Tag: Health

Categories
Chronic Disease Travel

Day 882 and Disability & Energy Policy

I hate when I am made to feel embarrassed and ashamed by my disability. And the German’s current energy policy has me feeling like my medical needs are something of which I should be ashamed. And that’s bullshit. It’s a policy failure.

I have ankylosing spondylitis (an inflammatory condition in my spine) along with a cluster of other autoimmune issues like allergies, migraines and dermatitis. If my symptoms flare I can’t walk and the treatments are unpleasant. Methotrexate, steroids, specialty biologics injections.

I live in chilly dry Montana as the cold is better for my condition than the heat. But when I travel I am confronted with heat, humidity and pollution which exacerbate my symptoms. Sometimes significantly. It has caused great anguish through its impact on family gatherings.

I find myself in Frankfurt for a mix of personal and professional reasons. The Airbnb I rented for the month was one of only a handful that offered aid conditioning at all. And one of only three that was a personal apartment and not a hotel service using Airbnb.

So I booked it even though I noticed it was on a main road in the neighborhood of Sachsenhausen. The host assured me it was quiet and most of the apartments looked out on a garden in the back.

Alas the bedroom was on the main road so I was unable to ventilate the apartment by keeping the bedroom windows open as the exhaust and debris from the roadway left my eyes red, itchy and I woke up with hives several times.

I bought a small fan at the local store and kept the bedroom door open and had the fan blow cooler air from the back windows overlooking the garden. I was still struggling with ventilation as the car exhaust and fumes meant the bedroom had to be sealed. Even then I paid $50 for a cleaner weekly to clean up the pollen, debris and dust that would get in from leaving open the window

I’d leave all the windows open on the good side, keep the apartment sealed and dark during the day, and have three weeks of extremely shitty sleep on my Whoop to prove it. But overall this worked well until it got hot enough to warrant air conditioning usage.

Sadly summer is rounding the corner and a few days in the low 80s (or 27-28 C for you Europeans) was too hot for my spine to tolerate comfortably. I was struggling enough with keeping the bedroom cool with the fan and back open window so I decided to run the air conditioner. It was old, noisy and hadn’t had its filters changed in a while. I made do.

The neighbors complained. Twice. Once through the Airbnb owner and the second time by knocking multiple times on my door. I had to explain to them embarrassing levels of medical detail to assure them this wasn’t preferred temperature or taste but a medical necessity. I hadn’t expected to show off my vials of injectables to be taken seriously but thanks guys. They wouldn’t back off till I showed my records and medications insinuating I was both a bad person and that authorities could be involved.

This weekend it is expected to be in the mid eighties so I thought rather than fight off my neighbors and get another bad night of sleep with a dirty air conditioner and noisy roadway I’d check myself into a hotel. I’d been having a significant flare of all my symptoms which had required emergency doses of steroids, two unexpected infections (I take immunosuppressants) with two different antibiotics, and quite a bit of other remedies.

I woke up with strain and in a sweat. Antibiotics & steroids are fun

Well I guess the final boss of Europe’s poor energy policy was about to land it’s final blow on me. The hotel I checked into for some relief won’t turn its air conditioning below 72 or 22 C. It has to be much warmer to get it to my preferred temperature of 17 while I was experiencing this flared fever state. That apparently wasn’t an option.

So I guess I’m going to check one more hotel to see if they will allow me to cool my prior to my preferred temperature or I’ll prepare for another fight with my neighbors over running the air conditioning overnight again. Wish me luck. Build more nuclear power. Install solar arrays.

Categories
Biohacking

Day 881 and Set a Timer

I’ve always been the type of thinker who enjoy playing with differences and similarities. I find it pleasing to see common attributes of humanity. I’m soothed seeing we are more alike than not even across vast genetic & cultural distances.

I equally enjoy spotting games of “one thing is not like the other” as part of the general pattern recognition that evolutionary Darwinism implies. The freaks and mutants are who push us forward. Recognizing the value of positive differentiation is the basis for every job I’ve ever loved from fashion to finance.

This might be why I enjoy tools like timers, trackers, spreadsheets and other measurements of inputs and outputs. I like inferred knowledge and probability. Those goofy old standard test questions “this is to that: as that is to this” were my favorite.

I understand how totalizing using these tools can be. I’m currently experiencing the intense urge to smash my Apple Watch as I am asking it to “set a timer for 45” minutes several times a day. I’m setting shorter timers too.

I am spreading out a biohacking regimen while my body goes through an ugly symptom flare that suggests both allergy issues and a general immune response to what I believe is an infection from some scratching that opened my dermatitis. Fun huh?

The expectation that one’s body is unique and an N of 1 pairs poorly with averages, reversion to the mean, and the persistent beeping tinging ringing reminders of a timer going off telling you to follow the routine. So here I am wishing to some spreadsheet brained hope that my inputs and outputs will balance and I will be fine if we got the dosing right.

Which is the prayer of everyone who has ever experienced a medical malady. Set a timer, wait, and pray to an actual God as the ones in our phones aren’t up to the task of being deities just yet. More like having a troublesome djinn that promises the pain will go away if you do exactly ask it asks.

Categories
Chronic Disease

Day 880 and Pollen

It seems as if I exposed myself to a bit too much pollen in my wandering yesterday but I’m so itchy I’ve reconsidering whether pain is more or less all-absorbing than itching.

So I am giving myself permission to take it nice and easy on this blog post today. This morning I ordered an enormous number ($150 or so) of creams, unguents and lotions as well as a number of anti-histamines from a German apothecary in the hopes of gaining some relief.

Drug Delivery By Wolt
An assortment of German antihistamines and a few fun free samples as I guess I spent a lot.

I take multiple antihistamine already but I got a fourth (it’s Claritin in the US. A got a corticosteroid cream, something called Zugsable or black cream (it smells like tar) and a Linola Fett cream which appears to be like Weleda skin food without the fragrances. Plus some melatonin as I’m not sleeping so great with this itching. They tossed in some cosmetics as well which I will definitely put to use. And that’s all she wrote today.

Categories
Finance Travel

Day 878 and European HVAC

If I were a betting women, and I am, I’d be placing them on European heating, ventilation, and air conditioning corporations. Yeah, I think HVAC is a growth industry for the continent.

HVAC is use of various technologies to control the temperature, humidity, and purity of the air in an enclosed space. Its goal is to provide thermal comfort and acceptable indoor air quality.

You’d think after the pandemic brought the importance of air quality to everyone’s attention, that decent ventilation would a priority. Add in the increasing frequency of deadly heat waves and you’ve got real tailwinds for HVAC technology being crucial not only for comfort but for life.

So why are European apartments somehow both poorly ventilated and poorly insulated at the same time? Is there even a term for this? Finally I viscerally understand why bad air (mal air) is one of the canonical health problems of the Western Cannon. All those nerdy writers inside were suffering.

I’ll grant 1700 era European cities have more excuses than modern cosmopolitan ones for having stuffy, dusty, stinky, hot and yet somehow also cold and drafty air. They didn’t have electricity so no fans, pumps or air exchanges. But why the fuck haven’t they fixed it yet?

The worst plague of the great indoors is shitty HVAC. We have no excuses for it anymore as it’s an environmental health hazard on its own before we even consider the current energy crisis (don’t even get me started on what counts as being green). Refusing to keep your apartment’s ventilated and insulated is bad for your body and your budget.

So if anyone has suggestions for investing up and down the value chain of improving HVAC systems I think we’ve got a growth industry on our hands. Europe can’t refuse to air condition forever and it sure can’t afford to continue to burn coal and Russian gas to heat drafty apartments either.

Categories
Travel

Day 875 and Spring Fever

I had a flu this time last year. I was in process of closing on our home in Montana. What a week that was for me. The first piece of real land I ever owned. Better late than never.

This May I think I just have plain old hay fever. Blooming trees on Frankfurt city streets combined with a roadside bedroom has me sniffling and itching. I broke out the prednisone. 5mg at first. Then upped to 10mg the next day. I treat prednisone like most people treat opioids. “In case of emergency” would be preferable.

Maybe I simply get spring fever of some sort and I can romanticize it like some British Regency period piece as interpreted by Shonda Rhimes. Ah she had the rheumatic touch when she bought her ancestral home. But then had the vapors when she came to the Hapsburg Court. The deadly poisons of springs first flower has felled her bloom. Spring fever indeed, my pretties.

I didn’t even use ChatGPT for that. My brain can spit back up sick tropes. Nevertheless I do feel a bit felled by this inflammatory cycle that has required a little more attention than preferred.

Categories
Emotional Work

Day 870 and Keep on Slipping

They say time flies when you are having fun. Some internal sick sadness combined with external geopolitical confusion, during what I’ve come to call “my sick years,” were in hindsight timeless years.

I am now past the worst of it. Time had no meaning when I was struggling to get diagnosed and treated during those years. Then we collectively ran headlong into the pandemic. Time had been a flat circle for a while and I wasn’t coming or going. My time was out of reach.

But those days of sad, static immobile time have given way to vim, vigor, verve (and fuck it, why not) even vivaciousness. I must be having fun again, as now time is absolutely flying.

I still carry my health challenges with me (ankylosis spondylitis like all inflammatory conditions comes and goes with the reliability of the fey), and the world is just as fucked up as ever.

And yet on the other side of many hard fights, I am happy again. The miseries are my choices and worth the fight. It’s many pleasures are fleeting, often, and luxurious beyond what my former self thought I deserved.

I hope time keeps on slipping like this for a while. The joy of my struggles now makes me eager to take care of myself. I take every day as slow as I can and still they go by so quickly.

Categories
Biohacking

Day 866 and Sensory Overload

I was up very late last night as I had an evening commitment on Eastern Standard Time while I myself am on European Central Time. I finished at 6pm in New York but it was 2am for me. It was stimulating I was unable to fall asleep till well past 3am.

I didn’t successfully sleep in as much as I would have liked, so I found myself running on a bit less sleep than I would have preferred even though my Whoop suggested I was in the green with a reasonably high HRV score. When my biometrics are all in the green, even if I’ve had perceptually poor sleep, I try to let my data guide me.

I thought I was doing ok as I went about my routines and workload. I showered, meditated, did some work and even got a power nap in.

Still I found myself getting overwhelmed by basic sensory inputs. The sound of the cars on the road felt loud. I took a walk and found myself ordering an Uber to get home as I was tired and has gone too far. Alas, in the car, I found myself covering my ears and closing my eyes as the pop music and car incense overwhelmed two senses at once.

I felt as if I was an autistic cliche. I literally had my fingers in my ears humming to myself to calm myself down. After my nervous system mastery Bootcamp course, I knew my vagus nerve had gone into overstimulation.

I had gone into sympathetic shutdown without even realizing it. I couldn’t even think to ask the driver to turn down the music. I did what I could to breath.

It was a quick reminder that my daily life in the countryside of Montana is a lot easier on the body than a bustling city like Frankfurt.

Categories
Community Culture Travel

Day 864 and Parks and Recreation

All the shops are closed in Germany on Sunday. This is a basic fact I somehow always forget despite regularly being in Europe. They are serious about their day of rest.

Without the ability to go grocery shopping or otherwise pay for goods or services, Sunday becomes a day for getting your life in order. As long as you planned ahead for it. Which I definitely didn’t. But I made a go of it anyway.

I made myself coffee and did a mobility routine. I took a long bath with epsom salts. I did a load of laundry and set it outside to dry in the sun. I cleaned the bathroom so I could enjoy another bath later in the week. I washed the dishes and tidied the kitchen.

Then I found myself wandering the busy streets past closed shops and bustling parks. While the grocery shops were closed, the playhouses and calisthenics parks were open and absolutely packed.

Frankfurt has public spielhaus or playhouses in the parks for children with activities and equipment. When I walked by I saw teenagers playing basketball and elementary school children painting.

For the adults there are calisthenics stations on the river where you can workout in public any time of the day or night. I’m not much for pull ups I did end up playing around with a thirty minute body weight workout of squats, mountain climbers, pikes, bridges, leg raises, dips, planks and push ups. It just felt like a fun thing to do.

And isn’t that a pleasant thought? That on a sunny spring day it just seems nice to be outside playing. The dream of parks and recreation is alive in Frankfurt.

Categories
Biohacking Travel

Day 861 and 8%

I’ve been on the road all week for work (and a little bit of play). I flew an overnight transcontinental from Seattle to Frankfurt Tuesday evening into Wednesday which is yesterday for America but with the time zone change feels like two days. While I am not jet lagged (a surprise) my Whoop recovery is the worst I’ve ever received. I got an recovery 8% score. And I feel basically fine

After a rocky encounter with a new airline carrier Condor, I struggled to stay asleep sleep on the airplane. I blame the excitement of the bizarre business class setup without assigned seating. Or maybe it was because I ended up making friends with my seat mate and swapped stories over dinner.

Usually when flying overnight I take an Ambien and immediately pass out. Better living through chemistry right? Plus I’m not naturally social. Instead I was doing face masks and debating White Lotus theories over a pretty decent seared tuna.

When I landed in Frankfurt I felt quite energetic and pushed through the afternoon with ease. Or maybe it felt easy as I had several cups of coffee. I thought I’d nailed the flight even though I knew I didn’t get enough sleep.

Once I’d settled into my Airbnb, I checked my previous night’s biometrics I realized I’d only recorded four hours of sleep and my HRV had dropped into the low teens. Maybe I’d made a mistake not “force quitting” myself into a hard sleep on the airplane with a downer.

My average HRV is usually in the forties which isn’t all that impressive to begin with (I’ve got a spinal condition called ankylosis spondylitis) but I hadn’t expected all my biometrics to go flashing red quite so badly when I felt mostly fine. My guess is that the 8% reflected a significant amount of stress and I’d simply not flushed the adrenaline and cortisol out of my system.

I’m keeping it low key today as a consequence. I was up at 7am European Central Time and went grocery shopping to stock the apartment. Getting sunlight is crucial and while I plan to keep EST hours mostly while I’m here it felt good to be up and about.

I managed to fit in some work, did a load of laundry, got some Ethiopian food for lunch and still feel like I can manage a work day. It’s now past 5Pm in Germany and America is just waking up on the west coast. My husband just texted me from San Francisco so it’s time to finish my day and start the day with everyone else.

Categories
Biohacking Emotional Work

Day 858 and In Passing

As I’ve been working on a nervous system mastery course the past few weeks I’ve been especially attuned to how quickly emotions rise and fall in my body. Like a small child, the range and swiftness of feelings always catches me by surprise. And it is a blessing.

I don’t repress anything. Good or bad, I let it rise up and feel it deeply and completely. This can lead to some awkward timing.

I had a moment of intense grief and sadness wash over me on the airplane today as part of an exercise called somatic free diving. I let the tears overcome me only because I had on an eye mask that I knew would hide it. I was in a safe place to feel it even though I was in public.

But just as quickly as the storm blew in so too did it dissipate. The emotions are always in pass if we allow ourselves to enjoy the temporality of our reactions. If the issues are in our tissues we can bring ourselves in and out of them just by noticing where in our body we feel our emotions.

The pressure to let go of bad feelings and hang onto good ones can be intense. We rush to toss off grief, sadness, fear, abandonment and rage while we cling to happiness, joy, wonder and arousal.

But I am playing with the idea that everyone and everything is just happening “in passing.” Humans only get to live forward in time linearly. None of the probabilistic potentialities happen for us. We enjoy heavily edited narrative memory and future fantasies but reality happens in the present.

I am hoping to catch some people in passing while I am in transit. However I know possibilities are endless and my linear limitations will intersect with all of the other beings also in passing with equality linear limitations.

All of that has become beautiful and tangible to me the further I dive into my own nervous system and it’s inner workings. If you do want to join the next cohort with me (apparently alumni are able to do so) my code JULIE does something. Probably saves you some money. For me the course has saved me something far less tangible and I am grateful.