nikita

diet

2009-10-13T03:41:44Z

I gained a few extra pounds in Germany, which pushed me to rethink my weight-loss strategy. I finally decided to go back to the only thing that worked well before, which is going low-carb. I had been trying to reduce my carb intake since August, but I found that having flexibility in my diet plan actually made things more difficult. Picking a rule and trying to stick with it reduces the amount of struggling with myself I do.

First couple of days last week I felt really miserable and cranky. It took me until Tuesday night to realize that it was because I abruptly stopped eating sugar (at Dagstuhl I kept a daily regimen of cake and chocolate); as always, finding an underlying cause for my feelings made me feel much better. My mood has stabilized, but towards the weekend, I entered a "hungry all the time phase." Usually, it's OK, but, of course, if I have food around (esp. high-density stuff like meat and nuts), I tend to overeat. Yesterday, I ordered in room service around 6pm, and then went out again for a burger at 10. Today I had a huge lunch (I even exceeded the cafeteria coupon allowance they gave us), and a normal-sized dinner, but was feeling too hungry to work in the evening, so stopped by Safeway to pick up some snacks. Ended up eating 4 (!) bananas and about 5oz of pistachios, and probably would eat more if I were staying up much longer.

I really do wish that there was an easier fix for the fat accumulation bug... spider88 , I'm looking at you!

China!

2009-07-18T15:59:58Z

As usual, we left the packing to the last minute, since we were too tired to stay up and wait for the laundry to finish. We ended up rushing out the door a bit after 7, and I came up with three things we forgot: some DVDs to watch, the Beijing and Shanghai Guide, and Tylenol. I was able to find the latter at O'Hare; I wanted to have some on hand to bring my temperature down if needed. But it looks like overloading on C helped keep things at bay. When we got onto the plane to O'Hare, the attendant asked us whether we were OK with sitting in the exit row and then took a look at fanlain and asked her "wait, how old are you?" I guess it must have been the teddy bear she was holding. I couldn't get exit row seats on the long flight to Shanghai, but turns out the flight was mostly empty (quarantine fears?) so we were able to sneak to the bulkhead row after takeoff. The attendant there tried to give us free alcohol because I was able to restart her crashed iPhone—apparently she had asked a few people before me.

The flight took us over the northern arctic—the display even switched to a polar map when the Cartesian projection stopped making sense! We actually went much further west than we needed, going through about the middle of Mongolia, before cutting back east towards Beijing and then Shanghai. The winds must have been favorable, since we arrived a full hour early. I got a whole lot of writing done on my CAREER proposal; it's amazing what being stuck with a computer and no Internet for 13 hours can do. They fed us three meals; the last one was the best: some noodles and dumplings! We also got chopsticks with our food.

We made it through quarantine and customs quickly; people inspected our documents but did not ask a single question. Once past customs, you go through a long passage where people are holding up signs with names. We contemplated making a sign for Russell, but decided that we were pretty easy to spot in a crowd in Shanghai. We tried to spot the Canadians coming out, but had trouble distinguishing them from other white people until we saw a maple leaf. Russell was a bit later than everybody; he made the mistake of declaring that he had a runny nose on the health inspection form, but they let him go through eventually.

We took the maglev out of the airport, traveling at a blazing 430 km/h, though for all of a few minutes. It was a bit surreal going through turns, as those were intensely banked. Probably the funniest feeling is slowing down from 430 km/h—250 km/h feels so <em>slow</em> in comparison! Our next adventure was the subway. The car started out empty, but got gradually fuller, culminating at People's Square where everyone, including us, got out. The walk to change lines was very impressive, as we were swept up in a giant mass of people, all moving along, and periodically being squeezed through a bottleneck of an escalator. They cleverly set up separate area for people walking in each direction, because trying to get this many people past each other seemed near impossible. We certainly weren't in Kansas anymore!

Finding the hotel was a breeze because everywhere seems to have signs in English. We waited for the rest of our crew to arrive but eventually one by one drifted off. Finally woke up after a nap and ventured out in search of food. The restaurant we arrived at had excellent menus: not only did everything have photos, but there was even an English version. Unfortunately, the waitress was standing over us while we ordered, so I didn't get a chance to memorize the characters for "hot and sour soup." The pictures also didn't tell us just how large the portions were, but it turns out that at least a few of us were quite hungry, so we polished off four rather big portions. The wait staff barely spoke English, so I tried to request some water and rice in Chinese, but this only reminded me why I didn't choose to study Chinese before coming here: being understood through my terrible accent and complete ineptitude with tones was not going to happen. I finally was able to mime "water," and the waiter knew the English word for rice, so it all worked out.

Our bill came out to 142 ¥, which is about US$20. They say Shanghai is no longer very cheap, so I guess costs were even lower before. Now we're winding down by getting everyone set up on the Internet. For all my worries, a simple SSH SOCKS proxy bypasses the Great Firewall completely (well, after I convinced Firefox to use SOCKS for DNS as well, since they seem to rewrite DNS for twitter and facebook). All in all, most of this trip felt almost disappointingly easy. I hope I stay disappointed!

transit fail

2009-06-14T21:15:37Z

I left my house just after 7 to catch the 7:40 train to Brussels and eventually meet fanlain at Schiphol airport at 11. I made it with almost 10 minutes to spare to buy tickets, so I felt in good spirits. The train was a local one, so it took its time. I finally got off at Brussels-Midi and tried to transfer, but there was no train leaving to Amsterdam, as there was supposed to be. Well, there was a Thalys train in 20 minutes, but those require a different ticket and advance reservations. And, as it turns out, a regular train to Amsterdam about a half hour after that.

Eventually, I realized that I was supposed to transfer at Brussel-Noord, a couple of stops earlier, and that my intended train and I had crossed paths. I tried to decide whether to take the Thalys to be only slightly late to meet fanlain (in fact, she ended up getting her luggage around the time the Thalys was supposed to arrive), or to take the normal train and be another half hour later. But they wanted €51 for the Thalys ticket, and I decided that my time with fanlain was not quite that precious.

So I got on the next train and made it to Antwerp, where we caught up with the Thalys, and then the train got stuck. They explained that there was a problem with the track, and we had to take another train to Kappelen, then a bus to Essen, and then another train from there. Just as I was figuring out where to go, I ran into another faculty member from ECE, who was in Brussels for a couple of days and decided to take a short trip to Amsterdam before returning. I think his company was the only thing that made the next four hours bearable.

The train to Kappelen was crowded, but manageable. There we found a huge horde of people, waiting for buses. One bus came, quickly filled to capacity, and went on its way. 15 minutes later, another bus came. The driver of this one was more strict and would only allow people who could get seats onto his bus. While we were figuring this out, a second bus pulled up and filled to capacity as well. Finally, a city bus was recruited into the shuttle effort. That driver didn't insist that people sit down, so we all packed in like sardines and were on our way.

The distance to Essen (Belgium, not the one in Germany) was less than 20km, but on small roads and through cities with traffic, so it took us most of an hour to make the trip. When we arrived, we saw a local train just pulling away from the station. The next one would be in 30 minutes, they told us. We at least got some water and chips; our hopes of finding some actual food were dashed when we discovered that every place in Essen was closed.

30 minutes later, the local train arrived, dumped a crowd of people who were going through the same hell, but in the other direction, and filled up again. We even got seats! The train then proceeded to sit on the track for another 20 minutes, waiting for some indeterminate event, while we all started to bake on the inside. When the train finally closed its doors and pulled away, everyone inside applauded.

Arriving at the next stop, Rosendaal, we were directed to another track, where we could see a train to Amsterdam just pulling away. Fortunately, at this point things were a little more organized and they sent an extra train to Amsterdam just for us. The train had to wait on the track a few times, but it did get us to Amsterdam, four hours after we were originally supposed to arrive. A had graciously gone to pick up fanlain from the airport at that point, so I got to meet them at a cafe near Centraal.

That will show me for raving about the great train service in Europe! At least the train ride back was uneventful...

lazy Saturday

2009-05-30T17:02:50Z

It's been really hard to get myself over my jet lag, between being sick and having no obligations until noon. I couldn't get to sleep until 4am last night, so I snoozed from 10 until nearly 11... got up for a bit, read, ... and fell back asleep for another hour and a half.

Finally decided it was time to drag my sorry ass outside; met up with maradydd and went shopping. Came back with a new kettle, bodum, coffee, and strawberry-lychee green tea. Also stopped in at Café Manger to have lunch and a couple of beers. Mmm... I haven't had Belgian beer since my last time in Leuven. Strike that, haven't had any beer since then. (I'm finally off oxycodone and tapering off my other painkillers, so drinking alcohol is safe.) We enjoyed some of the beautiful weather and discussed being back in high school (it's actually odd to talk to someone who was in high school at the same time as I was, as so many of my friends were not).

Now I'm enjoying some of the aforementioned tea. I need to make a quick run to the local grocery store to resupply for the rest of the long weekend. I also bought a new Belgian SIM; I just need to get it working with my phone. I already unlocked the iPhone, I just can't unlock the SIM compartment for lack of a safety pin. Off to the store!

scan

2009-02-14T00:30:17Z

I woke up early to get myself and fanlain to our respective doctor's offices. fanlain went to get some oral surgery done, and I was going in for a CT scan. I dropped off fanlain and arrived at the clinic a bit before 8—they wanted to get some blood tests done to make sure my kidney function is good enough to deal with the IV iodine contrast. Well, turns out that they didn't have the order for it, and they still needed to get it from Indiana. I waited for about half an hour while they spent time tracking it down. I went upstairs and gave some blood, then went back downstairs to wait until the lab results.

A bit before 10, they called me in, told me my kidney function was good, and were about to start the IV. But they wanted to double-check: did I drink the barium suspension? Turns out, no; I didn't have to do it last time, and no one told me to do it this time. Well, they said, you have to go back out, drink the tasty "berry shake" (which I now think is better than the banana-rama), and come back in 90 minutes. This gave me enough time to drive fanlain home after her surgery and have a shower.

I finally got out of the CT scan that was scheduled for 9am at 12:15pm and rushed to our noon faculty meeting. I stopped back around 4pm to pick up the CD and any lab results that may have been ready. Turns out that LDH was done: this was my high tumor marker that, for whatever reason, has not been tested since last July. It looks like it's within the normal range. The radiologist report was not ready yet, but then I got home, I finally took a look at the CT scan.

Unofficial verdict: the tumor is still visible, but looks distinctly thinner. It looks like it's about 1.5cm x 1cm in cross-section (down from 2.4cm x 1.8cm in November). It's still about as long as before, but given it's elongated shape, it would make sense that it would lose volume in the cross-section before shrinking lengthwise.

So, even though some data is still outstanding, from what I can glean, things are progressing as they should be and there's no reason to think that I have any active cancer cells left. I still want to talk about surgery when I see the doctor on Monday, but now that I'm getting back into the swing of things, I'm less gung ho to go back into the hospital. I've been thinking this week about how I'd react if the CT scan turned out badly, and I had trouble picturing it, but I was pretty sure that this wasn't going to be a fun weekend. I guess I can put away that thought until my next scan now and focus on getting better again.

online personal finance

2009-01-11T06:36:16Z

Yesterday, I found myself wondering if there were personal finance cloud-computing services. I already keep my mail on GMail, my calendar on GCal, and my records in Evernote. Shifting finances online seemed like a good idea, too.

Turns out that there are quite a few; I had time to try out the most popular ones: mint.com, wesabe.com, and geezeo.com.

Mint.com is by far the most polished. The site looks nice, with rounded transitions and flash animations. While in most cases, the interface simply makes the experience a bit more pleasant, their spending trends visualizer is great, letting you drill down into a pie chart of spending categories and see the corresponding transactions. (It also feels more responsive than Quicken on my computer, but that's saying more about Quicken than about Mint.com.) Wesabe.com seems to have pretty good visualizations, too, though it feels less polished and responsive overall. Geezeo is the least pleasing to the eye, and I actually could not find any visualization tools.

The coolest feature of the online sites is that they can automatically download the financial data from your accounts. It's been my job to regularly download transactions from all of our banks and put them into Quicken. With the sites, they will actually do this automatically and will always have up-to-date information. So with the Quicken method, it was pretty infeasible to check our budget progress more than once a month (in fact, I'd often go many months without the downloads, even when I wasn't in the hospital), with the online sites, you can really check your budget progress weekly or even daily.

The process of linking accounts is slightly different for each site. Mint.com has a large list of financial sites it supports and you simply enter your login credentials. They don't have a login for our home bank; I'm starting to suspect that this is because it uses a (world's dumbest) CAPTCHA at login time. But they seem to support every other bank in our area, as well as every other financial institution (loans, IRAs, mortgages) we use. Wesabe.com can download transactions from a limited number of sites; for everything else, you can get a Firefox plugin that can record your login and download interactions and upload data to Wesabe. Clever, though more cumbersome than simply supplying your credentials (and it still won't work with our home bank). Geezeo's solution for unsupported banks is simply to let you upload an .ofx file manually, which might be the best approach.

Once the transactions are imported, the sites let you categorize them, with some automation built in. Mint.com has the best automation right off the bat, classifying probably 80-90% of our transactions automatically. Wesabe requires that you enter your own tags, but will apply them to similar transactions in the future. Geezeo follows a similar system.

The tag structure in Wesabe and Geezeo is free-form: you enter as many tags as you want for a transaction, and Wesabe will even display all your tags in the familiar tag cloud format. Mint.com, on the other hand, has a more rigid structure, with some user extensions built in (reading online reviews, it looks like the extensions are a recent addition). It has a fairly detailed two-level category hierarchy. You can add your own categories, and it even comes with a large bank of suggested ones, but you can't delete the built-in ones. It also allows you to assign tags to transactions; tags can span multiple categories and a transaction can have multiple tags. So in the end, you can get a similar structure to Wesabe and Geezeo, but there's a separation of primary and secondary properties of a transaction.

You can then use these tags and categories in visualization tools, or to set up a budget of spending targets. Here, all three sites leave a lot to be desired. Mint.com allows to create a spending target for a category or a sub-category. Wesabe lets you use a tag, and Geezeo lets you combine two tags (using an OR). So, for example, Mint.com allows you to tag things as Reimbursable (it's even part of a default tag set), but you can't create a budget for non-reimbursable travel expenses. (Though you can query them in the visualizer.) And in Wesabe and Geezeo, I was hoping to create separate budgets for "clothing nikita" and "clothing lenore," but neither will let me do that. (I'd have to basically tag things as "clothing clothingnikita" and "clothing clothinglenore.") My hope is that, given that all of these sites are fairly recent, at some point at least one of them will get around to implementing some decent search operators.

We finally settled on Mint.com as our main site. It has a nice interface, it painlessly supports all of our accounts except for the checking one (we actually looked into switching banks and found a better deal at another bank in town that is "minty"), and it has an iPhone interface which looks pretty slick. It seems like it would be pretty useful for day-to-day planning. One nice thing about the budget display in Mint.com is that it not only shows you how much of the budgeted amount you have spent so far, but also a line that shows where you should be given how far into the month/year/etc. you are, so we can see, for example, that our food expenses for this month have actually been lower than expected.

I'll have to see how well it will work for a monthly evaluation of spending, but I'm pretty sure it will save me time over using Quicken. And it's pretty cool to see all of our financial accounts added up in one place to calculate our "Net Worth" (which is heavily negative, since it includes our mortgage).

^{world's dumbest} Really, check out the login page. It uses a simple font on a static background, with 5-letter dictionary words where some letters are substituted by (I kid you not!) the corresponding phone digit. I'm half-tempted to spend an afternoon writing a script to break it and sending it to mint.com so that they could support my bank.

OutfitEZ update

2009-01-09T04:43:08Z

Thanks for all your votes and comments. I think I'm going to keep the paisley shirt, black pants, mock turtleneck, belt, and tie. The designer jeans, striped shirt, and patterned shirt are going to go back. I was almost going to keep the striped shirt; I showed a picture to my sister and she thought it looked good, and I thought I kind of liked it, too. But when I put it on again, it was just too much: a photo softens the contrast and loudness of the stripes. And I'm still a little torn on the patterned shirt; it's interesting, but a little loud. fanlain (and many of you) says it looks better with a sweater, but I don't think I want to get a shirt that I can only wear with a sweater over it. If nothing else, I get hot easily and like being able to take the sweater off. I actually don't mind the designer jeans too much, but I don't wear jeans very often in general, and I think they're the most expensive item in the collection.

Overall, I decided that Cool Nights was the wrong profile for me. I chose it mainly because many of the pictures showed solid color shirts in bold colors, which is something I like. But the description says that "The Cool Nights selection can be described as going-out clothes with a youthful flare." But I don't do very much going out, and while I'm interested in an update to my wardrobe, "flare" is not what I'm looking for.

So I decided to switch over to Tomorrow's Boss for my next shipment. The description still mentions "youthful flare" (it looks like they didn't break the bank on their writers), but it also talks about building "sharp wardrobe for a day in the office or a night out." That's definitely more of what I'm looking for; from what I can see, the styles are not too conservative, but I don't think I'm likely to get loud patterns from this collection.

acupuncture

2008-12-31T16:11:03Z

I went for an acupuncture treatment yesterday, since I read that it might be an effective way to help recover from my neuropathy. (The chemo treatment damaged the nerves in my feet and arms, and as a result I have chronic pain and lack of feeling in my feet.) Everyone mentions how acupuncture doesn't really hurt, and it was true that the piercing of the skin felt like a painless prick (when I could feel it at all). However, my acupuncturist then would try to find a nerve, which makes sense since she was trying to treat my neuropathy. But she would try to use feedback from me to figure out when she'd reach the right place. From my perspective, I would feel nothing for a bit and then there would be a sharp shooting pain going through my arm or foot. Often times I would literally jump. It's possible that my neuropathy, or my painkillers, make it difficult for me to feel low-grade pain sensation and only alert me when the pain gets extreme. But it definitely wasn't the painless and sometimes euphoric experience that I was led to expect.

The good news is that my nerves seem to still be alive, even in my feet. Also, I confirmed that the soreness I feel in my wrists & arms is in fact nerve pain. But I'm really not sure if the treatment was a good idea. My wrists and arms have been hurting quite a bit more than they did before the treatment, especially around the time the painkillers run out. For my feet, the sensation did eventually become a pleasant one, but I'm not sure if there's any lasting benefit, and there's definitely some pain around some of the puncture points there, too. So even though I made an appointment for next week, I'm not sure I will return, especially if the pain persists for more than a couple of days.

At least the cost of the session should be tax-deductible. I noticed during my accounting that we will probably exceed the 7.5% of AGI floor for medical expenses this year. This motivated me to go and pay off the balance of my hearing aids—I had only paid for half of them when I bought them. The staff was a little confused as to why I wanted to give them money sooner than they required, but after I explained that I effectively get a 25% discount if I pay out the money now rather than next year, they were more than happy to accommodate me.

OutfitEZ

2008-12-22T05:23:45Z

While browsing Facebook a month or so ago, I came across an ad for OutfitEZ. "Hate shopping for clothes?" it asked. Why yes, I do! I checked out the website. It's a service that picks out and sends clothes for you to wear once every quarter. The idea is that someone with more taste than you picks out outfits that are coordinated and they get delivered right to your door. A dream come true, right? What I found funny is that the makers of the site decided there's no point even mentioning that the service caters exclusively to men. (Though now, fanlain is a little bit jealous.)

It sounded tempting, and I decided to try them out. The price isn't cheap: $100/month, but it works out to roughly $40 per item of clothing, inclusive of shipping and tax (well, there's no tax charged unless you're in Colorado). They also have plans for $50 or $150, though the per-item price stays the same. You get to select your size, your profile (I picked Cool Nights), and some other things, like whether you live in a warm or cold climate, your complexion, etc.

My first shipment arrived a couple of days ago, but I finally got to look through it this evening. The collection includes:

A striped shirt
A paisley shirt
A patterned long-sleeve shirt
A mock turtleneck
Black pants
Designer jeans
A tie
A belt

One of the reasons I liked the idea of OutfitEZ is that it would be a way to leave my comfort zone and try something new; this shipment definitely did not disappoint in that respect. I think other than the pants, and maybe the belt, I would not have bought any of the rest of the things myself. But I'm pretty sure I'll keep most of these things. You're allowed to return items you don't like, but they recommend you get a second opinion before discarding an item. So this is where you come in.

fanlain and I decided to do a photo shoot to get comments. I put all the photos in a Flickr set. What do you think? Rate them from 1 to 5, where 5 means "ooh, snazzy!" and 1 means "ow! my eyes!"

View Poll: rate my new wardrobe

We were both scared by the prospect of a paisley shirt, but turns out that it has a very subtle pattern and it's a very nice color, so it may be the one we like the most. The patterned shirt we both kind of reeled from at first and will probably end up returning. But fanlain thinks it could work with a sweater, and who knows, maybe there'll be an occasion where loud is called for. The "coordinated outfit" seems to consist of the pants, belt, striped shirt, and tie. fanlain thinks that the tie and the shirt clash, while I think it's not so bad. In any case, we don't have to wear them together.

king lazy bones

2008-12-21T16:08:26Z

It occurred to me that I never posted about my experience with my hearing aids. When I first got them, it was both exciting and disappointing. I could certainly hear a bunch of new noises, and some conversations were definitely easier. The most dramatic effect was rustling of papers; it went from something I could not hear at all, to something that was easily audible clear across the room. I'd almost cringe at having to open an envelope. Hearing other people was also easier, but the effect was not quite as dramatic. I could hear fanlain sometimes, but a lot of the times she'd still be virtually incomprehensible. For people whom I could hear OK beforehand, I had to ask them to repeat themselves fewer times. But people whom I could not really hear largely stayed that way. The worst, other than fanlain, was my new postdoc, who has a combination of an Indian and British accent, and speaks softly on top of that.

After a week, the loud noises from papers and such stopped being so jarring. But I was still pretty frustrated at not being able to understand people; I'd have real trouble in meetings, especially if they included more than one person. Since that's a large part of what I do, I was pretty sad, and hoped that the hearing aids could be adjusted. Fortunately, it turns out they could—initially, they turn them down a bit to make the background sounds less disorienting to people who had not worn hearing aids before. And even though I had only had significant hearing loss for less than four months, it was definitely helpful for me. The audiologist adjusted them using this machine that actually measures the sound levels inside my ears, and afterward a lot of the harsh high-pitched sounds that became less noticeable over the first week and a half I was wearing the aids popped out again, though not quite as dramatically. I started to hear more noises, like our microwave timer and my feet shuffling. More importantly, speech recognition became much easier. It's still not perfect, but I can understand most people without much effort, and for the really quiet people, like fanlain, I still have a hope.

I find these days that if I increase the volume by 4–6 dB using my ($500!) remote, speech recognition becomes pretty good, but being in a moderately noisy environment gives me a headache. But I'm still adjusting; I think I'll learn to ignore the background sounds a bit more with time, and the plan for next Monday is to do another, fine-grained adjustment. I might try to bring fanlain with me as a test subject. (When I told this to my coworkers, they were impressed and explained that they weren't so sure that their spouses would ask the doctors to help hear them better; they postulated the opposite might be true.)

I'm still not sure if I want to try the higher-end model. It supposedly has somewhat better noise suppression, with a feature that clamps down on sudden loud noises, which could be pretty nice. It also has a neat directional control, where I can choose to focus on sounds to the left or right of me (or even behind), rather than the default front. This is intended to help when you're in the car, or walking along with someone. I'm also trying to decide if I should get an in-ear model rather than behind-the-ear one I'm wearing now. I don't mind the hearing aid hanging off my ear; the little piece that's inside the ear bothers me more (though I'm mostly used to it now). And it's hardly noticeable, from what I've heard from others; the transparent tube is hard to spot unless you're looking for it, and the piece behind the ear gets masqueraded very well by my glass rims (and eventually will be hidden by my hair). But it gets in the way when I take my glasses on and off (e.g., when I switch to my prescription sunglasses for driving). And it's uncomfortable to lay my head down on a pillow without removing the aid first. I'll have to discuss that on Monday.

One thing that I've realized from the hearing loss is just how much of spoken language you can infer from context. I discovered that I had the hardest time understanding people when they changed the subject, since it was much harder to predict what they were saying. Numbers were also difficult, and I would confuse "two" for "three" and "nine" for "one," since it's usually not obvious from context which was used. But trying to predict what was said and reparsing the audio stream based on that takes a lot of mental energy; I found that I was tired or not focusing my mind on what they were saying, I could hardly understand people at all.

On other neat thing about hearing aids is that you notice pretty quickly that your hearing is now controlled by a computer program, as it suddenly detects a situation change and adjusts the volume, or detects a speaker and isolates them so that they come through clearly. It's a little disorienting at first, but when it works well, it's actually pretty nice (and I can sometimes make adjustments with my remote control). I guess it's good practice for when more of my senses become bionic!

endurance

2008-12-10T06:06:18Z

I'd like to think that I'm ready to go back to work full time, but my body is telling me "not quite yet." I woke up a little before 7 today and worked pretty solidly until 6, but at the end was falling down tired. I had to drink a third cup of coffee to stay awake for my 4pm meeting, which I'm paying for now. And I think I'm going to have to take tomorrow morning off to recover my energy.

But it feels good to be at work and to be productive again. If I'm lucky, I'll be able to clear my list of overdue items by the end of the week! Of course, it will just fill up again when the next semester starts...

oncology update

2008-12-05T05:25:12Z

I was supposed to see Dr. Williams today, but he suddenly became unavailable, so I was rescheduled to see his partner, Dr. Hahn. We ended up being a little late for the appointment because I discovered in the car that I had somehow lost the battery from my right hearing aid, so we made a stop at our favorite CVS in Indy to pick up a replacement. But once again, we didn't get in to see a doctor until about 45 minutes after the scheduled time anyway.

At first, a yet another doctor stopped by. I gave him a brief update on how things were going, he listened to my lungs and heart (I believe this is required during any doctor-patient contact), and went away. Both fanlain and I decided that we didn't like him; he just had this air about him as if he wasn't sure what he was doing. A short while later, he returned with Dr. Hahn, who projected confidence and was much better about asking and answering questions. He examined me a bit more thoroughly, and then we discussed the way forward.

The main question was, and remain still, about whether I should have surgery to remove the remaining mass in my retroperitoneal lymph node. He pointed out that the mass had shrunk quite a lot since July, and that it was not unusual for some tissue to remain, but the question of what to do about it was still open. His plan of action is to a) get an updated measurement of my tumor markers (I got blood taken after the appointment), b) discuss my scan with other doctors, and c) perhaps do a PET scan to see if there's any activity. I'm supposed to see him again in January to make the final decision.

I also talked to him about my painkillers and whether I should be worried about addiction. I take fewer of them than before, but I still need about two pills (5 mg oxycodone each) a day, and when I don't take them, I end up in pain and unhappy. He said that as long as I'm taking the pills for pain, and not for the high you get from them, I should be OK, and wrote me a prescription for more. This is reassuring and should improve my quality-of-life a bit, since I had been waiting until I feel pretty miserable to take the next dose, but now I feel OK about not letting it get that far.

By the time we left, it was nearly 5 (Eastern), so we decided to stop for dinner at Blu Martini, where individual75293 and fanlain had had good sushi while I was in the hospital. We hit rush hour traffic and it took us an hour to get there, but we were still there in time for their half-price sushi, which was lucky, since the place is a bit pricey. The place had a nice lounge atmosphere with ambient electronic music (focusing mainly on base tones, so well-matched to my hearing!), blue lighting, and a projector showing movies (we caught the tail end of "Hancock" and the first half or so of "Elf"). The sushi was quite good, though the quality of the fish was better in Alabama. I packed away three rolls and still had room for a chocolate mousse for dessert.

It's a bit disappointing that the visit wasn't more productive and I'm left with the same uncertainty. I guess I'll call next week to get my tumor marker results; if they're back up from what they were, that would be scary, though, as the doctor explained, not yet a death sentence. For the last few weeks, I've been feeling like my life is returning back to normal, and I'm very ready to put all of this behind me, but this visit was a reminder that I'm not out of the woods yet. Realistically, even if all the tests come up perfect, it will still be a year or two before I can breathe that sigh of relief that the cancer is likely not coming back. I just have to try to remain optimistic until then.

vascular surgery

2008-12-04T01:13:43Z

I had an appointment with a vascular surgeon yesterday morning to see about getting my dialysis catheter removed. I was really happy about the prospect, since the catheter gets in the way and frequently pulls on the stitch that's used to hold it in place, making the skin around there really sore. Plus, I couldn't really have a shower with the catheter in place. I could wash normally from the waist down and had to use a washcloth for the rest. (During our trip to Florida, I used some duct tape and sandwich bags while taking a shower, with limited success.)

I figured the appointment would be to discuss the plan for surgery to extract it, get my consent, that kind of thing. I arrived a bit late, but turns out it didn't matter, since the surgeon was running much later himself. I spent some time getting breakfast at the hospital cafeteria (a pretty poor choice, but they told me not to leave the hospital/clinic); by the time I got back, they led me straight in to see him. When we got in the room, he asked me to lie down on an exam table and take off my shirt... so that it doesn't get bloody. I blinked—was he going to cut out the catheter right there? He removed the bandage and said "let's see if I can pull this thing out." My eyes went wide as he went YANK! and said "it's done." I barely had time to say "ouch!"

After that, the nurse put some pressure on it for a few minutes, and then bandaged it up. My instructions were to check for bleeding a few times during the day, and to not lie down for the next 4 hours. But I could have a normal shower the next day! That was exciting, since I've had a catheter in that spot since mid-August.

I went back to work for a bit, then came back in the afternoon to meet with my nephrologist. He was a little disturbed, telling me that I looked tired, when I was supposed to be getting better. I suggested it was because of the long drive back from Florida (I still haven't recovered, I don't think). He ordered tests for my blood and urine to see how things were going. Impressively, he called me back personally in the evening and explained the results—usually, you just get a note in the mail a week later saying things were fine. Apparently, everything was fine: my creatinine was down to 1.9 (2.2 at last measurement), my hemoglobin stayed at around 11.5, despite not receiving any more Epogen, and the protein leakage into the urine was only slightly above the norm. He did mention that I need to be drinking more fluids. My plan was to bring my camelbak water bottle to work, though somehow it didn't happen today. But overall, good news.

I also stopped by to get a flu shot, being already at the clinic. I've never gotten one before, since I was never in a high-risk group. I'm not sure whether I'm in one now; I think my immune system is working fine again, though if I happen to need chemo again, it would obviously help not to be sick. But if I understand these things correctly, the flu shot has significant positive externalities, so I decided to do it. It was pretty painless, though they made me wait around for 10 minutes to see if I'd have an allergic reaction. (And the arm was a little sore today.)

trip to Florida, vignettes

2008-11-24T20:16:45Z

I realized that when I try to write a good narrative for a trip, it takes me forever and I never finish it. So this time I'm trying just posting some highlights:

Plan for leaving: pack up Thursday night, leave work at 3, grab Soba, and get on the road by 4 at the latest. Actual: didn't finish packing despite only getting five hours of sleep and waking up early. End up leaving at 6, and coming back at 6:30 because we thought we forgot fanlain 's phone. Turns out we did have it, but we had left one of the lights on, so I guess it was good we came back.
Learned a bunch of geography on the way down: we saw some barge traffic on the [[Ohio]] and [[Tennessee]] rivers (the latter of which we, of course, had to cross twice), passed by the [[Land Between the Lakes]] (formerly Land Between the Rivers, until the dams were built), saw the [[Red Mountain]] in Alabama, at the tail end of the [[Appalachians]] (though it was too dark to see the color).
Didn't stay in Kentucky long enough to experience their famous southern hospitality, crazy accents, fried chicken, or jelly.
I had trouble getting sleep at the LaQuinta in Nashville because of my feet hurting (and I had left my painkillers in the car), so I was up with Soba at 6 a.m.
We remembered that Soba doesn't like elevators. She was a little iffy with the stairs, too, because her feet don't have a good grip on painted concrete, but eventually she learned to be OK with it. I had a little trouble taking the stairs back up to the fifth floor, especially on not enough sleep and before breakfast, but I made it, which I think is a very good sign.
Visited the Grand Ole Opry (on the outside only) and also tried to find the waterfall from my second wedding. The Opryland Hotel has been redecorated and expanded; I found a waterfall, but I'm not sure it's the right one.
Stopped at REI to buy myself a nice winter coat. I bought a different jacket in Champaign, but it's way too bulky, if really warm, so I'll be returning it. This one is very lightweight, and still feels pretty warm. And it doesn't look too much like you're wearing a sleeping bag, even though you are.
Left Nashville way to late, so ended up driving really late and arriving at the beach house past 1 a.m. Central, which is past 2 a.m. local time. Still trying to get back to a more regular schedule. (Yes, we're on vacation, but it's annoying to have the sun set a few hours after you get up.)
Stopped for food in Dothan, AL at one of the three (!) Japanese restaurants there. The sushi was better than what you get in Champaign, probably due to the proximity to the Gulf.

hearing aids, cont'd

2008-11-20T02:47:50Z

While speech went through subtle changes, a lot of background noise went through more dramatic ones. I noticed that the chair had squeaky wheels, and that the audiologist's keyboard made clicking noises. I also heard very clearly the sounds when she opened up desk drawers and rustled papers. And when she dropped something on the table, I almost jumped. I can see why people like my dad might be tempted to leave them off a lot of the time, even though they work better if you leave them on for longer.

It will be interesting discovering what noises I have been missing. Some have been obvious: I don't hear beeps from things like the microwave very well now. And I realized this morning that I can barely hear our alarm clock, even when fanlain says it's blaring. (In retrospect, I realized that when I use the iPhone for an alarm, I hear the buzzing from the vibration, rather than the actual alarm.) But, like the paper rustling, I think most of the noises I can't hear now, I simply don't realize that they're gone.

hearing aids

2008-11-20T00:44:49Z

I went to an audiologist to try out hearing aids today. For during the visit, she gave me a pair to put on while we talked. It was weird; when she put them in and turned them on, I expected everything to get louder, but it didn't. Her voice stayed roughly the same volume, but was somehow a little bit clearer. Turns out that this is because the aid was "open fit": it lets exterior sounds pass through and in fact does not amplify anything below something like 1000 Hz, letting my own hearing do that. After that, she toyed a bit with them, fit them back in, and the left one started buzzing. She was able to fix that, but then it was still sounding staticky. She then told me that this is something that could be fixed with adjustments as well, but there wasn't as much point since I wasn't going to keep them.

We discussed my options. The basic question was how "active" a life I lead. I clearly fell into the "very active" category (remember, most people who get hearing aids are a bit older than I), which would indicate that I should go for the premium, top of the line hearing aids. But we discussed the differences between the high-end and mid-range aids and it wasn't clear that it would make a big difference. Since I get a 30-day trial period on the aids (required by state law!), the audiologist recommended that I try the mid-range ones, and if I'm a little disappointed in their performance, I can try the premium ones for another 30 days to decide if they're worth it.

The costs are a little daunting. The pair of mid-range hearing aids costs $4900. This is a little higher than the prices I had seen (e.g., from Hearing Planet, but the difference is exactly the amount that my insurance would cover, and I figure it's nice to have a local audiologist. The little remote that controls some of the functions is priced at a ridiculous $500. Hopefully I'll find I don't use it that much and return it, though I thought it might be nice to have it along for the trial. And the premium aids costs $1400 more. Plus there's a non-refundable $150 fitting fee.

But the prospect of not having hearing aids sounds worse, so I asked the audiologist to order a pair for me. They'll be ready for me right as I get back from Thanksgiving, so I'll report more then.

freedom

2008-11-19T04:49:38Z

When I was at the hospital, they would take my blood at least twice a day and have results back within a couple of hours. The dialysis clinic is a bit slower. They apparently do a full metabolic panel, which tests, among other things, kidney function, only once a month, and then it takes a couple of days for the results to be returned to them. They took my blood on Thursday, and still didn't have results on Saturday...

... but once they got the results, things sped up considerably. I got a call yesterday afternoon that I should go to Carle clinic for a blood test before dialysis this morning. Having done that, I got hooked up to the machine as usual and was waiting out my time (with an increasingly full bladder)¹ when a phone call came in from the nephrologist saying that my blood test results came back, and I didn't have to come back for dialysis, and in fact they could let me go straight away.

I was, of course, very excited. I was pretty sure that I was not going to be among the 25% for whom the kidney function does not recover since I found out from my oncologist that my creatinine levels were dropping, but it felt great to be officially off. And now we can go to Florida for our vacation next week without worrying about driving an hour+ to the closest decent size city to get dialysis there.

As icing on the cake, they told me that my potassium levels were actually low and I should be less restrictive with my diet. So I had a burrito for lunch to celebrate! fanlain was in a meeting most of the day, but afterward we decided to celebrate by going to Ko Fusion. I had some sushi and fanlain had a nice pork chop; we also saved some room for dessert.

As one of the nurses said, it's one more step towards returning to a normal life. I found myself with a bunch of free time for Thursday and Friday, so I spent today filling it up with meetings I hadn't thought I'd have time for. Tomorrow I have an appointment for a hearing aid fitting. Once I get those... oh yeah, and once I'm declared in remission (fingers crossed), I should be able to put these last few months behind me.

¹ On a couple of previous visits, I asked to go to the bathroom while on dialysis. The first time, they disconnected me and it was OK, just added a few minutes to the time I had to spend in the clinic. The second time, my blood pressure dropped low enough that I started feeling nauseous and my hands started shaking, I was quickly surrounded by all the nurses in the room, and I spent the rest of my time on dialysis inclined backwards so that blood would flow back towards my heart and brain. After that, I've learned to wait until the end.

CT scan

2008-11-14T20:25:51Z

I had my CT scan today. The radiologist report won't be available for a little while, but I was able to get the scan itself. It took me a while of panning around using a DICOM viewer, but I eventually found the tumor. It's bigger than I expected, actually: about 5.8cmx2.4cmx1.8cm (these are the longest measurements in each dimension; its volume is much smaller). But I think it started out much larger, something like 7cm x 5cm. Hopefully it's all dead tissue; last time I had a PET scan confirm if it is.

When I met with Dr. Williams in July, we discussed what to do in such a case. He said it's a tough decision. Normally, if there is a large residual mass, they do a PET scan. If the PET scan shows up no sugar uptake activity, they typically leave it for observation; otherwise, they perform surgery to extract the remaining tumor tissue. The main reasoning behind this is that, in case of a negative PET scan, the odds of recurrence are pretty low, and the surgery is a major one, requiring 3-6 days of recovery in the hospital (and many days of recovery at home, I'm sure). On the other hand, I am (or rather would be, if a PET scan showed up as negative) in the exact same spot I was 8 months ago, when I had large residual masses that appeared not to have any live cancer in them. It's pretty likely that, had I gone for the surgery then, I would not have had the recurrence and would have avoided this whole second round of treatment. So the question is, do I do something unpleasant and slightly risky to hopefully avoid a low-probability event in the future, considering that the event is pretty scary? Or do I simply stick with observation and hope for the best? I have a feeling it will be a tough meeting in December.

ETA: fanlain points out that this post might be more scary than it was intended to be. I should mention that because my tumor was so large before the second round of chemo, this is the expected scan result for a successful treatment; it was always unlikely that my body would be able to totally absorb all of the dead tissue. So the CT scan is not an indication of anything bad, it just presents a dilemma.

Another factor that I thought of later that might influence this decision is how my insurance company feels about all this. I don't think this is a cheap surgery, so if they won't cover it, that might help make our decision.

hearing

2008-11-13T06:41:07Z

I had my hearing checked Monday morning. Turns out I'm not just imagining my hearing loss; I'm down 60 dB across most frequencies, except for the very lowest ones. My word recognition score was 48% (was 100% before the last round of treatments). The doctor expressed sympathies for my loss and said I'd definitely need hearing aids. He explained that there were three appointments: one to select a hearing aid, a fitting once it comes in, and an adjustment after I've had it for a while. I told him thanks and went to the receptionist to make the first appointment; it turned out that they could not see me for a month! So I wouldn't be able to get a hearing aid until Christmas.

I then decided to check with the other clinic in town. It's covered less well by my insurance, but it turns out that the maximum benefit of $500 remains the same in both cases. Turned out that they could see me next Wednesday (19th). I figured that's better, even though I still won't get an actual hearing aid until December.

I had settled on getting a Phonak Versata or Exelia, but then, reading the hearing aid forums, it turned out that people were generally happier with the Bluetooth transmitter / remote on the Oticon Epoq. I was conflicted for a while, but then discovered that the closest place that sells them would be in Bloomington. Reading the forums, I realized that people often make many trips back to the audiologist for adjustments (and probably more so for a first hearing aid), so I figured it's better to work with someone local and live with the inferior transmitter. I'm still undecided on what style I want—behind the ear or in the ear—but I'm told the audiologist can make a suggestion based on my hearing test.

In other news, my health continues to improve. I've had quite a bit more energy over the last few days; I can tell my hemoglobin must be up significantly. My feet are starting to improve, too; they still hurt, but the pain is now manageable, sometimes even without painkillers (though I still take them regularly). I've also started sleeping a lot better, so I'm not feeling exhausted all the time from lack of sleep, either. This has helped me become more independent: I started walking by myself, and I've even driven the car a couple of times. Other than being a little rusty from not driving for a couple months, it seemed to go OK. This really helps, since I can now go to the office, or to various doctor's appointments, on my own schedule.

mixed blessing

2008-07-28T15:51:16Z

I woke up this morning feeling much better. My fever was gone, I was feeling rested, and ready to face the world. Of course, what this means is that I'm spending the day starting chemo. I'm back in the clinic, hooked up to the IV machine again. The actual chemo doesn't start until around noon, and, from past experience, I won't feel nausea until about 1 or 2, so I'm trying to be a little productive until then, listening to the beeps of the IV machines and the TV shows.

new york, new york

2008-06-04T03:10:51Z

I was listening to Tim Harford's "The Logic of Life" recently, and he discussed how the rent premium of large cities is justified because you have much more opportunity to meet interesting people and learn from them. He also included a discussion of how communication technology, rather than changing this, amplifies the effect. Well, I felt like I was living out this chapter today. I met up for lunch with a friend of mine from high school (& college, too.) He normally works for Google UK, but was in New York for a visit. How did I find this out? He kept mentioning New York on Facebook.

Then, in the evening, I met up with another friend from Amsterdam. I found out that he was going to be visiting NYC the same time as me by using Dopplr. Turns out he was there for the NANOG conference. So I crashed their reception, had some drinks and hors d'oeuvres, and caught up with my friend for a while. (As I got to the reception, I asked the bar hostess if this was where the NANOG party was. She said yes and proceeded to put an orange wristband on me, explaining that this way, they'd know I was part of the group and not some guy who just walked off the street.) While there, I also got to meet the directors of two of the largest internet exchanges in the world. According to their projections, they should together be forwarding over a terabit of traffic per second by this time next year. Interesting people.

Finally, to finish it off, I had a brief video chat with fanlain and Soba, using Verizon's wireless Internet. Soba actually recognized some of the commands I gave her over the chat channel, and when we switched to video chat, she tried to jump at the computer. I guess that's as close as I'll get to a Soba tackle until Friday.

hukuma @ 2008-04-19T11:38:00

2008-04-19T17:14:50Z

fanlain insisted that I have to do this.

1. Go to www.flickr.com
2. Type in your answer to each question in the "search" box
3. Choose one picture from the first page of results
4. Insert the image for the answer

1. What is your first name?

2. What is your favorite food?

3. What school did you go to?

4. What is your favorite color?

5. Who is your celebrity crush?

6. Who is your favorite disney princess?

7. Favorite drink?

8. Dream vacation?

9. Favorite dessert?

10. What do you want to be when you grow up?

11. What do you love most in life?

12. One word to describe you?

13. What do you dream of?

For extra credit, guess the answers without clicking on the picture links.

mystery solved

2008-03-09T00:50:23Z

I found a package today on my doorstep. A little surprised, I went to try to figure out what and from whom it was. Inside, there were two model cars from the Franklin Mint. I checked the packing list, and there was no name listed other than mine. But it did show that the cars weren't cheap—about $150 each! Now, we'd gotten anonymous gift packages before, but this one made no sense: first, who would spend $300 dollars on such a surprise, and second, why model cars? I've never shown a particular interest in them or anything.

I discussed this more with fanlain when she got home. She pointed out that these were likely for me, because one of the cars was a model from 1977, so someone knew my birthday. But on the other hand, they must not know me very well, since otherwise they would have picked something more appropriate. We considered it coming from fanlain's family, but they would never spend that much money on me (fanlain and I both get $5 for our birthdays from them.)

Seeing as the "Bill To" address on the packing slip was myself, I decided to check my credit card statement. Lo and behold, there was a charge from the Franklin Mint for $300. This made even less sense. I certainly didn't remember ordering these cars, and though last week was tough and confusing, I seriously doubt I would have ordered model cars by mistake. I thought that maybe someone had stolen my card number, but then why use it to ship cars to me?

Finally, a dim recollection had entered my mind... my sister had asked to borrow my credit card number because she wanted to buy something for a friend but the site would only accept a US shipping address. She asked this the same day as fanlain's sister went into the ICU, so I didn't really pay attention or remember what she wanted to order, but the cars sounded plausible. I checked my email, and indeed, that was what she had done. I gave her a call and we both had a good laugh at my lack of memory. Mystery solved.

she's back!

2008-02-03T04:51:01Z

After a month-long absence, fanlain is finally home! I drove over to Bloomington airport to pick her up from her much-delayed flight. (In retrospect, it would in fact have been faster for her to take the shuttle from Chicago, but I didn't think that through when buying her tickets.) Then it was home for a reunion with Soba, who was excited to see her, and who still remembers her name, though "go to fanlain" doesn't work as well as it used to.

We celebrated by going out to Yellowfin Restaurant — a new Japanese place in town. One of their distinction is the presentation of their fancy rolls, so I decided to order the Champaign roll, which was baked spicy snapper around crab and cucumber. The roll was disappointing because it turns out they bake the whole thing, so you get something that tastes very little like sushi (rather than, say unagi, which is baked separately before being added to the roll). Plus the supposedly spicy sauce was more sweet than spicy. But everything else we had was quite good, so I think I might try going again sometime (when our budget allows) and try something more conventional.

snowstorm!

2007-12-16T05:00:39Z

It started snowing this morning and has been steadily increasing throughout the day. Driving back home after my final this afternoon was slow going, and driving home after a dinner party tonight was a veritable challenge. I literally could not see more than about 20 feet in front of me. Good thing it was only about 3 miles.

The dinner party was held by my colleague who works in the office next door. He's Indian, so we had a number of yummy dishes, including a very nice coriander lentil sauce. Now our stomachs are happy and we can enjoy a quiet evening at home for the rest of the night — perfect for a snowstorm.

I was planning to go grade exams tomorrow morning, but given the snow, I think I'm going to stay home. We're still planning to go to Chicago tomorrow afternoon to celebrate our 8th anniversary of dating at Japonais and then pick up my mother from O'Hare. But by that time the snow should have been cleared. I'm really glad she's not flying in tonight!