ABMU April 2009

Okay, so I guess I've been meaning to update the Boring Medical Updates for several months now, and I see that the last one was posted in September... well, a lot has changed since then, and a lot has stayed the same.

As the saying goes.

So: at the end of the last installment, I was about to go in for my first infusion of infliximab, and suffering from a sore bum and generally feeling crap. It turned out that the sore bum was nothing to do with the drugs - it was the Crohn's inflammation which had worked its way down to my anus and was spreading onto the skin around the outside. If anything, it was worse than the anal fissure because it was always there - you couldn't make it go away by sitting still.
But back to the medication: the infliximab worked. It WORKED. Shout it from the rooftops, it kicked in and made me FEEL GREAT. Not full of beans, but you know, normal. Able to consider the possibility of doing things like going skiing, going cycling, sailing, etc. Wonderful!  It was not without its downside, though - for one thing, I was still injecting myself with methotrexate, which I absolutely hated and which made me feel slightly nauseous for days afterwards. For another, there was the matter of an annoying skin sensitivity which has hung around persistently. More on that anon.

Infliximab is administered via what is known as an 'infusion'. If that puts you in mind of soothing herbal tea, possibly handed out by nurses on some sunny verandah somewhere... well, stop. Stop it right now. In actual fact, it is better known as being 'on a drip' for a couple of hours, with a needle in the back of your hand and some beeping bit of machinery gradually introducing this new toxicness into your system. Western General does have some nice leather armchairs (courtesy of the drugs company - thanks, drug company) for you to lounge in during this period, which is another reason why the stuff is way better than methotrexate. Happily, come Christmas I was able to leave the methotrexate stuff behind - no more plunging inch-long needles into my own belly, yay! Now it's just me and the infliximab...

First, the benefits - it works. The Crohn's inflammation round my arse cleared up, my anal fissures healed in double-quick time, and everything coming out was suddenly solid! I had more energy - in fact, for the first time in a long, long time, I was able to conceive of taking on more activities of an evening! No longer was I limited to working, eating and sleeping! Whoopee!

Next, the drawbacks. Most prosaically, this sudden firmness of the stool was a bit of a shock, and my bottom struggled with it for a bit. However, feeling a bit stretched every so often was a small price to pay, frankly. The other drawback, however, is a little annoying. For some reason the infliximab makes my skin much more sensitive, and itchy. Unless I'm careful, I find myself scratching it to the point of causing a nasty rash on my arms. However, I've started taking these one-a-day anti-histamine pills, which keeps it under control - although I still find myself occasionally giving the upper arms an absent-minded rub. Just got to keep an eye on that.

There is one final problem with this wonder-drug. For the first few infusions (so, call that three months), it seemed to work flawlessly, and I was completely solid and symptom-free from one session to the next.  However, since January, I've noticed that the effects are beginning to wear off as I approach the next infusion. Now, this also coincides with the point at which my former employers started talking about a redundancy program, which I will freely admit made me rather stressed (and not just me, either - but that's a different story). So there might be an element of stress-related flare-up in there. It's not uncommon. However, over the last two infusions, it seems like the last two weeks before a session have seen me on a decline. In fact, last time I ended up in bed for the entire fortnight!

In response to this, the hospital have reduced my infusion interval from eight to six weeks. This is my first six-week interval; right now, it's four weeks since the last one and two weeks to go before the next. Right now, I feel pretty good. This is a good sign since I am in the middle of moving house, selling my flat, and finding a new job - all very stressful undertakings, I'm sure you'll agree. What's more, I'm changing hospitals - so my next infusion will (if they ever ring me back) be in Addenbrooke's, and not anywhere in Scotchland.

So right now, we stand on the eve of great changes, and only time will tell...

Built from VW parts and gas canisters - the Hotpod

http://www.hotpod.co.uk


Came across this while I was at the Grand Designs Live exhibition which is on in London this week (and yes, I am now full of plans to build my own house on a piece of land the size of a postage stamp somewhere desirable)... this is a stove made by 'artist-blacksmith' Daniel Harding, when he needed to keep warm in his camper van while on January surfing expeditions. Pretty, no? And entirely recycled. And finished to a high standard, which makes a change.

And now for something completely different - RUGBY

http://www.arcrugby.co.nz/
It's commentary, Jim, but not as we know it. What I especially like about the ARC, though, is the imagination that goes into soe of the animated sequences.

Beyond the Schlock of the New: a design essay on core77

http://www.core77.com/blog/featured_items/beyond_the_schlock_of_the_new_eight_strategies_for_design_and_foresight_by_kevin_mccullagh_10912.asp
Strange how some things seem like complete common sense, and yet rarely get articulated...

Vases made from cardboard! Yay!

http://www.cardboarddesign.com/liquidNO3.htm
Just doing some spring cleaning of my inbox, clearing out some links...

Somebody has made monochrome paper lanterns and called them vases. They are pretty. That is all.

Shapeways | creator

http://www.shapeways.com/creator/
In reality, this is more of an introduction to rapid prototyping rather than a serious way of getting stuff made... but it's pretty cool.

Best of Green: Design + Architecture

Simpy gorgeous Green + Design (architecture really)

You all know I'm a sucker for this sort of stuff.

Labanotation - nothing to do with anything you'd expect

http://www.dance.ohio-state.edu/5_resources/labanlab/index.html

Nothing to do with Lebanon, labia, laboratories, Los Angeles Bathyscape Association, oh no - this is a notation of movement, specifically dance movement. Came across it reading this article in core77 about incorporating movement into design - v interesting.

A Tale of Two Committees: an article wot I wrote

I've been toying with the idea of applying for a course in Science Communication (a one-year MA at Imperial, since you ask), and even went to the trouble of preparing some material for my application... but in the end, I got fed up of the whole thing, and decided I wasn't that attracted to any of the career possibilities (I'm enjoying doing stuff rather than writing about it at the moment).

Nonetheless, one of the application requirements was to write an article of 400 words on a subject of my choice, either science or science policy. Why I chose the deeply dull topic I did - well, future generations will be arguing over that for centuries to come. But since it seems a shame for all that effort to go to waste, I post it here. That's what a blog is for, isn't it?

Here goes:

A Tale of Two Committees: a Brief History of Presidential Science Advice

One of the exciting things about science policy under Barack Obama is that history has stopped repeating itself. Up until now, the history of the President’s Committee of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST) was looking depressingly similar to its only predecessor, Eisenhower’s “President’s Science Advisory Committee” (PSAC).

Eisenhower convened PSAC in the gloomy days following the Soviet Union’s launch of Sputnik 1. Initially, the committee had serious influence – scientific prestige was a key battleground of the Cold War, and the post-war belief in scientific progress was untarnished. Eisenhower valued ‘his scientists’, and the free-for-all discussions that took place mark the Golden Age for scientists in the White House. Under Kennedy, though, PSAC began a long journey into eclipse. The Apollo programme shows how estranged the Committee was from policy – PSAC only agreed not to criticize it as long as Kennedy never claimed the programme was meant to advance science. Finally, Nixon disbanded the Committee in 1974, suspicious of the scientists’ peacenik attitudes towards Vietnam, and incensed by their criticism of a proposed anti-ballistic missile system.

For sixteen years PSAC had advised the President: it was to be another seventeen before it was reconvened, this time under George Bush senior. The relationship was never going to be as close as with Eisenhower, but it was still warm - Bush senior did invite the whole committee to spend a weekend with him at Camp David. But as with Kennedy, so with Clinton; and George W Bush showed himself at least the equal of Nixon in his distrust of scientists. Maybe it is fitting for a committee born of the Cold War that it was the anthrax scares during the War on Terror where history begins to diverge. When Tom Ridge, head of the Department for Homeland Security, picked up the phone and yelled, "I need scientists!" it was John H Marburger, head of PCAST and the President’s science advisor, at the other end of the line.

Now PCAST approaches its 19^th birthday. John P Holdren – a man whose CV seems tailor-made for the post – will succeed Marburger. The position’s official access to the President has been restored. And for its co-chairs, PCAST has swapped one venture capitalist for two respected scientists in Eric Lander and Harold Varmus. It only remains now to see whether this ‘dream team’ will truly have the ear of the new President.

Length: 395 words

Logging: one for the grammarians. Or possibly grammaticians.

Logging: why the timber industry is trying to take over the internet for nefarious but as yet unclear purposes.

on/off

 

 3

in/out

 

 5

shake it all about, stick in some ice, hey presto, a rat's arse cocktail.

 

 4

sign please

 

 0

Question:
(I've just been simultaneously on the facebook and HSBC websites, which have different approaches to this)

Does one log on? And then subsequently log off? Or does one log in, then out? And having logged in, is it then possible to log off? Does logging on preclude logging out? 

Should we all be signing in, instead?

Call for suggestions: what to do with plastic bottle tops

I've been collecting the tops from milk cartons at work for some time now, mainly in order to use them to mix glue in. But even after taking out a certain number for glue mixing, I've acquired a slight surplus. the question is, what do I do with 420 green plastic caps?


Some vital statistics: they are almost all green, and almost all (98.5% by my reckoning!) are the same size, which is about 40mm in diameter. That's enough, if you pack them in a straight square formation, to cover an area about 80cm x 80cm.


Two obvious ideas:

Floor mat (although an 80cm square one isn't that big really)
Lampshade

...?

The Years of Rice and Salt

Rating:	★★★★★
Category:	Books
Genre:	Science Fiction & Fantasy
Author:	Kim Stanley Robertson

I've been thinking about books for Summer Girl, books I can lend her. Since my library is almost entirely science fiction, and she only likes the more level-headed ones (no men with wings allowed), I've been wondering what to lend her... and it's only recently that I thought how perfect the works of Kim Stanley Robertson are. KSR has to be one of my all-time favourite authors. His characters are easy to identify with, have depth and meaning, and are central to his books in a way which the trashier end of the market would do well to emulate. His science is always level-headed and believable. In fact, I would recommend most of his works, but most especially I have to go for the Mars trilogy, which is utterly brilliant right until the end (the final book in the trilogy still has my favourite last line of any novel); Icehenge, which is short and elegaic (sp?) and beautifully unresolved at the end; and this one, The Years of Rice and Salt.

Briefly, now: this is an alternative history, based on the premise that the Black Death killed off 95% of Europe's population instead of about 30% (is that right?). In this history, Islam and China grow to fill the void, and Europe is relegated to an Islamic backwater of bickering Taifa states (love that word - don't know what it means, think it's a type of rock, but love it anyway). The backbone of the book is a group of characters who are a sort of cosmic family, a jati, who are reincarnated over and over again and always somehow find one another, without really knowing why or who they are. It's a brilliantly told fable. There are a few rare occasions where KSR gets out his broad brush and starts lecturing, but these are truly rare, and for the most part the stories are well told, the characterisation is splendid, and each episode is touching in its own way.

Highly recommended.

Concerning American politics and the current worldwide financial woes (2)

Seriously, I've never lived anywhere which HAD a Main Street! High Streets, yes, lots and lots of those. Even Inner Ting Tong. But never, ever a Main Street. So shut up about Main Street, where the heck is it anyway? I demand photographic proof it exists.

Concerning American politics and the current worldwide financial woes

If I hear the words 'Wall Street' and 'Main Street' in the same sentence one more time I shall scream.

Hanging about at the interface - conceptships.org

It's my humble opinion that there is a strong overlap between science fiction and design - especially between sf graphical work and vehicle design. This is maybe because vehicle design is one of the most purely graphical design fields, or maybe because our vehicle purchases - especially our cars - have become so heavily loaded with meaning, or maybe because our vehicles (again, especially cars) come with that idea of 'props for living in the future' built in to them... or maybe it's simply because there's a big graphic design community and only so much inspiration going around... anyway, with all that in mind, here's a website devoted to science fiction representations of vehicles. It calls itself 'Concept Ships'.Go look at it, because someday they will be your ride. Or at least your ride will be trying to look like one of 'em.

Prague

View out across Charles Bridge

No doubt I will get in massive trouble with Summer Girl for including none of her favourites from the four hundred or so photos we took in the week we were in Prague, but here's a sample, more or less chosen at random.

Hey, what's that?

http://www.heywhatsthat.com/

Right now this is a very flaky beta, but it's still a great application. What it does is, takes a location you specify (click on Google maps, or lat and long, or whatever) and works out what you can see from there. However, I think they've missed a serious trick here. Focus seems to be on creating a system which will calculate and display the views from mountaintops - but what this reminds me of most are the coastline sketches you find in pilot books for yachtsmen (and women, no sexism intended). These sort of sketches are really seriously useful if you're down at sea level looking out at unfamiliar coastline... sadly, though, when I tried to get the view from just off Holy Island (the Lindisfarne one), it - well, it struggled. Sea level kinda blows its little mind right now, I guess.

Watch Skyscrapers having a tug of war, and other shininess

Just doing a bit of housekeeping here, posting a few links I sent to myself ages ago but felt too sh1t to sit down and post (been going through a bit of a rough patch lately).

First up is a video from National Geographic, about designing small homes that feel big. Interesting. Inevitably, it's about a house in Tokyo; there are some nice ideas about out perception of space in there, though.

 

Next up: watch skyscrapers duke it out in a tug of war! Virtually, obviously. One of a series of really cool-looking procedural animations by the obviously nom-de-plume'd Brandom Morse.

ABMU the next

ARGH! I just wrote a pretty epic Boring Medical Update which X has lost. Dagnammit. %$&%*$! %*$&%*^^^^^!
I seethe.
So, the short version now, as I am thoroughly pissed off. A lot has happened since October. The anal fissure that seemed to be on the mend persisted, and persisted, and persisted, until EASTER. At that time my colitis was so bad I spent the Easter weekend in bed (at my girlfriend's parents - great impression, huh). So, a change of medication was called for, and I've been on methotrexate, which makes me feel nauseous two days every week, and requires some considerable time off work for getting the necessary blood tests done (every week) and going to get The Jab. Even better, the anal fissure RETURNED after about a month. Even better than that, the skin around what the hospital staff rather charmingly persist in referring to as my 'tail end' has become very swollen and sore. Since there is no sign of an abscess or fistulae, my current theory is that this might be to do with the methotrexate, which can apparently be detected in patients' rectal mucosa (whatever the heck that is), and is also a skin irritant. So I'm thinking, either due to the fissure or my own deliberate attempts to keep my botty relaxed (trying to keep good blood circulation), there might be a small amount of discharge which is getting onto the bumskin and making it go bananas.
The main alternative theory is that it's an infection of some sort, which would suggest infliximab treatment can't start until it's fixed.
Tomorrow I go into hospital for my first infusion of Infliximab, which may or may not work, but sounds rather scary anyway. Right now, though, I feel like I've hit a bit of a low point. Frankly, the bottom soreness eclipses both the anal fissure and the colitis (which is actually Crohn's Disease, according to the latest colonoscopy). I don't know how I will manage when I go back to work on Tuesday, because I just feel so low and feeble. To top it off, I've been back from holidays for a couple of days, the weather is miserable, and half my windows are obscured by scaffolding, making the flat a very dingy and dispiriting place, especially for someone whose sore bottom really means they should just stay at home.
All in all, pretty miserable.

Milkcrate Digest

http://milkcratedigest.com/
Isn't it a relief to know that important, dedicated people are keeping a watchful eye on those things that really matter?

I wonder where they are...

Meanwhile, here is a picture of a sofa. Or an armchair. Or maybe just a chair. Okay, it's a chair.



The brainchild of Miss Lila Jang. I think it's great. Just the thing for a small flat which needs an armchair but which would secretly like a sofa.