Midnight...

Well, as expected, one of my favorite vampires showed up on all my devices in my Kindle app.  I've been reunited with Lestat!  Yay!  How awesome is that?  Quite awesome, if I do say so myself. :)=

Not sure what "The Prince Lestat" holds.. but I'm ready to find out!  Thank goodness for iPad Air 2 and that large, back-lit screen! Woo hoo!! :D

As for Lestat... I really didn't like Tom Cruise as Lestat in the first movie.  He didn't fit how I pictured Lestat at all... but... in Queen of the Damned.. oh wow... now THAT Lestat was ultimate perfection.  I mean, I saw 'Lester's' face and thought... that's exactly how I saw him in my mind!  If there's another movie on the horizon at all, I hope they choose an actor that portrays Lestat equally well....

"On behalf of Apple I want to extend my thanks..." Wow!!

I will get to the Apple thing in a moment, but first... about reading.....

It's true.  I used to love reading.  I mean, really really love reading.  When I was little I would literally carry bags to the library just to carry home the books I wanted to check out.  I couldn't get enough.  That love of reading never left me.  What DID leave was my perfect vision, and those dumb readers you find at the pharmacies... leave a LOT to be desired.  Let's just leave it at that.

So I saw an eye doctor who said I don't have to wear glasses all of the time, but my vision isn't so great anymore.  Yeah.  I gathered that.  And he gave me a Rx which I've yet to fill... mostly because I know I'm going to be completely girly and picky about the frames.  Even if I'll only be wearing them to read, they'll STILL need to look good. ;p  But the whole eyesight thing isn't just about the blurry thing...

I need backlighting.  Don't ask.  I've no idea.  Book lights don't help either.

Now that Anne Rice has gotten off her duff and written another in the Vampire Chronicles collection... I HAVE to start reading again.  It's been way overdue, and I simply have to read this new book.  So why not a reader?  Kindle??  Something like a Kindle?

Well, it sounded good initially.... But for a good, high quality one, well, I might as well just get a tablet.  So I did something I thought I'd never do.  I ordered an iPad.  An iPad Air 2.  Why not?

Now... about the endocrinologist appointment!

I'm happy to say I received a call from my endo's office this morning.  They had a cancellation and I was able to get the spot!  My appointment is tomorrow morning instead of December 3rd!!  I was SO glad to get that call!  There are two doctors at that clinic, and the one I'm seeing did most of his training and fellowship at the Cleveland Clinic, so he's a good doctor, and I know someone who vouches for him.  I'm hoping he will be able to get to the bottom of things and find out what the heck is going on.  And if nothing else, he can at least do the follow-up with the whole thyroid nodule thing.

A funny thing about Apple (and me):

So, I don't toot my own horn too often, but I will for just a moment.  I had a weird issue since the release of Yosemite, one that affected my iPhone.  Yes, the OS on my MacBook Pro affected my iPhone.  Let's just say that the smarter these devices get, the more they talk to each other, and the smarter iCloud gets... the more room there is for things to go awry....

Without going into great detail, I will just say that my Mac was basically telling my phone.. how to ring... even when it was off.  The problem began with something that started on my Mac, though one may not have thought so.  But I KNEW it started there....

After talking to the Apple geniuses (thank God for AppleCare!!)... who passed me to supervisors in both the OS dept THEN to the iOS dept, neither of which could figure it out... the iOS 'Upper level' technician was poised to do a master reset.  I told her, as I did everyone I spoke to... "It's not my phone.  The problem is with the Mac, and iCloud is telling my phone how to ring now..."  I then told "kate" that I thought I knew how to fix it and wanted to try that first before pulling out the big guns.  She said that was fine and gave me her number and direct extension, as did the supervisor of the OS dept who sent me to her when he and the engineers he spoke with couldn't figure out what to do....

I was pretty certain that what I wanted to do would fix it.  It was SO simple, really.  No one would believe that it was the MacBook Pro which was causing the issue.  But I KNEW it was.  I was positive it was....

So we ended the phone call.

The problem: When Apple created the ability for "Handoff," making it so you could make/receive calls from your MacBook and iPad... you were also given something else.. the ability to change your ringtone.  The idea, I believe, that they had in mind.. is that your iPhone would be controlling things. However, once you open your contact on your other device and open the ringtone options, choose another ringtone... that's pretty much it.  iCloud takes over and it tells your phone how to ring.  Hopefully they've fixed this by now!.........

I spent a lot of time on the phone with Apple supervisors while they talked to their engineers, called me back, and with no one finding a fix.  The fix should have been as easy as changing the ringtone back on the phone, they said.  Well, yeah.  I tried that.  It didn't work... which is why I called them.

They also said the phone should be controlling the ringtone, not the MacBook.  Well, yes.. I would think so.  And they were all saying it had to be the device, my iPhone... not anything software or MacBook related.  I didn't agree with them.  They were stumped.

What I did:  I went against instinct at first and just deleted the contact on my phone and recreated it.  Now prior to any calls to Apple.... my MacBook was off the entire time the wrong ringtone was playing, so I knew the information was 'in the cloud' so to speak.  The ringtone was set correctly on the phone, and again...phone rebooted prior to any calls to Apple, all the usual steps taken.

Contact entry recreated on the iPhone, asked person to call me AGAIN to test the ringtone (they were SO patient! lol)... still the wrong ringtone.  So... I did what I should have done right from the beginning...

Booted the MacBook, opened Contacts, deleted the entry with the unchangeable ringtone, DID NOT RECREATE THE RINGTONE IN CONTACTS IN THE MAC!!!  Closed the MacBook.  THEN.. I recreated the contact on the iPhone, had the person call me again...correct ringtone!  PROBLEM SOLVED.

Logic would tell you that all call-related information should be controlled by your iPhone. Yes, your other devices can make/receive calls now, but your PHONE is the primary source for making and receiving calls, so it only makes sense that THAT device should be the source of control.  So Apple has a couple of bugs to fix.  Anyway, it just made sense to delete the offending problem (contact entry on the MacBook) and recreate the entry with correct data (including associated ringtone) on the phone and allow iCloud to update the MacBook with the correct information.  Which it did.

I called Kate & Ken (Kate high level tech in the iOS dept, and Ken is the supervisor in the OS dept) and left messages on their answering machines that I had fixed the problem and told them how... since they said they hadn't gotten any other calls that they knew of about the issue yet.

Ken called me this morning to check up on me to make sure everything was working well.  He said "Looks like the iOS dept got things working for you!"  I told him, "no.. actually, they wanted me to do a master reset, and I didn't want to go that route yet, so I told them I wanted to try something first and that I would call them back if it didn't work.."  Then I told him about what I did.

Ken was very enthusiastic about the fix and said he'd been talking to his engineers about the problem even as of this morning because they really couldn't figure out how to fix it or where to begin.  I told him basically that as long as no one touched the ringtones in the Contacts on their MacBook.. they would be okay.  Hitting "Edit" was even okay.  Just don't scroll through the ringtone EVER. lol  He took notes and thanked me.  In fact he said.....

"On behalf of Apple I want to extend my thanks, and to tell you that this information is being forwarded to our engineers so we can put out an update to fix this.  So you can tell your friends and family you've helped Apple solve this problem and have become a part of the solution, the update that fixes it!"

How cool is that? :D  And you know he also said, "You know, none of us thought once to try that. lol"  And I was thinking, 'because you guys tend to think BIG, when often the solution is a relatively simple one.'  ;)

Kind of cool getting kudos from Apple.  hee

"Give me ONE good reason to watch Vampire Diaries," she said...

Unbridled Reverie in Sleep

Not since childhood have I experienced nightmares, and even now as the images and cerebral events bring themselves, uninvited, into my sleep... I remain unafraid.  Repulsed, yes.  Yet unafraid.  Still, why over the last few weeks have my dreams turned to this toxic level of untethered marrow?

I watch no more or less horror on television than before, and as anyone who knows me even a little can confirm... horror has been my favored genre since childhood.  And I'm not given to accepting digestive patterns to blame for dreams, as some parents would have their children believe (I've yet to blame a Hershey's bar for a bad dream).  My subconscious hardly stands a chance to weigh in on insidious horrors when my conscious mind is kept quite fulfilled to its heart's content these days.  Not that it ever starved in the past for its dark matter.  There's always been enough vampires, werewolves, zombies, serial killers and alien predators to go around.  So then, again, I ask.... what wakes and fuels the dream machine these days?

I'm wondering now if it might just be fun to start a dream journal.  But then I remember I have enough to keep up with just with the few blogs I have (since no one wants me to give up even one of them).  Most likely I won't, though.  Honestly, what good are dream journals anyway?  That's another talk show.

Perhaps it's just the pain that is yet to be identified and resolved (or not).  It still keeps me awake, disturbs what seems like the deepest of sleep.  Perhaps my mind is simply turning that into images.  So if my pain had a face or a life or.. if it could be described in an action scene.. it would be that?  Horrifying.  eeew.

Oh well.  Once things are, well, resolved, the culprit to this pain identified, dealt with, addressed, whatever... maybe then my dreams will return to their usual vanilla-boring presentations......

Benign Follicular Nodule (and I will never understand you guys!)

Firstly, I know a couple of my friends have preferences as to where they like to read my blogs.  But... why?  Most of the time I cross-post.  And yes, 'most' does not mean 'all,' and I know that I've been more than politely nudged to 'let it all hang out.'  But dang!  I'm trying, okay?  I'm trying.

So I'm posting here and there because one or two of you say... you like this blog, and yet another says they like the other.... while yet another likes LJ (which I'm even SLOWER at posting on).  And then there's the other one... the one I haven't given anyone official access to but haven't exactly hidden.  It's just a place to catch my breath, really.

And still... whenever I mention in a phone call or FB message or text that I really want to consolidate my blogs into at least two... I hear that resounding "NOOOOOOOO!"  Or at least a pathetic.. "but, but, but....!"  Sheesh.

You guys are killing me.  You're really killing me here.

Yes. Yes.  I'm kidding.

But here I am posting what I've already posted elsewhere.

Here's a quote that should explain it all, the beginning of the 'let's just watch and see what happens' game that seems to ensue with these thyroid things. Yay.  Not.

Click on the above for easier reading...

Basically, the cytology of these things are just weird.  I have an appt in December (earliest I could get one) with an Endo who has, from what I've seen, a good rep, so maybe he can shed better light on how to monitor this internal lumpiness.  But anyway, it will be good to have a dr who isn't dismissive and 'absent' on board.  And, Dr. E deals with a few other things I need addressing so that will be a good thing as well.

Haven't heard anything yet on the pelvic ultrasound. Hoping I don't have to deal with anything with that either.  We'll see.

I'm craving hot chocolate.....

Death on a stick

Feeling something is one thing, but putting it into words is yet another.  And it used to be the easiest thing in the world for me to do, putting words to just about anything I was feeling.  So what's changed?

Everything.

It's not easy to describe in real terms what "death on a stick" feels like, and most of the time people, myself as well (in the past) use that silly phrase as a loose exaggeration for basically feeling under the weather.  Everyone feels like crap on occasion.  Shit happens.  These days, to use that phrase just feels, well, stupid.  If there were ever an understatement, then I would have to say "I feel like shit" is probably the great grandfather of all understatements.  At least for me.

So when will I know what's wrong?

I guess I should just print out another copy of my lab results so I can remind myself how 'normal' I am.  I mean, if we're all just a set of numbers in our blood, then wow.. I should feel like a million bucks, right?  At least almost a million bucks.  As thyroid hormones go, my Free T4 is .10 of a point away from out of the normal range (low).  Sooooo, am I to think I'm supposed to feel energetic and in the prime of my life, maybe even like Wonder Woman until that value dips that .10 and then ***WHAM!!!*** I instantly feel like 'death on a stick'?  Does it really work like that?  Is that why doctors simply just wait it out until something literally falls out of range?

But then, what about those doctors who DO see values out of range and still state.. "These numbers aren't bad enough to cause your symptoms."  I've heard that before with regards to when I had macrocytic anemia.  Damned if you do, damned if you don't.

Damn.

That's just a drop in the bucket, and I'm not going to go into everything in detail.  No point.  I long for the day, however, when I feel good.  I'm waiting patiently for that.  Okay, so not so patiently.  But I'm biding my time as best as I can and doing what I can in the meantime.  Not easy, mind you, when the legs are shaky just when standing, arms are shaking for no reason, everything is so weak.  Unsure where all the weakness is coming from, and that's the worst part.

FNA results aren't back yet, but I do completely expect that to be just fine.  Whether or not the nodule is creating havoc with my thyroid, I'm not sure.  My doctor doesn't seem to think so, but there are so many people out there who've been told the same thing but experience the exact same symptoms.  So who's right?

Pelvic ultrasound results ... honestly not sure when I'll get those, and they'll most likely go to Dr. L instead of Dr. E, which means she will most likely NOT call me with results and make me wait another week until I have my appt.

Perhaps neither of the above tests will yield any answers as to why I feel like I do.  But at least they will be two things I can scratch off the list.

In the meantime I will snuggle under my blanket to fight the cold, take tylenol for the aches, and ignore the sometimes sharp pains that jab their way through my lower right pelvis.  What else is there?  Oh yeah, looking forward to The Walking Dead on Sundays, and American Horror Story on Wednesdays.  :D

BOO!

It's almost Halloween!