3165 Memory lost

Monday, February 14, 2011

"To mediocre minds, a brilliant idea and a stupid idea sound identical."
-- Scott Adams --

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When I first moved here, I was amazed at how good my memory suddenly got.

I've always had difficulty remembering things like my phone number, other people's names (my favorite story was when I called Daughter's high school from work to tell the office that I'd be picking her up for a doctor's appointment, and I couldn't remember my own Daughter's name - true story!), addresses, zip codes, which doctor I see, who my lawyer is, and so on. When I worked, I carried a notebook everywhere with an organization chart inside the cover, because otherwise I'd forget my own manager's name.

(On the other hand, I used to be able to remember all conversations word-for-word. I might not remember who I was talking with, but I could quote it back. When I was young, I could remember every word I read, to the point that I could tell you whether a particular sentence was on the right or left page, toward the top or bottom. But I couldn't tell you the name of the text/book/article/magazine or the author.)

But somehow, here, I picked it all up so easily. I GOT it all! I remembered new neighbor's names, my address, my phone number, names of localities, utility companies, the builder, the lawyer, all the street names involved in directions to the new house (which wasn't easy, because it seems like every place and street name around here is some combination of "wood", "bridge", "cliff", "water", "beach", "port", and "concourse", all mixed up in various unimaginative combinations).

I was so amazed at how easily names came to mind. I wondered if it had something to do with the water or something.

It's gone.

Suddenly now, I can't even remember conversations. Daughter will swear she told me something or other, and I have no memory whatsoever of the conversation. I'm having difficulty putting together street names, including my own. I just go blank. I have a sticky right now on the desk shelf right in front of my face, the word "CUMBERLAND" very carefully printed in capital letters, which means that it was important that I not mistake or misspell it --- and I have no memory of having stuck it up there, or what it means.

The toilet is the really scary one.

I always close the toilet lid before flushing it. I never leave the toilet open (a lifetime of kittens and puppies). Never ever. And I have a rather distinctive way of folding the toilet paper for use. And I always flush immediately upon standing. These are ingrained lifetime habits.

Twice in the past week (this morning was the second) when I got up in the morning, I've found the toilet lid up, and piddle in there. I'm pretty sure it's mine because of the way the paper is folded, but I have no memory of having used the toilet during the night.

Have I started sleepwalking? Or just forgetting?

After the past few months of being so sharp, this is downright scary.

The only thing I can think of that's changed is that I am no longer taking the thyroid supplement, and the memory problems seem to have started about a week after the last pill (I don't remember for sure, heh). 'Tis a mystery.

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Later: I searched for "thyroid memory". Surprise. Memory loss is a common symptom of hypothyroidism. But last Monday's blood panel says my TSH is fine, and so the doctor won't renew my prescription for the thyroid supplement. The doctor's office said they'd mail the report to me, but it hasn't arrived yet.

I dug around in purses and suitcases and located four more pills. I'll take them and see what happens. Maybe I need the tests repeated.

You know, some of the numbers were so far off what is usual for me, I'm beginning to wonder if they had the right patient....
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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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3254 Short trip north

Tuesday, February 8, 2011

We kill people who kill people to show that killing people is wrong.

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I used to watch Antiques Roadshow a lot. Now I catch it occasionally, accidentally. I think the British version is more interesting. I noticed a telling difference between the "tone" of the American and the British versions: the American appraisers tell the people what they could get for the item if they sold it; the British appraisers tell the people what they'd have to pay to buy a replacement, therefore what they should insure it for.

Actually, that's a cultural difference. It's a subtle difference in the way we define value.

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The only prescription I take is Synthroid, 50 MCG. Under my prescription plan, I have to get them through the mail. I get a three-month prescription with three refills. When I get down to the last 10 pills, I go online and tell MedCo to send the next three-month batch.

Early last month, I went to the website to order more, and discovered there were no more refills. I need a new prescription.

I don't have a doctor here yet.

So I called my old doctor and asked if they could please send me one month's prescription, and that would give me time to find a doctor here.

No go.

She said I hadn't had a physical exam in two years, and I'd have to come in. Period.

I was a little confused, because I remember a LOT of blood drawn last year about this time, lots of visits, but she said yes, but that didn't include a physical. The next appointment I could get was February 7th. That meant no Synthroid for at least three to four weeks. My other choice would be to attempt to find a doctor here who is not only taking new patients, but would accept a new Medicare patient, and then I'd still have to get a physical and wait for the TSH (thyroid stimulating hormone) blood level results, blah blah.

So, yesterday I drove the 2.5 hours north for a physical.

My appointment was at 1 PM. I got to the village at 12:25, so I stopped in to see Piper and his daughter. I figured I'd get to the doctor's office at 12:50, since I wouldn't have to fill out any papers or anything.

Surprise. Sometime in the past several months, my doctor's group merged with another group, and they have a new computer system. I had to fill out the 10 pages of "past surgeries, dates, all vitamins and supplements you take, insurance numbers, emergency family members, family medical history" - all that crap detail that I don't carry around in my head and hadn't brought with me.

Hey, folks. All that stuff is in your old database, AND in that paper folder you keep looking in. Couldn't you find some nerd to write a simple program to transfer data from the old to the new database? Couldn't youse guys input from the paper folder when you knew I was coming? At the very least, will you let me look at the paper folder, and just copy the crap onto this new form, instead of wracking my brain trying to remember?

No, no, and no.

I've got strong pulses in my hands and feet, good reflexes, nothing weird about my skin (except that it doesn't fit very well any more), no chest noise, no lumpiness anywhere, etc., got a PAP, and paper to take somewhere (where?) for a bone density scan and a mammogram. Blood was taken for I don't know what besides the TSH level, and they gave me a prescription for another year's Synthroid. I mentioned that my morning urine has been smelling very bad, so they're going to culture it. Pending the blood, urine, PAP, bone density, and mammogram results, I was declared in marvelous condition for such a decrepit old bat.

Then I went to the old house. I had the little BMW, not the van, because freezing rain was predicted for overnight, so I couldn't bring much back, but I picked up a few things I had been missing, like more dishes, my moisturizer which I haven't been able to find around here, measuring cups, some books, etc. I turned the well pump off, just in case. And I set some mouse traps. That may have been a mistake. If I don't get back there soon, everything might smell of dead mouse. Well, that's not an odor I haven't dealt with before.

Then I went back to Piper's office to finish the earlier conversations. They had a meeting at 4:30, so I left at 4:15, and that's when I realized that if I headed south then, I'd be getting to The Oranges at about 5:45 - a very bad time, traffic-wise. So I decided to go to the diner for something to eat.

I hadn't ordered yet when my phone rang. It was The Hairless Hunk. He said he'd seen a little black convertible go by, and figured it had to be me. "Who else but you would drive a beautiful little car like that on this sloppy salty road?" The phone conversation was getting long, and I was uncomfortable talking in the diner, so I invited him to the diner for coffee.

As usual, we talked. And talked. I don't know if he's starved for conversation, or if he's always like that. It's amazing how much time we can talk, and never seem to run out of topics. We were still at the table three and a half hours later. Yeah, I kind of miss him. I don't want anything beyond a mild flirtation, but I really do like talking with him. Plus, he's pretty. Plus it's a boost to my ego to know that he finds me .... interesting. My daughter finds me boring.

It did rain on the drive back south, but it didn't freeze.

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When I was standing at the window in the doctor's office, a woman was talking to the other receptionist, and was annoyed to discover that her 1 o'clock appointment was at the other office, not this office. The two offices are about 5 miles apart. The receptionist said, "Well, if you just go there, you'll be only 5 minutes late. They won't mind." The woman snapped, "Oh, I don't care about their time. It's MY gas!"

I'm sorry, but I couldn't help saying to my receptionist, "I just drove 2 and a half hours for this appointment, and all I want is a refill of my prescription."

I'm unsympathetic.

Mainly because I don't believe their insistence on my coming in was for my health. I suspect they held my prescription hostage for their bottom line.
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3220 Island, vet, etc.

Thursday, January 6, 2011

"There is a principle which is a bar against all information,
which is proof against all arguments
and which cannot fail to keep a man in everlasting ignorance —
that principle is contempt prior to investigation."
-- Herbert Spencer --

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I've been a bit busy the past few days.

Under my medical plan, I have to get long-term medications through the mail. The doctor writes a prescription for three months' worth, with three more refills. When my bottle of thyroid pills (the only prescription I take) gets down to 14 tablets, I go online and request that they send the next quarter's worth, and they arrive within the week.

I screwed up. I'm down to the last few, and I went online and discovered that there are no more refills. I don't have a doctor in this area yet, and because of confusion over health plan requirements, The Company hasn't got their ducks in a row yet, and I don't know whether I can just select my own doctor. And even if I could, it will take a while to get in to see one as a new patient. My old doctor is willing to send me a perscription for one month's worth, but no more unless I make an appointment for a checkup. So I did, but they can't get me in until February 7. Um, that's further out than one month.

Rats!

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My old kitchen had 10 drawers, all a pretty good size. The new kitchen has three, one large and two useless tiny ones. What on earth am I going to do with all those utensils and towels and mats and skewers and chopsticks and etc. from those ten drawers?

So I decided I'd find some kind of freestanding something-or-other with drawers, workspace on top, and maybe some more cabinet space. I shopped hard, both locally and online, and found this:
The wood doesn't look as nice in a photo as it does in person. It's warmer looking. It's larger than I wanted, I'd have been happy with just the drawers and one cabinet. But it was less than half the price of all the other possibilities out there, and it's SOLID WOOD! All over. It weighs a ton! I think it's mostly oak (even in the drawers), with an oil finish.

The top is butcher block, and the drop leaf swings up for more work space.
The paper towel holder doubles as a rolling pin.

It came as a kit, about 200 pieces, but I had read the reviews and everyone said it was easy to put together. The only complaint was that the guide holes for the plain wood screws were too small, and the wood was so hard that you had to drill the holes larger and deeper.

I have a drill. No problem.

It took me six hours, but it wasn't at all difficult. And it's sturdy!

Two of the four wheels lock. Once I decide on a permanent spot for it, I'll probably remove the casters. I'd prefer it a few inches lower anyway.

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Daughter has three cats, two of whom were feral captures, like Jasper, and therefore very shy and easily frightened by strange people and experiences.

This was outside her house this morning:
It's a veterinary office on wheels! It even includes a surgical suite. A lot less trauma for the cats.

This will solve my problem with Jasper, and his freaking out in the carrier, and having seizures in the car.

Now I wonder if the vet will crawl under the bed to visit with him.
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2589 Aging in classic hippie style?

Friday, September 18, 2009

Frank Pittman, MD: Infidelity isn't about whom you lie with.
It's whom you lie to.

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The blood test today is to determine whether the thyroid supplement I've been taking for the past seven weeks is sufficient, or needs to be increased. That's got me thinking.

Jay had severe sleep apnea. In 1993 we got the CPAP machine, and he was finally able to sleep at night. The oxygen level in his brain also went up at night. This was supposed to be good. Five years later the brain tumor appeared. The doctors said there seemed to be an old injury in the area of the tumor (probably from a childhood fall he'd had from a table to a cement floor).

For many years I've wondered, if we had never raised his brain oxygen, would the tumor not have grown? Was the sleep apnea's depressed nighttime oxygen starving the injured area? Did the apnea cure feed the tumor?

When we get older it's normal for the thyroid to slow down. The thyroid controls metabolism, so when it slows down we slow down. It's not just whole body metabolism that's slowed - it's also individual cell metabolism.

So, is it possible that the slowing of the thyroid is a natural defense against aging and cancer?

I'm not sure I want to fix this too well.

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I took HomeGoods' Style Scope quiz to determine my decorating style. I think my results are pretty accurate (except that I don't care for symmetrical arrangements, I find them too tense, too confining). I like antiques, carved wood, Asian fabrics and brightly painted furniture. I like Victorian clutter. I like thinking about the "life" my antiques may have had before they came to me, the people they may have known, the places they've been, the hands that did the embroidery, carved the wood, wore down the corners. New is so sterile.

Silk, you are a Bohemian Classic

You have a refined sensibility and bring a sense of history and tradition into your decor. You appreciate how symmetrical arrangements and beautiful, well-crafted pieces create a solid foundation to a room. But you like to shake up this restraint with objects and accessories that express your personality and your love of other cultures. When traveling, you seek out unique objects that reflect what you love, and you use them in a sophisticated way. You want people to feel comfortable in your home, and cozy chairs, ethnic fabrics, unique pieces, and even a little touch of quirk or humor give your house a laid-back, Bohemian flair.
You value creativity. You are stylish and fun loving, and can be an inspiration to others. You have a natural sense of drama, and you know you have to be willing to take risks—whether with colors, finishes, furniture choices, or ideas—for your home to stand out. Your home can be happy and lively and the place all of your friends want to be.

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2519 A diagnosis, I hope

Thursday, July 23, 2009

If you don’t know who the “mark” is at the table, it’s you.

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After Jay died, I gained a LOT of weight over the next three years. In 2005 I woke up and started losing. By early 2007, when I met The Man, I still had 15 pounds to go, but I was looking pretty ok.

Over the past year and a half, the weight started climbing again, and I wasn't eating all that much. Other things were happening, too. Like, I seemed incapable of starting or finishing anything. I was tired a lot, but not sleepy tired - just inertia tired. My mind wasn't working well. Thinking, formulating opinions, it was all so hard. Memory was going. I'd find a note on the counter in my handwriting, like "RSVP Susan 345-123-4567". It would be written on the back of a grocery receipt from only two days before, but I'd have no memory whatsoever of having written it, or why, or who Susan was and what I was supposed to RSVP for. Stuff like that.

I'd go back through the journal/blog of a few years ago, and I was amazed at the things I thought about. It's just too hard to think about things now.

I hadn't seen a doctor at all since 2000, except for a UTI in 2007. I probably wouldn't have this year if it weren't for the breast scare.

I've been eating carefully for five weeks now. Partly for weight, and partly for blood sugar. I lost some pounds the first two weeks, but nothing since.

Tuesday I had another blood test, and it WAS the thyroid they were rechecking, and yeah, I've got a sluggish thyroid.

If true, it explains everything.

I start the thyroid hormone pills tomorrow, should see some effects within two weeks if that really is it. Blood tests (aaaagh!) every six weeks for a while to adjust the levels.

I hope that is it. I was afraid it was just age, ye olde hardening of the arteries.
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2395 Hormones

Thursday, May 14, 2009

The blood test last week showed "something off with the thyroid". I didn't ask what (whether up or down or what), because they intend to repeat the panel later next month. But, of course, I'm wondering.

I did a little research, and I'm not experiencing any of the symptoms of high or low function, so whatever it is, it's minor. Then I thought about the problem I'd had with the breast, and some things that are still happening breast-wise off and on, and I began to wonder if it wasn't maybe actually a pituitary problem. That fits better with some other stuff that's been going on.

I had an epiphany this morning. I do crossword problems in bed, and I use a tiny high intensity light on a gooseneck, focused on the wall just above the page, and one night out of every three or four I fall asleep with my nose in the crossword and the light still on.

This morning I woke up with the light on my face, and my first thought was "Bingo! Pineal!"

The pineal gland regulates other hormones, and requires regular periods of darkness. It senses light through the eyes (even when the eyes are closed, enough light comes through the eyelids to matter).

I'm older, less resilient. I'll bet the crossword light is screwing up my pineal.

There's one way to find out. I've got a month to experiment.
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