Tag: Health

Mourning the Wine

Posted on by Neal Asher
Well that’s strange. We’re on day 11 now of quitting smoking. I have noticed how much better some things smell and many things taste. I can keep on eating popadoms now whereas before they were just a fairly tasteless accompaniment to curry. Walking past a fast-food van can be murder. Shop-bought radishes and carrots do actually taste slightly of radish and carrot etc. But apparently things aren’t the same with wine.
One effect of stopping has been an inability to sleep well so, last night, I thought I might as well try drinking some wine to see if that would help. I deliberately left it late before cracking the bottle because I didn’t want to give the alcohol time to work on my will power. I opened a bottle of Hardy’s cabernet shiraz merlot that was a gift from Caroline’s mother and just the sort of thing we liked. The first sip was nice, the second was … um … and thereafter the wine was just far too strong flavoured and heavy. I even put half my second glass back in the bottle. While Caroline persevered with the Hardy’s I opened a bottle of less heavy Dreamtime Ridge. This initially tasted better, but then just went away from me. I sat there sipping it thinking I would rather have a cup of tea.

Maybe I’ll try some of those wines again, but not any time soon.

Day 10 … I Think?

Posted on by Neal Asher
Somehow I find myself in day 10 of not smoking. (or drinking) and on the other side of yet another afternoon nap. My sleep patterns are all over the place and during the night the most I seem to manage lately is about 6 hours of interrupted sleep. Is it the exercise I’ve been doing to keep busy doing this? No, because it usually knocks me out at night – especially the weight-training. Is it the not drinking? No, because when I lay off the booze regular sleep patterns establish within a couple of days. Then it must be the not-smoking, even though I’ve been using NRT and don’t seem to be suffering anything in the way of withdrawal. Also, scattered through these periods of being utterly knackered are periods when I feel so bursting with energy I can’t keep still, would like to run around the nearby field, in fact feel as more energetic than I have felt in many years. This last is what I have to keep in mind. Once all the upsets are out of the way I’m going to be healthier, fitter! Caroline, meanwhile, is also being whacked on the head by Morpheus and his now getting her own particular reaction to giving up smoking, which is ulcers in the mouth. Of course the anti-smoking crowd never use words like antiseptic or antibiotic in connection with smoking…
I’m sorry to have to report that the writing isn’t going great at all, in fact, it would be more accurate to say it isn’t going at all. Yes I’m writing blog posts but they hardly require the same degree of concentration, and yes I managed to do that synopsis of Penny Royal I: Isobel for Bella Pagan, but actually getting deep into the trilogy to make the alterations and corrections needed is a no-no now. This inability to concentrate is certainly due to the abnegation above, but is also due to the reason we are back in England right now, when we’d usually be on Crete. In fact that might be another reason for my insomnia.

Day 8

Posted on by Neal Asher
Interesting, a few people have been asking me what works best for quitting, while one has even bought an e-cig and is ‘quitting with Asher’. Now I’m hardly an expert on this. I have given up many times in the past, sometimes for as long as a year, but who wants advice from someone who has failed so often? And, really, there’s no guarantee that I’ll be a non-smoker even this afternoon. However, let me waffle on about what I know.
You do have to make lots of attempts at giving up to learn the pitfalls general for all smokers and the pitfalls specific to you. (Surprisingly there are still smokers out there who think they can give up at any time.) I, for example, know that one of my main danger zones is not now, but a few months down the line if I start feeling depressed. Another danger, conversely, is feeling healthy, well and happy because at that point the bad stuff related to smoking is hazy in my mind and the pining for that faithless friend seems stronger.
So what about NRT? Well, it works. I have in fact been using it for a long time. The smokers’ cough was a relatively recent thing for me but one constant I had was a nag in my chest that turned to a pain when I smoked more than my usual 10 or 15 roll-ups (and usually drink was involved). I always worried that this was a developing heart problem, except it was a nag that went away with exercise. It also went away if I just laid off the cigs for a bit. To do this I chewed a 4mg piece of nicotine gum in the morning which delayed my first cigarette sometimes until midday. And with that piece of gum it was always important to chew it before I wanted a cigarette. If I left it to that moment when I was about to roll a cigarette it was always too late.
But really this gum wasn’t helping me give up, but helping me continue smoking. It’s rather like the Aerolin inhalers I’ve been using. I was appalled, a few days ago when clearing out the drawer of my bedside cabinet, to discover eight of the damned things. The situation is getting ridiculous when you feel a bit wheezy and puff on an inhaler so you can smoke a cigarette.
Now to the NRT I’m presently using. I start off in the morning with a piece of that nicotine gum. Thereafter I stick an inhalator in my mouth for that surrogate cigarette feel, pulling on it to keep the cravings at bay. If I get a bad craving I find a Niquitin mini (4mg) kills it stone dead or, alternatively, just a few drags on my Vapestick. This last comes into its own in the evening when I want a cigarette which, as many smokers know, is not necessarily the same feeling as craving nicotine. I intend to stay with this stuff for a good long time, but eventually I want to wind down on it and dispense with all the paraphernalia.
Positive effects:
The nag in my chest ceased on the day I stopped smoking, the cough disappeared two days later. My sense of smell is returning and I’m picking up on things that even give me a stab of nostalgia. Only the other day I caught a whiff of a tree fungus and that reminded me of childhood expeditions to collect various fungi. My sense of taste has improved too – some foods are now ridiculously delicious. Exercise is now really easy and becoming a pleasure. Every now and again I feel surges of energy, almost like a V12 engine whose six knackered spark plugs have been replaced.
Negative effects:

Cravings of course. An inability to concentrate sometimes, but then how do I distinguish that from similar occasions in the past? Occasional grumpiness (of course I was the soul and spirit of joy when I smoked). I’m eating more and already putting on weight. And … and … well that’s about it really.

Day 6

Posted on by Neal Asher
Day 6 is going to be a long one. I woke at midnight to the sound of thunder and pouring rain, dozed on and off until about 3.00, got up and had a cup of tea while filling in my journal, went back to bed to try and sleep some more and finally gave up and got up at 5.00. My total hours of sleep were probably not much more than two or three. Nicotine withdrawal? Well, I reckon that yesterday I had about 10 to 15mg of the stuff by NRT which, calculating on about 1mg per cigarette, is about the same as when I was smoking, so buggered if I know. Insufficiently tired? I cycled 8 miles yesterday and spent most of the day working on a synopsis so you wouldn’t think so. Touch of depression probably, which is a problem I’ve had before when trying to give up the weed.
Anyway, heeding the suggestions of others I’ve ordered some melatonin – a substance that apparently aids sleep – and I’ll let you know how I get on with that.
So, it is now 6.15AM and I’m at my computer, obviously, so I’ll read some science articles and get on with some work.
…

Oh right, I forgot to post the above. It is now 9.15 and numerous science articles later it really is time for me to get on with that synopsis. But, of course, now I feel like I want to go back to bed!

Day Four

Posted on by Neal Asher
Day 4 at 4.15PM and I’m sitting here typing (while drinking an espresso) just to try and keep myself awake. Whether it’s jet-lag, the effects of stopping smoking (and drinking) or the aftermath of a stressful few weeks I don’t know, but the urge to flake out on the sofa is very strong. Yesterday I wearily closed my eyes at 1.00PM and next thing I knew 3 hours had just disappeared. Or perhaps it’s because I’m being more active physically? I got in a second weight-training session today, followed this afternoon by a walk down at the prom in Maldon (Old picture here from the winter. Hot and crowded today).
So, other effects: after just three days my morning smokers’ cough has gone. My senses of smell and taste are improving. The result of the former is that during that walk along the prom the smell of frying burgers and onions was the most exquisite torture, while I can now smell a cigarette at a hundred paces and zero in on it as if possessed of the targeting vision of a Terminator. The improvement in my sense of taste – and my appetite – has resulted in an almost manic urge to stuff food in my face (hence my reaction to those burgers). Thus far I’ve been pretty good in suppressing that with various fruits or by nibbling my way through a carrot or two. Hopefully it will pass along with the other side-effects of kicking this habit.
Sorry to bore you all with this but by talking about it on the Internet I am deliberately putting extra pressure on myself to stay the course.

Obsessively Busy

Posted on by Neal Asher
Having tried to give up smoking before I’m aware of the pitfalls so will be avoiding any form of alcohol for a few months. On the ‘doing stuff’ front I haven’t stopped. Yesterday began with a shopping trip to Tesco and then Maldon, Caroline’s visit to the doctor and then to St Peter’s to give blood for testing, then back home. Here I potted up some plants we’d bought which also led into me cleaning out our composter and spreading it round the garden. I next went out to the garage to check on my bike. After a little bit of thought I decided to reinstate Caroline’s bike with the pieces I’d taken from it for mine, and throw mine away. This I duly did, taking my bike, in pieces, and dropping it off at the local junkyard. While in the garage I’d noticed how messy it was so returned with a dustpan and brush. I then pulled out my weights and in between weight-training sets swept up all the crap.
Incidentally, while in Tesco’s we bought a couple of Vapesticks which seem pretty good and on the basis of which I ordered the kits.

Today’s jobs: when I moved the composter I noticed how ratty the wall of the garden shed looked, so I’ll be staining that before the composter goes back. I’ll then have a tidy of the garden cutting out dead and excess growth and dumping it in the composter. At some point I need to take apart my shaver to see if I can fix it – when I turned the thing on yesterday I couldn’t turn it off again and it sent an hour or more sitting in the sink buzzing. I need to clean out and sort my toolkit, like I did my bedside cabinet drawer yesterday (some oil capsules had burst in the bottom leaving a horrible sticky mess). Glancing around I see other things that need tidying up and sorting out. I may even go out and have another weight-training session, though I need to be careful not to overdo that. Then there’s a synopsis for Isobel(Penny Royal 1) that Bella Pagan would like by the 24th…  

Day Two Begins

Posted on by Neal Asher
Day one completed. I got through it with nicotine gum and an inhalator I’d used before and still bears the teeth marks of that occasion. Certainly a few cravings hit me but with my mind set and a couple of pulls on the inhalator I was fine. Also, that Caroline is giving up and has her mind set too is a huge plus point. The electronic cigarette wasn’t much good (sorry, Rich and Shona). I thought it simply wasn’t charging up but soon discovered I wasn’t drawing on the thing hard enough for it to activate. Actually getting some ‘smoke’ out of it is akin to trying to suck a marble up a straw. Maybe I’ll look into acquiring one of these nicotine ‘pens’.
Day two begins with a piece of liquorice-flavoured 4mg nicotine gum and a new cartridge in the inhalator. Judging my yesterday’s food consumption (fried breakfast, Chinese meal, and lots of fruit) I know I need to repair my bike and get it on the road as soon as possible. I think I’ll also clean out the garage and brush the rust off my weights too. And, generally, I have to do stuff. The thing about smoking is that it sucks up time. Yesterday, while thoroughly cleaning the car, I found myself pausing for a ‘break’, then realising that this meant going inside, sitting on my arse and smoking a cigarette. Caroline, working in the back garden, found the same thing. Instead we both just carried on doing stuff and, as a result, where thoroughly knackered at the end of the day.

 

Someone asked me on Twitter to please not turn into a ‘born again non-smoker’. No fear of that. I know how for some people it seems almost necessary to be that way – part of the required mind-set to give up. To give up an addiction they love they have to get angry with it. This in fact is where a lot of the anti-smoking bullshit comes from, not from those who have never smoked. I won’t be a ‘born-again non-smoker’ because I am giving up something I have enjoyed, on and off, for 35+ years, and I am not a hypocrite.  

A Bit Crabby

Posted on by Neal Asher
The thing about Crete is that an Englishman as young as me having a house there is a rarity. There are very few ways an expat can earn a decent living there. Yeah, there are a few that pursue the dream of owning and running a bar but they’re turned over by the Greeks like landlords here in England. And yes there are occasional successes like a couple I know running some accommodation on the coast. But mostly those that can afford a place have retired, sold a house in England and made the move to live on a pension. Most of them are, therefore, knocking on or well past the door marked ‘60’. The other thing about Crete is that unless you are the kind of person that does stuff, ennui sets in, and that hole is filled with things like drink and cigarettes. Combine these two factors and you’ll understand why people all around you have heart conditions, emphysema, stagger along and gaze in terror at steep slopes while wheezing and coughing. It is, at about this point, that they start thinking about maybe giving up smoking and easing off on the booze.
Over the last couple of years I’ve developed a smoker’s cough and have been using Aerolin inhalers too much. However, I can still swim for half a mile or so every day, still cycle for miles and feel I haven’t quite reached the point of no return. I am, therefore, going to attempt to give up smoking.
Prepare yourselves for some right crabby posts here. And I’ll start with noting that if there hadn’t been so many statist prick ‘health professionals’ telling me how I should live, or the campaign of disinformation on passive smoking, or the constant denormalization of smokers by those attempting a bit of social engineering, I might well have made more attempts to give up over the last few years.

Hair Cell Regeneration

Posted on by Neal Asher
Well, after years of working with noisy machinery – up until 2001 I had operated milling machines and lathes for many years then, when I went self-employed, I used mowers, chainsaws, hedge cutters and strimmers – I’m often finding myself mentally replaying stuff that people have said because I didn’t hear it properly. At some point, probably in the next ten years, I’m going to need a hearing aid, but damn I would much prefer the damage repaired at its root:

In the Jan. 10 issue of Neuron, Massachusetts Eye and Ear and Harvard Medical School researchers demonstrate for the first time that hair cells can be regenerated in an adult mammalian ear by using a drug to stimulate resident cells to become new hair cells, resulting in partial recovery of hearing in mouse ears damaged by noise trauma. This finding holds great potential for future therapeutic application that may someday reverse deafness in humans.


This is the kind of article that undermines my usual pessimism.

Cyborg Asher

Posted on by Neal Asher

About three years ago I realized that my eyes were no longer perfect and that when the light was bad I needed reading glasses. I started off at about +1.00 but have since progressed (or rather regressed) to +2.50. Then, at the start of this year (or maybe the end of last) I noticed that when looking at the DVD player I could see it clearly through one eye but it was a blur through the other. In February I duly went to an optician for the first time and ended up with prescription glasses for reading and was told I was border-line for driving. This was no fun at all.
Now, Caroline was very short-sighted, so much so in fact that she couldn’t read signs in the high street without glasses. She had laser eye surgery to correct this and now just needs reading glasses. I was therefore attracted to the idea of  having similar surgery myself at least to equalize my eyes so I only need the kind of reading glasses you can pick up for a few quid just about anywhere, so I booked a free consultation at Ultralase to find out what could be done.
It turns out I now have a nicely miss-matched pair of eyes. Sitting at this computer screen I can see the text fairly clearly with my left eye, but through my right eye it is blurred. Conversely, if I sit watching the TV I can read the numerals on the DVD player with my right eye but it’s a blur through my left. Now I have choices. If I have my left eye sorted by laser my distance vision will be fine but I’ll need reading glasses. If I have my right eye done I’ll need glasses for distance (driving and the like) but not for reading. But there’s another choice.
I’d heard that there are now treatments for presbyopia (needing reading glasses as you get older) but couldn’t figure how shaping the cornea for that worked at the other range of your vision. I was then told that perhaps the best for me would be IOLs – intra-ocular lenses. These are usually used in cataract operations but in the past basically had one setting so you could have your distance vision but would need reading glasses. Now, however, they have multi-focus IOLs. I was very wary, but according to the blurbs I’ve read, 80% of people that have these require no glasses at all. It also turns out that the operation is 25 minutes per eye, no stitches and an added advantage is that I’ll never get cataracts.
I’ve made an appointment to see the surgeon to get some more gen and I’ve been reading about this operation on the internet. I may well decide to go for it. Firstly because of the high probability of getting my vision back and secondly, well, a science fiction writer who is also a cyborg?