chaos and noise

I'm back-dating this post using the magic of LJ timestamps - mostly because I go looking for oldening-related posts around Sep 12, and it's an easier place to find them. Also, because the world has been consumed by Interesting Times since last week, so I'm still catching up. Its actually Wednesday 17th when I'm writing this.

This year's birthday turned out to be something of a non-event. Ariadne and Louise have been sick, so by the time sunlight dawned on this bit of the world we had all been awake for many hours. That set the tone for the rest of the day: fighting against low energy levels to try and get through a busy day (of teaching, report-writing or daycare, depending on which family member you asked). By mid afternoon I was feeling particularly off colour, and as the evening closed I realised that I was probably coming down with something more than lack of sleep. It felt like food poisoning.

Stocking up on supplies, I settled in for a fairly painful weekend: trying to stay topped up on fluid and electrolytes despite violent objection from my stomach. From earlier cases, I figured it would take about three days to burn out. Then things started deteriorating further on Sunday night, with some excruciating abdominal pains and the discovery that my sleepless writhing had exhausted my core and back muscles, making it impossible to hold a posture that kept the pains at bay. Home remedies stopped working during the afternoon (hot bath, painkillers, etc), and I ended up paying a visit to the Royal Melbourne's Emergency Department at 10pm.

I figured it would be a late night when I went in: I wasn't bleeding or suffering anything broken, so I would be triaged right down the bottom of the list. Maybe two hours from that point, and another hour to see the triage nurse on admission. That guess was fairly accurate, but the doctor then wanted blood tests taken. Tests meant returning to the waiting room for a callback, and watching as the night suddenly got a lot busier with some serious emergency patients rushed through the doors. I didn't mind too much: by that stage I was medicated on painkillers that actually worked, and L & A had both gone home to bed. That long wait got longer, and longer still. I finally went over the test results at 5am, once the crises had been dealt with. Inconclusive results, no suggestion what was actually causing the pain. They sent me on my way with a handful of prescriptions, and told me to bunker down and wait it out at home. That's where I've been for the last three days.

I think I'm finally starting to mend now, though night time (and sleeping) are stil problematic. It's hard finding a non-painful way of lying for more than about 30min, which makes for a very restless night. The afternoon has been better than previous days though, so I'm hopeful that maybe I'll get a bit more rest tonight. Rest is healing, so they say. I could use a bit of that at the moment.

I've decided to postpone my birthday celebrations though, as last week was a write off. Maybe it's a sign that I should combine birthdays with aeliel and just have one proper celebration later in the month...

I can now do 100 sit ups :)

I've been trying to remember to exercise a bit before going to bed each night, though I've been a bit slack in the last week. In order to make up for it, I decided against setting a target before starting last night - I just kept going until I got bored, and decided to stop after reaching 100. Not entirely sure how many I could do if I had the time and motivation to push further.

I don't know that this will be a regular bit of exercise - it takes too long to do every night! I've also been trying to do some push-ups, as they help with my creaky shoulders. I can comfortably do about 30-35, but seem to have reached a plateau a few weeks ago and haven't improved much since then.

I'm going to try a training session with the Kung Fu club, and hopefully re-join the club for regular training through the year. They started back from holidays last week, though I've been too busy with Arcanacon preparations to visit so far. Next week is looking like a good time to drop in, though: if I leave things much later, the university semester will start up and the club will be flooded with newcomers.

It's been a busy few weeks. The main tournament that aeliel and I are running at Arcanacon has doubled in size since 2010, and I need to make sure that we're ready to handle the 60+ players who have pre-registered, plus extras who sign up on the day - including at least one person coming down from Brisbane. Apparently, registering ahead of time is a strange quirk found only in Melbourne tournaments...

I started a new program at the gym last night, after missing a couple of weeks with a half-formed head cold. It's fairly different from what I've been doing over the last few months. The verdict today is "everything hurts" so it seems reasonably comprehensive :) I'll be working off this plan for the next two months, increasing weights and times as needed.

From memory, it looks something like this:

Warm up (cross trainer, 10min)
Assisted chin-ups and dips (supersets: 10-12 chin / 10-12 dips, three repeats)
Free weights (combined bicep curl into shoulder press; two sets of 15)
Treadmill (fast walk, steep incline, 5min)
Core superset: 15 push-ups / 30 second prone hold on a swiss ball (three repeats)
Abdominals: V-sits (2 sets of 15)
Rowing machine: 1000m
Cool down, stretch

Things I've noticed:

Dips are surprisingly painful. I guess I've never really used those muscles for anything. Chin ups are much easier, but doing supersets means that the last few in each set are still quite hard.

Push-ups are a bit easier than expected. I've never been very good at them, and haven't tried them for at least ten years... but the last few months must have helped. Form needs work: mostly let down by poor abdominal muscles.

V-sits are bloody hard work! My stomach muscles are weak... I could do a hundred sit ups when I started uni, and now I have trouble doing 25. I'm meant to be doing V-ups, but don't have the strength for them yet.

I have much better cardio fitness than I did in January, but I don't seem to have enough endurance for the rowing yet: probably as it's a new bit of equipment that I haven't used before. I found that I hit a wall about halfway through, where I couldn't find any more strength in my limbs.

Walking home from the YMCA gym is a bit weird when your legs don't seem to work properly.

So. I joined a gym, despite previously considering them to be strange and alien places. I still have no idea what all their shiny equipment does, but apparently I find out on Friday...

Today involved a chat about food (I should eat more of it), water (I should drink more of it), and exercise (I should do a lot more of it). Lately, my daily routine has involved something like this:

Wake up, sit in front of the computer, start work, finish layout on a chapter, and then realise it's 1pm. Eat a late breakfast (probably at my desk), and work until lunch (4-ish). Then work until dinner (9ish or later). No wonder I'm becoming some kind of amoeba.

Sitting at a desk (computer or painting) for 10+ hours a day is not healthy, especially when I forget to take breaks, and work from home. Changing from one desk to the other, while productive, doesn't really count as a break. I'm getting lots of work done, but it is time for a change.

On a more amusing note, after the fitness/weight/age/height measurements were done, I was told that I have a metabolic age of 14...

Sleep didn't answer the call last night. I think I've overdrawn my account.

Fortunately, I'm managing to get plenty of work done despite the erratic health. One advantage of spending hours unable to sleep is that you get plenty of time to plan the things you should do the next day - it's not especially relaxing, but it's better than staring blankly at the ceiling.

My immune system is still on edge. Something triggered a major allergic response while I walked into the city on Friday night... when the first spots appeared, I assumed I'd been bitten by something. They swelled and spread across my arms and back, itching like mad. I'd never seen anything like it, so I tried to isolate every possible trigger, mentally retracing the past 24 hours. It was a good distraction, concentrating on something other than the need to grow claws and tear off my skin.

I reached a pharmacy just before closing time - the front door was shut, but a glance at my arms convinced them to let me in. It took two hours for the antihistamines to have any noticeable effect, first numbing the itches, then diminishing the rash, and then knocking me unconscious with the sort of sleep that only comes attached to chemicals - black, dreamless and bruising. Before I fell asleep, I took photos of each arm in case I saw a doctor. In the morning, as I'd suspected, the marks on my skin had faded without trace.

I think I've had enough. Whoever I antagonised, whatever strings have been tied to me, I'm over it. You have a problem, world, you damn well come here and say it to my face.

It feels like food poisoning. However, aeliel and jilavre ate exactly the same food that I did yesterday, and neither of them is sick (thank gods... I wouldn't wish this on my worst enemies). Whatever hit me last night, I feel like I was run over by a busload of Commonwealth Games weightlifters.

I walked home without any problems, but my body started an earnest attempt to rip itself in half soon after I got inside. I've been more violently ill than I have in years... my sense of balance fled and I didn't have enough co-ordination to hold onto a glass of water. Every muscle in my back knotted up, shaking hard enough to make it impossible to stand up. At about 5am, aeliel found me on the floor downstairs having trouble figuring out which way was up.

Needless to say, I didn't get much sleep. Assuming that it was brought on by food, I was paranoid that other people would be in the same shape I was, but without people looking after them. When I was lucid enough, I checked that aeliel was sleeping soundly, and called jilavre to make sure she was okay. All evidence is pointing to something else right now, so I have no idea what hit me.

I got a couple of hours' sleep after 9am, waking up when the painkillers stopped pacifying my back. Today I'm nesting on the couch with a glass of juice and a laptop, wondering what the hell happened. I'm vastly better than I was, but I don't feel in any shape to leave the house. I'm concentrating on keeping down some electrolytes (thankyou Hannah... you give good advice to irrational sick people), fluids and a bit of sugar. Fortunately, the next class I have to be on campus for runs on Wednesday afternoon. If I haven't recovered by then, I might as well be dead.

Wanted: One functioning spine, to suit 170cm tall human. Will pay well for quality parts. Required for immediate skeletal replacement.

I can't look to the right, today - my neck is locked in an awkward position, and most of my upper back is sitting at a strange angle. It's been getting worse over the last week, and I think it's time to get the thing replaced. I'm not sleeping very comfortably - this morning I was so tired I made a double-sided sandwich to take to work, and couldn't figure out how to invert it so the bread was on the outside...

I'm heading back to see the family for some of the weekend, and plan to use small-talk conversations to disguise the fact that I'll be sizing them up as possible musculo-skeletal donors at some point. "How's work going? Mind if we stand next to this measuring stick? Nice spine!"

Surgery, stretching, or sore neck notwithstanding, mistresscarlett has twisted my arm (okay, so I'd already twisted it most of the way before she got involved) and talked me into going to Golgotha on Sunday night. It's at the MegaBar; I haven't been to any of the other Golgotha nights to date, and I feel like going out. Anyone else feel like joining us? You can find more info here.