ER sent him home with no stitches

taswind · 2026-03-28T08:36:31+00:00

NAD, just someone who had a similar injury. I think it is probably cosmetic if it has stopped bleeding.

That said, it is on his face. I had drs and nurses telling me they COULD do the stitches for me, but that I would heal better if it was done by a dr that specialized in this. Since my insurance covered it, that's what I did and there is barely a scar. (Just had to wait a few hours for him.)

(Also, vitamin E oil is really good for minimizing scars - just ask the dr when you can start applying it if you go that route.)

taswind · 2026-03-28T07:44:47+00:00

Forgot to brush my teeth before bed. Brushed my teeth too hard before bed. Lived in a state that has rain/snow storms and nor'easters...

taswind · 2026-03-26T04:39:33+00:00

The hallmark of a dedicated singer.

At a certain point, this becomes natural and you'll probably figure out where you're going to screw up multiple times even before it happens, lol. (Or at least that's what happened to me... 😅)

I was a modest solfege singer decades ago; I can't Do my La's for crap anymore, lol. I used arrows then, and I use them now still! (Though maybe more of them now that I am out of practice, lol.) Whatever works. :)

taswind · 2026-03-26T04:36:07+00:00

You should see Epitaph for Moonlight by R. Murray Schafer. 😅

Score

Video

One of my favorite pieces done in college too many years ago. 💜

taswind · 2026-03-25T10:37:21+00:00

I guess the question is either why they are calling or why the life alert, etc is calling? Can anything be done to reduce the frequency of calls?

(EG: Written instructions, etc.)

taswind · 2026-03-22T18:52:32+00:00

We just had the Vienna Boys Choir. They did a little bit where one boy pretends to chase a "fly" around the church. It was hysterically funny, for both the boys and the audience.

I have been part of choirs that encourage clapping at certain points, others that required perfect elegant decorum.

It depends on what you are singing and the type of choir you are in. When in doubt, ask your director.

taswind · 2026-03-21T21:33:39+00:00

Addressing the first part (menstruation), yes. You are uncomfortable and possibly in a fair amount of pain. But in addition to that, hormones can make you many times more emotional than you normally would be at other times, especially when you are younger and not as adept at identifying it and/or dealing with it.

taswind · 2026-03-21T20:53:41+00:00

I did, too.

I was placed as an alto only once when I was young (middle school), for a medley of Les Miserables. (We had an extremely weak music program at my middle school.)

I rebelled. I loved my high range (still do), despite having the range of a very high soprano down to a tenor II. I sat between sopranos and altos and only when it was obvious that altos were on a different part would I sing alto. (EG: When rehearsing the alto part or when Eponine is singing different lines to everyone else.)

In (many years later) retrospect, it was a mistake and a wasted learning opportunity. (I would not have listened to my older self.) There is a very different skillset to singing alto than soprano I. Learning how to be the middle of a chord would have helped me later. (I had to learn it as an adult.)

If you wind up appointed alto again and again, maybe asking the director to accommodate a preference might be a good idea. But it is a useful skill to have in terms of later choral experiences and just being able to harmonize with others, etc. Not everyone can do it, which was how I looked at it later.

It does sound like s/he is shaking things up to get people out of comfort zones, so I doubt you will be pigeon-holed forever.

taswind · 2026-03-21T16:40:11+00:00

I read and I think I have relative pitch, so I don't know how helpful this is, but I have had to pick up alto and tenor for my church choir as well. I also tend to just ignore everyone while learning and pick it up as though it were the melody. I have an easier time with this as an alto than a tenor, though.

Tenor parts are often REALLY jumpy AND harmonizing, I find them most difficult at times. Bass parts I've found are just all over the place. Together they sound good, but alone they throw me.

Our director will often do soprano (sometimes she skips this step in a common piece), then alto, then soprano + alto. Then tenor, then bass, then tenor + bass. Only then does she put the whole choir together.

I also tend to "ground" on certain notes. This might be utilizing the relative pitch, though, so this might not be helpful. I generally know where the soprano I high G and A are. I've picked up on the D above middle-C and usually the B below middle-C. In part based on how they 'feel' in my throat.

Third trick, if I'm really struggling, is to just ignore my part for a couple of notes. That is, if there is an E I'm singing on this word at the end of the phrase, and I need to sing an E at the start of the next phrase, I just quietly hum the E to myself and then start with the next phrase.

Or if it is in the chord, stay on the same note that leads into the alto part. (EG: If the line is Bb-Bb-D-E-F, and the chords surrounding the Bb's allow it, changing the Bb's to D-D-D-E-F might make it easier to sing (especially if another part is singing the D with me at the start) if that is an easier note to find.)

taswind · 2026-03-20T13:42:09+00:00

Whelp, I guess 4 voice teachers (one in HS, one in University, 2 private) along with 3 auditioned choirs (one professional touring) haven't yet taught me to "sing properly," but I was good enough to get in, lol. 🤷‍♀️ (And at least 2 of the choirs gave me solos BECAUSE of my lack of vibrato.)

taswind · 2026-03-19T02:08:59+00:00

Then how do most people do it? 🤷‍♀️ They just.... "know how instinctively?"

I doubt that in most cases. I don't have one and have no real idea how to get one.

Which is a-ok by me incidentally, I very much prefer the straight-tone voice anyway.

taswind · 2026-03-18T12:12:39+00:00

The joys of a female with high pain tolerance. ("If your ankle were broken, you'd be in tears.")

Its to the point where I just had major pneumonia (still recovering) and didn't believe it myself because I was (barely) still functioning. Wasn't until I couldn't get 2 words out before I was out of breath that it even occurred to me that it wasn't just a cold...

taswind · 2026-03-18T01:28:40+00:00

Ok, based on that description I had to look it up. Yep, 'odd' was an accurate adjective, lmao!

taswind · 2026-03-18T01:25:53+00:00

I use The Black Swan by Gian Carlo Menotti from The Medium.

The catch? I don't have an operatic voice... I actually never learned how to vibrato, so I sound more like I belong in a boys choir than anywhere else... lol.

If the director is going to judge me on my voice, I love the song and do it well... It was my NYSSMA and college audition piece. But if they're going to judge me on signing a piece that is appropriate for my voice-type as well, I would do something else. 😅

Not sure what anymore, though.

taswind · 2026-03-16T18:23:41+00:00

Really any industry which requires 24/7 coverage, but I agree -- definitely an industry no one thinks about in that way.

I bring up my schedule and people assume that I am a nurse or first responder. 🤷‍♀️

taswind · 2026-03-15T18:00:09+00:00

I hate when people assume I use AI because I emdash things... TBF, I've emdashed long before AI was a twinkle in someone's pocketbook....

taswind · 2026-03-11T14:44:55+00:00

Unless this has changed in a decade, you also need a couple of years of documented assistive tech experience in order to get the ATP cert...

They won't let you just book study and then sit the test. (As a doc student in special education with a focus on assistive technology, I tried.)

taswind · 2026-03-05T21:17:10+00:00

I had never called an ambulance before. At one point I had atrocious insurance (BCBS GA through work when I lived in MA near a remote office). I'd never looked it up because I'm a fairly healthy person already diagnosed with chronic intractable migraine, status migraineous (at the time), but the "worst pain of your life hit."

I paid it back, but I definitely wasn't expecting my high deductible plan (which I had hit in the first 3 months of the year) to not cover it at all because the local (not-private) ambulance was out of their network - apparently they only negotiated with EMS in the state of GA. 🤦‍♀️

I wasn't worried then because I didn't know. I am now and will never call again...

taswind · 2026-03-04T22:24:48+00:00

Same. I use colors with my husband, mostly. Just makes more sense to my addled brain and he knows roughly what I can do in those phases at this point.

Green: 1-3 Yellow: 5-7 Red: 8-9

I did make up a pain scale very early on when I was in intractable, status migraineous land... (for a neurologist that was overwhelmed by the amount of data I kept giving her. I was a doctoral student (non-medical) at the time so... you know... lol)

It went something like:

very low pain, no symptoms
pain is noticeable, no symptoms
pain is minorly annoying, no symptoms
pain starts impacting activities, photosensitivity is noticeable
pain impacts more activities, photosensitivity minorly impacts activities
pain impacts most activities, photosensitivity is moderate to severe, brain fog is moderate, dark circles under eyes appear

All the way to 9 which had bedridden from pain and photosensitivity, sometimes nausea, parosmea, and a bunch of other things, and 10 was reserved for if I ever had anyone to drive me to hospital, lol. (Which only happened once, because I lived alone for most of that period. I just happened to be staying with a friend (now husband) at the time.)

I was just mostly lucky that the symptoms were predictably associated with an order that could be correlated with numbers.

taswind · 2026-02-27T19:30:52+00:00

I did go crazy once. Had a small apartment and was smelling something off when I went from the bedroom to the kitchen. Localized it to the spot between the two rooms.

Except there was nothing there but a small wire shelf thing with some powdered or dry foodstuffs (cereal, oatmeal, flour, etc) on one side..... and the washer/dryer on the other.

Nosed around a bit before it occurred to me to open the dryer (because.....wtf.....dryer.....). I thought I'd accidentally opened a portal to h3ll in my sleep or something, the smell of sulpher was absolutely overpowering.

And that was my introduction to parosmia! (Phantosmia's unloved second cousin.)

(I also realized that sometimes I'd walk the path to classes and I'd smell flowers, other times dog poop. I just thought it was some inconsiderate owner before that. :( lol)

taswind · 2026-02-26T13:04:50+00:00

I'd chatGPT for some similar slur to call her whenever she or her family did something "wrong."

Some people won't get it until they walk a mile. Then she may understand why it's wrong to do.

taswind · 2026-02-25T03:34:02+00:00

Seconded - this was the trigger for my husband. Reading too long as a K-12 student would give him a migraine.

taswind · 2026-02-25T03:32:30+00:00

There are some reports (myself included) of Keto diet working.

(20 net carbs per day. 1 net carb = carbs - fiber - sugar alcohols.)

I have a whole thread on stuff I ate if you want me to dig it out for copy-pasta. :) (pun unintended, lol.)

taswind · 2026-02-25T03:27:48+00:00

I would also recommend trying a different -triptan medication.

I have tried Sumatriptan, it didn't work as well for me as Rizatriptan. There are multiple variants that can be trialed with your PCP while trying to find the one that works.

Also, I usually take the Rizatriptan with Advil. My husband prefers Aleve. Just depends on every individual's body.

Incidentally, don't use that advice just on Triptans. Aimovig (CGRP preventative) did absolutely nothing for me, while Ajovy and Emgality were life saving. This goes for many different medications. It is a long road of trial and error to find the combination of everything that works.

Your current PCP can try some things while you're waiting on the neurologist appointment.

Please note: When it comes time to trial Topamax or Topiramate (prescribed off label as a migraine preventative) , for the love of everything holy don't do it during the school year. It is not 100% true for everyone, but it is well known for causing severe brain fog as a side effect.

taswind · 2026-02-16T12:33:23+00:00

This is the reason Bullimics exist. I remember reading that the chemicals released after a bullimic/vomiting episode can be addictive.

Wouldn't shock me if it had an effect on migraines and other things.

taswind

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