Category Archives: my health

A (weight) loser is I!

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I know, I am not expecting much sympathy for this one.

I’ve lost another pound. I mean, pounds come and go, but I was a pound deeper into the territory I have not been since I recovered from 2005. A new minimum for the last few years, in other words.

Losing weight is usually a cause for celebration in the western world (and then some) these days, and I think this says something profound about our civilization. Perhaps I should expound on that, given the opportunity. But I don’t feel like it today. Just like last time I wrote on this topic (on April 15), I have done nothing to earn this.  I have eaten as much as I dared without getting sick.  I have not exercised more than before.  I have not changed my diet noticeably since before I moved. I have not started or stopped taking any drugs. To the best of my knowledge, the only difference is that I live in a slightly different house and have a somewhat longer commute.

I am aware that involuntary weight loss can be a symptom of very severe illnesses, but I cannot put my finger on anything else that would hint in that direction.  So for now, all I can do is wait and hope that this will be for the good.  Perhaps it is just my inner self that is manifesting in the physical world… if so, I will probably become very skinny indeed, for there is probably not (yet?) all that much in there. Still, I find that inner place more interesting as time passes.  This may be a good thing, given the five certainties that many Buddhist monks recite daily:

It is certain that I will lose my youth.
It is certain that I will lose my health.
It is certain that I will lose those I love.
It is certain that I will lose all things in this world.
It is certain that I will lose my life.
All this simply by virtue of being human.

Buddhism is such a cheerful religion, don’t you think? ^_^ It is true, though. All things that are made of parts will come apart.  This includes my body, but I am in no hurry to experience it personally. I am perfectly willing to take that on faith as long as possible! But is it best to lose everything in one clean stroke when the last certainty comes true… or is it perhaps better to lose it one pound at a time?

Hectic game calms the heart

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In the foreground Itlandsen the Peacebringer.  Does playing a superhero improve your physical body?  My tentative experience so far is, yes, slightly. This seems unlikely, but what is the alternative?

It happened again. I came home from work and almost immediately hopped on the exercise bike. I stopped after a few minutes though, because my pulse was almost 20 beats above my norm for the warm-up. This is usually a sign that the body is busy fighting an infection, although it also happens the day after a particularly hard exercise or physical work.

So I got off the bike and also cancelled the long walk I was planning afterwards. I made a light dinner, read and wrote a little, and logged on City of Heroes, the superheroic online multiplayer game. I logged on with my Peacebringer character, as is good and proper, since this is an archetype whose powers are all based on light.  ^_^ It is also very team-friendly. My character can transform into a giant space lobster that can draw enemy fire away from more vulnerable team mates. I joined a team with 4 other random players, we spent two hours saving the imaginary city from imaginary evil cyborgs.

After this I checked my pulse again, and it was back to normal. Now, doing this task force is pretty hectic, since I am not responsible only for myself so I cannot take breaks or slow down. Despite this, my body had somehow regenerated during the evening. OK, perhaps it was the dinner rather than the game, but that is not much more credible. (I was not so hungry as to be anxious or anything, I am not really prone to hunger weakness etc, I eat when my stomach gnaws or occasionally because I have good leftovers.) And this is the second time I notice this, although the first time I was duoing at a more relaxed pace. More testing is in order!

(Oh, and I spent a long time looking for the earlier entry about the same topic. I did not find it, but I read a whole lot of other interesting entries. Well, interesting to me. I sure have written a lot!)

Unexpected weight loss

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This morning, I once again took the opportunity to step on the bathroom scales before getting dressed. I was mildly surprised to see that I had lost another pound. I am now definitely in weight territory where I have not been since I fully recovered from the Purgatory Weeks of 2005, when I could hardly digest any food at all.  I still have a long way to go to the lowest point, so the weight in itself is not a worry.  I just don’t know why I continue to lose weight.  As far as I know, I eat as much as before, I work as much as before, and I sleep as much as before.

I don’t know whether this bodes well or ill. Historians of the future will be able to look at the headline of this entry and say: “Of course!”.  But I don’t even know my own future.  I truly am human, albeit a weird one.

A little each day

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Like watching a turtle race…  I guess my life looks a bit like that.

Easter here in Norway is almost like a small vacation for me and most workers: From Wednesday mid-day till Tuesday morning. For me, this had an effect I did not intend: Because I normally do my daily brainwave entrainment / meditation before work, I skipped it for almost a week. And my day rhythm began sliding again.

I have chronic Delayed Sleep Phase Syndrome. Basically my day is 25 hours. This is the normal human condition when living in caves, but in normal humans it is reset by daylight. (And yes, I do see daylight each day, unlike unemployed otaku.) So untreated I fall asleep one hour later each night, until I would fall asleep during work hours. For that period, things are pretty rough, but then I sleep in the afternoon for a while, then evening, then night, and morning again. Or that is how it used to be. With brainwave entrainment I can get enough slow-wave sleep even if I go to sleep and wake up at normal time for society.

But I have to do it daily, or nearly so. Even after months, I am not cured, and perhaps will never be. I can skip a weekend and catch up, but clearly not a week. Then again, it really is a computer-assisted meditation, and meditation should be daily anyway.

This made me think about other things that are best done daily. For instance physical exercise. If I make sure to do a certain minimum amount of exercise even when I don’t have time or energy for a workout, my body will know that it is still in use and maintain itself accordingly. (But not today. Today I am tired and my stomach hurts. Tomorrow, tomorrow… perhaps.)

I should do the same thing with my voice, now that my throat has recovered from the mysterious infection. If I speak each day until I am just about to get sore, perhaps my body will adapt to speaking again. (Based on the theory that not speaking really was the reason why I can only speak a few minutes a day now. It is hard to say; almost no human voluntarily shuts up for years just because they have nothing important to say.)

And then there are exercises that are not for the body but the soul. I already mentioned meditation. Prayer is called the breath of the Christian, so naturally that happens throughout the day, but how about setting aside time for quality time with God? In a successful family there is regularly set time aside for being together, so a child of God should also have some such time, I imagine. The problem with this is that my Heavenly Father tends to ask about my homework.

These days I am fairly steady with the daily habit of reading books of the Truth. I have several tomes of timeless wisdom, some acquired in my youth and some quite recently. I also got two new Happy Science book in the mail yesterday:  “Love, Nurture and Forgive” which is pretty much what you’d think.  If only all the world’s cults had that as their main theme, there would be less poison gas in the subways.

The other book is “Tips to Find Happiness”, but its subtitle is “Creating a Harmonious Home for Your Spouse, Your Children, and Yourself.”  I should probably not read that one every day…

Doctor visit!

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You know, I think I’ll just write this post about the health thing and then we can have the philosophy and religion elsewhere for this time.  I am sure you are all eager to hear that I actually made use of Norway’s communist-style health care system (well, judging from my conservative American friends, that must be the least one could say about it.)

The conclusion was obvious before I even started.  Once again I shelled out a symbolic amount (about $30, not counting transport) to be told that nobody was going to do anything about anything.  So, back to soup and meditation I guess.  This is what happens pretty much every time, of course. Even when I am sick, I am probably healthier than most doctors and nurses. It still makes for well-read entries, though.

This morning I went to work again, but I noticed that unlike the previous mornings, I was not better than the day before.  If anything, the modest pain when swallowing was a bit stronger than yesterday evening.  So after I came to work, I called the clinic where I has been assigned by the state.  (I have had opportunities to change later, with my moving twice, but I don’t have a problem with these. They are just half an hour from my job and have decent equipment.)

I got an appointment already the same day, at 13:30. Not bad for socialism, eh? The wait was not particularly long either.  About 13:40 I was allowed in to a young substitute doctor.  I am not sure if he substitutes for my regular doctor or not, I did not see or hear anything of my regular doctor today.  He may quietly have left his job for all I know – I last saw him sometime in 2008, I believe. He usually only told me to exercise an hour each day anyway, so I don’t really need to see him to know that.  I have an excellent memory.  And no, I don’t exercise an hour each day. Although not having a car means I do exercise pretty much every day, just more sporadically.

The young guy pretty much asked me the same questions I have asked myself:  Fever?  (No.) Any other infections?  (Inflamed gums the week before.) Coughing? (No more than usual.) Had a cold recently? (No.)  He then looked in my throat to see if it was red.  (It was not.) He listened to my chest. (I have had no trouble breathing this time.)  (Incidentally, he did not squeeze my breasts.  In fact he only asked me to open one button. A very decent fellow.) He also looked in my ears, but of course found nothing worrying there either.

He concluded that it must be some kind of virus, and recommended that we just wait it out.  Just to be sure, he sent me to the lab to take a blood test from my finger.  It showed no bacterial activity, so Lab Girl just told me to keep my feet warm.

After paying, I accidentally put my money outside my pocket instead of inside, and walked away leaving it on the floor.  It was all the money I had taken out to buy a new 1 month bus pass, about $200, and a little more that I planned to buy groceries for. Luckily an old man in a wheelchair alerted the assistant who called out for me, so I got it all back.

So anyway, nobody still has a clue as to what actually is hurting me, except that it is probably not streps so probably I won’t get rheumatic fever.  This is good. Of course, since we have no idea what virus it is, we have no idea what it does in the long run either.  But then again, as Keynes said, “in the long run we are all dead.” At least temporarily, I might add.

Did I forget anything?

Giant on feet of varicose veins

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At least I don’t claim to be one of those. Yet.

I went to work today, after two days of soup and relaxation, including brainwave entrainment.  I slept for nearly six and a half hour tonight and meditated for perhaps half an hour, so I was a little surprised that I was sleepy a few times during the workday.

I still have some pain while swallowing, but it is less than yesterday, and yesterday less than Monday, and Monday less than Sunday.  This is good.  My right foot hurts somewhere near the ankle. This is not good, but probably more likely to come from varicose veins than flesh-eating bacteria.  I have after all reached that age.

Thinking back on my life, there was so much I did not understand, did not even know, when I was young and healthy.  It is as if some kind of balance has to be maintained, that I cannot have strength and wisdom in the same body.  Surely this cannot be true for all, but it seems to be disturbingly common.

The thought has struck me that I might have become conceited, proud, a VIP in my own eyes (more than otherwise) etc if I did not have the sword of a failing body hanging over my head.  I am fully aware that it is still hanging.  Even today I am in good health for my age, where so many are already unable to work at all or suffering daily torture.  Still, I have these reminders, like the proverbial sword hanging by a hair, that I can never know when will drop.  It may be that I need this to stay humble.  If so, that is quite sad.

To me it seems that learning the Truth – or at least some approximation to the Truth – is making me more humble.  And I don’t say that as if humility was itself some kind of good work.  Humility, to me, is just a subset of realism.  There is no need to exaggerate my failures, because my lack of accomplishment would shame me even if I had done no actual wrong at all in my life.  (Which I have, but you don’t need to know all the details.)

Oh yes, I happened to finish the chapter of the “sixth dimension” in The Laws of Eternity.  No matter how I look at it, it is me.  I am just not very good at it.  But it is me.  The joy of knowledge and especially deeper insight, for its own sake, not for money or fame or impressing the women, but even or especially when I am alone, even when learning something I suspect no one will ever know that I know.  The absolute conviction that the Light is real, based on years of day to day experience. The drive to use my knowledge to help people and make the world a better place. Even, dare I say it, a certain natural leadership ability.

That last part certainly needs some explanation, because I am extremely solitary by nature.  When left to my own devices, I can be alone for weeks and enjoy it. However, I can also take initiative and bring people together, when my job requires it.  Back when I could still talk without too much pain, I was an instructor in my then job.  I would go on courses and seminars with other instructors, and when we first met, I would be the one to talk to people and get them together and get started thinking on our tasks.  When there was discontent because of bad leadership, I would put it into words and discuss what we would do about it. I would confront those who had misused their authority.  I had no fear of them and always saw them as equals at best.

However, when I had done whatever was needed, I would revert to my porcupine form, so that is probably how I am mostly remembered.

At the time, I did not know anything about the sixth dimension or why I was here on earth.  I guess I generally believed that my purpose in life was to remain celibate at all costs, or something.  I did not really ask myself why I was who I am. And even now, I wonder what will happen next.  Did I finally find this out when it was too late?  Or is there still something I am supposed to do?

There is a difference between Knowledge and Truth.  You can learn knowledge, but you are reminded of truth.  When you hear the truth for the first time, you think: “Yes, I always knew that, but I did not know that I knew!”  And that is why I keep reading this guy who thinks he is from Venus and used to be king of Atlantis, and this is why I keep reading this other guy who thinks Democrat leaders are literally possessed by demons.  For all that these two seem crazy to the casual observer, they suddenly start saying other things that make me go “Yes! That makes a lot of things fall into place, that makes the puzzle become a picture!”  This lasts for a shorter or longer time, and then suddenly they say something that makes me go “what planet are you on RIGHT NOW?”.

I wonder if Jesus was like that too.  I remember an episode where his family showed up to try to bring him home, convinced that he was not quite right in the head.  Or when he claimed to be bread from Heaven, and threatened that bad things would happen to people who did not eat him.

I wonder if I am like that too.  Perhaps some see a halo and some just see varicose feet. I guess they would both be right, although I dare say at present there is a lot more feet than halo.

Sudden illness

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I had finished a fairly long entry concluding in my dedication to living a life worthy of someone whose home is in the Realm of Light, the “sixth dimension” as Happy Science names it. Before posting it, I ate my dinner and looked through my picture collection for a suitable picture.

Then suddenly I noticed that it hurt to swallow.  I have felt this a few times over the past week, always on the right side.  But this time it quickly moved to both sides and got worse, amazingly fast, in a matter of perhaps a minute.  I was shocked. While I am generally not looking for signs in the things that happen me – Moses specifically warns against letting such outside events rule our lives rather than the word of God through his prophets – it was hard not to draw a connection between the sudden onset of the illness and the impending upload of my completed entry. I decided to make it private, for now at least.  If I survive, I will seek God’s will in this regard.

It has been over 4 hours so it was not immediately fatal, but I am hardly getting better either.

It does not feel like an ordinary sore throat. Apart from the sudden onset, it just feels not so much sore, more like something presses or stretches on my throat. I feel like I have tender pouches (lymph nodes?) under my jaw on both sides, especially the right, but there is no visible swelling so this may be misleading.  When I swallow, there is a fairly strong pain that radiates from the “Adam’s apple” (vocal cords) to the right side almost under the ear.  My neck is stiff, but this may be a reaction to the pain rather than the other way around.

There is an irony in this, as I was thinking not much earlier (though not writing it) that it seems people with a heavenly calling tend to live longer than most. Perhaps, I thought, it was partly because they avoided the excesses of the flesh, but partly also because a sense of meaning in life made the body do its best, knowing that it was in use.  Well, well.   I am not dead yet, but my body is hardly doing its best.

It was so sudden that I considered going to the nearest emergency room (probably in Mandal now). But then I remembered that every time I have done so before, it has turned out to be nothing worthy of the name “emergency”, which is more about torn limbs and burst appendices. Unfortunately, torn limbs are all too common during the Scandinavian weekend, as Friday and Saturday are binge drinking day, and there is still a good deal of alcohol in people’s bloodstream on Sunday.  Not in mine though.

Confusingly, I have no fever worth the name.  My temperature is about 37.5 degrees Celsius (99.5 Fahrenheit) which is slightly above normal for me, but not a true fever as you would expect if the body really was fighting hordes of deadly bacteria. It may come simply from worrying, which I do.  I don’t want to die before I wake, because I am not that solid in my faith.  I fear that if I must leave the body now, I may be drawn to Hell despite my best intentions, much like in this life the sight of a sexy woman causes all my pious thoughts to evaporate instantly and draws my eyes and feet in her direction, even though I know that I could not actually do anything with her even if she asked me to.  My mind is still drawn out of its course, and if my mind does not have a body to hide in, Light knows where it may drift off. Or if someone threatens me, my compassion goes POOF and my mind instantly looks for the best ways to maim or kill the other person before he can do it to me.   Not much “Father forgive them” there, nope.  I need a lot more spiritual practice.

So, yes, worrying.

Quick note

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A human life moves like waves, sometimes it is higher and sometimes lower. Mine is a bit lower than recently now, although I am probably still very happy by human standards.

I don’t have the energy to finish my entries with such a quality as they deserve, though.  Second half of last week and Monday I went to work much earlier than usual. Between the long workdays and not getting enough sleep, I start getting infections here and there:  Eyes, gums, neck.  I still have not adjusted to eating small enough dinner to go to bed early without getting acid reflux.  I am getting closer though.

That’s it, basically. I have a number of entries that I feel could be improved on before posting.  Whether I actually do that or come up with something else if I get back to my normal energy level, remains to be seen.  There is hardly a day that I don’t find something new that should be said.  Perhaps it is a kind of hubris to want to say it well.  One day I will be gone, and I have no idea which day that is.  Before that I ought to say all the words that should be spoken, before they are lost forever.

But for now, I need sleep, so I can serve the world at work again.

Doctor visit and Google

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Being alone is scary for neurotypical humans.  Obviously their vocal cords never fall into disuse with that attitude.  Not so us porcupines.

Yes, doctor visit and Google are connected, even if just a little.  It all started like this:

For years, I have not talked much. Well, hardly at all outside work, and not much at work. After all, I work with computers. I also help people with their computer problems, but for years I mostly did so for the dozens of people in the same house.  Looking back, I did not know how good a time I had!  Not that it is all that bad now.  But back then, there was little reason to say more than a few words when someone had problems. I would go to their office and see for myself.  If they talked to me, they could see that I was listening, so there was no need for me to talk except for essential questions and the occasional reassurance.

The years passed, and my voice fell into disuse. There may be other reasons why my throat now gets sore after five minutes, but it is hard to know.  After all, it is not easy to track the development of a voice problem if you don’t speak!  I was happy with it that way. “Where there are many words, there is no lack of sin” as the Bible says, and indeed the constant talking of people seem to me a hallmark of their superficiality. (I was a massive talker myself when I was a child, and at least a ways into my teens. Possibly longer.)

Lately my work has changed so that user support is now mostly on the phone. This is very nearly the worst kind of talking for me, as I have to speak fairly loudly and clearly.  (Talking in a noisy place is even worse though.) I have been allowed to do mostly non-talking work after I explained the situation to my boss.  But the work at which I am competent is slowly being phased out, and despite numerous requests I have not been formally taught anything new.  For obvious reasons, I cannot just ask my innumerable contacts inside [Himitsu Corp.] since I don’t have any, not speaking to people.

So in the end, after talking (painfully) with an old friend about the matter, I called the rural clinic where my “fixed physician” works (that is a literal translation of the Norwegian word “fastlege”, although the concept itself is hard to believe for the American reader.  Basically you are assigned a doctor from those who have a deal with the State, but you can apply for another if you feel the need to.)  I got an appointment for today at 11AM.

This morning I got a mail from Google, since I had added a mail alert to my appointment.  (I am horrible with appointments, especially doctor and dentist.) This ability to add mail and on-screen alerts is nifty enough, but what impressed me was the extra service:  The name of the rural clinic, which I had added in the location field even though I knew where it was, was now blue and underlined. Yes, it was a link to a local map.  It is not like I needed that, but I was impressed that Google had located the address on its own, without me needing to ask.  Since the name was unique (probably in the world, given that it contains a special Scandinavian letter) it was probably easy for Google to find, but it was still nice of them to do it without being asked.

I, for one, welcome our new robotic underlings.

The doctor visit went well enough.  The doctor jumped to the same conclusion that I had at first, that the symptom was probably caused by inactivity.  It is not something a doctor comes into contact with every year, I bet, since all humans except monks are chatting like their lives depend on it. Which it well may:  Dolphins in isolation die in a matter of hours or a few days at most, while humans take longer but usually go more or less mad after a fairly short time in solitary confinement. It is in fact classified as cruel and unusual, if I remember correctly.  I am no big fan of confinement myself, but given food I would probably be happy to spend a few weeks alone in my house. So I am not exactly normal. (Thank the Light…)

Speaking of which, at some point the doctor suddenly asked if I felt fear when talking on the phone (or “angst”, which in Europe means something more like panic than the trite teenager navelgazing the word refers to in America). I was a bit taken aback by this, although I do live in the nerve pill belt of Norway.  No, I certainly am not afraid of my fellow humans, I assured him.  I don’t like to talk to them, or I would have done so on my free time as well, but I don’t fear them.  (Now, traveling by car, that I fear. You are locked in a small metal box hurtling away at tremendous speed, surrounded by other such boxes also at extreme speed, controlled by humans of on average not very high IQ, not very stable emotions, but grossly inflated self-confidence.  What is not to fear?  That I am even still alive is a miracle of Biblical proportions, is how I see it. Telephones though?  No.  Not until they start trashing about at lethal speed.)

There is no pill for the affliction, as expected.  (I have peeked around online after all.) Again, this makes sense if it really comes from prolonged silence, since this is so rare. The doctor promised to refer me to a specialist, who will send me a letter with the appointment in good time.  It will take at least a few weeks, thought the doctor. Having lived with this for years, I am OK with that.  There may be laryngoscopy though, if worse comes to worse. This may not necessarily prove fatal, but I notice that in lawyer-happy countries you have to sign a form that says it is your own fault if you die from it. We don’t have that here in Norway, as you can’t sue doctors anyway. They are partially employed by the  State and even if they accidentally kill someone, they only get a stern “Uff da!”.  If they just keep killing and killing people, they may eventually be asked to stop practicing, but this is exceedingly rare.  Of course, it is exceedingly rare that people die from this stuff anyway, but I just want to point out that Norway is not America.  Mostly we are thankful for that, of course.

But until further notice, if I don’t keel over from unrelated reasons, I should make sure to talk some every day, and keep water handy for drinking between bouts of talking.  This sound advice set me back a few dollars, the State probably pays another goodly sum for the doctor’s time.  I think the fact that we have to pay anything at all is mostly to discourage people from showing up with random insignificant stuff.  Of course, we do that anyway, we just don’t know it is insignificant until at some point during the visit.

Now, back to Google.

There is something new out, called Google Buzz.  It is a kind of stab at the social media scene, FaceBook and MySpace and the gang.  Twitter too, I guess, but Buzz actually has some integration with Twitter.  Basically it is a microblogging software, meant to write short quick messages.  It shows up next to the inbox in Gmail, and if you have Gmail you becomes a member automatically.  It will add contacts that you have a lot of conversation with, or so it says.  It did not add anyone for me, but this may be because the one person who mails me does not use Gmail…

In addition to posting things on your Buzz homepage (like the “wall” in a certain competitor) it also harvests Twitter, as already mentioned.  Unfortunately it is one way only, probably because Twitter has a much smaller maximum post length. But even short posts are not relayed.  Another source is Google chat status messages. (Like, “Out for lunch”, “Meeting with boss”, “Busy making love” – not necessarily in that sequence and not necessarily right after each other.) Then it harvests pictures from Picasa Web and Flickr, videos from YouTube and blog posts from Blogger / Blogspot.  So much for microblogging.  It is clearly pretty open for Google-owned stuff, while few outsiders get in. No LiveJournal, no WordPress, and noticeably no FaceBook in either direction. Rivalry from first buzz!

So I have had this a couple days now, since it came out.  I turned off the option to show who was following me and who I was following. I don’t have a problem with telling who I read, or would read if they posted anything, but it is not my right to publish choices that other people have made.  They may have reasons to not want to appear online more than strictly necessary, for all I know.  Since you either have to publish both or none, none it is.

So I worked a bit on my Google profile (which is mostly hidden for those of you who are not my contacts) and there it was again.  I had typed in my address, and Google showed it in the map. OK, so it is two houses wrong, but it is really close.  Again, I did nothing to instigate this.  It just integrated Google Maps on its own.

This is boding well, I think.  Computers should not just answer our questions, they should also have the answers to the questions we didn’t know we could ask.

This is not the only invention that makes life easier for computer users. For instance Windows Vista introduced Superfetch, which keeps track of what programs you use and load them while you don’t use the machine.  This would have been an awesome idea if people used computers with lots of memory at the time Vista was released, but most only do that now that Microsoft has switched to the more memory-frugal Windows 7. Still, it was a good idea, in principle, especially if you don’t have users like me who gets deeply suspicious when the computer starts running the hard disk in my absence.  Is it perhaps a virus, is what I think then.  But eventually I drew the conclusion that it was Vista that was the virus.  Still, it works well enough now that I have a 64 bits processor and 4GB RAM.

In the future, if any, I hope to see computer programs that take advantage of extra information they have, to make life easier for the users.  I also hope to be able to talk, but even more I hope not to need to.

Not a good night’s sleep

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My bed seems so lonely without me…

I went to bed a little after midnight, fairly early for me but then I was tired. About two hours later I woke up from not being able to breathe freely. My nose was stuffy and my chest was tight, although I could hear no wheezing like during an asthma attack. (Even those have been mild in recent year, but my childhood memories of waking up unable to breathe will probably never leave in this life.)

I was afraid something like this would happen. I won’t say that is why it happened, although it could play a role. I may have been extra sensitive. After all, I had a bad chest cough during one of my earliest visits here, when I had spent a lot of time in the home office which at that time was still bedroom. The bed stood there then, and there was lots of dust on the floor. Either of these, or something entirely different, could have been the cause. I had vacuumed the bed earlier in the day to get rid of wood dust that might cling to it, but still.

I am not at all sure it is an allergy. Yes, swollen nose and tight chest, but no running eyes and nose as I usually have with allergies. Each time I visit the farm where I grew up, I am sure to experience those. Furthermore, I had a day of sinusitis this past week, and today I coughed up several bits of green goo after having worked hard, probably from the same bacterial infection, only having found its way to the bronchia. So that is just as likely a reason.

In any case, I put the air cleaner in the room. It should filter out any dust that may be dancing around. It also supposedly spews out negative ions, although I consider that little more than pseudoscience. The heat pump also has this, by the way, except it only activates when dust is detected.

After a bit over two hours (mostly spent playing The Sims 3, but also putting away a few things) I felt pretty much OK, so I went to bed again. Slept for 4 more hours, for a total of about 6, which is normally OK. But I feel more sore and tired than when I went to bed. But I am alive! This should also be proof that my bedroom is not a death trap after all. ^_^ Although I am told that a very large number of those who die do so in bed, so take care…