Tag: diagnosis

Circle Game – Merry-go-round

~ quantumdreamer ~ Leave a comment

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There’ll be new dreams, maybe better dreams and plenty
Before the last revolving year is through
And the seasons they go round and round
And the painted ponies go up and down
We’re captive on the carousel of time
We can’t return, we can only look behind
From where we came
And go round and round and round
In the circle game

And go round and round and round
In the circle game

Joni Mitchell

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This morning I had yet another scan, a CT scan to test MY diagnosis of diffuse idiopathic skeletal hyperostosis (DISH). This based on my interpretation of a lung CT scan which included data on the spinal column.

“Diffuse idiopathic skeletal hyperostosis (DISH) is a type of arthritis that affects tendons and ligaments, mainly around your spine. These bands of tissue can become hardened (calcified) and form growths called bone spurs where they connect to your bones. DISH can also cause bone spurs in your hips, knees, shoulders, feet and hands and harden bones throughout your body. 

DISH, sometimes called Forestier disease, often doesn’t cause symptoms and is usually found when you have an imaging test for another problem. Some people have pain and stiffness in their  back that may get worse over time.” 

The GP has asked the radiologist specifically so we should get a specific answer. It will then be on record and “official” if indeed the formal diagnosis is made.

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This brings to the end a flurry of medical appointments and scans. Perhaps there will be a hiatus. I have a GP appointment late next week to pull threads together. Then I have a urologist “finger” appointment to discuss my elevated prostate specific antigen (PSA) level in early August. They may order a biopsy {yippee}, but perhaps we are not there yet.  

I am due a CT cardio angiogram at some stage before the hip operation.

A number of the threads will probably go nowhere, be left with no actions.

Of late I have been wondering, “does modern medicine with its endless testing and so-called preventative measures {like statins} actually make you ill? Is it some weird self-fulfilling prophecy?”

There certainly is tendency to obsess about health engendered thereby. What are my cholesterol levels like today? Have I had too many units of alcohol?  Will I die of health related anxiety or a stress induced hypertensive episode? Is the world getting a tad obsessed by medical metrics?

Buggered if I know…

What it looks like is maybe an autumnal new hip, perhaps followed by a second in early spring assuming I can hack it. Which means in summer ’26 I might have a little less pain and a little more flexibility. I am not expecting much.

Off-compound interaction is likely to remain low and we will have to sell the house to get something smaller and more suitable. The blighty or Brittany question will raise its head. Aside from that I do not see any great shakes. I have emailed a couple of people about dreaming.

In general people are vey busy, they have lots on their plates and I am functionally irrelevant to the wider world. I am an anomaly to the mainstream. No biggie…

A recent dream has pointed at some kind of engagement with mental health. Implicit in this has to be anglophone. I am not sounding a trumpet call of excitement. The world out there is a minefield. If someone can get sacked from their high profile job for a single racist jibe whilst half pissed, it is a strange and disproportionate place. Best to say fuck all then. That is the take home message.

I know that I am largely out of touch with the younger people. I do not have any personal data on how people younger than 40 think, because I have not interacted with any. It looks such a  dangerous minefield out there and it makes me so glad that I am not in my erstwhile role in “pastoral care”.

The dreaming has not dreamed in, any vision of the future. I note that in the year 2015 when I had my colon cancer operation there were precious few dreams. Maybe as I approach surgery later, they will cease in a similar manner.

Maybe the painted ponies have stopped going up and down for a while, a brief respite, while other merry-go-round users climb aboard. Soon the garish music will start anew and the ride will begin again….

Challenges – Genetics – Having to Endure – Lama Dorje

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A working hypothesis I have is that because I do not strut about, talk a lot and generally bullshit, people feel that I am need of education by them. Somehow, they are kind enough to bestow the benefit of their grandiose and unsolicited opinion on me so that I, a mere lowly pleb, might learn from their magnificence. So many offer me their opinions. Obviously, I am in dire need of education.

It is a catch 22. Do you let them rabbit on {endlessly} or flash intellect and make them feel more insecure than they already are. I don’t have an answer. Neither works well.

You may infer from the above that I am an arrogant arsehole. Your reflection in the mirror which is me may not reveal my essence.

Given all the tests in a medical sense that I am having its sounds a bit like someone meandering around in search of some kind of elusive diagnosis of sorts. That could be the case. Or it could simply be the generosity of the French healthcare system in action. The tendency for prophylaxis here is higher than in the UK.

The “health” finger continues to point at genetics. There is a non-normal make up, perhaps. Maybe I am special, so fucking special, or a creep, or a weirdo.

In my extensive recapitulations there is a recurring theme, “having to endure”. I have had to endure all sorts of things starting with bullying at school(s) and being gossiped about extensively, especially when my back was turned and I was not there. I am not paranoid; I have anecdotal evidence in support of this tendency. People curry favour by gossiping and in the past, they have claimed power by association to me. Those days are long gone.

I have an inkling that the current health drama belongs to the subset of “having to endure” challenges. There is little I can do; I simply have to endure and remain calm.

Śāntideva in the Bodhicaryāvatāra, has a whole chapter on forbearance. Bodhidharma was rumoured to have sat watching a wall for nine years.

Maybe one day instead of enduring I may give both barrels. I doubt many could handle it if I ramped up to 9/10 face to face with them. It would be very intense. Outside of experience.

The other working hypothesis I have is that I am tangentially involved in the drama, schemes and socio-political shenanigans of others. The thing is they are over “there” and I am only truly involved in their illusions. People make shit up; they make a drama out of it and somehow, I am caught up in their imaginations. I am written into their imaginary scripts.

I used to wear black Levi’s 501 jeans for decades. I now wear army surplus combat trousers. This dress makes me look a bit like a pikey prepper. I do not look for one minute like an ex-intellectual or the co-founder of a high technology high power laser company. So people tend, in the first instance, to talk down to me, even worse I do not speak high quality French, God’s only intellectual language. I must therefore be an idiotic stupid moron. They judge a book by their mis-interpretation of the cover. The French are as, if not more, arrogant than the English.

What can you do? Let them rabbit on {endlessly}. There is no point in trying to change their habits or self-opinion.

The wife and I have a joke. If I wore Buddhist robes people would treat me entirely differently. If they saw me thus attired in their dreams, they would find it weird.

“Alan always wore jeans in life!!”

There is a part of me that might order some robes on line and do a TikTok type experiment. Go in jeans to an estate agent one day and in robes the next…

But that would be fucking about…

Is there some as yet unseen diagnoses?

Or am I simply enduring the Gattling gun fire of multiple medical tests and appointments?

The current bet is towards the latter…

What is your diagnosis, Bob?

~ quantumdreamer ~ Leave a comment

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I had a difficult night last night with a lot of pain. This usually happens after I visit Torquemada the physiotherapist. It settles down over the next few days and is generally much better because of his ministrations. He said, “let’s hope you don’t have even more pathologies.”

Some more blood tests results are due and I am sanguine about them. It took many months of rapidly worsening health for the wife’s Myeloma diagnosis. This after a very scary mis-diagnosis which had me contacting people assuming a strict time pressure.

My list of ills is relatively long and we could use Bob’s simple diagnosis. It is unlikely that there will be some overarching diagnosis which explains everything.

We can’t turn back time. And there are many things in life which cannot be fixed, solved or otherwise put right. Social conditioning suggests that an apology can make things better. An apology does not alter Karma and forced begrudging “false” apology makes things worse karmically speaking. If there is some genuine acceptance then that might take the sting out of the accrued karma, a little. What our parents tell us in kindergarten does not really work, “say sorry to Sally for nicking her Maltesers!!” It is a pretence often.

During the night I had a brief dreaming segment concerning Myeloma UK. It had occurred to me if we move back to get involved there. I have probably read more medical-disease-epidemiology papers than most. When I have interacted from here, I have come across a UK based parochialism, “that is the way we do things here!”  Best clinical practice in France, Europe and the USA is not followed due to the accountants at NICE. In a real sense if you do it well first time, it saves money instead of doing multiple rounds of cheaper less effective treatments.

Luckily the patent on Revlimid has expired.

There is a well paid career path in charity management and I am not entirely convinced that the high salaries are justified. I find the heavily PR oriented and sanitised Web presences a little unreal. I understand that they want to give hope, but they do airbrush reality. I understand that they are not aimed at the likes of me. They are often not very real and people revert to blogs and video from genuine human beings. Things need a human face not some corporate blah.

When I was looking for a job, I got interviewed for several board positions. Because I was a bit young and not one of the gang and all praising, I did not get the job. I was asked what I could bring. I said new ways of thinking, some energy and something fresh. Comfortable places with cobwebs don’t like that sort of thing. People in power although they like the theoretical idea of a functioning challenging board, do not really.  Itchy back disease is prevalent. I am more than 90% sure that I would have brought, eventually, positive change. I am very organised and good at process.

Apple carts do not like to be upset.

Sometime gatekeepers keep useful people at bay.

Anyway, only my alpha-globulins have come back low. Low alpha 1 can mean alpha-1 antitrypsin deficiency which can cause lung problems like COPD and wheezing!! This can be genetic…

Both alpha 1 and alpha 2 low can mean liver problems.

What do you reckon Bob?

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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.

Talking – Effective Personality Disorder – INFJ Dream 27-11-2024

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This dream is from between 3 and 5 AM this morning. This is out of the blue.

The dream starts in the front room of my old house in Brixton. I am initially sitting on the coir carpet. It then shifts to a meeting room with psychological professionals discussing a case. I am to assist. One turns to the others and says about me, “I know that he is not a qualified professional, but he has an uncanny knack of putting people at their ease and getting them to talk freely. He is utterly nonjudgmental and very empathic.”

The scene changes and I am in a single bedded hospital ward. On the bed dressed in a hospital gown is a young man with wavy blonde hair which needs a trim. I say, “hi” and he replies. I go over and sit on the bed. I introduce myself. Implicit is that he has just survived a suicide attempt and is recovering. He is in a bad way. I ask how he is and what medication they had already tried. He says, “Xanax but it did not work very well!” I ask if they have a tentative diagnosis and he says, “effective personality disorder.” I already knew this in the dream.

The next day the staff wheel his bed down to the swimming pool. They are using water to help him walk again. I am dressed in my speedo swimming trunks. I lift him off the bed in my arms and walk into the water until such time that he can float. I let him float off my arms. He is smiling and very happy. We walk a few widths of the pool in the water and then I help him out of the pool. The healthcare assistants dry him and help him change into a new gown. I lift him back onto the bed.

The next day the scene is repeated but I also help him to swim a few lengths of breaststroke.

He asks me how I can make him relax. I say that we INFJs have tremendous and sometimes painful depths of empathy. We can feel the suffering of other beings and sometimes tune into it. We want that suffering to cease.

Dream ends.

A passing thought after the dream was, “is this pointing at helping others again”. A while back I started the process of joining Samaritans but was unsure of the other people seeking to join