Category: World of Warcraft

Danni

I Made It!

Autism, Computers, Danni, Gaming, M.E., NaBloPoMo, Physical Disability, Real Life, World of Warcraft

I actually made it to the hospital on Thursday morning. Though the ambulance was a bit late getting here it got me to the hospital and I was able to see my consultant.

It went pretty well. Travelling by stretcher meant I was able to process what was being said and with the help of my notes remembered to mention nearly everything I wanted (I missed a couple of things but they weren’t too important).
He wants me to have a tilt table test cos of my heart being silly and racing when I sit up. I need to speak to the people who do the tilt table tests to make sure it won’t make me loads worse, but I’m hoping it’ll give me an answer to a little bit of what’s going on. It’s Saturday now and I’m not experiencing any payback yet from the journey (I’m not doing great either but I’m about the same as I was before I went- silly cold) so I’m hoping that means I’m tolerating movement better. I’ll know better if I’m getting payback over the next few days.

I’m sad because it was half term this week and because of this stupid cold I’ve not been well enough to go on my computer and talk to Sammie. I managed a short time on there at the beginning of the week but it was during the early hours of the morning so she wasn’t on, and I haven’t been well enough since. I’m hoping if I’m not getting payback to try tomorrow, but if not I’ll figure something out. I also didn’t get the Headless Horseman mount in WoW again this year but since I missed most of the holiday I can’t complain too much.

I wore my penguin onesie for a short while yesterday for Halloween. Had to take it off when I overheated (which coincided with hunger making me shaky so I felt pretty rotten) but I’m happy to have worn it for a little bit. We had two calls from trick or treaters but Johan was too scared to answer the door to them and though our friend/flatmate was willing to for the second lot they’d gone before she got to the door. That’s one more than last year and two more than the year before so I’m fully expecting there to be three next year

Danni

My Body’s Crap- Can I Have A New One Please?

Autism, Computers, Danni, Gaming, M.E., Penguins!, Physical Disability, Real Life, World of Warcraft

Asked Johan what I should blog about as wanting to blog, he came up with the title 😛

Being this up and down is frustrating. Johan thinks it’s because of my cold. He’s probably right. Although ME is a fluctuating illness, I’m not used to it fluctuating so much in so short a time span. I’m going from being able to play WoW on my computer to curled up in a ball hoping my body will behave or vice versa within a couple of hours, rather than the usual few days. The computer playing isn’t even the cause as there are days I’m waking up in agony and struggling to cope with anything then a few hours later I’m doing much better and can go on my computer. It’s visible to Johan and the carers as well. I don’t go on my computer every time I feel up to it but it’s an amazing distraction and is much easier to pay bills, do the food shop and stuff on there so I’m glad I can do it some of the time at least.

The main downside of this is my nausea is worse than usual. I’m having to take cyclizine more often, and that makes me dopey, and often needing to sleep. With taking it nearly everyday (and sometimes twice a day) I have no sleeping pattern at the moment, which is difficult for Johan and planning things. I wanted a wash this morning but by the time the carer arrived I was feeling very sick and in too much pain to be touched so I’ll have to wait until I’m up to it. I was doing okay (and on my computer) before that as well.

Next week I have an appointment with my consultant. Johan made all the phone calls needed yesterday so hopefully it will actually happen this time. Stretcher transport has been booked, and they’ve been informed it’s time critical and it’s been rearranged twice because of them. The clinic at the hospital know I’m coming by stretcher, are arranging a clinical room to wait in (as stretchers can’t fit in the waiting room – fine by me) and they’ll transfer me onto a bed in there, where my consultant will see me. Hopefully it’ll all go to plan, though the appointment is at 9.15am which is going to be fun. We’ve not been given a time to be ready by so I’m going to aim for 8am, with as much stuff prepared beforehand as possible.

I’ve got to think of what things are most important to discuss with my consultant. Muscle spasms are the big one, as my GPs haven’t wanted to treat it without the consultant having input. My inability to digest food in a timely manner is probably important too, as is discovering I’m more hypermobile than I thought. I’m expecting there’s not much he can do, but he’s pretty good at figuring out what’s ME and what is something else and he might have some ideas that will help. If he had any ideas to make my hands less useless I’d be so happy, but that’s probably asking too much.

I’m desperate for a shower or bath. Bed baths just don’t make me feel clean, especially since the carers don’t wash me how I want to be and I’m not well enough to go explaining it. One of Johan’s difficulties right now is he can’t print or scan anything, so even though I’ve got it typed up they can’t read it. I’m also not well enough to have my hair washed and body washed on the same day, which doesn’t help. I’m also really wanting my hair shaved off again as it’s too long, itchy and making my scalp really sore but that’s not likely to happen any time soon.

I feel like this post has been really negative. I’m still mostly happy, and I have penguins. They make everything better 🙂

Danni

I Miss Singing

Autism, Computers, Danni, Gaming, M.E., Physical Disability, Real Life, World of Warcraft

One of the things I miss most now is singing. I used to sing to express emotion, and just because I enjoyed it. I wasn’t too bad at it either- I could normally keep in tune at least, and some people liked listening to it. Now I can’t. I know why- I don’t have the energy, memory or concentration, and my breath control is nowhere near good enough, but it still upsets me when I really really want to sing but know I can’t.

I think I’m starting to get a bit better after that relapse from the care home and stuff. Unfortunately after two good days my digestive system decided to play up (at one point mimicking the symptoms of appendicitis to scare me) but it’s mostly behaving again now (or at least back to normal levels of grumbling). Hopefully I’ll be able to be doing more again soon. I was a bit naughty and did some tidying up in my bedroom, once even getting out of bed (and shuffling on the floor on my bum when I discovered I couldn’t crawl). My sitting is better than it was, though my neck and back are still weak (my sitting on the floor was mostly bend over double with my head on my knee- luckily it wasn’t too  uncomfortable :P).

Because of needing cyclizine to control really bad nausea (thanks to the digestive issues) I’ve been really dopey and out of it the last few days, as well as sleeping lots. I’m grateful I have my Chromecast as just putting random non-thinky stuff on there helps (sometimes I even just have the default screen with the photo slideshow on in the background so I have something I can look at). I got my birthday present from Johan this week, along with a few other stuff. My present is a purple t-shirt with a stick figure in bed, saying “My awesome is on strike.The duvet is overseeing essential negotiations…”, which is perfect for me. I love it 🙂

I really need to cut down on my Facebook useage. It’s the most draining of the social networks yet it’s really easy to be pulled into spending loads of time reading groups and stuff. I don’t want to leave it completely, but will need to think of a solution so it stops using so many of my spoons. Conversations through it are particularly draining, especially when they involve drama I don’t want to be involved with. It’s my only way of keeping in contact with some people I love though.

I don’t think I have anything big planned for a while. I think I’ll just take the time to do things that I’m able to do, and continue planning some big stuff (like going abroad, which I’m aware will be a bit into the future yet). I’ve resubscribed to World of Warcraft as I was missing my friends in there and I have stuff to do, so if I’m having a good day it’ll be fun to go in there. I’ve also got other games to play, and I still have the Young Wizards books to finish reading. I’m hoping to watch a couple of films if I can, so that will be good. I wish I were able to make firm plans, but that’s something this illness doesn’t allow. I find out how I’ll be doing at the time, and only have a limited amount of control over it. I try to make everything worth it anyway, and that’s mostly working 🙂

Danni

Diablo 3

Autism, Computers, Danni, Diablo 3, Gaming, M.E., Physical Disability, Real Life, World of Warcraft

As part of the World of Warcraft Annual Pass a couple of years ago, I got a free copy of Diablo 3. I wasn’t really well enough to play it, but now that Johan was playing the expansion and he said they’d made it a bit easier I decided to give it a go.

I’ve made myself a Wizard. So far she mostly runs around in a bra and not much else firing arcane missiles at various evil beings (and bookcases which hold gold instead of books). I’m hoping eventually she’ll gain some clothes as it’s got to be a bit cold. The story is interesting and the gameplay is easy enough on Normal for even my foggy brain. I’ve yet to come close to dying, and this is with me going pretty much blind during a boss fight (lasted about a minute – I just pressed my mouse buttons and when my vision came back it was obvious the boss had died a bit before). It’s impossible to fall off ledges and stuff, and I’ve rebound all my attacks to my mouse (a Razer Naga with 12 buttons on the side) so I rarely have to use the keyboard. I’m having fun and maybe my character will wear some clothes when she’s higher level.

Last week I had a date night with Johan. We got a takeaway and watched Despicable Me. It was a really good film and I was glad to see it. Unfortunately I’ve had quite a bit of payback since then and overall I’m not doing great. I’m not terrible either (can still get on computer and play some games) but needing a lot of sleep and having to take more medication than I really like to cope. A bit sucky but it could be a lot worse and I’ve been watching a lot of kittehs which has kept me very happy 🙂

I’ve not been playing very much World of Warcraft recently, but when I have been in game I’ve been working on pet battles and getting the items from rares in Pandaria on Danni. Now I have decent gear (mostly from Ordos and from when I was still running flexi raids) the only ones I really struggle with are Jinyu and Pandaren at level 90/91, and both of them I can get down with a bit of luck with their casts (not healing with Pandaren, only one Torrent for Jinyu). I managed to get Glorious! not too long ago so now I’m only focusing on those with items I want (which is all of them that aren’t gear). Since a lot of it is just flying around looking for the rares it’s been quite relaxing.

One thing I’m happy about is the Battle.net launcher now lets me chat to people without being in a game 😀 I have a couple of friends I only talk to through Battle.net so being able to communicate with them even when I’m not able to be in WoW/Hearthstone/Diablo is awesome. Not that I’m actually using it much, but having the option is great. Yay for improvements!

The domperidone is still making me dopey. Because of this I’m now calling it dopeydone and it won’t get its name back until it stops making me so out of it. It’s helping a tiny bit with digestion (at least making my digestive system noisier) but not doing much for the nausea so I’m still needing cyclizine sometimes. The combination of dopeydone and cyclizine makes me really out of it and often sleep. Could be a lot worse though so I’m sticking with it for now in the hope the dopiness eases off at some point.

It’s currently Autism Awareness Month which I’m mostly ignoring. I did write a couple of tweets for Autism Awareness Day (2nd April) but otherwise I don’t plan on doing anything. I could have delayed my previous blog post until this month but meh 😛 I’ve been having a lot of fun discussing people who lack autism with Johan though, and how weird they are and what a tragedy it is to lack autism 😉

My sister Becca has been diagnosed with ME this week. It is not a surprise as such as she’s been ill for a while now, but still it’s sad as I don’t like her being ill. I’ve been lecturing her for a while to take it easy and stop pushing to do things, and she says she’ll actually do it now (she’s looked after me so knows what severe ME can be like). There’s definitely a genetic component to it, though interestingly Becca doesn’t have the hypermobility I have (nor can she touch her nose with her tongue, which everyone else can do). I’m going to try and support her as much as possible and hopefully she’ll learn from my mistakes and not become as ill as I am now. She told me she was bored, so I jokingly told her to start a blog. She actually did, and you can see it: waddlewddle.

Johan is currently defrosting the freezer. Turns out the fast freeze option has been on since we moved in, which would explain why the drawers had frozen solid. We’ve lost a bit of food but being able to use all the drawers again will be great and I did get an ice lolly which was nice 🙂 This coming week we’ll be doing a big shop to restock the freezer and I’m hoping to write an email to social services asking about the hoist. I’ve also got various things to buy so that will be interesting. Hopefully I’ll start feeling a bit better as well 🙂

Danni

Dopey Danni

Autism, Danni, Gaming, M.E., Minecraft, Penguins!, Physical Disability, Real Life, World of Warcraft

My blog post to-do list is growing. One of them I’ve made a start on, but I’m really struggling to write it. Most of that is because I’m now taking the domperidone three times a day and it makes me really dopey. I can cope with it- it’s not the worst side effect I’ve had to deal with by a long stretch, but it does mean I have very little brain power for things like writing blog posts that aren’t just a stream of consciousness.

The dopeyness has meant I’ve not been up to much. I’ve been on my computer everyday but I’ve not even logged into World of Warcraft for a bit as it’s just too much. I’ve spent a lot of time watching kittehs and some watching penguins. I have caught up with Total Biscuit’s Hearthstone videos finally, which is something. I love his gimmick decks as they’re really entertaining, and even if my speech processing is poor (though TB’s voice is easier than most for me to understand) I can at least see what’s happening for myself.

I’ve had no speech myself for a few days. It’s starting to get annoying. The new AAC app is really helping with that, though when I’m on my computer it’s a little awkward to use as I don’t have speakers connected to it at the moment. What I really need to do is get the front headphone jack hooked up so I can plug my headphones in there, my speakers hooked up again and then figure out having the different programs going out of different audio outputs. There’s got to be an easy way to do it but my brain is too bleh to figure it out (and I don’t have the speakers in here at the moment).

I’ve started using HabitRPG. It basically is a to-do list turned into a game. Being stuck in bed I can’t add the usual stuff to it (cleaning, going out, trying to exercise more) so I’ve had to be a bit creative in adding my habits, dailies and to-dos. While I’m still getting used to it the domperidone is down as a habit to work on, but once I’m taking it reliably I’ll be moving it over as a daily. My to-dos have various things on it, including the blog posts I want to write. Some of them require help though, like getting my penguin pictures on the wall and contacting social services about the hoist. It’s fun and I’m part of the Nerdfighters guild which I got talking about penguins 😀

I accidentally wiped the data partition on my tablet while trying to update the Google Apps on it (I have them integrated into the ROM). Since I’d done that and Paranoid Android is currently in the process of reworking a lot of its features, I took the opportunity to try a different ROM out. I’m now on PAC-man, which I tried before but had issues with at the time. This time it seems to be working okay despite me being on the nightlies, and I really like some of the extra features. I also changed my font to Comic which made Johan facepalm but reminds me of Doge so I’m happy.

I can’t remember if I mentioned it here, but I discovered Johan had set the spam filter on our email server to automatically reject spam, and that it was definitely having some false positives of my email. Included in that was an email from EE, so there’s a good chance they actually responded to my email to them in December and it got eaten. Because of this, I’ve moved over to Google Apps for my email. Right now I’m importing all my emails from my other GMail account so I can have the few I still need to reply to in the right place. Since I basically archived all my emails from 2009 it’s going to take a while 😛 I’m hoping it’ll be done by tomorrow. As I still have them all on the other account, I’ll be deleting all but the recent ones to try and keep this one a bit clearer. I wish there was an easy way to just import the recent emails, but forwarding screws up the replying (I tried) and there’s no date selection tool that I found. Some of the emails I’ve seen are from when I was living alone, and it really reminded me about how badly that went. I know I can’t manage living independently, but it feels weird to see emails about how I would forget to eat and stuff. Not that it’s much improved now, but at least with the two of us one of us has a chance to remember.

Since I’m going to be paying for Google Apps (in a free trial at the moment) I want to take advantage of things like the custom domains. Johan couldn’t understand why I wanted them, but to me it’s obvious. As he controls the DNS at the moment and I don’t have the details I have to wait for him to do it and I’m quite impatient as I can’t click the button until the DNS is changed. I have changed the logo to a purple penguin one which makes me happy though 🙂

Primrose, my new microwaveable penguin, is fitting in well. She’s not quite as silly as the other penguins but I’m sure she’ll learn. She was disapproving of me changing my font on my tablet to Comic so I need to give her an education on Doge and similar things. She does help me with pain relief along with Penguin, and Penny and Po keep me company while they’re in the kitchen. Penelope wants a wheelchair so I am needing to find a penguin sized one (she thinks they’re cool).

Johan went out on Saturday to see some friends we’d made on Twitter who happen to be local. From what he told me it went well and he brought me back cake, which was amazing. Since Johan wasn’t too far away I was okay with being left, as he had money for a taxi if an emergency did crop up. With my carer coming though it was fine. He has discovered that if he uses his inhaler he can manage around cats much better. Turns out treating asthma helps 😉 I’m trying to convince him to take his preventative inhaler twice a day as he’s meant to, so hopefully he will get less symptoms as that builds up in his system.

I’m hoping the dopeyness eases off as I get used to the new medication. Unfortunately it’s not having a great job dealing with my nausea so I’m sometimes having to take cyclizine as well, which really doesn’t help. It is making my digestive system more noisy than normal so hopefully it means it’s working to try and get things moving out of my stomach. Otherwise I’m going to be lying here pretty much useless for a while, and I don’t want that. I need to get into Minecraft soon to figure out getting to the moon, but that requires brain power I don’t have right now. Hopefully soon 🙂