Totally lost my sense of smell for about 2 weeks, but it came back pretty quickly. The worst long term symptom has been a substantially heightened gag reflex. Talking while chewimg gum has become a balancing act or I start heaving, just brushing my molars is enough to trigger gagging some days, and brushing my tongue after my teeth is a sprint to avoid puking. It’s trash.

I didn’t know the European Space Agency organized E3. Learn something new every day.

Not just guitar audio! I own a tube amp for my guitar and 2 tube amps for driving my higher-end headphones! They are neat little pieces of electronics history, not just in how they run, but also because most of the best tubes are old military surplus. My oldest pair are from 1945 and were made for early army/navy radar systems.

1945 JAN-6AK5 tubes

Regarding not being familiar with LaTeX, I have already successfully used this template alongside chatGPT to convert items from a block of poorly formatted text to a finished card in just a few minutes. All you have to do is feed chatGPT the item’s description and the contents of the TeX files contained in the package (itemcard.tex, itemCommands.tex, tcolorboxSettings.tex) and it will do a pretty bang up job of formatting your item to match the template.

It sucks and makes dealing ith the illness so much worse. Ironically, stress is a trigger for Crohns/UC and the stress of dealing with this has been responsible for multiple flareups of mine. Luckily, a lifeline might be on the horizon for autoimmune disorders like Crohns, Celiacs, and MS

A new (anti?)vaccine is being tested that can rewrite the immune system to take the body’s normal, healthy cells off its kill list. Fingers crossed that before I turn 35 I can just be done with this horseshit before it causes any lasting damage to my insides

https://scitechdaily.com/new-vaccine-can-completely-reverse-autoimmune-diseases-like-multiple-sclerosis-type-1-diabetes-and-crohns-disease/

I got my Crohn’s diagnosis about 3 years ago. While it has been worth it, the amount I have spent on medication, procedures, doctor’s visits, etc has kept my credit card near its limit for years and is a constant source of anxiety. This is with decent insurance. I have a job that is flexible with hours, but between flare ups and infusions, I have to miss work semifrequently and someone not in my position could be in a very tenuous state with their employer. Not to mention the stress of fighting the insurance for coverage of medications that are thousands of dollars per dose and dealing with systemic incompetence of the people involved in every stage of the process. They all fail (doctor’s office, infusion clinic, insurance, etc) to communicate in anything resembling a timely manner without my constant pestering and prodding. It is torturous, and only marginally better than the symptoms themself, and I understand exactly why people forego treatment if they have deal with any one of these issues individually, let alone with all of them. Just so BCBS/UHC/etc can turn a profit off our suffering.