1) I have Cystic Fibrosis, and making it to 25 without getting diabetes has been a relief. My new idiot-run mail order pharmacy (came with the job) has been royally f*cking up my medications, so there were a few weeks there where I just wasn't taking my antibiotic or one of my inhalents. That can't be good, and I can definately tell that my lung functions suffered as a result. Things are back on track now, though. It's a Tobi month, so I'm waking up earlier. I can't stand Tobi, because it tastes like metal and takes a half hour to complete. But it's the only medication I don't care for. The rest are (mainly) just pills. I haven't had an IV in like five years, though, so I must be doing something right! :-)
2) The CF isn't even what bugs me the most. Rather, it's my freaking back. Several years ago, one of my intervertebral disks collapsed (L5/S1). That caused me some pain, which comes back even today from time to time. Over the years, thanks to stupid decisions on my part, my back has "gone out" a few times. The last time it did, I ran out of Percocet, so I called my back doctor and asked what I should do. Seeing as it had been like four years since I saw him, he ordered an MRI and arranged an appointment. The prognosis? Two more disks had collapsed since the first one. So now I have to be a lot more careful of what I lift or how I twist. Back pain sucks, kiddies!
3) This is where I got married:
This is Rabbit Lake, which you hike to from the southern end of Anchorage. It's a ten-mile round-trip hike. The lake (which is of glacial origin) sits below Suicide Peaks. That ridge connecting the two mountains is, at one point, about as wide as a balance beam. My wife's folks (and brother) flew up to hike out with my family and a few friends. My dad married us right on that rocky outcropping at the bottom of the picture. Happily, it wasn't real windy, which is unusual for Rabbit Lake. Gina and I try to hike out there every year, but last summer it didn't happen on account of the new house and all the work we had to put into it.
4) I don't drink because I see no good reason to. My friends do drink (a lot) and as far as I can tell, no good comes of it. I do "let myself go" once a year, on my birthday, and get a strawberry daqueri. And let me tell you, the gloves? They come off.* Likewise, I don't do any drugs, and for the same reason. Also, I'm on way too many as it is!
5) I'm thinking about getting my lower secondary incisors taken out. They're oversized and crowding my mouth, forcing my lower front teeth back. I'm worried that there will be a big gap between my canines and front teeth, but I'm sure my gums would balance everything out eventually. Maybe I should just floss more often...
6) My two vices? Mountain Dew and video games. Well, maybe just Mt. Dew. See, the video games help me unwind, and they also give me an enormous sense of accomplishment, as though I'm actually getting something done. Of course, time spent tracking down all the Power Stars in Super Mario Galaxy could be spent writing a book, but...I mean...Galaxy is so much fun. Mt. Dew, I'm sure, rots my teeth, and as Gina will tell you, it makes my breath smell awful. I don't want to use the word addiction, but there are days where I drink two or three cans of the stuff.
7) The enormous anatomical and muscular differences between mammals and reptiles bothers me to no end as a paleoartist. Mammalian musculature is not "obvious" in the way that a reptile's is. Lizards, crocs, and dinosaurs don't have all the fat stores and "droop" that, say, a dog does. And then there's the hair, which conceals so much! If you're looking at a crocodile skeleton, it's fairly easy to draw the living animal. The same cannot be said of a lion skeleton. If I apply dinosaurian restoration techniques to a lion skeleton, the end result will not be a lion. Mammal anatomy is something I really need to study, because I find them extremely tough to "get right."
I tag Marcus, Matt, Will, Scott (although he won't do it), Manabu, aaaaand Neil.
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2 comments:
Why does cystic fibrosis lead to diabetes? Is it painful? I don't know much about it...
I had a computer-gaming addiction for a while. I played a lot of "Diablo 2." I was a Nintendo kid...had "Nintendo thumbs." Y'know the kind that are all crooked and twitch a lot?
The interphalangeal joint of my thumb has a bizarre angle to it, which I'm sure is as a result of seventeen years of gaming. :-)
CF doesn't hurt, and I'm not entirely sure how it directly leads to diabetes, but my doctor had me tested virtually every six months between the ages of 18 and 25 to see if I was developing it.
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