Scandalous Scales and Chilly Winds

Scandalous Scales: it came as something of a shock to find that I weighed in at 74.3 kg, wearing T-shirt and shorts on the evening of Sunday, February 13th 2022. As I said in a previous post, it's probably best to weigh myself of a morning. I went to the bathroom, stripped-off and weighed myself again. This time I was 73.5 kg which is still disturbingly high. 

For the past week or more, my exercise routine has been disrupted but things have now returned to normal. Today I resumed my morning walk and tomorrow I plan to spend some time on the mini-trampoline as well as practising some shuffle moves, as outlined in my previous post titled The Septuagenarian Shuffle. I'm determined to get my weight back down to about 71 kg. At the moment, I'm heavier than I've been since heading to Australia in July of 2015. 

Chilly Winds: recently the family visited the mountains at the back of Jakarta and the temperature in the evening was around 13°C, drastically lower than the balmy temperatures in the lowlands from where I had just come. There was also a light drizzle and gusts of wind that added to my discomfort. We were staying in one of the chalets that were dotted around the resort and separate from the main building where we had just finished dining.

As we headed out into the freezing weather toward our accommodation, a particularly nasty gust of wind cut right through me and a wave of nausea swept over me. My legs almost buckled and I needed assistance to get to our accommodation. When I did arrive I was shaking uncontrollably and went straight to bed where my condition slowly stabilised. For me, this was an unprecedented and fairly shocking event.

I can't help feeling that the reaction was the result of my thymoma not responding well to the sudden drop in temperature that my body had experienced because of the wind blast. This then affected the surrounding organs and destabilised the mechanism that controls my body's core temperature. The lesson learned is that I need to wear proper clothing before exposing myself to cold temperatures, especially where a wind chill factor is involved.

I'm now back in the tropics at sea level and all is well. There's no doubt my thymoma has grown but, whether it's self-limiting or becomes more invasive, only time will tell. As I approach my 73rd birthday, I'm certainly not the man I once was. I'm diminished in many ways but I'm still breathing and ostensibly still healthy and active. However, I need to remain aware of my vulnerability and not impose unnecessary stress on my body.

The Septuagenarian Shuffle

A meaning of shuffle as a verb is to walk by dragging one's feet along or without lifting them fully from the ground. That's kind of what I've been lately as a form of exercise and, given that I'm almost 73 years of age, the term septuagenarian shuffle seems appropriate.

Why am I doing this? Well, sometimes the weather outside is too hot or it's raining and even if I do go for a walk, the environment through which I'm walking is none too salubrious. My alternative solution has been to put on my wireless earbuds and listen to music while shuffling about inside the house. The first tried it for 30 minutes and this morning I managed 45 minutes. 

Of course there's plenty of shuffle music out there that one can shuffle to but it's a little too energetic for someone of my age. I just listen to one of YouTube Music playlists and today I was listening to a playlist that I'd compiled in July of 2019, consisting mainly of fairly sedate songs.

It's not that I couldn't work my up to incorporating some shuffle moves, there are plenty of tutorials on how to master the moves. The following video tutorial has attracted over 16 million views since it was first put up in January of 2017.

The key point is that exercise needs to be simple and executable at any time or place. It shouldn't require specialised equipment. The shuffle is ideal in this regard. It's better when done to music but that's not absolutely necessary. Although I've started out with a slow shuffle of 30 to 45 minutes, there's no reason not to try faster movements that are the length of just a single song like the a-ha video above.

Here is a video of a 70 year old dancing with his granddaughter.

The story accompanying the video is as follows:

Shuffle dancing is becoming a very popular trend across China. The dance originally started in Australia back in the 1980s. Named “The Melbourne Shuffle”, the dance is becoming a modern type of square dance and is turning out to be a popular exercise/weight loss routine for many elderly and middle-age people in China.

Not only is this dance a brilliant form of exercise, but it’s also bringing people of different generations together. Videos have been popping up on social media platforms including TikTok (mainly a younger user base) sharing videos of themselves shuffle dancing with their parents and even grandparents – many of which have gone viral.

The story continues here.

Weighty Problems

First post of the year 2022 to my most neglected blog. Let's compare the number of posts for 2021 against the tallies for my other blogs:

• Mathematical Meanderings: 101 posts
• Alternative Media: 38 posts
• Pedagogical Posturing: 27 posts
• Astrology: 13 posts
• Astrowatch: 10 posts
• Staying Healthy: 7 posts

This meagre tally for Staying Healthy is odd since I spend a lot of time thinking about "staying healthy". I was shocked a few days ago when I climbed on the electronic scales and found my weight to be a hefty 73.3 kg. This morning however, I weighed myself and came in at 72.4 kg. It might be best to weigh myself at the same time each day: just after arising and before consuming breakfast. I don't want to regain the weight that I was before retiring, which was in excess of 77 kg and sometimes nearing 80 kg. I'm happy to be a little about 70 kg.

For this morning's weigh in, the result from this source indicates:

Height: 178 cm

Weight: 72.4 kg

BMI: 22.9 

This indicates your weight is in the normal category for adults of your height. For your height, a normal weight range would be from 58.6 kg ≡ BMI of 18.5 to 78.9 kilograms ≡ BMI of 24.9.

In the bad old (working) days, I was thus nudging this upper limit of 24.9 but soon after retiring my weight plummeted to a little above 63 kg at its lowest. Even this was far too thin and at 58.6 kg, with a BMI of 18.5, I would have looked skeletal. A weight of around 72 kg is ideal for me.

My resting pulse rate is a little above 60, usually 61-62, which seems fine. I haven't had my blood pressure measured for a while but that's never been a cause for concern. Figure 1 shows where I stand in the heart beats per minute game:

Figure 1: source

Exercise-wise I go for a brisk 20 minute walk with my granddaughter most mornings. I complete a sequence of 4 x 40 repetitions of leg exercises with my "elastic" band (which is actually just a piece of pantyhose that continues to stand the test of time). My reasoning is that it's important to keep the base strong in order to support the rest of the "structure".

Most days I also do around 300 partial sit-ups in which I lie on my back and attempt to sit up but don't actually go through with the manoeuvre, instead I just tense (and thus strengthen) my abdominal muscles. I sometimes do a set of 10 full squats but I've been neglecting this of late. I certainly do a lot of neck stretching and rotations in an attempt to maintain flexibility against the encroachments of ossification.

My thymoma, now of three years duration, doesn't cause me too much bother. I'm back to drinking a cup of coffee in the morning and sometimes another cup if I go out during the day. I don't drink tea at all now. I'm careful not to put too much stress on my upper body for fear of exacerbating the discomfort in my sternum. My granddaughter has been doing some psychic healing of the area and this has proven very effective.

Hopefully I will post more frequently to this blog during the coming year.

The Bluebird of Happiness

Today I asked the question shown in Figure 1 that also shows the response that I received.

Figure 1

I thought that the question displayed on a whiteboard might be a good way to focus my attention. So I did this, looked at the question for a while, then closed my eyes and uttered "Meher Baba, Ki Jai" several times in groups of triplets. When I opened my eyes and looked at the whiteboard, the blue eraser on the bottom left caught my attention and I immediately thought of the phrase the "blue bird of happiness". 

There's a well-known eponymously titled song from 1934, part of the lyrics of which are:

So be like I, hold your head up high

Till you find a bluebird of happiness

You will find greater peace of mind

Knowing there's a bluebird of happiness

And when he sings to you

Though you're deep in blue

You will see a ray of light creep through

And so remember this, life is no abyss

Somewhere there's a bluebird of happiness

Pat Boone does a nice version of it (YouTube link). More information on the song can be found by following the Wikipedia link. Of course, nobody can forget Vera Lynn's famous song "There'll Be Bluebirds Over The White Cliffs of Dover". Figure 2 contains a link to her singing the song.

Figure 2: link to song

The lyrics to that song go:

There'll be bluebirds over

The white cliffs of Dover

Tomorrow, just you wait and see

There'll be love and laughter

And peace ever after

Tomorrow, when the world is free

The shepherd will tend his sheep

The valley will bloom again

And Jimmy will go to sleep

In his own little room again

There'll be bluebirds over

The white cliffs of Dover

Tomorrow, just you wait and see

The shepherd will tend his sheep

The valley will bloom again

And Jimmy will go to sleep

In his own little room again

There'll be bluebirds over

The white cliffs of Dover

Tomorrow, just you wait and see

Another Wikipedia article begins by saying that "the symbol of a bluebird as the harbinger of happiness is found in many cultures and may date back thousands of years." 

The latter article includes an interesting quote from Oscar Wilde in which a "Blue Bird" is mentioned:

And when that day dawns, or sunset reddens how joyous we

shall all be! Facts will be regarded as discreditable, Truth will be

found mourning over her fetters, and Romance, with her temper

of wonder, will return to the land. The very aspect of the world

will change to our startled eyes. Out of the sea will rise

Behemoth and Leviathan, and sail round the high-pooped

galleys, as they do on the delightful maps of those ages when

books on geography were actually readable. Dragons will wander

about the waste places, and the phoenix will soar from her nest of

fire into the air. We shall lay our hands upon the basilisk, and see

the jewel in the toad’s head. Champing his gilded oats, the

Hippogriff will stand in our stalls, and over our heads will float

the Blue Bird singing of beautiful and impossible things, of

things that are lovely and that never happened, of things that are

not and that should be. But before this comes to pass we must

cultivate the lost art of Lying.

— Oscar Wilde, The Decay of Lying, 1891

 

Figure 3: Toadstones from Jurassic sediments in Oxfordshire UK

The reference to "the jewel in the toad's head" perplexed me so I sought an explanation:

The toadstone, also known as bufonite (from Latin bufo, "toad"), is a mythical stone or gem that was thought to be found in the head of a toad. It was supposed to be an antidote to poison and in this it is like batrachite, supposedly formed in the heads of frogs. Toadstones were actually the button-like fossilized teeth of Lepidotes, an extinct genus of ray-finned fish from the Jurassic and Cretaceous periods. They appeared to be "stones that are perfect in form" and were set by European jewellers into magical rings and amulets from Medieval times until the 18th century.

Getting back to the bluebird of happiness however, one must thank Maurice Maeterlinck for its twentieth century renaissance:

In 1910, the blue bird of happiness landed in the United States, in New York, to be specific, on Broadway. The Blue Bird was a philosophical play written by Maurice Maeterlinck, who would win the Nobel Prize for Literature the following year for it and other works. 

His Pelléas and Mélisande is better known today, as productions of the Debussy opera continue to enliven the stage. But at the start of the 20th century, The Blue Bird was all the rage, emerging in film and song, baptizing airplanes and race cars, and like most popular cultural symbols, being reduced to its simplest iteration: the blue bird of happiness.  

Read the full article, which is very interesting, by following this link. The article concludes:

Our memory of Maeterlinck has faded, but the glimmer of his ideas continues to resurface in unexpected places, in a hashtag shorthand for perfect snow and sky on Twitter, today’s go-to blue bird, or somewhere over the rainbow. Maeterlinck gave us the bird, but happiness is for us to find. 

 

While the Twitter bluebird is ubiquitous, there is an Indonesian species as well in the form of the Blue Bird taxis. Blue Bird translates as Burung Biru in Indonesian.

Amidst all these references to bluebirds or blue birds however, one shouldn't lose sight of the significance of the answer to my question: what do I need to improve my health? The bluebird of happiness image is meant to remind me that "life is no abyss" and that happiness can be found by listening out for the sound of the bluebird so that "when he sings to you, though you're deep in blue, you will see a ray of light creep through."

This imagery reminds of Leonard Cohen's "Anthem" that begins:

The birds they sang 
At the break of day
Start again
I heard them say
Don't dwell on what has passed away
Or what is yet to be
Ah, the wars they will be fought again
The holy dove, she will be caught again
Bought and sold, and bought again
The dove is never free
Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack, a crack in everything
That's how the light gets in

Anyway the answer to my question has brought up many interesting associations and has certainly assuaged my currently very bleak view of the world.

Overexertion Monitor

For weeks now I've regularly gone for a morning walk of about twenty minutes duration. Usually my granddaughter accompanies me but lately she's been sleeping in and I've walked alone. The problem with solo walking is that there is no one to alert me when I'm walking too briskly. A couple of days ago, I overexerted myself in such a way. 

The next day one of my lower molars, the site of a botched root canal over seven years ago, began giving me trouble. It took a full day to settle down again. For that day and the next I forewent my daily walk and only resumed today, ensuring that I didn't overextend myself.

Annoying though this molar has been over the years, I've now realised that it can serve a useful function because it only flares up when I'm stressed physically and, possibly, psychologically. Thus it can serve as an indicator on the general health of my body and psyche. Once the tooth stirs, I need to rest physically and resolve any psychological stresses.

I've written about the dangers of root canals in a post on 23rd November 2018 titled Root Canals: Drilling for Dollars on my Alternative Media blog. In making this current post, I reread this earlier post and it made for disturbing reading, particularly the following anecdote:

Root Canals and Heart Disease: My Personal Story

By: Dr. David Friedman

We’ve all known or heard of someone who died suddenly of a heart attack for no apparent reason. That 50 year old neighbour, seemingly healthy with no history of cardiovascular disease, found dead in his back yard after having a massive heart attack. What if this deadly heart attack could have been prevented by a simple visit to a dentist? Sadly, I could have been that man found dead on his lawn, had it not been for a dentist who saved my life. 

Those that know me say I make the energiser bunny look lethargic. I wake up each morning with vigour and I always embrace the day with zest. I believe in seizing life to its fullest. About a year ago that all changed. My zig no longer zagged. I started going to bed tired and waking up even more exhausted. I was experiencing headaches and having a hard time concentrating. I went to see my doctor who did a complete physical and he discovered I had developed high blood pressure!! What?! How could that be possible? I’m a nutritionist. I eat clean and I exercise regularly. When the results of my blood test came back, I learned that I had elevated C-reactive protein (CRP). CRP is produced by the liver and rises when there is inflammation throughout the body. CRP is considered one of the major predictors of a future heart attack. My CRP measured a staggering 9.8 mg/L! Anything above 3.0 is considered a very high risk for heart attack and stroke. 

The body produces CRP during the general process of inflammation which is why it is called the “marker” for inflammation in the body. Your level of CRP is a good indicator of how at risk you are for developing cardiovascular problems.   In fact, research shows CRP predicts cardiovascular risk more accurately than a person’s cholesterol levels. Data from the Physicians Health Study, a clinical trial involving 18,000 apparently healthy doctors, found that elevated levels of CRP were associated with a 300% increase in the risk of heart attack. 

In addition to an elevated CRP, my white blood cell levels were also high, meaning my body was clearly fighting some type of infection. This internal inflammation was causing a chronic low grade fever, high blood pressure of 170/110; normally my levels are 120/82, and a resting heart rate of 90; normally I’m at 50. With all these factors, I had “the perfect storm” for a massive heart attack! I immediately went to a cardiologist who performed a stress test, EKG and a nuclear heart scan. The findings showed my heart was normal and I had no blockage whatsoever. This was great news; however, I was anything but normal. As the months progressed, I felt even more miserable! No one could give me any answers. I only knew my body was suffering from systemic inflammation but I had no idea why. 

Then one day while at a writer’s convention in California I met a dentist named Dr. P. Piero, from Michigan. He had just authored a book and was sharing it with me. As I thumbed through the pages, I noticed a section on C- reactive protein.  I asked him why a dental book would have a section on this inflammatory marker? What he told me next would finally bring answers on why I was having so many health issues. Dr. Piero told me that the number one cause of elevated CRP is a bacterial infection in the gums (i.e. a tooth abscess). This creates inflammation inside the gums, which enters the blood stream and travels throughout the body. I explained to him that I did not have any tooth pain so this couldn’t be the culprit. He then asked me if I have had any root canals? I told him I’ve had three. Dr. Piero shared that in a root-canaled tooth, the nerve is destroyed so I may feel no pain. 

When I got back home, I made an appointment with an Endodontist who discovered one of my root-canaled teeth was so badly abscessed it had eaten away part of my jaw bone! I made an appointment with an oral surgeon who had to extract the entire tooth and cut out the infection in my jaw bone using a tiny saw. The excruciating pain I experienced was beyond words! He would later pack cadaver bone inside the hole in my jaw, which will need to sit for approximately 6 months before I can get a dental implant. 

The oral surgeon that performed the procedure explained that a root-canaled tooth is essentially “dead” which makes it silent incubators for highly toxic bacteria which can make their way into the bloodstream leading to a number of serious medical conditions—many not appearing until decades later.  Within two days of having this failed root canal removed, I felt alive again! My energy, drive, endurance was back to normal! My heart rate and blood pressure were normal. After getting another blood test, I was happy to see my CRP was now at a normal level of 1.4 mg/L! 

If you are told by your dentist that you need a root canal, there is a safer alternative. Instead of opting to keep a dead tooth that will rot in your mouth, opt for a dental implant. Trust me, it’s MUCH cheaper in the long run and safer! Had I not met Dr. Piero, I feel certain I would have ended up a healthy nutritionist found dead in my yard from a fatal heart attack. 

The next time you go to your doctor ask him to check your CRP level.  I believe this should be a routine part of everyone’s annual physical. There are two tests for CRP. One can show a non-specific elevation of CRP that occurs with general inflammatory changes in the body; the other test is called hs-CRP – highly sensitive CRP – which is a measure of inflammation in blood vessels. This is the test needed to help establish heart disease risk. Thankfully, more and more doctors are realising the importance of measuring hs-CRP levels along with cholesterol to determine the risk of heart disease and to evaluate disease progression and prognosis in those who already have cardiovascular disease. Be sure and ask your doctor for this test to determine if you are at risk.

The person is question discovered that one of his root-canaled teeth was so badly abscessed it had eaten away part of his jaw bone. I know from visiting a dentist in Australia a few years ago that this is what has happened to me and indeed part of my jaw bone has been eroded by the abscess that resides permanently at the base of my dead molar. I don't know what my CRP levels are but at least my blood pressure and pulse rate are not a cause for concern.

I don't like the idea of having the tooth removed, cadaver bone being packed into the empty socket and experiencing excruciating pain. I guess I'll just have to live with it and ultimately die with it, the latter hopefully not too soon. Clearly the abscess is still there which is why it flares up whenever the immune system is weakened by overexertion. All I can do is monitor it.

Psychic Questioning

 I started this blog as a continuation of my former blog on WordPress at: 

https://wordpress.com/post/seanreeves.wordpress.com

My first post was on the 28th September 2020 and since then I've made eight posts and one of them was earlier today. In this post, I asked the question:

Why did my thymus gland malfunction in the first place and create my current thymoma?

I described the answer that I received as follows:

You have a hollow heart and you're trying to fill up the gap that has been created. The thymus gland is associated with the Heart Chakra, a centre of unconditional love and forgiveness. Since a falling out with a family member a couple of years back I've been containing a lot of resentment and anger. In a sense, I've been hollowing out my heart and ridding it of compassion and understanding for the family member concerned. 

I thought that listening to the Solfeggio frequency of 741 Hz, associated with the Heart Chakra, might help in healing especially if I focused on forgiveness. Tonight I listened again to the 14 minute YouTube video that I linked to at the time and I kept repeating the word "forgive". I felt this was preferable to saying "I forgive" because immediately the ego is strengthened by the use of pronoun "I". In the year or more that has passed since that post, I listened to the video only a few times and mainly in the weeks immediately following the post. After that, I largely forgot about because I post to this blog infrequently. I need to listen more frequently.

You can be your own psychic!

In my next post, on the 4th September 2020, the asked the question:

What happened to my gall bladder?

Manganese. As I wrote in that post, "I was lying in bed preparing for sleep and the question was only asked half-heartedly but an answer came back as quick as a flash: 'manganese'". I then set about investigating this element and its possible link to the development of gallstones. I was impressed with what I found.

A third and final question, that I wrote about in the same post, can be described as follows:

I asked a question for a friend of mine who has small fibre neuropathy but who is also on antidepressants. I asked what would help his peripheral neuropathy and the answer came back "iodine" with an image of mixing bowl filled with a yellow powder.  Again I set about investigating iodine and its possible efficacy in treating small fibre neuropathy and was impressed with what I found. I passed the information on to my friend who announced that he would mention it to his doctor. My friend had long ago put all his faith in the medical profession so I'm sure that no action was taken.

So after three "psychic" questions and three quite interesting answers, I stopped and haven't asked a question since. Perhaps it's time to resume. Questions and answers relating to physical matters can be posted to this blog while more metaphysical questions and answers can be posted to my my Mystic Meanderings blog.

Caffeine Addition: Progress Report

On 20th September, I made a post titled Caffeine Addiction in which I discussed my then very recent withdrawal from tea and coffee and their replacement with warm water and nothing else. I'm happy to report that for nearly two months I was able to maintain my "sobriety". Apart from an occasional fruit juice and one cup of hibiscus tea, water has been all I've imbibed.

Today however, I was "forced" into drinking a small cup of Americano at a restaurant. The reason for doing so has to do with my sleeping pattern. Over the past weeks, I'd fallen into the habit of sleeping around 9am, waking up in the afternoon and then snoozing again some time in the evening. Overall I was still getting seven to eight hours of sleep but divided into two quite separate parts. 

Circumstances conspired so that today I was still awake at midday having foregone my morning nap. Together with my family, I was in a restaurant and found myself in a severe sleep-deprived state. In order to keep functioning, I ordered an Americano to accompany my meal. The potency of its effect really surprised me. I was instantly alert and able to function more or less as I could have with my morning sleep behind. Furthermore, I was able to remain awake until almost 10pm of that same day.

For the first few hours after the drink, I was quite "high" and come down slowly over the remaining hours. I was reminded yet again of how potent coffee really is. I don't intend to return to my caffeine-drinking days and am happy to maintain my water only liquid intake. Upon waking up at 1am of the next day (having slept for about three hours), I noticed that I had drooled a little onto my pillowslip and that the smell of the saliva had the same slightly unpleasant smell that it used to have in my coffee and tea drinking days.

Figure 1

Since drinking only water, I drool less and when I do, it has a neutral odour. Presumably the caffeine is being excreted via my saliva when I sleep. Overall my health is good. I've managed to go for a brisk, twenty minute morning walk on most days combined with some light exercises throughout the rest of the day. My weight remains constant at around 71.5 kilograms. My thymoma has not been causing me any significant problems. Lying here, typing this blog post, my resting place rate is about 65 which is "good" (see Figure 1).