Thirteen weeks ago I had a phone consultation with my GP, who told me that my blood sugar (7.2 mmol/l) and HbA1c (6.5%) indicated that I was diabetic, and that I ought to shed a lot of weight. (His initial demand was pretty alarming, but was a result of (a) an arithmetic error, and (b) an old-fashioned idea (lacking support from evidence) that a man approaching sixty ought to have a BMI no higher than 25 kg/㎡.)
Anyway. Christmas basically stalled my progress for four weeks (I can show you on a graph), but as of this week my mass is down by 8.4 kg, my fasting glucose is 5.0 mmol/l, and my Hb1c is 5.2%. Rough estimates of body fat based on carefully consistent use of a cheap home bioelectric impedance kit suggest that I have maintained lean mass (at about 73–74 kg) throughout. If I keep saying “I can’t eat that — I’m diabetic” for another 21 weeks I ought to be a healthy weight (20% body fat, BMI 28.4) by the time I see my doctor next, which will be in 26 weeks.
On the other hand my ferritin is 345 mmol/l (whereas my haematologist likes it to be under 80 mmol/l) despite an uninterrupted series of four-weekly venesections. So perhaps I’ve mobilised a store of iron from somewhere. I am on antibiotics for a dental abscess. And I can feel a bout of bipolar depression coming on.
23 months ago I estimated that two thirds of the world’s population would catch a dose within two years and that about 24 million people would die as a result.
I have class in 20 minutes. I might not be able to teach it because my university is currently under a shelter in place order from a bomb threat. I teach at an HBCU (Historically Black College or University) and HBCUs across the US have been getting these on almost a daily basis for weeks now.
The time for my first class of the day has come and gone. My second class should be in an hour and we are still under the shelter in place order. FBI, local police, and their bomb dogs are searching the campus and the order won’t be lifted until they are done.
I’m just sitting in my office doing nothing. There are dozens of things I could be doing - class prep and adjusting for the now missed day, grading, emails, etc. - but my brain absolutely does not want to focus on anything. There is a war in Europe and I’ve no idea how big it’s going to get, there’s a possibility of a bomb going off here any moment (I don’t believe there’s actually a bomb but that tiny what if fear won’t go away), etc., etc., etc. Makes it very hard to focus on anything at all.
EDIT: All clear. A little over three hours after the initial shelter in place order went out. I’m going home.
There’s only a limited number of options I can do living in Western Europe with what’s happening elsewhere. But it’s better to do them than to do nothing at all.
I spent Friday reading translations of Ukrainian poetry in my English classes, to try and humanize the conflict for my even-more-than-usually self-absorbed teenage students. We’re in the middle of a research and veracity unit, which is also helpful to frame the conversation. I’ll continue the process this week.
I reached out to Sandrem (the one-man-machine that built and maintains the Fly Casual X Wing Miniatures Simulator) after he posted a message reminding players that he is Ukrainian, and asked what would do the most good to help this week. Here’s the top of his response:
So my partner’s friend died from cancer three days ago, and my friend died from cancer this morning. Neither of us got to spend as much time with them as we’d have liked with the pandemic and everything. I’m mad that I actually had a chance to see him yesterday, but it would have been such a brief visit that I arranged for a longer one tomorrow instead. He was hoping to be home from hospital again by the weekend. We played lots of games together over the years. I’m going to really miss him.
It really sucks how the pandemic is affecting diseases like cancer by reducing healthcare resources for early detection, which is key. Mental Health and early detection are not getting enough attention, and they are getting hit the worse.
I know this is kind of monotonous, but we have another natural disaster here, and I’m really not feeling happy about it. Again, my actual hometown is just outside the edge of the disaster area, and my house is well above flood level. But this sort of thing isn’t encouraging.
Spending the week at my wife’s family’s farm. It’s lovely, the whole family’s there (basically, this is our Christmas) and today I went snowshoeing with my brother-in-law and most of my nieces and nephews. Look (limited selection because no Wi-Fi, only head-shot is me):
