My blog

Announcement

My Current Future Plans:

10/07 - 10/14: Hong Kong
10/14 - 10/17: Shanghai
10/18 - 11/01: Hong Kong
11/02 - 11/03: Beijing
11/04 - 11/11: Xi'an
11/11 - 11/12: Hong Kong
11/12 - 11/14: San Francisco
11/14 - 11/17: Seattle
11/18 - 01/15: Idaho
01/15 - 01/25: Southern California
01/25 - 01/31: Hong Kong

10/6 Update

Monday, Oct 6, 2008 1:14PM / Standard Entry / Hong Kong / Members only

Just thought I would post up an update.

First on the health front; I've taken a two pronged approach to getting my body back in peak condition.

First, I'm working with a Naturopathic doctor to clean out my system and get everything working optimally. I've started a 3 week detox cleanse. I started it on Saturday and so far so good. It isn't that much different than what I had been eating already with my new cleaner diet, so I don't have to stress too much about that. Just keep doing what I was doing with a few modifications.

She also helped me by prescribing some medicine for my RLS (which, thankfully, isn't as bad as before). It turns out I had a mineral deficiency in my system which was contributing to it.

She also prescribed a few other things during my detox like an herbal tincture that makes the 24 Herbal Drink taste like a chocolate shake. But thats okay. I have almost zero gag reflex so I can keep it down no problem.

After two days I can definitely feel the difference. My system is running much better already.

On Friday evening I thought i would try out some fast food, since it had been almost 2 months since the last time I ate any. Well, not the best idea since my body basically treated the McDonald's food like poison in my system and I was up a fair part of the night with abdominial cramping. I guess no more fast food for Mark. But thats good, and having that sort of physical reaction to bad food is a good motivation not to go back to those sorts of eating habits. I not only have a reduced desire for those sorts of foods, but I just can't eat them anymore, unless I want to be clutching my stomach all night long.

The other benefit is that I keep losing weight. I lost another few pounds this past week. I weighed myself this morning and compared to a year ago I've lost 40 pounds. Compared to June I've lost 20. I imagine that when my legs heal up and I can start exercising that things will improve even more. All this weight loss so far is strictly from changing my diet.

The second prong of my health approach is to work with the western doctor to finally get this infection out of my system. The first round of antibiotics and anti-inflammatories helped, but it really only pushed about 50% of it out of my system. I still have it and I had a pretty bad flare up on Sunday in my left foot. Still hurts, which is why I'm working from home today.

Anyway, I saw the doctor again to get one more course of medicine and hopefully this will be the one that gets it all the way out. I'm not a huge fan of medicine, to be honest. I don't like sticking drugs in my system. But in cases like this I realize that it is a necessity so I am willing to use the tools that are avilable to get the job done.

Second, to answer a few questions that were asked about my return to the U.S. ...

Flagday: Yes, I have been in Idaho during the winter. BRRRRRRRRRRR. After 2 years in Hong Kong, I'm going to freeze my tookus off.

Gogi: Yes, really. No joke.

Wu Di: Why? For personal reasons. You can ask me more details when you see me. Yes, I'm planning on coming to Beijing/Xi'an in November before I head back to the U.S. We can spend some quality time together so you won't miss me so much. ;-)

JRS: Yup .. I'm sure we'll finally get to meet.

bao3: no travel lust. Just have to head back for personal reasons.

hiroyukiwu: what stuff?

theonly: yeah .. probably can't make it to Bali afterall. sorry!

lianne: i've lived in san gabriel valley before. it is nice, but i have to move to idaho for a while first. health care in hong kong is pretty good and affordable. even if you don't have insurance you can go see a doctor (with no appointment, even) and get medication for under $50 USD. For things like surgery I would prefer the US, but for general medical care HK is fine.

Anyway, back to work. End of status update for today .... I'll keep you all apprised as things progress.

- Mark

16 comments – Add a comment
Goodbye Hong Kong, Hello USA...

Wednesday, Oct 1, 2008 9:00PM / Standard Entry / Thoughts / Members only

A lot of folks already know, but I thought I would post it up here so that it is "blog official".

I'll be leaving Hong Kong and alivenotdead.com (the company, not the community) for personal reasons and heading back to the United States in November. My last day of work here is October 31 and I will leave for the U.S. around November 12 or 13. It's been a fun run here at alivenotdead and in Asia, but it is time to head back to the old homestead.

A few people have asked where I will be staying or what I will be doing.

At first I'll be in Seattle for a few days for my sister's birthday, but then I will head over to Idaho to stay with my mom and step-dad for a couple months. I have a wedding to attend in Southern California in January and after that, depending on a few variables, I will most likely head up to Seattle for a month or so. Plans past 5 or 6 months from now are a little up in the air, but I will blog if anything major happens in the future.

I will be working on a few freelance projects while I am over there. In fact, I will probably be pretty busy with work as I transition out of things with jetli.com and alivenotdead.com and start up my new endeavors. But being busy is better than being bored (although it doesn't allow for as much video game playing or DVD watching).

Of course, I will continue to be a part of the alivenotdead.com community. In fact, I can probably start blogging more and putting up more interesting content than my latest injuries or ailments once I stop working here.

Tthanks to everyone I've met here in Hong Kong and all the new friends I've made both on and off line. I have really enjoyed the experiences, both good and bad, and look forward to keeping up with what you are all doing as I read my blog feeds from the foot of the Rocky Mountains.

Take care! And thanks!

- Mark

33 comments – Add a comment
10/1: Health Update

Wednesday, Oct 1, 2008 1:04PM / Standard Entry / Hong Kong / Members only

I just got back from the doctor's where we went through my blood test. But first, let me catch you up...

Last time I had gone there, gotten some medicine and had my blood taken. The medicine helped and my condition has gradually started clearing up. My right leg and foot, which was not active at the time, cleared up the fastest and is now almost completely healed. My left knee, which was the worst, has slowly become less swollen and each day I've been able to walk with a bit less limping. My left ankle was also hurting pretty bad, and while it still hurts, it is better.

Before, during the day, my condition would get worse by the evening, but thanks to the miracles of modern medication, my condition improved during the day and I was better at night than I was in the morning. By Tuesday night I was able to fake a non-limping walk, albeit with a bit of discomfort. I started walking more to get my muscles used to the motion they had been denied for almost 2 months. It felt good to be relatively mobile, even though stairs are still a bit of a pain.

So, today being a holiday in Hong Kong, I am working from home. I went to the doctor's office around noon and got the results of my blood test. The good news is that everything is in the right ranges. Hemoglobin, etc. are all at the levels they are supposed to be at. The only elevation was in uric acid levels, which is to be expected since I suffer from gout, but that is controllable through diet and exercise. The other was my platelets, which was also expected due to the inflammation and infection I had going on in my system at the time the blood was taken. Even so, it wasn't super high, just elevated above the average.

So, thats good. I'm on the mend, I can almost walk normally, and my blood is clean. Thanks for everyone that has been giving me words of encouragement and advice along the way. I really appreciate the support.

Now its back to the grindstone. ...

9 comments – Add a comment
9/27 Status Update

Saturday, Sep 27, 2008 6:17PM / Standard Entry / Hong Kong / Members only

Things are starting to look up.

I discovered that there is a doctor's office in the shopping center next to my house so I made an appointment there this morning. He's a UK educated Hong Kong doctor. Anyway, my feet have been better, and with all the healthy food I've been eating I actually feel quite good. But my left knee was swollen up like a softball and it was super painful last night and this morning. Walking was super laborious.

As I was going to the doctor's this old lady barely moving along with her walking cane actually passed me up. I felt really lame.

Anyway, he took some blood and will run some tests on it. I'll find out the results on Tuesday. He also prescribed some medication. Anti-bacterial medicine for the infection. Anti-inflammatories for the inflammation. And some light pain medication too. I came back home, ate some lunch and had my medicine followed by a nap. When I woke up a few hours later I felt better and while the swelling hadn't gone down much, I could walk with less pain and was feeling a bit "clearer" (if that makes sense).

So, I'm hoping that this medication will do its thing and that by Monday I will mobile again and able to get back to work and walk for the first time in a month with no pain. As I mentioned to Pat earlier, you really don't realize how much you take the simplest physical tasks for granted until you can't do them for an extended period of time. I hope I don't take walking for granted once I'm healed up.

Also, i thought I should respond to a few of the suggestions I received since a few of them actually made me smile. Not because they were intentionally funny, but because, if you knew my situation fully, they wouldn't have been made.

First, I was asked why not use crutches or a wheelchair. Well, a wheelchair in Hong Kong is like using a wheelchair on a hike in the mountains. This is not a wheelchair friendly city. Friendlier than others, to be sure, but this was definitely a suggestion made by someone who lives in a place like the UK or U.S. where they have lots of accomodations for wheelchair users. I can't even leave my building with a wheelchair. There is no way to get from my lobby floor level to the street level except by stairs or escalators ... and then the buses that go to the MTR station don't have wheelchair lifts. And the MTR is only mildly wheelchair friendly. And then there is the problem that my office building's entrance is a narrow stairway up to the ground floor and there is no room in the narrow hallway to navigation any sort of wheelchair, not to mention that our office has no room for a wheelchair to roll around. Crutches might work, but in order to get them I would have to go to the city anyway. And I don't like using crutches anyway. I've used them before when I had knee surgery.

Oh, and then could you imagine trying to navigation a wheelchair on the sidewalks in Sheung Wan where a thousand different people are intentionally ignoring each other as they walk super fast on super narrow and poorly paved walk-ways? I wouldn't make it 10 yards before running in to some random person who wasn't watching where they were going.

It is even worse in other cities. Seoul for example, is riddled with stairways all over the place. Most subway stops don't even have escalators. Asia doesn't like people with disabilities, it would seem ...

Another suggestion was to take a taxi to work. Well, first of all the price of doing that is prohibitive. As I've mentioned, I live in Tung Chung. To get to work from my home costs about $350 - $400 HKD each way, or almost $100 USD / day round trip. I'm not made of money. I have no intention of spending $100 a day on a ride to work. Besides, there is no point and the same issue applies. The hard part isn't going to and from work so much as it is being vertical and in a sitting position. It makes the inflammation worse in my legs. It doesn't matter if I'm sitting on the bus, a train or a taxi. Besides, I already get rides to work. What? Do you people think I walk to the office or something? I live in TUNG CHUNG. The suggestion was made by someone who lived in Hong Kong so I know they understand what sort of distance that is. From my apartment to the MTR I take a shuttle bus. Then I take the train to the IFC. Then, since my feet hurt, I would take a taxi to the front of my office building ($16 HKD, NOT $400 HKD). So that is pretty much a ride the whole way to work already. With my legs hurting so much why would anyone think I would try to walk there?

Someone else suggested I go to Shenzhen and get a foot massage. Okay ... seriously? I can barely walk to the elevator outside my apartment. And you expect me to use my walking stick to hobble all the way across the chinese border to get a massage on a foot that, even when the wind blows on it, is in excrutiating pain? That is like suggesting a blind person walk across the freeway so that someone with a stick can poke their eyes out. Obviously someone didn't read any of my previous blogs. It isGOUT. GOUT is PAINFUL. I COULD NOT WALK.

I'm not directing this towards the people who gave me suggestions, because I do appreciate people offering their words of encouragement and advice. I have just noticed that, in general, people don't seem to really pay attention to the details anymore. We've become a society of skimmers, trying to glean details by speed feeding ourselves content.

My general rule is, if I am going to make a comment on something, at least know what I am commenting about. I'm not trying to make fun of anyone or point fingers. But it baffles me how little people pay attention these days. It is like the world has ADD, y'know? I seriously don't get it. What happened to focus?

Sorry ... where was I?

Oh right .. focus. So be sure your lens is clean and you'll always take great photos.

Oh wait ... not that kind of focus.

I was watching an episode of the Colbert Report where the guest on the show was talking about how, due to our constant exposure to the internet, we, as a society, have become less inclined to really focus on specific things or really contemplate and be introspective. Our attention and thinking process is similar to how we interact and look at things online -- very quick, sporatic, and not very complete. I think there is some truth to that because I can see it in myself as well. When I was a kid I could spend a whole day on just one task, really enjoying it or learning about something interesting for an extended period of time. I could spend an hour just watching the way the ants on the sidewalk interract with each other.

But that sort of behavior just doesn't happen as much anymore. As our information and media get faster and more condensed, I think we tend to be less contemplative and more quick-fix-ish as a whole.

Anyway, enough of that. Just some things I've been thinking about.

I blame TV and the internet.

Speaking of which ... time to go watch that episode of Heroes I downloaded ...

13 comments – Add a comment
9/26 status update

Friday, Sep 26, 2008 11:32AM / Standard Entry / Hong Kong / Members only

Another chapter in "As the Pain Burns ... "

So, I am 100% sure that the cause of what is happening has nothing to do with my diet. I'm eating waaaaay too healthy for food to be the cause of my ailments. I've lost another 4 or 5 pounds in the last month just from the foods I've been eating (because it sure has nothing to do with exercise since I'm fairly immobile). So, lets rule out food as a causal factor, shall we? If anything it is helping me recover from the random bouts much faster than I would otherwise be capable.

Just last night I had a rather bad flare up of gout in my right foot. Normally it would hurt for a good 6 or 7 hours all night long and I'd be writhing in pain the whole time. But this time it only lasted about 2 or 3 hours and I was able to get a good 5 hours of sleep before waking up this morning.

Yesterday was probably a cause of this flare up. I went to work even though both my feet were hurting and my left knee was starting to swell up a bit. It was slow going. You really develop some major patience (and an annoyance with how quickly and out of control people in Hong Kong seem to walk around) when you have to walk really slow.

My feet were hurting at work. My knee swelling was getting worse. Sitting there all day was not helping. I lied down for about 30 minutes in the afternoon to elevate my legs a bit but it only helped a little bit. I worked late until 9pm, mainly because I was trying to avoid the painful and long trip back home.

Sure enough, the trip that normally takes an hour took almost 2. By the time I got home my leg and foot pain was excruciating and I really questioned the judgment of going to the office at all. I guess I just felt bad not being there for so long when, technically, I'm not "sick" in the traditional sense. My brain isn't cloudy and I am not struck with a virus. I just can't walk at all (more or less). So, I don't feel incapacitated where my mental faculties are concerned. I just have a problem moving around or being vertical for too long.

Anyway, last night was pretty painful, but I'm glad it didn't last as long as it usually does. Today it feels much better, but I really need to lie down and keep my feet up because that is the only thing that seems to help get rid of the swelling and pain.

Am I too young to have rheumatoid arthritis? Hmmmm ....

Anyway, I'm working from home today. Lets hope a weekend of resting and staying off my feet will help me recover quickly.

Also, some big news on the horizon, but I'm waiting for a few things to happen before I announce anything. Keep your eyes peeled here though ... Maybe it will go up next week.

14 comments – Add a comment