bandit king of lunch and string

i'm playing ftb sky adventures, which is a skyblock that starts you with a fair chunk of resources so you don't have to spend a hundred hours regrowing the same tree. so after about a week, i've got an automated composting system cranking along, and i can just grab stacks of dirt and build hovering lawns all over the place. :D

there's piggies spawning on my lawn too, and i built a thingy in a taiga spot and got some woofs.

i also keep getting soul vials of polar bear in lootbags. i have not yet used any because if i have to kill a bear ill be sad and i think they're hostile if you get close. maybe i'll make a bear park.

 

the map point for my mob grinder, which is below that hovering lawn.

 

it is the rooster's thoughts. he is thinking "MMMM HM GOOD"

 

@emcapi you failed to warn me about the super adorable thing that happens if you give the rooster seeds, which is the babies follow him around!


lookit this proud dad :3

also everyone needs to be alerted to the fact that leather chickens look like tiny cows



that is all

 

OH NO i will not allow this to happen

 

my cat is so bad at eating cheese

 

jdkfghsdlkfghjfdjsklfgjh SO SATISFYING

 

yes although for the next update they should make it so cats try to eat cheese but just knock it on the floor and fail to find it again.

 

Helper Friend Barb is on vacay and i must go see the back specialist alone, woe! it's only a followup appointment though. no stabbies. still, i'd forgotten about it, and all i was geared for today was getting my own breakfast and taking my meds without a reminder.

also there's a hell of a lot of dishes and laundry need doing. i'm not blaming, she used her time to prep more crucial things before leaving, and i do have enough clean clothes to wear. i'm just. daunted. i don't get a vacation from being disabled, no matter how much my helper deserves a vacation from patiently nudging me through life day after day.

 

oh GOOD, taking my allergy meds made me sleepy without fixing my sinus headache, that's always a sign it's going to be a FANTASTIC day.

 

on the upside, my brother sent me pics of my niece, and she is SO CUTE. there's one where she's with our dad and he looks like asian santa claus, and one where she looks exactly like cindy lou who.

 

as doctor appointments go, that was actually a really good one. my usual back specialist is a real mensch. very respectful, very focused on solving the problem, listens and interacts with me.

i told him bluntly that the surgeon he sent me to was a jackass, and exactly why, and i said i need a reality check on what the guy said because frankly i don't think he was interacting with ME at all, just some skewed cipher of a patient with a slightly different problem. the way the idiot focused on my weight, and didn't hear me when i explained stuff like "the problem started when i was still an athlete, and i didn't start to get fat until years into it, therefore my weight did not cause it" and "i'm more than willing to do more cardio, and in fact i'm standing on the brakes all the time to keep myself from overdoing the exercise, but the problem is when i do more i get a flare-up and end up bedridden for days" suggests to me he may have been just talking out his ass when he told me the only surgical solution to my kinked vertebrae is having pins and rods put in there, and re-doing it every ten years.

regular specialist was too diplomatic to actually say out loud that yeah, the man's a damn fool, but i could see it on his face. without outright saying "dude was wrong and wasted your time" that's pretty much what he said. like, "that must've felt like a real waste of time," and, "well, there's one surgical option we could explore" that the surgeon didn't even think to mention.

this one surgical option is barely surgery at all, they don't have to open up the area, just make a tiny incision to get a probe in there. then they use radio frequency pulses to basically turn off the nerves around the spot where my spine is grinding on itself. it's only numbing the area, not fixing the core of the problem, but it could give me enough mobility back that i can be a bit more active in everyday life. as for the inflammation, he wants to try pulsed prednisone doses alternating with cortisone shots over the next year or so.

he understood the catch-22 i'm in, and understood that the mission is to break that cycle so i can raise my exercise level safely, and he brainstormed like a champ. i'm exhausted, but very happy.

also i really want a model spine like he's got, and i want to hang it on my wall and decorate it for christmas.

 

oh, moment of hilarity tho: in the idiot surgeon's report, he described me as 'very pleasant' even though i argued with him the whole time, and said i came in with my 'significant other' even though i explained she was my helper and mentioned my spouse at least once.