Tag: Emotions

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Chronic Disease Chronicle

Day 90 and Health ROI

The American attitude towards healthcare leans heavily towards pharmaceuticals. Much of what ails us might be mitigated by nutrition, supplements, exercise or physical treatments. But we tend to prioritize a “one and done” approach that lends itself to prescriptions for any ailment you can pinpoint. It’s not unusual to be on upwards of ten pills a day if you are chronically ill each one treating a distinct symptom. You mostly pray they don’t have any interactions and that the cure isn’t worse than the disease especially when it comes to drugs like opioids that can form dependencies.

I’m not entirely opposed to this approach if I’m being honest. A wholistic approach is a lot of work and when you are sick having the energy to do a bunch of shit is unrealistic. Even as I’m rounding the corner on controlling my autoimmune disease I still find it time consuming and often exhausting to manage all aspects of my health. The meal planning, the physical therapy, the body work, the exercise protocols, the sleep regimens, the supplement routines (mine easily costs upwards of $500 a month and no it’s not covered by insurance) and the nonstop recording and monitoring is practically a full time job. And you can’t even tell if it’s working half the time with crashes and system cascades that require heavy duty intervention. It’s hard to spot signal in the noise but that doesn’t mean it’s not there

Being sick in America feels surprisingly similar to being a startup founder. You get dismissed constantly. The workload rarely relents. And progress is only visible if you are diligent about monitoring core metrics that might reveal a trend line. It’s no wonder that entrepreneurs can be avid biohackers. We record and measure and monitor and hope that some higher authority (a physician or a venture capitalist) will spot the the key inflection point that may change our lives.

I have over 1,000 recorded data points just on my usage of pain medications and it’s correlation to my functionality. Despite my meticulous tracking and my adherence to protocols, I regularly have encounters with medical professionals that discount what I have to say. Like a founder I may be an expert on my “startup” but a physician or other expert has a lot more longitudinal data. The question ends up being do you as the operator (or the patient) have some insight the professionals do not? Honestly it’s hard to tell. Being wrong is pretty common. Doctors and venture capitalists know this. So do you as the patient or founder. Trust in these interactions can be low because of this.

Unlike with a company where you can walk away, being a patient means you are stuck with it. I have to work through the blocks as if I don’t I’m resigning myself to a life of illness. Which isn’t to say I can’t tolerate being ill and disabled, merely that I don’t believe that “this is as good as it gets.” I’m happy with my life but I do believe it’s within my control to do and be more.

For me this has meant juggling the pharmaceuticals that control symptoms but don’t heal me alongside an elaborate functional medicine and biohacking routine. I think of these drug for symptom regimens a cash flow business that can do well but will always remain the business that it is without a creative owner pushing for more.

I don’t want to just run my “business” even if it might be a self sustaining one. I’m at a point where yeah I can live like this for the rest of my life. But I want more than having a store or a service. So I test. And I experiment. And I throw tons of time after protocols and treatments that may be woo or bullshit. Or they may in fact be the turning point that lets me be more. And if it is then it’s all worth it. Much of what I’ve done has been worth it. But how the fuck do you determine that in a system that has so little interest beyond simple solutions like a pill? If I had the answer I’d tell you. Until I do I’m spending my time on machines that shoot electromagnetic pulses into my spine and glugging down micronutrient slurries. I hope the hacks turn into sustainable growth channels. But I could have just waisted a few hours on nothing. Until then I’ll record the data and hope the trend line reveals something.

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Chronic Disease

Day 88 and The Insistence of Pain

It’s only with hindsight that I realize pain has been a persistent companion in my life. If something is normal for you the grandiosity of ego can tend to make you assume its true for everyone else. I spent much of my life thinking it was normal to be in pain, to be tired, to feel unwell. Life is suffering right? As it turns out no most people are not suffering from debilitating pain. I was not normal.

I’ve been feeling well recently and when I have extended stretches of health the memories of pain fade. This is good as pain is an insistent companion. They tell you to ignore your pain or place it on a shelf or some other “removed” metaphor but I’ve always found this to be bad advice. You can channel all your focus elsewhere but the pain is there. And worse, now you are using all your energy to pull your attention away instead of what you may have preferred like work or a hobby. It’s a consuming experience one way or the other. You can feel the pain or you can feel the force of your willpower but regardless you will feel. Pain is demanding.

When pain is chronic you think you will get used to it. That perhaps it becomes a background noise after a time. The way you get used to a television or radio playing in another room. But it’s not really like that. My pain is in my spine. It comes from a swelling that chokes out the nerves. The worst spots for me are between where my bra strap would land and my mid back. At its worst it runs the length of my spine and impacts my ability to walk. There is no comfort to be found with this pain. Sitting up. Standing. Even laying down. It finds your attention. It does not give reprieves.

Ben Hunt at Epsilon Theory wrote about the two types of pain.

They say that pain is a teacher. This is a lie, at least when it comes to pain beyond understanding. I suppose understandable pain could be used as a correction, as part of a causal learning process. Pain beyond understanding, though … pain beyond understanding teaches you nothing.

I live with a lot of pain beyond understanding. When it grabs me there is little I can do but hope to survive. It consumes. You have tools to fight but more often the only reaction that makes sense is fighting to relieve it. As Ben said, it has nothing to give me. It teaches nothing in this state. It’s beyond sensory inputs. This pain envelopes you into another reality. And when it is relieved you pray it will never reappear again. I know that it will. But the fear of it makes me bargain with myself. I say I will redouble my efforts to fight for my health. As if I weren’t doing as much as I can. I remind myself I have pain medication for a reason and I should simply take it. Sometimes I do.

Pain doesn’t care. It isn’t an enemy. It simply exists and you pray the tools you have will relieve it. When a true 10 on the acute breakthrough pain comes all you can do is hope to survive it. And when it is relieved the sweetness of its passing is like no other pleasure. It’s like having your humanity restored.

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Chronicle

Day 37 and Boundaries

I recently did a Twitter poll where I asked folks what they used to develop their emotional capacity. I listed therapy, meditation/mindfulness, coaching and “nothing” as the options. A full third of respondents choose nothing.

This really took me by surprise as much of my follower base is made up of folks in the technology industry along with significant business and finance types. Most have Silicon Valley mindsets tend to prioritize hobbies like biohacking and performance. Having insight into your mental and emotional state has become a burgeoning part of the quantified self movement. So finding out that a large number of people don’t invest in their mindset was, to quote Geoff Lewis, a narrative violation. I really thought we were all committed to parenting our inner children along with our Wim-Hoff breathing, weight lifting and protein eating.

But maybe I shouldn’t find this odd. It’s much easier and certainly more linear to put gains on your squat and cut your fat mass to show your abdominal muscles. The math on that can be done on apps and coaches can help along your progress. It’s trackable. Clear metrics for success exist. OKRs for your body. But learning to let go of self limiting beliefs, check your desire to self victimize, or refrain from vomiting your emotions all over your friends is less quantifiable.

Still you can track your meditation minutes in Calm or your time with a professional coach which your venture fund offers with their new fangled mental health benefits. So why is it that a third of people happily clicked that they were fine not doing anything for their emotions?

I suspect it has something to do with the challenge of knowing yourself and that knowledge necessitates drawing new boundaries. The further one gets in a journey of emotional and mental health the more one has to let go of habits and people that undermine us. Sometimes it can even mean giving up all the things we thought made up our life. Such is the high price of happiness. People may reasonably make the calculation that it’s too high a cost. That being unhappy isn’t so bad. That boundaries are too expensive for someone like them. So they tolerate what they’ve always known as the unknowns of pursuing happiness is too much.

It’s quite likely I’m overthinking this one as I’m currently reminding myself of the value of boundaries in my own life. Perhaps it’s as simple as being a fish in water. If you don’t know the water is there why question it? A third of people may have never considered the benefits of questioning their existing beliefs and emotions. Which saddens me a little. But also reminds me that investment in emotional growth is a significant edge.