This holiday was yesterday. Almonds are an interesting nut. Not really one of my faves, but pretty good. It's very healthy and versatile. One of the almond-based desserts I really like is a Passover almond and cream torte. My mom made it occasionally for the holiday. I made it a couple of years ago. I think it has at least 3 different forms of it. Almond extract, sliced almonds, and crushed almonds. Very good, spongy, and almond-y. Monday was National Gumdrop Day. Gumdrops are awesome! I'm surprised there's a day for them.
Well, I'm still sick.
It's been just over a week. It felt like it got worse Monday night. Saturday and Sunday, I was coughing up stuff. I thought maybe that was a good thing, since it might mean it's pushing out whatever is in me. Trying to get rid of it. On Monday, my throat felt really dry, itchy, and the coughs weren't 'helping' or clearing it. That night, I hardly got any sleep. (If I did, maybe I passed out for a few minutes...
) I was coughing so hard, I could feel pain in my sides, feel like my guts were being squeezed, feel pain in my back (this was off and on beforehand, but much worse that night), and I ended up throwing up a few times. Felt like every time I breathed, I'd set it off somehow. Yesterday wasn't too bad. I still had coughing fits during the day, but they eased during the afternoon. I actually managed to sleep last night! Yay!
Feels like some sort of victory. I'm not having as many coughing fits today either. Feels like my throat is cooling down or something. It still feels swollen, though. Not nearly as 'itchy'. My nose hurts quite a bit. It's not running like it was before, just feels super dry. Also, every time I inhale through it, the air hurts. If I inhale through my mouth, my throat gets itchy again. So, it'd be cool if I didn't have to breathe...
Talking also affects my throat now. That's a bit difficult for me, because I also sometimes talk to the cats or myself when I'm by myself...Hard to keep it to a minimum for me.
I'm definitely not going to the usual group meeting tonight, because of me still being sick. Kind of sad, but oh well. I think I got sick from someone there last time, who was sitting across from me, that was coughing every so often. I know my throat felt slightly itchy a few days after that meeting. (Didn't think much of it at the time.) I also was on 2 immunosuppressants at the time. So my immune system was shot beforehand. I don't blame this person, but I probably should have worn a mask or something.
Probably should wear one when I go out and I know people will be there, in the future. But, it feels more isolating, and weird. For when we go to Shari's afterwards, I might need to ask for another table that's close. So, I'll be able to still be there, talk to people, take my mask off to eat, and not be close enough to catch anything. (Or, at least close enough where I'm more likely to.
) I have to start thinking of this sort of thing more often. I've been sick 3 times in the 5 months since I increased my dose of azathioprine to 2 pills. (Overall, I've been on azathioprine for 6 months now.) I increased it to 3 about 4 months ago, and now (as of about a month ago) I'm back to 2. Still, 3 times is too often.
(Before, I would get sick maybe once a year.) This seems to be the worst one so far. I was on prednisone, a steroid and an immunosuppressant (azathioprine is a mild chemo med and also an immunosuppressant), for a month and have been off of it for a week. I think I might even wear a mask when I go to the grocery store or the mall. If the steroids didn't boost my ability to absorb azathioprine better, I'm going to have to move on to heavier/stronger meds like humira or remicade. (I'm a bit scared of this.
) That might also mess with my immune system. So, I should probably still be more mindful about it. I noticed that cooking has helped me feel a bit better while I'm sick. Simple stuff, not really over the top. One recipe was for making French toast in a mug. It was interesting, and tasty.
I think if I make it again, I'll add more vanilla, and maybe some sugar. The recipe itself didn't call for sugar. But, even with my low-cal syrup, it wasn't quite sweet enough. Came out of the mug pretty easily. They said you could use any bread you wanted to, so I used challah. Yesterday night I made chocolate chip muffins. We were out of dessert, so during the late afternoon, I thought why not make muffins? Both this and the French toast were recipes from the Yummly app. I liked this one, too. The muffins ended up being really heavy and huge. (Huge to me, at least.
Not nearly as big as the ones at a local market are, though.) I used margarine instead of butter. We didn't have quite enough chocolate chips, but we were close. They called for a lot of them. Felt like most of the batter consisted of chocolate chips. Had quite a bit of vanilla extract, too. They're good and hearty. Apparently, if you put them in the refrigerator the chocolate chips harden. I suppose we could always heat them up in the microwave before we have the rest, too. I decided to join a new forum, since someone invited me to it. It has an interesting name: The Boogaloo City. It was created by people from a forum I was a part of for years, called Anime Forum. Pretty generic name.
I looked back, and apparently I joined back in 2009. I was invited to it by the creator through Crunchyroll. Anyways, there was apparently a lot of drama on AF the last few months. That forum was hacked into 2 years ago, and hasn't been the same since. (I haven't been very active on there since then, either.
) They've been trying desperately to get people to stay and gain new members. Some well-known mods on there gave their 2 cents on what they should do to attract people, and they were shot down. The creator of the site said they were trying to destroy the forum, and he won't tolerate it. He started banning a bunch of people, after attacking them verbally on their profile's visitor messages section and pm's. Later on, some didn't even get that. They just logged in to find they were banned without warning. For some members, the threats didn't stop after he banned them. He also had some of the mods closest to him (the ones that never questioned him, and always seemed a bit odd), send threats through emails to these people. Also, they found out those people's other profiles on other sites (like deviantART and Facebook), and threatened them publicly there. I had no idea.
I never thought the creator of AF was like that. I knew a few of the people closest to him were strange, and somewhat stalkerish. One of them found me on deviantART, watched me (not sure if she still does...I probably should check at some point), and decided to advertise for the site in my profile's comments section.
The only way I knew about all this was through the guy who invited me to Boogaloo, and the one that got the most heat from the creator of AF. The one that was the first to just give a suggestion that set off the firestorm. I feel sorry for her, because she was awesome on there. But, now she has a different forum with some of the same people. I think she's co-creator with the guy who invited me. He said he was trying to invite all the great people he knew on that site before it got any worse. Well, if it was created by amazing, friendly, and honest people I know, I'd gladly check it out.
I decided to go back to AF one last time to get rid of my pics, and various other things. A lot of my friends on there were banned. I wonder how many people are actually on there now?
Looking at the new forum, they seem a lot more warm and welcoming. Youtube:
3 Kuroshitsuji amv's:
4 Gintama amv's:
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