The World Has Turned to Crud!

As some of you may know, I have an underactive thyroid, and have been talking about it lately. Partly because January was Thyroid Awareness Month, and partly because the FDA and the drug companies have been having a fight over a lot of things that seem to be headed toward harming patients with hypothyroidism, while making more money for the drug companies.

The formulation of my medicine (Armor Thyroid) was changed at the beginning of last year, and although it still has the same amount of active drug, the filler hinders absorption rather than aiding it like the previous formulation did. They also added a thin film covering each individual tablet, rendering it even more difficult to absorb (I think--the coating makes it almost impossible to crush, so I think it hinders digestion and absorption).

So, anyway, for more than a year, I've effectively been taking less of the medicine that I need, and more and more hypothyroid symptoms have appeared. Here's the list so far:

• Often cold
• Cold hands and feet
• Rising Cholesterol
• Bizarre & debilitating reaction to exercise
• Thinning outer edges of eyebrows
• Ridged fingernails
• Dry hair
• Hair loss
• Weight gain
• Air hunger (gasping for air)
• Swelling/edema/puffiness
• Internal ear itching
• Ringing in ears
• Joint pain
• Tightness and soreness of throat
• Muscle pain
• Allergies
• Low energy/stamina
• Long recovery after activity
• Brain fog

And last night, I finally slid into depression.

To be fair, I had a lot of things go wrong, both for me and for friends, but I suspect that I'd be dealing with it all in a much more constructive way without the under controlled hypothyroidism.

First of all, I recounted an experience on my blog, and a family member seems to have misunderstood what I wrote, and has become upset with me. I think I've been forgiven, but now I'm upset about it anyway. I never meant this blog to harm anyone, even if it was just to upset them.

I paid my Comcast bill on the 4th of this month. I had spoken to a supervisor there, who said that the bill was $58 (I'm rounding off) and because of my complaint, he was taking off $15. 98, for a total of about for about $42. I actually paid more than that, but that's not the problem.

Last night, I was watching TV, and the screen suddenly went black, there was a long pause, and the screen said that my DVR was NOT AUTHORIZED, and told me to call a number to get service. I did call the number, and by the time I got someone on the phone, the picture had come back on. Just another of the dozens of malfunctions this piece of junk they gave me has done. I complained (again) and insisted that they make a note of the complaint. I was told that I could make an appointment and have a repairman come out and swap my DVR for a new one. They like this because they normally charge a hefty fee to do that, although because of the agreement the apartment place has with them they can't do that with me. I explained that because the box was such a piece of crud that I had bought a TiVo and was expecting delivery any day.

But before I got a chance to speak to someone, the automated system informed me that I was overdue on my payment, and that I owe them $168 and change.

The payment to them hasn't posted to my checking account, at least not yet, but for some reason there are a lot of payments and charges to my debit card that haven't posted, and I don't know why.

Comcast has done this to me at least twice before. If you make a payment and they don't collect it or post it to your account, they can charge a late fee, and if they can keep you from noticing that they have prevented you from paying it, they can turn off your service and then charge a lot of money to restore service. It's a dishonest way of making more money for them.

I hate Comcast!

So, now I have to figure out what happened, and get that straightened out.

While I was checking my checking account, I found out that a lot of charges to my account haven't been made yet, and I really have to spend some time and balance my checkbook and double check everything. Until I do that, I won't know for sure, but it looks like I'm going to be out of money before I'm out of month.

Then I got a phone call from a friend who was telling me about someone else I know who is ill, and unable to work (mostly because of doctors). This person had a treatment that worked well for them and made it possible for them to work, but the doctors are now refusing to prescribe what works and are now prescribing "new" and "better" drugs that don't work. My guess is that they're doing this to help the drug companies even though it's severely harmed my friend, and on one occasion, nearly killed her. Because of it, my friend can no longer work and had applied for disability. They just found out that the disability has been denied because there are now "new" and "better" drugs that the people who evaluated the case are sure will solve all the problems. The "new" and "better" drugs are the cause of not being able to work.

I hate the American medical system!

The other news is that a friend owns the copyright to a creative work that he just learned someone else has published in Germany. And guess what? You can buy it through an American distributor on Amazon!

He knows this because the distributer called the copyright holder to ask if it was possible to dub the film in English so the distributer could make money selling it in the US! The film was originally in English.

There are lots of complicated legal issues, so I really can't talk about it here, but I'm really upset about it! A lot of money and effort went into this work, and the people involved should be getting money back on it's publication, and instead, they're being asked to help someone rob them of potential profits!

And I had a doctors appointment this morning for which I overslept, and woke up in time to pull on some clothes and rush to keep the appointment in time. I sat there for more than an hour before I was able to find out that the doctor was needed at the hospital for some kind of emergency, and had supposedly called all the patients with appointments this morning to cancel and reschedule. I wasn't one of the people called.

I really wanted to see her to get a written prescription for the thyroid medicine. I only have enough medicine to last until Monday, and I really need to get some more. I already am not taking enough, and it's bad. Taking none is not a good option!

CVS hasn't had it for two months, and I wanted the option to get it from another pharmacy, or to order it from Canada if all else fails.

The drug companies and the FDA have been staging a Chinese fire drill to try to get patients to take a more expensive medicine. The medicine I take has been on the market since 50 years before there was an FDA with no side effects or problems. It's much safer, having been proved in use for over 100 years than the new drugs, which I've tried and don't work. The manufacturers have taken it off the market for a while, and they're insisting it's because of the FDA, who are insisting that the drug companies go through testing as if it were a new drug! FDA says that, yes, they do want all this testing, but that the drug companies are just making all these problems and it's their fault!

The medicine they're trying to get people to switch to (Synthroid, etc) is really ineffective at doing anything other than making the blood tests come out right, but not really solving any symptoms! So they can claim they fixed the problem, but leave you still sick, and in need of other (expensive) medicines to fix all the problems that Synthroid doesn't fix, but natural desiccated thyroid does.

I hate the American medical system!

Because of the phone calls last night and checking my Comcast account and checking account online last night, I didn't get to sleep until 4 am, plus I was up and out by 10 am, so I'm really short on sleep.

I'm also really disgusted with everyone and everything, I feel bad, and don't seem to be able to do anything to straighten things out. So, you can officially add depression to the list of symptoms that the hypothyroidism is causing.

Maybe I'll try to catch up on my sleep. Now there's an "I'm depressed" statement if I ever heard one.

***********************

There's a new Burn Notice on USA tonight! I'll be lucky if I can see it on my malfunctioning DVR.

************************

For all you knitters out there, The Yarn Harlot has put up a post with a link to a sign-up sheet for the Knitting Olympics. Check it out!

I hope you're having a better week than I am! Don't worry if you don't hear from me in a while.

Welcome to Stupidity

Armor Thyroid (which is a medicine I take for hypothyroidism) was reformulated just a bit more than a year ago. Then they quit making it altogether.

I have just a little of it left, and if I can't get some soon, I will have to go without the medicine I need.

The reformulation of the medicine included changing the sugar filler for cellulose, and that might sound like a good thing, but it isn't. The tiny amount of sugar allowed many people who took it to put it under their tongue and absorb it sublingually. The new filler makes that impossible, and manages to keep the medicine from being absorbed as well. In addition to that, although I haven't found anybody who has mentioned this on line, there seems to be a very thin film covering the actual tablet. They don't make pills in the strength I need, so I have to resort to cutting pills in half. I used to be able to do that with just the tiniest bit of crumbling, but now when I do that, the two halves stick together and I have to yank them apart because they're still fastened together by the coating on the tablet. That has got to affect the ability to absorb the medicine.

What all this means is that although I'm taking the same amount that I was (according to the amount stated on the bottle), I'm not able to get all the medicine that's in the pill. So, over the past year, I've been getting too little thyroid medicine, and I've been like a clock that's running down.

Today, I hit the point where I just can't think straight anymore. I want to do things, but get distracted, can't make decisions, don't know what to do, have no ambition.

I have an appointment Thursday to see the doctor who took all those tests last month to find out how the tests came out, and what can be done.

The Armor Thyroid people have said that they will be going back to their former formulation, and that it will be available soon. In fact, it should be available now. But at this point, it's not. Neither is another brand (Naturethroid) that is the same as the original Armor formulation and which was shipped on the 28th of December from the manufacturer. I know that it takes a while. The drug goes from the manufacturer to the distributer to the drug store distributer to the individual drug store.

Whatever happens, I am going to try to get a written prescription so that I can call around and find a drug store that actually has the medicine. If worst comes to worst, maybe I can get it from Canada.

And in the meantime, I may not put up as many posts, and you've probably noticed that my posts have been less and less interesting over time.

I'm sorry. Hopefully, I'll be feeling better soon and will do better.

*************************

I competed in the Knitting Olympics four years ago, and it was fun, even though I didn't finish my project on time! The Yarn Harlot is running it again in a very low-key way, and I have put up a comment on her blog saying that I'll compete, but I don't have a clue what I'll knit (see brain fog above).

I also want to enter the Ravelympics, but am having lots of trouble trying to decide what to make for that. The WIP Dancing event (called WIP Wrestling in the last Summer Ravelympics) sounds like a good candidate.

Just thinking about the Knitting Olympics reminds me of four years ago, when I was working on preliminary planning for Fade Out, a science fiction movie that just kind of fell apart, and never happened. I still have the script for it around here somewhere.

I need more medicine. I'm rambling. On to another topic!

**************************

All last week, the news people were going crazy over the weather situation here. Local channels preempted regular programming and had people standing around, talking about snow for hours! There was some mention of a few snow flurries that they (then) expected today and tomorrow.

Well, now that today is here, it has suddenly changed from "a few snow flurries" to "a Winter Weather Advisory!" They've been predicting something like another 20 inches!

All this was supposed to start around noon today.

Nobody told Mother Nature.

Right around noon, the sun came almost completely out from behind the clouds, and it was sunny enough that I wore my sunglasses, and could see shadows. It's about 5 pm now, and so far, not a flake has fallen.

That's not a complaint. There's about 20 inches of snow already on the ground, and it's piled up way over my head in the places it's been plowed. Here's hoping that the weather people are totally wrong about this snow!

I did take photos of the last snowfall, and as soon as I get the energy to get the photos out of my camera and into my computer, I'll put them up here. See info on brain fog above.

***********************

Lost is on tonight! ABC will be showing the second half to the two hours they showed last week, and following it with a new one hour episode!

There's also a brand new show on called Past Life on Fox. I don't know much about it, but I feel sorry for it that it's on Fox, a network that likes to spend money putting shows on so that it can kill the shows as soon as they develop a fan base.

And, of course, a new episode of White Collar.

I'm going to collapse for a while and try to drum up enough energy to at least be able to think a little. Maybe even have dinner.

Hope you're feeling much better than I am!

Ignorance and Possum Fur

I met Franklin over the internet by reading his blog, The Panopticon, a while ago because he's a friend of The Yarn Harlot, and she talks about him from time to time. He's as funny as Steph is, and a delight to read. If you don't read his blog and you're a fiberartist, you should!

Yesterday, I checked Google Reader and he had a new post up, which I enjoyed, commented upon, and checked off the little block that said to email other comments to me.

Was I in for a surprise!

I got one of the comments from a woman who obviously is totally uninformed (or possibly misinformed) on the subject she was commenting on. Her lack of understanding was particularly disturbing, especially since I've heard this misinformed opinion before and I just can't forget the whole thing.

First of all, here is the specific post I'm talking about. Please go there and read it (unless you've lost interest already, in which case, skip this whole post). If you're a fiberartist, you'll find it funny!

Franklin deleted the offending comment, but since it was emailed to me, I have the text of it, which follows:

Socks made out of a dead animal? Really? Personally I think that THAT is what's disgusting, not the creature in the photograph.

And shame on all the people calling an animal ugly. It looks as it is meant to look, as do you. What a horrid thing to say about an animal with no voice of its own.

If those socks were mine I wouldn't be able to even look at them without thinking of a creature dying in a trap. Wherever you stand on the necessity of killing them, it certainly should never be something to be celebrated, or even dismissed so callously in favour of gushing about how soft and pretty the dead animal's hair is now that it's been turned into socks for you.

This would be less disturbing if I hadn't heard this viewpoint at least once before. I'd like to respond to the person who commented (who is nameless, and has no available email address now due to the fact that Franklin deleted it) when he posted the following comment:

Hi, smaytch. Disagreeing with my point of view is fine - I have no problem with that. Insulting my readers (and me) under the guise of taking what you consider to be a moral high road is not. I've only deleted one comment in the years I've been blogging. Now yours makes two. Keep a civil tone or go elsewhere. Thank you.

The parts I find disturbing is the repeated theme of "dead animals" and the lack of any understanding of what was talked about.

Here's what I'd like to say to the author of that comment:

If you've ever brushed or combed your hair, or gotten a haircut, by your reasoning, you should be dead! And if you have a cat or dog and you've ever brushed their coat to get rid of excess fur, you've been as cruel to them as these animals have had to endure. Yes, I know that getting a haircut is considered a fate worse than death by many two-year-old humans, but it really isn't.

Most animals who contribute "fur" for yarn have the shed fiber combed or brushed from their coats. Some of them, especially sheep, who have had shedding bred out of them, are sheared. They probably consider it as traumatic as a two-year-old, but it doesn't really hurt them. In fact, many people keep rabbits as pets and for their fur, and the process is called "rooing", where the person runs their fingers through the fur to remove what has been shed. Most rabbits that are kept this way will try to get into your lap to have you remove the excess fur because it feels good, and they like to be petted.

"Fur," in this context is "Protein fiber from an animal other than a sheep." Sheep produce wool, not fur, and it is usually removed by shearing rather than rooing, although some of the older breeds can be rood. In this context, "fur" is not a pelt, it's just fiber!

By the way, this doesn't apply to this particular sock yarn, which is produced commercially, but if you ask a spinner about the fiber content of a sweater or other garment, you'll probably get back not only what kind of fiber it is (as in wool, rabbit fur, etc), but the name of the particular animal it came from. Example: "Is that wool?" "Yes from a corridale sheep named Flapjack!"

I have a bag of wool waiting for me to spin it at the moment, and the person who grew the sheep not only sent me the wool, but the sheep's name (Daisy).

In the future, please find out what people are talking about before commenting on it and revealing your ignorance!

For any of you who had the misguided idea that knitters were in any way harming animals, you're wrong about that!

I used to have some friends who lived in New Zealand and raised sheep. Those sheep were allowed to roam free for the most part, and live the life they would have had in the wild, while being protected from predators and had someone checking to make sure they had enough food, and stayed healthy, got their shots, got rid of parasites, helped with lambing, etc, and generally took care of them. Once a year, they were shorn, which was necessary to keep them cool in the summer since shedding has been bred out of them. What's so bad for the sheep about that? I'm sure they were as happy about getting shots as two year old kids are, but not taking care of them would be even more cruel.

I feel like it's my responsibility to make sure that ignorant people get educated about my chosen pass-time. So, non-knitters please read!

And for all you knitters out there, please step on this attitude wherever you find it, and consider it your job to let people know that we really are not harming animals.

Happy Birthday, Lynn!

Happy Birthday, Lynn!

You're the best sister ever!

I'm glad I caught you to say "Happy Birthday!" on the phone, but I'm sorry that you have to go to work today! May it be one of the nicest workdays you've ever had!

*************************

I promised John some photos of all the snow, so I need to go out and take them real soon now, while there's some light.

**********************

Legend of the Seeker tonight on the CW!

Hope you've been having a wonderful weekend!

Emergency Alert!

Well, all this snow, on top of the disaster in Haiti has inspired me to talk about an emergency kit. There are a large number of people in the area who are without power.

The apartment building I live in is for older people on limited budgets and for handicapped people. They provide very nice living conditions at a percentage of income. They also supply various events for tenants, such as an emergency plan meeting a while ago, along with a basic emergency kit. They stressed that the kit should be somewhere like the closet next to the front door. They said "it should be in a place where you can grab it as you escape."

I suspect that it's not practical to keep all of it there all the time. I suspect that one emergency kit with an extra bag or backpack would be good if you (for instance) keep all your medications in a bag so that you can grab the bag and stuff it into the bigger bag as you flee. And have several more convenient points where other parts of the finished kit are stored so it can be actually assembled very quickly.

The kit they supplied is very nice, but is only the beginning of what I would really need. I've been meaning to update it, but haven't gotten around to it. So, I though about looking up the kinds of things that I should keep in that kit, and I found a website with a great list of stuff for a kit, plus lots of other points that I hadn't thought of.

They mention a flashlight and extra batteries, but there are hand cranked flashlights available, and they might be helpful longer than one that uses batteries. And of course, you'll want a sturdy bag or other container that's easy to carry.

Actually, I think that all this would be too much for me to carry, but even just some of the most basic items would be a big improvement over nothing.

Please do explore the whole site. There are lots of links on the page that give you other helpful information.

Anyway, spend some time to think about this and assemble a workable emergency kit.

...And More Snow!

I woke up for a short while around 8 this morning, and there was no snow coming down.

At 11, when I woke up again, there was snow falling, but there didn't seem to be much accumulation since my previous check.

The local TV people have preempted all their regular programming, and they have news and weather people deployed all over the area with yardsticks and other measuring equipment saying things like "Wow! Look at all that snow!" and making and throwing snowballs or trying to play with toy trucks in the snow.

They've been telling people that the Potomac Mills Mall is open, but that most of the stores in the mall are closed, giving schedules of when various stores will be open, and then telling everybody to stay home.

They've been broadcasting images of plows and salt trucks at work and interviewing their drivers. We got to see an organized and previously scheduled snowball fight, plus an impromptu igloo built by a news crew. And, if you want to get on TV today, all you have to do is get stuck in the snow with a 4 wheel drive vehicle! There are lots of dummies who did just that, and had their stupidity proclaimed on network TV!

There are also lots of gratuitous shots of the Capitol building with snow falling in the front of it, too. Suspiciously, the ones I saw showed a sunny Capitol with no snow on it behind the snow that was falling. I suspect something underhanded.

At least it's better than watching snow fall at the Vienna Metro Station for a half hour, like we got to do last night!

In case you haven't figured it out yet, there's lots of snow around at the moment! One of the people on Twitter is calling it the Snowpocalypse!

The person on TV near Potomac Mills Mall (in front of Silver Diner, which is giving 25% off to anyone who braves the snow to eat there today) measured 21 inches of snow, and she said that there is an icy coating under that, which makes it an even deeper total snowfall. It looks like a bit less than that here, but it's hard to tell, because although the snow was wet, heavy big flakes for part of yesterday, it's switched back to the light, tiny, cold flakes that it started with, and it's drifting. A lot! Not to mention the areas that have been plowed.

The guy who was hired to plow the parking lot at my apartment building really was taking his job seriously last night. He plowed non-stop up until somewhere between 2 and 3 am today, at which point, he apparently went home to take a nap. Twelve hours and about nine inches later, he's back, hard at work.

The people who own the cars parked in front will have a lot of work clearing them off, once the snow stops and they want to go somewhere. One poor person with a compact car will have the major obstacle of finding his car before he can even think about clearing it out! It's at a point where the car itself is not visible anywhere, it just looks like a snow drift.

John called last night and requested that I post photos of all the snow. I took some photos earlier, but they're really bad. The snow has stuck to my windows and frozen there, so the camera wants to focus on that, rather than on the scene outside. And the ones where it is focused outside, the snow on the windows obstructs the view so much that they're not clear or easy to see.

This is a photo from the 19th of December, but it looks almost the same out there from time to time today. The difference is that there isn't a light covering of snow over my window.

I'll take photos once the snow stops and I can get out to take them without the obstruction of the snow on the windows.

********************************

John called last night in a panic wanting to know what was on TV last night! He checked my blog, and didn't see anything about the TV schedule! Sorry John!

Tonight, on BBC in America, there will be a Doctor Who episode, and two Demon episodes, followed tomorrow night by two Doctor Who specials, Planet of the Dead, and Waters of Mars.

Tonight, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone will be on ABC.

The Legend of the Seeker will be on the CW (here) Sunday night, one rerun (your last chance to see Jolene Blaylock on LotS) followed by a new episode.

Pretty pathetic, isn't it?

To liven things up, you can check out an article on io9 about Dollhouse.

*****************************

Ravelry has it's Ravelympics reving up, ready to go at the beginning of the Olympics.

The person who inspired the Ravelympics with her Knitting Olympics, The Yarn Harlot, has been deluged with questions about her Knitting Olympics, and whether she's going to have them this time. You can read her answer and get the info here (scroll down).

Make your decisions and pick your teams and sign up. And make sure you have yarn on hand to cast on during the opening ceremonies!

I'm going back to the window to check the progress of the snow.

Have a wonderful weekend, and I hope you don't get snowed in!