4069 Bloody attack by a dragon!

Sunday, July 12, 2015

"Regret for the things we did can be tempered by time; 

it is regret for the things we did not do that is inconsolable."

--Sidney J. Harris--

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I am trying to be very careful about caring for my 1.5 kidneys, drinking lots of water, watching carbs and protein, and avoiding excesses of minerals.

This morning, as usual, when I got up I went straight to the bathroom to piddle.

I was horrified to find the toilet full of blood!  Scared me half to death!

Then I remembered that the evening before I had eaten a half a dragon fruit, the red kind.  I went straight downstairs and looked it up on the internet.  Yeah, it's known to color your urine.

So, maybe the red was a good thing.  Maybe it shows my kidneys are doing their job.

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That was my first dragon fruit.  I'd heard people rave about them.  I dunno, maybe I got a stale one or something, 'cause it didn't taste like anything, very blah.  Less flavorful even than watermelon.  I ate only half because they have a lot of calcium and potassium, which I need to be careful of, so the other half is still sitting in the refrigerator.  

Ever try dragon fruit?  Did I get a flavorless one?  Or is this blahness a usual taste reaction? 

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3488 Catching up on medical

Friday, March 16, 2012

Good judgment comes from experience, and experience comes from bad judgment.

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I was trying to remember when I had the last urine culture, and realized that this journal is where I go to quickly find out when I did what, and I haven't been putting stuff in here.

So, to catch up. In the past month I've had a urine culture (but the doctor doesn't seem to have received the results, and that's why I was trying to remember the date), a blood panel which showed good kidney function and within-limits blood glucose, an abdominal x-ray that shows the same stone in the same position and it hasn't grown, ultrasound of the kidneys which looked good except that it showed mild hydronephrosis on the right and moderate hydronephosis on the left.

Hydronephrosis is kind of like an enlargement or swelling caused by urine having been retained in the kidneys. It's not a very serious thing in itself, but may indicate another problem.

So last Tuesday I had a spiral CT scan of the abdomen, NO contrast, thank you. My next urologist appointment is April 7.

3325 Collection, Chobani, Sister

Monday, August 1, 2011

"Who understands does not preach;
Who preaches does not understand."
-- Tao Te Ching --

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Baby Sister, I know you read this. I missed your birthday! I'm so sorry. I say missed instead of forgot, because I didn't forget, but when the time came, I missed it! Blew right on by.

Well, I hope your day was great, and that your offspring were more attentive than I, and that the next year goes well for you. Happy birthday, Baby.

(She's baby sister because she's younger, but I can't call her Little Sister because she got the long legs, and can run faster and beat me up.)

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I'm not buying Chobani Greek low-fat yogurt any more. I'm done. Two containers in the past week went to alcohol, and one of those two absolutely didn't get warm - it went from the store refrigerator to my refrigerator within a half hour - and the container I opened yesterday had a spot of mold in it. The foil lid was tight - no open spots - but there was mold along the edge. I don't trust the crap anymore. And that stuff's expensive!

I used to pay about $.80 for the old 8-ounce Dannon. Then they went to 6-ounce containers, and the price went to like $.68. It's been creeping up since then, of course, but was never over $.89. Well, this stupid Chobani is something like $1.39 for 6 ounces. That's ridiculous!

Dannon has become too sweet-tasting, and the local stores don't seem to stock the fat-free Dannon in the right flavors (I don't want fruit-on-the-bottom). I need to find a new good clean live-culture low-fat or fat-free yogurt. I haven't had a yeast infection in nigh on 30 years, and I don't intend to, and I credit my once a day live yogurt for that.

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In other news, the urine collection has not gone well. I had TOLD them that one 3-litre container par day wasn't going to be enough. They patted me on the head and told me I was silly.

Well, Friday I started collecting in the acid-treated container. By 2 pm, it was already 2/3 full, and I knew the overnight collection would be most important because I take my vitamins and minerals in the evening, so I didn't drink anything from 2 pm until 8 pm. This is NOT my usual pattern. I filled the container to the top with the morning's deposit, and took it to the lab Saturday morning.

Then I started the plain container with the next piddle on Saturday. I curtailed my usual intake so it would all fit.

Don't know if you've ever done this, but they give you what is sometimes called a top hat. It looks like a plastic hat, with a brim around 3/4 of the top, and you set it in the toilet with the hat brim holding it in place in the front of the bowl, under the seat ring.

Well, when I went to bed Saturday night, I put the hat in the toilet upstairs. During the night, maybe about 2 am, I got up and filled the hat. Literally. It slightly passed the 30 ounce mark on the markings in the hat.

Sheesh! How big is my bladder? Anyway, note that that's 2 lbs of urine in the hat. I lifted the toilet seat ring to remove the hat, and the brim of the hat collapsed from the weight, dumping half the urine into the bowl, and splashing water into the hat.

I can't use that.

Now what?

I could dump out what I'd already collected from Saturday and start over on Sunday. Or I could shrug, keep what I've got so far up to 10 pm Saturday, and then start collecting Sunday night at 10 pm.

So that's what I did. Middle-of-the-night again, Sunday night, I exceeded even the previous night's. I not only passed the 30 ounce mark, but I passed the top of the hat and it overflowed into the toilet bowl. Sheesh! (Just for the heck of it, I measured how much it takes to overflow the hat. It was at least 45 ounces, not counting what got lost when it overflowed.) I tried to pour what was in the hat into the collection container, but it wouldn't all fit.

So the first deposit of the morning and the remainder of the night's had to go into a 1-quart Melamine storage container.

This is getting ridiculous. I spent much of Sunday out with Daughter and a friend, and then with Daughter until after 7 pm. They saw how much I drank during the day. From about 11 am until maybe 8 pm I had one large glass of restaurant water, no ice, and one large glass of iced coffee, half of which was ice and discarded. And then in the evening, maybe two or three 10-12 ounce glasses of water.

Where is this stuff coming from?!

Just how big IS my bladder? Actually, I suspect a lot of the overnight stuff was coming from the collection chambers in the kidneys.

Incidentally, I never used to get up in the night to piddle. That crap started in April when I had the stent. I'm not too happy with this new habit, but apparently the kidneys and bladder like it. And the doctors always tell you to piddle after sex, so if I ever have sex again (snork!), it might come in handy. (A little more TMI - I never could do it for two reasons - I get so congested and puffy there that it shuts off piddling, and, as I used to tell the doctors, "I can't piddle that many times in one night.")

So, anyhoo, I took the regular container and my storage container with the excess to the lab this morning. They were a little upset and told me that I should have asked for TWO collection bottles.

Then *I* got upset, and informed them that I DID request additional, and was refused since they were SURE I wouldn't need it. Regardless of the fact that I was sure I did.

I am so pissed.

...pun...

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Oh, hey, something else stupid. They didn't want to give me my storage container back, because it had had urine in it. Duh? It isn't soft plastic. It's 30 years old, and solid, and can be washed on the sani cycle in the dishwasher! Also, it was MY urine! I touch it all the time.
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3324 Collecting

Saturday, July 30, 2011

Anything that says "healthy" I stay away from.
Giving up butter, for instance, means that in about two years
you will be covered in dandruff.
-- Julia Child --

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It's been a hair over six weeks since I had the stent removed, and it's time to do the 24-hour urine collection. (Why wait six weeks? I have no idea. Perhaps because my bladder was so torn up the urologist wanted to give it time to heal? That still doesn't explain six weeks. Maybe that was the longest he figured he could put off having to see me again.)

I picked up the collection bottles at the lab earlier in the week. Yeah, bottleS. Turns out the doctor wants a bunch of things (chemicals in the urine) tested for, some of which require acid in the urine in the bottle, and others which require pure urine, so I have to do TWO 24-hour collections. So I needed two days that I wasn't going to be going out much.

I had intended to head upriver on Wednesday evening and return yesterday, but I blew it. I got involved in something Wednesday, and time had gotten away from me and it was late and I was very tired. So I decided to leave very early Thursday morning. I've been waking automatically at 6:30 lately, so I figured I could be on the road by 7.

Wednesday night I had great difficulty sleeping. Thousands of thoughts. Tossing and turning. I even got up and came downstairs for a few minutes at 2 am. By 5 am I was still not sleeping. Then I fell asleep and didn't wake until 9:30. That would put me at the old house at the hottest time of the afternoon, I'd have lost control of the heat in the house, wouldn't be able to get it cooled down, and then I'd just have to leave again the next morning. So I didn't go. I'll go Monday.

So I've been collecting urine yesterday and today.

When the woman at the lab gave me the containers, I said, "3000 ml? I'll need an additional container for each day, these aren't large enough."

I am so sick and tired of medical folks patting me on the head and assuring me I don't know what I'm talking about.

"Oh, no, these will be plenty large enough. If you fill it this far (pointing about two inches from the top) you'll be doing really good." I told her I regularly drink a minimum of three liters a day, not including whatever fluid is in my food. She said, "Oh, not everything that goes in comes out. This will be ok."

I didn't argue further.

So yesterday, when the container was more than half full by 2 pm, I curtailed my usual intake for the rest of the day, because I knew the next morning's piddle would be especially important because that's where all the vitamins and minerals I take would show up, and that would be about 12-16 ounces, so I'd have to leave at least that much room. Which royally pissed me off, because I figure if we want to find out what's causing the stones, it's important to eat and drink as close to my usual as possible.

I took that container to the lab this morning, and it was full to within a half inch of the top.

It's NOT thirst that makes me drink so much. It's habit. I don't usually carry bottles of water with me, for example. I can be out running around all day with nothing to drink, and I'll feel no thirst. One odd thing I've noticed is that when I don't get the usual three quarts of water a day, my stomach sticks out. It's like my body pulls a reserve of fluid into the fat pad on my tummy. Camel mode. The better regularly hydrated I am, the flatter the tummy. (And the better my face looks. Wrinkles and grooves get filled in.)

"They" say that when you are adequately hydrated, your urine should be very pale, almost clear.

I never see clear, even at 3+ quarts a day. It's rarely even pale. It's usually bright yellow crayon yellow. When I've gone a day with little to drink, it's a bright intense flashing neon yellow. (When it gets dark yellow, that's infection.)

My liver's fine, by the way. And the whites of my eyes are white.

Maybe it's the vitamins and minerals? Excess getting piddled away? I don't think so, because a.) although I'm taking a large variety, it's not large quantities, nowhere near megadoses on any of them, they're just to "fill in" the holes, so to speak, and b.) I have often skipped the supplements when traveling or "just because", and there's no difference.

I'm hoping this test might answer that question.
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3255 Tests - Medical and Turing

Wednesday, February 9, 2011

"When you are a minority voice, you begin to doubt your own competencies."
-- Catherine Orenstein, on the fact that only 13% of Wikipedia's contributors are female --

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I got a call from the doctor's office. The blood and urine results are back.

• I do have a UTI, and they'll phone a prescription to my local CVS.
• Glucose was 100 mg/dL, but since I was not fasting, that's ok, I guess.
• Vitamin D was low, so I'm to add a D supplement, twice a day.
• Total cholesterol was a bit high, so I'm to add flax seed oil. (but the ratio is low - in the very good range. The medical community differs on what that means, but it's been like that with me for ages, so I figure it must be ok. Besides, I don't know how I can possibly cut any more fats from my diet.) I was taking flax seed oil for a while, back when, but it makes me burp. Oh, well. I'll try again.
  
• Triglyceride is 99.
• And the real shocker - thyroid stimulating hormone is normal. Huh?

Sigh.

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I was reading an essay on the Turing test (http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1969/12/mind-vs-machine/8386/3/). That's the dealy where a tester converses with a human and/or with a computer, and attempts to determine whether what he's conversing with is human or machine. The author participated in a test, and began to wonder what makes someone recognizably human.

An interesting observation was in the area of arguments. Humans, when arguing, tend to devolve into verbal abuse, and to begin simply reacting to the last statement, without regard to the full context of the argument, ignoring previous statements.

That kicked off thoughts. I hate arguing with people, precisely because with most people, that happens. They want to turn it into a sniping match, and I just won't do that. For that reason - that I keep going back to the initial disagreement, and ignore and won't react to sniping - they seem to feel that I don't argue fairly. I don't get it.

Think about the last argument you've had. Did you get off track, and just snipe?

To quote from the essay:

...argument is stateless—that is, unanchored from all context, a kind of Markov chain of riposte, meta-riposte, meta-meta-riposte. Each remark after the first is only about the previous remark. If a program can induce us to sink to this level, of course it can pass the Turing Test.

Once again, the question of what types of human behavior computers can imitate shines light on how we conduct our own, human lives. Verbal abuse is simply less complex than other forms of conversation. In fact, since reading the papers on MGonz, and transcripts of its conversations, I find myself much more able to constructively manage heated conversations. Aware of the stateless, knee-jerk character of the terse remark I want to blurt out, I recognize that that remark has far more to do with a reflex reaction to the very last sentence of the conversation than with either the issue at hand or the person I’m talking to. All of a sudden, the absurdity and ridiculousness of this kind of escalation become quantitatively clear, and, contemptuously unwilling to act like a bot, I steer myself toward a more “stateful” response: better living through science.

A slimmed-down version of the "most human" computer winner of 2010 is online, and you can chat with "him" at http://www.cleverbot.com/. I've had a few conversations, and very often felt like I was talking to a human. Warning - Cleverbot can get a bit naughty.

From the Cleverbot site:

A special version of the Cleverbot application has won the BCS Machine Intelligence Competition 2010, after taking part in a quick-fire Turing Test.

Cleverbot was running with notably more power behind it than is possible for the online version, with 24 separate instances conferring on their answer.

10 volunteers talked for 2 minutes each using a plain text interface, and the whole of the event audience voted on 'how human' each conversation appeared to be.

Cleverbot achieved an average rating of 42.1% human!

I believe that means 42.1% of the testers thought Cleverbot was human (as opposed to the real human competing against Cleverbot), and that means it actually passed the Turing test.
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