A note about Luskwood adminstrative stuff and my availability this week.

This message is going out to friends, Lindens, and customers (many of which are one in the same):

I know I've been a bit behind, and somewhat scarce on administrative duties this week like:

-Avatar Modification requests
-The completion of dragon av upgrades, and some of the av lines I've been working on,
-some administrative items I've been talking to LL about (welcome experiences: talking with various Lindens about that)
-getting our Avatar Expo booth in order on time (Sorry Hamlet)
-some adminstrative duties in Luskwood (cleanups, taking care of griefers, etc)


I wasn't sure where to post this so I posted it here: I've been in and out of urgent care and the emergency room / hospital for the last week due to some unknown (and extremely severe) reaction that has caused things like my throat to close up, eyes to swell shut, and has put me in some very harrowing situations in the last week.

Luckily I've had friends like Liam who were here to get me help when I needed it, even when if it meant calling 911 and driving me to the hospital at 3AM, and Eltee to take care of things that I couldn't - and all of my friends for support (thanks)...

So obviously, because of this, I've been behind, and because we work so closely together, Luskwood has been disrupted a bit because of it. I just want everyone to know that my lack of response, or my delay in response has nothing to do with lack of interest or in 'blowing people off' in this last week, it's just had a bit of a domino effect and I thought an explanation was in order.

Thanks for your understanding,

Michi Lumin
Luskwood/Luskwood Creatures.

May you get the allergy agent pinned down soon!

And, if anyone is callous enough to demand of you in the meanwhile, please send them my way as I'll be happy to give them cuffings about the head and neck for you.

Hey Michi, sounds scary. Have your doc do an allergy workup on you. You are describing, to a T, Anaphalactic shock. You probally got a severe allergy to soemthing that's just now showing. Lotsa luck!

Well, right now I'm on a very strong course of 16 days of 60mg/day of Prednisone, 100mg/day of Hydroxyzine and other H1 and H2 blockers to keep me OK for a bit...

After the prednisone is out of my system they say they want to do the tests, but the docs said that it'd probably mask it if they did a blood panel now, and a test now... So; followups followups..... :\

It's not gonna be fun but I don't care at this point, I just want to figure out what's going on

Well wishes out to you, michi. I hope the cause is found as soon as possible - and I hope you get to feeling better, overall! *furryhug*

I hope you can get that taken care of quickly and start feeling better.. *Snugs* take it easy and recover. Don't sweat it, there are good peoples over there in LW I'm sure they can handle things while you get better..

Best wishes and get well soon!!
Fox

Get well soon. You and your staff work hard on those avs I think you deserve a break especially when something like this comes along.

oh dear!! *HUGS* Michi!! I hope you are better very soon! I'll keep you in my thoughts!

Michi,

Sorry to hear this - it must have been a frightening experience. Hope you are soon well again. Take care.

That's terrible news michi! Have to get well soon now, you hear! you've been missed for sure around the platform!

Well, updates. With moving around Prednisone doseages -- I'm still really uncomfortable (bad, bad skin reactions, not much sleep, still in pain a lot of the time) -- and the prednisone is causing adema which makes it suck to type sometimes, but the throat/airway swelling that was happening almost nightly seems to have stopped, at least in response to this treatment.

I have an appointment with a specialist on the 9th whose going to do a full workup, more blood panels (I've had so many blood tests this month I feel like I've gotten an oil change, heh) and he's pretty sure he'll be able to pinpoint what's wrong. (At least from phone conversations so far.)

Only problem is, I have to stop the anti-inflammatories and corticosteroids before going in for the tests, and there's a risk the anaphylaxis may come back in that time.

So on Monday I'm talking to the original doc about possibly getting an "e-kit" or "epi-pen", which is essentially an emergency adrenaline/ephenephrine injection that'd keep me going in case what happened last week (anaphylaxis) came on strong again.

Thanks for the responses, guys, and really, everyone's been great and supportive in-world and here. It's been scary, and also depressing, (sometimes it feels like this will just never go away) but the support has really helped.


EDIT: I realize the forums may be a strange place to post this stuff... To be completely honest it's just been an easier way that I can point people to explain what's up when they ask. I've never been much of a 'blogger', but maybe I should start one. My apologies to anyone this may have bothered.

Gosh Michi, that sounds awful.

Hope you feel a lot better quickly. You're one brave dragon.

It really bothered me to see this footnote on your post. I truly hope there wasn't any one being mean to you in your time of crisis! Thoughts and prayers with you.

Michi,

Hope everything goes well between now and the 9th, and that the specialist lives up to his word, and sorts you out.

Take care.

Michi,
Keep your head up and I'm sending you good vibes !
p.s. I love my lion AV bet you never thought you'd read that.

Eep. Hugs and get well soon, Michi. And hopefully they get the problem pinned down for you quickly.

thanks for all of the responses guys... worn out and drugged out but just wanted to say thank you. torley its great that you're back. and lecktor, heh, that made me smile and that's something i really need right now.

its one of those situations where - well, it feels like you've been feelin crappy so long you think it'll never end... as im writing this right now things are flaring up and my throat is in a rather precarious feeling position but i think i'll be ok. They did already give me the epinephrine injector, so I should be covered....

I'm sorry im not making much sense right now, i just wanted to really say thanks to everyone and not just leave the message hanging.

it's times like these i wish i was back to just worrying about the little trivial things like ratings and the female sit animation and griefers

anyways i'll stop rambling - just each and every one of you who responded here, thank you so much, it sounds cliche, but it isnt a cliche, it makes such a difference in trying to get through this thing.

It makes me feel bad whenever you just think you just havn't been having the stroke of luck of running into somebody and then you find out news like this.

=(

Glad to hear your hanging in there, so don't stop yet! =)

That's really scary... sounds like you're in good hands with the treatment, at least. May you recover from this quickly!

*hugs*

this must be what i'm reacting to.

And here I thought SL was only dangerous to my social life. Overexposure, indeed.

Get well soon, Michi. Allergies aren't any fun at all.

Dang, that's a long time to be struggling with this. Really hope you improve soon!

Mm.. major allergies. It's hard for me to relate, since the closest I can recall (feveral seizures) happened when I was very, very young.

But, feel better. Hopefully they track down the direct cause and best treatment for ya quickly.

And on cliche, nah. Sometimes people just need a little support.

Tomorrow I go in, Beat. --- I know. It's been a very long time and it's really been wearing me down. And a lot of folks at school and work don't quite understand, either. You tell them you're having "severe allergies", and they think you're getting a little bit of watery eyes and sneezing.

Let me tell you, you haven't lived until you've been unable to sleep for three days straight because hives are forming *in your throat* and your hands and feet are so swollen that even bending your fingers feels like a thousand bee-stings. And then there's the anaphylaxis which seems to be -just on the edge- of happening all the time, and sometimes my lips and face will just go numb for an hour with no reason.

Okay well, maybe you have... Because it's not living, heh. -- My entire month of August pretty much went out the window; Eltee was visiting and I didn't get to see much of her at all - Liam and Eltee had some quality time though so I guess that's a good thing.

Somehow I managed to do all the work to run around campus and guarantee graduation: I'm graduating, Cum Laude, NHS, with a 3.98 GPA on December 17th. I remember running to various deans' offices and filling out paperwork in the last two weeks to do this, writing letters in a daze and all that, but it was all pretty much a blur.

Now, even my boss is telling me I need to slow down because with things like this, stress *can* mess wit the immune system.

The thing that I'm worried about is a few doctors are starting to tell me, "You shouldn't be expressing this severe of an onset of allergic reaction at this age." ... Not withstanding the fact that I'm not improving - Last night I was in class, in tears and shivering, just because of the pain I was in.

They're beginning to look at immunological oddities; as some of you know I was in for tests for what I thought might be lymphoma the month before this all started happening. They don't think I have lymphoma, and neither do I at this point, but overall, my immune system is going nuts on itself.

The good thing is, I'm getting hooked up with some doctors here, at National Jewish, one of, if not THE best immunology, allergy and respiratory hospital in the entire country . And they're right here in Colorado. So if ANYONE can help me, it's these guys. I'm really lucky that I've got contacts there just incidentally. Never thought I'd have to actually use them.

I just want to get back to doing things on SL; I feel like I've dropped out of the loop completely, and that bothers me. I've always tried to be very participatory here, and Luskwood is one of the few things in the last few years that I've actually been very proud of. But I've been little more than an observer lately, asking Eltee and Arito and Liam occasionally what's going on. I told Vektor I'd be testing 1.7 but I haven't been able to do that much, either: even at work I can mostly just sit there and poke buttons, heh. I feel bad for getting paid. :\

Anyhow. That's enough public rambling. As someone did tell me, if I want to keep doing this, I should get a blog, and not do it here. I suppose some people do take some serious offense to this sort of thing, or maybe they' think I'm doing it for show. I donno about that one. I'd sacrifice pretty much any sort of notoriety 'round SL's parts if I could just get back to a normal life. I think my friends know that, at this point. Though I feel like a downer every time I talk to them, so I've been a bit avoidant of people too. I don't like having to answer "no" when someone says "Hey, are you feeling any better?" ... so I'm tending to withdraw until I have better news, at least on the SL interactional level.

The reason I did make this stuff a post here, is because people have been asking why I haven't been around. It's been much easier to point them to a URL than to re-explain the entire situation.

Tests inconclusive. Too much hydroxyzine still in my system, no response to control histamines. So I need to go back in on Wednesday.

Problem is, after talking to them, they don't think it's an allergy now. They think it's tied to liver function or underlying immunological pathology.

Depressing, since I was hoping today would be a turnaround. but keepin on'.