Saturday, April 28, 2007

Bad day

I have not forced myself to vomit in more than three months, and will likely never do it again. I’ve gained some weight as a result, but I’m trying not to let it get me down. (Ironically, one of the treatments for GERD is to loose weight, which I will try to do the right way.)

Meanwhile, I am trying to come to terms with the fact that I might have killed myself with bulimia. It won’t happen immediately. But there’s a possibility now, a very real possibility, that I could die from the problems I’ve caused my body. I must now have a scope done every year, to check for cancer.

I don’t post this information today in hopes of getting sympathy. I don’t want it. I did this to myself, and I will take it for what it was and do my best to survive it. I post it today because I don’t think most people understand the seriousness of bulimia. The doctor who performed the scope on me yesterday even told me he’d never read anything in the “the literature” about GERD and hiatal hernia being caused by bulimia. He was dismissive and seemed to regard me as a hypochondriac – until the procedure proved him wrong.

Friday, April 27, 2007

Small history

After finishing a biography on Никола Тесла (Nikola Tesla), I really did feel like a completely worthless and imbecilic human being. The book, by the way, was Man out of Time by Margaret Cheney; a very quick and entertaining in-between-studying-for-finals read. As is typical for truly fascinating and great minds, poor Nikola barely has any name recognition aside from a certain coil of his. It seems like all the recognition from that era goes to his arch-nemesis Thomas Edison, who becomes increasingly hard to admire once one learns more about him. Perhaps Edison and his surprisingly sinister nature (going around killing stray dogs and one elephant with AC power, stealing the ideas of others and patenting them first) would be good for another blog. Tesla seems to be at the next level up of genius from Edison, ranking up there with the likes of Archimedes and da Vinci. Not only did these men invent things, but they used concepts that seemed to be ahead of their time. I guess you would call them Geniuses out of Time. While Tesla didn't invent something as basic as a screw or plans for a very early flier or tank hundreds of year before they existed, he is stated as being "the man who invented the 20th Century" by some. And this may not be as absurd a claim as it may seem.