Updates from everywhere

I've been sort of procrastinating on the updates here, so I decided to just post a big one with anything that comes to mind.

I shall start with....Bread machines! Yes, that's right everybody, bread machines. I got a wild hair up my ass about making bread a few months ago, but I don't have the coordination or the arm strength to be kneading bread a couple of days a week. But I was sick of reading labels on grocery store bread and seeing "high fructose corn syrup" in my freaking bread. I've recently learned that are a lot of various things you can put into bread. High fructose corn syrup IS NOT ONE OF THEM. Ew. So I started looking around for a bread machine. But as I'm being a tightwad these days, I didn't really want to spend a couple hundred dollars buying one just to find out if I would use it often enough to warrant the purchase.

Enter the State of Nevada. Basically, Nevada still sports thrift stores and yard sales where you can find all kinds of absolutely amazing stuff in remarkably good condition...for really, really cheap. Which is awesome. Unfortunately, I do not live in the State of Nevada. Fortunately, my parents *do* live in said state. So I called and begged them to keep an eye out for me for a breadmaker if they happened to see one, and let me know. And after that, I more or less completely forgot I'd even asked.

Fast forward to my birthday, when said parents arrived bearing gifts! Yay! Presents! They found a top of the line bread machine, with all its' parts and doodads, and a slicer and a cookbook and brought them for my birthday. I've been making a couple loaves a week since then. And interestingly, I haven't gained weight from the amount of bread I'm making. But it most decidedly is an improvement over random stuff in the grocery store bread that I can't pronounce. I makes some *good* sammiches these days.

In the spirit of my tightwadness lately (pause to smirk that "tightwad" is recognized by spellcheck, but "tightwadness" is flagged), I've also been cooking a fair amount. I haven't yet decided whether or not I'm enjoying it, but I have certainly been enjoying the taste-good aspect of the food. I'd gotten bored with fast food takeout. It is amazing how much money actually gets saved if you cook. Even if you buy expensive ingredients, you end up with about four times as much food quantity-wise for the same amount of money.

In other news, my long-dreaded and avoided neurology appointment was yesterday. I freaking hate those things. But some things I can't avoid forever, especially with a proclivity for brain cancer already looming over my head. So, it's the neurologist for me.

He seems fairly competent, which was nice. He was also friendly, which was also nice. And I learned a few things. And I feel like a complete ass for not having put two and two together before now. When I had my resection surgery, it took the incision on my scalp about a year to heal. Average for that type of scar is a couple of months, for the healing of the outer incision. But for me, that it took a year wasn't that unusual, and I didn't really think anything of it, unless it separated and was causing me to be annoyed. I'm so accustomed to scratches, scrapes, and bruises not healing in a timely fashion that I honestly no longer give it any consideration at all.

Which brings us to my being a moron. Ladies and gentlemen, if it takes an incision that should heal in two months a year to heal, how long does it take brain tissue incisions to heal? The answer? For the average person, it takes around a year for the tissue to heal and scar over. For me? It apparently took about 3 years for the tissue to scar over, and when it did, it promptly started seizures. Just like it was predicted it would. Only, a year came and went, and I went off the anti-seizure medications, and the doctor let me. Because a normal person if they aren't having seizures at that point means that the scar tissue won't be pushing on anything that would cause seizures, and there's no need to be on unnecessary medication. Except I'm me. And I take forever and a day to heal.

So nice Mr. Neurologist man looks at my MRI films, sees the scarring, says of course you'll be having seizures, theres scarring on your left temporal and parietal lobes, duh! Well, the scarring wasn't there a year ago, you douchebag doctor. The scarring that's now on the films is a new thing. Except because it's supposed to be there, expected to be there, nobody thought to mention it to me. And I'm stupid, and never thought about the mechanics of it myself.

So I go in and get another EEG, and it'll show some stuff (not sure what) to the happy neurologist man, and he put me on anti-seizure meds. So I'm going to sleep a lot...well, more than normal for me, which is saying something...for a while, and at the end of the while, I should be back to being able to drive myself around and lead what passes for a normal life for me.

Oh, complete subject switch.

Cheesecake pudding! Did you know they make cheesecake pudding?? I did not. Thus, when I came across this particular item, I had to buy it. Because, dude, *cheesecake*!!!