The Sorcerer's Progress (Page 39 of 62)

I finally had time to read that bit about your charger project. Yes, I did read to the end :-). 

OK, exertion triggers a fever? I think you likely mean sweats and chills, rather than a measured temperature? Am I right?  Or is this a fever from the muscle weakness you described to me earlier? I'm not entirely clear.

Antibiotics with a steroid are a potent combination. Be careful. The steroids can mask an infection by muting your immune response (just as they decrease inflammation so that your sinuses can drain.) Double edged sword. Amox/Clav is usually a twice daily med (pretty sure on this) and great for skin flora (which are usually in the sinuses) but resistant bugs can develop since you've been taking antibiotics like some people take tylenol.  (I think of this as the problem rather than the half-life of the amox/clav.)  If you see the doc, consider asking if they can make a referral to ENT or if they think a culture would be beneficial. This keeps coming back and it isn't getting better. Another question is when a CT scan of your sinuses would be indicated. I don't do sinuses usually, so your PMD is going to have a much better idea of what the next step would be.

In other words, the antibiotic option is failing you. What is the next step in dealing with this issue?

Hope this helped.  I'm back to work for now.

A

Exertion with sweats/ fatigue can be a lot of things, but I don't consider that a fever. Dehydration from the heat wave, pneumonia hidden by the steroid bursts you've been taking, osteomyelitis from the constant sinus infections...I could go on. Either way, I agree that it is off to the doctor you go.

Good luck and get yurself better!  You landlord needs to have a heart attack when a neighbor smells soddering  and sees a bit of smoke coming underneath your door :-)  Everybody has to have a goal and purpose in life...

At the camping, it was utter misery and blazingly hot. One of the best moments was when one of my campmates froze wet washcloths and we put them over our heads. It was utter bliss.

I have stories like that but they involve barf. I'll spare you the details.

Nasal steroids are topical and designed to just affect regional tissues. (Same thing with inhaled steroids) I"m talking about the oral steroids and Prednisone.  That is the big whammy.

Ex: I have a friend who doesn't think her asthma is 'that bad'.  She takes about 3 steroid bursts per year to knock down her attacks. She has probably taken about 6 regimens like this in her life.

I also have asthma. I treat myself with a decongestant, an expectorant (guiaffenison), and an inhaled steroid that I start when a cold starts and continue for 2-3 weeks after the symptoms have resolved.

IMO, she is much more likely to need a ventilator if she gets a bad attack and require long-term steroids because her asthma has become COPD. Steroids are a big gun that you point at a big problem. They mask a lot of infections. They keep people from mounting an infectious response. If you take them daily, it is a big/bad thing to stop them abruptly, so if the person needs surgery or stops eating, it can be a lot of trouble. Chronic steroid uses have very delicate skin, and don't heal worth crap after surgery (we leave staples in the patients for double the normal time and sometimes that isn't enough)

Trivia. Sorry if I bored you.

A

You need to post something, New Jersey. I'm finding the energy to start reviewing again, now that July is over and 2/3 of my shifts have help.

I've got the conference in Chicago coming up next month. I'm looking forward to thinking just about writing, and four days without kids. I'm making a new goal that I move toward finishing Dictates by then. And then I could write the ending for Mandates and be done with THREE first drafts.

Now that is progress. Unlikely, but it is always good to have a goal.  I need to rewrite Mandates anyway. It is the weakest of the three books IMO.

:-(

Njc:  Your post about the clock-etc.-murder reminds me of Mark Twain's quip:  "Of course truth is stranger than fiction.  Fiction has to make sense."  A similar thing can be said for drama:  of course fiction is more dramatic that reality, fiction doesn't dare be boring.  Sometimes we forget that when writing, but there has to be literary devices:  foreshadowing, figurative languages, characters being consistent with their character (or consistently inconsistent).  Even if, as a reader, you go, "Hah, that's where the red herring occurs," so you know, w/o regard to clues, who to exclude, it's part of the comfortable feeling that yes, you are no longer in the real world, no longer have to worry about how to afford the roof repair, or which clown is going to be President.  You're here, where you belong:  in fiction.

When I was but a wee slip of a programmer, I read of two commands in an early, even primeval, Unix manual.  true--Does nothing, successfully.  false--does nothing, unsuccessfully.  Not long after, I met the original ADVENTure game, whose messages included "Nothing happens" and "Twice as much nothing happens."

Well, alright.  I don't think anyone would have described me as a wee slip of anything.  But the point is that I have about 2k words in which a lot of precious little happens.

I have some edits on the previous chapter, then I'll see about getting that busy nothing up.

Minor edits too to Ch10: A Night's Work

I'll do my best to get to it...need more news about Merran! Pom-pond out...go Girl Genius!

I've made a note - this weekend will hopefully be kind to me and allow me to catch up!