Sunday, August 12, 2012

An old woman in a hospital

It took me a while to find out what it was about and why she was there, but I couldn't really believe it.

She was an old woman lying in one of a few beds in an intensive care unit of a small hospital.

She seemed to be sleeping most of the time. Maybe once an hour a nurse came and put the flexible tube  through her mouth to the upper part of her lungs to take out the mucus. A procedure which hurt quite a lot, and so the old woman often groaned.

Every few hours the nurses turned her around in the bed or tried to talk to her, but she usually didn't say anything. She just laid in the bed and didn't do anything. Just sleeping. Maybe she was dreaming, maybe she had a lot of memories which made her feel good. I don't know.

I finally found out by listening to what the nurses said that she came voluntarily to the hospital twice a year, because here it was better for her than at home. Here she didn't have to do anything, and the nurses took care of everything.

Nevertheless I wondered a lot why any person would ever enter such a room like this one voluntarily. My only goal was to leave this place, and I counted every second.

When the nurses came to me with the tube to clean my lungs, I wanted to run away but I couldn't move my body at all, so I just watched some of the patients dying in this special room, some of them leaving to a different hospital, and one of them - the old woman - enjoying it. I never understood it. I just don't want to be like that when I'm old.

Thursday, March 22, 2012

Collage of several of Gray's muscle pictures, ...
Collage of several of Gray's muscle pictures, by Mikael Häggström (User:Mikael Häggström) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Training

This week I started with my training again.


  • Cardio training, several times a week, if possible (depends on my energy level, time, and the hurtings in my right shoulder).
  • Power... muscle training with light barbells. I was never strong, but after 4 months lying in a hospital bed, I lost ALL of the muscles, I did not need to survive. Actually I couldn't even hold a cup of water, when I was in the hospital, over a year ago. Now I am training with barbells of 1 to 4 kg. It is ridiculous, but I cannot change it except by more training.
  • Training for my hips, for my back bone. That's interesting, but very difficult, because I cannot use most of my muscles there.
  • Finger training. The fingers of my left hand work only partially, unfortunately.
  • Neuro training. Ha, that's funny. I have to move a special ball with my left hand in circles. The ball has some inner parts which work against that movement, so it is difficult. And at the same time I have to move my right hand independently of the left hand. Well, I am actually quite good in this. My physio therapist said he has never seen such a "talented" guy before. Nice somehow...
  • Wheel chair training. I have to learn how to drive only on the back wheels. That is required for driving over a single stair or into the underground train.
  • And so on. Too much to do for a guy with not enough energy. But it will become better...

Tuesday, March 20, 2012

Duloxetine (Cymbalta(R)) Capsule, 20mg. 日本語: デ...
Duloxetine (Cymbalta(R)) Capsule, 20mg. 日本語: デュロキセチン(サインバルタ(R))カプセル 20mg (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Lyrica 225mg
Lyrica 225mg (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Medicaments are important for someone in my physical state. I try to take as few as possible, but still the list is long.

A good idea of mine was to go to a special doctor, a nutritionist. He gave me several things - from vitamine D (from which I don't have enough due to my nerve disease) to something which is supposed to away the poison from my liver (hm, don't know if that works).

The second group is the hard-core medical stuff to prevent my disease to come back: Imurek, and cortizone. The first one suppresses my auto immune system, the second one helps to prevent infections, but destroys my skin. Fortunately I reduced it to 2.5 mg a day, and maybe I will stop taking it in a few months.

The third group are medicaments agains my nerve hurtings. The partially hurt nerves in my arms and shoulder are hurt very, very much, and I take three medicaments against it: Lyrica, which is said to be a very good tool for that kind of pain, Cymbalta, which is actually an anti-depressivum, and then liquid Canabis. I have heard that there is a new law in USA which does not allow people to even talk about taking Canabis. Quite ridiculously. All three together help a little bit. Not enough, so that's still a problem.

Then there are a few other hard-core medicaments which help me a little bit, e. g. one for protecting my stomach.


Wednesday, February 1, 2012

Work

I started to work in November 2011 - about 13 months after my bad disease.

It took more energy than I expected.

I am only on three days at the office. I started with 4 hours work per each of those 3 days, and the rest at home. Currently I spend 7 hours on every day at the office, so it is a half-tim job.

I enjoy it.

I like to meet people there, most of them are quite nice to me.

The bad part is that I lost all of my functions. And I was so long out of that business that I have to learn the business and the rules and everything else of the company I am working for.
I am some kind of geeenhorn.
Which is strange, because actually I have most experience in software development of all people there. But currently I am working on the least important piece of software there.

But I enjoy it.

I see everything from a new point of view. I see the managers and what they are doing wrong and sometimes right.
I see the developers and their frustration and sometimes motivation.
I see the customers or product owners and their hope.

If all of them really know what is important in life and business?

I love software development, I learnt a lot about it, and I spend most of my lifetime (business and leisure time) for it.

I have to find a way to show my enthusiasm at the office.
The problem is that currently those developers rule who have not enough experience and who are doing things wrong. Quite wrong.

But I enjoy it.

These are amazing times for software developers like me.


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