Clean Stove Top, Finally

 

Isn't that sparkly? I finally got around cleaning the grimy stove top. I gathered the supplies long time ago, but I haven't been able to gather the courage to tackle the task itself. Switching from 2 day cycle of activities to 3day cycle finally left me with enough energy to get it done. I had to split the work into two parts though, and I'm yet to clean the back splash panel and the front of the stove. Still, it was hard enough a work and I slept like a baby last night. And I was fatigued all over when I woke up. The scrubbing motion not only works your arms, but your legs also have to do quite a bit of work to counter-balance the upper body motion. And it's the use of large leg muscles that is more likely to cause problem for CFS patients.

Here is how I did it:

1. Prep the surface: spray the vinegar and Dawn solution, and then wipe away
2. Clean the greasy film with Soft Scrub
3. Make paste with baking soda and hydrogen peroxide. Plaster it on the burnt and baked-in surface
4. Wait 15 minutes and scrub the surface with the paste

Rejected for COVID-19 Vaccine Trial

I was too cavalier  in retrospect. NYC real estate market is in a COVID-induced coma and I wanted to fly out to check out properties. But the coronavirus is still in the air and it would be irresponsible to fly even if I'm not too worried about it. Getting vaccinated would make it a little easier for me to travel without guilt or worry, so I signed up for the Pfizer vaccine trial. 

Getting knocked out for 5 days by flu vaccine was a fresh reminder of the danger of vaccination for CFS patients. The vaccine doesn't get cleared out of your body in a day or two like some toxin; it stays in your bloodstream for days or weeks irritating your immune system to coax antibodies out of it. And people sensitive to inflammation may suffer while that is going on. There is no guarantee that the vaccine wouldn't permanently worsen your CFS either. Many COVID patients, after all, are living with CFS-like problems long after they become virus-free.

Luckily, I was rejected for the trial. The trial has to follow the patients for side effects and people with certain existing conditions obviously are not good candidates. CFS with its flu-like symptoms after an exertion poses particular problem because, if you get knocked out, they wouldn't know if it was because of the vaccine or CFS. And that's beside the fact that CFS patients may be more sensitive to the vaccine and therefore suffer side effects that normal people wouldn't.

 

Downed by Flu Shot, Again

What a bummer. I got knocked out again after 3 weeks of normalcy. This time by the flu shot.

I stopped taking the flu shot after I was knocked out by it for 2 weeks in 2015. Then I got sick with flu twice in 2017-2018 season, so I resumed getting the shot. And I didn't get knocked out by the shot for the last two years. I have no idea why I got knocked out again this year. Maybe the shot is different from year to year in its potency to foment low grade inflammation. Maybe I was weakened this year from no traveling and less activity. It could be a million things. 

The thing is that I didn't really need the shot this year. People are social-distancing for coronavirus, that the flu will be suppressed as well and the "twindemic" that the medical community is worried about is not  likely to materialize. But I figure I'd be a good citizen and get the shot anyway. It just didn't occur to me that I'd get knocked out again.

The upshot was that I was reduced to not being unable to take care of the cat in the morning. And I found myself swearing obscenities in the grocery parking lot for having to go back to the car  because I forgot the mask. Bad ol' days were here again. Naproxen has brought some relief a few hours at a time though, and I've been able to sit up. I didn't try NSAID when I was knocked out in 2015, so I can't tell whether or not NSAID now works because my CFS has improved.

Thankfully, it was over after 5 days. I was afraid it would stretch out for 2 weeks like in 2015. I went to 2 km walk yesterday and I'm recuperating comfortably with the aid of Naproxen and a half caplet of Bronkaid.  Back to the regularly scheduled programing of walking, working and doing house chores in 3-day cycle, I guess.

Inactivity Shrinks Exercise Tolerance

I've been saying that you can't exercise your way out of CFS. Now I can add to that: you can't unexercise your way out of CFS, either.

It's been a terrible year. I suffered the longest PEM after skiing too much back in January. I got out of it in May, but I continued to struggle. Throughout the summer I was unable to walk 2 km or bike 5 km without getting sick the next day. I could've gotten out of the slump by traveling, but the coronavirus arrived and travelling was out of the question. So the struggle went on. 

As if coronavirus wasn't enough, a Pacific storm, or what's left of it, set the West ablaze. The rain dried up before reaching the ground and only the lightnings touched down to ignite the tinder. The air became thick with smoke and ashes darkened the sky. The Spare the Air alert went on and on and we were house-arrested for several weeks. Occasional walk around the block was all I could muster without risking my pulmonary health. It has been worse than the year of fire.

This was a natural experiment, if there ever was one. I always wondered whether my penchant to get out of the house and walk has made my condition better or worse. I do know that it make me more prone to PEM crashes and there is nothing good about PEM crashes. You not only get sick, your exercise tolerance also stays shrunken for a while even after you recover from PEM sickness, so that you continue struggle. But I don't know if the frequent PEM has interfered with my long term recovery or not. Conversely, I don't know either if avoiding PEM by cutting back on exercise would've sped up the recovery. And this was an opportunity to experiment with a prolonged inactivity.

Less walking did reduce the frequency of PEM. Prior to 8/16, I was crashing on weekly basis. After 9/14, again frequent crashes for a few weeks. For a month between the two however, there was only one crash caused by back-to-back 2x5 pushups/dips. I figured, since I wasn't walking, I'd make it up with strength exercises and that appeared backfired. Otherwise I would've registered no crash during that time.

Not walking or biking also let me sit up more and lie down less. When I'm walking regularly, I spend inordinate amount of time lying down even when I'm not sick with PEM. Now that I suffered less from the ambient fatigue, I was scrubbing the bathroom and mopping the floor more often.  The house works brought the sense of accomplishment and satisfaction to go with it as well. 

Fewer PEMS and less fatigue. What's not to like? The immediate downside was that I didn't get to sleep well and my mood and motivation suffered. That I stopped writing during this period is a proof. My body becomes useless while I'm is recovering the day after from the walk, but my brain usually works better because I'm flush with happy chemicals from exercise. That ability was now gone. So, though the inactivity did help to reduce the fatigue and sickness, I paid for it with worse sleep and mood. In other words, the inactivity flattened both the (dopamine) highs and (PEM) lows. It was rather a dull, zombie-like existence.

But more worrisome than that was the shrunken exercise ability. When I resumed walking, I couldn't walk 1km without getting sick. Short bouts of scrubbing the bathroom or mopping the kitchen floor apparently didn't do much to maintain my walking ability. 

Which naturally brings us to the question: if inactivity shrinks the PEM threshold, shouldn't regular exercise raise it? Well, I already know that regular walking does not improve the exercise tolerance in any discernable way. My walking distance/speed when not travelling has stayed pretty much constant at 2 km and 90 steps/min. So, answer probably is that inactivity will shrink your exercise tolerance, but regular exercise will only bring it up to a certain plateau rather than continue to improve to restore your health.  Therefore, my old policy still stands: walk to improve the sleep and mood rather than to recover from CFS. 

Social Distancing in Dolores Park

The air finally cleared up late in September. I woke up and struggled on 9/30, but we jumped in the car and went to SF as planned. I already rolled Gimbap the night before and wasn't about to let that effort go to waste.  And it was a familiar story: by the time we got to the Tesla station in Fairfield, the struggle ended and I was as good as I could be. We bought a month supply of coffee in Castro, checked out an apartment (SF rent cratered 30%, thanks to coronavirus, and I'm thinking moving back to SF), and walked all over the city all day long. I ended up logged 4 miles. I spent the next day and a half happily recovering from the trip, but I didn't get sick.  

So, I'm back to the normality of walking 2km or biking 5, with occasional trips to SF for 4 mile walk. Except now I'm in 3 day cycle instead of bi-daily one: 1) 15mg Walfed + Naproxyn + walk or bike, 2) do mental work while recovering, and then 3) do housework. The 3 day cycle seems to reduce fatigue and I get the housework done on regular basis. It's a sort of compromise between inactivity and activity, hopefully for the best of the both world: less fatigue, good sleep/mood and keep the house clean as bonus. I'll be on that cycle throughout the rest of the year and see how it goes.

Repeat of "Ordeal"

I've been meaning to do this. The 15 mile bike ride in 2018 was the hardest exercise to date since I got sick in 2008. I not only survived, I was pretty high for the next 2 days. I struggled subsequently, but that's because I climbed up Telegraph Hill on the 3rd day -- I obviously was well enough on the 3rd day too. I wanted to redo it and see if I could repeat the feat.

I woke up feeling shitty and achy again last Thursday June 18th and was thinking where I could travel locally to improve my mood. I had to do something since we can't travel long distance till Covid19 is over. We could go explore Stockton or Davis. We haven't been there yet. Then it occurred to me that I haven't done any long bike ride this year. I was out commission till May of course, thanks to the long crash after the skiing season. Now that I'm out of it, it's about time that I returned to long bike ride. It was a good day for that too -- it's going to be near 100F just like that day in August 2018.

The ride started from REI at 3PM and I got back at 6:30PM. No taking a spill, no blacking out, and no getting lost in the thickets this time. I didn't stop at Paradise Beach either. But I did manage to get lost a few times again and stretch ride to about the same distance.  Still, it definitely was an easier ride than the original one. That I didn't run out of water is the proof.

Resting on Northern Bike Path Bridge

 I was fine the next day (it must've been a post-exercise high). Then the struggle began and it lasted a week.

Obviously, there was no novelty effect from resuming the long bike ride despite the hiatus. It has to be something really new for the novelty effect to kick in, it seems. That means I won't benefit from the novelty effect when I return to skiing next season either. I'll have to stick to monthly skiing, not weekly one, on bunny slopes, as I already planned.

Traveling is different. I do know the novelty effect kicks in whenever I go the NYC despite that I've been there multiple times. It doesn't have to be a completely new place.

I really need this Covid19 thing to be over. I need to travel...

Getting High on Shopping

No travelling this summer, thanks to Covid19. Ennui has been building up and I haven't been able to motivate me to do anything productive. No blog entry past month is a proof. I have to do my tax returns too, but haven't been able to do that either.

When I was sicker, walking used to vastly improve my mood. Walking still helps, but I don't get the same highs anymore. Fortunately, I still get kick out of shopping. Not buying itself, but just doing the research and comparing prices is enough. And that's been about the only thing I've been able to do.

It must be the dopamine. Back in 2016, I shopped into wee hours during the Amazon Prime Day and was amazed that I could still function the next day. It was 2 weeks into my first false recovery, so I wouldn't know for sure if it was the effect of shopping or the false recovery itself. But I've repeated it many times since then, so I know shopping definitely can get me the high.

I've been looking into getting a new camera for a while. Panasonic GX85 has worked well for my purpose. but I've been fumbling with its range finder style and it doesn't feel like an extension of my limb; it takes effort to translate what I want to do into what do do. It's poor autofocus on dark subjects leaves something to be desired as well. Then there is 2x cropping issue when filming in 4K. MFT already has 2x cropping, the additional 2x makes 25mm lens unusable for filming.

So, the candidates are: Sony A7III, Fuji X-T3 and Panasonic G9. They are the top of the line in their respective category of full frame, APS-C and micro four third. They are 2 years old and therefore heavily discounted as well. In my usual perfectionist fashion, I have difficulty deciding. So, in my usual fashion, I resorted to spreadsheet. I threw in the smartphone in the comparison for the purpose of value reference.

	price	portability	low light	AF	IS	bokeh	video	handling + other features	total
G9	20	10	6	7	10	6	4	10	73
A7III	14	6	10	10	8	10	3	8	69
X-T3	18	7	8	9	5	8	5	9	69
smartphone	30	20	3	3	5	1	1	2	65

I had my eyes on A7III for a while for its legendary dynamic range and low light performance. But the issue with full frame cameras is the lens size/weight. And I rarely shoot in low light, so it just doesn't make sense to carry the mass for something you need only in 1% of the time. It makes more sense to optimize for the 99% and MFT is that optimization. And you can take care of the low light with faster lens or larger lens with speed booster, if necessary.

So, I'll probably lug around G9 with 14-140mm and then carry a couple of fast prime lenses in my pocket.  Try doing that with FF camera or even APS-C.

In anticipation, I already got Sigma 56mm f1.4 for $360. A bargain compared to Fuji 56mm f1.2 that goes for $1000. (Fuji will become comparable when Viltrox come out with 56mm). It's not only a bargain, but it's also just about the sharpest lens out there.  But I'm already getting tired of it after playing with it for a few days. 56mm in MFT is  equivalent to 112mm in FF and that is too long for my kind of portraiture, I found. Anything between 25mm to 135mm can be considered portrait lens but I'm more comfortable with 50mm or shorter. The Bokeh is nice though. I'll probably alternate between 56mm f1.4 and 25mm f1.7, and then compliment them with 12-32mm kit lens for portrait.

Here are some samples:

12-32mm kit lens

Struggle Finally Over After 4 Months

Do little something, and then I keel over for days. Get back up and do little something again, I keel over again. It's been almost nonstop struggle for 4 months and the longest, if not the worst, PEM I've had.

The crashes started on 12/20 when I started skiing hard just as the novelty effect expired after 3 weeks of skiing. (The novelty effect from moving to NYC in 2017 expired after 3 weeks and so was the lift from starting to bike in 2018.) I was done with skiing for good after 3/2, but I still kept keeling over. 2 km walk or 3 mile biking would put me in the pound for 3 days.

I would've gone on a trip, to SF or somewhere, to lift me out of the struggle. But the whole country is under a lock-down for Covid19, and overnight trip has been out of the question. So we went on a daytrip to Lodi and Galt on 4/15 instead. I've been meaning to explore the local cities and this was as good an excuse as any.

San Joaquin Valley is not exactly Napa. But it was surprisingly charming. We drove through the vineyards in Galt to Lodi downtown lined with shops. It wasn't unlike Woodland downtown, perhaps a bit larger. We walked half a mile from Elm Street to Lodi Ave and back.

The daytrip did not lift me out of the PEM struggle and I conked out for 4 days after that. I've written before about daytrips, unlike longer overnight ones, not being effective for ending a PEM struggle. This was another data point.

Fast forward a week, and I seem to have gotten out of the struggle finally. I walked almost 2 miles on 4/21 and then walked around the neighborhood in the afternoon the next day. Yesterday, I was able to run errands in the morning and then bike 4 miles in the afternoon. Today, I did the grocery shopping in the morning, walk a few blocks in the afternoon and took care of paper works. No crapping out despite up and running for 4 days in a row. I'm feeling as well as I did last November when I was up and running fine after returning from the trip to NY/NJ where I took 20,000 steps every other day. It sure feels like another recovery.

So, what lesson have I learned? No more season pass, that is what. I'll just buy day passes a few times next year and stick to green slopes. But then, that is what I said last year and yet I did what I did. Will the crash of 4 months teach me a lesson this time around? Stay tuned.