Motivation

I've been having a lot of motivation problems of late. It's obviously shown itself in how neglected this weblog has become. I've got a number of unfinished drafts that I've attempted to tackle over the past several months, but I've given up on trying to finish them. January saw a change in my medications to coincide with a new diagnosis of Mania instead of Moderate Depression. My current mood stabilizer is doing a good job of helping me sleep, which was important. Unfortunately, it doesn't seem to be helping to stabilize my mood, so I'm going to have to try something different. I'm irritable, impatient, stressed, and my down spells are becoming longer and more frequent. When I try to be productive (especially at work), I get overwhelmed and mentally exhausted. If I'm not productive, I get anxious. While my visits to my counselor have also helped tremendously, it's not a full solution unto itself. Because of the time taken off of work, I made the mistake of setting my next appointment further out than I normally do. 

    Work has been a particularly large source of stress as there's been a change in our hierarchy and how things get done. It's put a lot of things in uncertain positions, and that's unsettling. It also doesn't help that I'm not at work right now and there's a lot I want to get done. I'm not at work because I'm at home, and I'm at home because just yesterday I tested positive for COVID-19. Over 2 years of hide-and-seek with this bastard strand of RNA and I finally lost. I suppose it was inevitable, and I'm beyond glad it's happened after I've been fully vaccinated and even boosted. My symptoms are persistent, but overall mild. Company policy requires me to isolate for 5 days, which means I'm off until Monday. 

    Discovery of my COVID status after a follow-up appointment over a small medical emergency I had at the start of the month. In the late evening, I began to experience unbearable lower back pain that did not go away. There was no position that alleviated the discomfort and eventually I realized I was going to have to go to the hospital. I was shaking so much I couldn't drive. Whether said shakes were from the pain or the fear that this may have been a sign of something worse, it was very hard to tell. A CT scan revealed a kidney stone measuring 2mm x 8mm had formed in my left kidney and was about 75% of the way down to my bladder. I was given painkillers and a medication meant to relax the ureter where the stone was lodged. This follow-up appointment was an attempt to see if I had passed the stone or not. Once a stone is in the bladder, there's not a lot that can be done for it. If one is still lodged in the ureter, this requires surgery. Fortunately, my X-Ray was clear. 

    This is the part where I say my medical scare was the kick in the pants I needed and started being more productive outside of work because my clean bill of health was a new lease on life and... No. There is nothing of the sort here. My vain hope is that by posting this, it will actually motivate me to write more so I can effectively bury this entry and I won't have to think about it anymore. It reminds of something YouTuber Wheezywaiter said about when he feels as if a video he's made is not up to snuff. His solution, he says, is to make more content, not less. I guess if you're worried about quality, shift your focus to quantity and see what happens. 

Goodnight, and good luck. 

Mask. Copy.

During a business trip with my family to Washington state, I remember sitting through this documentary about Mt. Saint Helens, which had erupted only a few years prior. One image that stuck with me is one of people walking through smoggy streets all wearing surgical masks. There was also this one image from a science book about cities of the future that burned itself into my brain. 

This is the Usborne Book of the Future. It’s sadly out of print, but has been scanned and archived at various locations. It’s a little bit dated on the science side of things, but still a fascinating look into our past visions of the future. http://calameo.download/00081642432fc0bfded26

Fast-forward to several years later when I started watching anime and generally learning what I could about Japanese culture, and I noticed a recurring theme of some people wearing surgical masks in public. I never quite put together what was going on, though there was this correlation between wearing the mask and being sick, not unlike wearing a scarf or muffler. It was later explained to me that the mask is worn by the sick person to keep them from spreading it to others, which probably took my brain more time to process than I'd prefer to admit to because you always see the surgical mask of keeping things OUT rather than IN, hence being worn by surgeons. Like almost everything in Japan, something as practical as a paper fiber mask became an entire aesthetic unto itself. While there may be some connotations with gang activity, these are very much the exception and not the rule. 

Fast forward again to a few years ago when I read a post about someone with a severe tree nut allergy suffering through the holidays, and "suffering" is not being melodramatic or hyperbolic. This is someone with a tree nut allergy so severe that the mere smell of nuts can trigger a reaction requiring an epi-pen. Most of the time, this isn't a problem for her. However, when the holidays roll around, grocery stores suddenly become mine fields dotted with bushels of walnuts, almonds, and macadamias. The solution to this problem is a simple enough one, a neoprene mask with a few filters to allow better ventilation while also trapping the offending particles. Unfortunately, this solution invites more than a few stares and even full-blown suspicions from others in the grocery store. Age plays a small role in this, one might assume; someone sees an elderly person wearing one, they won't think twice, or maybe they'll put it together that they're trying to keep the bad stuff out. If it's a youngster, suddenly it becomes an issue of morals and criminal justice... never mind that if someone is going to rob a grocery store, they're not going to wander around the produce section pushing a cart and asking staff where the stuffed mushrooms are, all while wearing a mask. 

A few years later, we had a really bad flu season. I had missed my flu shot because we were unseasonably warm and I had assumed (incorrectly I learned later) that it was all the more unlikely I'd get the flu and that if I did get the shot, it may not be effective because I may well have gotten it too early. Well, I did get sick, and I probably don't have to tell you how horrible it was. Fortunately, I was put on some antibiotics which helped, along with getting some of my aforementioned misconceptions cleared up by my doctor. Since then, it's become a small tradition every Labor Day to take advantage of the time off work to beat any lines and get my flu shot. Around the same time, when my roommate was sick, she hit upon the idea of getting a box of those surgical masks from the local Walgreens. It wasn’t uncommon to see people in masks, though usually it was older folks who were likely using it to keep OUT rather than IN. 

Today, we’re glad we still have some left. I’ve got some reusable ones, but these served well in the time before those arrived. 

It's rather surreal that seeing someone wearing a mask has become so rapidly normalized. People will likely still be wearing them long after lockdown orders are fully relaxed. I'll certainly be wearing them when flu season comes around, novel viruses notwithstanding. All of this talk about when we’ll have normalcy or what-have-you is ignoring a lot of history. Just think of how air travel has been affected by the 9/11 terror attacks. The very fact that your bathroom has an abundance of tile and similarly slick and washable surfaces is a result of previous pandemics, including the Spanish Flu, Cholera, Tuberculosis, and Polio. 

When we go to buffets or cafeterias, we don’t give a second thought to the sneeze guards over the salad bar. We all know why they’re there, and I don’t know of anyone who’s raised a fit over it. Maybe that wasn’t the case when they were new, but any outrage today invites more eye-rolls than affirming or polite nods. I think about that when I go to grocery shopping and see the sneeze guards in front of the cashiers. At first, these were pretty ramshackled affairs, painter’s tarps draped over scrap wood or some PVC pipe. Now, many of them are plexiglass with some strips of particle board or metal brackets for reinforcements. Sure, it’s one more surface to clean up at the end of the day, and obviously they’re going to have to be replaced as they get scuffed, scratched, and cracked from general wear-and-tear, but as far as a regular operating expense goes, what exactly would be the harm in leaving them up? It’s no different than some convenience stores in rough neighborhoods putting their cashiers behind glass boxes that make my bank’s entrance look like a screen door on rusty hinges. If that expense can be justified, what’s a little Lexan at Lowes? What’s wrong with these handfuls of extra precautions no more onerous or intrusive on our daily lives than motion sensors on restroom sinks and hand dryers or anything being advertised as Lead-free? 

It's an amusing thought that for X number of people who simply see the mask and don't give it a second thought, there's at least 1 person out of that group who is silently screaming because of some hang-up or pet peeve yet doesn't want to say anything because it's simply not worth the effort to let the world know a piece of fabric can send you on a tirade? 

It’s not a new thing, it’s doing far more good than harm, and it’s not going away. No one’s trying to control you, no one’s trying to infringe on your rights, and no one is trampling on your deeply-held beliefs. It’s a practical solution to a legitimate real-world problem. It transcends politics and ideologies. Having personal freedom means taking personal responsibility for what you do with those freedoms as well as fail to do in spite of them. We are individuals, but we are singular as much as we are plural. 

The High Stakes Dinner Dare

A few weeks ago, my roommate decided to try a vegan diet for health reasons. I went along with the idea for moral support. The results of this diet were very, very mixed. In fact, more often than not, they were total busts. Let the record show I gave it a fair shake, and at least one of the dishes was rather pleasurable. As for the rest, I simply don't feel it's going to work out for me. The persistent problem with the majority of recipes we came across was one of blandness. To overcome this, the recipes insisted on a hefty spice regimen that did little more than give an all-heat-no-flavor aftertaste that often accompanies many sophomoric attempts at Mexican or Indian dishes. The other problem was these recipes' insistence on substitution. That is, instead of a fully vegan dish, we got "veganized" versions of otherwise omnivore-friendly offerings. The most egregious example of this was the mac & cheese. It called for a type of yeast that's meant to imitate cheese. 

It was bad. 

There's no kind way of putting it. It was awful. To be completely fair to it, I suppose I was a bit biased in favor of something that would fool me into thinking I was eating true and proper cheese. This set my bar likely higher than it should have been and netted the kind of result that Wolfgang Pauli would describe as "not even wrong." I'd rather go without cheese than settle for a pale imitation. That said, some imitations work better than others. 

I've already talked at length about the Impossible Whopper and touched on my newfound quest to try every "veggie" burger on offer by major restaurants and fast food chains (Red Robin is next on the agenda). In addition, we've been subscribing to HelloFresh for several weeks and have selected their vegetarian options almost exclusively. The sole exception was when we decided to go with a meat dish that would arrive in time for Thanksgiving. 

It was a sirloin steak dish with a heaping helping of roasted carrots and potatoes. My plan was simple. It had been well over a month since I last had any kind of meat dish. In fact, I think it was a pretzel burger that Burger King was offering at the time. I got one when my roommate's first ordered the Impossible Whopper so if it went bust I had a backup. The whole vegetarian thing was working out way better than I thought, and ordering sirloin steak was kind of a final test of sorts. My thinking was that once I got things going, once I ripped into the package, rubbed in the spices, laid the steaks on the skillet, cut into them, and got a few good whiffs in, I'd be wolfing down the whole thing with gusto and vigor. Ever have one of those cravings for something you haven't had in a very long time coming to you completely out of the blue and occupying your thoughts until you basically have no choice to go out and grab it? That's what I was expecting to preempt. 

No such thing happened. 

The more I cooked it, basted it, cut into it, and nibbled on it, the more unpleasant the whole experience was. I didn't feel ill or anything like I've heard some vegetarians get when they even think of eating meat. It was something more abstract. It was almost like I felt disappointed, as if the whole process from preparation to palate wasn't just anticlimactic, but detrimental and wasteful. It was all a great big "So what?" moment. I was unimpressed and unmoved, and the fact I could have been making something else I'd have enjoyed far more got me a little down to boot. 

So there you have it. Barring any spontaneous lusts for McNuggets at 1 in the morning, I'm  fully vegetarian now, though not especially strict. Dairy is still part of the equation, as are eggs (though I typically only use those when baking cookies or beer bread), and I'm sure there are certain dishes that employ broths or other similar byproducts that will catch me unawares. Plus, there's the whole "made in the vicinity of X" paradigm (i.e. the Impossible Whopper being made on the same grill as the "possible" patties), but these are generally unavoidable, and hardly objectionable. Should we move away from animal products? Maybe, but we're talking about literal centuries of undoing. Domestication of animals is as old as human civilization itself, if not a little older considering hunting dogs back when we sat huddled in caves wondering where the sun went at night. Speaking of animals and fear... 

My stance on not eating meat has nothing to do with ethics, much as I respect those who cite the treatment of farm animals as an impetus for their conviction. I can even say I had my own "meet the meat" situation. My roommate's brother had a pig on his farm he intended to slaughter. While visiting, I was asked to go and feed the pig. I had been hoping this wouldn't be asked of me, but I didn't refuse out of respect. With slop bucket in hand, I made my way to the pen, filled the trough, and promptly decided I lacked the resolve to eat anything that may possibly be made by the butchering of this beast. It wasn't even cute, like a lamb or a cow, or even little suckling pigs. It was a big, gross slab of bacon-to-be that could barely move. There was no lack of sympathy, mind. I'm not going to dismiss eating an animal I've literally met in person because I don't like its face. It was more of a big picture situation. Here was this animal, one specifically raised not only from its own birth to be slaughtered for its meat, but engineered through generations of selective breeding to be as good at possibly being a meal as it could be. We can talk about the role eating meat played in our evolution, making our brains bigger and allowing us to survive various environmental conditions because we didn't have to rely solely on the plant life for sustenance. This isn't saying it was all a mistake, only it makes the decision of abstaining from its consumption feel like moving on rather than taking a step back. 

It rather puts that scene from The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy in perspective (specifically, the second book, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe), wherein a large, pig-like creature is fully aware of its role in the food chain, and can not only vocalize its opinion about it, but is utterly welcoming of the prospect of becoming some diner's dish du jour. The punchline of the joke is that this degree of genetic engineering was necessitated by objections from plant-based creatures openly and vehemently vocalizing their disdain for being the stuff of salads and shakes. 

I don't begrudge anyone who still has both feet planted firmly in camp omnivore. You've got canines for a reason besides stubborn packaging when scissors aren't around. I do wish we'd all take a step back and look at how meat intensive our diets are, how much farmland we're devoting to cattle, pigs, and poultry when it could well be used for fruits and vegetables, grains and nuts, and how this wouldn't affect the farms' bottom lines one bit. Again, this isn't me preaching or shaming anyone. I'm a devout hedonist. I get it. If you've got it, flaunt it. You see food, you eat it. Obviously, going vegetarian isn't as easy for some people as others depending on where you live and what kind of lifestyle you've made for yourself. This is simply another perspective to consider. You never know what you may discover.

For instance, one of my favorite discoveries is truffle zest. Mix a dash of it with sour cream and either olive oil or water to get the right drizzling consistency, and it's a dandy dipping sauce. Best way to find truffles? Rent a hog.

No one eats the pig. We get truffles. Everybody wins. 

To My Hallowed Health

OR:
I GOT A ROCK.

Since about the 2nd of October, I've been having some abdominal pain, generally on my right side. This came packaged with a prolonged sense of pins and needles in my right foot that would occasionally run up and down my leg. Both were persistent, never painful to the point of debilitating, but worrying nonetheless. I chalked it up to a combination of stress and simply sleeping wrong. Short version of the stress and sleep situation: Roommate and I shared a bed for some time, mattress is shot, roommate drives me nuts (see Powers of Observation, and I decide its time to get some personal space. So, like I said, I think it's stress. Then, after the numbness went away, the pain stayed, and I decided to do a little research to see if it was a sign of something more severe.

To give this worry context, I had surgery on my right leg two years ago. Without getting into the gory details (especially following the surgery), I had flu-like symptoms that never amounted to much beyond an occasional cough and the mildest of aches and pains. Next thing I know, I have a lump which I think is a bit of knotted muscle that I chalk up to physical exertion at work. Lump doesn't go away despite applying heat, ice, and massage therapy. I tell my Dad about it (he's a physical therapist), and the moment I mention the location, he virtually says, "Get your ass to the emergency room right now!" as he thinks it's some kind of hernia. I go, and after some back and forth and having about two or three different doctors look at it, followed by exploratory surgery by a specialist, it's concluded that a cluster of lymph nodes in my leg fought off an infection (influenza) and won a costly victory, effectively creating a lot of "collateral damage" with nowhere for it to go, hence building up in that lovely lump. In the end, I have a scar on my leg that's bigger than the one from when I had my appendix out in 1992. Speaking of my appendix...

Turns out "Right Side Abdominal Pain" can refer to a veritable cornucopia of "Oh, Shit!" conditions, including hernia, ulcers, and various organ failures or infections including the kidneys, liver, pancreas, and gallbladder. When I called my doctor (this is after two weeks of telling myself, "it's just stress." as it was never all that severe), the receptionist asked, "Are you sure you want to wait for an appointment?"
Luckily, nothing in my condition changed between then and the day of the examination. Between my doctor and her shadow, they were stumped, especially considering I had my appendix out. It was funny how they kept referring back to it, almost like they were angry, "IF ONLY YOU HAD AN APPENDIX, WE COULD JUST SAY THAT'S WHAT'S WRONG!" I know, how dare I got to an all-you-can-eat restaurant at DisneyWorld 20 years ago and ruin your chances of an easy diagnosis. I'm a total bastard.

Anyway, after bloodwork and whatnot came back negative on all fronts, I was referred to Radiology for an ultrasound just last Friday. 12 hours of fasting and a hundred dollar copay later, I was told it would take until Monday for them to have a report. Monday arrived and I patiently waited for the call. When none arrived, I called to ask what the holdup was. It turns out, "ready by Monday" means it's mailed out to my doctor on Monday, and then she'll call me and dictate the results. I know, how dare I take initiative and find out what's wrong with my own bloody body. Total, total bastard.

This brings us to today, a day when the HR lady at my work came up to me and told me that I'd stored up too much vacation time and should take some between now and the next four pay periods to avoid losing any of what I've got. Well, I got the call from my doctor later that afternoon, and learned the results of the ultrasound.

Gallstone.

A 12mm lump of solidified bile and cholesterol was discovered in a most precarious position in my gallbladder, which itself looked strangely fine. The stone, meanwhile, could only cause me intermittent pain in its current resting spot just above the bile duct. If it moves, however, it can be extremely painful. Needless to say, I was given a number to the scheduling department at the hospital to get in touch with a surgeon for a consultation. In the meantime, I'm to avoid fatty foods (which I was actually being really good about avoiding anyway) and obviously go to the ER if the aforementioned ductwork gets stoned. At that point, the question will be whether or not the surgeon thinks we can get away with just removing the stone or if the whole situation is problematic enough to yank the whole gallbladder out as well. Hopefully, the whole thing can be done laprascopically (small incisions, narrow tubes, everything except nanoships piloted by Dennis Quaid) and I'll be off work for a few days.

So there's my Halloween. I didn't go as anything, I bought my own candy, and I trumped Charlie Brown by not only getting a rock, but the sort of rock that can't just be taken out of a treat bag and tossed at the tricky treater's window. Beat that, blockhead!

Good grief....

Never Gets Easier

Today was rather depressing, and it left me at my wit's end, and while there may be a happy ending for my mental state, it means someone else may not have one. A few weeks ago, we came to have a third cat, one that we rescued from a couple taking her to the shelter to be put down. We named her Angel and tried to introduce her slowly to the idea of living with two other cats. We kept her corralled in one of the bathrooms with her own food dish and litterbox. We'd let her out during the day, where one of us could watch her, keep her from fighting too badly with the cats or keep her from marking her territory, and then set her back in at night. Eventually, it worked out to where she was no longer being pent up at night and seemed to be getting along with the other cats.
This didn't last, and she fell back on old habits. We tried everything to help her get back in the habit of using a litterbox and also not overeating. She was painfully skinny when we got her (we even thought she was a kitten until a vet told us she was at least the same age as the other two cats) and while we gave her food, she was so unused to having that much food, she could barely keep it down. The biggest problem this created was that we couldn't get her spayed (which would have stopped her marking her territory, hopefully, and keep the other two cats, both neutered, from bothering her) which meant we couldn't really take her to my roommate's mom's place to be an outdoor cat.
Today was the worst of it. She'd squat down to pee on the rug or a piece of paper on the floor or her little cat cubicle, I'd pick her up to take her to one of the two litterboxes, and practically hold her in until she'd do her business. The fact that I didn't have to do this before is what makes it the most painful. I won't get into the politics of how the three cats have or haven't gotten along, and which of us they have or haven't taken to as a result, but when all is said and done, I just can't take care of three cats.
I went to my roommate, expecting a fight as this was meant to be her cat, and told her, "I can't do this anymore." She turned out to be very understanding, but insisted we try and see if her mom could take her early, keep her penned up in a spare room like we had until she could be let outdoors. There was also the possibility that they'd find someone to take her in. However, I was fed up with waiting, and with my patience gone, I didn't want to wait on promises of "maybe." So, I'm writing this after our talk, and the deal is that she'll talk to her brother and mother, and if they don't have a decision for me by the time I get home from work tomorrow (Monday), Angel will go to a shelter.
This pains me because I've had to do this before with another cat for similar reasons. It also just makes me feel guilty because it's as if I've given up, and there's others out there who wouldn't. I have to assure myself that I did everything I could and that, failing all else, I'm better than the people who had her before. I may not believe in fate, necessarily, but I'm a firm believer in the notion that God helps those who help themselves. Angel has spent countless hours in my lap since we got her (she even let me put her around my shoulders like a scarf, that's how trusting she is), and I've had her looked over by a vet to be given various immunizations and boosters. Now, though, it's as if there's been no change, and I've done all I can for her. I still feel guilty, but my roommate helped me, and I feel confident that I have done all I can for little Angel, but now it's time to move on.
October, and fall in general for that matter, always seem to be the most hectic of Hells for me, and this is just one more thing that's happened. Another reason I'm sending her on her way so early in this week is because toward the end of the week, I'm having ultrasound to find out the source of my abdominal pain, now that my doctor has ruled out absolutely everything the location of my pain indicates. Hopefully, it's nothing, at worst a little blockage, but it's still one more damn thing to deal with.