| Flu Kitteh Visits the Doctor | 11:16 PM |
This is me. Except I'm not in your house licking your straws. And the thought of drinking soda makes me a little queasy. In fact, the only things on my approved diet list right now are white rice and chicken soup. Sometimes I have some potato chips for salt, but I don't know why I'm craving salt since I drink at least a gallon of water a day. I drink the stuff non stop because my throat is continually parched and sore and needs an endless supply of hot water to soothe it. And sometimes I have a couple of mini Twix bars and some Red Vines. For variety. Though I've found that if I eat anything other than the rice and soup, my digestive system starts to malfunction and breaks down.
I've been sick for seven days. And not really getting any better. I finally went to the doctor today and got some meds. I've been out of work for 5 days so far -- 5 days! Starting last Thursday. I've worked from home on every single one of those days. I think Thursday and Friday, I'm going to try resting instead. Maybe that'll help me feel better.
I have a thing about going to the doctor. He never really tells me anything I don't know when I'm sick. I can probably fight off whatever I have on my own eventually. And it costs me money since he's outside my network (he used to be in my network which is why he's my doctor to begin with, but no longer is). Combine that with my father's diagnosis of "You'll be fine" to whatever it is I have all my life, and you can see how I have mixed feelings about going to the doctor.
But seeing the doctor makes me feel good -- he makes me feel better and I feel like I've done something good for myself. I like my doctor. Do I think he's a genius with an answer to every one of my questions? No, but he does pretty damn well and he makes me feel like he cares, he remembers my last visit, he's comforting to me. I've never had a doctor before that I felt that way about. He listens to my lungs, looks at my tonsils, listens to the symptoms and progression of my illness, he nods and listens and contributes to my descriptions. He gives me a list of meds to take for the symptoms that most bother me, and prescribes antibiotics.
Being sick is like living in someone else's body for a while -- your body is an alien to you. What is this weird slimy stuff coming out of my head? Why can't I eat the stuff I normally eat? Why can't I think? Every little act -- for example, leaving the house -- becomes an traumatic ordeal. I walked to Walgreen's on Easter Sunday -- 10 minute walk to the store and my body was sweating and chilled and I felt so uncomfortable both physically and mentally. Meds cramp up your tummy, food makes you sick. Your bowels are your enemy and your head is a giant cotton puff -- good for nothing but collecting lint. And like this, I think I can work. Eh...tomorrow I sleep.
| The Nicotine Patch is Evil | 1:38 PM |
I have never been able to kick my nicotine addiction. I'm always either smoking or trying to quit. Except I never really try that hard. Instead of quitting smoking, what I've actually done is replaced cigarettes with nicotine patches that I supplement with the occassional cigarette. And if I feel like getting back into full on smoker mode, I just stop wearing the patch for a week or two. Then get back on it.
I think what the patch has done for me is actually worse than what would've happened to me without it. Not only is it a crutch (actually more like a cane) that helps me get through withdrawl, but it's an artificial "out" that lets me allow myself to smoke whenever I please -- because it'll be easy to quit; just get on the patch! And surely, I tell myself, being on the patch all the time is better than smoking every day.
Without the patch, I'd either still be smoking a pack+ a day towards inevitable death, or would have tried quitting several times before (hopefully) succeeding to slow down in my approach to inevitable death. Right now, I'm in this middle ground where I'm not a real smoker, and I'm not a real quitter, and I have no idea what my death stats are.
I think part of my problem is I have an inflated and false sense that I am safer from the cancer causing effects of smoking than most other smokers. Because I work out regularly, because there is no family history, because other people in my family smoke. I'm not afraid of it. The more dangerous and risky a drug is, the easier it is to use the fact that you don't want to die as the impetus to quit for good and never look back. An overdose is immediate, and guaranteed if you overindulge. Overindulge in cigarettes and maybe you'll get diarrhea and a bad stomach cramp and headache (I'm making those symptoms up). Dying from cigarettes takes time. Too long to be a deterrent.
I read this article the other day about how most mouth and throat cancers have decreased as expected with the reduced rates of smoking. Except for those at the base of the tongue and tonsils. They think it's caused by HPV (the genital warts virus). Now, if you had to choose, would you want to tell your mother you had throat cancer from a) giving head or b) smoking? Ding, ding ding! I choose smoking -- it's the best of both worlds (interpret that how you will ;)
| More Socket Problems | 11:07 PM |
My tooth socket continues to be pain in the ass. I go again to have it scraped out and cleaned tomorrow. Hopefully for the last time. I went over a month ago when the flesh inside my empty tooth socket got so swollen it was poking out of the top of the tooth socket. Imagine a big mixing bowl with a small dough ball at the bottom, then imagine the dough's risen and it's puffy and fluffed out of the top of the bowl. And the oral surgeon has to rip all that dough out of the bowl. That was my tooth socket about a month ago.
It's been interesting to me this saga of oral surgeons these past 2.5 months. I chose an oral surgeon because I knew someone who'd used him before -- you can't just cold call a dentist! And he was fine and nice and his office staff was great, the surgery assistant was cute and extremely nice -- as were the other assistants. But then he failed to call me back when I was most anxious (about the dough ball in my socket) and now I wouldn't trust him to clean my teeth, much less rip them out of my head.
I went to the on-site dentist at work as an emergency -- I wasn't sure if I was supposed to be worried about my tooth hole or not. She pulled out a sharp pointy thing and my hands leapt up of their own accord to cover my mouth, and I was just as suprised as she was. She promised she wouldn't hurt me and I dropped my hands. She kept her promise and recommended Dr. Joseph S Kim, DMD. He is awesome. I can't recommend him enough. It's funny because my mom dragged my sister off to Korean doctors and dentists with mixed results so I was sort of wary of going to see him for the first time, but I was immediataely sold. I've never seen such happy office staff -- you don't get happy office staff if you're not successful (who can be happy about a failing practice?) and personable (who wants to work for a crabass?). The review I found on Yelp helped me feel good about going to see him (so good that I added my own review).
I got local anesthesia for the debridement (he pulled out the dead flesh in my tooth socket -- did I mention that yet?) and they say you're supposed to wait after the shot for it to fully take effect. Which he did -- asking me if I felt my lips, did it feel weird? No, ok, you're not ready yet. But I got anxious waiting to get numb, then wasn't sure if I was numb enough. And while he's (literally) ripping stuff out of that hole, I can hear it in my head, and feel a little bit of the tugging in my mouth, but it doesn't hurt. There's no pain, but I've worked myself up so much that if I hear too much or feel too much tugging -- I tell myself I feel pain so I can make the doctor stop. Of course, I don't realize this at the time, but afterwards when I re-evaluated my repsonse (my body was tense; i was covered in sweat -- so much sweat that when they finished, they mopped my brow!), I realized there was no pain. And there wasn't any pain after the procedure either. I took some pain killers just before I left the office and didn't feel a thing after that, and didn't need any additional pain medication at all.
Today, when I was back there again, he pulled out a sharp, pointy tool and I didn't even flinch. He just stuck it right in my mouth, but I completely trust him now. And he totally deserves it -- I didn't even feel the pointy bit in my mouth!
| the pain, the endless pain! | 9:54 PM |
i had my wisdom teeth pulled almost two weeks ago friday. three of the extraction sites seem to be healing up fine and normally. the last one is a bitch and hurts like a motherfucker. saturday after the surgery i woke up fine. sunday and monday mornings i woke up in excruciating pain and it hasn't really stopped since and has only the tiniest bit gotten better. saturday i'd gotten off the vicodin and onto tylenol because i thought the vicodin would make me sleepy for the drive up north on sunday, but the tylenol (with it's doubled dosage of acetaminophen) made me sleepier than the vicodin did.
i had this foolish notion i would be fine after three days. and the literature the oral surgeon gave me implied i'd be onto solid food by day three. so i was eating sandwiches on day two. soft, little sandwiches, but solid food nonetheless. i think i started chewing too soon. and that bottom right tooth was apparently a bitch to pull out (i can't remember why though), and it's not just a little round hole like the others, it's a long gash and the gum is separated from my teeth by that gash. it has a lot more healing to do.
but the pain. i don't think i've ever had this much pain for this long in my entire life. as an experiment i went off the pain meds and denied myself tylenol or anything else of that ilk since monday (i got really ill after bay to breakers on sunday -- combo of not enough sleep or water, strong pain meds, and alcohol) and sometimes it hurts so bad i want to scratch the side of my face off. this afternoon i gave in and had some generic pain medication out of the medicine cabinet at work. i can understand now how animals gnaw away at themselves for a variety of reasons -- boredom, panic, pain. my dad's dog gnawed the skin and flesh off his leg recently (just before they put him to sleep due to old age and illness) because it hurt and he'd lost a lot of sensation in it. poor baby...i completely understand.
| cartoons & tv | 1:05 AM |
i was at the gym tonight watching drawn together and it was a spoof of the donald trump reality show (i've never seen an episode of either of these shows so i'm sort of guessing). anyway -- there was this upskirt shot right up a fat betty boop's skirt and it was horrendously realistic. labia visible out the sides of her panties, pubic hair coming out the top and i thought, jesus christ -- are kids watching this? to be fair there was a disclaimer at the commercial break that said something about it being unrated...mature audiences, etc...
speaking of tv...last night i watched four hours of law and order (well, 3 then a closer). i was over at ed's -- i meant to just do laundry and then go, but those law and orders start right up after one's ended and it doesn't even give you time to disengage yourself from the couch. i had to drag myself out at midnight so i could go home and sleep, and i was afraid i'd get mugged in the parking lot of the condo complex he lives in.
then i was afraid to go upstairs into my loft for fear someone was up there. the whole time i was taking a bath, i kept thinking, wow...now would be a really good time to come kill me -- i'm naked in the tub without my contacts in. before i went to bed: should i leave my front door unlatched in case the police come and have to break the door down?
random acts of violence aside -- it's love you should worry about. four crime drama episodes and they all involved murder and love. in one, a daughter poisons her mother and puts her in a coma (ok, she doesn't actually die, but wouldn't you rather be dead than in a coma?), a mother kills her son (who totally randomly killed people, but he was schizophrenic), in another one an italian mobster's son kills his father's beloved mistress, and in the fourth, a nice catholic girl kills her boyfriend when she finds out he's actually a girl -- by mashing her head in, then shooting her in the face, then she cuts off her hair and strips off her clothes.
yup. love is what you want to avoid if you wanna live a long time ;)
| Biking in my head | 12:11 AM |
I went mountain biking at Skegg's Point this weekend. I ate it a couple of times -- have some scratches on my shin, ankle, and some bruises on my thighs. It's interesting how little it physically hurts when you tumble off your bike. In part because you're travelling so slowly -- I fell twice early in the ride where it was fairly steep and rocky/rutty -- and because you just don't fall that far. I fell forward the second time and the bicycle tire bounced off my helmet -- and there was something surreal and mellow about it -- the gentle way the tire's spokes (it landed sideways) bounced on top of my head, and my brain trying to sort out how it is that the bike was in such a position as to bonk me on the head like that.
I was frustrated early. My body was tired on Sunday -- a full week of running, weights, climbing, yoga, pilates, and working longer hours, and not getting enough sleep to accomodate it all -- I was worn out. And I get angry when my body doesn't have enough energy -- it hurts and that pain and frustration translates into anger.
Shortly after that second fall though, I realized I don't have to keep up. I don't have to feel bad that I'm keeping anyone behind. This is only my second time out on a mountain bike and this isn't exactly a beginner's trail. And it's amazing what my body can do if I let my mind go. I retreat into my head in a different way -- when I got really tired riding and my breathing was ragged, I'd slow down, inhale, enjoy the incredibly beautiful surroundings and the quiet, quiet, calm -- it was a perfect day for a ride -- not too hot, but warm in the shade, and my body would calm down, too, stop racing so hard.
There is a great deal of satisfaction in exhausting yourself physically, in draining everything you have to meet some end goal -- to finish a ride or a run, or to climb one more route. It is much more satisfying to stretch my aching muscles than to stretch fresh ones -- just like everything tastes better when you're hungry than when you're full -- I am more aware and appreciative of my body when I can feel it in some way. And let me tell, you, I can feel it now...and it's telling me I need to sleep...
| How Much Meat? | 12:55 AM |
In the last issue of New Scientist, there was an interesting commentary/analysis on meat consumption in the world. The environmental and health impacts of raising and eating meat seem to be economically interelated in a twisted, self-agrandizing inflation of the GDP (gross domestic product) -- the means by which we judge our standard of living.
GDP increases because meat consumption goes up -- farmers raise and sell more animals. Health care costs also rise and contribute to GDP. Issues such as obesity and heart disease, which everyone knows is the direct result of consuming too much fat, and meat has tons of fat. Then we raise more meat, negatively impact the environment some more (our farmed animals produce 10% of all greenhouse gases, including 25% of methane -- the most potent greenhouse gas), give more people heart disease, increase our GDP...
The average human only needs 1500 kilocalories a day. Eat twice that and most people become obese. Producing enough food for all of us is actually not a difficult task -- if we stick to a plant-rich diet. But feed the plants to the cows, then the cows to the humans and the money's flowing and the economy's booming.
Did you know it takes 100,000 litres of water to produce a kilo of beef? That's 200 times the amount of water it takes to produce a kilo of potatoes. And it's estimated that by 2050, the world's livestock population will consume enough plant life to feed an extra 4 billion people if it wasn't being fed to our meat. Four billion people. And all for the glory of consumption.
Of course, if I was feeling skeptical, I'd research the numbers more. Everyone's got a slant. The numbers quoted here come straight from that New Scientist article. The author mentions a "new report" by the Compassion in World Farming group. But it's not a "report", it's a new campaign to promote decreased meat consumption around the world. You can check out the PDF files for that campaign here -- the Mar 15, 2004 posting. The full report is called The Global Benefits of Eating Less Meat (PDF link).
I agree that we eat too much meat which is probably why I'm too lazy to check out those numbers just now (plus it's 1 in the morning and I'm supposed to be working on something else). But if I were you I'd research those numbers (maybe you can email me when you're done :).
| Doctor's Visit | 7:39 PM |
I don't know why I bother going to my primary care physician. I know that I'm going to be fine and just have to wait out whatever it is I have. I grew up with a doctor in the family so I have a weird relationship with doctors. I think they're all quacks and don't know any better than us, and at the same time, am very reassured when I hear a good opinion. I adore my father. He wasn't a primary care physician - he saw things a lot worse than colds and flus, and his response to any sort of illness on my part was to peek down my throat (to make sure it wasn't strep - it never was) and to tell me I'd be fine. Of course, he was right, but my youth with him has definitely left me with this feeling that doctors often can't do a lot for you. How you take care of your body is exactly how healthy you are. Doctors can recommend you take certain actions and ingest certain substances, but ultimately you are in charge of your well being. For the average human being anyway, and barring any tragic and chronic illnesses or conditions.
On the way back I walked the 3 and a half miles home - I haven't ran, climbed or biked in three days and am starting to feel antsy. I've needed the rest and shouldn't be exerting myself, but I'm still antsy. And I love walking through the city - especially during commute hours. I was almost home and was walking down Valencia when all of a sudden I heard, "Hi, Kathy". I looked up and was pleasantly surprised to see one of the lawyers I work with who I like and respect immensely, but don't know extremely well. We chatted briefly and went our separate ways, but afterwards all I could think was, what was I doing those 30 seconds before he said hello? And was it anything stupid? I remember staring at a dog tied to a post on the sidewalk, mesmerized by its incredibly light blue eyes. It had a ragged and dirty stuffed bunny between its front legs, and was shaking slightly. The shaking combined with the devilish eyes - I remember vaguely and bemusedly smiling at him wondering how far away I should walk from him so that if he is crazy he won't be able to bite me, and was just in front of the dog when I heard the hello. And then all thoughts of the dog just vanished.
| Banning Foie Gras | 10:55 AM |
Proposed bill would ban both the production and sale of foie gras in California. I've never had foie gras and only the other day learned how it comes from the fatty livers of geese and ducks, and that they literally force feed the birds in order to produce the swollen little organs. I've been thinking about it ever since and thought it was ironic that this proposed ban was on the frontpage of sfgate this morning. It is bizarre to me that people can often treat animals, not as living creatures, but simply as materials in a manufacturing process.
| No meat is good meat | 5:34 PM |
Between the bird flu (which two people currently have) and mad cow, I can't fathom wanting to eat meat again anytime soon. I'm finding myself drifting more and more towards vegetarianism. Not entirely intentionally, but not unawares either. Part of it is a health issue - now that I don't smoke everything tastes so much richer - plain fruits and vegetables meet virtually all my cravings. And exercising regularly moderates my cravings, too - I don't crave rich red meat or salty pork meat, and chicken, yuck, I've never been a big fan of fowl meat (pun intended :).
There's also the moral aspect of cruelty to animals. I think I've purposely not learned much about it, but I know that the conditions that most food animals are raised in are far less than ideal - cramped quarters, feed that they're not meant to eat, antibiotics and other drugs pumped into their systems. Their lives are not just less than ideal, they're horrific. It's easy for me to anthropomorphize critters, but let's not do that and just think about the way that these animals live naturally, removed from the influence of humans and then compare that life to the lives they end up living on these farms.
Responsible consumerism is something that I've begun to be more aware of and conscioiusly supportive of. I think you can eat meat responsibly. I have a friend that argues that killing animals is wrong period. But I don't agree - as another friend poses, "Is it morally wrong for one animal to kill another for food?" And I can't say yes. Yes, humans have the option to choose not to eat meat, to choose not to kill animals for food, and perhaps it's morally wrong for us to choose to kill when we can choose not to, but we're biologically built to eat meat and vegetables, and I haven't yet decided that eating meat is entirely wrong for me.
