my brain

the good news is that they found one.  yay.  i had a cat scan recently.  nothing serious wrong with me.  everything normal except that i've got brain atrophy.  sounds serious.  oooooh.  i googled it,  it just means my brain has shrunk.

the pattern and rate of progression of cerebral atrophy depends on the disease involved. diseases that cause cerebral atrophy include: 

age  bingo***

stroke and traumatic brain injury

depression (mood)  my brain has shrunk, that's enough to depress anyone***

alzheimer's disease, pick’s disease, senile dementia, fronto-temporal dementia, and vascular dementia

cerebral palsy, in which lesions (damaged areas) may impair motor coordination

huntington's disease, and other genetic disorders that cause build-up of toxic levels of proteins in neurons

leukodystrophies, such as krabbe disease, which destroy the myelin sheath that protects axons

mitochondrial encephalomyopathies, such as kearns-sayre syndrome, which interfere with the basic functions of neurons

multiple sclerosis, which causes inflammation, myelin damage, and lesions in cerebral tissue

infectious diseases, such as encephalitis, neurosyphilis, and aids, in which an infectious agent or the inflammatory reaction to it destroys neurons and their axons

epilepsy, in which lesions cause abnormal electrochemical discharges that result in seizures

anorexia nervosa

i've never heard of some of these.  basically i'm a bit young to show signs of it.  it's usually in older people.  it could or could not be a precursor for alzheimer's among other things.  there's no way of telling.  there's no swelling or inflammation and everything else is normal.  i had no idea what is was and had to hold on to the chair.  fancy having the other thing and a brain tumour.  no brain tumour.  yay again.  now for the really scary part.  i've shrunk.  dr weighed and measured me.  i am 168 cm.  well, not anymore.  163 cm now.  i wish my feet would shrink.  my cholesterol level has gone down a bit.  6.8  the hard part is that i have to lose weight.  dr also said that my good cholesterol is high and that would put up my overall reading. bp is good.  well.  after all that i had a lovely lunch with my son and his fam.  he's hurt his back again and will see chiro tomorrow.  all that and a little shopping.  not too horrible.  it's been pouring with rain all day here.  garden will like it. 

i've had an urge. a strong urge :)

i've had a strong urge to paint lately.  that and take up calligraphy again.  Cindy's blog is very inspiring.  today i took my g/son to the shops and we had a good look around for stuff he likes (i'm pooped) and then i went and got a new watercolour pad and some drawing tools.  i've always wanted a roller ruler.  :)    don't ask

weird messages trying to log into blogger

something weird is going on with my computer.  i have been getting a page pop up when i log into blogger for the last few days.  it's a red screen with a white text box saying 'something's not right here' and a report about one of the blogs that i follow having malware.  i have reported it to blogger and have turned off the bit in preferences about warnings so am not getting it now.  it's only on the computer that i use chrome on.  if i go into ie9 or similar i don't get it.  i am just wondering if anyone else has been getting this page pop up.  i wonder if anyone else uses chrome.  probably not.  i am assuming it's a chrome issue and not blogger.  let me know if you've had it too.

good news

i've been freaking out coz i've booked and paid for our trip to bali in may and of course i have to have more surgery.  i received a letter from the hospital on thursday saying that my pre op consult is on the 2 march and my procedure will be on saturday 10 march.  yes saturday.  they are so backed up they do surgeries on saturdays.  good for me coz i should recover in plenty of time to go away which i was so stressed about, not be mention getting sick again.  also, the library where i was working an extra day per week, and gave me the boot a few months ago, wants me back.  lmfao.  i'm going back tuesdays.  they are desperately understaffed and have no-one to do the council desk.  lots of the staff are casuals from an agency and are not council trained.  i went to ikea this morning with my son and dil.  we had a lovely morning.  i bought a replacement bedside lamp for the one that exploded the other night.  scared the glitter out of me.  it made such a loud noise.  i thought it was just the globe but alas the lamp is kaput.  i also got some lovely vanilla candles and a few kitchen gadgets.  coz i love gadgets.   i'm working tomorrow.  just thought i'd throw that in.  :)  i'm also trying to update my old laptop.  i loaned it to my sister and she's got another one now.  the kids can use it when they stay over.  it uses xp which is a bit yesterday.  i can't download chrome for it.  it's a bit slow and i think it only has a hdd of about 80 gb.  i might actually reinstall windows and clean it out.  i'm defraging atm.  it's taking forever.  oh well.  enjoy the rest of your w/end everyone.

some pics of siamese darlings.  too bad if you don't like cats hey?  :)

this one looks a bit worried

a missed opportunity

dayam.  i wish i had my camera with me but i didn't.  i meant to go up and get it but something came up so i forgot about it for a while.   now, you'll just have to take my word for it and let me try to explain it to you.  i went to check the letterbox and noticed some of the bitumen in the drive way had broken away at the edge.  quite a bit really, it was sticking up. i went over (don't know why) and was amazed at what i saw.  a rather large mushroom/toadstall/thingy had grown up and pushed the bitumen out of the way.  it was about the size of a small cup.  such an unusual site.  when i went back with my camera a day or two later the mushy had gone.  no sign of it.  i thought a pic of the bitumen just wouldn't cut it.  :)

my sister and her hubby came down yesterday to get one of their cars serviced in the city.  we had a nice catch up and sis has to have a heart monitor fitted for a day or two.  i'm not sure how long she'll wear it.  her doctor was away and she had to see a fill in.  good thing too as her usual doctor is pretty useless.  i could do a better job.  ok, maybe not.  :)

below are some pics of amazing mushrooms.  none of them look like mine :)

did you see it sweetie darling?

the new episodes of ab fab started tonight.  love it.

dinner

my sister is down for a short visit.  she went to the hospital today but we ended up in emergency coz her bp was too high to go through with the procedure.  we were in hospital for the afternoon.  we went to sunflower, a vietnamese restaurant a few neighbourhoods away for dinner.  the food was delectable.  honey chicken, satay chicken, king prawns and beef curry.  all with rice and drinks.  yum.   we are home now and i have to go back to work tomorrow after three days off.  yuk.  i'm working sunday too.  double wammy.  :)  my sister is staying over until monday coz i'm going back for my first check up.  going to bed now.   goodnight :)