And then she said, "It's at least 5:30 in New Zealand," so I had a glass of wine.

[st_aurafina]

State of cat:
BAGGINS IS A FREE ELF! He's off sub-q fluids, he's got, as far as vets could tell while he was fully perfused, good renal function and low CK, and seems fit to make a full recovery from the snake bite. We are very lucky. So very lucky. Now we need to build him up and get him well, but he's doing a lot of that work himself, as cats do (MOSTLY BY JUMPING ON THE KITCHEN BENCH TO LOOK FOR HUMAN FOOD GRRR.) We think we found the site of the original bite - back right leg - because the skin got pink and raw there, but it's healing up. And as the vets said he would, he's doing his own physio, working on those damaged muscles in his wheel and playing with his brother. He's the best of cats. Champion of cats. Most cat of cats. <3


State of me:
Prednisolone is a beast, and it's slowly frying my brain, so I'm currently resorting to pink wine in the early afternoon. I'm not at work or anything, so I feel like that's a valid decision.

My concentration window has been appalling so I've barely read any Yuletide, beyond my wonderful gift fics, which has been sad-making because I love the process of reading and reccing and commenting. I'm hopeful that as the pred dose drops, my ability to get my eyes to stick to the screen will improve. I've got a doctor's appointment upcoming where we can review the rate of decrease and make some kind of long term plan. In the meantime, I'm average four-five hours of sleep a night, getting up at 5:30 with a weird unfocused mania that has me running around the house ~doing things and ~making plans. And crochet. Crochet is a life-saver at the moment. I still have knees, though right knee is making a whispered reappearance on the pain scale, possibly because I'm doing as much movement while I still can.


State of the Yuletide:
I wrote this for The Black Tape podcast - when my brain is up to it, I'll post it here properly. And answer comments, oh, gosh.
A Child's Path to Clarity (4672 words) by st_aurafina
Chapters: 1/1
Fandom: The Black Tapes Podcast
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Characters: Richard Strand, Alex Reagan, Nic Silver
Additional Tags: Bookstores, Conversations
Summary:

"Almost certainly," said Alex. "Is most definitely not certain."

State of Livejournal:
I'm lucky/sheltered/Australian enough not to feel too threatened by the move of servers to Russia, so I'm not going to delete or stop cross-posting at the moment. I've got a permanent account over there, so I won't be giving them more money in the future, and basically Dreamwidth has been my homebase for a long time now, so I'm going to sit tight and see what changes. If you guys want to defriend over there, though, go for it. I totally understand, and I want people to feel safe.

More information about LJ and Russia:
From mamculuna: CONFIRMED: LJ Servers moving to Russia, now with all kinds of links and shit
From umadoshi: Sooooo...about Russia and LJ (unrelated links, related links, and personal notes)

Comments

[fairestcat]

Yay for Baggins! I've been following his saga and fretting about him.

[st_aurafina]

Thank you! I'm so glad, we're so lucky!

[wendelah1]

I'm glad your kitty baby is doing better, and hope you'll be back to yourself soon as well.

[st_aurafina]

Thank you! We're working on it.

[tamsin]

Glad to hear your cat is doing fine! And I hope you'll feel better soon- med adjustments are the worst!

[st_aurafina]

Thank you - me too! He's a hero cat!

The meds will work out - it's just nice to have a place to vent about it. Bleh. The worst thing is they taste really, really bad, too. Seems extra unfair.

[china_shop]

I don't know how different Prednisolone and Prednisone are, but fwiw, when I was on Prednisone long term, I found it really helpful to take a low dose of Amitriptyline to offset the worst of the fizz and help me sleep. I'm a firm believer in you can't get better if you don't sleep properly. /unsolicited anecdata, sorry; feel free to ignore; hi

Good luck! And yay for Baggins!

[st_aurafina]

Prednisone is supposed to be rougher, over all, but I'm coming down from a massive dose, so who knows. And man, the fizz is such a way to describe it! Ugh. I'm going to talk to the doctor about something sedating, if I can't move my split dose back to mornings.

I never mind a bit of anecdata, definitely. And thank you! (And Baggins thanks you!)

[china_shop]

I was on varying doses of Prednisone for about 10 years, so yeah. I didn't really start getting better until I paired it with sedatives.

(I actually miss the fizz in some ways: I wrote SO MUCH FIC under the influence of steroids! But the other side-effects were... not good.)

[gokuma]

I'm glad your cat is okay and I hope you'll get used to the new meds really soon.
I'm still on fence about what to do about the LJ thing. Many of my friends don't use any other platform and I'm in touch with them only through LJ.
I did one important step though and created a DW account. Just in case...

BTW, I had no idea Black Tapes was such a vibrant fandom O__o I was seriously stunned by the number of fanfics. If only The Hidden Almanac was so popular...

[st_aurafina]

I think definitely having a secondary account somewhere is a good idea - I'm using te LJ for that, and DW is my main place now.

The Black Tapes has a lot of fic - I was surprised, too! I've only written two myself, but the tag on the AO3 is pretty big for a podcast, and there's qute a bit on Tumblr too.

Omg, I love The Hidden Almanac - it's like a little piece of awesome whenever it pops up. Such a beautiful little world there.

[gokuma]

Did you know that the author of the Almanac has LJ/DW? => http://ursulav.livejournal.com/

[st_aurafina]

Yes! She came over to DW, too: tkingfisher.

[yuuago]

I'm glad your cat is doing okay!

You aren't the only one with a lot of Yuletide left to read. But I kind of like reading it late, and leaving late comments, because I feel like people really appreciate comments that appear after the initial rush drops off.

[st_aurafina]

I feel like people really appreciate comments that appear after the initial rush drops off.

That's what I'm telling myself! It's going to be quieter at work now that Christmas is over and I'll have more tiny bits of time to read a fic, comment, and get on with things. I hope!

[lurkingcat]

Go Baggins!

I really hope the med situation works out for you soon. Not being able to concentrate or read is the worst.

[st_aurafina]

Ugh, the concentration comes and goes, but it comes and goes like a firehose - intense laser-like focus! Complete vacuum of focus. So weird and frustrating

Baggins is amazing. I'm so proud of him. We're so lucky.

[thistlerose]

Yay for Baggins! So glad to hear here's doing well.

Blergh, I don't know what to do about my LJ. Right now I'm thinking of not renewing my paid account. If Russia is mining my journal for data, there probably isn't much they don't already have.

[st_aurafina]

Yay Baggins!

Yeah, I'm going to sit tight at LJ until there's functional issues, which, honestly, I don't doubt are going to appear.

[umadoshi]

All the yay for Baggins! ^_^

I hope you get useful/helpful info when you see your doctor. *hugs*

[st_aurafina]

So much yay for Baggins! And

[dhampyresa]

YAY BAGGINS

[st_aurafina]

BEST OF CATS!

[worlds_of_smoke]

Yay! I'm glad that Baggins is in the clear.

[st_aurafina]

So is he, honestly! Though he was awesome and valiant and still loves us, it wasn't fun for anyone.

[adafrog]

Yay Baggins!!

I hope you can get off the prednisone soon.

[st_aurafina]

Yay indeed!

I am working on it! It was such a big dose to start with, I think I'm going to have to drop faster but I don't wanna because bleeeeeh. Doc will help me work it out, I hope.

[adafrog]

*crosses fingers for you*

[untonuggan]

so glad to hear about baggins!

[st_aurafina]

It's the best of news. <3