Negative Events and Occurrences 3.0

[Bloopy]

The world is a mucked up place and the human body is a freaky thing. I have err, experience in post-traumatic stress, though I think it only applies to things I perceive as being my fault. The best way to get over past mistakes is to make new ones. Can't say I could relate to being traumatised by a terrorist attack, but there might be some solace in being able to blame someone else.

My current affliction is the inability to sleep during normal sleeping hours. Something to do with my immune system being on edge. Possibly due to trying immunotherapy for the aforementioned dust mites (combined with other factors), although I also experienced the problem once before I started on that. I've been keeping a non-24hr sleep/wake schedule so I can at least be awake during the daytime sometimes!

[ViceroyOfMonteCristo]

Well, that's it. Homestuck officially ended today and with it goes the end of an internet era. Kinda sad to see it go given how my interest in it literally embodied about 1/3 of my life.

[Zeor]

Good lard, I never thought I'd see the day.

Might have to read through that if I feel like sparing a week for it. I stopped following that a loooong time ago. I miss Problem Sleuth.

[Star and Moon]

Homestuck is extremely long and the ending still makes you go 'Wait that's it?' It was fun while it lasted.

Also I'm sick and being sick sucks.

[ViceroyOfMonteCristo]

Homestuck is extremely long and the ending still makes you go 'Wait that's it?' It was fun while it lasted.

At least we still have the epilogue to look forward to. I mean, the story had more loose ends than a discount rug.

[KBKarma]

Well, as I'm here, may as well.

Two weeks back, I finally got a device implanted to help with my heart condition.

... Oh, hang on, let's start earlier.

Four or so months back, I was told I had a heart condition called hypertrophic cardiomyopathy. Basically, part of my heart grew too much (in a sort of cancerous way, except it stopped - it seems). While it won't block my valves (which is possible in some cases), it can cause arrhythmia, which could cause cardiac arrest, and thus sudden death (y'know athletes that just drop dead? In a lot of cases, this condition is why). So, it was decided I needed an ICD.

An ICD is quite simple: if my heart misbehaves, it skips the pacemaker method of "oh, speed up the heart so it catches the rhythm and slows down naturally," and goes straight for the "deliver 700V directly to stop the heart first." The "D" in ICD stands for defibrillator.

So, I got it installed last week. A subcutaneous one, so that the wires don't have to go into my heart (ick) via my veins (ICK), reducing complications.

And then, a few days ago, it started delivering inappropriate therapies. Which is a euphemism for "it fucking shocked me for no good reason." After the second one, I went to the hospital. They'd no idea why it was happening, so they ripped out the old one and put a new one in.

So... ow.

[Bloopy]

Yikes. So you've never actually had arrhythmia yet, at least? Also, welcome to the club of people with foreign devices in their chest! I've got a septal occluder inside my heart. It cured the migraines I was having and reduces my chance of a stroke, but I think the course of aspirin sent my allergies haywire.

[KBKarma]

I had a very slight arrhythmia while on a 48-hour holter. It apparently wouldn't have triggered an ICD or pacemaker, but if there's a small one, there's a chance for a big one.

Also, it's not quite in my chest: the leads are running to my heart, but the device itself sits under my left arm. Which feels really weird.

I'm vaguely surprised that a septal occluder cured your migraines, but Dirk Gently wouldn't be.

[Bloopy]

Yeah, my health has been quite an interconnected string of 'developments'.

There was a recent article suggesting migraines are related to processing oxygen and free radicals. That'd make huge amounts of sense if the slight hole in my heart was affecting the level of oxygen in various blood vessels. It also explains why lack of sleep was a trigger (sleep is free radical cleanup time). One thing that can still give me a migraine is sunlight, and lo and behold, sunlight causes a spike in blood oxygen levels.

[Cisken1]

Yeah, my health has been quite an interconnected string of 'developments'.

There was a recent article suggesting migraines are related to processing oxygen and free radicals. That'd make huge amounts of sense if the slight hole in my heart was affecting the level of oxygen in various blood vessels. It also explains why lack of sleep was a trigger (sleep is free radical cleanup time). One thing that can still give me a migraine is sunlight, and lo and behold, sunlight causes a spike in blood oxygen levels.

I think you're on to something, do feel better soon!

[Zeor]

Well, that's it. Homestuck officially ended today

Aaand over the course of the last several days I decided to get around to powering through the whole thing. Wow, glad I did. I enjoyed it a lot more when I could take it in at a respectable pace.

Sounds like AH has some uhh "post-canon content" in the pipeline for a couple of weeks from now or something.

None of these are negative events or occurrences though.

[Xinos]

I tried to read it a few years ago when a friend was pestering me about it constantly. But I didn't get far at all, I think I just didn't get it. Even though I started at the very beginning of Homestuck it felt like a big web of inside jokes that I had no way of relating to.

[ViceroyOfMonteCristo]

To be fair, even if you don't "get" Homestuck it's still best to start reading Problem Sleuth, which was the adventure that the author wrote before Homestuck. It's shorter and more accessible, and most of the "in-jokes" that occur in Homestuck reference either that or one of the other two adventures. Regardless, Homestuck is a really great story, it just picks up a little slowly. If you can keep yourself interested in reading through Acts 1-4, which most people complain about for being too text-dense, everything really starts to go quickly around the beginning of Act 5.

Oh, and don't skip the Intermission, it's actually more important than you would think.

[Zeor]

To be fair, even if you don't "get" Homestuck it's still best to start reading Problem Sleuth

Oh definitely, Problem Sleuth was the man. It was so much more organic. Just a basic "adventure!" game that started by jerking the "player" around in hilarious ways like Jailbreak and eventually went completely off the rails in all the best ways.

Homestuck was pretty much Hussie's narrative with occasional gags relating to reader input.

[Bloopy]

The internet and I must be getting old. Another of my online friends died this week. That makes 4 Facebook friends lost in 1½ years. I knew this guy for 15 years through trading mp3s, and met him once in real life - though didn't talk to him a lot there as it was a group of us getting drunk and going to a concert. My sister was keener on deciphering his Scottish accent. With the decline of instant messaging/chat rooms and the rise of asynchronous FB interactions, online friends often seem more distant than they used to be.

[Xinos]

That's a shame. Yeah internet friends are hard to maintan and especially so if it's just occasional chatting. I lost touch with several people around the time msn messenger got it's death sentence. And I've also lost touch with most of my old friends from my early twenties. But that's just the way it goes. Though recently I have gotten to know quite a few people just by playing Dota and hanging out on Discord, which is a nice way of communicating which is not distant at all.

[Zeor]

Damn. Sorry, Bloopy.

That's a surreal topic I keep thinking about since virtually all of my friends are online at this point. I wonder if word would get around if I got hit by a cement truck. It'd probably just grapevine through Facebook in my case, but not everybody does that.

Hrumf.

Unrelated: Speaking of Discord, hey, why don't we have a Dream17 channel yet?

[Zeor]

So uh

I guess this house is being foreclosed upon.

Now it was kind of already my goal to be out of here and in my own apartment by the end of the year, but I guess this lights a kind of urgent fire under my ass about it.

I suppose this isn't actually the very worst event or occurrence. The endgame is that I'll finally be at peace in my own apartment in a nicer city probably. But it's pretty stressful.

Also on the flip side is that my car is finally in the process of getting fixed so that's nice.