Health update

 

Since my last health update, there's been a lot of "hurry up and wait" and several frustrating disagreements among medical professionals who can't agree on what they want to do to me.  I'm beginning to feel like a laboratory guinea-pig.

All the doctors agree that "Something Must Be Done!" - but they can't seem to agree what that Something should be.  The main point of contention appears to be whether I need three more vertebrae to be fused, adding on to my present fusion site, or whether the existing fusion should be removed and a sort of reinforcing tube or grid built around all the vertebrae in my lumbar spine.  The latter is agreed to be the strongest option, and the least likely to give further problems in future, but it's also the most invasive and potentially harmful if something goes wrong.  (Doctors:  "Nothing Will Go Wrong!"  Their nurses, talking to me when the doctor has gone out for a moment:  "Don't You Believe It!"  I think some of the doctors want to do it purely so they can say they've had experience with the procedure, but I'd rather have a doctor who's done it before, as many times as possible, so he's not graded low on the learning curve.)

I've just about finished with the tests that were required to get this far.  (Believe it or not, it's taken over six months to go through them all!)  The file of test results is pretty thick by now, but it still hasn't provided enough evidence for the doctors to decide on the best approach.  I'm going to give them until the end of February, then, if there's still no decision, I'm going to take the entire file and CD's of all the imaging and go to a completely different hospital network in the DFW area for a second opinion.  That will delay proceedings, but I hope will provide greater clarity.  Besides that, the doctors in the other network appear to be considerably more experienced than those in the local one, so I hope I'll be dealing with specialists who've faced this combination of issues before and treated it/them successfully.

Meanwhile, thanks to your generosity, dear readers, the bills are paid up to date, and so far (cross fingers, touch wood, etc.) things look manageable in terms of future planning.  I remain very grateful to you all.  I'd hate to have financial worries hanging over the physical ones!  Thanks to you, I haven't got that added complication.  Pain remains a daily problem, but I've added another medication targeting peripheral neuropathy issues, which has helped reduce the dosage of painkillers I've been popping.  That makes me feel less zombie-fied, if you know what I mean, and is yet another reason for gratitude towards God, the doctors and all of you.

So far, so good.  I'll provide another update in a couple of months.

Peter

Memes that made me laugh 298

 

Gathered from around the Internet over the past week.  Click any image for a larger view.

Sunday morning music

 

Joe Satriani needs no introduction to electric guitar aficionados.  He's had a long and extraordinarily talented career, and is one of the top performers in his field.  Go read his bio at Wikipedia to get some idea of how creative he's been, and how many others he's taught and/or influenced along the way.

I couldn't possibly list all his hits and noteworthy performances;  a blog post containing them would take days to write and probably break Blogger's download bandwidth.  Instead, I'm going to take the simple approach and play just one:  "The Forgotten (Part 2)" from his third studio album, 1989's  "Flying In A Blue Dream".

There's an enormous number of his tracks recorded on his YouTube channel and elsewhere.  Go enjoy them all!

Peter

Still up to my ears in administrivia

 

Yesterday's rough and tumble will continue today, with all sorts of loose ends to be tied up and put out of the way.  Nothing earth-shattering (at least, I hope not!) but enough to keep me from blogging as per usual.

Regular blogging will recommence with next Sunday's musical miscellany.  Please amuse yourself with the bloggers in the sidebar until then.  They write good, too!

Peter

Life is getting in the way of blogging

 

I'm being bombarded with various bits and pieces of life, the universe and everything.  I'm arguing with doctors, trying to sort out a tax question, cleaning up and throwing out a bunch of "stuff" in the garage, doing normal domestic chores, and trying to research a particular issue for inclusion in the book I'm currently working on (the second volume of a US Civil War naval trilogy).

Basically, I have to take a day off blogging to catch up with myself and some of these issues.  I'll try to make time to put up a proper blog post tomorrow.

Have fun, y'all!

Peter

Cognitive dissonance - ammunition edition?

 

Fellow blogger Eaton Rapids Joe mentioned Republic Ammunition in a recent post, particularly their low-cost primers.  I took a look at their product line, and was intrigued to find this.

Er... um...

I can understand wanting to give your better half (?) a Valentine's Day gift that expresses your love.

However...

Is it wise to give your (current) better half a Valentine's Day gift that he/she can use against you if they (or you) decide that he/she/you is no longer their/your better half?

Not the sort of "target market" in which I'd like to participate!

Peter

That's mind-boggling...

 

Courtesy of a link provided by DiveMedic, we learn that human breast milk is one of the most complex systems nature has ever devised.

Milk is not just nutrition.
It is information.

. . .

When a baby nurses, microscopic amounts of saliva flow back into the breast. That saliva carries biological signals about the infant’s immune system. If the baby is getting sick, the mother’s body detects it.

Within hours, the milk changes.

White blood cells surge.
Macrophages multiply.
Targeted antibodies appear.

When the baby recovers, the milk returns to baseline.

This was not coincidence.
It was call and response.

A biological dialogue refined over millions of years. Invisible—until someone thought to listen.

. . .

Milk changes by time of day.
Foremilk differs from hindmilk.
Human milk contains over 200 oligosaccharides babies can’t digest—because they exist to feed beneficial gut bacteria.
Every mother’s milk is biologically unique.

. . .

Milk has been evolving for more than 200 million years—longer than dinosaurs walked the Earth. What we once dismissed as simple nourishment is one of the most sophisticated communication systems biology has ever produced.

Katie Hinde didn’t just study milk.
She revealed that nourishment is intelligence.
A living, responsive system shaping who we become before we ever speak.

There's more at the link.

That may be one of the most mind-blowing scientific analyses I've ever read.  I had no idea . . . and I guess most of the scientific and health community didn't, either.  It took one researcher who caught a glimpse of something tantalizing, enough to make her look further and go deeper - and she revealed a whole new wonder of nature.  Here's a TED talk she gave in 2018, before much of the most recent research was revealed.

The more I learn of this sort of complexity in nature, the more I shake my head at those who claim that evolution is responsible for everything, that we're merely cosmic "accidents", that there's no such thing as "intelligent design".  If there isn't, how does one account for the immense intelligence revealed just in the biological system of human milk - never mind everything else about us, and about life?

I know we'll never agree on that, but that's OK.  I'm just going to say, "Thank you, Lord", and leave it at that.

Peter