Tag: Energy

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Aesthetics Culture Politics

Day 1679 and Avoiding the See and Be Seen of Luxury Travel as Post-Liberalism Nears

The lingering live embers of Venkatesh Rao’s charnel age have left me with deadened impression in my bodily sensorium. Tasting, breathing, and seeing the culture of now feels somewhere between spoiled and not quite ripe.

One of my minor affectations is periodizing my writing into sardonically named 6-year eras…We’re about to enter the last year of the third age of Ribbonfarm, (2019-24), and I finally have a name for it: this is the Charnel Age. December 21 Ribbonfarm

I have been known to drop an Antonio Gramsci joke from time to time. This is harder to make a joke about though. The age which was being born as Gramsci was imprisoned by the fascists from 1929-1935 surely felt as filled with morbid symptoms and putrefaction.

How it compares to our current perverse extended gerontological Fourth Turning of death and rebirth is yet to be seen.

The old world is dying, and the new world struggles to be born: now is the time of monsters

That quote is a translation of Slavoj Žižek’s which isn’t quite as pithy as the Slovenian made it sound.

La crisi consiste appunto nel fatto che il vecchio muore e il nuovo non può nascere: in questo interregno si verificano i fenomeni morbosi più svariati.”

Or for those lacking Italian skills (which as I do) here is it translated more literally.

“The crisis consists precisely in the fact that the old is dying and the new cannot be born; in this interregnum a great variety of morbid symptoms appear.”

Rao calls charnel vision “a tendency to see things from the perspective of natural processes of transience, death, and decay,” which can feel foreign to the long century of stability.

Americans enforced this order through its dollarization and the financialization . But empires change and even the longest institutional decay can be seen from far enough remove.

And so we have Swiss politicians running to Washington DC as the cosmopolitan upper classes try to enjoy an August off from the always on mania of this interregnum while also keeping an eye on matters.

As it turns out the extra mile to get to an esoteric Dolomite lake or a less well known riviera (might I recommend the Balkan coastlines to the more adventurous). If you need to find me, I won’t tell.

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Travel

Day 1677 and Fighting Tourist Traffic in the Era of Infrastructure Underinvestment

I’ve been in traffic for almost two hours and I’ve gone a sum total of 19km or 11 miles. High season is a mess when the world is trying to pack in leisure time all at once.

It doesn’t matter if it’s the entrance to America’s beloved natural parks, a scenic coastal highway or the route to a dysfunctional regional airport. All paths to time off from Montana to the Mediterranean are a mess.

I slathered myself in sunscreen and I’m so glad I made that decision as even inside an air conditioned car with tinted windows I feel the sun beating down on me. Sunglasses and a hat can only take you so far.

There are many places who make big claims of wanting tourism. Sure you hear protests from some of the most popular European destinations about over crowding of attractions and the toll it takes on infrastructure. But it pays the bills for millions of communities.

Still experiencing the stand-still road traffic of a poorly resourced area who hasn’t invested adequately into infrastructure makes you wonder. You say you want the money from tourism but won’t make the capital investments and expenditures to make it work?

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Travel

Day 1675 and Running to Stand Still

The accelerationist types must be feeling smug as the disorientation caused by so much of the world speeding up is a persistent feature of life now.

I’m trying to organize a fairly elaborate vacation that I should have nailed down the details on at least a month ago. I am alas doing it what is functionally last minute and I’m panting at the effort of coordinating preferences, availability, timing and the thousand other logistical details.

We have a range of preferences to accommodate and it’s driving me a little bit nuts and I have no one but myself to blame. I cant manage more than three hours in a sitting position in a car or airplane without hurting. Standing helps but it’s really laying down and relaxing my spine that helps.

The other preferences are more of the one person likes fine dining and Michelin caliber restaurants and another likes delivery and Netflix.

We have to balance intensive activities in hot weather like hiking and sightseeing against the desire to lay out in the sun near a body of water. Really all the classics of different strokes for different folks.

I don’t want to be too ambitious about any of this as I am really just barely out of the woods from July. And I’m being vague about when and where, as I’ll like pretend like we have some amount of operational security. Writing is all about the specific but the best I can do is say it will involve driving and water.

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Medical

Day 1674 and Venturing Out

I had a very indoor July which I was not expecting. One of the joys of Montana in the summer is relatively temperate conditions until you hit the end of July and into August.

Obviously freak heat waves come when they come (a lot more than I expected these days) but generally you enjoy low humidity comfortable sixties and seventies temperatures with full sun and the occasional afternoon thunderstorm.

We enjoyed some cabin camping in June but because of my absolutely out of left field emergency surgery for a deep tissue infection I’ve been an indoor cat for the remainder of the summer.

No sweating, no swimming, no excessive movement and lots of rest. Some classes of antibiotics come with very specific warnings for sun exposure as well.

I was meant to be in bed resting and frankly work was almost impossible during some of the worst of the antibiotic transitions as the pain from systemic stress was hard. Which is atypical as I’m almost always able to work through pain.

But as I am almost finished with the last round of antibiotics and I’m seeing good progress on the wound I went outside today and even broke a little bit of a sweat.

I didn’t do anything crazy just some groceries and errands but I walked two miles in the process and I’m doing pretty well. I was feeling so optimistic I bought a sun hat. We’ve got some much needed vacation activities planned and I’d like nothing more than being outside in the shade with my family.

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Biohacking Chronic Disease Medical

Day 1668 and Rounding The Corner

I really feel the weight of month of July today as I am just now getting the sense I am making a recovery. I did not have post surgical wound care for an abscess on my list of “to do’s” for the month but here I am.

Nor did I expect to work through a pathology report on my own while cobbling together the best blend of infection coverage through a globe spanning set of physicians and sub specialties.

I didn’t know what a sub dermal panniculitis was or how to treat an infection where that was a proximate side effect. But I learned and I managed my care to a much better result. I had real consequences from disinterested burned out doctor and I had to step up.

Frankly I’ve spent more time on artificial intelligence projects doing differential diagnostics on myself than I ever conceived was possible. I owner my own data and inputs and I could make inferences while corroborating it with physicians who are more interested in my care.

I am a slow healer and there is a high cost associated with immune suppression biologic drugs for chronic autoimmune conditions. I have no choice but to be active in my own care and tools as simple as a deep search on Perplexity take you so far.

There is a high cost to healthcare in America and it’s not getting any better. That I can now reliably use any number of commercial AIs to break down lab and pathology reports is a huge boon to all of humanity. Real miracles are happening because someone used AI to double check blood work and symptoms.

Healthcare gets rationed by price or by time and we’ve never really known an abundance of trained doctors in my lifetime. But we might have an abundance of intelligence about healthcare in our lifetime.

Part of put quandary with care in America is regulatory capture by organizations like the American Medical Association and others of its ilk. Of course they prioritize what works best for keeping their continued privileged position on care.

I lost a lot of time this month to health but I gained more than I realized. We are seeing changes in a system that has only ever known scarcity. And we know it’s not good enough.

Categories
Medical Travel

Day 1655 and Healing Waters

I am now forty eight hours post operative and I feel like shit. I was warned but I am not enjoying how the very intense antibiotics make my brain feel.

The first five to ten hours after surgery when the local anesthetic hasn’t fully worn off and your adrenaline is still pumping are the easiest. I was smiling and happy to walk myself to the hotel and I was snapping pictures of the Turkish Cipro in amusement. How cool was all of this?

It didn’t stay cool. The first 24 hours are weird as you are still gooy and gushy so it’s tons of clean up and hand done hygiene. You aren’t allowed to shower yet, so it’s just a liminal state of grossness as you wait for swelling to abate and antibiotics to work.

Well, I’ve passed hour forty eight and I’m brain dead. I can’t think straight. The work I was excited to do in bed as I stared out over the Bosphorus was probably a fantasy.

I’m tired. I’m swollen in very tender areas. The idea of showering is simultaneously appealing and too exhausting to even contemplate. I am staring at the lovely bathtub I can’t use. Suddenly all the sources of water submersion are a threat instead of a joy.

We don’t have a bathtub at home so I only get to relax and soak a tub when a hotel and here is a beautiful one that I cannot use

Despite my exhaustion it’s very hard to sleep well in this situation. I need to keep pressure off the wound so it’s all about pillows and angles. I stayed up playing on Twitter where someone asked how a bottle of water for skincare could possibly sell at such a high price.

Right about now as I contemplate my banishment from the pool, the beach and the bathtub I think about how much I’d enjoy the healing waters of a mineral hydrotherapy spa.

Categories
Chronic Disease Medical Travel

Day 1654 and Post-Operative Exhaustion

As I slowly walked myself out of surgery yesterday, I thought to myself “I actually feel much better!” And I genuinely did.

If you have a gentle stomach, maybe stop reading here. I’m fine. I’m on my way to well. And this will be graphic.

I do feel dramatically better having had the “slouching towards septic” abscess drained of infection as well as removal of the initial pearl style irritant (a 3mm deep entirely horizontal hair growing not up but sideways like an underground fracking tube).

I appreciated having the walls of the abscess pulled out bit by bit in a delicate curettage by my silk sundress clad physician. It was all a success.

But post operative care is hard? I’m a mess. I’m exhausted, loopy, and the hotel’s guest services are concerned enough that they are doing me such kindnesses like sending up tea and maxipads. Turkish hospitality comes from a place of genuine kindness and I need that right now.

It’s been a long journey of stupid to end up in Istanbul to get a smart fix. Going from a squishy movable almond sized lump without any pain six weeks ago to a hard plum sized lump was disconcerting enough. Especially having done my damned preventive care visits with the useless Dr Oetkin in Montana.

Have had two days of prodding, poking, squeezing, moving and ultrasounding done in the Mediterranean, I was swollen, feverish, and all hurt to the touch. I was afraid.

How did I get here? How had my next generation IL-17 managed to cause me so many negative side effects even as I was doing better across all biometrics and across quality of life metrics?

No wonder the doctor in Istanbul was so concerned. All the previous doctors had done was make my situation worse though inaction and delay m, and then the action they took made it worse.

Now I have recovery ahead of me. Last night as I went to pee, I realized why they had padded the upper areas of my underwear with maxi pads. I’ve got no discharge downstairs but on the upper bikini area there was no such luck.

I only needed one stitch to close up thanks to the careful work of the doctor, but a lot of goo came out during the surgery drainage and I was warned there was still more to come, though it would taper off.

I gently washed the area with a cloth and antiseptic soap before application of antibiotic cream (my third type of antibiotic). I gasped as I saw the first lightly red sticky watery fluid gush out rapidly around the stitch. It was so fast and there was so damn much. Bodies are disgusting what else can be said?

I mopped up with a clean moist towel and applied a thick layer of antibiotic cream, but I had learned the deflation of the abscess wasn’t quite done. The swelling, I was told, would take a week or more to full abate.

I’ll be sleeping this off for the day but if you are in Montana with an autoimmune disease and need a dermatologist I’d recommend you stay away from Dr. Tara Oetken at SkincareMT. Without her hasty heuristics and lack of conviction I wouldn’t be in this mess.

Categories
Biohacking Chronic Disease Medical

Day 1650 and Trying to be Heard

I don’t think of myself as someone who struggles to be heard. I am loud, I speak up, I have a large social media platform and I don’t mind being impolite if I need to be heard.

And yet, the incidents where I am ignored, dismissed, or even outright insulted seem to be on the rise. I follow the rule of three assholes generally so I have to wonder if it’s me, but nothing makes you wonder more than getting really bad basic medical care.

I am attempting to get a cyst (or abscess or infected lymph node or whatever the heck it may be) diagnosed in a country where I don’t speak the language.

No one can agree what doctor is right. It was a gyno who sent me to a dermatologist who wanted me to go back to a gyno last month.

Now I’ve got a gynecologist who wants me to repeat the conservative management program I’ve been doing for months.

Which hasn’t worked, but she is implacable in her iron lady demeanor. Bactine and warm soaking. Maybe she does understand the immune suppression part? Thankfully I come with receipts.

I carry my patient charts, a synopsis of my diagnosis, the side effects of drug treatment and a short “why I am here and for what.”

A radical change in size & texture on a cyst with no response to antibiotics is exactly what the last four doctors told me to watch for as it signals a need for active management.

Now this shouldn’t need years of bloodwork (which I brought and charted for them) or a paragraph on high risk patient needs or a history of my main medical issues and the rationale for why I am requesting imaging. It’s an abscess that’s growing so figure out what kind, remove it and then we figured out why.

And yet it does require all of this to get anywhere. I spent 5 hours in a doctors office today and two hours in one yesterday.

I’ll waste another two days while they will run new bloods when I have a fresh set from a week ago. And still they fought me like hell on imaging.

Which is the only way to decide on the course of treatment. Instead I should do warm compresses and iodine for a month (sorry the first four months not count?) The temptation to unleash is overwhelming.

It was a fight. I got an ultrasound. And I did get a diagnosis and it needs to be carried out asap. Figuring out a doctor and a recovery plan I trust is going to be hard but that’s a tomorrow problem.

Abcess. Filled with bad shit. There is a hair in it acting the part of irksome pearl. 17×13 mm diameter. 3 mm from skin so it’s not small.
Categories
Biohacking Travel

Day 1647 and More Sleep

Fifteen hours of sleep and a spa day does fix a week of disrupted sleep. I may need some more downtime of resting and recovery and maybe more water drinking before I have a cogent thought.

Rocky Mountain High
Freedom Thongs
Sweat it out
Categories
Biohacking

Day 1646 and A Little Spa Day

After seeing my sadly “in the red” recovery scores from my Whoop, I felt a bit of a cortisol mitigation effort was in effect. In other words, I took a little spa day.

When I was younger and living in Chinatown , my apartment was above an acupuncture and massage joint that specialized in pressure point work. Going once a week probably saved my life. It was affordable and close and good.

It was always packed with the working class of the area. The prison complex wasn’t too far away, we had a police precinct two blocks down, and the courts buildings system was a block away and enormous warren of humans. A lot of very intense people in tough, sometimes very physical situations needed to have it worked out of their. Kids.

By comparison, my body was easy work for a man who worked on hurt cops and stressed out prosecutors. White girl problems are easy.

So I’ve done a run of sauna and cold work. I’ve had a massage. I have stretched and done breath work and moved around to feel things reset their flow.

I should really remember that heat, cold, oxygen, movement and pressure really do solve most problems. Don’t forget to eat and drink.