I was going to post this on my private Facebook wall but it's way too long, and meanwhile I haven't been keeping this blog up-to-date.

Tuesday night my car wouldn't start, dead battery. Needed to plan on getting the car in to replace the battery, but I hate calling AAA, and I hate asking people for a jump. Bicycle is flat, where's my pump?! I walked a mile and a half in the dark, in the sprinkling rain, to a nearby Fry's Marketplace (it's like a teenie tiny Super Wal-mart with home deco, toys, gardening, etc., plus all the groceries) to see if they have any battery-related solutions such as an emergency start kit. Nothing, all their car stuff was stripped out. I was sickened, a long walk for nuthin. Then I realized, .. how about a bunch of D batteries and some wire. I went to get the 'D' batteries and saw the big 6-volt batteries. Two of those, even better than 'D'. These plus a bike pump. I'll be fine tomorrow morning with this stuff.

(Seriously, two 6-volt batteries will only work to trickle-charge the car battery for an hour, if the battery is not completely unchargable. Two lantern batteries won't start the car as they only have a tiny fraction of the required amperage.) 

Headed out. Now it's no longer sprinkling, it's really raining. Turned back, bought an umbrella, got laughed at (old farts thought I was walking to my car with a newly bought umbrella) and walked the mile and a half back home with my 6-volt batteries, my bike pump, and my umbrella. The rain still got to my feet and legs, and my shorts aren't the kind an overweight person like me should walk in (a little rough around the thighs). Couldn't sleep that night, migraines, then the jerks in the apartment below me were doing renovation work at 6:00 AM. I e-mailed the team at work I was taking a sick day, and I slept in. When I awoke, with blisters on my thighs, I headed out to my car and tried to start it. It started on its own, barely. Drove it straight out to get the battery replaced.

Not sure if I should be relieved or sickened that the car started on its own and made my night walk in the rain in vain. But at least I got good exercise. And meanwhile with my "sick" day I managed to fix a few other things at home. I actually feel good about all this. Nice to get off my butt and get thigh blisters. LOL.

So my body isn’t exactly anywhere near fit yet, actually my weight is still holding as I’m slowly trading body fat weight for muscle weight. But after a couple false starts I’ve managed to get back into a basic fitness routine that includes regular use of my elliptical machine and dumbell weight training. My diet includes variations of Robeks smoothies like the Venice Burner with two servings of TrimBek supplements, Fitness Cafe lunches like the Zeus, Shookup, or Pull Up (these aren’t on the old Internet menu), low-cal sandwiches at Subway, or, as a moderately healthy cheat, a Filet-O-Fish sandwich at McDonald’s. I’ve also been drinking Syntha-6, which is the most delicious protein drink I’ve ever tasted in my life. Last night I ordered some additional supplements to experiment with, which of course will only be useful if I can manage to stick to a twice-a-week weight training regimen.

It’s really nice to be getting meaningless and unintentional second glances from women again, but also very strange how fast it happens. Judging by these second-glances, they notice physique changes in men (or at least in me?) that dudes like myself don’t seem to notice at all.

The fitness stuff is one aspect of my life I’ve been trying to clean up. Having a clean home is another. I decided I wanted a fresh start. I wish I could get a fresh start on my body, and of course I can’t, but I know I can get a fresh start on my home. I put an ad in at craigslist.com for a housekeeper and got a whopping 50+ responses!! I made a selection for a house cleaner, and hired her to come on two Saturdays to clean up the kitchen, dining, and living rooms, vacuum the floors, scrub the bathtubs and toilets, and help me use packing tape to get the cat hair off the sofa. While she was cleaning, I spent all day the first Saturday going through mail and piles of small junk. Now I can access my music keyboard again and see the floor!

Next, I need to hire someone to steam clean the carpets. After that, I’ll hire someone to come over and clean up for about four hours every other weekend.

I can’t express how weird it is to have a clean home. I mean, look at this...

Before:

After (and two weeks later):

Ain’t perfect but it’s definitely not a home to be ashamed of anymore! Now I can live unashamedly, and invite all zero of my close-enough-to-care friends over to watch movies, play Halo, have a little LAN party, or just hang out! Yay!

They say that you should exercise 30 minutes a day. Heh!

Well, I also heard that you should wait 48 to 72 hours between fitness sessions because your body needs time to “heal” after a workout. The former I heard from laypeople, the latter I heard from fitness gurus. Which one do I believe, and which one do I prefer to believe?

On both counts, I’m going with the 72-hour wait. Work really hard, then take it easy for a couple (two or three) days. Then, work really hard again. However, I think it would be very appropriate to fit *some* exercise in every day, at least fifteen to twenty minutes, but only after the body has gotten into shape enough to handle it, and I still think the strenuous exercises should be broken up and not every day.

Sunday I exercised real good (relatively speaking). Tomorrow (well, today, gosh it’s late) my time will up. Back on the machine! Oomph!

After opening a can of soup this evening and then looking at the label and seeing that it had “0 Weight Watchers points” (that’s zero points, for those who can’t read numbers), I got online to see how the Weight Watchers point system works.

They say that Weight Watchers is the most scientifically proven and most successful diet program, ever. In my clicking around, I came across these interesting web pages.

How to calculate Weight Watchers points per day (for your body and lifestyle):

http://www.ehow.com/how_5210442_calculate-watchers-points-per-day.html

Seems I “weigh in” at about 37 points per day, simply because I’m a big guy. I’m overweight, though, and for whatever reason, you get more points for more weight that you have, but I don’t like that, so I prefer to take some points off. Make it 32.

The Weight Watchers’ guide to fast food:

http://www.weightwatchers.com/util/art/index_art.aspx?tabnum=1&art_id=29971

Wow. So according to this, I can eat three five dollar footlongs (turkey breast subs at Subway) every day, or the equivalent, and lose weight?

Apparently, then, it’s all about the sides and the extras.

Hm. A year or so ago my tech blog was pretty active. I even had a few subscribers to it. And in fact the further back in time I recall, the more I used to write, not necessarily on that particular tech blog but in general. In fact, in 1997 (that’s 13 years ago) I wrote a (throwaway) submission to the IETF with a “reverse psychology” suggestion on how to control spam, and the document was so well-written it won me an interview with CNET Radio and a Chinese English instructor asked me if he could include it in an English textbook as an example of good English. My writing habits inspired me to create a desktop blogging application years ago, which I spent three years refining before throwing it away in favor of the likes of Windows Live Writer, which was basically the same functionality, minus the history tracking and plus extra aesthetic flair. (I got no credit for it.)

But lately I just haven’t been writing anything at all.

(It’s been stated that you should never blog about blogging because it is the most boring subject to read on the Internet. But then, that’s why this is going into this blog—my personal blog—rather than my tech blog.)

And if you’re curious as to why I’ve gotten so quiet lately—as you surely are not, but I am—then I can only say that there have come changes in my life that might explain it.

First, I was recently diagnosed with a chronic disease. This disease has, for the most part, not shown itself hardly at all, as my treatments have kept me feeling pretty much 100% normal. My hope and indeed my expectation is that this really won’t change for the rest of my life, and I may even see a cure for it altogether long before I would start experiencing any seriously debilitating symptoms.

The discovery of this disease led to immediate depression, but that’s pretty much subsided. However, it was enough of a distraction to bump me off track from my curiosities and certain dreams of self-made success. I can still pursue those dreams and retain that curiosity, but now I’d have to make a conscious effort to do so, which I suppose is one reason why I’m writing this blog entry. The other thing about this disease is that although it has produced almost no symptoms in my day-to-day life, there is some emphasis on the word “almost”. Sometimes I feel a bit strange—weak, tingly, dizzy, sleepy, and with a muddy mind. With the exceptions of tingly and dizzy, I have been unable to say for certain that the disease is to blame for this simply because I really do not get enough exercise nor quite enough sleep. Sometimes, however, the weirdness actually wakes me up and keeps me awake.

So I cannot say that the disease is the cause of my absence of technical blogging, but I can say that it hasn’t exactly helped. I don’t think that the disease has slowed down my mental capacity; on the other hand, it and the secondary symptoms (like depression) have certainly increased the mental laziness factor. And indeed it might be partially responsible for energy problems. Even writing this I feel the urge to go to bed, and it’s 3:30PM.

Meanwhile, I have also been playing a lot of PC games lately. I beat Dragon Age. I got really interested in Star Trek Online, until everyone rated it 60% and I realized I was excited about something that’s mediocre. I also beat Mass Effect 2, and just beat Battlefield: Bad Company 2 (single player; a very short but very good game), and I’ve been playing EVE Online again on and off. I’ve been so engrossed in PC gaming lately, in fact, that I’ve been thinking about blogging about my gaming activities in a third blog, a blog dedicated to my gaming adventures, with gripes and praises about each game as I play it.

But pondering that, I am forced to recollect yesteryear’s goals and agendas. What ever happened to the Gemli Project? I spent so much time working on that thing that I never had a chance to use it fully in my own web site initiatives. As I think about plans to add LINQ support, I realize the sheer scope of that project’s ideals and realize that it really might be too much to handle. So I procrastinate. And I procrastinate further. And meanwhile I get depressed over my disease, and get over that depression, and meanwhile I get lazier, and meanwhile I play PC games …

I have no excuse, but then I have no reason to care. Why should I? I live alone. I do what I do as I feel the need or want to do it. All this seems to not lead to anywhere unless I focus on the things that lead me somewhere.

I suppose I should be trying to live a life that is more intentional. I just lack the motivation to identify and pursue what intentions I should have. Marriage? Being single for so long I’ve lost the appreciation for women I used to have (and no that doesn’t mean that it’s been replaced with appreciation for men .. yeesh ..). Running a business? My Hanford failure was so disgustingly ugly that I’m afraid of really even trying.

There’s the rather obvious path of simply digging deeper into God. I say “rather obvious” simply because there’s always plenty to do when you’re completely “sold out for Jesus”. I just get a little nervous about how bizarre people can get with their faith, and even I myself have portrayed it in years past, and I often wonder how much of that is culture and/or psychology versus what is real. Meanwhile, I’m never awake enough on Sunday mornings; being completely alone, I have no motivators to get up and out the door.

So I really don’t know. This is what’s on my mind today, though.

A couple months ago while looking for experimental (and safe) natural remedies for my multiple sclerosis condition I came across a couple superfoods called Risotriene and 7 Essentials (the latter of which also contains Risotriene). Risotriene is [rather expensive] stabilized rice bran. The brown stuff that gets shaved off of rice when producing white rice is [supposedly] one of the most nutritious food sources on the planet, and that’s what this stuff is.

I bought these. The 7 Essentials actually turned out to be really good when blended with ice and Zola. It was like an uber-healthy Jamba Juice. Unfortunately, I don’t drink Zola anymore because they have some serious quality control issues and half of my last case of Zola was fermented. So that leaves me with just the Risotriene since it doesn’t require drink.

The problem with the Risotriene, aside from the price, is that it’s both raw-edible and just-short-of-gagging disgusting in taste. It tastes like powdered sugar, chalk, and ground-up multivitamins all mixed together.  I’ve tried being creative with this stuff but can’t seem to make it actually good. A few things I’ve tried include putting some on a corner piece of a DiGiorno pizza (nasty, the Risotriene tasted too sweet and acidic versus the cheese and crust), straight in boiling water (didn’t even consume it, was testing solubility), straight in milk (tolerable but not fun), in a 7 Essentials blend (was fine), and, tonight, directly on the tongue (*gag*).

What I’d like to know is, can this stuff actually be made to taste good? I suppose if the 7 Essentials has it, and 7 Essentials isn’t too severely untasty, I can just take the 7 Essentials. But such a small part of 7 Essentials is Risotriene that I don’t think suffices as a Risotriene serving. So I’d like to know, how do you eat the stuff?

I’m considering trying it with meals with white rice that I normally find very delicious. Healthy people often tend to avoid meals with white rice because white rice is nowhere near as healthy as brown rice, but if the difference between brown rice and white rice is, more or less, the bran, then maybe white rice with Risotriene is just as good as brown rice. It should actually be a lot better, since a scoop of Risotriene has a lot more bran than a meal of brown rice.

Last month was incredibly depressing, getting news I wasn’t prepared all my life to ever hear, that my future is going to be totally different, and not likely for the better. But I’ve come across other perspectives. I read someone write that finding out this specific piece of news, while certainly future-altering, doesn’t necessarily mean a sucky life, so much as a life filled with unusual challenge. Challenges make us stronger, and grow our character. Then again, how many grumpy old men are out there who didn’t become grumpy old men by way of challenges that made them sour? I suppose it all depends on how you approach it all.

I knew it would be just a matter of time, though, before all of this would become “yesterday’s news”, so to speak, and life would go on. The reality of the situation will not, and cannot, escape me. But I’m fortunate today to be symptom-free, so far as I can tell. Mind you, I am not exactly a healthy athlete, so I do of course have “issues” that often confuse me such as my legs falling asleep more often than they used to simply because I’ve gained some weight lately. And I did the unthinkable today—I went to McDonald’s. Twice, once for an early morning breakfast and just now for a late night naughty extra meal consisting of their new angus burger. It should be stated, though, that except for one hot fudge sundae I enjoyed earlier this week which seems to have been the starting point of recent Micky D’s cravings, I hadn’t been to McDonald’s in at least a few months till this week. So that was fun, but I need to get back into my healthy eating again.

I got a new dishwasher this week, a beautiful Whirlpool I found on Best Buy’s web site. I like to believe that this will open a couple new doors for me. ;) One of the big hindrances of preparing healthy food at home has been the overflow of dishes in the sink, and the lack of available clean dishes. So this should change things, if subtly, so I hope.

I’ve been getting a lil bit of exercise, too, although it hasn’t been consistent yet. I pulled my cheap little elliptical machine into the living room, in front of the TV, and use it regularly now, or rather was using it regularly until a couple days ago; I moved it back to the back room temporarily and need to drag it back into the living room.

I’m computing on my laptop again, back in the old grind, I thought it was fried but recently realized—after [possibly mistakenly] ordering a replacement laptop that I’m still waiting on—that the hard drive might not be frying from non-working fans but rather from power surges. Until I made this realization I was convinced my laptop was hosed, so I’d been using my desktop machine exclusively, and that’s why I dragged my elliptical machine into the living room, because it went to the spot where the laptop was in front of the sofa. :) But now that I know it was probably power surges and not heat, I ordered a power regulator and will be careful to unplug the power supply while powering up or shutting down. I’m back on the laptop, and that elliptical machine remains but it crowds the space.

My darn cats keep getting all up in my face and shedding their fur all over my laptop and everything else, including my itchy nose.

If there is any earlier-news symptom I am indeed suffering from this week it’s the intensity of my tiredness. Yesterday I was wrapping up a blog article on my tech blog and I literally fell asleep while trying to complete the last sentence. I fear I’m about to go through that again right now, so I’ll have to cut this blog post short and go to bed. It’s late, anyway.

But I just wanted to make mention of what’s going on here. It’s a relief to not be entirely stuck in self-pity. Life will go on, and I’m not suddenly stupid, I’m still smart (as far as I can tell) and am still as able as ever to do my job. Now I just need to stay rested and keep hoping for a turnaround in the medical industry to come up with either a cure or a 100% (or near to that) effective treatment that I can buy into.

Speaking of treatments, I’m going to need to fetch my first injection medications soon. I still haven’t been trained in on how to use them and doing it every day will bring back some depression, no doubt, but I just want to hold onto this “symptom free” state of being for as long as possible.

Oh yeah, the bedtime reality. I must wake myself up long enough to wrap this up now.

I don’t have much to say tonight except that I saw the neurologist today and confirmed the diagnosis for MS. The BAER test showed irregularities and the spinal tap showed evidences of MS disease activity. That’s three diagnostic tests that point to MS (these plus the initial MRI brain scans showing five lesions).

Somehow, this time I’m not taking it hard this time. I guess I already shed my tears with the initial diagnosis a couple months ago.

I feel fine; some minor tingling in my legs and constant ringing in my ears but otherwise fine. The spinal tap pain is almost all behind me; I still feel weirdness in my lower back from the blood patch but I otherwise feel fine.

I now need to prepare myself for continuous therapy. MS therapy comes in injection form—stabbing myself with a needle regularly. Fortunately, there are prescription pills coming out in the next year that will replace the injections. My neurologist tells me not to wait for it, which I won’t. I’m just glad that it’s coming.

I can cope with this new knowledge that MS has been confirmed, but two things about it scare me significantly: serious physical disability (especially in my hands, eyes, and internal organs such as digestive system and bladder) and cognitive disability (failure of the mind and memory) to any extent. None of these are affected so far at all, thank goodness. My hands, eyes, and mind are my primary tools for my career track and what I use for my free time (which is the same as what I do for my work time – computing!!) so if I get crippled in any of these areas I will have to find something else to do with my time and abandon what I’ve invested all of my adulthood into.

But let’s not go there any further; I feel fine, and I’m still in the game, still as capable as ever. Hopefully the treatments will keep things this way for a very long time.

Well it’s almost midnight, Sunday evening. My mother’s here, I flew her here to assist me in a lumbar puncture (a “spinal tap”) that was scheduled by my neurologist as a final diagnostic in determining potential MS (and I’m betting it’ll turn up negative like everything else since the positive MRI). I’ve had more than a month to prepare for this procedure, but having never experienced it before I wasn’t sure what to expect.

Friday was the procedure. They had me lying face-down on a bed / table while they poked holes into my back. Yes, plural, HOLES! First they jabbed my spinal cord and I moaned and grunted and, well, didn’t hold very still, so they pulled the needle out. I thought it was still in there because I had difficulty breathing, the pain in my spine was still so strong it knocked my breath out, and the medical students standing around were asking me questions, “So what symptoms were you experiencing that led to a diagnosis of potential MS?”

“Well,” I stammered between awkward breaths, “for about two weeks back in April, .. every time I inhaled deeply .. such as if I yawned or stood up and sighed .. I had these weird 15 or 20 second spells .. first I’d get really tingly in my chest and neck .. then the left side of my face would cringe up like this .. and then I’d kind of black out .. only it wasn’t like I was blacking out like fainting .. it was more like I was just losing it .. and I just couldn’t focus ..”

Then the doctor came back and told me that he was going to try again. Try again?! I couldn’t even breathe right and there wasn’t even a needle in me? Ack!!

So then he did it again. Poke poke! Ow ow! “Get me an even smaller needle.” What? AGAIN?! Poke poke! Ow ow!!! Pokey pokey poke poke!  *sigh* Poke poke pokey poke!! .. Poke poke poke!!

“We got it!”

“Oh. So .. what does that mean?”

“Well, .. it means we’re going to sit here and let this drip out for a few minutes.”

“Oh.”

Five minutes later, ..

“So what now, another five minutes?”

“Yeah well probably not quite that long. Actually ..” He yanks it out and slaps on a band-aid. “We’re done. We got only about two teaspoons.”

They wheeled me into the recovery room and brought me a huge lunch but told me to eat with my head flat on the bed. Fine. I ate head-down. It was awkward. I also drank from my side. Water. Tea. And before the procedure I had a bunch of coffee. And a big huge bottle of Mountain Dew. So one hour into recovery, I really needed to pee. I called the nurse with the button. “Is it too soon? I really need to use the rest room.” “Not till 2:30. I’ll go get you a urinal.” She came back with a pee bottle. Great. I was scared of it, but I was really uncomfortable. I rolled to my side and I think I deposited at least two liters of pee.

By the time I left I only felt soreness in my back where they had poked at me. No headaches. I said that I was surprised by no headaches. “Surprised?!” the nurse exclaimed, “Headaches are complications of the procedure.” “Oh.”

Well I stayed flat on the sofa like I was ordered by my neurologist, and slept like a baby in my bed that night. The next morning, on Saturday, as I awoke in bed I felt fresh, energized, and, well, perfect. I felt perfect. I got out of bed, used the rest room, wandered into the kitchen to get some breakfast, and then I noticed that I didn’t feel so perfect anymore. By the time I ate I realized that I’d likely be stuck flat on the sofa for the entire day, as the spinal headache of being upright wasn’t fun.

Fast forward to now. The headache hasn’t gotten any better, and I've experienced a lot of nausea and serious hearing impairment. This whole time I’ve been cramming caffeine into my body and even used Imitrex (migraine medication, which I had acquired a bit of half a year prior for migraine treatment). Ultimately, the only way I have been able to cope has been to stay laying head-down, flat on the sofa.

As I type this I am actually sitting upright, but not without a lot of pain, in fact my left ear is almost entirely deaf from the pressure imbalances. And I’m sad. I’m sad because my mother came all the way down here to assist me in all this, officially, but unofficially I really wanted to enjoy her being here and go out and enjoy Scottsdale with her, but she’s had to hang around the house the whole time for the most part while I’ve been watching TV sideways for two and a half days straight.

And, I’m sad because when I’m lying head-down I feel fine, but that’s such a useless position, I can’t even use my laptop in that position. And if I sit up the headaches come back. So I can’t even work from home. I can’t do *anything*, except watch TV sideways, which inevitably contributes to my headache because I get headaches when watching TV sideways regardless of availability of cerebral-spinal fluids.

It’s been more than 48 hours. They say that if these headaches last beyond 48 hours you should call the doc, and then you get to go back in for a “blood patch”, where they inject your own blood to the problem area to help it clot. *sigh* I have to miss a work day for this, after already losing Friday!  Tomorrow I will wake up, confirm the headache remains, send an e-mail to the team at the office that I won’t make it in (sick day), and call the hospital and/or my neurologist to arrange for a blood patch. Then I’ll go in, do the deed, come back home and lie around for the rest of the day again, and then in the morning I have to drive my mother out to the airport. Well at least her schedule was perfect, she was here to see me through all this crap.

But I’ve been wondering this whole time, why on earth didn’t they just do a blood patch during the same procedure after THREE (3!!) heavy pokes at my spinal cord??