My iPod And I Are Sick

So Thursday, not long after I made my post about my iPod, it decided to stop playing after about 4 hrs of play time instead of the 18 hrs it says on the iPod mini info page. That's fine I think to myself - maybe I charged it wrong the night before since it was the first charge I gave it. Take it with me to work on Friday, with the iPod telling me that it is fully charged only to have it die once again, except even sooner than 4 hrs this time. So I give Apple support a call and they tell me some iPod batteries need to be conditioned despite that it says on their website that Lithium-Ion batteries do not need conditioning. Apparently it's also acceptable for the batter indicator to be totally off. When ever it dies, my battery indicator was over 50% full. So all this weekend I spent draining the battery and charging it back up to full in an attempt to condition it. Most of the time I left it playing over night and it died while I slept, so I don't know how long the charge held for. Currently it's just over 4 hours (75 songs) and counting.

The last couple of weeks I've been having problems with my Ulcerative Colitis again which means some not so fun times. So those of you who are squeamish might wanna stop reading now.

I can't see my specialist for another two weeks so that means in some ways I just have to suck it up and bare it. He gave me a scrip for some more Prednisone back when I last saw him before Christmas in case I had an emergency. The urgency, loose stools, and even blood are back... so yeah, definitely an emergency. Prednisone is not a fun drug - the worst symptom for me is making my already hight body temperature higher which in turn makes me sweat more. For instance I just came back from my typical lunch-time walk and now I seriously need to change my shirt which I can't do cause I don't have an extra one here. My specialist said the next time I have to go on Prednisone he'd have to try a new treatment which would mean more aggressive drugs. Sigh... I can only imagine what the side effects of those things will be... and the price of them.

Matthew.