Once in a Lifetime

This year's Wiscon was all-online, and billed as a "gap year," with fewer program items than I'm used to, and no dealers room.

I went to two program items--a "US immigration law and worldwide fandom roundtable" and a panel on "the wild world of modern agtech and why isn't it showing up in current SF."

The roundtable was about as cheerful as you'd expect, with a lot of discussion of both past and feared legal difficulties in traveling to cons, and alternatives like smaller gatherings and online cons. Most of us thought that online wasn't as good as in person, but that it's significantly better than nothing. (There may be some selection bias here: people who didn't think an online con was better than nothing wouldn't bother attending.) And a couple of people noted that their choice has been online or nothing at least since 2020, for reasons like disability or budge that don't have much to do with Trump.

The panel on current and future agriculture was fun. Some of the "what SF is getting wrong" was about TV and movies, showing a garden plot that's much too small for the population it's allegedly feeding, and that the fictional future is even worse/stupider about monoculture than the real world today.

Other than that, I hung out on the Discord server. Most if not all of the program items were recorded, and will be available to convention members for a week after the end of the con, but I may not get around to watching any of them, even less interactive things like readings and the guest of honor speeches.

I just had a telemedicine appointment with the gastroenterologist. Her office called at about 9:30 this morning, to ask if I was available for a 10:30 appointment, and I said yes.

The diagnosis is collagenous colitis, which I already knew from MyChart. The good news is that it's both benign and curable. The treatment will be nine weeks of budosenide pills, starting at three/day for the first six weeks, then two/day for the next three weeks, and a final three weeks of one/day. Those are to be taken with food, and in the morning because it's related to steroids and can interfere with sleep. [I mis-remembered, it's a total of 12 weeks of these pills.]

The most common risk factors for this kind of colitis are being a woman over sixty, and regular use of NSAIDs. Therefore, Dr. Morgan wants me to talk to Carmen about whether there's a plausible alternative to me taking naproxen almost every day, but she did say there may not be, since tylenol doesn't work the same way and may not be effective for the hip and knee pain I'm using it for.

I asked about continuing the Imodium and the fiber capsules, and Dr. Morgan said I could stop using them when the budosenide starts to be effective for the diarrhea, which might be within a week. I told her that the combination of Imodium and fiber is working well enough that I may not notice a difference, so the tentative plan is to wait at least a week, then pick a day or two when I won't need to go out, and try stopping the Imodium. (Adrian pointed out that I'm currently taking two pills twice a day, so I could try halving the dose and see how I feel. That sounds plausible, but I'm going to ask Dr Morgan if she thinks that's worth doing.

Also, a significant number of people with collagenous colitis also have celiac, so she wants to test me for that. I asked, and it's a straightforward blood draw, which I can do at my convenience: I don't need to wait until after getting blood drawn to start on the new medication.

She is sending the prescription to CVS, and told me to call her office if there's any problem with the insurance company.

ETA: I looked at the doctor's visit notes on MyChart, which reminded me that I should be checking my blood pressure about once a week while taking the budosenide.

The clowns running the FDA have proposed restricting access to covid vaccines, to people over 65 or who have certain medical conditions. There's a public docket for comments on the proposal.

Your Local Epidemiologist has a good post about the proposal, including that the people suggesting this know that nobody is going to do the placebo-controlled tests of new boosters they want to require.

Possible talking points include:

Families and caregivers wouldn't be eligible for the vaccine, even if they share a household, unlike the current UK recommendations.

Doctors, dentists, and other medical staff wouldn't be eligible either.

My own comment included that the reason I'd still be eligible for the vaccine is a lung problem caused by covid.

(cross-posting from thisfinecrew)

I went for a walk this afternoon with Cattitude and Adrian: downhill to Beacon Street, then inbound as far as the Summit Avenue T stop. Not only was it useful exercise, I got to smell one of my favorite flowers, rugosa roses. It may have been too long a walk, because my joints were feeling the strain before I turned back and took the trolley partway home, but if I'd turned back any sooner I'd have missed the roses. While I took the T home, Cattitude and Adrian continued to Coolidge Corner, to shop for groceries and then get bagels. (Most of the time, the two of them can walk further than I can.)

I had to walk a few blocks uphill from the T to get home, but I allowed for that when I decided how far to walk. I came home, took my shoes off, and sat a while before I put on the shoes that I'm still breaking in. I will probably break them in a little more before I wear them outside.