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Miscellaneous	Sep. 18th, 2009 @ 09:51 am

I just watched How Not To Write About Africa. A couple of things leapt out at me:

1) "Make sure you show that Africans have music and rhythm deep in their souls." My thought process: I wouldn't say that about Africans, specifically, but I do kind of believe it about all humanity. Especially rhythm. Rhythm is one of the deepest things in the brain - by which I mean it's something that it's almost impossible to lose, through brain injury and the like. It's also one of the things that makes us stand out. Most animals have no sense of rhythm.

And rhythm is part of the general human tendency to perceive patterns - which, to me, is what's behind an awful lot of what takes us to the place of being human - to crib from Terry Pratchett (in Soul Music), to being the point where the falling angel meets the rising ape. Science, art, literature - our most rigorous critical analysis and our wildest and greatest creativity (and sometimes those are the same thing) all, ultimately, start with the rhythm and music that are deep in our souls.

Obviously, though, the comment people make about Africans is patronising, racist crap.

2) "You also need a nightclub called Tropicana..." I've been to a place in Africa called Tropicana. It was a restaurant. A nice one.

3) I am realising that I have a curious confluence of capacity for travel. I can enter the United Kingdom on United Kingdom ancestry, if I go to the trouble of application; I have not one but two grandparents born there. Australia is reasonably well-liked in Europe; I don't have to get special visas to go anywhere I'm planning to visit.

In that video, Binyavanga Wainaina talks about a stereotype of Westerners on their way to trying to Save Africa being denied visas - but if I wanted to go to any part of Africa, I suspect I could do it easily, because I could just get a South African passport. I was born in South Africa and left it as a young child; as of a couple of years ago, this meant that I retain the right to citizenship under South African law.

I don't have a South African passport, because I have yet to plan travel anywhere where I won't be far more welcome on an Australian one, but I could get one.

4) I have long known that I am somewhat chemically sensitive. Today this came to a head when I discovered that my recent mild vertigo isn't as much a byproduct of poor sleep in the course of switching antidepressants as an adverse reaction to fluoxetine.

According to my psychiatrist this is incredibly rare.

This morning, though, I woke up feeling pretty much fine. I had breakfast. I had my medication. A little while later, I headed out towards my appointment at the Perth office of Passports Australia (a division of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade), and found myself feeling fairly profound vertigo and mild nausea.

I tried to call my psychiatrist's office, but there was no answer, so I called Dean, because, apart from being, you know, my best friend and all, she works in a hospital, and has access to doctors, and even if she didn't, she has about as much medical knowledge as it's possible to get without actually having a degree in Medicine.

I got her voicemail, left a message, and by the time she called me back, mere minutes later, I could barely tell up from down and was in a cold sweat. She assured me that this was an adverse reaction to medication, her office deals with them all the time, and promised to chase up my psych's office for me.

It was established before long that my psychiatrist was to be having lunch between 1 and 2 this afternoon and I could speak to him directly then.

I staggered in to the Passports office, only to discover that in my state of wrecked physical wellbeing I was a few minutes late and had missed my appointment. I was advised to go to the counter and see what they could do.

However, I was feeling so intensely miserable that this was the last straw, and I started crying uncontrollably in the line.

So the woman at the main counter excused herself from the people she was dealing with then, and came out and around to see if I was okay. Through my sobs and apologies I explained that I was having a bad reaction to medication, and I was feeling very sick, and I'd missed my appointment.

They took me into a meeting room where I could sit down (I think I was swaying a little), where I was supplied with cold water and tissues, and someone came and did do my passport application for me.

By then more contact had been made, and Chas was on his way to meet me at the passport office, because I was very very sick. This was fortunate for everyone when I collapsed in the office - not quite unconscious, but unable to stand unassisted, barely able to sit.

A woman who'd just been going up to the counter herself interrupted her own dealings to come and make sure I was okay. She was very nice - and will return to this tale.

Chas arrived to find me lying on the floor of the office of Passports Australia - where the staff had fetched pillows for my head and someone with a managerial air about him to try and look after me and make sure I was okay.

I was turned over to Chas's custody, and, leaning heavily on him and my walking stick, made it to the lifts. There we encountered the woman who'd been concerned before. She asked if we were driving back, and, learning Chas and I were planning to bus home, offered us a lift, as she was going back to Campbell Barracks anyway. (Which is a fair way off, and it's not a huge detour.)

I remain desperately grateful to her, because I was still sick as a dog. We talked a bit on the way - she's military, in logistics and deployment - she spends a lot of time dealing with the passports office on behalf of our soldiers. (She's heading back to the Middle East herself soonish, where, she says, the boys are doing a lot of good that's just not reported in the media - I can believe it.)

She deposited us in our driveway, where Chas helped me to the couch, where I've remained since, drinking diluted juice and playing Yes Minister DVDs to pass the time. I'm feeling much better, comparitively, though still pretty terrible. Chas has been very good to me - fetched me my arrangement of bottles of drinks, made me lunch, even helped me to get to the loo and back.

It's a terrible thing to lose the ability to get from one room to another without someone else's assistance, it really is.

I've cancelled my appointment for a haircut this afternoon, declined an invitation for this evening, and am now planning to spend the rest of the day keeping my fluids up, keeping warm, and avoiding collapsing. It does mean I have to let people take care of me more-or-less completely today, which sucks. Chas and Dean are going out tonight, but our friend Oliver is coming over in the evening and can keep an eye on me then.

Current Mood:

sick

Tags: africa, brain ferrets, drugs are bad, travel plans

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From:	sqbr
Date:	September 18th, 2009 08:54 am (UTC)

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Whao! That's an intense reaction! I'm glad people were helpful and you ended up ok(ish)

I'm a bit woozy myself today (though not that extent!) so maybe I'm missing it but: will it be easy to avoid that chemical in future?

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From:	velithya
Date:	September 18th, 2009 09:01 am (UTC)

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Yeah, she just needs to register the adverse reaction with her GP as well and then list it on any medical forms if she sees any new specialists (but once you register it with the GP it will appear on any referrals they give you anyway).

And specifically antidepressant-related, she can be put on a different antidepressant that doesn't contain it, which is what is going to happen on monday.

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From:	attentive
Date:	September 18th, 2009 09:19 am (UTC)

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Cute icon!

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From:	velithya
Date:	September 18th, 2009 09:23 am (UTC)

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thank you! It's a sketch of me by

wredwrat, a very talented artist. I love it very much :3

Edited 2009-09-18 09:24 am (UTC)

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From:	attentive
Date:	September 18th, 2009 09:34 am (UTC)

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Well, it's class.

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From:	sqbr
Date:	September 20th, 2009 03:48 am (UTC)

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Awesome. I hope this new lot are effective in a good way and have no effects in the bad way.

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From:	sami
Date:	September 20th, 2009 05:59 am (UTC)

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Yeah, having just spent over six hours at Emergency because the vertigo won't go away and this morning I had a seizure, and having only by the skin of my teeth escaped being admitted to hospital, I'm reeeaaallly hoping for improvement.

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From:	sqbr
Date:	September 22nd, 2009 03:17 am (UTC)

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:( *offers fluoxetine free cake*

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From:	ex_luludi775
Date:	September 18th, 2009 02:55 pm (UTC)

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Yikes! I hope you are feeling better now. I've been on a few different antidepressants over the years and some of them pack quite a punch, especially at first.

I had a similar reaction to Wellbutrin, but discovered that my doctor had just ramped up my dose too quickly. I only did the introductory dose for a week and then went up to the standard one. After a second try (and a much longer intro period of 3 weeks) I was completely fine, and have been ever since. Now, I love them... but that first week was a doozy. I'm surprised I was willing to try it a second time.

*hugs*

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From:	sami
Date:	September 20th, 2009 06:00 am (UTC)

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This kicked in to the max on the third day of introductory dose. I was still on one capsule a day.

This morning I had a mild seizure. THAT WAS SO MUCH FUN.

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From:	ex_luludi775
Date:	September 20th, 2009 03:45 pm (UTC)

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Holy fuck! Are you still taking them??

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From:	sami
Date:	September 20th, 2009 03:54 pm (UTC)

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No, I stopped on Friday, it just... isn't stopping with the side-effects, entirely.

I see my psychiatrist in approximately nine hours, so we'll get some professional review of this then.

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From:	susanreads
Date:	September 18th, 2009 04:14 pm (UTC)

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Ooh, adverse reactions. I've never had anything nearly that severe; I have had "Is this the medication or something else entirely?"

I'm glad you're recovering, and hope it won't interfere with your travel preparations.

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From:	sami
Date:	September 20th, 2009 06:07 am (UTC)

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IT's not ALLOWED to interfere with my travel preparations. A month from now I should either be in Scotland, walking the fields my ancestors have trod for a thousand years, or debarking a ferry in Amsterdam on my way to Norway, to try and see the Northern Lights, learn to drive a dog sledge, cross the Arctic Circle, and have other experiences more-or-less literally poles apart from life in Australia.

MY BRAIN CHEMISTRY CAN BITE ME.

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From:	rainbow
Date:	September 18th, 2009 09:22 pm (UTC)

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Many vibes headed your way. Bad reactions to meds stink, don't they?

Thank heavens you encountered compassionate and helpful people and were able to get home safely.

Milk thistle helps me a great deal when I have bad reactions to to things, and it supports the liver as well.

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From:	sami
Date:	September 20th, 2009 06:09 am (UTC)

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Currently, what seems to be helping me is vast amounts of water, and today, a litre of IV saline at Emergency.

But it is nice to get a reminder of the way in which the world contains ample supplies of good people.

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From:	lady_ganesh
Date:	September 19th, 2009 04:03 am (UTC)

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So glad you got treated quick.

The video, if it's the same as the essay, also had a bit about goats. Which kind of made me laugh, because I had to think about why that would be Exotic and Strange, because I know plenty of people with goats, and then...oh yes NOT EVERYONE LIVES OUT IN THE BOONIES YES.

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From:	sami
Date:	September 19th, 2009 05:50 am (UTC)

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Whereas I was like, well, yes, in *some* parts of Africa, of COURSE there will be goats, but I think that treating that as Exotic and Strange is just a sign of how many (sub)urban people are just ~~stupid~~ thoughtless about what life is like in NON-urban environments, because while I have spent my life in the city and therefore rarely encountered goats, my school friend's father who had a market garden did in fact have goats (market garden is basically a small farm within the bounds of the city that produces perishables), and I vaguely associate goats as being around in Europe because of feta and having been served goat by Italian family friends, and so on.

Goats aren't weird. Goats are just goats. You may as well treat it as Exotic and Strange that non-urban Africans may well have cattle, or sheep, or whatever. They're edible, milk-producing animals, this makes them useful, move on, you know?

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From:	lady_ganesh
Date:	September 19th, 2009 04:20 pm (UTC)

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And then, of course, you start thinking of how many portrayals of Africa actually have goats, and OMG CITY PEOPLE ARE WEIRD.

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From:	sami
Date:	September 20th, 2009 06:11 am (UTC)

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I once had a very nasty argument over lunch with an acquaintance who told me, in so many words, that I shouldn't be so worked up about the situation of farmers and rural Australians because I live in the city.

I may possibly have pointed at his lunch and demanded to know where the fuck he thought his food came from.

The conversation rather went downhill from there.

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From:	lady_ganesh
Date:	September 20th, 2009 01:31 pm (UTC)

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I bet.

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