Liz4cps reflections

Having fun taking photos

Sun, 19 Apr 2009 16:32:47 -0400

I’ve been taking a lot of photos the last few weeks, mostly of my favorite subjects. I’ve found it’s quite stress relieving though I seem to take them faster than I can sort, crop, title, and post them! I’m thrilled that I finally got some nice shots of Luath catching a frisbee.

You can now subscribe to my photo albums directly so you get an email when I post a new album, though unlike the blog, you will need to go to the website to see the actual photos. If you use an RSS reader, you can get the feed if you prefer. If you follow me on twitter, you will see tweets for new blog posts and new photo albums there and since my tweets go into facebook you can also see them if you friend me there.

I have more spring flowers to post. My neighbor across the street has some stunning tulips in his front yard and I got some good photos of them yesterday. I’m hoping to get them posted later today.

Hope you enjoy the photos half as much as I enjoyed taking them! Please leave comments so I know you were here!

Monday afternoon update: I should have included a link to the frisbee photos in my post.

Catching up

Fri, 3 Apr 2009 23:02:14 -0400

It’s been a long time since I’ve blogged. Part of my problem in keeping up with things in general is that for me time goes really fast because of being tired. I had notice, like most of you no doubt have, that as I got older, time seemed to go faster. Then, a few years ago, I had a week or two of being a lot more awake than usual and noticed that time really slowed down. It was amazing; I’d be thinking it was Wednesday when it was Tuesday. It’s much more common for me it to be Friday or something when I’m thinking it’s Wednesday. When I was the most tired, I could blink and find a half hour had gone by; I never was sure what that was about unless I fell asleep those times. In any case these things make it hard to manage my time.

In December, I started counting calories again and that pretty much backfired. I had been gradually gaining weight which seems to happen whenever I’m not counting calories. I had gained almost up to where I had been at my heaviest and decided I’d better get busy again on recording calories. However, I almost ran completely out of energy. I wasn’t sleepy so much as just not moving which is not a good way to be. My husband brought home Popeye’s chicken one night and I was suddenly back to being myself. That made me wonder what it was in their chicken that helped so much -- the oil or the salt? How’s that for unhealthy? So I gave up for a while and tried to figure out what had gone so wrong. I didn’t think it was the salt, mainly because I include a fair amount of sea salt in my diet because of my hypothyroid and had continued to do so. It seemed more likely to be the oil because that was something I’d cut back on while dieting.

Regardless, I gave up on the diet because it was almost Christmas and it was not a good time to be so out of it. I planned to look at it again in January, but didn’t manage to until just 3 weeks ago. So, I regained the little weight I’d lost in December, but I’ve lost that again. My strategy has been to include a little olive oil in my diet and to use whole milk on my cereal. That only adds 12 calories beyond 2% and is much more filling, so I’m less likely to have more to eat after that. So, I’m feeling encouraged though it will take a long time to get back to a good weight. I had counted calories for 2 years and made progress, but then stopped for about 1.5 years. It’s a little discouraging to have to start over again, but it’s better than continuing to gain!

Some quick notes on other subjects:

Twitter I’ve been twittering a fair amount and have quite a few followers. I’ve been having some fun there and getting some practice writing shorter things!

Peace in Chronic Illness Our chat room is doing really well. Deni has just started a book study chat on Monday evenings that are going quite well and Mushie is now doing a chat on Sundays. We’ll have more chats coming soon, too.

Health I’ve been sleeping a little better the last couple weeks which is quite encouraging. I’ll blog more about that. It’s pretty tricky to get the autopap settings right, especially when a setting that is good one night is not good the next. Using breath right strips seems to help my autopap “see” how I’m breathing and adjust more appropriately.

Homeschooling My son is doing better in a lot of ways, taking more responsibility for his work and improving his math grades. He does have a lot of work to do before he can graduate from high school, though; he’s in 9th grade now.

Remodeling and re-arranging We’re done the parts we needed to pay workers to do, pretty much and we mostly really like it. We still have a lot of arranging and unpacking of things we had needed to pack up in order to empty the rooms we had worked on Given that taxes are due soon, I’m not sure how much we’ll get unpacked! My son’s been a big help here; he packed quite a few boxes.

Photography I have been taking quite a few pictures. I’ve added a lot here; have more to do, too. I also “redecorated” our Peace in Chronic Illness chat room by putting in a new background image and picking colors for the text box and side box that match the new background image. I found that very relaxing. The new background image is to the right here.

New photo albums The new photo albums are Air & Space Museum, Fall 2008, Christmas 2008, Cats!, Snow 2009, and Spring evening. My current favorite to photograph is our little kitty, Sakura. She is full grown but tiny and is very affectionate. She sleeps on my forearm at times and climbs on me like a kitten might! And, of course, she is very cute.

Saturday evening update: I’m having a lot of trouble publishing my site; most of my photo albums are not up yet. I’m having to upload just a few photos at a time. It’ll probably be 2-3 days before they’re all online again though I’m starting with the newest ones; the ones I mentioned above should be online pretty soon.

Sunday afternoon update: It’s finally all up! Most of my comments were lost so I will put them back up by hand.

Election results - both stunned and proud

Sat, 22 Nov 2008 22:17:36 -0500

In the days before the election, I knew it was likely that Obama would win, but I was hoping that he wouldn’t, even refusing to believe that he wouldn’t. In fact, I was still stuck on how the Democrats had managed to even nominate him. As much as Hilary Clinton’s values differ from mine, at least she has some experience. So, when Fox News announced that Obama had won, I was stunned.

What surprised me, though, was that there was a part of me that was proud that we elected an African American president. I was a child when the civil rights movement was at its peak in the 1960s, and I can remember some of the news reports about marches and crowds being sprayed with water. It didn’t mean a lot to me -- I wasn’t even 10 years old. I remember the riots after Martin Luther King, Jr’s death a bit better because the company where my dad worked in downtown DC was burned down during those riots. It took about ten years for the business to fully recover, though I wasn’t really aware of that at the time. Much has changed since the 1960s and it’s good to see how much closer we are to Martin Luther King Jr’s dream of a “a nation where [my four little children] will be not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.” I think we have mostly reached the first half, if not the second; I remain uncertain of Obama’s character.

This is bringing back memories of the 1968 riots and a friend of mine has encouraged me to share my dad’s and my story about how the riots effected. I will post about that another time.

Why I'm voting for McCain - Palin

Mon, 3 Nov 2008 17:06:34 -0500

I’m going to vote for McCain because of these issues:

Health
Moving towards government sponsored health care will not reduce paperwork or reduce the expense -- or make health care better overall. In theory, one payer should reduce expenses, but as the defense industry if they find government contracting efficient!

“Spread the wealth”
The purpose of taxes is to share the expenses for things done better together than separately, like defense, schools, highways, infrastructure (not all federal, of course). It is not to “spread the wealth” which means taking money from people who have worked hard to help those who haven’t. Spreading the wealth has been tried in the Soviet Union and China. It didn’t work either place; it will not work here either. Helping the poor should be more about charity (yes, we do give). Spreading the wealth kills initiative, productivity, and the economy.

Tax cuts
A tax cut on 95% of tax payers is not realistic. First, 40% do not pay taxes, so they would get money thru a tax credit. We cannot afford this; the numbers do not work. It is the wrong time for tax increases. Don’t vote for Obama because you want more money in your pocket; it might work for a year or so, but it can’t work for long at all. When money comes back to people, the government keeps a percentage of it -- and that percentage increases as time goes by. The people, as a whole, will not come close to breaking even; such things are better done locally. McCain is known for hating pork and promises not to allow pork in the federal budget. He will not raise taxes and will let people continue to profit from their own efforts.

Abortion
I am very pro-life; I have picketed abortion clinics and worked in a crisis pregnancy center. McCain and Palin are pro-life. Obama is very pro-abortion. When Obama says he will not vote for an abortion restriction unless there is an exception for the health of the mother, it sounds reasonable. Only a very few of the most ardent pro-life would argue that a abortion should not be allowed when a woman would die without one. Not even many pro-life would say she should not be allowed one if she would become permanently disabled. However, that’s not what “health of the mother” means in court. The courts have defined “health of the mother” to mean even psychological health -- if the mother would be distressed by it. So the health exception is a free pass for anyone to have an abortion.

Is Obama the intellectual?
No, he isn’t. First, you should understand that world view will effect your perception of intelligence. Second, he has said some things that are wrong and unwise, especially with foreign policy. Until the first debate, I thought he was intelligent though with many wrong beliefs. But in that debate, he talked about invading Pakistan (unwise to do -- even more unwise to say you’re going to do it). He also kept referring to the country of Ukraine as “the Ukraine” which is very offensive to Ukrainians because it hearkens back to when “the Ukraine” was a region in the Soviet Union. His first response to the Russian invasion of Georgia was to say that both sides should show restraint -- that astonished me. How did he expect Georgia to show restraint? They shouldn’t defend themselves? My estimate of Obama’s intelligence dropped by 10-20 IQ points, I’m afraid; I’m guessing he’s above average, but nowhere near genius level. Perhaps some of this is inexperience, but he shouldn’t be learning this much during the campaign and I worry about what he would need to learn in office!

McCain does have the experience to not make these kinds of mistakes, he has an incredible amount of experience and will put the country’s interests above hs own; he has in the past. He and Palin have both the experience and the intelligence and flexibility to find solutions to problems.

Middle east polls
The Iraqis would vote for McCain; Palestinians terrorists would vote Obama.

Foreign policy
Obama’s already said dangerous things, as I mentioned above. Note, too, that this is the wrong time to cut our defense budget -- we’re at war... McCain knows how to run a war. The surge worked, partly because we took our soldiers out of the camps and put the out in the towns and neighborhoods so the people go to know them and they got to know the people. Then the Iraqis started to trust them and things began to turn around. When McCain said we might be there 100 years, he didn’t mean in a hot war that long; he was referring to the fact that we might have some soldiers there for the long term, like we have had in Germany and Korea. If McCain had been president the last few years, I believe Iraq would be at peace by now; thankfully, it is close now.

Obama is inexperienced
Obama is very inexperienced and it shows, especially in his foreign policy mistakes. He does seem to have learned some things from McCain in this election, I hope. Because if he does become president that will help him, I hope. I am concerned, though, that in the places where he is echoing McCain that he is not sincere.

Is change always good?
Anyone who has read Harry Potter ought to know that change for change’s sake can be horrendous. Need I say more? I like our constitution and don’t want to lose more freedoms.

Financial crisis
It’s incredibly ironic that Bush and the Republicans are being blamed for the current financial crisis while the democrats appear innocent. I’m not saying the Republicans are innocent here, but we had a financial house of cards built on “liar loans”, mortgages given to people who would not be able to pay for them. ACORN was instrumental in getting these loan programs put in place, going so far as to force banks to make them. Four years ago, Bush saw there were problems with Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and tried to reign them in but was stopped by Democrats, led by Barnie Frank. Two years ago, McCain tried to reign them in; he was also stopped by the Democrats -- this time led by Barnie Frank and Obama. So who was right and who was wrong?

Race issues
Ok, this is really a non-issue for me, but a friend of mine who supports Obama was quick to point out to me that Obama doesn’t hate whites, as if that would be the main reason I wouldn’t vote for him. I don’t really think he hates whites though I am concerned about his association with Reverend Wright; I don’t know how you can go to a church for 20 years and not be aware of Wright’s strongly held beliefs about America; the church’s response to Wright showed that these were not new ideas for them.

Records
McCain has a stellar record; his priority is keeping this country safe which I agree with. Our liberty and free speech rights will be eroded if terrorists have their way. Obama has almost no record at all, partly because he voted “present” so many times and partly because he hasn’t been in office very long (he is a freshman senator!). So, we look at who he chooses to associate with and the names are not reassuring: William Aker, Reverand Wright, Risko, etc. I know he has disavowed most of these, but why did he choose them in the first place? He either has very bad judgement or he agrees with many of their beliefs; either proposition is disturbing.

Country first
When a conservative says, “country first”, we mean country before self. Words like duty and service come to mind. Things like putting yourself between an enemy and your country, so that you’re the first one hurt instead of your neighbors. Things that soldiers do. Things McCain did and paid a heavy price for.

Family
Obama has close family, like his aunt and his half brother, who are very poor. That he knows about them and yet doesn’t help them (surely, they would not be very poor if he did help them) does not bode well for how serious he is about helping the poor here; it makes me think he’s just using the poor to get votes. McCain, on the other hand, comes from a family that has a long history of serving our country thru military service. And when Cindy McCain brought home a baby for them to adopt, he took her in. Somehow I think McCain’s heart is way bigger than Obama’s.

Last day
Obama’s speech today was all about how bad Bush was and was sprinkled with a lot of things that made no sense to me -- or just seemed like lies. McCain’s was more specific and made more sense -- more about the future and more about contrasting his stands with Obama’s. I’ve also been noticing the signs held by people in the crowd -- Obama’s are apparently all the same or perhaps with two variations. If you look at McCain’s crowd, you see a lot of more variation - a lot of different signs. Obama is apparently more controlling and McCain more supportive of freedom; interesting contrast.

I could go on, but this is already too long.

Please pray before you vote and vote what is best for our country. Also pray that voter fraud will be caught and stopped. Trust God, keep praying no matter the outcome.

If you are registered, do vote; please don’t forget! Every vote will count; the polls are tightening.

God bless you and God bless the USA! God has blessed us greatly, let us continue as one nation, under God.

Debugging CPAP - No longer a patient patient...

Wed, 17 Sep 2008 08:49:32 -0400

Last night, I spent another night struggling to just sleep and breath at the same time. One would think that since I’ve been on CPAP for years now and have been trying to fix it so it worked better off and on for a long time, that it would mostly be sorted out. However, some of the problems with CPAP are not ones I can work around, and my patience is gone.

Now, I do sleep better with CPAP than without -- if I sleep without it, I wake up very groggy, with my lungs tired, and generally yucky (almost feel poisoned). So, I’m not planning on giving up CPAP. Yet even with CPAP, I don’t get good rest; I’m perpetually tired, and often wake up with a headache that I fear is from lack of oxygen. I’m so used to being tired, I sometimes think I’m not when I am -- I catch myself yawning right after thinking that I feel awake. I sometimes wonder if I know what “awake” really means.

The CPAP bugs are:

1. Keeping the pressure constant means that when the resistance in the airway increases, the flow decreases -- basic physics. This is backwards and so flawed, I’m not sure how this was missed before. I’m guessing that the process of determining what pressure a particular patient needs is actually a way of determining the usual airway resistance and what pressure is needed to compensate. Still, assuming the airway’s resistance is gong to be constant is wrong -- and in my case, very wrong.
2. Congestion is not irrelevant. One of the things patients are told is that there is no need to adjust the pressure for seasonal allergies. Yet, when congestion occurs during the night it increases resistance in the airway which means airflow is reduced. This is wrong.
3. People have hair. Everyone laughing? Well, when you design a mask to attach to headgear so the CPAP stays in place during the night, you ought to think about the fact that people have hair and that it’s slippery. Somehow this was overlooked in the beginning. At this point, you can buy headgear designed for people with long hair, and I actually made my own headgear. The headgear I was first given did not even begin to stay in place.
4. Leaks are noisy. Another thing patients are told is not to worry about the leaks because the pressure compensates. They’ve actually got the physics correct there. The leak looks like a drop in resistance and the flow increases to compensate. Getting the physics right here is a bit of a joke -- it’s like thinking your part of a bill is $19.31 when it’s actually $48.31 and you’re proud you got the 0.31 part right. They really need to fix #1 and then revisit the leak problem.
5. Leaks dry out your eyes. This isn’t every night but you can find yourself with your eyes bothering you the next day without really knowing why.

It’s #4 that’s got me ready to swear off sleeping at the moment and is why I didn’t sleep last night. I was sick earlier in the week and rested more than usual and somehow managed to get more caught up on my sleep than usual. Now, you’d think this would be a good thing, but it turns out, I wasn’t tired enough to go to sleep with all the noise from the leaks. I tried using the ramp, not using the ramp, adjusting my gear, and doing everything else I could think of except for throwing the mask across the room -- and that scares my dog so I didn’t.

And what kind of a day am I having so far? Well, I feel pretty clear headed and so far, I’m more productive than usual. I know from experience that it won’t last long enough... I really do need sleep -- apparently, I also need to be very tired when I go to bed or the CPAP will keep me awake.

I don’t know who designed CPAP machines. I don’t mean that I want to know who designed the box and put the various bits in; I mean, who wrote the specs? I had a running joke that my original CPAP was designed by a new engineering grad because you figure an experienced engineer wouldn’t make the kinds of mistakes I’ve listed above. As I began to realize all of the above, though, I started saying it must have been a class project. Later, I talked to an engineer who actually does design things and found out that it was probably designed by a doctor who gave the engineers specs that told them to implement the above bugs. Oh.

Don’t get me wrong; I am glad a doctor thought of this concept. Making simplifying assumptions like those above in order to show proof of concept makes all the sense in the world. In engineering terms, it was a good prototype (or first hack -- definition #1). However, after proof of concept, someone needs to do the real design -- and doctors do not have the background to do that. “The devil is in the details.” (For how this relates to engineering, see a professor explaining it with some humor and a structural engineering company explains how things can go really wrong.)

You have to get the details right. What do we use instead of the simplifying assumptions? Is the goal really to keep the pressure constant or is it to assure a certain flow to/from the patient’s lungs? How do you insure that while still allowing the patient to control the breathing?

Now any doctor reading this is probably thinking, you can’t; you’re asking for the moon. However, the engineers reading this are already thinking of approaches and ideas that might work. I’m not saying this is simple, but doctors aren’t engineers and need to know that engineers and sometimes physicists need to be involved way earlier than you think.

I am planning a blog post about why keeping the pressure constant and increasing the resistance leads to decrease in flow; it’s one of those things that isn’t hard to understand once its explained, but it’s not something you’re likely to realize on your own unless you’re a physicist, an electrical engineer, or have some similar background (yes, I did spot this myself). I wish I could tell you when I’ll have it written up, but being tired all the time makes such predictions useless. I am also planning a separate post to explain what I do to try and mitigate these problems, like using AUTOPAP.

New look on my web site!

Mon, 4 Aug 2008 19:32:21 -0400

I started to do a mass email to announce the last updates to this web site but decided I was tired with the old “notebook” look. So, I picked a different template, modified it a little and changed all my pages over to it. I’ve also updated the About Me page and the side columns on my home page. Hope you like the new look!

I’ve also added three photo albums and have a lot more photos I’d like to post -- another time, I guess! The new albums are:

• National D-Day Memorial -- photos I took when we visited the memorial on the way home from Tennessee in May. I have more photos to post from that trip.
• Summer 2008 -- random summer photos.
• Rearranging our house -- a work in progress; will be adding to these.

PS Please leave a comment! Thanks.

Reports of my being a nurse are greatly exaggerated

Thu, 31 Jul 2008 15:34:25 -0400

... with apologies to Mark Twain

A funny thing happened at the vet a couple years ago. We were talking about my kitty when she said to me, “Aren’t you a nurse?”

I was so surprised, I said, “What?”

She replied, “Aren’t you in the medical field?”

“No, I studied computer science in school.”

We laughed.

Then last month, I was with my father-in-law in the ER, and after asking if there would be an alarm if his O2 level dropped below 90%, I told her that story. The nurse looked at me a little surprised and said, “Aren’t you a nurse?” That really surprised me....

Trust me, I know I’m not a nurse -- I don’t even play one on TV! I was a junior volunteer at a hospital years ago and I read a lot. I’ve taken a lot of cats and dogs to vets and my son to the pediatrician and myself too many times -- and my mom and now my father-in-law. Is that really unusual? I also read a lot and look up conditions on Wikipedia when people come in our chat room. Still... Trust me, I don’t know that much anatomy! I just have some working common sense and make sure I understand what a doctor is doing and why when he or she is working on me or one of my animals.