, where this can be a first step in the direction of a moralization, a first assumption of responsibility, on the way toward recovering an awareness that not everything is allowed and that one cannot do whatever one wants." Okay, there is a lot of waffle in that statement - but in comparison to the misinformation that has been spread by Catholic bishops in the past, it is totally new.

I am really quite surprised - amazed - and pleased. The world can change. Yes, the Pope still thinks that condoms are not "a real or moral solution" but "there can be nonetheless, in the intention of reducing the risk of infection, a first step in a movement toward a different way, a more human way, of living sexuality." Gosh.

I hope this means that - even if it does not itself distribute condoms - the Catholic Church will no longer block their distribution.