Der Feuervogel aufersteht.

When's the last time I wrote about what I've been doing, other than writing? Uh, can't recall. April 10, maybe?

Let's see. Sunday the 11th I went to the park to practice San Shou with my tai chi school, then went to UNC for the anime club's spring picnic/ohanami. That was fun, aside from there being no fucking parking on campus diediedie.

I did the usual weekday stuff during the week, then Friday I went to Charlotte to stay closer to where I was going for a writers conference. The conference itself was OK; it was only $20 so even if the session I went to in the morning was billed as a workshop but was more of a lecture on what to do than how to do and there were so goddamn many Christian-interest writers there, it wasn't a huge waste.

The afternoon session I went to was David Drake talking about how he writes - his process, that sort of thing - and taking questions. It was interesting, and he's really intense. He told me I shouldn't read Hammer's Slammers, because it would disturb me (eh?) because he wrote them after he got back from Vietnam and they were a form of therapy. Now, I like a good, realistic, gritty war story, so I'll see how that goes. I might have time to start reading again soon.

Saturday evening, since I was in the process of flipping out about that volcano in Iceland, after I got home, I texted my ex-coworker and we went out to the bar in Hillsborough. (There's just the one, actually.) Then I tipsy-posted when I got home.

Sunday I went to a Turkish festival out at the fairgrounds. It was OK; there was Turkish coffee, and for an extra $5 I could get it in a Kütahya porcelain cup to take home. I bought some more helva, and Ben got some chocolate-creme-filled cookies that were pretty damn tasty. There were demonstrations of ebru (video) and folk dances (these guys were pretty amazing).

Monday I went out to Greensboro to meet xjenavivex and J, to talk about starting a regional genre writers group, for things like networking, promotion, support, etc. The coffee machine at the Borders was broken, wtf. It was fun, and we're going to work on how to make it bigger & better. And maybe if we get enough interest, we can do a writers retreat out at the Outer Banks in like January when it's cheap(ish).

Coming up: Saturday I'm going to a conference/CME event on pain, addiction, and the law (from 7:30 am to 5 pm...but I'll get close to 8 hours of CE credit for it.) Sunday we have to run another blood glucose curve on Isis, so I'll be home all day. Then next week, I'll be running around and getting my shit together for Germany (clothes, toiletries, hair cut) and trying to see people before I go. L's having her birthday party Friday the 30th, and I may or may not go. I probably won't decide until Friday, actually. My plane leaves at 12 something (I forget if it's noon or like 12:45), so I'll have to be at the airport at like 10:30. We'll see.

Also, thanks to av3rnus I have a lot more German industrial & techno. I need to find time to sit down and make note of which bands I liked enough to want more of, now that I've listened to all 3 CDs like 2 or 3 times each. (The only band whose song I skipped was Einstürzende Neubauten. Sometimes music hits certain frequencies or rhythms or something that makes me either cringe or become anxious. I can't reliably describe what exactly it is, either. EN tripped that button, each time I listened to it. Thankfully, I know how to use the 'next track' button.)

Right, then. Time to get the last few scenes on this novel draft edited/written. I only have 4 left. Which means I'll need a few hours tomorrow to finish it, because I'm good for about 3 scenes a day, if they need extensive reworking, and these, uh, do.

607 words, in a day spent doing other things (like getting groceries, cleaning the bathroom, dealing with email I haven't responded to since the beginning of the month, and fooling around on facebook.)

Which brings my total up to 47544 words and puts me firmly into the ho-shi-politics part. Which means I need to spend some time sketching that shit out. For all the time I spend in political stuff, you'd think that'd be right up my alley. Apparently it's hard! Who knew??

I'm apparently working this week. I'm glad I looked at my calendar! Though I'm listed as 10-7 every day, which ... isn't what I asked for. I emailed my 'agent' and asked what was up. We're working on the 3-day compromise thing.

Having bad luck with the Isis-ear-poking thing today. We only have like 3 readings. :P

So, we picked her up Tuesday night, as I mentioned. We're giving her insulin, which she seems to tolerate, and Clavamox tablets, which she doesn't. (If we could Pill Pocket her, trust me, we would. However, they're made with wheat, which she absolutely cannot has. She's allergic to it, pretty severely.)

We're trying to get her to eat, because they found evidence of fatty liver, which happens when cats mobilize their glycogen stores when they're not eating. If she continues not to eat, it could become fatal. But she is interested in her food, and she'll eat all of it with encouragement, so it's good. She's catching on to us, though, because this morning she ate some food, then slinked off upstairs. I brought her back downstairs, and she ate more. Then after a while, we poked her and shoved a pill down her throat. We're bribing her with salmon treats, and she goes for those after we pill her. I got her to finish her breakfast after the treats.

The spleen aspirate showed some leukogenesis, which isn't too surprising, because they gave her iron IM and she was a bit anemic, but the cytologist said, "if you have any question of lymphoma, do this other test." So they're running another test that involves staining the slides and looking at them again, to find out if she's got lymphoma. (The differential diagnosis is irritable bowel disease, which, with her history of food allergies, seems slightly more likely, but I'd rather definitively rule out cancer (or rule in) than keep fretting over it. Definitive yes or no is better than inconclusiveness.)

We need to get her back to our vet for a blood draw tomorrow morning, to check her liver function and see if it's getting better. She won't like that at all, and she'll be pretty cranky about being stuck for insulin, pilled, *and* shoved into a box, then poked some more. Hopefully she'll forgive us quickly.

I suddenly have a contract, so I'm working 1-7. Which means I'm foisting my writing into the morning. In about 45 minutes, I wrote 648 words, most of which were rewriting an entire scene (because this way makes so much more sense.) They want me to do 40 hours, but I hesitate, because I'd be gone from 9:15 until 7:45, and that cuts heavily into my doing anything other than work time. I'm contemplating asking if I can bring my laptop and write during the 1-hr lunch break, but ... I'm still undecided.

On that topic, I need to go eat lunch and put some real clothes on before heading out. Isis is squawking on the stairs. Last I checked, she was sleeping in a sunbeam. She's so cute :)

So, this morning, we were supposed to go in for a simple urinalysis and some how-to on the insulin shots, then go home.

Best laid schemes, as they say.

There were ketones in Isis' urine, so they ran a serum sample (separated blood) and found moderate to high ketones. What does that mean, you ask? It means she's spending the next 24-48 hours at the NCSU vet hospital, getting hydration and IV insulin.

So, in diabetes, the body doesn't process sugar properly, usually because there isn't enough insulin available. Insulin acts as a key to open the door that lets sugars into the cells. When insulin isn't doing its job, either because there isn't any (type 1) or because the cells aren't as sensitive to it (type 2), the cells aren't getting the sugar they need to do their jobs, and the body looks for other ways to get energy. (Sugar is the basic fuel source for every cell in your body.)

Ketones are a breakdown product of fat and fatty acids, which the body can also use for fuel. However, this is not a good state of affairs for the body in general. Ketosis and diabetic ketoacidosis can occur.

Isis is being treated for ketosis, as opposed to DKA, I believe. Neither of the vets said she had a low blood pH, which is the distinction between ketosis (presence of ketones) and ketoacidosis (ketones + acid). DKA has a third component: elevated blood sugar.

So I'm waiting for the vets to call with an update on her blood chemistries and her condition in general. She was feisty and surly this morning, but sick enough that she had to go to the hospital.

Also, a local friend had some syringes and a glucometer from her late diabetic cat, and now we have them. It'll save us a bit of the initial outlay, which is nice, considering I paid $300 at the vet, then a deposit of $1500 at the vet school, and we haven't even bought the Lantus yet.