Positively predatory.

Photo copyright Aji, 2022; all rights reserved.

The little one, trying to bully her brother into giving up his bone. So much for her being "the scared one"; she's positively predatory.

Know what else is predatory? Lupus. It's spent the last four days chewing on my esophagus and airway, and it was so bad overnight that I actually developed a low-grade fever from it. That's gone now, and a little of the pain is easing off slightly, but I was concerned enough to take a COVID test this morning, which thankfully was negative. I didn't really expect it to be positive, but given how fast and thoroughly my condition deteriorated just since Wednesday, I didn't dare not check.

I would not wish this on my worst enemy. I would, however, like most medical professionals and policymakers to have to spend a week or two in my mocs, so that they start finding some humanity in how they do their work. If humanity were any part of it, I wouldn't have had to endure this much irreversible damage before DX and treatment, but here we are.

The firewood was delivered this morning, and we were lucky to get it; most of the usual sellers are already out or nearly so, another casualty of climate change and drought. The guy we buy from is widely regarded as having among the best in the county, but he only has six cords left for sale until next winter. If I could make $1,500 in sales today, we could have him deliver it this week, and we'd be set until winter (because at this altitude, access to a fire is something you need pretty much year-round). We gave a lot of wood this winter to folks who needed it, and one of the circumstances in which this really crops up in traditional communities is in the context of funerals. Those are occurring at unprecedented rates, courtesy of colonizers' refusal to do the bare minimum to get the pandemic under control, so I expect that there will be more folks in the months to come who will need help.

But that's $1,500 in what are essentially funds for long-term warmth and safety on top of everything else bedeviling us right now. What I thought was a $450 expense Friday was in fact $500. On top of all that, we have ~$900 in unanticipated expenses due now, the first half of that this weekend, and I simply don't have it. Second, there will be yesterday's medical bills (they still aren't in the system yet, so I'll have to pay them online this week), and that will be easily another $200, plus another $40 for my newest Rx. We're screwed. [Oh, and shelling out $54 to ship something to someone for whom Wings did a FREE repair in exchange for delivering an object to a third party? A year ago? Because they could not be arsed to come and pick it up over all that time? Never mind the labor involved, TWICE, trying to send it to a supposed "invalid address," that was scratch I needed for other things, and no, it will never get reimbursed. I'm pissed off.]

And then there's what's to come.

We all agree that it's not safe for Wings to have knee replacement surgery while this pandemic rages unchecked. The hospital has a rep, and not a good one. I mean, it's not as though there are any beds for elective surgeries right now anyway, but for a diabetic, it's double risky. However, our doc's office is approved for a couple of new injective therapies that are showing great promise, and we've decided to go that route.  The first one will be ~$200 a visit; the second type, which come after, will be ~$600 per visit. But he is without cartilage in both knees, so the pain can be excruciating; if it gives him better function and less pain without the current risks of very invasive surgery, we need to do it.  [Also cheaper than surgery, too.]

The second is for me, although mine won't start before late April. I have a new med to take to try to help with the pain and insomnia in the meantime, but it's not a long-term solution, and the feds would love to strip me of the one opioid med that is the only thing that helps take the edge off my pain. However, for the quarter-century I've known that I've had autoimmune disease, there's a treatment I've wanted to try, but the U.S. would not permit it, although it was showing great success in Europe: ketamine. It's finally legal here, and the practice has taken on an M.D. trained in its use, and our doc says that I am absolutely a perfect a candidate for trying it. I have my intake in the last week of April, which will be a few hundred bucks. If I'm approved, it will be $500+ per treatment, for a likely total of 8 treatments over a period of months. Yes, that's $4,000. If it works, though? It'll be worth every single penny and then some. But I have to start raising and saving funds for it now, because April will be here before we know it, and in the meantime, there are taxes to be paid.  So, yes, we need help raising it.

So I'm carrying a lot right now, as always this time of year, but I'm less strong physically than I used to be, and that's spilling over into other areas. There are all the newish concerns now with the lupus itself worsening, and they're adding to my already considerable stress, which by now is off the charts and affecting more than just my sleep. January is always our most expensive month of the year (followed very closely by July, and that's not even counting April, which is tax month, in this). We're out the other side, but there are still bills yet to pay that followed us into February, never mind taxes upcoming and the rest of the year, so I have GOT to make some sales this week. I need help. I can't do this alone; hell, I can barely walk most of the time right now. But there are ten new pieces since two weekends ago: the new trio in his gemstone-bead series Sunday, here; Saturday night's all new vintage-style cuff, here; a new hook bracelet the other day, with a fabulous flame-red Rosarita heart, here; you can see the previous new gemstone beadwork set, the next in his Elementals series, here; and the really phenomenal big works from two Saturdays ago are here. Those other two new pieces I mentioned last Monday night are both up here and here. And then there's the brand new one linked above. More hearts are in the works, albeit not complete in time for Valentine's Day; including, at least in theory, another hook bracelet and a pair of earrings. And we urgently need to sell them all. Please share, and buy if you can.

Links are here, and there's new work up, with more to come this week:

• Sales here; 
• Testimonials here; 
• Amazon wishlist here (priorities are first and foremost, the other ladder and the Bissell vac);
• Patreon here;
• Ko-fi here.

And if you've been contemplating a purchase? This would be a very, very good time to do it; I've got to cover all this staggering outlay somehow and get us through twelve whole months of a new year, plus put aside enough for a new well when the ground thaws enough to drill in the spring. And there's lots of fabulous new work, so please share all of the links. 

All content, including photos and text, are copyright Wings and Aji, 2022; all rights reserved. Nothing herein may used or reproduced in any form without the express written permission of the owner.