Tag: Merry-go-round

And the painted ponies go up and down…

~ quantumdreamer ~ Leave a comment

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So the years spin by and now the boy is twenty
Though his dreams have lost some grandeur coming true
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

Joni Mitchell

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Today started with sorting through my now extensive medical records for the next phase of the upcoming medical-merry-go-round. By the end of the calendar year I will probably hit ~100 appointments. I am already past 60 RDVs. That is shed loads.

I have had more x-rays and MRI scans than your average person. I am due a few more. Next on the dance card are rheumatology, cardio stress test ultrasound and urology prostate specific antigen follow up. This to be followed by a pre-operative meeting with the anaesthesiologist, dietician and physiotherapist. They will probably say {politely} that I am a fat bastard. To which I might reply that I could start to smoke and drink heavily again so that I can get back to my former heroin chic. I could always knock up some crystal meth in the shed, that is an appetite suppressor.

It is difficult to know what difference a new hip might make. According to the hype it might be a game changer. They are not talking about the second one yet, which will be more complicated. It could offer a new lease of life. I doubt I will be down the mosh pit any time soon.

It is a kind of in between feeling. Something is impending, it is a couple of months away and there is a while away of time in the meantime. We have just received our “poll tax” bill for the year which might be the last or it might not. There are a number of jobs undone in the garden which I may be able to turn my hand to in January.

On the dreaming front there have been plenty. Recurring themes recur. None of which I am in a position to really do much about. There is no indication of an ongoing fate. Dreams of putative past lives might be interesting and jig saw puzzle pieces, to help synthesise a whole. But they do not show an ongoing fate, a path or direction left remaining for me to do.

I remain aware that “my” whole world is subject to sudden unexpected pivot. I am not however holding my breath for such a thing.

And the seasons they go round and round. Autumn is now here albeit a little early. It means leaves and fungi, rain and wind. Soon the pond will again fill and the bloody coypu will try to breach our defences to eat the lotuses on the pond.

And the painted ponies go up and down…

Circle Game – Merry-go-round

~ quantumdreamer ~ Leave a comment

————————————————————————————–

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….

None the Wiser

~ quantumdreamer ~ Leave a comment

Not long back from a visit to Saint Hellier Jersey where I saw a consultant rheumatologist. They suggested that there is no extra immune-stuff active in my skeletal problems and that most of my “random” inflammation events are probably so-called gout.

There is a lot to unpack mentally and in terms of feelings. There is a question, “did I really live like that once upon a time? Really?”

In the space of a few weeks, the consultant was the second to note and comment upon my recently measured elevated haemoglobin levels. Which could be due to my prior smoking, my COPD, genetic causes or living at elevations during early adolescence. Others causes like blood cancer are very unlikely.

In nearly every medical situation the fab three are rolled out as the most likely cause. The trio of obesity, booze and fags are the go to default diagnosis. In the UK there is a bit of fetish about BMI. It is a well-used mantra. This trio may have a confirmation bias effect. I am / have been triply holy.

In the 1994-5 when the people at St Thomas’ London were looking into the haem thing it was put down to smoking. They bled me on a regular basis to try to drop my haemoglobin levels. It was a part of a whole host of “lab-rat” tests that I had done back then. I was a very cooperative rat, happy to be in anyone’s research programme. This probably rules out esoteric causes.

The most surprising thing with the consultant was their surprise that there was no bone density follow up after me falling and breaking the head / neck of my femur. I fell only from standing in the kitchen at the age of 55. The drop was well under one metre. The rationale was that this was a major break from only a small fall. There could have been something wrong with /weakening my bones. I am male and osteoporosis or osteopenia is uncommon at that age. They were surprised that it was not investigated. They may suggest some follow up tests in a letter.

They were also surprised at the severity of my hip osteoarthritis and the near complete lack of motion, sideways.

Here is something that I may have picked up. When people note or examine me, they perhaps transfer some imagining as to how it might feel / affect them if they were in the same condition. They may see a bleak future.  I have had a number of people talk about quality of life to me. Given my flexibility and pain, it might inhibit their current life-style in which they “do” stuff. There is a bit of a shudder. “What if that happened to me?” The advice is to have a bilateral operation so as to have “quality of life”. My serene quality of life far from the loud and maddening crowd may not appeal to them. Quality of life is very subjective.

So, does one cling and try to maintain an active quality of life according to the common view, feeling miserable every time life stops you from doing what you once did and feel you ought to do?

Or do you simply adjust to your new reality, to come to terms with your lot?

Philosophically I suspect that modern medicine is bad in a Darwinian sense for human evolution. The weak and the sick can live and breed. They can live to old age. People have children at a later age increasing the prevalence and propagation of birth defects and damaged genes. Humanity will live longer but it will be sicker and less healthy.

Sounds a bit eugenic…but we are seeing the “success” of modern medicine impinge of health services and economies.

If karma has caused me to have badly arthritic hips, is it wise to try to outsmart karma by having a modern operation?

Ok, I was born in a time where such things are possible but is that a temptation of our times, trying to have life on my own terms? Maybe I should simply settle my karmic debt and endure quietly without complaining?

I am speculating that maybe I need to stop taking any medication whatsoever. It is not making me happy this endless merry-go-round.

As I said, I am none the wiser…

Seb – Molecular Magnets – Dream – 27-03-2025

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Here is this morning’s dream.

The dream starts in a very large house, in which there has been a party. There has been little clearance overnight. I am there with Seb and his mother. There are other members of his extended family and the caterers are now in tidying up.

I am in then kitchen with them. It seems that Seb has again fallen unwell and is on the merry-go-round of medical appointments. I ask him what the situation is. He is now a young man. When I knew him last, he was a teenager recovering from severe illness and using crutches to help him walk. He is now walking and dressed in expensive clothing befitting of his familial status. I remember in the dream that his family are complex and very high functioning. I ask him what the problem is. He says that he keeps getting headaches and they do not know what the problem is.

I say that perhaps he needs these. I draw for him a molecule in which an atom of Iron and of Cobalt are joined together by a 1,4 – dicyanobenezene molecule, an electron bridge. The nitrogen atoms act as electron pair donors. Both transition metals are otherwise inside a molecular clathrate cage structure. The overall charge of the molecular magnet can be varied from positive to negative. These are a new type of molecule and can help him with his headaches. These molecules can be made to move, rotate, in an external applied field. These molecular magnets can be therapeutic.

He nods.

His mother says that she has a video tape which she wants us to see. The first part of the videotape is of her buying the video recorder. It is old school VHS. She ushers us into a room where the recorder is set up with a TV. It has on it videos of me arriving at their house and of our tutorial sessions ~ a decade ago.

I remind him of my offer to help in any way that I can. That I may have a clue for him which will help to explain many things.

The dream ends.

Medical Merry-go-round

~ quantumdreamer ~ Leave a comment

After the visit to the orthopaedic surgeon no replacement hip surgery is currently foreseen. Instead, I have been referred to a spinal column – pelvis surgeon following a programmed (S5-L1) MRI. They will use the water (T1) and fat (T2) resonance decay times to determine if the nerve roots are entrained, pressed upon. There is no neuropathy so this seems unlikely. I will be back to square one, I will not pass Go, nor collect £200.

Way back in ~1994 the Imperial College heath centre were trying to figure out why I was having major pain in my lower spine and pelvis. There was very restricted motion of my hips. They mentioned ankylosing spondylitis (AS). It went on for months and they could not figure out what was going on. There was a lot of pain and this preceded my depressive breakdown ~1995-7. The prospect of incurable ankylosing spondylitis as a ~30 year old is not an attractive one.

I am going to ask the general practitioner for a blood test for the human leukocyte antigen (HLA) B27 which is strongly implicated in AS.

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There are some very lengthy forms for genetic consent here in France.

If this suggests AS I may be on the NSAIDs and Tumour Necrosis Factor Inhibitors. One of which is lenalidomide which the wife takes for multiple myeloma.

TNF

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I would like some more clarity before anyone reaches for the knife…