Pandemic Garden Club

Welcome to the June edition of Pandemic Garden Club! Growing good things in strange times!

Anyone is welcome to comment with what they're growing right now, things they would like to try, problems they're encountering, and questions they have. Share resources, answer questions, shout encouragement.

(Sorry for the late posting today. Had personal stuff going on.)

As for myself...

( Under the cut because photos... )

Lake Lewisia #541

The members of Gender Vegetable knew many things between them, like how to make a drum kit using only kitchen supplies, how to hoodwink fae into sharing forbidden songs and live to play again, and how to get a clean audio recording with construction right outside the studio. Lead singer Casey even claimed, when in eir cups, to have personally crafted emergency flutes to summon mystical rescuers--on three separate occasions, which showed either an excess of hubris or a lack of conventional survival skills. In any case, one thing none of them knew was how to revive a cross country tour bus when it spontaneously abandoned the concept of moving some five hundred miles from home.

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LL#541

plague journaling

Got my blood drawn today for some work in advance of my next rheumatologist appointment. Then checked in the with doctor's office to find out if the appointment is actually happening. Sort of. It's going to be a telemedicine visit, which. Hm.

I don't have a smartphone, but I do have a tablet, so this might work? Maybe? *sigh* I have some opinions about the accessibility and class issues going on underneath this shift to virtual everything. I'm also trying to imagine what it will be like talking to my doctor via video chat when he barely seems to cope with in-person meetings.

I have to decide how much I want to try to accomplish during this appointment. I have concerns about the resurgence of joint pain and fatigue despite medication. I have concerns about my heart, in part because of that fatigue, in part because of the medication. (Also in part because everyone keeps telling my blood pressure is too high but stubbornly refuses to provide any treatment beyond telling me I ought to lose weight. Fucking thanks. My father started on BP medicine around my age--maybe we could just, you know, treat me also???)

On the other hand, all I really need is for him to renew my prescription for another six months. Is it worth it to try to get actual medical care beyond that, given the current circumstances? Should I just try to keep it as simple as possible and get out quick?

Of course, this presumes that nothing unusual shows up in the bloodwork. Which. As always, I'm caught in the weird disability paradox of wanting to be better/not sick and wanting to be worse so that my illness actually gets taken seriously. That's the shorthand version, anyway. Technically, what I want is for there to be concrete evidence that quantifies the degree to which I am already sick, so that my subjective experience can't be dismissed as overreaction. It's just that would necessarily have to manifest as some horrifying anomaly in my bloodwork, which isn't exactly ideal, you know?

Anyway. Medical care during an ongoing pandemic! Fun!