Second Covid-19 Vaccine Get

This is my second version of this post, as just over a week ago I wrote one saying I wasn’t feeling too bad after getting the second vaccine. I just needed fact check something with Izzy, so went to sleep thinking I’d post it after I woke up. And I felt awful. I’m still not great but I’m hoping it’ll ease off soon.

I got my second jab on Tuesday 4th May, and getting it was fine. Same person as the first time which helped, as we could skip the don’t get worried if I stop responding stuff. For the first few days I had a sore, useless arm and felt a bit fluey, but not as bad as the first jab.

The evening of Friday 7th May I woke up feeling horrendous. High temperature, chills, shakes, worse ME symptoms, severe nausea, and just generally feeling awful. Izzy had her jab that afternoon but luckily wasn’t feeling too bad, as she had to give me all the meds I’m allowed. I was only awake about 3 hours before my body forced me to sleep again.

I think it’s a mixture of vaccine side effects and ME payback from getting the vaccine, compounded by having new problematic upstairs neighbours, so my rest is being interrupted. I’m finally doing a bit better, but still am much weaker than my normal. It sucks having to stop eating because I can’t chew any longer rather than having finished or being full. I’m hoping to be back to my normal soon, as once I’m fully protected (which is meant to be the coming Tuesday) I’m wanting to go on adventures and/or see people.

Izzy had about a day of feeling lousy then was pretty much fine. She took the Friday she had the jab off, but was able to work again on the Monday. She’s also excited about the prospect of seeing people again.

I’m going to bullet point the rest of the updates as it’s easier for me and I want to finish this post.

  • The sore arm from the first jab lasted 10 weeks. I really hope it doesn’t this time.
  • Izzy has started sorting the living room and has set up a computer for Sammie to use. For me to get in there we need to remove some old furniture and stuff, which requires help. Hopefully soon.
  • We got a new tabletop dishwasher called Bob. Bob is purple and my contribution was large googly eyes. It’s already helped Izzy so much.
  • Izzy has gone private for her gender healthcare, as we don’t know how many years it’ll be before she’s seen on the NHS. Expensive but worth it. She’s already happier because there’s progress.
  • Just after Izzy emptied her bank account to pay for that, we discovered we need to replace our fridge freezer. Typical. Our current one will need defrosting and the hallway needs the boxes of pads and stuff moving before we can get a new one delivered.
  • We’re pretty sure Izzy has ADHD as well as being autistic, but neither of us have the spoons to sort out an assessment for her. It does help explain certain struggles she has that autism doesn’t quite cover (though there’s a lot of overlap).
  • Izzy is also exhausted because she’s looking after me 24/7 along with being a game developer 40 hours a week for over a year now. If circumstances allow, we’re hoping she’ll get a break this summer.
  • We’re not sure when we’ll get the careworkers back in yet, but it’ll be before Izzy goes back to the office.
  • We don’t know when Izzy will be back at the office. We do know it’ll be a different office, and the new one is further away. We’ll have to take this into account when figuring out what times the care workers should come.
  • We also need to sort out getting a new cleaner/house help person. As they’ll eventually be coming in when Izzy isn’t here, it’ll need to be someone I’m comfortable being in the flat alone with, which I wasn’t with our previous cleaner. I’m hoping whoever it is can help me organise my room – I have a plan, but need someone to be my arms 😛
  • I have some niggly and routine health stuff to sort out once things calm down. Nothing super urgent but they need doing. For obvious reasons I didn’t want to go to the hospital until I’m protected from Covid-19, and nor did I want to tie up a doctor or nurse for things that can wait a bit.
  • When not experiencing jab side effects, I was getting on my computer and playing World of Warcraft once or twice a week. Not as often as I’d like, but enough to make some decent progress.
  • I’ve gotten obsessed with the mobile game Idle Brick Breaker. It’s just colourful balls breaking bricks to make big numbers, but perfect when my brain isn’t working. I wish it were a proper idle game that progressed while not open, but watching it is great.
  • Our new upstairs neighbours are drug dealers. We know this because they’re not quiet about it, and we can hear their shouted conversations. It’s also meant people visiting at all hours of the day and night, often banging on the communal doors, and sometimes ringing our doorbell or banging on our windows. There’s also a lot of yelling and arguments.
  • My biggest flashback triggers are loud arguments and things hitting the window. I’m struggling quite a bit with them, panic attacks and dissociation. It’s also making my ME worse.
  • The last time we had an upstairs neighbour involved with drugs he ended up getting murdered. Although that’s probably not going to happen this time, last weekend the flat upstairs was raided by the police as a man was found dead not that far away.
  • Izzy and our other neighbours are reporting this to the housing when they can. Last time we were seriously considering moving. Upstairs know I’m ill in bed as our nosy neighbour told them, but that doesn’t stop them making so much noise they wake me up with ear plugs in at 1am some nights.
  • Other than upstairs, it’s a pretty quiet area. Before they moved in the worst noise was the kids playing next door or the nosy neighbour vacuuming with her flat door open. Ear plugs deal with them fine.
  • Penguins are still good. Baby penguins are being born and they’re adorable.
  • We found a really friendly, accepting community on Twitch and Discord after a random raid. They like us both as individuals and as a couple. I overdid it for a few weeks watching streams and chatting because it’s just so lovely. They’ve really helped Izzy’s confidence as well.
  • I commissioned the below emote to use on Discord. I love it 😊
A cartoon purple penguin smiling and hugging a red heart.

10 Years

Today is 10 years since I started this blog. This means that yesterday Izzy and I celebrated our 10th wedding anniversary. We had a couple of hours of cuddling in my bed while watching cricket, amazing food from our local Korean chicken place, and then I ended up sleeping the rest of the day because I still have severe ME and cuddling is exhausting 😛

The last 10 years have been very different from what we’d have predicted. We didn’t know how ill I’d get, or even that I’d still be ill by now. We moved from Crawcrook (a lovely village) to Gateshead (a decent sized town) once I could no longer manage stairs and needed to be closer to the hospitals. I went from mostly walking with crutches to full time wheelchair use and then nearly completely bed bound and unable to sit upright. Izzy went from being inside all the time to going to a day service, then volunteering for both the day service and a local games developer, then in March getting a full time job with the games company (just in time for lockdown :P). She also took up running and turned out to be pretty good at it. We also both realised we were trans. Over the last few years Izzy has got to know Sammie really well, and now Sammie trusts her when I’m not available to help out, which makes me very happy.

Some things are the same. We both still play World of Warcraft and are obsessed with computers. Penguins are a massive part of our lives, and most of our belongings are purple. We still very much like cuddling each other, and get frustrated when I’m too ill. We both like talking and listening to each other’s special interests, and just being in together while doing our own things.

The original plan was as we had a very small wedding (5 guests), we were going to have a blessing and bigger party for family and friends for our 1st anniversary. As I got more ill, that was postponed until the 5th, then the 10th. At this point, we have no idea when I’ll be well enough, so we’ll worry about it when I’m able to actually manage one, whenever that’ll be. We definitely don’t regret our wedding, especially since we weren’t to know I was going to get so much more ill so quickly. In the meantime, we just spend what time we can together and hope one day I’ll be well enough to see people again 🙂

As for how we’re doing, we’re mostly okay. Still hiding from the world, so not having anyone in and Izzy’s still working from home. I haven’t blogged much as I was badly affected by Mel Baggs’ death, mostly because it shouldn’t have happened. We hadn’t spoken recently, but if it weren’t for hir and Laura Tisoncik creating the Autism Liberation Front in Second Life I wouldn’t have met Izzy, and I’m not sure I’d even be here without them. The world is a much poorer place without Mel, but hir writing and legacy will remain.

Small Change

Most things are fine here. We’re getting used to the current situation, I’m managing to do things I like most days so long as I don’t move too much, and we’re managing to get food deliveries even if it’s not exactly what we ordered. So that’s good.

https://twitter.com/Izzy_ThePenguin/status/1250586909736349697

There has been a little change though. My lovely spouse has come out on Twitter as a trans woman. Her new name is Izzy. I’ve known since last year, but due to how horribly transphobic the UK is at the moment, she’s been terrified of coming out in public. I’m really proud of her getting the courage to do so, and so far the response has been really positive. Sammie now calls her Mum2 (I’m Mum1) which makes Izzy smile every time she hears it. It also means the only clothes of mine that are safe are my shoes, as I’m a size 9 and she’s a size 6. When I bought it, I thought my Trans and Tired top would be safe 😛

There were early signs I noticed. When I originally met her on Second Life, Johan Yugen was a female avatar. She claimed that it was just because there was a better selection of purple clothing, but it wasn’t that hard to resize clothes for a male avatar. She also had a tendency to go for female characters in video games when given the chance. There was also a lot of denial – being too afraid to by hair bobbles when she was growing her hair out (though was fine buying menstrual products for me) and when I jokingly suggested she wear one of my dresses since she was already stealing most of my tops, she had a rather extreme negative reaction. These and other things meant I suspected that she wasn’t a cis man, but since it’s a very personal topic (and seeing her reaction to the suggestion of wearing a dress) I kept that to myself.

We’re lucky to know lots of different trans people, many of which have come out since we first got to know them. As I’m also trans (being genderless) trans issues were a common topic of conversation, and we were talking about them when she told me she wasn’t sure she was a cis man. It didn’t take long after that for her to say that is a woman. The hardest part after that was keeping it a secret until she was ready to come out publicly. Although it was relatively easy for me to continue calling her Johan in public thanks to her Second Life avatar being female, it got harder and harder to continue using he/him pronouns and so a bit ago, with her approval, I swapped to they/them instead, including on this blog. Now she is out, I’ll be sticking with she/her.

She’s still very early on in her transition journey. She went on the waiting list of the local gender clinic a few months ago, but even before this pandemic the average waiting time for a first appointment was years. Now she has a paid job we were going to look into going privately, but that’s now on hold because of the virus. I’m just glad she’s figured it out, and the grin on her face whenever I call her Izzy or refer to her as Sammie’s mum is worth it.

Day 19 – Minecraft Skins

Had a better day today. Had diet cola to give me a bit of a boost and it helped massively with getting rid of zombie brain mode. I like caffeine, just don’t want to get to the point where I’m dependent on it as I already have a bad enough headache without adding another.

Someone from the opticians came out with some purple frames for me to try and I was able to find ones I liked for both my normal glasses and sunglasses, so that is good. I should get them in a week or two. I’m looking forward to being able to see properly again!

There were workers outside finishing off deholing the hole. We think they’re done as there are no longer barriers, though the new pavement surface was still steaming when Johan took the photo. I managed to get my headphones on and listened to some music so the noise didn’t affect me too badly (yay for being well enough to listen to music!).

Spoke to Sammie on and off after she finished school. She is much happier than she was yesterday which I’m glad of. For the past few weeks she’s been working on some trans flag based skins for Minecraft and today she finished them! I promised I’d share them with the world as I think they’re awesome. (Sammie isn’t trans, she’s just very supportive of her trans friends and family.) There are boy, girl and non binary options with different skin tones and for both 3 and 4 pixel models. I’m really proud of her 🙂

Link: Trans Minecraft Skins

Week 16 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.