Category: Autism

Danni

Week 44

Autism, Blizzard, Danni, Diablo 3, Gaming, M.E., Physical Disability, Real Life, Week in Review, World of Warcraft
Danni is wearing a rubber penguin mask that covers their entire head.
I’m a Penguin
Danni is in their wheelchair, wearing purple waterproofs. They are in a park.
I went out to watch fireworks!
Another picture of Danni in their wheelchair in the park. This one is dark, other than a multicoloured rope light that is wound around their wheelchair.
Lights are awesome

Super late with this, but there’s a good reason. I went out! Have three photos instead to make up for it 😛

The beginning of the week was okay, other than a migraine. Didn’t do anything particularly interesting. Went on my computer on Wednesday and Thursday and played World of Warcraft (as well as catching up with the previous late blog posts).

Didn’t do much for Halloween other than wear my rubber penguin mask when the carers came in, which they somehow managed not to notice until after I took it off a few minutes later. Must have been one of those days for them.

On Friday Blizzcon started! Missed the opening ceremony as was asleep but watched some panels after waking up. The Diablo mobile game presentation was not good. I don’t think they’d realised how much they’d misjudged their audience. What they showed looked remarkably similar to a mobile game I’d played a few years ago, so while I might try it I’m not looking forward to it the way I would a new PC game. The non-Diablo panels I saw were good though.

Saturday was awesome! The local park had a fireworks display for Guy Fawkes Night (though a couple of days early so it was on a Saturday rather than a Monday) and I was well enough to go! The noise from the stage was so loud it was audible as soon as we left our building (about a mile away) but luckily it was the type of noise my noise cancelling headphones does well with. The fireworks themselves were awesome, and I’m really happy that I managed it (not so sure Johan was as he had to push me up and down steep hills and on grass :P). On the way home we picked up some pizza, and watched some more Blizzcon. It was an amazing day.

Sunday I slept most of the day, which was not a surprise. When I was awake I just listened to Welcome to Night Vale and played easy games on my tablet.

  • Overall mood – 3 good days, 4 awesome ones. High symptoms at the beginning of the week, but dropped to my normal by the end.
  • Average daily sleep – 10 hours 14 minutes
  • Longest sleep – 20 hours 7 minutes, from Thursday evening to Friday  evening
  • Clothes changed – 3 (including 13th Doctor top and Gender is a Universe hoodie)
  • Wipe wash – 1
  • Water wash – 0
  • Hair wash – 1 (shampoo cap)
  • Books read – 0
  • TV watched  – 0
  • Streams watched – Blizzcon!
  • Youtube watched – Yup
  • Music listened to – Battle for Azeroth soundtrack (while out on Saturday)
  • Podcasts listened to – Episodes 63 and 64 of Welcome to Night Vale
  • Blog posts written – 1
  • Penguins cuddled – Yup
  • Johan hand holds – Some
  • Johan hugs – Yes! On Saturday (is easier to hug in wheelchair)
  • Time on Twitter – 7 hours 38 minutes (average 1 hour 4 minutes a day)
  • Time on Reddit – 24 hours 3 minutes (average 3 hours 23 minutes a day)
  • Time on Facebook – 3 minutes 
  • Other –
    • That sleep from Thursday to Friday was epic. Without it, I doubt I’d have been able to go out. I did wake up every so often for painkillers and stuff, but fell asleep again quickly.
    • Fireworks are so pretty! Going out is awesome!
    • Noise cancelling headphones are amazing. I don’t know what I’d do without them at this point. Definitely not go out to watch fireworks.
    • The Gutenberg editor for WordPress was fixed quickly after the bug was reported. I’ve been using it fine for this post.
  • Games played – 8
    • Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp
    • Cross Stitch
    • Neko Atsume
    • Godville
    • World of Warcraft
    • June’s Journey
    • Pearl’s Peril
    • Pocket City
  • AC: Pocket Camp Level – 131
  • Godville Heroine Level – 61 (23% done)
  • Godville wood for ark – 48.3%
  • Godville savings – 2 million, 185 thousand
  • Cross stitch completed – 1
  • Most played game – Animal Crossing (11 hours 39 minutes, average 3 hours 3 minutes a day)
  • Other –
    • New events in Animal Crossing – an anniversary event that will have the other types of event with it.
    • Started with a flower event on Thursday. Finished the first half of it by Sunday.
    • When in World of Warcraft managed to get 2 new pets from Hallow’s End and made progress on the legendary staff.
    • Still enjoying June’s Journey and Pearl’s Peril.
    • Working on Halloween pictures in Cross Stitch.
Danni

Week 35 Review

Autism, Danni, Gaming, M.E., Physical Disability, Real Life, Week in Review, World of Warcraft
A box with a picture of a woman wearing an eye mask with ear muffs, titled Hibermate, saying, "Luxury Eye Mask with Ear Muffs for Sleeping", Below in smaller letters, "The world's first soft ear muffs for sleeping. Generation 6" There is a sticker saying navy blue.
The only photo I took this week. My new eye mask!

You’ll never guess what I got up to this week. It definitely didn’t involve a massive multiplayer online role playing game that I’m a bit obsessed with, honest 😛

Yeah, another WoW week. Last week I did the Jaina storyline, but had stop before the end as to finish it you needed to go into a mythic only dungeon (which is the hardest standard difficulty level). On Tuesday some people in my guild talked me into healing said mythic dungeon, so I managed to get to the end but also learnt I’m really not well enough to heal mythics. If it hadn’t been a guild group I would have been kicked really early on as I kept dying and wiping the group as I just didn’t have the concentration needed to heal and remember the mechanics at the same time.

It did mean I completed the Jaina storyline completely though. Will put the last spoilers below in a spoiler thingy, but I got very emotional again finishing it.

After the Siege of Boralus

Once I completed the questline, I mostly concentrated on doing side quests and working on my reputations, especially the war campaign. I also went back and cleared Firelands on 25 heroic as it’s trivial content now, and it’s annoying me that I don’t have the reputation at exalted. I got lucky and won the mount from Alysrazor which made me happy. I also managed to complete the achievement Ready for War which was the end of another, less emotional storyline (though petable baby dinosaurs were involved afterwards).

I didn’t go on my computer everyday though. Thursday and Friday I ended up feeling rather rotten, and became really moody (and not as a response to anything). Based on the cramping pain I then got, we’re pretty sure that it was hormones, which was reassuring as it meant we knew it would be temporary. I had to ask Johan to send the carers away Friday night as I just couldn’t cope and was worried if they touched me then I’d end up hitting them. Panic attacks, paranoia and hallucinations are not fun. (I’m feeling better now.) Once it calmed down a bit I was able to go back on puter and play WoW as a distraction, which helped. I also listened to the song Daughter of the Sea from Warbringers: Jaina, the story of how Jaina became a traitor (from the Kul Tiran point of view), on repeat a lot. The first video is the animated story version, the second is just the song.

Beware, beware, the daughter of the sea…
  • Overall mood – Mix of awesome, good and poor on Friday. High symptoms because of hormones and weather changes. 
  • Average daily sleep – 10 hours 43 minutes
  • Longest sleep – 17 hours 49 minutes, from Sunday morning to Sunday night.
  • Clothes changed – 0
  • Wipe wash – 0
  • Water wash – 0
  • Hair wash – 0
  • Books read – 0
  • TV watched  – 0
  • Streams watched – 0
  • Youtube watched – Jessica Kellgren-Fozard (I actually looked up how to spell her name this time)
  • Music listened to – Warbringers: Jaina (about 50 times) and A Turtle Made It To The Water! (about 15 times)
  • Podcasts listened to – Episodes 46 to 50 of Welcome to Night Vale
  • Blog posts written – 0
  • Penguins cuddled – Definitely
  • Johan hand holds – Indeed
  • Johan hugs – Nope, too ill
  • Time on Twitter – 10 hours 18 minutes (average 1 hour 28 minutes a day)
  • Time on Reddit – 19 hours 32 minutes (average 2 hours 47 minutes a day)
  • Time on Facebook – 1 hour 7 minutes (average 9 minutes a day)
  • Other –
    • I am so grateful I don’t go through the hormonal premenstrual stuff monthly now. I don’t think either of us could cope.
    • I found out how to see what percentage of my time I spend on things. For this week, it was 45% sleeping, 17% on social media, 15% on World of Warcraft, 6% on other games (mostly Animal Crossing) and the rest was most other stuff. Only problem is my tracker can’t deal properly when I’m doing two things at once (such as on World of Warcraft on my computer and twitter on my tablet).
    • I had been planning on changing my clothes and having a wash at the weekend. That didn’t happen.
    • I’m so glad I had Johan while I wasn’t coping. He helps a lot. 
    • My new eye mask is awesome. I’m hoping to do a full review at some point, but that might be a while.

Game Stuff

  • Games played – 5
    • Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp
    • Cross Stitch
    • Neko Atsume
    • Godville
    • World of Warcraft
  • AC: Pocket Camp Level – 120
  • Godville Heroine Level – 58 (69% done)
  • Godville wood for ark – 39.5%
  • Godville savings – 1 million, 686 thousand
  • Cross stitch completed – 2
  • Most played game – Animal Crossing Pocket Camp (17 hours 2 minutes, average 2 hours 26 minutes a day)
  • Other –
    • New bug catching event in Animal Crossing, this time Bumbledrops.
    • Finished the first part of the bug event in just over a day, thanks to very active friends.
    • Remembered that cross stitch is good, especially when listening to podcasts.
    • WoW is still favourite game.

Danni

Week 31 Review

Autism, Danni, Gaming, M.E., Physical Disability, Real Life, Week in Review, World of Warcraft
Danni is in their wheelchair, wearing a lilac top with a cat on it, a lilac baseball cap, sunglasses and a penguin neck cushion. They are smiling.
Danni back at home, before hoisting into bed

I am glad to be home. Got back on Wednesday 1st August.

Care homes suck. Even good ones. It’s just not the same as being at home, and if you have severe ME, then it’s really not good. There’s too much noise, not enough staff, too many people to try and teach how you need things doing, and for me, constant anxiety over everything. They are not good for me, but at the moment it’s the only form of respite we can get.

Monday Johan got back from Sweden, and as I was running out of essentials (mostly incontinence pads) he came to visit me and bring the stuff I needed. It was fun tracking his flight using an app on my phone, and he had free wifi on the plane so we were chatting at the same time 🙂 He also bought me some Swedish chocolate, which was yummy.

Monday night was not so good. I still had really bad diarrhoea, and the night staff decided to leave me for 4 hours, which meant I had been lying in a dirty pad for about 3 1/2 hours and by the end of it had spread up to my shoulders. Ended up with really bad nappy rash as well as feeling super ill from the washing and changing needed because they weren’t checking on me as often as I needed. It also made a lot of extra work for them because changing my pad takes about 5 minutes for one carer, changing me and the bed takes about half an hour for two carers. I didn’t get to sleep until 4.30am because of that, so slept through to the afternoon.

Tuesday was better, other than being unable to lie on my back due to the nappy rash. Johan came to see me in the afternoon and we talked about what foreign countries we wanted to visit, while looking up the government advice for each country. Determined that we’re not going to quite a few. The night carers were much better than on Monday night, and though they couldn’t manage hourly checks as they were too busy, they did see me every 90 minutes or so which meant it didn’t get as bad as it had been. I’m also grateful for Cavilon as it really helped clear the worst of the nappy rash up.

Wednesday I went home! Before doing so, I put in a complaint about the night staff who were leaving me for hours with the manager. It’ll depend on the response from her as to whether I’ll be going back there again. I was so glad to be back in my own bed.

Thursday I slept most of the day, and felt a bit better for it waking up that evening. Managed to do a food shop and ordered World of Warcraft Battle for Azeroth Collector’s Edition (because I missed WoW so much I knew I’d be playing it again). Johan’s computer decided to die, so he ordered some new parts and I offered to pay as an early Christmas present. 

Friday the computer parts were meant to arrive, didn’t, but said they did. That was annoying, but I had a long sleep, waking up Saturday afternoon.

On Saturday the parts actually arrived, so not sure what happened on the Friday. Also on Saturday I went on my desktop computer for the first time since February. After installing a ton of updates, I resubscribed to WoW and after fixing my addons and such, I worked on Argus quests. It’s a great distraction from feeling yukky. Sunday was more WoW until about midday, where I fell asleep before the carers arrived.

Johan is happy with his new computer parts. They have LED lights in them that he can change the colours on. I think he’s changed his mind on RGB computer stuff since he’s seen how awesome they are 🙂 I want some but there’s no point in getting them in my actual computer as I can’t see it from where I am in bed, and the keyboards are too heavy for me. I am going to get the RGB version of the mouse I have when it dies, but it’s being stubborn and continues to work 😛

  • Overall mood – Other than the Monday night which was horrible, I had an awesome week! High symptoms due to care home/travelling/recovery but distraction helped.
  • Average daily sleep – 10 hours 27 minutes
  • Longest sleep – 19 hours 17 minutes from Friday evening to Saturday afternoon (deep sleep 58.5%)
  • Clothes changed – 3
  • Wipe wash – 2
  • Water wash –  0
  • Hair wash – 0
  • Books read – 0
  • TV watched – Doctor Who Series 10 Episodes 9-12, Ultimate Beastmaster on Netflix 
  • YouTube videos watched – Lots, including WoW Cinematics
  • Streams watched – Bob Ross on Twitch
  • Music listened to – Random playlist on Google Play Music while travelling home
  • Podcasts listened to – 0
  • Blog posts written – 1
  • Penguins cuddled –  Lots! Glad to have home ones again
  • Johan hand holds – Lots as he was home!
  • Johan hugs – 1 (worth it)
  • Time on Twitter – 6 hours 17 minutes (average 53 minutes a day)
  • Time on Reddit – 16 hours 58 minutes (average 2 hours 25 minutes a day)
  • Time on Facebook – 1 hour (average 8 minutes a day)
  • Other –
    • The difference between the good night staff and the bad night staff was incredibly noticeable.
    • I was just about to contact Johan to phone the care home so they’d come sort me out when they turned up on Monday night/Tuesday morning. My timer showed just over 4 hours.
    • Swedish chocolate is nommy.
    • Home is the best.

Game stuff

  • Games played – 5
    • Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp
    • Cross Stitch
    • Neko Atsume
    • Godville
    • World of Warcraft
  • AC: Pocket Camp Level – 117
  • Godville Heroine Level – 57 (45% done)
  • Godville wood for ark – 35.0%
  • Godville savings – 1 million, 473 thousand
  • Cross stitch completed – 0
  • Most played game – Animal Crossing Pocket Camp (8 hours 45 minutes, average 1 hour 15 minutes a day)
  • Other –
    • New flower event in Animal Crossing. This one is catching Flutterflies.
    • I have so much to do in WoW. Luckily I’m still in my guild and I’m so happy to be playing again.
    • Completed the Argus questline in WoW.
Danni

Week 30 Review

Autism, Danni, Gaming, M.E., Physical Disability, Real Life, Week in Review
Danni is smiling. They are wearing a purple penguin dress without sleeves, and have Poseidon the baby Emperor Penguin on their shoulder.
Danni and Poseidon

Been another mixed week, with some really good bits and some not good bits.The best bits were getting a bath (first time in 2 years) and seeing a friend 🙂

I had the bath on Tuesday, and this time remembered my penguin bath toy. I was allowed to just soak in there for about 10 minutes with the light off which was amazing. It was nice to be properly clean again.

I saw my friend Marga on Sunday, after having to cancel the week before due to migraine. She is awesome and the time disappeared really quickly. Talking to her helped me feel better after some not great days.

Wednesday and Thursday nights were not good. I’m meant to have hourly checks as not able to use the buzzer, and though on a night time this often becomes 2 hourly due to lack of staff (2 care workers for 22 residents, most of whom need a lot of help) those nights it was even worse than that, resulting in being covered in my own poo for hours (diarrhoea caused by my body disagreeing with the food). The resulting washing and bedding and clothing changes made me feel horrendous. A couple of the care workers also made me feel really guilty for needing frequent help, which also wasn’t good. (From the future: I did put in a complaint the day I came home.)

When more with it, I spent a lot of time watching TV shows I needed to catch up with. First was Steven Universe, which both confirmed a theory I’d had from season 1, but also gave me a lot of other questions. I now have to wait for new episodes to come out, which I’m not used to. I also watched some of last year’s Doctor Who. Bill is an awesome companion, and I’ve really enjoyed these episodes.

I didn’t watch much of ESA this year, but I did catch the last race and the closing speeches. Saw Johan on the stream which was good (though I did have to check it was actually him – silly face blindness :P). It looked like a really good event, and now I just need my body to let me travel so I can go next time 😛

  • Overall mood – Mixed: awesome for Tuesday and Sunday, bad for Thursday and Friday, good for the rest of the week, with mostly high symptoms.
  • Average daily sleep – 8 hours 47 minutes
  • Longest sleep – 15 hours 5 minutes from Friday afternoon to Saturday morning (deep sleep 56%)
  • Clothes changed – 7
  • Wipe wash – 6
  • Water wash –  1 (in the bath!)
  • Hair wash – 1
  • Books read – 0
  • TV watched – Doctor Who Series 10 Episodes 4-8, Steven Universe up to Season 5 episode 25
  • YouTube videos watched – Some
  • Streams watched – ESA Marathon on Twitch
  • Music listened to – 0
  • Podcasts listened to – Welcome to Night Vale episodes 42 and 43
  • Blog posts written – 1
  • Penguins cuddled –  Primrose. Nicky, Isabella and Poseidon
  • Johan hand holds – 0 (he’s in Sweden)
  • Johan hugs – 0 (ditto)
  • Time on Twitter – 1 hours 56 minutes (average 16 minutes a day)
  • Time on Reddit – 38 hours 41 minutes (average 5 hours 31 minutes a day)
  • Time on Facebook – 3 minutes
  • Other –
    • Day staff are good, especially since they let me sleep now they know I don’t want waking up every hour.
    • Some night staff are great, and are just struggling due to not enough of them. Some, not so much.
    • Got soaked when someone didn’t put the top on the Hydrant properly and it fell off the bed. That was not the most pleasant thing ever, but it did cool me a down a little bit.
    • Some of the staff don’t understand my communication issues. Turns out even writing them down in a guide doesn’t always help.
    • WordPress has a new editor and it’s weird. If this is messed up, that’s why 😛

Game stuff

  • Games played – 4
    • Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp
    • Cross Stitch
    • Neko Atsume
    • Godville
  • AC: Pocket Camp Level – 116
  • Godville Heroine Level – 57 (10% done)
  • Godville wood for ark – 33.6%
  • Godville savings – 1 million, 426 thousand
  • Cross stitch completed – 1
  • Most played game – Animal Crossing Pocket Camp (15 hours 37 minutes, average 2 hours 13 minutes a day)
  • Other –
    • Just about completed the Gyrodite event in time. It was annoying.
    • New fishing event, which was really annoying. Bought the golden rod with leaf tickets (premium currency) and though I completed the main goals, I didn’t get all the items. They made it a lot harder and I’m not happy.
    • Spent very little time on other games, but did finally complete another cross stitch while listening to podcasts.
Danni

Week 16 Review

Autism, Danni, Gaming, Gender Stuff, M.E., Physical Disability, Real Life, Week in Review

Danni is at the bottom of the image, wearing a shirt and tie, sunglasses and a hat. Above is Johan, who is wearing a purple t-shirt and is leaning down. They both are smiling and are outside.

Danni is in their wheelchair. They are wearing a purple shiny mermaid tail.

Danni is lying in bed. They have had their hair shaved so they are almost bald.

To make up for the lack of photos recently, have I have three this time. It was a brilliant week!

Monday wasn’t amazing. I tried to do a food shop but had to stop in the middle as I was too ill to continue. That made me feel a bit sucky. Johan put some water beads in water for me and I watched them start to grow before going to sleep.

Tuesday was better. Johan helped me with a wipe wash and shaving my armpits, which made me feel loads better. I had to get new clothes on twice though as the first top got wet. Being cleaner was good!

By Thursday I was doing much better, probably the best day I’ve had all year. The weather was also really nice, reaching a high of 24°C. I asked Johan if I could go out and he came home on time so I did! I got fully dressed, wearing a shirt and tie, pink skirt, rainbow compression socks and a purple mermaid tail blanket.

First stop was the barbers to get my head shaved, as my hair was starting to hurt me with not being able to wash and comb it as often as it needed. No arguments about my gender this time which I’m glad of.

Next was going on the Metro to get into Newcastle. I love trains and bridges, so being on a train going over a bridge with other bridges outside made me very happy! I tried not to flap too much because I didn’t want to use up all my energy.

In Newcastle we went into Eldon Square. Looked around a bit, and bought a few small things from Tiger and The Works. Next was Primark as I was wanting more pyjama tops. Couldn’t find the ones I was looking for, but did get a hat, a hoodie and a new neck cushion to try.

By this point we were hungry so went to The Gate. We were wanting to go to Rub but it was closed, so went to TGI Fridays instead. Johan got a huge steak and a rocky road sundae, while I had a chicken burger and sweet potato chips. They boxed mine up for me as I could only manage half. As it was the first time we’d been out on a date in over a year it was really special.

Since then I’ve had payback, which was completely expected. It was worth it though to get out of this bed and room. I’ve told Johan he needs to clear the living room up so I can go in there once I’ve recovered. I’m still on a bit of a high from it.

  • Overall mood – Good and Awesome!
  • Average daily sleep – 8 hours 52 minutes (of 10 hours 47 minutes)
  • Longest sleep – 13 hours 27 minutes from Wednesday afternoon to Thursday morning (of 17 hours 16 minutes)
  • Clothes changed – 4 times (Trans and Tired twice, shirt and tie, Gender is a Universe)
  • Wipe wash – 2
  • Water wash – 1
  • Hair wash – 0 (But it was shaved off so I don’t need one yet)
  • Books read – 0
  • TV watched – 0
  • YouTube videos watched – 0
  • Streams watched – 0
  • Music listened to – 0
  • Blog posts written – 0
  • Penguins cuddled – Yuppers 🐧🐧🐧
  • Johan hand holds – I loves 💜
  • Johan hugs – Nope, but had a date
  • Time on Twitter – 9 hours 50 minutes (average 1 hour 24 minutes a day)
  • Time on Reddit – 27 hours 56 minutes (average 3 hours 59 minutes a day)
  • Time on Facebook – 34 minutes (average 4 minutes a day)
  • Other –
    • I WENT OUTSIDE!!!
    • Water beads are awesome. They grow so much and feel weird but nice.
    • Talking to Sammie is good. She is amazing.

Game stuff

  • Games played – 5
    • Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp
    • Cross Stitch
    • DragonVale
    • Neko Atsume
    • Godville
  • AC: Pocket Camp Level – 89
  • Godville Heroine Level – 52 (44% done)
  • Godville wood for ark – 18.1%
  • Godville savings – 730 thousand
  • Cross stitch completed – 3
  • Most played game – Animal Crossing: Pocket Camp (9 hours 49 minutes, average 1 hour 24 minutes a day)
  • Other –
    • Animal Crossing has added Fortune Cookies, which are their version of loot boxes. At £2 of premium currency each, and being able to get duplicates, a lot of people are not happy. I’ve accepted I won’t be completing my catalogue now, and am ignoring them other than the ones you can buy with normal currency (bells).
    • I finished getting the purple tulips, and have now started on the pink tulips.
    • DragonVale has a new dragon. I’m casually going after it.
    • The only thing I have left to get in Neko Atsume is the Sassy Fran wallpaper. I’m a few visits away.