Watching Two Sentence Horror Stories on Netflix and it’s pretty good. Like most series these days, there are only a few episodes and just one season, but it’s a US show and interesting so far. Couldn’t get into Quicksand or Elementary on Hulu, which is what Tom’s watching. I need a break from the crime docs because they’re not only depressing but I get tired of so many violent criminals getting off with barely a slap on the wrist while I lost half a year of life and thousands of dollars for nothing.

I absolutely love the ease of having short hair, although I think most people wouldn’t exactly consider it short but more like shoulder-length. Barely shoulder-length, anyway. Before it was cut it was creeping just past my shoulders. Do I think it looks better than long hair on me? I don’t know. I think style matters more than length, but even if it looked horrible, comfort is my thing these days as opposed to looks. If it wasn’t, I’d be starving myself silly.

This flu shot went over easier than expected. The soreness in my arm only lasted a few hours and I didn’t wake up with extreme fatigue the next day.

I am kind of tired today even though I slept a long time last night. I’m now getting to the point where my sleep is going to be hit or miss. It’s been a surprisingly quiet day today, although not as quiet as some other places I’ve lived, of course. Tomorrow it’s back to the zoo. Lots of landscaping, more loud traffic, planes galore.

Tammy has been on my mind a lot. She said she’ll let me know how the experimental medication goes after she talks to a pharmacist. She’s afraid to start it because of the warnings on it. If it warns you about asthma, then what do you do if you have sarcoidosis which is much worse? She said there are a few different possible cures for sarcoidosis but all of them would kill her, so that’s out of the question, and of course, autoimmune diseases can’t be cured.

Following her health has been sad and scary but definitely educational. I’ve learned a lot more than I ever wanted to learn between both our health problems, but am glad I did. I miss the days when I thought thyroids were just teeny little pea-sized glands at the nape of our necks that only controlled weight and wasn’t the least bit important, LOL. I suspected the problem was my thyroid long before I was diagnosed and put off doctors until it was a little more convenient to get officially diagnosed with a wave of my hand saying, “It’s only a thyroid. No big deal.”

Goes to show how little I knew!

With her kidneys failing and my thyroid half-dead, it has made me all the more grateful for the things that do work. No longer do I take body parts that function well for granted. So I mentally patted my kidneys and liver which I was told work great with a smile on my face thinking, “Good job guys, good job. Keep up the good work!”

Nowadays I want all the details Tammy’s able to give me and then some. I’m arming myself with as much information as I can. As I learned the hard way, what you don’t know really can hurt you. Had I known what I know now about the law, I could have prevented myself from losing thousands of dollars, months of freedom, and a whole lot of grief. Easily.

Had I done my research upfront, I probably could have spared myself from a lot of the medical drama I’ve gone through on account of a finicky medication that has a very fine line between being helpful and hurtful as many Black Box drugs do.

So now I’m determined to do as much homework as I can, even though I’ve never had any interest in legal or medical stuff. Never wanted to be a lawyer. Never wanted to be a nurse or a doctor. But if I should ever be as unfortunate as to have my own kidney issues in the future, at least this will jump-start me on what I should know. As one who loves to learn things anyway, I’m determined to study various diseases and illnesses one body part at a time, as time permits. Like I said, who needs medical school when you’ve got the internet? :-)

Forgot to mention my own medication plans and it’s really quite simple. As I told my doctor, I’m back to taking a full dose every day. I’m going to keep doing that until I get anxious again and then drop back to the hypo dose, as I call it, and stay on that most days until 6 weeks before my next lab visit. Then I can bring both my TSH and cholesterol numbers down for the record. I’m hoping not to get anxious this month, but I wouldn’t be surprised if I was sometime next month, even if it was mild.

We went to Petco earlier where I decided to spoil the rats and pigs. I got the rats these fur-lined tubes and everybody got new chew toys. Of course the fur wasn’t real. The pigs got some food as well, but only because we had a coupon. We get the best deals on their food on Amazon and I get rat blocks at Walmart.

Several people have asked if rats and guinea pigs are different. For the most part, yes, very much so. Different habits, different diets, different behavior, different lifespans… Rats are much smarter as well. The only real similarity is that they both have two upper teeth and two lower teeth that are always growing, which is why they chew a lot.

My MacBook Air is getting old, so I definitely need to upgrade to something new, which I’ll do when they start having holiday deals. The question is whether or not I want to stick with Mac or climb back into Windows. I would prefer to stick with a Mac because that’s what I’m used to and that’s safer, but I don’t know that we could afford exactly what I want. My MacBook Air is causing issues with both the monitor it’s connected to and my keyboard. Sometimes I have a hard time waking up my monitor and have to reboot. My wireless keyboard has delays here and there, so I’m now using a wired Windows keyboard that used to be my favorite. When they first came out with flat keys, I hated it because it just felt so weird. Now the raised keys feel weird. But this keyboard is functional until I know what I’m going to do. Can’t use a smaller monitor as I’m blind even with glasses.

Once I do get something new, I can use the MacBook Air for puzzles while I’m on the treadmill. Don’t know if I’m going to get a large laptop for my work computer or a desktop with a larger monitor, but probably the latter at this point. The question is which operating system I’ll go with.

The most important thing is getting as much memory as I can because that’s part of what’s causing my problems with my rapidly aging MacBook Air is lack of memory.

Not much in the way of dreams other than bits and pieces of things that don’t make enough sense to put into words. I just remember a quick dream where Tammy was cooking something. Dad was alive and in the room with us. Tammy was saying she didn’t want to add salt because it wasn’t good for her and I was remembering the days when we were all young/younger and didn’t have to worry so much about ingredients.

Then there was one that I hope doesn’t mean anything though I don’t think it does. Tom and I were in this room somewhere and I think they were doing some kind of medical procedure on me. The lady there was saying something about something in 20 years. My dream self thought that in 20 years I would be 78. I hope it doesn’t mean I’ll need some kind of procedure at 58 since that’s just over 4 years from now! I don’t think it meant anything, though. This dream didn’t leave me with that feeling I get when something does have meaning.

Then I had a fun dream where I was outside somewhere and this super friendly squirrel wanted to be my friend. It kept hopping onto me and climbing all over me. I was afraid to handle it too much, though, not knowing if it would freak out and bite me if I took hold of it.