Change to Twitter account

Please note I have created a new Twitter account specifically for following my coding activities and blog updates/articles, separate from my personal and gaming life 🙂 If you are currently following @TheLittlestKaty or @KatyHearthstone on Twitter, please follow @KatysCode instead for code stuff!

Katy.

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The Future of my Blog: I’m Still Alive

It’s been 15 months since I last posted. I know many of you have been wondering where I got to. Those of you who are regular readers will also know I have been struggling with chronic illness in the form of M.E. – a rather crippling condition which has far more extensive symptoms than just extreme fatigue.

If you want a quick catch-up from last year, see my earlier posts Living with M.E. as a Software Developer and Dying with M.E. as a Software Developer.

What was the conclusion of the last 12 months?

Last year was a year of extreme stress on all fronts. My residency in Norway – where I have lived most of my adult life – was in jeopardy due to not producing my own income and relying on state welfare. My health was deteriorating and I was hospitalized several times, the last trip for a month. Debt was mounting. The threat of not being entitled to further welfare was looming. I was not getting the help that the state is paid to provide, with several treatment disputes (tribunals) in the works and forced to rely on my friends for things like groceries, cooking and making sure I didn’t injure myself in the shower. Huge battles were to be fought, yet lying in bed most of the time I was in no shape to come out fighting.

Well, in all areas I’m pleased to report that things have improved dramatically. Acquiring a lawyer who was an expert in immigration law and kind enough to discount her services on account of my financial state helped me to secure permanent residency. The combined help of my doctor, nurses, hospitals and medical consultants, plus others who had fought the system before over their M.E.-related need for welfare led me to – after 4 years of financial insecurity – secure a permanent state pension. It’s a meager amount which only accounts for basic living necessities, but at least I won’t get thrown out of my home. I still don’t get the practical help I need from the state and have given up pursuing it, but the rest is a huge weight off my shoulders – so much so that I didn’t realize just how stressed out I was or how damaging to my health it was until the issues were solved.

Fighting with my last breath has pulled me back from the brink of disaster.

What about your actual health?

Contrary to expectations, we have all noticed an improvement. While I am still housebound most of the time and still sleeping very much, my pain level is somewhat reduced and my energy level slightly increased, although it comes in phases of medium and very low energy.

Besides the continuing support from my friends and the teenagers which I’ve talked about before, one thing did happen which changed my perception about “mind over matter”. For the first time in 9 years, in April 2015, I found love. I’ve never been one to function well without a partner; I always find myself more motivated and focused when I have a reason to do things other than for myself. This effect is at its strongest for me in a loving relationship. What I didn’t expect was that I now feel more energetic and more inclined to try and take up tasks that may produce a little income.

I’ve been very lucky to find an understanding partner who realizes when I’m not able to do things and helps out tremendously, doesn’t get upset that I’m poor and has the same work ethic. With a strong interest in maths and science and the same drive to learn and work on our own projects together in our spare time, we are able to pursue our interests separately yet together. Yet she still does the housework without being asked – which may sound amusing but it is really of genuine importance with my physical health. I really hope it lasts.

At this point, the predictions of my death from the doctors seem to be exaggerated. At the end of 2013 I really felt like I was on death’s door, but I’ve stabilized. It may improve, get worse or stay the same. We just don’t know, so I’ll try to make good use of each day as it comes.

To those who wrote or donated

Over the last 15 months, I’ve received donations from time to time, both large and small. I’ve also received many comments and kind words of encouragement from my readers. Most of the time I have not replied for one reason or another, but I can say that I have read each and every message and your kindness has really touched my heart; actually it has brought a tear to my eye on occasion. Many of you offered advice and tips on M.E. and I really appreciate that.

If you are one of the people who wrote or donated, and I didn’t reply, I would like to say sorry for that. Oftentimes, an inbox full of email you have to reply to is a ghastly affair as I’m sure many of you know, but I absolutely appreciated every message and every donation, so thank you all so much!

What’s happening with the blog?

I really want to get back to blogging. I have to plan it in a way that doesn’t cause me to over-exert myself. This means shorter, snappier articles and no late nights doing 8 hours of research and writing. Writing my articles a little at a time rather than trashing myself for 2 days writing then being sick for a week.

I’ve cleaned up hundreds of spam comments the last days so the blog is finally clean again. After working a lot with C++ and PHP in recent years, I’ve recently had reason to refresh my knowledge on .NET and web development technologies. This means the likely focus of my next articles will be on topics such as C# language features, jQuery, AngularJS, ASP.NET MVC, Azure and so on, as these are my current focus. I have also done a pile of 2D collision detection examples of various kinds from last year, which need to be written up. As always, I’m open to suggestions for any topics on any software development area whatsoever, so if there’s an article you’d like to see, just let me know on the contact page 🙂

Become a supporter!

I’ve never taken the traditional female role in relationships. I like to be the breadwinner while my partner does the housework 🙂 Given my overall life situation, I think it is appropriate now to ask for support in my article writing. To this end, I have set up a Patreon page which allows you to pledge a fixed monthly amount (Update 2020: I also stream on Twitch, so the Patreon account references that). Just a few small pledges from a few people will soon add up and this will surely motivate me to keep blogging, then hopefully it will be a win-win for us all.

So please go check out the Patreon page and of course don’t forget to follow the blog here on WordPress to get an email when I write new content.

Here’s to some fun programming ahead!

Thank you all again,

Katy.

Final Wishes: Crowdfund Update

[If you’d like to donate to my final wishes, please click here: Final Wishes Crowdfund]

This post is an update to what’s been happening since I asked for donations in the article Dying with M.E. as a Software Developer.

First I want to thank everyone who has donated so far for their incredible generosity. Although I haven’t replied to you guys individually, I was really excited to see donations appearing in my mailbox, and although every donation big and small counts, I was particularly stunned by those of you who sent in 3-figure sums, that was really amazing kindness from strangers, thank you so much! Of course, even those of you who sent in $5 or $10 were much appreciated, every penny counts!

The fundraiser reached $1505 of its $3000 goal. In addition, a few of you sent contributions via PayPal directly which bumped it up to somewhere between $1700 and $1800. We charged teenagers about $8 (50 Norwegian crowns) for entry to the party and adults $16 (100 Norwegian crowns) to cover the rest of the costs, and that together with wardrobe and glowstick sales raised a further $1100, which was just enough to cover the costs. Amazing!

The Party

After one month of solid planning every day by several of us, the party for the teenagers took place on 27th February 2014 from 5pm-9pm local time. Although quite a lot of people were away because of winter vacation, we nevertheless somehow managed to cram in just under 100 underage kids into Drammen’s largest nightclub. For the first time in many of their lives they were bombarded by spot lights, strobes, smoke machines and loud party music. Many of these teenagers suffer from mass anxiety but thanks to having a couple of adults on tap that volunteered especially to help out for the purpose of helping them to relax, we got almost everyone onto the dancefloor eventually. I ran around for 4 hours making sure everyone was ok and really only got to dance with them for the last hour, and slept for an entire week afterwards (no exaggeration), but it was worth it!

Afterwards, some of the girls wrote to me. Here are a few of their messages:

 

“Can I say this in Norwegian? Tonight, you really hit the mark [Norwegian literally: ‘the big drums’], I’m never going to forget this! This was totally sick! [that’s teenager speak for ‘amazing’]

Katy, I’m not alone about this, but I love you! For real, I really love you! You’re a party queen!

I’ll never forget this night” – Ida S

 

“Goodnight everyone ❤ ❤ Have had a f*cking great day ❤ Thanks to Katy who had the world’s best alcohol-free party ❤ Enjoyed myself incredibly much ❤ <3” – Victoria N (Facebook post)

 

“I just had an AWESOME night at Klubbteateret with a bunch of great people! I love all of you, and you b*tches I can’t/forgot to tag. Big thanks to everyone who made it possible and the ones shaking loose on the dancefloor. My feet hurt, so thank you.” – Marie (Facebook post)

 

Many more came to me in person and told me their own stories of the night and about the good time they had.

Perhaps the most important thing to come out of the party were three of the girls – Christina, Emine and one other I can’t name – who told me afterwards that the party had helped them a little with their social anxiety. To me, knowing how many years I suffered for, that was worth the money on its own. I used to hate parties, for all of my life, until a couple of years ago, so it was blissfully ironic.

But let’s not forget, none of this would have been possible without a big pile of money. And it was you, my blog readers, who made this possible. Between you, you have touched the lives of many suffering children, and I just wish you could see their faces and how grateful they were that some people wanted to give them a good time, and make them happy in a way other than sitting down listening to their problems and sending them to therapists – which by the way, I do on a regular basis anyway. So thank you all so much!

At the party, I spoke the names of all of the people who helped financially and practically towards the party on the mic from the DJ booth, and they cheered and whooped for each and every one of you. Personally speaking, at 34 years old, it was extremely surreal to see such an enormous amount of my friends in the same place at the same time, and I would have to say that it’s the most fun I have ever had in my entire life – without a drop of alcohol, love or sex involved. The power of friendship and bringing people together.

Here are some videos from the party:

There is plenty of video footage left to edit and upload, I’ll add more to the YouTube playlist as they are ready:

I’d like to thank the following people and organizations for their financial or practical contributions to the party, without which it would not have been possible:

Mina Engnes Horne
Alexander M. Høyer
Ian Boyd
Jesús Alberto Villegas Mata
Chu Hoang
Geoff Smith
Christiane Reneè Belsby Johansen
Juan Mata Wong
Raja Naga
Will Jordan
Jez Simon Ward
Carson Morrow
Melissa Bolstad
Péter Szakszon
Michael Vach
Michael Longbottom
Robert Wise
Lisa Kremer
Orlando Selenu
Dustin Carlino
Spencer Park
Ajit P Musalgavkar
Adalberto Neves
Liv Iren Hennum
Kevin Stordal
Martin Hellström (the owner of Klubbteateret; a club with a 23-year age limit who told me after the party they had never let any underage people into the premises before)

LightSwitchHelpWebSite
SB Net Services
Glow Brothers
Klubbteateret (and all their volunteer staff for the wardrobe, security, bartender – Jon, Camilla et al for working for almost no pay that day)

Thanks to the following people for working as volunteer staff, in some cases at the cost of a day off work:

Thomas Johannesen
Kenneth Jensen
Marius Sørum Moe
Marita Chruicshank Kagiavas
Esther Elise Langørgen Fredriksen

Thank you to Dina Williamson Madsen and Marie (Lex Motionless Wooch) for helping to organize stuff and fixing my hair 🙂

I’d also finally like to point out that while we spent $2065 in total on the party, the true value of all the items and services we used came to over $6000, but thanks to the kindness and generosity of the people above, we managed to secure heavy discounts on almost everything, and get some things for free.

What’s Left

Now it’s all about the bucket list; specifically, I’m looking to raise enough money to travel from Norway to Minnesota and Romania to see those of my friends who live too far away and can’t fund their own travel one last time. If you can help out with that, I truly believe I will have covered all the main points of what I really feel I need to get done before I get too sick to travel (technically, I already am; I’m just going to choose to ignore the hospital’s advice – “lay in bed for the rest of your life” – on this one).

Please donate here: Final Wishes Crowdfund. Every penny counts.

Thank you once again.

Love,

Katy.

Dying with M.E. as a software developer

[If you’d like to donate, please click here: Crowdfund or Become a Patron]

[Updates to this article: Final wishes: Crowdfund Update, and Future of my Blog: I’m Still Alive]

A couple of months ago I wrote about Living with M.E. as a software developer. What I didn’t write about was the true extent of my illness, the potentially fatal prognosis of M.E. and what I want to happen as a precaution to my possible death.

Living with M.E. as a software developer

This is not a sob story. I’m just going to tell you about how I feel.

I wouldn’t normally write an article like this on my professional blog, but I’m fed up and want to reach out to people and share my experience for anyone who is interested.

Many of you have noticed that the posts on my blog are very sparodic. Well, a few years ago, I started to get tired easily and found myself needing 12 hours of sleep per day. I thought that I was just someone who needed more sleep than average, although it was frustrating that the days were so short. In the last 2 years, I’ve been extremely tired, and out of professional work, my sleep level rising to 16-20 hours per day, constant pain in my back, neck and shoulders (which is occasionally excruciating; I pop painkillers like candy), a strong sensitivity to changes in temperature making me feel very hot and cold all the time (thermostatic intolerance), regular headaches that I never used to get, periodic bowel irritation, weakness in the arms and legs to the point that some days I can’t walk and others I am so tired that I can’t even lift my phone to call someone for help. Sleeping does not actually make me feel any more refreshed, I am usually just as tired when I wake up as I was when I fell asleep. Mentally, my brain is full of thoughts and ideas, but physically I am quite destroyed almost all of the time. If I walk the ten minute distance to town and take a coffee, a typical result for me would be 1-2 days of sleep afterwards. Finally, in October last year, I received a diagnosis of M.E.

PHPCron source code restored!

I’ve had many requests in my email for the code to PHPCron, which was unfortunately lost long ago in a RAID array crash. Today I found a backup and I’m pleased to finally be able to share this oft-requested piece of software once again with you! Check out more details in the PHPCron article. Enjoy!

‘Scale of The Universe and Our Closest Neighbours’ article restored!

When I resurrected the blog last year, part 3 of my About The Universe series had a quantity of lost text and images in the latter half of the article. I’m pleased to report that I found a backup of the article today and the full article is now available here. Enjoy!

 

Complete archive of old programming and science posts now available

All the posts from the original djkaty.com blog are now online!

Sadly, the last part of Scale of The Universe and Our Closest Neighbours was “lost in translation”, but more or less everything else has been recovered.

If you missed them first time around, some reader favourites were:

Science – Scale of The Universe and Our Closest Neighbours

Bluetooth – Bluetooth A2DP headphones (high quality stereo), Windows Vista and cellphones

Filesystems – NTFS Bad Sectors Resolution: The $BadClus Metafile

Web services – Automatic WSDL Generation in PHP 5

There’s plenty more – just check the Bluetooth, Book Reviews, Filesystems, IT Industry, Operating Systems, Programming, Recommended Documentaries, Science and Software category tabs in the right-hand pane for the rest of the archives.

Enjoy!