Sarah Monette's Blog, page 43

BJMF: update

Good news, BJMF peeps!

1. If you did not buy a copy of Unnatural Creatures, your books are in the mail.

2. If you did buy a copy of Unnatural Creatures, you will be pleased to know that Lulu has notified me that the books have shipped.

Progress is happening!

in the middle of the night / I go walking in my sleep

The good news is: the pramipexole, on first contact, works approximately a million times better than the ropinirole and does not make me queasy also too as well. I was able to go to sleep at 10 last night, instead of four this morning.

The bad part of the good news is: I still slept badly. Although I feel a lot better rested this morning, despite being awake from two to three-thirty. And I may have found a new wetware hack: at least for me, at least last night, BenGay worked to alleviate the RLS symptoms. My best guess is that it gave the nerves in my right thigh some REAL INPUT to work with, so they could quit manufacturing sundogs. And the good part of the bad part of the good news is: as I get accustomed to it, I can increase the dose of pramipexole. The doctor started me out with one 0.125 mg tablet. I can eventually go up to as much as four. So if one tablet helps this much, two tablets may actually let me sleep like a (semi-)normal human being again.

The bad news is: dealing with all of this seems to have used up my supply of coping skills for today.

ETA: the sleep clinic called with my bloodwork. Everything's fine except my ferritin. It's at something-teen, and they'd like to see it at fifty or over. So up with the iron supplement! (And the Vitamin C and the fiber and ...)

he's got more miles than an old greyhound

Appointment at the Wisconsin Sleep Clinic this afternoon. Upshot: a new drug to try: pramipexole instead of ropinirole. It's supposed to be easier to tolerate than ropinirole, so hopefully it will not make me queasy. (Fingers crossed.) I got to play Stump the Doctor (which actually is not so much my favorite game)--I asked if my albinism and associated photosensitivity issues might be screwing around with my circadian rhythms (a theory first propounded by my gastroenterologist), and he said, "Well, I don't think that . . . I don't know. . . . I'll have to do some research this evening." Also, blood drawn for lab work, and the doctor wants me to stop donating blood for a while, since iron deficiency is associated with RLS, and my ferritin is low.

That part sucks, especially since the Red Cross needs donors this winter, but I do reluctantly recognize that I have to take care of myself first.

I am amused/discomfited by the medicine information sheet for pramipexole, which tells me, "This medicine is a dopamine agonist. Exactly how this medicine works is not known."

Unless the pramipexole turns out to work miracles here over the weekend, I will be starting my search for an acupuncturist again on Monday. Anyone in the Madison area who has a recommendation, please feel free to share!

Project Valkyrie: waterlog

60 minutes, 37 laps.
299 miles, 34 laps.

New winter experience #22: scraping ice off the inside of the windshield.

Ben Jonson Memorial Fundraiser: this time for sure, Brain!

I have finally, despite the best efforts of MS Word and Open Office, finished formatting Unnatural Creatures. The limited edition of 169 copies has been ordered from Lulu for $924.74, which puts our donation balance at $3309.75. Considering how many more copies of Unnatural Creatures there will be than I expected, and how many places they'll be going (Australia! Finland! Greece!), I am going to use some of that money to help with shipping costs. The donation to the Companion Animal Fund will be a minimum of $3,000. If that 309.75 isn't all used up by shipping, the remainder will go to the Fund as well. If shipping costs are more than $309.75, I'll pay the balance.

Between printing time and shipping time, it will probably be two weeks or so before I get the box of books, and then it may take as much as a week for me to sign and ship everything, although I promise I'll be as efficient as I can. For those of you who did not buy Unnatural Creatures, my plan is to work on the signing and packaging tomorrow, and ship books before the end of the week. (We'll see how that goes, but I'll do my best.)

I know some people have mentioned their willingness to chip in extra for shipping. So for those people, and anyone else who'd like to help with shipping costs, here's a button:








This is 100% voluntary. Your book(s) will be shipped to you whether you contribute here or not. But, like I said, I'm looking at shipping a lot more books than I anticipated, so I'm willing to let people help if they want to. Also, all money that doesn't go to shipping costs will go to the Companion Animal Fund.

This fundraiser has been mind-blowingly successful, and I want to thank all of you again for your participation. I am deeply grateful.

Ben would say it's no more than the respect due a venerable Elder Saucepan, but he would come stand on you all and purr.

Storytellers Unplugged for February

Oddly enough, my Storytellers Unplugged post this month is about the Ben Jonson Memorial Fundraiser.

A comedy of errors

This is a list of all the words MS Word has mishyphenated in Unnatural Creatures. (And, yes, I double-checked all of them with the American Heritage Dictionary. Well, except "although," because really.)
alt-hough
anim-al
catech-ism
circ-ling
Co-leridge
des-cended
domin-ies
edit-or
Esth-er
extra-vagant
ima-gined
irrit-ation
juni-or
lib-rary
natur-al
philanthrop-ist
posit-ively
reas-onably
re-cognized
squeam-ishly

Booth would be appalled.


Also, for reasons that do not need exploring at this juncture, the sale is extended another day.

Project Valkyrie: waterlog

60 minutes, 40 laps. 298 miles, 33 laps.

Evenly divided between pull buoy and kickboard, except that after I got my mile, the last four laps were pull buoy because I like it better.

In Memory of Melissa Mia Hall

[I've posted about this before, but am posting again to boost the signal.]
Melissa Mia Hall, 1956-2011

suricattus writes:

There is a move afoot in the nation -driven by the GOP - to repeal the new health care laws, to protect corporate interests, to defend against fear-mongering (and stupid) cries of "socialism!", and to ensure that people are forced to choose between keeping a roof over their heads or getting necessary health care.

This movement is killing people.

Think I'm overstating the fact?

Ask the friends and family of writer/reviewer Melissa Mia Hall, who died of a heart attack last week because she was so terrified of medical bills, she didn't go see a doctor who could have saved her life.

One person. Not the only one. That could have been me. Yeah, I have access to insurance -- I live in New York City, which is freelancer-friendly, and have access to freelancer advocacy groups. Through them, I can pay over $400/month ($5,760/year) as a single, healthy woman, so that if I go to the hospital I'm not driven to bankruptcy. But a doctor's appointment - a routine physical - can still cost me several hundred dollars each visit. So unless something's terribly wrong? I won't go.

Someone who lives in a state where there is no Freelancer's Guild or MediaBistro to put together an insurance plan for freelancers? Someone who has been laid off or downsized, and can barely make ends meet? SoL.

That could be you. That could be your best friend. That could be someone you've never met. That could be any of us - because there are people out there who think that taking care their neighbor is someone else's problem.

No. It's our responsibility. All of us, together. As a nation.

EtA: Nobody is trying to put insurance companies out of business. They will always be able to offer a better plan for a premium. We simply want to ensure that every citizen - from infant to senior citizen - doesn't have to choose between medical care, and keeping a roof over their heads, or having enough to eat.

We're trying to get this to go viral. Pass it along:

I won't watch another friend die because they can't afford healthcare. Save the Affordable Care Act! http://ow.ly/3QAD7 #ForMMHall #HCR

I linked to the the original post about Melissa Mia Hall's death. suricattus links to The Daily Kos' post, which itself provides links to many other posts.

I am lucky: mirrorthaw has excellent health insurance benefits. Otherwise, frankly, the Ben Jonson Memorial Fundraiser might very well have been a fundraiser to try to cover my medical bills. Consider that broken ankle. We've got (1) ambulance, (2) ER, (3) overnight hospital stay, (4) orthopedic surgery, (5) follow-up visits to the orthopedic clinic, (6) physical therapy, (7) prescription painkillers. I haven't done the math, but ouch, baby, as Austin Powers would say. Very ouch.

And then there are the medications that I am on, and probably will be on for the rest of my life, for (1) chronic stomach problems, (2) chronic brain chemistry problems, (3) chronic high cholesterol. And then there's the RLS, which has had me on four different medications to date (two relatively ineffective ones to treat the RLS itself, and two relatively ineffective ones to treat the side effects of the less ineffective of the two), with two doctor's appointments, and that appointment with the sleep clinic coming up on Thursday. And no guarantee that the problem will be resolved then, either, if it ever is.

But I'm lucky. I'm married to a man who does have health insurance. I don't have to worry about how much my health care costs. And my point here is it shouldn't be a matter of luck. No one should have to worry about whether they can afford to go to the doctor.

No one should die the way Melissa Mia Hall did.

4 unnatural creatures and 70 natural ones

1. The proof of Unnatural Creatuers has arrived. I'll go through it this weekend, enter the corrections on Monday, and make the Lulu order.

This means that the sale extension will end around midnight, Monday/Tuesday.

2. The proof came in a flat box, like a pizza box, exactly the right size for a cat to loaf on. Since El Marmalado has already demonstrated his fondness for sitting on boxes, I put it out on the porch for him. Sure enough, a little later, when we were leaving to go meet a friend for coffee, there he was on the box.

3. Segue! The pen with which I will be signing Unnatural Creatures is my new Pelikan Technixx. I love this pen. And Fountain Pen Hospital still has it on sale for $40.

4. And I should show you the cover art (by the fabulous hominysnark ):


5. Finally, moving from unnatural to natural, (via matociquala (on Twitter)), 70 baby animals. (I'm not sure all of them are technically babies, but then, I'm not sure I could tell a juvenile hamster from an adult anyway.) My favorites are the otter pups. And the bat.