Tuesday, December 24, 2019

Urgent care for my Uvula

These were taken where I spent much of Christmas Eve morning. I love that place, on Montgomery east of Juan Tabo, in Albuquerque. I took the photos for the facebook group Zias and Pickups.





I'm better now, because they have great people. I'm very glad my (seemingly) life-threatening problem was NOT tomorrow/Christmas, but on Christmas Eve, when they were open (shortened hours, but I got in) and the pharmacy near me was open, and I was better in just an hour.

Uvulitis. I felt like something was stuck in my throat that was going to keep from breathing soon, because it was already keeping me from talking right and full voice, and I was afraid to swallow. I had tried hoiking it up, but that really hurt my chest and my head. I tried swallowing it. That was really not helping. Poor uvula.

I was very afraid, but as soon as the doctor figured out what it was, and showed her assistant, who was a medical school student, because the combination of my high tongue and uvulitis were a rarity, I was 50% cured, because I was able to be calm, and she said the fix was easy.

Three days of steroids (20mg Prednisone twice a day)
Motrin
"Magic Mouthwash" (seems to be lidocaine in a pepto-bismol base, and I can gargle with it four times a day, and swish and spit and forget)
and
Allegra, because it seems I have an allergy, and that might've contributed to it all.

But the combination of those four things (five, with the knowledge that it was not a growth planning to reach out and kill me) had me calm and cheery very soon.

Other negative factors could have been dehydration (I meant to, and failed to, refill the humidifier last night that is there to counteract the...), fireplace (ashes, dust from splitting kindling), way-hot red chile on tamales yesterday afternoon (very hot), a margarita, and not drinking enough water or tea for a few days

So if you ever feel like there's something in your throat and you know it's not a foreign object, and you can't hoik it up, stop trying to. Gargle with salt water, drink tea (maybe with honey or lemon), try a cough drop, drink lots of water, relax if you can, or go to urgent care if you can't.

Wednesday, December 04, 2019

Amidar makes more sense there!

In a couple of Korean dramas, roommates sharing a house have made decisions or set up chore charts with the use of a sort of game on paper like this:


On a site called "DataGenetics," there's an article about this, and it's the way Amidar (the video game) worked. We had an Amidar game! There are screenshots, and some description,and it talks about the game the motions are based on.
In Japan, it's called "Ghost Ladder."
In China, "Ghost Leg."
In Korea, "Ladder Climbing."

The Japanese word is "Amidakuji" so... Amidar. Tadaa!

And then they have diagrams and explanations for how the randomizing game works, on that page, and I hope you'll look.

The blog "Ask a Korean" has an article with samples and stories: How do You Climb "the Ladder"?

I found all that (except the image, which I lifted from some drama or another) by searching for ladder randomizer Korea

Sorry he didn't have clothes on. He was getting dry after a bath. There was a "fig leaf" version of this photo, long ago, on some '90s computer. Found it (2024).