Oh. Ha. Covid.

 

My live in parent finally has covid. Amazing. They've been going full face commando for over a year inhaling everyone's germs and have been fine. I thought they were one of those lucky ducks who were immune! Nope. They have covid. 

And now so do I.

Yet again, the people who aren't masking, who can't maintain vigilance are the ones infecting me. Sigh.

Today in Geopolitics...

I first became aware that China was a problem in the mid 1990s. I was working in international trade and that gave me a front row seat to the actual dynamics of things that were just headlines for most people.

I saw the sheer volume of trade funneling into China. It was insane. To where you couldn't help but wonder why there was so much of it.

At the same time, Chinese foreign agents would literally show up at the company doorstep, cameras hanging around their necks pretending to be a customer, and they would do anything and everything to gain access to manufacturing intel. They were aggressive and clearly doing this at scale, stealing everything that wasn't nailed down.

Then you get into what it takes to open a company or factory in China. China/Chinese businesses must have an ownership share of 51% and they basically get full access to everything; your tech, your formulas, your best practices. China wasn't going to be used, they were going to use you instead. They were always very clear-eyed about making sure their interests were served first and foremost.

It's always been interesting to me that China hasn't been able to go further than they have because they were gobbling up intel nonstop. Sometimes I wonder if they got too much data and struggled to make sense of it all. You could see signs that they had trouble getting their quality to match their aspirations.

At one point, my employer opened a factory in China and it was a shit show. Americans think once something is taught, you're good, but other cultures have a different sense of training and quality. We flew in the chemists and engineers for a short training period and then they came home. Well, the manufacturing went to shit the second they weren't there. The folks running the plant ran into issues and then got 'creative' about throwing what looked to them like input equivalents into the work flow.

Some of you may remember, there was a scandal with toys (if memory serves it was Disney) being painted with lead paint. Someone made do with what they had. That was the ethos of the Chinese manufacturing sector at the time. If you wanted a red toy car, you were going to get one. It's just the paint might be made of polonium. 

They were very serious about making their commitments without much interest in the fine details. Even if they had to make it out of toothpicks and dryer lint, you were going to get your order. The fact it fell apart or caught fire once it arrived on your dock...well, that's your fault. 

Anyway, I got called into the boardroom and asked how to fix it...which is another story so I'll skip it as it's too far off topic, but I'll never forget being the only woman and the youngest person in the room and none of the good ol' boys making bonus knew what the fuck they were doing. It was like, 'oh, you won't promote me, pay me, or consult me on the front end, but once you've turned it into a circus of clusterfucks with your collective micropeen energy, it's on me to wave a magic wand?'

So I was in the soup, watching all these dynamics simmer, and there was just too much money going into China. Way too much money. I handled logistics and supply chain all over the world and easily 90% of the volume was going to and from China. Global trade was strangely lopsided. Looking back, I can see that the West failed to realize we needed to develop other markets too. It was a warped tunnel vision version of globalism, one where all that mattered was China.

And then there'd be some political drama with China in the news and they'd throw their weight around. They weren't working with us. It was and is really obvious if you're paying attention. The West gave China all this investment to try and move the world to a better place, to improve relations, but China had their own agenda. 

(Namely to build a military full of weapons they could point back at us. 

We paid for their warships. Their air force. Their nukes. Every made-in-China item in your life...it links back to destructive weapons.

Weapons they now want to send to Russia.)

So the soup was sloshing along and geopolitics would occasionally heat up (although compared to current events, I can't believe I thought anything before this latest era was serious lol) and lil ol' me would wonder 'why the hell hasn't US foreign policy developed an economic counterweight to China?'

Which should have been India, but the West has a lot of baggage with India. They were aligned with the USSR during the Cold War and have a long standing relationship with Russians. And the US sided with Pakistan against India in their 'threatening to go nuclear' dust up of, I think it was, the late 70s. Meaning, India and the US aren't BFFs. The nations work together and are friendly, but it's an edgy relationship. We're far from ride-or-die best bitches.

And the West just...never did anything. We lost our sense of urgency. We never made much progress with India. We kept feeding the tiger. And at the same time, we fed the Russian bear, too. The West thought trade was the cure for every ill and kept leaning into that, waiting for money to turn everything it touched into a friendly democracy. 

Meanwhile, China and Russia joined a club called BRICS which stands for Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa. (I would add Iran as well to that.) All countries with populist autocratic leaders (although Brazil seems to have broken the cycle for the moment). 

And did you know? BRICS nations don't just weaponize social media against us and meddle with elections, they also do military exercises together. They just did one a few weeks ago.

The West likes to think it won the Cold War, but would you call this winning? What did we win exactly?

Because it looks to me like the prize is more war.

The Cold War didn't end, it metastasized and the West didn't even notice until it was too late.

The Unignorable Minutiae of Dysfunction

I spent the last few days getting clobbered by some GI issue. I'm not even sure what it was.

Then the asthma started up again. I am hoping I can beat it back with just inhalers. I took the Pulmicort for a full 15 days just to be safe after the last flare. I'd just stopped using it. I thought I was finally better. And here I am regressing to where I started.

I've started marking the asthma on my calendar so I can show the pulmo and get a better sense of the chaos pattern.

Why are the lungs and GI working in tandem???

I don't like having such finicky health. I can't ever rely on myself. I never know what I'm going to get from day to day. Ever since I had covid, it's just been complete chaos.

It does remind me a little bit of the dynamics I experienced with adrenal insufficiency, which caused me to start this blog. With AI, things can radically change from moment to moment. Especially when you're tapering and purposely creating a gap to force the body to fill it. That can be an intense ride.

But obviously this isn't AI...

And on top of all that, I've reached the point where, because of my foot, I'm trying to figure out how to maintain some degree of muscle mass and strength and fitness without standing. Like, I've entered the chair aerobics era of this mess. Fantastic.

But I can't do anything anyway because my energy is just really low from the GI stuff and the asthma. 

On a more positive note...I'm waiting for my dress for the wedding to arrive. Excited for that. Even though we switched to flying, we are going to do one sightseeing stop from our original road trip plans and have arranged for it to be little to no walking. 

This whole thing is hideously expensive so since we're in for a pretty penny, we're going for a pound and doing it all while the doing is good.

(Did you know you essentially buy a full price ticket for your luggage now too? On all the airlines? You're lucky if they include a carry-on. And a wedding is never light on the luggage so this is costing us a small fortune. It's doubtful we'll be going back anytime soon, if ever.

So. Fuck it. Let's party.)

I've started ordering the next round of fruit and nut bushes to plant. Hopefully, my skeleton and sundry body systems will be up for digging some holes so hubby doesn't have to do it all. If I can manage it, I'm going to try and get outside to get some pots ready for growing cold hardy stuff to take advantage of the increasing sunlight as spring approaches. 

We'll see how far I can go subsisting on seltzer and inhalers.

And, lastly, no one asked, but geopolitics is a bug up my ass.

I think we're missing the forest for the trees at this point.

First, geopolitical degree here.

Second, US and Western foreign policy has been a mess for at least 20-30 years and we are reaping what we sowed now. None of this started recently. It's been brewing a long time and several leaders have made mistakes that are compounding now.

So now we have headlines saying China is planning to send lethal aid to Russia. If that's true that means their calculations say Russia will win.

But if we'd done our job, they wouldn't be able to generate an analysis that leads to that conclusion. The fact they can suggests someone is fooling themselves and it might be us.

And while we like to think China needs the West, that they can't live without us, that's not as true as it as twenty years ago. World population and consumer patterns are changing and China, Russia, India, and various nations of Africa have enough people and resources to keep on rolling just fine without the West, and that appears to be the coalition they're trying to built.

Yes, the West has the advanced technology, but that's not insurmountable. Especially if it's already been stolen. (I have seen nations steal US military tech back in my corporate days. It happens. China is particularly famous for it.)

I'm watching the West and wondering if they have the leadership to get this done.

And I'll add...even if Russia loses the war, a China, India, Russia axis with heavy influence into all of Africa is still a possibility. Between demographics, technology, AI, and ecology we were going to see massive changes in the world over the next 5-20 years anyway. There's no escaping change, it's just a question of how many people and how much environment we want it to kill.

The West thinks it's awake because it's supporting Ukraine, but we're actually still lightly dozing. The fact China is even considering sending lethal aid to Russia is proof of that.

Side Bar: War is a regressive approach to modern geopolitics, at least when it comes to the world's super powers, but that's what happens when autocrats are in charge. If we threw Putin and Xi into a time machine and dumped them back into the 1600s...they'd fit right in. Might makes right has been the driving force of geopolitics for centuries.

I find it fascinating that Russia and China are obsessed with land when, in reality, in this era, power comes from demographics and technology more so than mileage. They aren't microstates at risk of being swallowed by the sea, they have enough land and the technology to overcome topographic limitations. What they need are more people and better technology. Right now they can wreak havoc, but they'll be subsumed next as their populations start to fall. Any victory now won't last.

If I were the West...I'd be hauling ass on a lot more weapons to Ukraine yesterday and then immigration, but clearly I'm no one and not in charge.

Two Lines of Squirrel

 

Every critical diagnosis a doctor makes is a singular triumph for medicine.

For the patient, it's a multiverse shitshow.

***

As for the braces for the teen...I'm not feeling confident that we'll ever have a good solution. I was hoping custom medical grade stuff would overcome the issues we've had with the off-the-shelf braces we've been using, but no. We were told the problems with digging, breaking skin, and sliding will persist because they are not yet able to overcome the biomechanics and physics.

Sooooo I'm guessing we're going to spend $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$ for things that end up in a corner in the teen's room. Sigh.

For that one person saying...'well, then she doesn't need it,' I invite you to wear something that will break and bruise your skin and slide, requiring constant adjustment for 8+ hours a day, all with the maturity of the average teenager, and see how long you last. Also...you can suck a bag of moldy lemons. 

Data: The orthotics person we worked with has similar problem knees and uses the same braces the teen will have, but even they don't wear them all the time.

For that other person saying...'well, don't buy them then.' Other parents may chose differently, but we feel our duty is to provide every option we can. It's tough on stuff like this that's expensive and that we won't know how well it will work until after the fact. But anything that might help, we feel we have a duty to provide if we are able to do so.

And I will say, on a more positive note, albeit in a completely different vein...despite all the health chaos, I released 5 projects (which were already done so probably this isn't as amazing as it sounds but still...progress is progress) and continued to work on others. I've kept up my momentum pretty well this latest cycle of WTF now. 

I seem to be adjusting to the constant interruptions and developing a work flow around it. Which is great. I hope it keeps up. I tend to be sensitive to disruption (which I hate! I loathe my working process! I would love to be one of those people who can sleep and work anywhere instead of the Snowflake Princess and the Pea that I am but no). Going places in the middle of the day often derails my productivity, but lately, not so much. So...winning???

In terms of AI being nowhere near ready to take over the world, here's an anecdote from the front lines for you...

I found a new audio AI company that had excellent quality, far and above anything else I'd seen. I got really excited and spent a week using it to generate a project.

All the exported files have glitches that were not in the original content generated in the interface. The whole thing is unusable and I wasted a week making it.

So the AI might be great, but you can still have major problems with other pieces of the AI supply chain. I notified the company and they've been ignoring me which suggests to me that they don't have a fix.

I was also looking into the ChatGPT guy and looking at his educational background wondering what the fuck kind of ethics these universities are teaching. Of course he's a college drop out (read: never got to ethics class) and affiliated with Elon Musk whose brain and personality are decomposing long before his soul leaves his body. I dug up an interview and this genius is quoted as saying (paraphrasing here) that he and Elon want to make sure that AI doesn't destroy humanity.

So apparently that means...

1. Release an AI system that doesn't fact check or provide a bibliography to a population on the cusp of fascism and where a large % can't figure out that masks work.

2. Monetize it.

3. Get sued non-stop for training AI on other people's IP without their permission.

Humanity is saved! Huzzah!

And you know, none of the 'journalists' push back. No one calls out the bullshit. What ethics did their universities teach?

The longer this polycrisis era grinds on, the more I can see the media as it exists now must be replaced and it's the one power center we have a shot at undermining effectively. The problem is, the outlets that could be utilized, their algorithms heavily favor all the anti science alt right nuts*. It's clear that's not a mistake. It's an intentional information blockade to protect the triad of corporate interests, media power, and corrupt politicians. 

And at this point, pretty much everyone is seeing the problems with the media, which actually has a tricky downside. Yes, it's a unifier but will we unify behind the right solution? Fascist strategies leverage this energy better than most, and history shows us angry crowds aren't particularly discerning.

We're in very dangerous waters here. We can't rely on the courts. Or the politicians. Or the media. Or the corporations. Online outlets are manipulated both by algorithms and bots and foreign interests. Which gives populists a lot of power.

When you know you can't trust your institutions, it creates an opening for one iconic figure who understands the zeitgeist to grab power.

We're in a new Dark Ages. A time where truth is going to be hard to see because it's purposely obscured by various agendas and autocrats. 

Science isn't too bad because so long as your education didn't suck or you're fast to pick up things, you can parse it out for the most part. But large scale dynamics (for example, all these droughts and the war and bird flu and the impact on food supply or the manic hype campaign online for AI to where it's difficult to suss out reality) and politics or situations that are infused with a lot of rhetoric and spin...forget it. 

Good luck out there. Try not to feed the fascists.

PS: Ha. Well this was a wild ride. I didn't know when I started this was going to all come out. Welcome to my squirrel brain. Yes, the gray matter really does go in a million directions inside my skull. 24/7/365. Sometimes it's useful because I spot something. The rest of the time it's chaos.

*YouTube is currently the best example of algorithm alt right bias. You can 'weed' the other algorithms fairly effectively (so long as you understand you have to curate it yourself) BUT YouTube will continuously dump alt right BS into your feed no matter what. Or you'll have good sources in your feed, but the ads are all alt right dipshits.

I keep interacting with outlets like PBS and Democracy Now and blocking the alt right channels I see to try and fix my feed. Nope. Still getting fed alt right bullshit.

Adult Protective Bullshit

My foot is still an asshole but it's slowly reverting back to its usual baseline of dysfunction...which is an improvement at this point. That'll teach me to go out and try to have fun, right?

However, while my body seems to have settled down somewhat, this is me we're talking about so as one thing stabilizes, another hitter in the line up comes in aiming for a homerun of fuckery. And at this era of my life, it's not always my health shit that's the problem. Other people's health shit wants to take a swing too.

My addict parent and stepparent are at the plate now.

I woke up to an email from the family reporting that my parent's spouse--who is also an addict but with Alzheimer's as well (but note, not end stage)--is now apparently 75 lbs. My parent, between aging and addiction, isn't able to organize the executive function that would ensure adequate intake.

There is already an active case with Adult Protective Services, but somehow nothing is happening.

Knowing 75lbs is not compatible with life, I tracked down the APS caseworker to make sure they were aware of this.

And holy shit, the amount of toxic gaslighting I got from them was horrifying.

First, I'd like to note that no one answered the phone initially. It took three phone calls to get someone. Because no one answers the phone anymore.

Second, I had the most bizarre conversation with this person. Holy flaming bull poo. They deflected everything. Defended my parent. And blew me off. Zero interest in investigating this.

And to be clear, I've never called APS before. The open case isn't because of me. This isn't a situation of one person with a potentially biased narrative. Oh no. There are lots of calls from several people. But I was treated as if I had ulterior motives.

So anyway, APS looks to be complicit with starving my stepparent to death. 

Apparently this is normal for APS. Which I didn't know until it slapped me in the face.

There is a lawyer in the mix and the person with the lawyer is going to try APS next, so hopefully that'll accomplish something. We're working together behind-the-scenes doing what we can.

But the bar for guardianship is ridiculously high given my current experience with APS. My parent and stepparent are literally going to be allowed to kill themselves. It's so sad. They weren't always like this.

And someone texted me a 'how are you' social thing in the middle of all this, and I was just deer-in-headlights trying to think of a socially appropriate response that ignores the gravitas of learning the government is tots coolio with my parent starving my stepparent to death.

What the fuck? That's how I am. Just what the fuck?

Not to get too dark, but honestly, if this is aging...I'm fine with not living that long. It's a nightmare. Your brain decays. Your worst self is in the driver's seat. Yeesh. Just let me go out in a blaze of glory without dragging my family through absolute hell because aging has melted my cognition.

And if you've got kids and you want them to visit you, resolve right now to not be a burden and get your ass into assisted living or senior apartments linked to assisted living LONG before your brain melts and you become a giant flaming asshole about it. 

Yes. Only the good die young.

Losing the Practice Run

Back from our mini trip. Lungs were good but joints and feet were not. I managed the first museum by bench surfing. Walk. Sit on a bench. Rinse, repeat.

That was enough to irritate things to where the next day, I had to use a mobility scooter at the next museum stop. Well, that, and the weather. The joints that don't like the cold started freaking out too.

The third museum (yes, we go to museums), they had a janky wheelchair and a trail that wasn't wheelchair accessible so I ended up waiting in the car, which was fine. I went in knowing that might be my fate.

Then I limped through some antique shops, which probably wasn't smart as I am unable to bear weight on my foot today.

I hadn't anticipated my knee and hip acting up. That was a surprise, but it was cold enough that the arthritis (or whatever it is) got the band back together. I've started researching fleece lined pants, trying to figure out a better barrier to the cold. Surely there must be a way to keep one lick of cold wind from sending my joints into a tailspin.

We had a good time though. It was nice to go someplace and see something new. I don't really go out much anymore beyond the grocery store and doctor's appointments. At least not in winter. In warmer weather, I'll do some patio dining. If I could walk, I would go hiking or back to dance lessons. 

Here's the kicker... We'd planned to drive cross country and do a lot of sightseeing on the way to a wedding, but I'm so limited that we've cancelled it. So that sucks. The timing is such that I don't think I'll be able to have any surgery before the wedding...there's not enough recovery time. So no dancing at the wedding. More suckage.

It's never the health stuff you know about that gets you, it's the stuff you don't see coming that wipes the floor with you. I had no idea I'd be having so many issues with mobility at this age, that covid would be this awful accelerant. I'm far too young for this, but here I am.

Gimme More of These Brains Please

Saw the pediatric physiatrist for the teen. MRI coming.  Maybe CP, maybe some other stuff that no one picked up on but for which there are markers for (holy shit), or maybe nothing. 

But either way, at least we'll know and that will help us proceed.

Yes hypermobility. Yes, custom orthotic knee braces, maybe lower leg bracing too, but we'll see. Possible second opinion in genetics and other specialties  (which we hope not because we are all tired of going to doctors over here, but if it seems necessary then fine). Maybe outpatient day rehab program for intensive OT/PT.

Very inspiring doctor. Someone who's lived it as a patient. I wish there was more room in medicine for people with their background, but most disabilities make it difficult to get a seat at the table. 

Two hour appointment. I'm knackered. Asthma is better (knock wood, toss salt over shoulder, do a voodoo ritual) but I have a mono like wall of fatigue I've been hitting in the afternoons. So...I don't know. Was I sick? Was it Covid? Or was it just asthma? Hubby has been running tired too which is unusual so...something is going on.

Oh. Haha. I just started norovirusing. All I need now is a kidney stone and I'll have a complete set of covid fuckery. I don't know, man. I do not know. But this has been a miserable slog of time over here.

I still haven't had a positive test and we've worn n95s everywhere so I'm praying we didn't impact anyone if it was Covid. The lack of reliable testing, testing you can be confident in, testing you can make good decisions by isn't helpful.

Random sidebar with the foot shit: Clown cars to clowns is shoes to orthotics. I had no idea there were so many things you could put in a shoe...

Sidequesting for Treatment

I'm trying not to get ahead of myself because nothing's final until I have the foot MRI, but I'm guessing I have another growth that needs to be removed.

And in my quest to feel better or find anything at all I can do that will help, I've gotten into the patient groups.

I hate it. 

Because I have to sift through so much information. 

Because I'm looking at all the information on surgeries.

And I'm reading it all because I'm probably going to need to know it.

It's the same bullshit, different diagnosis.

There's often a discrepancy between what's considered the gold standard by patients vs. what doctors say is the gold standard of care. So you have to read about a bunch of shit you never wanted to learn about in the first place in order to advocate for yourself and to make sure your doctor does a good job (if you've got the kind of brain I do or even care...I envy people who don't care). And you have angst about the care plan when it doesn't fit the patient gold standard.

Do patients even know best? Often they actually do. Especially on serious stuff. On surgeries...they're pretty good overall. They know the pitfalls and the traps and how to optimize outcome. They tend to be up-to-date faster than doctors on the latest treatments and care options. They're motivated by acute suffering, something their doctors (with some exceptions obv) don't have to personally do battle with. 

Patients will move mountains with wet noodles to escape the misery their bodies are churning out. 

So ignore patients at your own peril. But it's a lot of hustling to navigate and match up the patient expertise with the doctor expertise to where you feel you've got a good plan of care. It's hard to be confident in your care sometimes because the doctor's training and limitations and even experience doesn't always mesh. Or they want to be more conservative. Or they're better than the patients but aren't good at showing it.

On my liver surgery, there were less invasive options with easier recoveries, but my surgeon didn't even mention them because they weren't trained in the techniques. I had a butchery of an operation because that's all they knew how to do. The patients knew better, but the skills weren't there and supposedly I didn't have time to travel. Moot.

You can start to feel like there's no way to know what the best decision is. Everything seems tenuous and untrustworthy with arbitrary hard limits. It all sucks. It's all dangerous. It's all too risky. And you can't dictate any of it. You have little to no control.

Yeah, yeah...trust the doctor. But can you really? Not if you've been burned a lot. I've seen too many surgeons ghost and flake to be chill. Sorry. The good doesn't cancel out the bad.

The things is...you have no idea if your surgeon is going to be good until it's too late. You go in blind. They love bomb you to get you into the operating room, a song and dance that has no correlation to how they behave when the healing gets hard. 

You don't really know how good or bad your surgeon is until after they cut you.

On my spine surgery, they gave me meds that were fatal if combined, that even the pharmacist couldn't figure out how to tell me to take safely and they ghosted on post surgical pain. And they should've done a fusion. I'm probably going to need a fusion at some point to avoid full disability anyway. I'm not escaping it. My spine is crumbling and I've got extra spine in there that doesn't help. But the surgeon didn't wanna. They got scared off by the asthma. Then insurance jerked me around on the surgeon who did want to do a fusion.

So I didn't get a fusion. Which would've been better to do before getting covid than after. Now my lungs are even worse snowflakes than what scared the surgeon. I don't know if I'll be a good surgical candidate for anything major going forward.

It sucks. Here I am again. Figuring out the ins and outs so I have a shot at being mobile again. I like the podiatrist a lot. But that doesn't mean anything either in my experience. I've liked a lot of doctors who ultimately did me dirty. There are never any guarantees when it comes to surgery. It's all a crapshoot.

And I hate it. 

Lungs are edgy but better. Oxygen has improved finally but not back to normal yet. Maybe I'm past the hump. We'll see. Off the prednisone, but still sucking on every inhaler I own.

As for my stupid fucking foot...planning on a wheelchair for the traveling we're doing. Or just staying at the hotel. I can only handle about a half hour on my feet right now.

Day 5

The asthma continues. Oxygen is bouncing to new lows. Bouncing being the keyword. The baseline is overall lower but then it goes down up down up down up down up down down down up a little down down down up a little. And never gets back to normal. For doctors, it's meaningless, but living with it is hard. It eats my energy and focus.

It's day 5 of steroids and every inhaler I own so now what? 

We have a mini trip coming up. I'm not sure I can do it. I'm struggling to function just doing basic stuff. So now I have to figure out how not to ruin it for everyone. Bah.

My foot at least lets me sleep--the cortisone shot was really helpful--but the sleep deficit with the foot and the asthma is so severe that I'm still climbing out of the hole. Hopefully I catch up over the next few days.

AI continues to be my special interest. Two resources for you.

AI in science and medicine has the most to offer right now. AI can force medicine to align with evidence instead of letting a doctor's moods or perceptions or blind spots dictate drive decisions. But they need to address bias in the AI itself and I'm not sure if they will. Tech dude bros are legion. I've worked with a few so-called Silicon Valley 'thought leaders' and the culture has been largely set by incel dicks. Also, they are the flakey and fake af. So the nuance and empathy and commitment to higher principles AI needs doesn't exist in enough people who make coding decisions.

And the demographics and financial impacts thereof on AI are very interesting and something most people aren't even thinking about. (This guy has a bias and isn't always right, but he has an exceptional ability to extrapolate the potential impact of demographics.)