Author: quantumdreamer

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Asking the Right Questions – CT Scans

~ quantumdreamer ~ Leave a comment

One of the things raised by the spine surgeon was the need to have comparable CT scans over time. I remembered that I had a benchmark post cancer op CT scan not long after we arrived in France. Incidentally this time a decade ago, 2015, I was collecting “blood in poo” data whilst in Malta prior to kicking off the colon cancer investigation.

I have been unable to get the imagery service to remount the full data {yet}, but like a squirrel storing nuts I have images.

Sometimes thinking differently to others does not go down well. Questioning is not always welcome.

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” I told you I was ill”

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I have fished the images out. The radiological report was focussed only on the possible recurrence and metastases of cancer. The scan was reported as normal.

Close examination reveals some spinal anomalies in 2020 which suggest “bone” growth has been going on for five years.

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One can see a “bony” anomaly to the image left hand side of the thoracic spine. The aorta, round circular grey thing, is not yet displaced significantly to the right in the image. This image is a mirror, right in the image is left in my body frame.

Looking down at the pelvis area we have.

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To my untrained eye there is spinal torsion towards the image left, corporeal right. The sacroiliac joints are asymmetric.

The final image looks distinctly unbalanced and odd. It does not sit well with my need for symmetry and although it could be an artefact, it is a pretty big one. This “deformity” if it is one could explain much…

A year prior to this I had a titanium “nail” inserted into my left femoral neck/head to repair a facture.

I had to wait three days to be operated on. Not much was said to me about the whole thing.

In principle then I now have before and after CT scans to demonstrate the growth of whatever it is on my spine…

The radiologist answered all the questions asked of them but did not comment on the spinal column, which seems bit odd to me. But I do not know what common clinical practice is. One could talk about CT images ad infinitum. There needs to be some focus.

Not sure what if anything to do with this…

Ready For the Knacker’s Yard

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“A knacker, knackerman or knacker man is a person who removes and clears animal carcasses (dead, dying, injured) from private farms or public highways and renders the collected carcasses into by-products such as fats, tallow (yellow grease), glue, gelatin, bone meal, bone char, sal ammoniac, soap, bleach and animal feed. A knacker’s yard or a knackery is different from a slaughterhouse or abattoir, where animals are slaughtered for human consumption. Since the Middle Ages, the occupation of “knacker man” was frequently considered a disreputable occupation. Knackers were often also commissioned by the courts as public executioners.

Etymology

The oldest recorded use of the word “knacker” dates to 1812, meaning “one who slaughters old or sick horses” and in 1855 “to kill, castrate”, and is believed to be the same word as the earlier knacker/nacker “harness-maker” from the 1570s, surviving in 18th century dialects. The sense extension is perhaps because “knackers” provided farmers with general help in horse matters, including the disposal of dead horses and animals. The word is of uncertain origin, perhaps from the Scandinavian word represented by Old Norse hnakkur, saddle, and related to hnakki, “back of the neck”, possibly relating to neck.”

Excerpted from Wikipedia

The medical merry-go-round continues…

“Prostate-specific antigen (PSA), also known as gamma-seminoprotein or kallikrein-3 (KLK3), P-30 antigen, is a glycoprotein enzyme encoded in humans by the KLK3 gene. PSA is a member of the kallikrein-related peptidase family and is secreted by the epithelial cells of the prostate gland in men and the paraurethral glands in women.

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As part of my three monthly MOT or Controle Technique, I had some blood tests yesterday. My Ferritin is elevated as is my PSA. The PSA result is above normal again and on an upward trend. I have had a digital {finger} and MRI scan and my prostate gland is enlarged. Last year there were no observable lesions in the MRI images.

The odds on prostate cancer have changed. It is more likely.

We were told to get back in touch with the piss-takers {urology} if my PSA result had gone up. The wife has been trying to get through. If ever there was a nanna-disease it is water works.

I have measured my blood pressure and at 133/85 it seems to be one of the few things still working. I am due a dental implant end of May and now have toothache to boot. Any infection will prohibit the implant.

I have just been preparing a detailed chronology / image database for a rheumatology private consultation “thanks” to my new printer. I needed to scan some documents. HP Smart is a misnomer. There is no way adding a “smart” “modern” printer to a WiFi network needs to be so fucking difficult.

Bring back serial ports and 9600 dot matrix baud rates…all is forgiven.

The so called “appli” or application which I downloaded onto a “smart” phone as a last resort did not work either…the Windows version failed to accept the correct network key!! To be told over and again that the correct network key is incorrect is not good. I have made a consumer choice never to buy HP again.

I once had a Kodak printer and it was the best. Simple. Easy to use. Effective. Cheap to run.

The number of things currently wrong and going wrong is increasing. Maybe the time to reincarnate as soap or glue is fast approaching….

Entrepreneur – Consciousness Studies – Dream 16-04-2025

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Here is this morning’s dream had between 3 and 6 AM.

The dream starts in a non-chain coffee shop similar to one I once went to in San Jose. It has a Berkley – San Francisco feel. There is wooden panelling and stools up to an island style table. They are the same height as lab stools but out of wood with an inbuilt orange-red “cushion”. I am with a young man {~40} who is very excited and energised. He is dressed smartly and known to me though I cannot see who he is. We are to meet an acquaintance of his who is some relatively big shot tech entrepreneur. He is wealthy and now investing.

A man comes in with a small entourage. He is wearing a dark suit with unruly black hair. His shirt is unbuttoned. He spies my companion across the room and motions for his entourage to be seated. He comes over. My companion gets up and they great each other profusely as “bros” in a transatlantic accent. The entrepreneur is also in his 40s. He sits on a stool opposite me and has the air of someone in a rush used to not wasting time.

My companion introduces me as the ex-academic mystic he has been talking about. The entrepreneur is setting up some kind of endeavour looking into consciousness studies. He asks me how I got involved. I explain that my first formal introduction into meditation was during Kyokushin Karate training and the zen meditation therein. I demonstrate a brief series of karate style chudan-ski punches. I explain that I looked into shamanism. And that later I did some very pioneering meditation.

The man decides that he wants me “on board”. I know in the dream beyond any doubt that he has not the faintest idea what he is letting himself in for nor what I am capable of. He has no clue what I am. He is completely unaware of his ignorance and full of bluster.

The scene changes and I am now in a red brick UK mansion in an upper floor large room. The entrepreneur is sat there with some of the people he has gathered. I am there too, near a large sash window. I am standing. A part of the motivation of the entrepreneur is to understand his father, his meditation and what has happened to him after death.

I look out onto the lawn and sat there cross legged is a large white man with a complelety bald head and a massive ZZ top beard. He is meditating in the light rain, his hands in mudras in his lap. The sun is behind him and I can see at the far end of the lawn a faint rainbow lit up in the rain. The man on the lawn and I know each other well. We go way back, lifetimes.

The dream ends.

A Four Cancer Couple – No News Yet

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The probability of two people, a couple, being diagnosed and treated for four cancers {two each} by the age of sixty and currently still alive is not high. Especially given one of those cancers is a rare incurable one. So, when I say that we are more experienced with cancer than average, I am not lying nor bragging. It is possible that we might add a fifth cancer to the list soon. There is no news yet on the lung CT scans. As a precaution I have entered the Euromillions draw for tonight.

I do not want a full house or a royal flush.

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I can generally stave off conclusion longer than most and am not overly prone to catastrophising. Being in a vacuum is not entirely to my liking. I can wait until a week Friday when we have a scheduled GP appointment. One of my “coping” mechanisms is investigation and learning. I read around the subject as preparation and will go to the length consistent with my academic background in a prior incarnation {this life}. One can add two and two and come up with three, but I have not. I am as ever curious. I have learned a fair bit, enough to worry a doctor.

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In the social security office today, the woman asked me if I had a smartphone. I said yes but that I do not use it. I said that I was a little Jurassic. She suggested downloading an “application”, whatever one of those is, to apply for a new social security card. I have found a new Crusade. That is to demand ways of doing things which do not use satanic smartphones or demonic applications. That way I will not be subject to Trumpian tariffs on semiconductors.

I have been thinking about getting a dumb-phone as a protest.

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The French administration system even frustrates the French. They could save shit loads of money and significantly reduce the budget deficit by getting doggy-boy Musk to slash and burn. However, the unemployment levels would soar. The national mental heath and blood pressure levels would ameliorate.

I / we are in a bit of a limbo, which is an odd state for spring.

I speculated that this year would be a minus nine, lack of completion, year. The various wars are no where near resolution and will drag on for months despite the show-boating efforts of the orange very stable genius.

Our limbo is a comfortable one. So far there are no cluster bombs falling on Brittany.

There is food and water and heating.

Thanks to the four cancer status our pharmacy is well stocked.

Hmnn…

The Illusion of Communication

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Shaw suggested that the primary problem with communication was/is the illusion that it is taking or has taken place.

People rarely bear this in mind. They tend to imagine and assume. They can imagine communication to be good and effective when it is anything but.

There is a big problem in groups. Communication within a group feels like communication has happened but communication outside of the group has not even started. That decided in a group is rarely discussed or conveyed outside the group. Acceptance and agreement is assumed outside the group because consensus has been arrived at in group. It can be a huge surprise that no inclusion outside of group has ever happened. It is a group-mind illusion.

We might call this the crony problem.

As a speculative example. It is possible that health care professionals are discussing my case amongst themselves and maybe one day, someone will have to present it as a fait accompli to me. I will not have been involved in the discussion and therefore very unlikely to trust or accept the fait accompli just because someone said so. If I feel by-passed or ignored then my response is unlikely to be compliant-acceptant. Because discussion has occurred within peer group the illusion of communication is solid and held to be true perceptually. There is in this case a national and language barrier to boot and add icing. Inter group consensus amongst the French is important to them as far as I can see. Foreigners are less important.

I have noted multiple variations on this theme over the years. Where “they” discuss me, maybe conclude and then never even mention it to me or check their understanding of me with me. I am not being paranoid. I have anecdotal evidence in a number of cases.

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Last Monday I had a CT scan of my chest and lungs prescribed by a lung specialist. Given my asthma, COPD and past history as a smoker, this is not a routine low risk screening. There are some results in my spirometry which need an explanation.

I am yet to receive the narration of the results from the consultant radiologist.

I have had a week in which to down load the images, start a loan of some medical CT imaging software and investigate the CT data. I have access to fibre broad band and can do AI image searches on CT snapshots. I have used the software to measure the dimensions of the (hopefully) bony growth on my thoracic spine and can see that it impinges upon my right lung. {This explains a slight niggle I have had there for a number of years.} I can read articles in medical journals like “The Lancet” and have a fair understanding of the gist.

I have watched videos of radiological grading of COPD, lung nodules and lung cancer staging. I have investigated diagnosis of the bony growth and it looks as though diffuse idiopathic skeletal hyperostosis (DISH) is the best putative diagnosis. I already know that this growth cannot be reversed. I have identified one lung nodule and think I can see where my ribs, broken in a rugby injury, have healed.

 I have no idea who is meant to follow up, if at all. I am in a vacuum.

Any subsequent conversation is unlikely to be aware or informed by/of the scope of my investigations. I’ll speculate that it will not be assumed to be thorough.

Any initial point of subsequent communication will have assumptions on each side.

I have asked that if there is anything important someone gets in touch. Silence suggests that there is no problem. This assumption could be fundamentally flawed in a clinically significant manner. People are busy and in medicine often pressure prompted. The body on the table in front of you is more important that the one in a computer file and the end of a telephone line.

The whole thing, like so many things here grinds to a halt of inertia. Who knows who is responsible or is in charge of taking this forward?

Loose…means that balls get dropped…and then it is very hard to overcome the inertia once more…

Laisser tomber – BOF….

The Proliferation of Syndromes and Deterioration in Mental Health

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In my life time I have seen a marked proliferation in so-called mental health or developmental syndromes and those diagnosed therewith. They are quite trendy. Unsurprisingly the number of people qualified to make said diagnoses has also increased. There is a demand for diagnoses hence a growing supply of those qualified to diagnose. There is money in it, several grand per diagnosis.

Is this a real phenomenon or a market created one?

I heard the other day that some people were giving fluoxetine to pet dogs, FFS.

Anything which strays from the peer defined normal is at risk of being labelled a syndrome conferring fame upon the person who “discovered” it.

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We can lock up the weird and abnormal. Give ‘em loads of drugs and excuse them from the workplace in case they disturb the humdrum predictable mediocrity of petty power struggles and cock waving. Give them some unemployment benefits and teach them how to weave baskets and package wellness products that do not work but smell nice.

Is ADHD real or are people just bored fucking rigid with the way school is taught, controlled and examined?

Discuss…

I have tutored quite a few people diagnosed with ADHD, 1:1. I had no problem keeping their sharp attention for an hour or more. One just has to invent and teach better, to stimulate instead or bore.

I have a hypothesis. It says:

The apparent mental health crisis is simply tens of thousands of minds rejecting the way “normal” society is and the societal compulsion to conform therewith. It is not a mental health crisis rather an increasing failure of society.

It is not going to get better. There are no fairy godmothers.

The average, normal fearfully compliant people, don’t like this.

What percentage of people need to be treated for mental health “problems” until it is the so-called normal who are diagnosed as having a syndrome?

The human mundane-obligatory-compliance syndrome, FOMO for short. There are hordes who already suffer and can be diagnosed therewith. It is a social media pandemic.

There will come a time when those with so-called mental health problems are the majority. This will flip the entire notion of sanity, whether polite or otherwise.

I’ll wager that if I had to sit “A” level physics and chemistry as they are currently examined in the UK, I would not do well. I would get frustrated at the intransigence and tick box, mark by template mentality. I would not be happy having to adhere to verbatim parrot dogma.

I have an honours degree in chemistry and a Ph.D. in chemical physics.

I would probably join the Royal Marines instead of going to university if I was 18 now. I would certainly not have written ~60 science based publications.

People don’t like to face reality; they tend to prefer increasing the number of exceptions and justifying new extensions to rules and theories. They tend to keep ideas and notions, long after their sell by and use by dates.

If it does not fit, make it a syndrome, a special case, an exception. Write several theses about why it errs or strays from the norm. Refer to multiple other authors who are doing the same things. Make a career out of it…

But whatever you do, you must not question the societal norms… that is heresy.

Coming to a Head – Decisions

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Quite a while back someone suggested to me that I write a course on “Decision Making” and stupidly I accepted. Without blowing my own trumpet unduly, that course is widely applicable up to the very highest levels. But of course, no big-wig or big-cheese, would ever accept that they need to learn and otherwise be educated about their quasi-divine decision making.

I use this little slide to frame things.

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At the moment various indicators are incoming apropos of an impending decision.

I’ll speculate that I am way more decisive than average and that I am unafraid to make unilateral decisions. I rarely feel the need to discuss, chin-wag or otherwise chew things over.  This appears to surprise some.

To give an example.

A few months back I had a zoom call with a European VC I was acquainted with a long time ago. I was seeking clarity as to how the VC community might see me based upon my past enterprises and what to do with my current circumstances. He said that, based upon the narrative I gave him about a company I co-founded, I would be considered “difficult” to work with and that “French deals don’t travel”. He hinted at “reputation” but would not be pressed. On this basis I dropped any plan to look for VC funding to start a company and shelved the faint notion of a France based start-up. The omens are not good. There are barriers, showstoppers from the get-go.

One can not always know when one is aiding / advising a decision. It can be unwitting or conscious. One could be a deciding factor without having any idea thereof.

The recent CAT / CT scan data concerning a largely fused thoracic spine consistent with a diffuse idiopathic skeletal hyperostosis (DISH) diagnosis is a factor to add to the decision making funnel. There is no treatment, it will only get worse. This is a factor suggesting that house downsize increases in importance. This DISH will not ameliorate my COPD as the bony growth is already impinging on my right lung.

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Soon we will test the back to blighty notion with a visit to Jersey to see how it feels to be surrounded by people largely anglophone. This notion points at moving to a low-cost, less desirable, region of the UK property market. A significant contrary factor is the anecdotal poor state of the NHS. The French system has been very generous to us in terms of funding and accessibility to care and prompt diagnostics.

We are in a beggars cannot be choosers state in that we don’t have hundreds of thousands of pounds to pay for private healthcare. Things here are in motion and work well. Don’t fix what is not broken.

There are no real personal anchors for us here, to keep us tethered. A lot is due to happen in the next month or so and that is when the funnel will close. This blog and my patent are up for renewal, for example.

Things, whatever they may be, are coming to a head, or in other terms the funnel is starting to pinch. These funnels are unidirectional and not reversible.

The feeling is that “things” are coming to a head. The fact that I looked out the slide above is indicative…

Questioning Deity – Are You Autistic?

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Not long after I had my colon cancer operated on; I contacted a specialist in adult autism. I wanted to find out if I was autistic or had Asperger’s, albeit high functioning. The other day we watched Claire Taylor in a documentary called “Are You Autistic?” In that documentary a few people diagnosed with autism spoke of the phenomenon of “masking” in which they behaved in a manner so as to conceal their underlying autism. Said masking is tyring and can lead to burn out.  

I have a similar notion which is called chameleon. I can blend in, mimic and fit in for a while. I can be at home in a posh place like the Ritz or the Hotel New Otani in Tokyo. I can also go into a very rough dive / criminal pub and have a beer without fear.

One of the motivators behind my inquiry is/was the over-reaction to question and critique which I have experienced from the self diagnosed omniscient, pompous and self-important people over the years. Those equipped at birth with a penis are the worst at this over-reaction.

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Maybe they are just deeply insecure?

Maybe I have autism?

Maybe I simply fail to kowtow to socio-political order and the pecking-order held in mind?

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The specialist concerned, being a psychologist, wanted to know if my inquiry was about the cancer and dying. {See people make assumptions all the time!!} Because, I did not have enough witnesses about my pan-continental childhood and any extant parents, she was unable to complete the full diagnosis. She offered her opinion based on our conversation that I was not autistic. You could say it is/was moot. Either I am not autistic or I am damn good at masking. Place your bets.

It seems to me I keep coming across, mostly men, who react badly to me even if I am not challenging them. I could be delusional. There are a large number of observations where I don’t talk enough bullshit, pat backs and otherwise ritually sniff arseholes. Some how I am not laddie enough. It is so false and such a waste of time.

I have a hunch that I/we are in the fallout stage of one of these interactions. Face is very important so not a lot can be done.

One is not allowed to question deity and masculine medical deity in particular. It gets their hackles up.

Hey-ho…

I have started looking into alternative arrangements now…