Category Archives: Health Issues

FORE!arm

Golfer's Elbow Happens Here
This diagram shows EXACTLY where my arm pain is! Astounding!

A couple of days ago I mentioned that pain in my right arm. Today I went to the doctor to have it looked at. My regular physician is on maternity leave, so I saw one of her colleagues, a new member of the practice. He was about an hour and a quarter late to the appointment, because everyone else in the practice was late and traffic in Sacramento was weird because water was falling from the sky and when that happens everyone freaks out. Nurses came in at twenty minute intervals to reassure me that I hadn’t been forgotten and when the doctor finally showed up he apologized profusely and frequently for his tardiness.

He looked over my chart, saw that I’m losing weight, that I’m exercising more, that my blood pressure is down and that my resting heart rate is down, made the appropriate “good job” noises, and then got to talking about my arm. The first thing he asked was whether I’d noticed any shortness of breath or chest pains or heart palpitations in addition to the arm pain. I told him I hadn’t noticed any, and that since this was my right arm and not my left I wasn’t particularly worried (until he mentioned it). He listened my heart, more to reassure me I think than himself.

After several tests which involved squeezing my arm with his gloved hand, rotating my wrists, and even a little arm-wrestling (I won) he was baffled. Until he saw the way I was sitting on the end of the bed.

“You’re double-jointed, aren’t you?” he said.

“Why yes,” I said. It hadn’t occurred to me to mention that detail. I keep forgetting about it because it’s not something that comes up in conversation that often.

Eventually after some more investigation he concluded that I have “golfer’s elbow”. It’s like tennis elbow, but on the inside instead of the outside, and you don’t have to golf to get it any more than you need to play tennis to get tennis elbow. I used to play golf when I was a teen, though, so it made sense to me.

Anyway. No new drugs, except to take some ibuprofen when it gets really bad, and some exercises including stretches and some resistance exercises. So my arm and I should be just fine.

Side note: Of course I avoided checking up on Google and WebMD for my symptoms. I’m under standing orders from my wife, my physician and my mother to never look up symptoms on those sites. That never ends well for anyone.

That’s all I have for today. Tonight we shall be putting up our Christmas tree with decorations planned to amuse the cats and ourselves. That’ll be fun. Pictures will follow.


Holidailies doesn’t hurt as much as my elbow

Sundry

I’m not sure why this is happening to me, but by my estimate I’ve now received five spam emails over the course of a year advertising “quick and easy” sex changes. This is not something I’ve pondered. This is not something I’ve ever hunted for online. I’ve never inquired into the possibility with my physician, nor mentioned in passing to any of my friends. I doubt I’ve ever clicked on an ad that would send me these messages.

I’m starting to become curious in spite of myself…


Writing continues, though I’ve fallen pretty far behind in both Solitude of the Tentacled Space Monster and “Sauromancy”, my two current projects. I had a good conversation with my friend Michael recently who helped me gain some much-needed perspective on my career as a writer, and who has been encouraging me to have at least two novels (or at least their outlines) ready by WorldCon in August. STSM (or at least a first draft thereof) will definitely be done by then and I’ll have a solid outline of Padma by then as well.

Have I mentioned that Solitude of the Tentacled Space Monster is basically a rewrite of my 2005 NaNoWriMo novel, Fred Again? Because it is.

Speaking of NaNoWriMo, two weeks ago I officially submitted the form to not be a Municipal Liaison for our region this year. I started MLing in 2007, which means I’ve got eleven years of it under my belt. I still haven’t decided whether I’m even going to do NaNoWriMo this year. I like the camaraderie and company that I get during November, but I also feel like I’ve gotten all I’m going to get from it, after having participated for sixteen (!) years.

This seems like a good place to mention that I’ve moved things around and added a couple of pieces to my Writing site (linked to above).


Weight Loss is coming along, slower than I would like, but it’s happening. I’ve set up some non-food rewards for myself for every ten pounds that I lose. The rewards are mostly DVDs of the classic Universal horror monster movies; last week I purchased The Creature from the Black Lagoon, because I loved that movie when I was a kid and because I have a story idea that involves the Creature.

I also bought a FitBit Alta, one of the models that fits around your wrist, because my Zip, the one that slips into your pocket, cracked and stopped working and new ones are on back order, shipping within two to three weeks. Which is a lot for someone like me, who grew up in the 80s and its instant gratification culture.

am eating healthier foods, at least. And I’ve got some special tasks in Habitica to help me keep on track.


So that’s what I’ve got going on in my life right now. What about you?

The 300(+)

Sigh.

Despite walking at least 3,000 steps per day (far short of my goal of 5,000, granted), and despite writing down everything I’ve eaten, and sticking within my Weight Watchers Points range, I somehow managed to gain three pounds since I posted my entry last week. That puts me back over three hundred pounds, which sucks.

Ah well. Much like writing, when I have a setback, I just need to go ahead and start again where I left off. Or, rather, since I get tired of thinking “I have to start again”, I need to continue. Not start over. Continue.

In other news, today a co-worker of mine gave me a copy of How to Think like Leonardo da Vinci by Michael J. Gelb. It’s one of many self-help or self-enrichment books that I bought back in the heady days of the mid to late 90s, but at some point I had lost my copy, and recently I’ve been thinking about it. Actually, Leonardo da Vinci has been on my mind quite a bit. So much so that I actually purchased the audiobook of Walter Isaacson’s biography of the man. I’ve been listening to it while driving or walking, and I’m really enjoying it. It’s fascinating to learn about da Vinci’s life and the times he lived in, as well as his creativity and artistic output. I certainly don’t think I’m going to become a great Renaissance man of da Vinci’s stature, but maybe I’ll be able to expand my brain just a little bit. I’ll keep you all posted on my progress, if you so desire. Or not. Heck, I’ll do it anyway, in the form of the occasional blog post.

And that’s all I’ve got for you today.

[amazon template=iframe image&asin=0440508274]


Holidailies! Find other great blogs!

And This Time, I Mean It!

Here I am, staring the half century mark in the face. Which of us will blink first?

Anyway, I’m not actually freaking out about turning fifty years old. I didn’t freak out when I turned thirty, nor when I turned forty. Why should fifty be any different? I do recognize that I’m very fortunate that my body hasn’t started to seriously break down yet, though. I’m heavy enough right now that I could be suffering from severe joint issues, or severe back issues. I don’t. I could also be suffering from heart problems (reports of people having their first heart attack in their 40s are depressingly common), or diabetes, or a multitude of other issues.

Which isn’t to say that I am in very good health. I am overweight, I have asthma, hypertension, and gout. They’re all under control, but I’d love for them to go away without the need for medications; I’d also like to forestall all the other potential issues for as long as possible. I really don’t want to, say, have to replace a knee at a relatively young age.

So, to that end, I’m re-committing myself to getting healthier. I’ve started walking again: 5,000 steps a day for now, with a goal of increasing that to 10,000 at some point. Some day I may even take up running. Unlikely, though, since even at the best of times I’m an awkward runner. The main goal here is not to lose weight, especially since exercise isn’t really a factor in weight loss; rather, I just want to improve my stamina and my Constitution stat.

The other thing I’m planning on doing is just eating better. I signed up for Weight Watchers some time ago, but until recently I haven’t taken it very seriously. They’ve just rekejiggered their plan entirely, and it looks pretty good, though I’ll have to make some changes in how I’ve been approaching it.

Here’s hoping this all sticks this time. There are plenty of things I’d like to be doing — such as snorkeling or SCUBA diving or simply hiking/backpacking — that are just not feasible right now.

None of this is new. I’ve posted about this sort of thing many times. But with this new milestone birthday coming up, I’d like to be able to stick to all of this, without falling to the wayside within a week or so. Will you all help keep me on point?


Hey! Ho! It’s time for Holidailies! HO HO HO!

What My Lungs Have Been Up To (Etc.)

They told me I would probably grow out of my asthma.

They were wrong.

It’s true that my asthma is much better now than it was when I was an adolescent. Far gone are the days when I was swinging by the emergency room once or twice or three times a year to get a shot of epinephrine or a nebulizer treatment, but I’m still under the care of a pulmonologist, and my asthma is still a thing.

Almost a year ago, my asthma was acting up so severely and frequently that my pulmonologist and I decided to try a treatment called “bronchial thermoplasty“. I’ll go into the details of bronchial thermoplasty (BT) in another post; suffice to say, heat is applied directly to the lung tissues in order to reduce the bronchial inflammation that causes asthma.

I count the BT as a success. Although my peak flow rate hasn’t really changed that much, nor have my spirometry results, I’ve had a lot fewer flare-ups, and I haven’t had to go on Prednisone since the treatment concluded back in November.

Recently, though, I have been experiencing a flare-up. I’m chalking it up to the heat and the air quality (the air in Sacramento has been pretty chunky of late). I’ve increased the dosage of my Advair, and that has helped. But if this doesn’t clear up significantly by next week, I’ll start taking the Prednisone.

To be clear, the BT is not a “cure” for asthma, and was never advertised as such. In cases like mine, the asthma is basically a permanent state of affairs, although it can be well-managed. And what with improvements in drugs and so on (including the advent of treatments like BT), that management is getting much better. All that’s left to do are to make the lifestyle changes that my pulmonologist has been pushing on me for years now. Turns out I’m lousy at that.


In other news…

I’m still on my social media hiatus. I poked into Twitter today just to see what was going on, and I couldn’t make it past a few posts without getting anxious. Turns out Trump is still awful, and Twitter is still a tool for amplifying and echoing his awfulness, even among his opponents. Trump Tweets something foul, and gets retweeted, with pugnacious commentary, by everyone. Trump makes me anxious, and Twitter, therefore, makes me anxious as well. So I think I’m going to stay off Twitter for awhile longer.

Facebook is less problematic. I have logged in there a couple of times to check out what’s happening with my family and a few close friends, all while avoiding the politics. I don’t mind pictures of food or baby stories; on the contrary, I like those posts. Life is full of mundanities. Shouldn’t they be acknowledged, if not celebrated? Still, Facebook can be a time sink, and right now I need that time to work on my writing.

I did start up an Instagram account, but that is almost exclusively to keep up with my wife’s cat pictures. So far I haven’t posted anything myself.

Also, I’ve switched my blog back to its former theme. At some point I will sit down and customize my site and WordPress installation entirely. But, again, that will take time. So for now, enjoy the default theme from 2014.

 

I Suppose I Ought to Blog

I have a blog, theoretically, and once in awhile I post to it. I’m going to make a goal of posting at least once a week, but who knows how long that will last. Who knows indeed. I have Thoughts and Things to share, some of which might be of interest to both of my regular readers.

So here we go.

Politics.

  1. The election of Donald Trump as President was unfortunate at best. I don’t think it will end up being apocalyptic for the world at large, by which I mean I doubt we’ll see nuclear war. But for many marginalized groups, things are already getting bad. As as middle-aged, middle class, white, Christian, cis-hetero male, I probably have the least to lose, but I firmly believe that what harms one population in the US harms us all.

Writing.

  1. For NaNoWriMo, I wrote Padma, which I’d had in the planning stages for several years, ever since I wrote a strange little story called “The Flower” back in 2005. This story was called “very sexist” by one editor, but “charmingly engaging” by another. I hope that the novel works out well. We’ll see what happens to the novel version.
  2. My novella The Winds of Patwin County is still for sale, in both Kindle and paperback editions. See the link to the left.
  3. I have a silly little short story called “Tumbleweeds”, which has been called the definitive entry in the carnivorous plant genre by at least one friend of mine, and which at least one professional writer suggested ought to be submitted to the Writers of the Future contest. I’m not thoroughly satisfied with this story. It needs a new ending. But once I have that ending written, I have some markets in mind that I want to send it to.
  4. My next novel-length project will be something called And the Devil will Drag You Under, which I’ve mentioned before. The outline requires a good rewrite, since I’ve decided to switch the point of view character and make some other serious changes to it.

Health.

  1. Asthma. I underwent all three Bronchial Thermoplasty treatments, and my breathing has significantly improved. Now if only the insurance people would get their act together and decide how much I owe for that.
  2. Weight Loss. I went back up over 300 pounds at one point, but then I joined Weight Watchers (since the weight loss plan I tried to make up for myself wasn’t working), so I’ve lost about ten of those pounds. You want them? I’m not taking them back.

Kobolds.

  1. My mental state has been good of late. The Kobolds of Depression haven’t been bothering me much, though every now and then they send out a scout party.

And that’s all I got for now. Enjoy your day. And if you get a chance, listen to some Tom Waits.

A Wee Update, and A Question For You

Since I posted on the 29th, where I weighed in at over 300 pounds, I’ve lost six. I’ve also undergone the first of three Bronchial Thermoplasty procedures. Five days on, I’m still wheezing and short of breath, although the physician who performed the procedure tells me I’m actually doing quite well. It’s still a chore to walk around the block, but each day I’m getting better at it. Saturday, I was wheezing and gasping for breath and desperately reaching for my nebulizer after my walk; today I was pretty good afterwards, and while I still used my nebulizer, I was not gasping. Keep this up, I tell myself.

I’ll talk more about the procedure in my next blog post. It was pretty interesting, I think.


On Twitter tonight, I asked the following question:

It’s only fair that I start, I suppose. So here are some of my answers:

Things I Know:

  • How to write compelling fiction;
  • Writing craft and method;
  • How to program in PHP;
  • Linux; and
  • How to create and maintain a website.

Things I Wish I Knew Better:

  • The natural world around us;
  • How to write compelling narrative non-fiction;
  • How to brew beer;
  • How to program in other languages besides PHP; and
  • Hiking, backpacking, and engaging with the natural world.

Pretty decent, though short, lists, I think. What about you?

Well, then. Wheeze. Pant. Etc.

Next Thursday, I’m going in for the first of three sessions of a procedure known as “bronchial thermoplasty“, meant to improve my asthma, which has been flaring up irresponsibly since I had a respiratory infection about three months ago. When I went to my pulmonologist last week to discuss the procedure, he waggled his finger at me about my weight, explaining that not only is there significant inflammation in my lungs, my weight also prevents my lungs from expanding fully when I inhale.

Turns out he was right to chastise me.

This morning I weighed in at just a hair over 300 pounds.

This… this is unacceptable.

I’ve resolved before to lose weight; I mean, I’ve been overweight since junior high school, when my physician first chided me for it. I’ve never really stuck to it, though. I like food too much. I lead a sedentary lifestyle (mostly in front of the computer or behind a book). And everything else that’s bad for you.

And yet, there are so many things I want to do that require at least a modicum of physical fitness. For example, I would like to:

  • Visit Antarctica;
  • Visit the Galapagos Islands;
  • Go snorkeling;
  • Go SCUBA diving;
  • Go caving (not spelunking, mind you, I have no desire to do that);

…and so on. But right now I’m in a state where I can’t even walk around the block without getting wheezy and short of breath. Not ideal for anything, really, let alone wandering ice floes and saying Hi to penguins.

So here goes. I’m going to launch a personal initiative called “Zero to Hero” (yes I know it’s a song from Disney’s Hercules movie, just bear with me). It’s not much. Just a program of exercise and food intake that will hopefully get me into much better physical condition, hopefully by the time I’m fifty. ‘Cause frankly, I’m tired of where I’m at in this regard.

Ideally, the bronchial thermoplasty treatments will reduce my asthma symptoms to the point where I can walk around the block without wheezing. But they’re not the only thing I need. I need to take a serious look at how I’m conducting my life, and make some changes. The primary issue is I don’t like exercise, and also I like fatty, greasy, carb-rich foods. Preferably fried. So I need to figure out some way to make these changes in a way which makes me happy, which makes, say, running a 5K more enjoyable than sitting and staring at my computer during the same amount of time.

I’m open to suggestions.

In the meantime, though, please enjoy this video of an otter learning how to use an inhaler.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lxfPYLPLDBM

[A-Z] T is for Thumb

A brief entry for you tonight. Then two entries tomorrow. Then the [A-Z] blogging challenge will be over.

At any rate, have you ever had a hangnail? The kind that turns your finger an ugly red color when you accidentally snag it on something, or slip when you cut it off with a pair a nail clippers? I have. When I was a kid I was prone to them all the time for some reason.

Well, the past few days, I’ve had a doozy of an infected hangnail. There was pain, there was swelling, there was infection, and more. Fortunately, it’s my left thumb, so it didn’t impact me in many ways.

Well, today I finally decided the pain and the grossness were a little too much to handle, so I decided to call my doctor and see what he could do about it. The nurse asked me why I had come and I said, “This,” showing her my thumb. She said, “Oooh,” and proceeded to take my vitals and led me to an exam room without another word.

After a few minutes, the doctor came in. “So, why are you here?” he asked. I showed him. “Oh my,” he said. “Hm, I think we’re going to have to lance that.”

And so he did. And what came out was very impressive. The doctor said “Ew.” I’ve never managed to gross out a doctor before.

And now, about four hours later, the wound is still bleeding, and I’ve got a wad of gauze on it. It still hurts, but not nearly as much, and for that I’m quite grateful.


This gross entry brought to you by the A-Z Blogging Challenge.

[A-Z] L is for Lungs Of Doom

inhalers-asthma-15997244

I’ve dealt with asthma since I was at least two years old, and I don’t remember a time in my life before it. Pretty much every day of my life I’ve taken pills, used inhalers, switched on a nebulizer, or made my way to a doctor’s office burdened with wheezes and coughs and what-not. I was hospitalized a few times in my childhood, but it’s been more than a decade since that’s happened.

The doctors told me that there was some chance I would grow out of my asthma, but that didn’t happen. As I grew older, the allergies and asthma decided to stick around, just for the hell of it. Perhaps they felt they would be left behind. Or something. I don’t know. The point is, I did not grow out of my asthma. On the other hand, I didn’t suffer the aggravation of adult-onset asthma. So that’s something, I guess.

Treatment for asthma has certainly changed over the years. I’m old enough to remember a drug called Marax, which was the front-line drug of choice for years. That was about the same time that adrenalin shots were the go-to choice for acute asthma attacks (my mom has memories of me being super hyped up on adrenalin after late night visits to the emergency room). Then for a long time, Theophylline was the drug of choice for maintenance. I asked several doctors what the mechanism behind Theophylline was, and they all gave me the same answer: No one knew, but it probably had something to do with a chemical called ATP, which lives in your cells and provides energy.

But now we live in an age where inhalers, not pills, are the primary defense against asthma. Sure, I’m still taking Singulair, but it’s a tiny thing compared to the huge horse pills of Theophylline and so on that I subsided on as a kid. But it’s primarily Advair and Spiriva these days, both of which look sort of like hockey pucks, and Albuterol for acute attacks. No more Marax. No more adrenalin shots.

One constant through all this is Prednisone, which is an anti-inflammatory steroid drug that is prescribed for a number of different conditions. Throughout high school and college I took 20 milligrams a day, every day. Now Prednisone has side effects: it makes me cranky and depressed, and it makes my appetite skyrocket. I hate it. Yet even now, I still end up having to take it from time to time. It sucks.

Still, I’m fortunate. I have a good insurance plan that lets me afford the drugs I need to keep breathing, and access to good doctors who know how to treat the asthma. For a long time, I didn’t, and I was using Primatine Mist — NOT a recommended alternative for someone with severe chronic asthma — to treat myself, because it was all I could afford. Those were in the days when I did not have insurance.

[POLITICS]

Which is why I’m personally all in favor of Obamacare, and utterly appalled at any attempt to defund or repeal it. I have insurance now through where I work, but I know several asthmatics who only have access to doctors and medication BECAUSE of the ACA. Getting rid of it would not only be appalling, but downright immoral, in my opinion.

[/POLITICS]

Anyway. That’s my lungs. That’s my post for today.


This long-winded wheeze brought to you by the A-Z Blogging Challenge. Cough. Cough. Hack. Wheeze. Etc.