So what has been going on in my life? Well, lots!
I'll make a sandwich post- good, bad and then good :p
The bad... Well, it seems I am going to have to go under the hospital again. When I was a child I had lots of operations for cysts etc in my hands (and have lots of others in my wrists, ankles, feet...). Over the last couple of years I have had pain in my thumb which has been getting steadily worse. I didn't do anything about it until now because a) I was afraid of what hey may have to do and b) I really didn't want to get it in the my transition (stupid, but there you go).
Anyway, I was referred to a specialist clinic by my GP and... It turns out that my body wanted to be special. Simply being transsexual was apparently not enough. No, it turns out that I probably have Oliers Syndrome. 1 in 100,000 and it means that I am prone to the cartilage cysts in my hands and feet that I had as a child and in my left hand they have come back. It also means that I have quite a deformed bone structure in my left hand:
Sorry - maybe there should have been a content warning there!
Anyway, I have to have a CT scan on my hand to make sure that the bone has not de-calcified to the point where it is going to be difficult to fix. After that the doctor will help me make a decision about doing something about it, or leaving it until the pain becomes too much to bear and then doing something. Not the news I wanted, but then again it could have been worse news. Watch this space...
So, the good! On Monday I celebrate 10 years working for the same company. Most of that time has been good, and due to vacations the celebration was held last week. Lots of posters around the building saying how long I have worked there and a lunch organised with very English sandwiches, cream and jam scones, brownies and cheesecake. Yum!
And parlour games, a speech, pressies (a Tardis teapot - awseome! - and a selection of English tea and shortbread buiscuits - again, yum!)
And a picture for our hall of shame - I am the last person to go on the wall downstairs, the next person will start a new wall of shame for those who have stayed too long :p.
A great lucch, and a reminder of why I have worked there for 10 years!
Right, I hear noises from a little man, and it's time to get ready to go and get my hair dyed red again :), so I'll leave you now with the picture for the wall :)
So, the first good, totally materialistic! Last week I got a new phone, my old one probably got dropped one to many times and the battery was shot. It went from two days life with some use to 6 hours with no use :O Not good...
And so when I heard that Huawei were releasing a new flagship I thought I would give it a try. They have done something different with the cameras in this phone - rather than one camera they have two. There is nothing special there - after all HTC and LG have done this before. However, Huawei don't have one high res, one low or one normal and one wide angle. No, they have one colour and one monochrome. This allows the phone to collect way more light for pictures as the monochrome sensor doesn't have the filter needed to collect colour information, depth information (as the sensors are a little apart it is slightly stereoscopic) and most importantly for me a dedicated monochrome camera - not simply a desaturated colour camera, but an actual monochrome one.
The pictures that the monochrome came makes are just truly amazing. I can't stop using it (and annoying other people who think that the world should have colour in it :p). The rest of the phone is also pretty great (if you can live with the Android skin, which so far I can), but I guess it is a sign of the times that I was totally in love with the phone and then realised that I had no actually used it to make a call! (I have since and can say that the call quality is better than anything I have used so far - both phone and speaker calls).
So, pictures!
The bad... Well, it seems I am going to have to go under the hospital again. When I was a child I had lots of operations for cysts etc in my hands (and have lots of others in my wrists, ankles, feet...). Over the last couple of years I have had pain in my thumb which has been getting steadily worse. I didn't do anything about it until now because a) I was afraid of what hey may have to do and b) I really didn't want to get it in the my transition (stupid, but there you go).
Anyway, I was referred to a specialist clinic by my GP and... It turns out that my body wanted to be special. Simply being transsexual was apparently not enough. No, it turns out that I probably have Oliers Syndrome. 1 in 100,000 and it means that I am prone to the cartilage cysts in my hands and feet that I had as a child and in my left hand they have come back. It also means that I have quite a deformed bone structure in my left hand:
Sorry - maybe there should have been a content warning there!
Anyway, I have to have a CT scan on my hand to make sure that the bone has not de-calcified to the point where it is going to be difficult to fix. After that the doctor will help me make a decision about doing something about it, or leaving it until the pain becomes too much to bear and then doing something. Not the news I wanted, but then again it could have been worse news. Watch this space...
So, the good! On Monday I celebrate 10 years working for the same company. Most of that time has been good, and due to vacations the celebration was held last week. Lots of posters around the building saying how long I have worked there and a lunch organised with very English sandwiches, cream and jam scones, brownies and cheesecake. Yum!
And parlour games, a speech, pressies (a Tardis teapot - awseome! - and a selection of English tea and shortbread buiscuits - again, yum!)
And a picture for our hall of shame - I am the last person to go on the wall downstairs, the next person will start a new wall of shame for those who have stayed too long :p.
A great lucch, and a reminder of why I have worked there for 10 years!
Right, I hear noises from a little man, and it's time to get ready to go and get my hair dyed red again :), so I'll leave you now with the picture for the wall :)
Love the photos.
ReplyDeleteI bought a 35mm Pentax MX earlier this year for a photgraphy course I was doing. Although I've taken about half a dozen rolls of film, one of which was colour the rest B&W, its taken me a little while to get used to using 35mm so I've only got one set of photographs out of it, alhtough I still have two more to get developed. The ones that I've managed to get I like because the lack of colour gives them a totally different feel and doesn't distract from what you've shown and the contrasts between dark and light.
Congratulations on 10 years at work and hope that you can get the cysts sorted out without too much trouble.
Thanks! I would love to have another go at film - along with the different textuer of the pictures there is something about not just snapping away and having to wait for the results, but I have given away my 35mm camera body (shame as I have some really nice lenses that are compatible with my 5D...) and would have to really, really try hard not to go through a film in a couple of seconds :) (Yesterday my son was playing in the garden and I think I shot the equivalent of 2 or 3 rolls in a couple of minutes...)
DeleteI love the drama that you can get in the back and white shots, and the structure that the shadows give to the image.
And I am still totally and utterly addicted to clouds!
Hopefully the hands will be sorted without too much of a problem, I have a CT scan coming up to see what the internal damage is to the bone, and we'll go from there.
The 10 years party was great, and with my change in role I am really fired up for the next 10 :)
Stace
Great photos. I really think you have an eye for those.
ReplyDeleteSorry to hear about the hospital stuff, but at least you know what's going on.
Congrats on the work anniversary. Lovely to hear you're being treated so well. I think that's worth a lot. Oh, and lovely smile in that photo. It suits you ;-)
Thanks Lynn, I think that the camera is very flattering though :)
DeleteThere are times when I am very pleased to have the colleagues that I have (and many times when I seriously hate the fact that my personality gets in the way of being able to be in large groups more often!). There are some very creative types there and to see what they did for the day (and the time they put into making the various cakes, scones and brownies!) was really heart warming :)
Stace
Yikes, I trust they can fix it!
ReplyDeleteI've looked from afar at that mono camera, I may take a closer look now.
Nice pic for the wall BTW.
Hope so! I can't believe that the British doctors never made the link to the Oliers Syndrome (if I had known about this then as soon as the thumb started I would have done something more about it!) and simply said that it was a couple of cysts and 'something' without giving any information. I much prefer the approach that this doctor gave is much better - giving me enough information that I can also do my own research so that the next time we spoke I had a good idea of what was going on, and what the options and risks could be. (OK, being called an intelligent young women helped when he said he was going to give me enough information for me to think along with the treatment plan :) )
DeleteTwo weeks in and I still love the phone! Quick, snappy, and unless you are on it all day (not that I would ever do that!) then at the end of the day there is still 50% or more left in the battery.
The only downside that I see in it is the interface. It's like a mix of iOS and Android. I can live with it easily enough and actually have my screens organised in a way that works for me - but if you like custom launchers and playing with the phone (not to mention rooting them) them this isn't the phone for you... Huawei have customised it too much (and in the process broken some normal setting short cuts in android).
And thanks, not bad for pre-hormones - IIRC this was during the medical research so I was on a serious testosterone blocker (very painful injection once a month, followed by a weekend not being able to run due!), but not yet using the patches.
Not the picture I wanted, I'll admit (hello witch!), but definitely not the worst that I have seen!
Stace
Hi Stace! Thanks for visiting my blog and commenting! I love those black and whites! talk about dynamic range, the contrast is incredible. Anyway, I hope you're able to get those cysts taken care of. That looks painful! I'll have to go back and read your other posts to catch up!
ReplyDeleteBlessings,
Lori
Hey Lori! Likewise!
DeleteThe dynamic range was the first thing that stuck me when I was using it in the sun. I think the best compliment I have gotten for it to date was a friend of mine asking what filters I used to get the first picture in the post. Filter, what filter! :)
Hopefully it'll be sorted with the minimum of fuss... And at least I know what it is now...
Stace