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Wellness Wednesday for January 18, 2023

The Wednesday Wellness threads are meant to encourage users to ask for and provide advice and motivation to improve their lives. It isn't intended as a 'containment thread' and any content which could go here could instead be posted in its own thread. You could post:

  • Requests for advice and / or encouragement. On basically any topic and for any scale of problem.

  • Updates to let us know how you are doing. This provides valuable feedback on past advice / encouragement and will hopefully make people feel a little more motivated to follow through. If you want to be reminded to post your update, see the post titled 'update reminders', below.

  • Advice. This can be in response to a request for advice or just something that you think could be generally useful for many people here.

  • Encouragement. Probably best directed at specific users, but if you feel like just encouraging people in general I don't think anyone is going to object. I don't think I really need to say this, but just to be clear; encouragement should have a generally positive tone and not shame people (if people feel that shame might be an effective tool for motivating people, please discuss this so we can form a group consensus on how to use it rather than just trying it).

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Dialysis Diaries Week 2:

Last week was pretty okay. I went trad climbing in Belgium. Which is an odd statement. Because Belgium is not known for its trad climbing (ie placing your own protection). Belgium has some work class limestone sport climbing. But currently I am very careful about taking sport falls. The reason being that the catheder that is placed in to my abdomen is somewhat low down. So upon a lead fall the climbing harness tugs up on to it which causes some pain. It's also not a great idea to disturb the region as it is essentially an open wound in to my body. So the name of the game is to not fall, which is the perfect motto for trad climbing on sketchy limestone anyways! So had a cold day out over marginal gear which as a beginner felt quite close to soloing at times. But it did make me feel somewhat whole again. On the 3rd pitch may hands started cramping in protest, this is quite common for me right now, any endurance exercise quite closely pushes my very poorly regulated body out of bounds. Regardless I could bond a bit with my old PhD friend, I hope to take him to the Alps after my surgery.

Last week I said it was pretty big that I could still urinate. Well I still can but I think the flow is getting less which is concerning. My blood pressure this evening was 170/110 I will call the dialysis clinic tomorrow. This is probably because I am "too wet". I feel like I have limited my fluid intake these past few days but perhaps I am not a reliable narrator of my own fluid consumption, a bit like a fat person on a diet of kellogs and whipped cream. In either case it is somewhat concerning.

As for my releationship that is going well. The disease does place unique burden on things. For instance I used to sleep round her house which is 5 minutes down the road. But right now the machine is in my house, so I cannot. A part of me does not even want to with the machine pumping away. But that part is small, generally I enjoy the company. She spends some night at mine, but a lot, particularly weekdays at hers. She says that she does not enjoy having things part here and there and her morning feels rushed when she has slept at my place. I understand this. Yet I feel at times she is dictating the cadence of things. But then again I think she is also making a lot of sacrifices and I know that she cares. I guess the situation is just a bit hard that's all. I also feel a bit more sensitive about things than I would normally be.

There is a thread of narrative that is constantly running through my mind. Its a little devil that says, just stop the dialysis. There is a psychological burden associated with being dependent on a machine and a whole logistics network, to have the mark of disease follow you at all times. The little voice says, just stop, pass away and perhaps you'll roll again and be more fortunate. Ofcourse I don't know whether I will roll again, or that I will be more fortunate, there are plenty a worse lives. Regardless I don't head this voice right now, I still feel like I have much to explore and to do. I pray the voice never becomes too commanding.

The little voice says, just stop, pass away and perhaps you'll roll again and be more fortunate.

Yeah, idk. Depending on how you figure the rolls are weighted, it seems extraordinarily unlikely you'll do better. This statement kind of fascinates me because it is making me think: what would the re-rolling process look like, and how would you weight it? What are the range of possibilities? All humans? All sentient life? All life? Are we throwing in +∞ and -∞ possibilities for monotheistic heavens and hells? How do we weight the possibility of nonexistence? What about time periods: are reincarnations time-progressing such that from here I will wait 90 days and come back, or what if they are time-independent? It's a hell of a Rawlsian Veil of Ignorance to worry about piercing.

I suppose your suffering really needs to be great to make that leap of faith. That or your priors on one thing or another must be quite high and that thing quiet preferrable. For instance, I would rate inexistence to somewhere between neutral to positive.

I find it hard to formulate but intuitively one can be out of existence for eons until at the very least, some different universe births the right configuration of atoms that is you. In which case those eons might as well have not passed.

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Aw, man. Don't have too much to say, but you have my sympathy. Hope things go well for you.