New Year's Day, 2009

It is amazing the things you can manage to overlook. Like you can plan a wedding for the first of the year without it ever occurring to you that you and your intended are going to be out drinking and staying up past midnight the previous night. How did no one think of this and mention it? Let me just say that despite Mai being mightily hung over from our mild New Year's Eve partying and my being a bit zombied from the medication things went surprisingly smoothly. Not that I won't try to make it sound otherwise.

Mai and I had breakfast about noon at Par's. So far lack of meat has not been the slightest problem. If anything the meals are better for the extra variety and experimenting. 'What did I have?' I have not a clue, but it was really good.

The breeze blew through Par's, and Mai was quite cold. She shifted from trying to eat with me blocking the wind, to trying to squeeze in tight and steal my body heat. A windy cool overcast perfect day for a wedding. Cool and dry, perhaps in the wedding pictures I won't look like I was just saved from drowning.

Afterward, she went to get Lumyai and they spent a few hours doing what they could for the shop despite most businesses being closed on New Years Day.

The first minor snag occurred when I tried on my clothes. Now mind you this is about 3pm with the wedding set loosely for 4pm. I knew that I had lost some weight over here but in putting on the only dress clothes that I own - the ones I flew over here in - it became very apparent the extent of weight loss that had occurred. Mai did some clever tucking, cinching and folding. In the end, from the front, I looked somewhat presentable.

The next snag was only in my mind. I've been saying Buddha Hill but thinking Temple of Light. Mai had mentally corrected this each time, but never informed me. So the whole route is wrong in my head. The corner we live on has the longest traffic light I have seen in Pattaya (I have only seen 3 others). It is seven minutes, I timed it the second time.

In my head we would cross the light, stop to pick out the already prepared and paid for bouquet take a left at the next road and on to Buddha Hill. In reality, we waited for the light, stopped, waited for the light again so traffic would flow and we could get out to make a u-turn back to the light and then wait for the light a third time to cross over out to the highway on the ten mile drive to the Temple of Light.

On the serious plus side, it was an enclosed vehicle, Mai and Lumyai were in the small back seat, and the Air Conditioning was blasting on me. It would take a lot to get my core temperature up near sweating after this ride.

For the wedding itself we will take a side trip to this page.

Afterward we happy travelers had our driver drop us off across the street just around the corner from the Vegetarian Restaurant we love so much. Taking it as a Vegetarian Reception we took the opportunity of there being three of us to eat Thai style: each ordering a dish and then each picking from all the dishes. Mai remarked several times how happy this made her. I think this worked well for me as well, because rather than eating until the food was gone, I only ate until my rice was gone (we each got our own plate of long grain rice.) And as it was vegetarian I didn't have to worry about the strange oddities that would make this unworkable at most other restaurants for me here.

It was almost as difficult crossing Third Road after dinner as it had been the night before and I was sober now. At the hotel we sat on the balcony for a long time enjoying the breeze and laughing - jokes to Lumyai or Me via translation through Mai. Sometimes worked, sometimes it didn't, but we had a fun time even if I can't remember a word we said.

But night before had taken it's toll on our tired souls. Not much of a honeymoon, Mai asleep by 8pm, and without showering which she never does. I fiddled with the computer making the header and footer w3c compliant (don't worry if that means nothing to you, it means about the same to me.) and sending random pictures to whoever answered my wedding email.

January 2nd, 2009

Mai picks up Lumyai from her apartment and we all have breakfast at Par's Place. It was a nice peaceful breakfast with much mirth despite the language barriers. During breakfast John (don't go looking I haven' mentioned him previously) came down stairs with an extremely pretty Thai girl who went off on a motorbike while he took up his usual spot outside. Afterward the girls went off to work on pricing chairs, beds, a couch and other assorted items for the shop. I stopped to talk with John.

John is a guest staying above the restaurant. He seems an agreeable fellow and usually said hi to me. Though we had exchanged few words he always looked like he wanted to talk, so today I did.

He is older than I thought. I originally had find pegged as in his late twenties, but on closer inspection I would have said mid thirties. Turns out to be his mid forties. He has been coming to Pattaya (or perhaps he said Thailand) on and off for the last ten years.

Much like I imagine I would be if I had found this place earlier in life, he finds his home country (I can't remember which one he said, he sounds mildly British but for some reason I think he might have been American too. Most of my verbal conversations end up as this type of mish mash in my mind when all is said and done.) difficult to adjust to, and finds himself returning soon as possible. Peter does the same thing.

So while he is leaving soon, I'm sure he will be back soon as well, and since the time he found it he has stayed at Par's Place. he talked for a long time, and I was beginning to feel the pressure of having the wedding to write up for the site, but enjoying the conversation too much. Luckily eventually Mai came back and said she needed to get into the room safe; the business startup money being in there as well (I feel safe in saying that since they have spent most of it now.)

Mai and her friend off haggling for the tools of the trade, I returned to working on the wedding pictures. I had forgotten to turn the date stamp off in Mai's camera and so every picture had the date in bottom right hand corner of the shot. For some shots I left it in, for the easy ones, I removed it with Photoshop. Trickier was correcting the color. It had been a wonderfully overcast day, keeping me dry and sweat stain free, but we wanted the pictures to look bright and cheery.

But any attempt at contrast correction removed all detail from Mai's coin dress. Removing neutrals, killed the sea. Adding black was very very bad. Color correction could not be automated, I had to do each picture individually, quite often starting over from scratch when things got too far afield. I also had to bear in mind that my perception of color is not the norm so self doubt crept into the process a lot.

Eventually I had selected about thirty pictures, from which I expected to cull about a third in the process of telling the story. And I was working on correcting and resizing the seventh picture when the cell phone rang.

It was Mai. Who else calls me?

"Darling? I have bad bad news"

A million thoughts ran through my head in a second.

"There has been an accident with the motorbike."

"Are you alright?" I ask. a million more thoughts, a sad number of them selfish. What would I do if she had a broken leg or worse? I can barely take care of myself. I can not function properly in tense situation. That sort of thoughts. The previous day had been too perfect, the goddess does not allow that much happiness without balance; I have inwardly been expecting the shoe to drop.

At least six times I asked 'are you okay?' and while getting more and more of the story, I'm not getting the one answer I want. Finally "I am little jep (pain.) be home soon.

Long story, short: She already has two bumps near her knee from two separate motorbike accidents from before I met her. I was rather relieved when Top came to town and took the motorbike for his use. But when Top and Om had split up briefly (they are now back together and most likely Om will be unpaid cashier at the shop its first month) he went back to the village and Mai got the motorbike back. Okay maybe this isn't long story short.

I wait for Mai to return, distracting myself by taking the pictures I already have and writing descriptions of the activity. An hour goes by swiftly. No Mai. I call her.

"We are picking up table, I will be home soon."

Back to the computer. I process a picture and weave it into the tapestry of the previous day's events. Still no Mai. My brain throbbing, I go to the second floor landing and sit and watch the store front. In front is what looks like Mai's motorbike, but the store shutter is down and locked. I am determined not to call again.

After a bit the sun begins to bother my eyes and retreat to the room, then to the darker bedroom. I watch TV. I almost put on a DVD but the mindless drivel is fine because I am not really paying attention anyway. For the third time this week I wish one of us had remembered to buy more aspirin.

Now, not only is my head throbbing and is Mai not back, but I become aware I haven't eaten since this morning. There is literally nothing edible in the fridge except one corn waffle and a juice box. I drag the juice box to the computer, but before I open it, Mai and Lumyai return with bags full of food.

And Mai sets about telling me the tale of the car that backed into her. This accident occurred right in front of Par's Place. In other words it happened right out front. She was trying to turn the corner, and there was a car. While she waited to pass it on the inside, several motorbikes passed on the outside. The driver, it turns out was trying to park, and backed up the car, slowly - paying attention to the passing motorbikes and not to his rearview mirrors. And he pushed into Mai, adding a third bump to her leg and a slight scratch to her motorbike.

Hit and run is very common here, but as several people saw the event and they live around here (as do we) they handled it the Thai way. They gave Mai 2000 baht.

Why she called saying she would be right home, when she would be several hours is still a mystery to me.

The bags of food turned out to be from several diners and shops in the area. They have put them in several bowls and plates. There are glasses and bottles, the spice array, utensils and a box of tissues. Somehow we get all of this into the hands, arms and pockets of three people and we take it all down to the table on the second floor landing. The trickiest part being closing and locking the apartment door.

It is quite a feast, and the cooling not so gentle breeze adds to my enjoyment. We eat, laugh and are merry.

January 3rd, 2009

This is the bad day and an off cycle bad day at that. I forgot how to talk for a few minutes, thought that was going to be an all day problem. Thankfully it was not. The body is a mess; I will not be climbing stairs today. The eyes are a mess too; hard to focus, very hard to type. And someone has filled my brain with molasses, sharp spiky molasses at that.

I had a moment in the morning when Mai first came out that I could not manage to talk. Unlike the last few times this had happened, where I would give 'the commands' to talk and nothing would happen, this was more like having a word on the tip of your tongue and not quite being able to get it. It wasn't that I wasn't talking, I had forgotten how but it seemed just out of reach. After several false starts it took about two minutes - I'm guessing it seemed an eternity - to finally get a few faltering words out fallowed swiftly by the return of complete - or at least the usual - control.

Mai who had had no idea what was going on had thought I was trying to cough something up and so had not yet become overly concerned. I explained the situation, the various forms in which it had so far occurred and how it happened once before with Jeab so that if it did again she would hopefully know what was going on.

Several people have asked me how it feels to be married. I've felt married almost from the beginning so it really feels no different to me. I will hardly see Mai this month and when I do she will be bone tired. Much like the island of my youth, Pattaya has a tourist season. It is already here, so she wants the shop open sooner than humanly possible to capture as much of that opportunity as can be had. And I suspect she will succeed in doing so.

We go to bed very early and watch two episodes of Angel. As with Buffy, it was hard to get her to watch the first few episode without falling asleep or losing interest, but as before she is now firmly hooked.

I do leg lifts as we walk, when I lift my right leg there is an odd six step click coming from my lower spine. It sounds like a click as each lower vertebrate shifts. Like most of my clicks it does not hurt at all, but it does repeat exactly with each lifting of my right leg. When I finally get bored of this and swift positions and wiggle a bit it stops doing that.

Note

My mother sent me an email: 'You realize this means you have a stepson?'

I knew Mai had a son, Frame. He is ten years old. He is back in the village with Mai's mom. I have not met him but we hope to have him visit once the shop chaos is sorted out.

But I had not at all come to the realization that I am now a stepfather. I can't quite wrap my mind around it.

And on another family related note, it has been decided and Yie's baby has been nicknamed 'Iea.' Her official first name is still under consideration but will most likely be a word that means 'years end.' It has not been spelled for me yet, and I don't think I'm hearing the correct sounds.

January 4th, 2009

I awaken at 5:30am, but it being still dark out I am not immediately aware of this.

Lying in bed I take silent assessment of my mind and body this morning. Other than my headache is down to the usual dull roar and static is rather light today, there is surprisingly little I can tell without light or standing. I don't know why this surprises me, but it does enough for me to remember it.

I stand, balance is good. I make my way in the dark to bathroom. Also a good sign. Once the bathroom door is closed (it still makes that impossible to oil away squeak during the last inch of closing) I turn on the light. My eyes are blurry, but they often are and I've had much worse.

I read just enough to know that my mind is working too well to be wasted on pampering myself today. Today, I should catch up on this site and maybe start the structure for the shops website.

The music from iPod is playing slightly loudly as the street had been noisy last night and Three Dog Night (I had wanted to hear 'Eli's Coming' and was surprised that I had about 8 songs) had drowned them out nicely. This provides cover for me to slip into the living room without waking Mai.

At the computer I find I have 27 emails!

Mostly replies from the wedding pictures I sent out last night. It takes a long time to go through them, most are simple congratulations but some take some time and thought to respond to.

One of the emails is from the Korean doctor. I skip that one for the moment and run the stairs before I change my mind. As I had not run yesterday and wanted to make the 'do not skip two consecutive days' rule as firm as health allowed.

It was hard running the stairs. I did not seem to have much power. I wondered if in giving up meat if I was getting enough protein or whether this was simply a withdrawal symptom I was feeling.

 Back at the room I read the doctor's email. He has surprised me by saying he does not think it wise for me to be on a vegetarian diet. He includes links to a ton of case studies. I like this guy, yes he has hand picked the studies but he hasn't just given me his opinion and told me what to do. he has given me links and research so I can understand why and possibly bring other studies to his attention if I feel differently. But I have far too much on my plate this week for this type of time intensive research.

He also wants me to take an MRI, a CAT scan and Pet Scan all on January 14th. With the various dyes and isotopes you have to take and the waiting involved therein, that is going to be a full day - possible overnight. On the plus side I only have to pay for the MRI and at 7000 baht ($200) I suspect he is picking up a bit of the tab on that as well.

I haven't had a Pet Scan before, that will be a new experience and I look it up on Wikipedia. The doctor is definitely interested in the slowdown of the physical deterioration of the brain.

It is still before 8am. I call my mother and we talk for a long time. Couldn't tell you about what, but I always leave those calls feeling more relaxed. Probably mostly about the wedding. I know I made up some print sized files of her three favorite pictures for her and emailed them along with a link on how to get them printed as photos for free.

Mia is now up. I sum up the morning so far for her and she goes off to take a shower while I return to the doctor's email. I open and skim the first study. The gist seemed to be, that meat wasn't bad, processed meat was bad. And that in a part of the world where beans were hard to get, protein and other important substances whose deficiency can play havoc with immune system could easily occur. This study included a list of foods to eat and ones to avoid. Fruit was on the avoid list. I would need to study more.

Mai says she is ready. 'Liar' I shout loudly, drawing out the syllable. It is a joke between us. It turns out to be true this time, she has forgotten some pre-room leaving routine. I take the time to make up the menu suggestions I have for Par's Place. Trying two things, one is get the food I order often on the menu so that Mai doesn't have to order it with long explanations. This is important as, despite my best efforts in finding a waitress (Mew and Ooy2), Pha is both cook and waitress. Special orders while accepted easily often the special sometimes gets lost in the making. The second was to conjure up some vegetarian options out of ingredients already listed on the menu. I have a menu in my possession thanks to Bernie. What I didn't have was my thumb drive, which was still at the sign shop, so I wondered how I would get this file over to Bernie. Then I realized I could make it a page off the website. As you don't have a menu the references won't mean anything but if you want to look here is a link.

I start writing down the link for Bernie then realize I have his email address and so send it that way. This is minutes before we walk over there and join Lumyai who is waiting for us. I see Bernie, but say nothing beyond 'Morning'. He will find the email later, why bring it up. I order one of the items I have emailed him and Mai has the same thing. It has chicken livers in it.

We have a strangely quiet breakfast considering how lively our last few meals have been. It definitely wasn't the food which tasted great. I think we are all tired. Mai's leg is hurting, she now has a third bump from her third motorbike accident, and it kept her up the middle part of the night. I try to get her to go to the hospital - the Thai have very inexpensive health care for the citizens - but she claims she does not have time. I am worried because of the preexisting injuries, what even a slow impact like this one could have done. But this is Lumyai's last day here, and there is no changing her mind.

January 5th, 2009

These posts will get a little scarce for the next week or two as Mai's shop prepares to open. I will be working on her website and will probably only drop back here as a distraction from that or when some actual news occurs.

Yesterday was spent designing the look of the front windows. They will painted on Thursday and I will put up a page showing what it looked like yesterday, what my design looked like and then the finished product. I don't get to be creative that often any more so that was a treat although I did feel pressure from having an actual deadline.

I had a very pleasant email conversation from someone that tripped over my site while looking for an employee of the Entertainment Stop where John use to work. As I wrote quite a bit some of which I was unable to find mentioned elsewhere I reproduce that conversation here. I have edited slightly both my email because one comment could be taken unkindly and Dan's missive where it seemed prudent.

January 6th, 2009

Today was spent almost exclusively on the computer.

In the morning I studied a handful of the studies Dr. Kim (if I haven't mentioned it previously, not his real name) had provided. Each study contained scores of links to other studies. Before I knew it I had over 40 open tabs and was completely overwhelmed with information of varying density.

And, no big surprise, they completely contradict each other. Okay, eliminate the studies directly or indirectly pushing a specific brand product. Eliminate studies funded by the products they praise - the great effects of milk on the adult body published by the American Dairy Association, which contradicts nearly every other study stating humans should not ingest cow's milk ever.

This still leaves me with hundreds of studies and sore eyes and brain.

Skip the studies involving radical or impossible changes. Drop down to basics. And here is what I get:

If I eliminate sugar and meat products, my body will release fat far to quickly along with an enormous amount of trapped sugars and toxins. This may be what is happening to my eyes.

Okay, refocus on the goal. Primary goal: Have my body eliminate the Nano-lithium from my brain more quickly. I may be able to achieve this by electromagnetic means, but I would  like something self regulating, just put of the patch on and replace it when it wears out; end this juggling act.

The best method seems to be to improve my circulation. This will have many other health benefits from improving my diabetic status, less fatigue, faster healing. Of course it will also improve my immune system, and it is my immune system that is trying to kill me. Everything is a double edged sword. Improving circulation is function of widening the arteries. This is accomplished by cleaning out the veins. This consists of two major types of obstructions: the soft spongy plaque and the hard scar plaque on the walls.

Supposed the former can be removed quickly with diet, and even faster with diet and drugs. I'm on enough drugs, I'll go with diet. What you want to do is literally scrub the walls of the veins and that is done with fiber. You also want to stop eating foods that cause this plaque. This comes down to a fairly simple formula: high fiber foods, very low sugar, moderately low starch, no processed meats and avoid most oils. Omega-3 oils, and Avocado eaten raw and coconut oil for cooking. No deep frying.

Turns out (again) I am in one of the few areas on the planet where this can be followed inexpensively and easily.  Foods straight from the farm are everywhere. Fresh vegetables are plentiful. And this is the land of the coconut and its oil.

Now all I need to do is figure out what essential amino acids, vitamins or minerals my plan might be missing and compensate for that. But that is for another day.

On the 14th Dr. Kim has me scheduled for an MRI, 3D-CT Scan/a> and Pet Scan all on the same day. I have never had a Pet Scan before, but I'm wondering what noxious fluid I need to drink for that one? The MRI requires an intravenous drip of Omniscan followed by a relatively short wait.

I do a little online research. Looks like the CT and Pet Scan can be done at the same time (same machine). The Pet Scan fluids are intravenous like the MRI, so only the CT scan has a significant wait (6 hours) for the Barium solution to circulate. This won't be as time consuming as I thought, but sounds like it will be a full and boring day.

I notice all these tests study the physical structure of the brain (though PET scan can detect seizures). So clearly that is currently where the doctor's  interest lies.

Mai spends most of the day over at the shop. The air conditioner guy is installing the AC. The water pump is being replaced, a major unexpected expense. We manage to spend breakfast and lunch together. At 4pm the concrete people are coming to make the back area jungle into a nice patio. This is a freebie from the building owners. As the store now contains lots of possessions she will be watching them from 4pm until 10pm.

By the time she returns around 5pm to tell me that they have canceled and will be back tomorrow, I am hip deep in trying to learn a new website trick. I figured I would implement it first on the donation page and them when I knew what I was doing I could easily port it over to her website, which at the moment is just a menu bar.

At one point I had this about 90% working and now it is completely broken. It feels like I've dropped a semi-colon or a closing bracket or something simple and stupid like that, but I just can't find it. So I feel like I'm seconds away from finishing this - for hours.

 And Mai is feeling neglected and everything she does just makes it harder for me to concentrate and I'm getting very frustrated. And the sun has gone down so I am losing brain power by the minute. But I know if I don't crack this before I go to bed, I will not sleep.

Around nine Mai drags me over to dinner of long grain purple rice, mushrooms and eggs. I'm still not sure where I stand on eggs, but for the moment I let it pass. My stomach is in knots anyway from the throbbing headache that is my brain. And my mind is still on the computer problem.

Mai does not cook often, and does not think she is good at it. What she has made is actually very good but my inability to eat much makes her think otherwise.

When Fred and I use to get stuck on computer problems he would often resort to dragging me away from the computer for a break. This often did the trick. While at the dinner table, I think of two possible ideas that didn't occur to me before. Neither of these turn out to be the problem, but in implementing the changes I get a new error message that finally makes me understand the problem. One re-rewrite later and it works!

It needs some formatting and cleaning up and there is still one more step to conquer but this problem is kicked, I can put it and me to bed.

January 7th, 2009

Six weeks ago the lady that cuts my toe nails nicked my big toe and there has been a blood blister there that I have been keeping an eye on. While it didn't seem infected it also wasn't getting any smaller. It just seemed destined to a join the permanent round purple mark on my knee from where I fell and two tiny scratches from who knows what that  have accumulated over my year here.

When I run the stairs I run them in bare feet to reduce the chance of slipping or sliding socks would present or of tripping or twisting that could happen in sandals. Thus while running out of energy as I rounded the 5th floor landing - I do not seem to be getting any stronger at this - my head began to lower and I took interest in my feet. And in doing so I noticed that the blister was all but gone.

When I got back to the room I stripped down and inspected the rest of my legs very closely. Sure enough, the two nicks were much smaller and the quarter sized purple circle was now a faded red dime sized spot. The research said that the first part of cleaning out your arteries could happen in a week or even days. The next part takes months perhaps years. I think I will be lucky as I spent most of my life with a zero cholesterol level (thanks to yet another funky gene) and while that caused some problems of its own it also should have kept the walls of my arteries squeaky clean. It has only been since the Diabetes - what is that nine years now? - that my cholesterol levels rose to where they should have been for a man of my size and former diet.

So I am assuming that this sudden healing is from the increased circulation. When I get through the various withdrawals I am hoping that this heavy fatigue will lessen with them.