Tag: Medical

Categories
Homesteading

Day 1610 and Tempting Fate

As I was going about doing “prepare for the worst so the best may come” set of chores I chose to brag about our travel pharmacy packing.

As Elon Musk leaves government service there has been a flurry of media hits. I don’t know anything about his personal medical situation nor is it my place to comment but I found it comical to suggest that 20 drugs in a daily medication box was nefarious.

New York Times “Musk Juggled Drugs and Family Drama”

Those are to put it mildly “rookie numbers” in the biohacking business. And it’s barely a dent if you practice the kind of global chaos preparedness that we do. So I bragged about it and showed one of our global travel kits.

Ray Kurzweil isn’t making it to the singularity on less than 40 supplements a day so I sure as heck ain’t setting out into emerging economies with anything less than a full set of bacterial, viral, and gastrointestinal remedies.

And as we care about things like being first responder trained and able to render aid to our community, we joke that you really can’t be a pro-social prepper if you don’t carry an AFAIK kit.

As I was being snide about our the value preparedness, outside in my own backyard we were being tested. And as soon as it happened I felt completely unprepared. Pride does indeed go before a fall.

We have a beautiful red fox that has for several seasons lurked around our property. We also keep laying hens. Alex has hardened the chicken coop to make sure they did not have a chance to get in. Nature and domestication co-exist uneasily.

We have never seen the fox out in day save in the dead of winter. In the spring we rarely ever see the fox.

So whenever we let the chickens roam generally we keep a keen watch on them. We’ve gone a few seasons with this working but letting your guard down can get you.

Alex was walking down our long drive to retrieve a trash can and let the roaming chickens out of his sight for less than five minutes. In that time the fox raced out from behind foliage and took one.

We caught it all on camera. Having taken one (we could not find her) the fox came back not more than ten minutes later and tried to grab another chicken which point Alex saw and intervened. The fox dropped her but she has a puncture wound.

I finally hear the ruckus and come outside. I see feathers everywhere and figure it out as soon as I see feathers. .

This chicken is alive

I’m pulling out my phone and asking the LLMs how do we care for an injured chicken. Turns out it’s not that different than human.

I run to find the supples for cleaning and disinfecting. I find the topical antibiotics. It all takes much longer than I think it should. Alex cleans her up and she seems fine. But wont know how she recovers for a bit. Now I will do a review of our supplies and their locations as I am reminded that there is no such thing as too prepared.

Categories
Chronic Disease

Day 1599 and Sadly Cold

I would love to have something to say today. I have a migraine. My circulation seems odd. I’ve got on 2 pairs of wool socks on, two layers on top and I’m underneath two down blanks. And I’m still cold.

Complaining about one’s body is such an unappealing habit and yet when the pain comes for your attention it has the gravity of a black hole.

I don’t want to be a bore. I fear every time I am trapped in a bad bodily cycle I am boring myself and others. It’s been six years since I was diagnosed with an autoimmune condition and so much of it has been chronicled here.

And yet no matter how much I throw at health and wellness I still find myself cold, sad, hurting and without any kind of cure.

Categories
Biohacking Chronic Disease

Day 1598 and Routine in Chaos

I have been contemplating “an ideal routine” as soon as I felt the pressure of showing up for first grade. How to manage the energy the outside world requires from you while making sure you have done everything possible to manage your body to produce adequate energy.

Morning routines, what’s in her bag, every day carry, and optimal packing strategies all derive from a need to see how others are coping with the demands of life. You can aspire to various ideals of fitness, nutrition, style and parenting if you could just get the right routine with the right tools. Right?

I’m aspiring to restart learning new toolsets for building …everything. From design to marketing software to muscles to my hormonal profile. Building the life you want is deceptively close if you can manage yourself.

Life feels malleable at the moment. And who is going to stop me? Maybe I accidentally fix a problem for myself and find I’ve got a tool or insight that might benefit you. The chaos of old ways fall apart means new routines and folkways must be built.

I don’t want to betray myself by overreaching and pushing as I am so often finding hard limits the hard way. I like to go hard and rest. But reality has become so much less reliable that I wonder if I must compensate even more for the chaos with steadying flows of my own.

Categories
Chronic Disease

Day 1594 and The Creek Don’t Rise

I’m not sure where my mother picked up the slang “God willing and the creek don’t rise” but I had it regularly to suggest a thing shall come to pass a “if nature and God” are willing.

It’s it’s got a hint of Appalachia in its origin story and then tumbles over into a Johnny Cash cover of a Jerry Reed country tune (probably where my mother learned it as she loves Cash) before settling into a Spike Lee documentary about the water engineering challenges that have brought such misery to New Orleans.

It’s been pouring in Gallatin County all day. Our already high rivers are looking like they may cause troubles. Friends who fish were concerned the muddy headwaters weeks ago when I was caught in other unexpected spring showers in Colorado.

I am afraid the moisture is kicking up mold in our house. We’ve spent months remediating the problem so it weighs on me to consider the possibility. I woke up covered in hives and eczema.

I took antibiotics and Benadryl and it kept getting worse. I showered with nothing but unscented Castile soap hoping to mitigate the outbreak. That did more.

I have an event I’d like to attend this evening along with a houseguest who I very enjoy much enjoy so it frustrates me when the creek sees fit to rise against the banks that contain the river of my life.

Categories
Chronic Disease Emotional Work

Day 1589 and Disagreeable

I am in a lot of physical pain and I have been cranky about it all day. I just did not have the energy to self censor my discomfort either. I spent a lot of the day in bed popping off.

Because people are polite I only ever get rewarded for being spicy. I’m sure people harbor all kinds of uncharitable opinions about people who are mouthy, especially women. But I mostly find you can say quite a lot. Especially with your ingroup.

In fact being disagreeable is tolerated, and even celebrated, in almost all public forums. Hard truths, straight acts, unpleasant realities tend to be celebrated. Truth telling can become someone’s persona even when nothing is wrong.

But watch out for that dark path. If you care too much about broader opinions of yourself you can easily become what is called audience captured in which your persona gets adapted to what gets a response. Modeling your life as get it can go very wrong for people.

I felt for comedian John Mulaney who got typecast as the affable guy and absolutely hated being the bad guy for his various addictions and personal life complications.

In his special “Baby J,” Mulaney reflects on the burden of his public persona: “Likeability is jaaaaaaaail,” summary via Perplexity of a much better substack piece

In some ways, playing to type is just cognitively easier for everyone. A social contract if you will. Being able to show more than one side of yourself shouldn’t be shrugged off as people pleasing nor is being disagreeable always a sign of bad temperament. Humans contain multitudes even if everyone plays to type.

Categories
Biohacking Travel

Day 1587 and Wellderly

My husband’s expert testimony before Congress yesterday was a particularly exciting day even by my standards. I felt so drained today.

My bar for excitement was set pretty high this spring. It has so far included impromptu drives to Istanbul, seeing our right to compute bill get signed into law, watching a founder we backed unveil a nuclear reactor design and discussing futurism at my hometown’s university.

When I list it out I almost forget how much during this time I was battling side effects from a mold infestation and working through changing my medication for my autoimmune condition. I got my right eyelid slit open twice!

When Alex made it home to Montana after midnight I felt like I could finally sleep. I never sleep well alone and much as I tried to sleep as he was flying back I could not. I’m exhausted today and needed a nap to stave off a migraine.

As we get older I am sure we will continue to be called upon to show up. So much of my energy is drawn into improving my health so I can participate in civic and economic life.

I want to improve my health so I can continue to discuss, learn, advocate and invest for this very confusing transition to our future.

I can scoff at catchy neologisms like “wellderly” as marketing campaigns for famous doctors in an especially challenging era for medical trust. But I am also concerned about sleeping better, gaining muscle mass, and improving my meager health. A man has many concerns but a sick man has only one remains true.

Categories
Chronicle Preparedness Travel

Day 1584 and Sunday Chores

I missed spring cleaning due to some unexpected travels. Part of that was by design, as a gnarly mold issue required mediation that we decided was best missed by my annoyingly fragile immune system.

You wouldn’t think galavanting across Alexander’s Empire by car would be a reasonable way to avoid mycotoxins and you’d be right but I also like to learn what’s happening in the markets in a visceral manner.

No finer way to come to grips with the breakdown of trade and empire than racing across a continent to understand a supply chain amirite?

In January we began the process of acquiring a hyperbaric chamber for personal use and a medical spa. We figured we were well ahead of the process and like many folks who buy products made in other countries we figured better to get it done before another trade was kicks off.

And then the tariffs came. Whenever you were ordering or transiting goods you were scrambling. I’m scrambling now at home to make sure the household is set up for whatever empty shelves and shortages are ahead but it’s hard to predict.

And so I spend my day planning and cleaning and running errands and generally cleaning up. I hope the mold issue managed as I’m certainly being exposed now. As you might imagine I’m trying to keep windows open and as dry as possible.

Categories
Travel

Day 1577 and Losing My Shit

I had an incredible long weekend in Boulder as a speaker at CU’s Benson Center for the Study of Western Civilization’s conference Renegade Futurism. It was an exceptional group of people and I felt privileged to learn from them.

Alas the universe must have needed to even out this wonderful high with a few lows. My husband and I’s trip back home to Montana was quite bumpy.

After a late evening of socializing, we left packing for the morning. We are both teetoholers but when you are old enough just staying out later than average can deliver a hangover.

We quickly packed up, skipped showering (drought flow shower heads take too long to get you adequately clean) and I quickly inhaled a coffee and bagel to take with my antibiotics.

I knew we were in trouble as soon as we stepped into the Uber. It smelled intensely of body odor. The stank of unwashed upholstery, swampy body pits and a poor suspension combined poorly with exhaustion and an ersatz hangover. I began to feel car sick.

I tried a nausea medicine called Zofran. It wasn’t enough. I attempted to express that I needed us to pull over so I could throw up. I opened the window and begged for a disposable baggie. The driver was tuned out. Alex rushed to find anything that would do.

He found a foldable nylon pocket bag from a Japanese airline he keeps on hand in his luggage for emergencies. Alas I needed it three times. The car drove on even as I kept evacuating my stomach into this reusable bag.

We arrived at Denver International Airport and Alex rushed out to throw out the treasured Nippon Airways pocket bag lest the smell further exacerbate the issue. A loss but better than getting vomit all over the Uber. Not that the driver was paying attention. Oddly.

After unloading we checked multiple bags. We’d both come from long trips and figured it was a safe simple single flight. The United fancy status counter gave us trouble about being five pounds over on one bag. The label needed re-printing as the confused newly hired counter service agent struggled with the overrides for frequent fliers.

It’s an hour and a half from Denver to Bozeman so we felt safe checking all of our bags. And indeed our normal carry-on bags made it home with us without issue as checked luggage. They got off the airplane quicker than we did.

But as you probably guessed the 5lb overweight bag that took so much time to get labeled correctly. Yeah, it was never even put on our airplane. It was still in Denver. We have a tracker in the bag so we knew where it was. United asked us to report as lost as part of their procedure for getting it to us.

I’d list my shit twice now in one day. Hopefully the bag it makes it onto the next flight as it has quite a number of irreplaceable items.

And because things happen in threes, as I unpacked what luggage I did have I discovered that my eye medication was missing. I last remember seeing it in our hotel’s nightstand cubby. I may have packed it in the liquids bag in the lost luggage so there is a chance. But I don’t recall packing it. It’s Turkish so I’m not even sure if I can replace it.

I lost a lot of shit today. Hopefully I get it all back. Well except for the stomach problem in the car. I hope that never happens again. That is shit I’m happy to have lost.

Categories
Finance Travel

Day 1568 and New Era Exceptionalism?

Overweighting the American markets has been the default in finance for decades. The growth of the magnificent 7, the “exorbitant privilege” of the American dollar, and the security of the defense umbrella of our alliances bolstered treasuries.

American exceptionalism has been rocked with Liberation Day and the subsequent fallout for many. Nobody in business in or with America slept for two weeks straight.

But for me it’s always traveling abroad that changes how I feel about America’s place in the world. If you’ve been following along with my hyperbaric chamber oxygen therapy saga you may know I was in Istanbul touring a factory.

I happened to have a slight medical emergency when a meiborn gland infection popped up on my eyelid almost overnight. Walking into a hospital and receiving exceptional care in no time at all was mind blowing.

Seeing is believing. I’d heard Turkey’s clinics were the best in the world but now I know it. I cannot wait to come back for a more thorough look at my medical situation.

Being born an American has been the privilege of a lifetime. My passport has shown me the world. And even as I do what I can to help to make Montana the friendliest place to do the business of the future I can’t help but fear America has lost more than a step.

Istanbul feels like a modern city in the vein of Shenzen. Growth and construction is everywhere even as you can visit mosques and hammam from when Constantinople was the crossroad of empires.

Categories
Biohacking Medical Travel

Day 1567 and Turkish Health Tourism

I had not planned it this way but I had a repeat of the meiborn gland issue that got me sent to hospital in February. I had, in just four short days, a chalazion turn into hordeolum aka an infected cyst.

It’s probably a side effect of the IL-17 biological I am using. I had a mold exposure over the winter in our bed room so who knows. Sucks to be me. This is why I’m excited about new technology for healing like HBOT.

It needed a doctor to perform an incision and curettage. I asked the concierge at my hotel for a clinic and I walked five minutes to an enormous glittering skyscraper of a hospital. Many of those hospitals are run twenty four hours a day.

I walk in with no appointment. They immediately find me a medical translator. I’m checked in within fifteen minutes. I get a full eye exam and a seen by a doctor who instantly diagnoses it.

Next thing I know I’m in the chair with a local anesthetic and she is slicing, draining and disinfecting. She gets me my post treatment protocol. A pharmacy delivers the prescriptions in 9 minutes. Now this is healthcare.

Within the space of an hour I’m fixed up and sent home to eat. I’m sitting down to grilled octopus and prawns by the Bosporus in no time. I needed a protein filled lunch to take my antibiotics.