Ozempic. Where has this been for the last 25 years that I’ve been heavy?
So I started taking Ozempic on May 8, 2023. My doctor prescribed it in late April, but she prescribed Mounjaro, which the insurance wouldn’t cover, so finally she changed it to Ozempic in May and I started taking it the same day I got it.
So far I’ve lost 55lbs. I think this is such a small amount of time to lose 55lbs considering I only have 100lbs to lose. If I were heavier, like 300 or 400lbs, this might have been expected to go this quickly. The doctor said the more fat you have, the faster it will come off with Ozempic.
I did not have some of the horrible side effects like nausea and vomiting. Thank goodness. I do have dizziness and constipation, which aren’t that horrible. Trust me, I’d rather be dizzy every time I get up and only be able to poop every 3 days lol. I hate vomiting with every fiber of my being.
I joined a Facebook group for people who are just seeking support while on any of these many drugs meant for weight loss. I see a lot of people who have horrible side effects and they aren’t giving up, but some have given up because it’s too much for them. I don’t blame them one bit.
I’ve seen a lot of people talk about muscle loss. I believe I am suffering from this because I’m not able to carry heavy groceries from the car to the house like I used to. I don’t know if it’s a visible loss, but I can feel it. I also have been in a lot of pain in my back. I searched Google for this issue and back pain isn’t a side effect, but a lot of people are complaining about it.
My clothes are getting too big for me. I used to wear a XXL and I’m down to XL. I’m not going clothes shopping until I’m a large because I don’t want to waste money on XL clothes only to have to replace them in another couple or few months with large. I did however have to get a new pair of shorts for the summer because mine were constantly falling down. They have a drawstring, but I don’t want to have to use that all the time.
So the doctor doesn’t want me to drop down to 150lbs. She said 170 or 180 would be good for me. I told her I was actually 150lbs before I gained all this weight and she said well, as long long as you are healthy, that’s all that matters. My goal is to get down to 165 at least. I don’t know if I’ll be able to get down to 150, so I’m not reaching for that.
I think I’ll write another post when I’m down to about 190 which would be my 75lb weight loss point.
If you bought one of these brilliant friendship bracelet gadgets, then you are disappointed that they have removed access to your entire library of patterns in their app. How much money did you spend on these patterns just to have them all disappear? Or how many Loomies did you earn from making bracelets to buy new patterns just to lose them when they removed access to the app?
I got a notification that they were going to remove access, but somehow I had an idea this would happen, so I opened my Friendship Bracelet Design program and copied all of my patterns, just in case.
This is the starter pack that came with the i-Loom. I had bought many other packs, like Awesome Animals, Ice Cream Party, Midnight Sky, Tote Case, and Tropical Twist. I have many more patterns on top of that that aren’t in packs that I bought separately. Chain Reaction, Easter Basket, I heart you, Lucky Clover, Retro Hive, Secret Garden, Summer Daze, and Watermelon. There were a few that I found a video of on YouTube and copied the pattern as they were making it on the video like Dear Santa, Rockin Rudolph, and Santa Hat. I also have from the pack Rainbow Pop patterns 1-4. To be honest, I don’t know how I got those lol. But I have them and I don’t know the individual pattern names so that’s why I just named them 1-4. There are two more patterns in the set that I don’t have.
So anyway, what I’m getting at is if you want any of these patterns, let me know. I can share the image of the pattern itself with you. I don’t know if this company is even in business anymore, but I do know that they still have social media and they still have an Amazon store, so I’m not positive if I’m even going to get into trouble for sharing these with you, but since we no longer have access to their app or to the patterns that we paid for, there’s absolutely no reason people shouldn’t have access to these patterns again. Especially if you really wanted these patterns.
So, message me here or on Threads. I cannot guarantee that I will get the message on this blog because I don’t always get emails or any notifications of messages. I am Xanapus on Threads. I will most definitely get your message there.
These are the i-Loom patterns that I saved.
Update: I am working on a new way of finding out the exact DMC color numbers for some of the packs that came with an image for the pack that shows all 6 patterns. When I find out the exact DMC number, I’ll change the pattern to those exact colors and I’ll include a DMC list of colors to buy. Otherwise, I chose the colors I thought were the exact colors when I transferred the patterns from the i-Loom to the Friendship Bracelet Designer.
I didn’t transfer them in the sense that there was a physical transfer, I basically looked at the pattern row by row in the i-Loom App and added the colors and changed the arrows in FBD to match the pattern exactly.
Finding out the DMC colors actually also helps me so I can buy embroidery floss if the exact colors that were meant for the patterns.
If you are ok with these as is and just want the patterns that I have, that’s fine, otherwise I’ll update this again when I’m finished and delete all of this current update.
I quit smoking in 1996 because I was trying to be healthy, and I was just getting tired of smoking. I discovered food tasted so much better and I traded one bad habit for another and literally gained 50lbs in the first 2 months, which is the reason so many people won’t quit smoking. Gradually over time the weight went up, and now I am more than 100lbs overweight.
I have tried losing weight in the past and I have logged it here in my blog. I did the Noom app and ate Weight Watchers Smart Ones and one year I lost 70 lb in 6 months. That didn’t last and the weight went up eventually and I gained it all back and then some. I think the problem then was I had lost my motivation because I stopped losing weight and it didn’t seem to want to drop anymore. I just went back to regular eating and eventually overeating again.
In late April we went to the clinic and met our new doctor. She saw from my medical history that my blood sugar has been high and I showed her the “True Manager Air” log for my True Metrix blood sugar gadget and the highs were pretty much 180 to 200 daily. I take a medication called Trijardy for blood sugar because at one point it was in the 500’s. The Trijardy has helped bring it down, but it was still too high. She suggested trying something new.
She told me about a medicine that I can inject into my stomach that will trick my brain into thinking I’m not hungry which will make me eat less and some foods might make me physically sick or give me nausea. I said sure, sounds great. It took a while getting it because the insurance wouldn’t pay for Monjaro, so she changed it to Ozempic.
We went back to the doctor for my follow up appointment which was supposed to be after taking it for a month, but because it was difficult to get the medicine, the follow up was after 3 weeks instead.
Y’all! I cannot even begin to tell you how happy and excited this doctor was for me that I had lost 14lbs after just 3 weeks. She was more excited for me than I was. I really love her. I hope she will be my doctor for a long time. I hate that this clinic goes through doctors like TicTacs.
So she had me on .25 mg to start me out and after she saw I had lost weight, she changed the dose to .5mg. I am wondering if I have not gotten a lot of the side effects on the .25 mg that I might get the side effects from the .5 mg, maybe even more so. Not looking forward to that.
She told me the side effects could be nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, constipation and I forget what else. I can handle constipation and diarrhea because I’ve been dealing with that for a long time anyway. I hate vomiting, but I won’t vomit if I don’t overeat. I don’t mind the nausea because the nausea will tell me hey, maybe don’t eat that. We were actually walking through the grocery store in the bakery department, and something, I don’t know what it was, made me feel so sick to my stomach and I almost retched right there in the store. I couldn’t get away fast enough from that smell. I hope it wasn’t something that I loved.
So, in the past 3 weeks that I’ve been on this Ozempic, I have actually not been very hungry. I’m only eating lunch and dinner because I know I have to eat. So it really does trick my brain into thinking that I’m not hungry. Today we decided to go to Taco Bell and one taco literally filled my stomach. I couldn’t eat another bite after that. Which is great because it was only 170 calories.
I’m eating the Weight Watchers Smart Ones frozen dinners again and I’m snacking on low-fat string cheese and I told the doctor that and she said that’s great. Keep doing that if that’s what works for you. We also buy bags of frozen vegetables from Aldi. They don’t have a lot of calories and they will fill me up and the fiber from the vegetables is probably going to help me with the constipation issues lol. At least I think that’s how vegetables work. I’m not sure.
So the doctor told me that some people have lost over 100lbs taking this medicine and that’s great because I am 100 lb overweight. I was 115 lbs overweight, but now I’m only 100 lb overweight. I don’t expect to get back down to 150 which is what I used to weigh because I have built muscle over the years since I used to weigh 150 lb, but I would like to get back down to at least 160lbs if that’s even possible.
I just can’t stand this weight anymore. It’s like carrying around a child and I don’t even have children. Not being hungry all the time will definitely help me lose weight. The method for which getting this medicine into my body is injecting it into my stomach once a week. The needle is so tiny it doesn’t even hurt, I don’t even feel it. I have to press it into my stomach while pinching my skin (and fat lol) and press the button on the pen to make the medicine go into my stomach, and then I have to wait I think she told me 10 seconds, but I can’t remember so I hold it in for 30 seconds just in case. They said to hold it in for a little bit longer just to make sure that all of the medicine gets inside my body.
Suddenly I finally have motivation to lose weight and continue trying to lose weight until it’s all gone because I have something that will make me not feel hungry all the time. And that’s my problem. I’m hungry literally all the time. We will go to a restaurant and I will come home stuffed and literally an hour later I’m hungry again. I don’t like being hungry all the time. My stomach must have expanded so much that it needs more and more food. By not eating so much food all the time, my stomach will shrink down and I will get full faster by eating normal portions. Once that happens and I’ve lost enough weight, then I will be able to continue living my life and eating like a normal person and be full a lot faster than I do now.
So, I was 265 lbs in April when she first weighed me and as of this writing I weigh 248 lbs. I would like to get down to 160 lbs at least. My blood sugar like I said before was between 180 and 200 and today it was 105. Normal is between 80 and 120.
So my weight loss story will continue and I will update my progress.
Update 7/27/2023: I’ve lost 50lbs total. I’m working on a video and have updated the video.
I started playing a game called EverQuest way back in January 2002 because my cousin was addicted to playing it, and I guess he just really wanted me to play it too because at the time we were reconnecting, and I think he just wanted to get me into something he was into. So, for Christmas 2001, he bought me the base game at Fry’s Electronics in Burbank. I came home from my visit, and I didn’t install it immediately. I installed it a couple days after New Year’s Day in 2002 and I believe there was a free trial, so I tried that, and I just didn’t get this game. I don’t know what it was about it, it just didn’t click for me. When the trial was about to end, I came back to give it another try and I actually started to like it, so I paid for a month and figured I would just try it out for a little while, and then the addiction hit and I played this game until 2008, but continued paying for it until 2009.
The reason I quit playing was because I had become so bored with the repetitiveness of the game. I was literally playing this game all day and ignoring everyone around me. I would stop playing just to watch my shows, and to eat food and to go to the occasional movies and whatever. But then I would go right back to playing. The guild I was in was pretty much a raiding guild, so I was expected to be in the game every day at a certain time to support other guild members who needed to do their epic quest or progression or whatever it was they needed to do. I would occasionally get support for myself for my epic quests, so I couldn’t expect anyone to help me unless I was going to help them, and that meant I had to help everyone else with their thing if I wanted their help with my thing.
Around the time when I quit playing, they had introduced new expansions and they were slowing my computer down so much that I wasn’t able to play as much. There was too much lag and in some cases the lag was so huge that the game would crash as soon as I got back into the game. I had to click a button in the character selection screen to send my character back to their hometown just to be able to get back into the game. I don’t see that option anymore, but I don’t think I need that option now anyway.
My character is level 85, but I believe he was level 65 which was the maximum level before I quit, and I think what had happened was they added a feature with a new expansion that allowed me to upgrade my character to level 85 for free, and in fact I had upgraded 3 characters to level 85. I upgraded my wizard, my warrior and my shaman. All 3 of those characters were useful for everything I needed to do in the game, and they were also sometimes useful for helping other people who needed those classes for their quests or just little fun groups.
Here I am 15 years later from the last time I played the game with a brand-new laptop that I received for Christmas. I wondered if this new laptop would run the game, and it does, so I figured I will come back and play for free since that is now an option, but I want to start over with a new character to sort of help me relearn how to play the game since it has been a long time since I played. But I didn’t have any open character slots available, so I started on another server with another Xanapus character, but this time he is a Necromancer.
So, I started playing this Xanapus on December 30th, and he is already level 60. I actually got him to level 60 in 1 month, and now that I have pretty much learned how to play the game again, I decided to go back to my wizard Xanapus and do some of the things I’ve been doing with necromancer Xanapus. They have a quest system now with a quest window and achievements that they didn’t have when I played. They actually introduced it when I quit. I got to level 60, and I also had earned quite a lot of AA points before going back to wizard Xanapus. So, when I’m not playing the wizard, I have my necromancer in the Bazaar selling stuff I had looted as well as food that I had made to get my baking skill up. Basically, I spent way too much platinum on baking, so I don’t have any money for spells, so I have to sell stuff for spell money lol. But I figured I’d rather go back to the wizard anyway because I had so many years invested in that character.
I’m back in the game, but I’m the only one in my guild. There are, I don’t remember how many, but probably around 300 people in my guild, and I seem to be the only active one. There were some officers who still played up until December 2022 before I started playing again. Who knows, maybe I might see them in the game, and we might play together for old times’ sake.
Anyway, I’m having fun again, but also at the same time not ignoring anyone. I can bring the laptop in the living room and play on the couch for a few hours doing quests for achievements and then stop playing and let my necromancer make some coins.
My Necromancer Xanapus character is on The Rathe server, and my Wizard Xanapus character is on the Xegony server. If you are in the game and you see me, say hello.
So I did a thing. Well, I tried to do a thing and was somewhat successful, and I’ll tell you my mistakes and how I’m trying to fix them.
So I am a member of Design Bundles and they have these $1 deals, and one of the deals was puzzle templates. So I went to Cricut Design Space and uploaded the SVG file for one of the templates and a screenshot from The Elder Scrolls Online. The screenshot above is a second attempt because the first one was too dark, and with my bad eyes, I couldn’t make out what the piece was for.
So, the template isn’t the entire puzzle that you print an image and then have the Cricut cut the entire puzzle on your image. When you go to cut the puzzle, it cuts puzzle pieces. So the only way to cut is to have the image in Cricut design space and slice the image in 250 pieces. It took awhile lol. This is what it looks like on the print and cut sheet.
That was the darker image I was cutting.
So here are the mistakes I made. I printed these on 8.5×11 65lb white cardstock. I put the glue on the paper and then placed it on the Chipboard and then ran it through the Cricut. It was too wet and I didn’t use a thin amount of glue, so it just ripped the paper. Take 2 was to use a glue stick. Unfortunately, the glue would dry before I got it all over the area I had to glue. I decided to use a repositionable glue stick because you are supposed to let it dry before you stick the paper on, but it doesn’t stay on lol. So my alternative is to buy glossy sticker paper because the cardstock wasn’t glossy and sticker paper will actually stick permanently. Not using anything glossy was a mistake and using a dark image was a mistake. Also, I’ll have to print using Best so it prints out with the best graphics it can have.
I haven’t bought the sticker paper yet because I’m having surgery soon on my right eye and I don’t want to risk it coming the day of surgery.
To make the box for the puzzles I will use the same box I use for Paracord bracelets, except I made the box bigger.
I used a light chipboard which is 22pt for the puzzle pieces I did manage to cut, but I would like to try using the 30pt chipboard to see if it would be better. I will use the 22pt chipboard for the box. I’ll also change the text I made for the box lid.
This is just a test to see if I can make a puzzle with a box. I would like to make puzzles to send as gifts. I think people would like that.
Update: I tried and it just didn’t work out with the materials that I have. I bought some glossy sticker paper that I have used to make actual stickers with, but I’m having trouble with my Cricut not reading the registration lines. I have done all the necessary things to make it so that the Cricut can read the registration lines on glossy paper, like putting matte Scotch tape on top of the lines and if that doesn’t work then go over those lines with a sharpie. For some reason it just does not want to read the registration lines. The only thing I can think is to use regular cardstock and hope that the glue stays on the chipboard and then just put mod podge over the puzzle pieces after they’ve been cut out. I can’t think of anything else to do that would work.
This is the most frustrating thing lol. If somebody has any other bright ideas, I would sure love to know them. It seems like the light on the Cricut that reads the registration marks for print and cut isn’t as bright on the lines as it used to. Maybe it’s my Cricut. It seems to read the registration lines on regular card stock though, so I don’t know.
I have been using Duolingo for almost 4 years. My current streak is 1416. I’ve been doing this for a while.
I don’t remember if it was last year or if it was the year before, but they did an update and they completely changed my entire lesson plan. They added things that I’d never done before and gave me the gold and the purple icons as if I had finished the lessons and mastered them when in fact I had never even started learning those lessons. I felt like I had to start learning all over again.
So more than a week ago, they updated their app again to this new layout which pissed a lot of people off, so much so that there is a petition to change it back. People hate this new update. I am kind of one of them, but, and hear me out, I am doing something to help myself learn.
This new update does not allow you to go back to previous lessons, so that’s why it didn’t work for me because they pushed me so far ahead of the lesson plans that they thought that I had already mastered before, when in fact I still haven’t even gotten to those lessons. So I was supposed to be on unit six, and they ended up bringing me all the way to unit 24. I tried doing the lessons in unit 24, but they were so far out there that I didn’t know what to do. I couldn’t go back and I couldn’t go forward. I was pretty much screwed.
So I thought okay, I’m going to click on that broken heart at the bottom of the screen that has the number 48 in the screenshot and practice all of the mistakes that I had already made prior to the update and see what happens after that. So after I did that it said keep going and it kept allowing me to practice mistakes that I had made in the past and it was actually helping me go back to the old old lessons that I had made mistakes on prior to the previous update that changed everything for me. I thought, this is great, I’m able to go way back and keep learning those old lessons that I wanted to go back to learning. But, what is that going to accomplish? I need to go back to learning the regular way.
Since I am a Duolingo plus member, I have the ability to delete a language lesson plan so I can start over, and that’s what I did. But that’s nice for me because I am a plus member, there are people out there who aren’t paying for Duolingo, so they don’t have that ability. They have no choice.
Okay, so since I deleted all of my German lessons and started over at unit 1 in the very beginning with basics one, it has taken me a week and I’m just now in unit 5. I’m kind of glad that I’m able to go at this pace with this new Duolingo because since I cannot go back, I can only go forward and I can actually continue learning where I refused to continue learning before. Because for the last couple of years, all I’ve been doing is my lessons that I’ve already known and not going forward. I’m doing that because I have a learning disability and it’s hard to learn new words and also with German it’s hard sometimes because they switch the words around and I’m already dyslexic and it just makes my brain hurt lol.
So, I have no option other than to keep going forward and hopefully I will continue learning and maybe I will actually be fluent in German one of these days. I’ve been doing this so lazily all this time for the last couple of years by refusing to go forward and now I’m being forced to go forward. This is probably a good thing for learning this language. And maybe that’s the reason Duolingo did that, because they want to force me to keep moving forward.
The website on my browser is still the old website. Someone on Twitter who responded to me about the new update said that the update on their browser is the new update. So they don’t really have a choice, but I still have a choice with my browser. So if I start to get frustrated with the new lessons, I can just go on the computer and do the lessons for as long as I need to because I can go back on the browser. So I’ll just keep going forward in the app on my phone, but I can continue going back on the browser on my computer.
I need to be able to keep doing the same lessons repeatedly to allow my brain to let the words sink in. That’s why I have not gone forward in these lessons because I don’t feel like I’m ready to go forward. But at some point, I have to, otherwise what’s the point of learning a language if I’m not learning all of the language?
So I think that if someone is learning with Duolingo and this same thing happened to them that happened to me and you’re stuck in a situation that you cannot control, you know, just pay for one month and that way you can delete all of your lessons and start over from the very beginning like I did. It’s just one month and you can cancel before your month is over. There might even be a free trial, I don’t know. But don’t give up.
And also, don’t worry about losing all of your old progress because it’s all in your mind, right? All that German that I learned before is still in my head, and since I couldn’t go forward in the app because they pushed me too far ahead, then what’s the point if I can’t just start over? I don’t have that hang up of needing to keep everything that I had worked hard for because I can continue working hard and go forward instead of quitting. And also, it still says that I have learned the same amount of words that I had learned before I deleted my lesson. So all of that is still there, I’m just learning from the very beginning all over again and I’m getting now to the point where I’m starting to get into the lessons that I refused to go forward with.
So just pay for a month, delete the lesson, start over and continue working to learn the language that you’re learning and don’t be so frustrated with everything. It’s not going to work if it’s not fun, and it’s not fun if it’s work.
Well, I’ve chosen a pattern, bought the pattern and then bought the yarn. The yarn will be here later next week.
I decided to use blue yarn instead of purple because I wanted to use the color of one of the uniforms. At first I was going to use red, but then I looked at the color and realized it’s probably going to hurt my eyes. Also, there’s that whole red uniform always getting killed on alien planets thing in TOS, so perhaps blue is the logical choice.
When I made the Betty boop 007 blanket, I had posted some videos on YouTube of the blanket as I was still making it and then eventually I made another video after it had already been finished. Many people asked me to make a tutorial on how to do Corner to Corner crochet and I tried making a video and I just wasn’t focused enough. I just decided to tell people to just go find the video that I used to learn how to make a corner to corner crochet project. But I think that when I get the yarn and I start working on it, I might just try to make a tutorial and see if I can finish the tutorial. It will take me probably a few weeks to make the blanket, so it’ll be awhile before the video is completed. But I will try to do it.
I went into the listing for this particular pattern and it says that the pattern is 100 squares wide by 100 squares high and that translates to 100 inches by 100 inches. The Betty boop blanket was 80 squares wide by 120 squares high. So this blanket will be a perfect square. The G hook is my go-to hook, but if the stitches are too tight, I might use an H hook. That will determine the size of the blanket in inches.
Let me know what you think about the pattern that I chose as well as the colors. I chose Star Trek because I seem to be on a bit of a Star Trek binge. I’ve been watching Star Trek Strange New Worlds and I just decided that I wanted to catch up on the original series which I don’t really remember that much from childhood. I’ve also been watching Star Trek Discovery, Star Trek Lower Decks, I’m going to be watching The Next Generation again and of course Deep Space Nine and Voyager. I have also been watching the movies again. I’m literally in the Star Trek world right now, so this makes perfect sense that I would want to make this blanket.
I am going to say that it is a bit hot right now and I’m not quite sure I want to be crocheting anything that’s going to make me sweat, especially since I will probably have to rest it on my legs as I crochet and that will heat me up a bit much. But I would like to work on it before it gets cold when I actually need to use it. I will update this when I start working on it.
I made this blanket for my Aunt several years ago. I found the pattern from a website called Two Magic Pixels. I wrote a blog post about it.
I learned to crochet when I was no longer homeless when I turned 18 years old. Never in my life did I think I would ever make anything like this.
The last few nights I have been going through Two Magic Pixels patterns because I wanted to make another blanket for myself. Last night I went to log in to my account on their website, but I didn’t have my password available, so I clicked “forgot password” and it asked for my email address to send me a link to reset my password, but it said we don’t have an account with that email address. I had only bought a few patterns, and I know I have them on my computer, so I thought ok, that’s fine. I’ll just create a new account. When I did, it said we actually found the patterns you have bought because you used that same email address to buy patterns using Paypal. So yay for me lol.
I bought these 3 patterns and they are all in my account, although I only made the Betty Boop 007 blanket. I bought the Mini Spiderman and Mini Superman patterns because I thought they were cute and I thought I would make them, but I never did. I am considering buying a different pattern to make for myself though. I’m thinking more of a rainbow pattern or something abstract, but I do know I want to buy it from Two Magic Pixels again because they have some really cool patterns. There are a few others I would like to make, like a Buddha or a Star Trek pattern, maybe the Scooby Doo pattern lol. I just cannot commit to one.
They have so many patterns and it’s really hard to pick just one pattern. The reason I have to choose is because it took me a month to make the Betty Boop 007 blanket and it cost me $60 for all the yarn. Not to mention the fact that I have carpal tunnel syndrome, so I can only make 1 blanket, and then I won’t be able to make another one for a very long time.
I really like the rainbow flower one because it reminds me of when I was a kid in the 70’s. I can also use that as a backdrop if I decide I want to continue making videos for my YouTube channel, then I’ll have something fun to look at.
People commented in my Betty Boop videos that they wanted me to teach them to crochet like that and I’ve told them that they should go to the same channel I learned to crochet like this from, which is the crochet crowd.
Anyway, it’s a big decision because I will have to live with that pattern. I can still buy the patterns whether I make them or not, but I still want to choose one. I think I really want the rainbow flowers blanket.
I’ve had issues with my saliva glands, also known as the parotid glands. In 2013 I had to have the right parotid gland removed because there was a stone in there that was blocking the path for my saliva to enter into my mouth, so the gland was filling up with saliva, which caused it to swell up, which is very painful. Over the years my left parotid gland has gotten bigger, and had occasionally caused issues, but never this bad.
We went to the emergency room yesterday to get some antibiotics, because you can’t just go to the pharmacy for antibiotics. You need a prescription. So they told me to also follow up with my doctor so I can get the referral to a surgeon who will order all the tests so they can determine if I should have surgery and I’ll have to wait for approval from my medical insurance company. This could literally take several months. Several months that I’ll be in so much agony every day when I eat.
Eating is what causes this. So far I’ve discovered sweet and salty foods are causing my problems the most because sweet and salty foods cause you to generate saliva. Also chewing itself causes it to swell up. I googled what I can eat that doesn’t generate saliva and it said breads, fiber and oats. I had some toast and just chewing the toast caused it to swell up. So I had some malt-o-meal, which is not sweet and I don’t have to chew it, just swallow it. We have oatmeal, but it’s maple and brown sugar and I was afraid the sweet flavor works cause problems.
I have a heating pad that I place on my face to bring the swelling down. That worked great yesterday, but it’s not helping that much today. The swelling is so bad that I can’t touch my teeth when I bite down.
Here is a picture from when my right parotid gland was swollen from this same issue.
Here is a picture from after I had the surgery.
So yeah. I’ll go through that again. At least I hope so. I hate the thought of going through this again, but I’m literally going through the pain that led me to having this surgery again. So even though it’s not pleasant to look at, it’s necessary so I don’t have this horrible pain.
And don’t worry. I’ll still have glands under my tongue to produce saliva.
I have had this game on my PlayStation 4 for probably 5 or more years, and I played it here and there over the years, but I never really got into it because I didn’t really understand the mechanics of the game.
Last month they introduced the 10 year anniversary of Skyrim and I bought it because I had played Elder Scrolls Online, and I wanted to see what Skyrim was like. It’s basically the same thing, but not an MMO.
The introduction of the 10 year anniversary of Skyrim made me decide that I wanted to at least try to play Elder Scrolls Online again to give it a chance, but my problem was I had too many quests going and I was kind of confused about what I was supposed to do. So I thought, let me go to Coldharbour and finish that quest which ended with me killing Molag Bal. Then it started Cadwell’s Silver, then Cadwell’s Gold which are basically the other factions. But I hadn’t finished my factions quests, so I went on a mission to finish that. It was all so confusing to me, but now I get it.
My necromancer character Ilren.
My website’s name Xanapus comes from a game very similar to Elder Scrolls Online called EverQuest, which I played for about 6 years. ESO is similar to EQ, but also very different. Like we had to download maps for EverQuest, Elder Scrolls Online have their own maps already in the game, and they have markers on the maps that tell you where everything is so you don’t have to guess. They also give you more information like what you have completed on that map, and it has a zone guide.
EverQuest didn’t really have a quest diary or journal like this when I was playing. You literally had to print the quests out and write on the paper to check things off on the quest list to keep track of your progress. I literally have a notebook with hundreds of pages in it lol. Elder Scrolls Online keeps track of everything for you, and even tells you what to do next. And they mark things on your compass which gives you the direction of the person you need to speak to or the item you have to loot or the direction of the place you need to go to.
One thing that I really love about Elder Scrolls online is that I can use a game controller. I wanted to use a game controller so bad with EverQuest, but I could never figure it out with game controllers that I bought for PC way back when. They just never worked for me and were a complete waste of money.
I still have EverQuest installed on my computer and I see that they have a quest Journal now. It’s a bit different from Elder Scrolls Online, but at least they have one. The map is pretty much the same as when I last played the game, but I did notice that they have more continents because they have so many more expansion packs than they used to.
Also the thing that really bothers me about EverQuest is that they disable most of your gear if you’re not paying a monthly fee. Elder Scrolls Online has a monthly fee service that allows you to play all of their expansions, but if you don’t pay for it, they don’t disable your gear. In order to play the expansions, you have to pay for them, which I honestly don’t mind. I’d rather not have a monthly fee. I bought 21000 Crowns which are normally $149.99 for $89.99 during their Christmas sale and I used the crowns to buy some expansions.
Another thing about EverQuest is that you had to buy spells, then memorize them to put them into your spell book, then you had to add the spell gems to the spell gems slots. With Elder Scrolls Online, you just buy your spells with skill points and those spells upgrade the more you add skill points to them.
And I love that I’m getting epic gear for rewards and I can upgrade those epic gear items to legendary with crafting if I had the components. In EverQuest you had to do so many quests and crafting for so many hours, days, even weeks or months to get 1 epic and it was a weapon. In ESO all my gear can be epic or legendary, not just my weapons.
Oh another thing is that the quests are always your level, no matter what level you are. In EverQuest if I went back to do a level 4 quest and I’m level 50, I don’t really get a good reward because the reward is a level 4 reward. Which makes it feel like you’ve wasted so much time. No matter what level I am in ESO, the rewards are always worth it, and if they’re not, then I can deconstruct the item to get the materials for crafting.
I’m not trying to mansplain, I’m just really excited about playing this game and I just wanted to talk about it. I don’t have anyone to talk about it because no one I know plays this game.
Xanapus` Lair 