Health Tips For Sick Nerds

My goal as a software developer is to write good code, and to meet the needs of my client by applying technology to solve business problems. My goal as a heart patient is to improve my ejection fraction, to increase my exercise tolerance, to maintain or improve my quality of life, to survive a diagnosis that has been know to kill 40% of people in the first year, and to live a long life that will allow me to provide for my step kids and for my wife.

I want to build a life for us all to remember together, and I find comfort in thinking that my step children will remember this time we spend together seventy years from now. I care about them, and I have more than hopes for them: I want to equip them for life, and to teach them things to help them. In a way, I am also committed to a cause, or several, and I may want to extend my moral influence into the future through them – such is my conceit.

Nerds do not have a reputation for knowing much about exercise or health. In fact, we have a reputation for not being good at sports and for eating badly. That is our reputation, at any rate. Whether we exercise or not, I think we can safely say that we differ from most people in peculiar ways. My approach to health is nerdy, I think. My wife would agree – the way I talk about it certainly makes he suppress a giggle.

In the morning, I start my day by checking in with God by at least praying, and perhaps by reading the bible. Very quickly after that, I visit some websites to keep up with technology. I read about trends, and I read various articles about programming in either Java, C#, Python, Ruby, PHP or Javascript. I do not routinely program in each of these languages, but concepts are interesting. I also follow certain frameworks: Turbogears, Django and Ruby on Rails. Again, I do not use these frameworks in my work, but concepts are useful. Basically, I try to stay informed.

I also keep up with research on cardiomyopathy and heart failure. For example, I have decided to take Coenzyme Q10 even though my cardiologist advises that he has no reason to believe there is a benefit. I have found no research that indicates that it does harm, and I have found a lot that indicates that there may be a benefit. However, my risk management strategy is check the research every week. I also take magnesium and chromium.

My angiogram reveals that my arteries are in great shape, but blood tests revealed that my triglycerides were high and my levels of good cholesterol were extremely low. My cardiologist prescribed Lipitor to address my cholesterol problems, but I read that Lipitor shares a chemical pathway with Coenzyme Q10, which is a source of energy for the heart. This interferes with Coenzyme Q10 production in the body. A Dr. Silver recommends taking Coenzyme Q10 supplements if you take Lipitor and you have suffered from congestive heart failure. I decided to discontinue the Lipitor since my arteries are clear anyway, and to address the cholesterol problems through diet and exercise.

As a matter of course, I also track research on Lipitor, and I found an amazing study that suggests that Lipitor may have other benefits in heart failure. Lipitor seems to be associated with increased ejection fractions and better outcomes in general, despite the warning about the shared chemical pathway with Coenzyme Q10. I still refrain from taking Lipitor because I have concerns for liver complications associated with Lipitor, but I will monitor my cholesterol levels and reassess at a later date.

One of the risks I face every day is that I will retain water. This water can end up impairing the function of my heart and lungs by causing congestion. I manage this risk by getting weighed every day. A sudden gain in weight indicates a possible problem. I also manage this risk by reducing my salt intake. Salt helps the body retain fluid, but reduced salt intake is associated with less water retention. As a final precaution, I take a daily diuretic to help me shed fluid that may end up around my heart and lungs.

I have often said that a database, especially a database that is being used every day, is a machine. It breathes, it excretes and it performs other bodily functions. Databases need checkups, too. I find myself taking the same approach to my own health as I do to technology. If you are a nerd, and you are struggling with a chronic illness, perhaps you should consider transfering some of your skills to managing your health.

Where Is The Poetry?

Somewhere I have a journal I used to write in when I was twenty years old. In it, I agonized about changing my major from political science to computer science. I was drawn to technology, and I saw something in it that still mazes me. I think I wrote that the computer would become the tool that would reintroduce or recreate the renaissance man (or woman). I imagined creativity of a new sort, and such creations.

I was right, and that was visionary, but look what happened to me! I became so enthralled by the computer that I abandoned the creativity that used to be so important to me – I use all of my creativity in my code, but not even my clients see that or understand that. My code is not seen or scrutinized by anybody, and I do not even keep it – it is not mine to keep, and, frankly, I have no use for it. That is just it – I have no use for the things I create, and I do not create things for myself.

Do not misunderstand: I love my work, but this is not what I set out to do. I used to write poetry, draw, write songs and sing. I read so-called literature. I even read philosophy, but now I read about things that are obscure to most of the people I am tempermentally drawn to. I have become preoccupied with the tools themselves, and less interested or involved in those things I set out to create as a young man. Am I unhappy with my choices? No, but I miss the old me.

What makes Web 2.0 interesting is that it is less about the technology and more about the uses of technology. I like blogging. I like my social bookmarks. I love Wikipedia, and Wikis in general.

A couple of weeks ago, Juan O’Neill, someone I knew in the Ottawa poetry scene over 20 years ago died. I saw Juan a few months ago at a health food store and he invited me to come out to read at the Sasquatch poetry reading series. I was too busy, and to involved in my family and in my recovery from heart failure, and I missed the chance to show him what I wrote while I was away in Vancouver during the nineties.

I could have printed some poems and attended an open reading, but I spent my time reading about Django and CherryPy, neither of which I use. Sure, I like what I do, but technology is killing part of me. It is choking me off. Now that I have a medical condition that comes with a diminished life expectancy, I am thinking about this part of me that has been choked off.

My friend, Marty Flomen, who was also a poet and computer consultant died in the nineties of heart failure and kidney problems. As far as I know, he struggled for 15 years with the disease. My father recently died, and so did my mother. Juan just died. This is more than a mid-life crisis, but let’s call it that.

Am I living the life I was called to live? I happen to believe that death is not the end, and that there is more, but I also believe that it matters how we fill our days. God cares. How we choose fill our days tells us who we are.

Wait for it! Here it comes, the inevitably mundane and yet compellingly profound question: who am I? What have I become? Is this who I want to continue being, or is there more inside me that still wants to come out?

What has been fulfilled in our lives in satisfying, and it should be, but a life worth living has to be lived for what has not been fulfilled – that is how I think we were designed. Not even God rests on the things He created in the first seven days of the World. God creates every day, and I believe that He yearns for us. Love is about yearning, not just about being satisfied. Love is not a done deal. It is a continuing creative act.

So, what am I to do with with this technology I love? I do not think I want to quit to write plays, or anything like that, but I do want to get back in touch with the impulse that drove me to become interested in computers twenty-six years ago. That impulse had more to do with what was inside the mind and the soul of Man than it has to do with what was inside the computer. I feel as if I became mesmerized by the inner-workings of a clock, and forgot all about my appointments.

Knowing how to keep better time is not the same as having a better time. As Neil Postman was inclined to believe and say, technology often represents nothing more than an improved means to an unimproved end. As much as I enjoy clever things, and as much I can become distracted by the inner-workings of certain digital artifacts, I am feeling a longing to embrace the first thing that drew me to technology: the potential to achieve something better not just the ability to achieve the some old things faster or more efficiently.

This is a feeling – it will either lead to something, or it will not.

An Old Fart Pauses To Observe The New Year

When I turned 40, I was working for a Vancouver based DotCom. I was the oldest person in the company. Many people were in their twenties, including some of the Vice Presidents. Still, we were doing business with Fortune 500 companies, and our work was cutting edge.

One of my colleagues asked me how old I was, and would not believe me when I told him that I was forty. It was not that I looked too young to be forty, or that I dressed and acted young. As he said, “How can that be? You know all the new stuff!” Later in the year, I was freelancing, and I was recommended to a client by a friend. When I showed up, my new client was surprised at my age. He said, “Sean spoke so highly of you, I was expecting a fresh faced boy genius.”

This did not bother me. I expected that the young developers would be singing a different tune when they turned forty. Now, I am about to turn forty-six, and I have been diagnosed with a heart condition. Middle age has definitely descended on me. I cannot deny it, but I have the following reflections.

When I was in my twenties, I was desperate to learn new things. I imagined that there was a day, just over the horizon, when I would know enough to be taken seriously. I carried computer books with me wherever I went. I had a passion, and a vision of what computers would do for us in the future.

In my thirties, I was desperate to do something with what I had learned. Of course, I was still learning. I had to learn about relational databases, object oriented programming, and the web. I had to learn about object modeling, and I had learn a host of new programming languages. Even the languages I knew were changing. Every year, I had to embrace new concepts, and learn to use new tools. Still, I imagined that there was a day, just over the horizon, when I would know enough to be considered truly knowledgeable.

Sometimes, I lamented the fact that in days-gone-by, a man my age would have completed his apprenticeship. He would know his trade in full, and he would be applying his knowledge rather than learning all over again. He would be refining and perfecting his skill, but he would not be starting at square one each and every year. Such is the curse of living in interesting times. Still, I was learning, and I was having fun.

At all times, before I was 40, I kept my eyes on my elders and betters. I found people to learn from and admire. I imagined a day in the future when I would achieve the competence I desired. Of course, others found me increasingly competent, but I always had the sense that I was falling behind. I felt that change was nipping at my heals the whole time. And, it was!

As I reflect on turning 46, I make note of the fact that I am now keeping my eyes on younger and better people. There is nothing wrong with that. Unbridled enthusiasm, rebellious curiosity, imagination and consuming passion are characteristics of youth. Some people lose these characteristics as they age. There is nothing wrong with that. This less enthusiastic stage can represent a consolidation of wisdom rather than a waning of learning.

But, I have to note that, for me, the characteristics of youth are characteristics of my personality rather than characteristics of my current stage of life. The new thing always grabs my attention. I delight when an old way of thinking dies away. I take pleasure when stuffiness, rigidity and arrogance are beaten back by spontaneity, creativity and vision.

Which brings me to observe how the Web is changing. It used to be about platforms, programming languages and technologies. Just five years ago, every hotshot I met was a Java programmer. Now the Web itself is taking off in new directions, and I like it – a lot. Now, there is Ruby On Rails, Turbogears, Django, Python, AJAX and Ruby. Previous technologies, which were once considered the anwser to everything, are being replaced and displaced by alternatives. What was sufficient becomes insufficient.

In the past year and a bit, I have discovered blogging, social bookmarking, microformats and more. I also find myself listening to classic novels on my MP3 player as I walk, or reading them on my laptop. And, of course, I have discovered the world of podcasting. I have also started to use Open Source software almost exclusively, except for work I have to do to earn my living in this slow-moving government town.

I strikes me that I will never arrive at my imagined destination. I will never know enough, or be able to do enough. If anything, time has taught me how much there is to learn and how much there always will be to explore. One of the pitfalls of youth is the belief that one knows all there is to know, or that one can know it all eventually. Even as I was learning, I had a sense that the horizon was the end of the world, that I could get there by my own effort and stand at the edge of things.

Now that I am older, now that another year prepares to turn, I must conclude that beyond every horizon there is another horizon. If the world seemed big to me when I was younger, it seems bigger to me now. It strikes me that the day may come when I stop embracing every new technological thing. The day may come when I have had enough. I do not expect that I will be tired or spent, but I may be ready for something new.

When they I move on to other things comes, even as I push off for another shore, I am sure there will be a group of well wishers on the beach lamenting to themselves and to each other, saying, “Another one bites the dust.” Even the imaginativeness of youth cannot conceive how much more there is to be dream than has already been imagined. Obviously, Shakespeare said it better: “There are stranger things in this world than in all your philosophies, Horatio.”

I will permit myself just once to sound like an old fart. The young often believe that the world is wonderful for them and less so for their elders. If only they knew.

« Previous Entries Next Entries »