gwyn: (cocktail social kerry beary)
[personal profile] gwyn
Last night as I was going to bed, I discovered that I'd missed most of the free skate for women, as well as the short program skating, and who knows if there's been any men's skating I missed. I was able to catch the Canadian skater last night, but not the rest of it. For some reason I guess I thought skating would be more toward the middle of the Olympics, and now I can't figure out how to find what I missed. Is there anywhere a skate-loving girl can go to watch just the skating programs she missed? I pay zero attention to scheduling and sportsing stuff, so I don't know what TV is doing these days, and if they're streaming things that will allow you to watch as you please, or what. I remember the insane difficulty I had trying to get hold of the opening ceremonies two years ago for the London Olympics, and I don't know if anything's improved or not.

I have Hulu Plus, but I don't have on-demand for sattelite. Does Hulu even carry sportsing? I have a torrent client so if necessary I could ahem, if anyone knows of a link. YouTube seems to take down everything the minute it's put up.

In other news and tangentially related to sportsing things, I went to the rehabilitative medicine place at the clinic I go to, and saw the spine doctor there. I still would much rather have gone to the place killabeez went to, but at least it's a start. I don't know what I think of the doctor. She's very...speedy. She talks fast, and has enough of an accent that I can't folllow what she's saying because of that. She gave me a presecription for something that she said would help the restless leg syndrome that plagues me, and the bladder issues that have made my life miserable since menopause started (both the RLS and the hot flashes are related to needing to pee, which I need to do pretty much every five minutes).

I didn't realize they were an antidepressant until I got them. I'm not so keen on that. I gained so much weight that I cannot get off after two years of hardcore workouts and eating better than I've ever eaten from the last antidepressants, and they give me dry mouth like whoa, not to mention a bunch of other issues. For the first week they did make me sleepy, but not much else, and last night I couldn't sleep till after five a.m., so I'm not sure this is helping. But here's the weird thing -- how do you taper off of capsules? With tablets you can cut them in halves and quarters, but capsules you can't. Anyone have experience with nortriptyline?

She also gave me a prescription for the high-strength Aleve, but while that's nice and everything, I didn't want to throw pills at this. I want to fix it, not mask the pain. So I had an MRI on Wednesday. The fucking Seahawks had a parade in downtown and then some rally at the sportsing field, which turned traffic into a mid-day nightmare, and my appointment was of course downtown, a few blocks from the parade route. Really, this idea that everyone is supposed to give a shit about a bunch of spoiled, overpaid assholes and shut down the entire city so we can celebrate them enrages me. People were pissed because many schools wouldn't shut down for the day. Where the hell are their priorities? I just don't get it. So that cost me a fair amount of money, just because I had the misfortune to have my appointment scheduled before they sprang a surprise parade on us.

Since I'm paying for all this out of pocket (with the ACA, my insurance had to change and my deductible is even higher), it's hard to swallow paying more just because people want to stand in sub-freezing weather and cheer a bunch of spoiled athletes. And I will have to pay for the physical therapy, as well. That's been OK, there's a place near me and they seem genuinely interested if figuring out things I can do that will help but not necessitate a lot of appointments. On Friday we did the recumbent bike, some back exercises, and then they gave me electrical stimulation, which was kind of fun! They put an ice pack down, and these electrodes on your back, and you get these tingly little currents sent through the area around the spine. I kind of enjoyed it, and I felt great for about ten minutes until I had to get in the car again.

There isn't anything major on the MRI, they said, but I'll know more tomorrow. I'm relieved that there's no rupture of the disk, but that also means this is probably never going to go away, just be managed, which is depressing. I'm trying to remember that I know a lot of fans who've been through similar things and they're doing OK, and not focus on how I saw my dad's back issues turn him into an invalid who could hardly even stand up.

We had a lovely snowfall here on Saturday night, and it was fun to walk around the block (I never get to trot out my snow boots!) in the late-night dark with the flakes falling on me, utterly silent and beautiful except for the crunch crunch of my feet in the powder. Snow here is usually on top of a layer of ice from rain, and having fresh, soft powder on bare ground was a real treat. Even the slush on Sunday wasn't too slippery, and I walked up to Starbucks on mostly still snowy paths. We just don't get it here that often. The kitties of course were annoyed. Blues used to love playing in it as a kitten, but not as much anymore. Olive does this sort of kitty version of a sigh: she takes a deep breath, flattens her ears, rolls her shoulders, and steps out into it to find a place she can go potty, like the brave little toaster she is.

Date: 2014-02-10 10:12 pm (UTC)
movies_michelle: (Default)
From: [personal profile] movies_michelle

Actually, the individual skating events haven't started yet: they've been doing the "team" medal competition, which they added for the first time this year, and that's what they finished up last night.

The individual medal skates start, I think, tomorrow.

NBC has at least some of the coverage video up: http://www.nbcolympics.com/sport/figure-skating.

Date: 2014-02-10 11:58 pm (UTC)
movies_michelle: (Avengers-Hawkeye)
From: [personal profile] movies_michelle

Yeah, the team thing is a bit bizarre: they still have the long and short programs for each (pairs, mens, womens, and dancing), but they're going for a group medal first, then go to individual of each of them. I think they were trying to make it more like the way gymnastics is done in the summer Games.

Date: 2014-02-10 11:43 pm (UTC)
adair: old house and tree in winter (winter)
From: [personal profile] adair
I'm watching the skating via the live feed on NBCSP - it's grouped with the sports channels on Comcast. According to the NBC Olympics site the pairs short program is on the 11th at 9am, with the pairs free skate on the 12 at 9:45. Mens short program is on the 13th at 9am with the men's free skate on the 14th at 9. Sunday the 16th has ice dancing short at 9am and the free dance at 9 am on the 17th; Women's short is 9am on the 19th and the free skate at 9am on the 20th. I don't know what NBC will choose to show in prime time; I like to see some of the other skaters, no just the US and the winners. Plenshenko is planning to skate; he did the men's skate in the team competition. His short program looked great.

Date: 2014-02-11 01:04 am (UTC)
batdina: (Default)
From: [personal profile] batdina
ping me for info about nortriptyline.

Date: 2014-02-11 05:23 pm (UTC)
batdina: (Default)
From: [personal profile] batdina
that works. or this: choff at LMI dot net.

Date: 2014-02-11 07:00 am (UTC)
monanotlisa: symbol, image, ttrpg, party, pun about rolling dice and getting rolling (Default)
From: [personal profile] monanotlisa
Mostly I just offer general hugs, Gwyn, but as a genuine bit of advice: Don't take too many painkillers; for one they only mask the problem, and second, their side effects (short- and potentially longterm) are devastating. My stomach never recovered from my pain treatments of NSAIDs, and God only knows what influence they had on me suddenly developing a gluten intolerance.

I will admit the latter is conjuncture, but the former -- that one's well-documented.

Also suspicious of prescribing antidepressants for pain patients, or people with problems surrounding physical sensations. I was given TCAs as part of my chronic pain meds trials, and they had zero effect. Statistics don't lie if done right; they seem to have made a significant enough difference for some folks. I recall wanting to be among them, desperately, and I note I'm generally pro-psychopharmaceuticals…but for actual depression or anxiety, not for conditions the root cause of which should be treated instead.

Date: 2014-02-11 01:41 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] ixchel55.livejournal.com
I hope you find a solution to making your pain more manageable. Being in constant pain is a really shitty way to live your life.

About the skating, if you can download torrents Fenopy has the missing programs (http://kickass.to/usearch/olympic%20skating/). I intend to catch up over the next two days. I've missed them too since I work evenings and nights now.

Date: 2014-02-11 07:55 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] gwyn-r.livejournal.com
Oh, I'll try that then. I also kind of hate the way they break up the programs, and then they only show you the top level skaters or the US/Canada ones...I want to see them all.

Date: 2014-02-11 03:35 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] chelletoo.livejournal.com
Have you tried Acupuncture? It's worked for me with by back & knee pain and there's no pills.

Date: 2014-02-11 07:59 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] gwyn-r.livejournal.com
Yeah, I've tried pretty much everything -- acupuncture, chiropractic, massage, working out to strengthen my core, blah blah. Acupuncture didn't do anything for me at any time that I tried it. I don't know if it was just the person I went to or that it doesn't work on me. Well, actually, it did do something once -- she was going to treat my restless leg syndrome, and it made it considerably worse. I'm not sure if it would have been a situation like "It'll get worse before it gets better" but I couldn't stick with it to find out, it was so so awful.

June 2025

S M T W T F S
123 4567
891011121314
15161718192021
22232425262728
2930     

Most Popular Tags

Style Credit

Expand Cut Tags

No cut tags
Page generated Jun. 9th, 2025 04:36 am
Powered by Dreamwidth Studios