It has been some time

Yes. I don't know. It just happened. I was busy finishing an MBA thesis, which happened over a year ago. I was busy with a million things. In the end, it's like always: there is no excuse (necessary, I hope), I just shifted priorities - or they shifted without me noticing it for a long time.

However, you need not feel left alone, dear reader and blog, as I never stopped thinking about the illness and things. It just wasn't necessary to write about it, and it possibly would have been quite boring to read.

Since my last post, several European cities were glad to see me for the first (Istanbul, Budapest, London, ...) or second time (Prague, Amsterdam, ...), I spend full three weeks in Loco/Ticino this year (including falling off my MTB and climbing up a lot of mountains), my winter bike equipment recently includes electrically heated soles & gloves & spike tires.

Basically I am very happy that suppression allows me to focus on other things that are at least as exciting as the biochemistry of Polycythemia Vera. (Just as I entered this, google web history informs me that its over a year that I visited this link).

Nevertheless, I see the possibility for times to come where my update frequency will be rise again significantly from once a year. Then, I will try to improve on the entertainment side of this blog, promised!

Where to go

It has been a long time. And like anyone who follows the blog, I was wondering what to pursue with it and whether to continue.
Palestine was a great and important experience. A good example for the two weeks there was the day in Jericho. Crossing the borders from Israel to the Palestinian territories feels like going from one sector of post war Berlin to another. I might have packed too much in between the lines here, as this also means that signs of a smoldering war are everywhere. Except another US group of three, there were absolutely no tourists, which are better called travelers.

There are 70 years between the two pictures. The major thing that changed is that Israelis provide their trash as awning. No need to have fancy textiles anymore.

And here comes an entrance-exit of the wall:

Work and study keep me busy at the moment. At least they should. And I work hard to leave the impression of working hard to others and to myself. So, blogging now is very inappropriate.

لورانس العرب

For someone who does not speak nor read the Arabic language, it was hard to figure out how "Lawrence of Arabia" is written in Arabic languages. In a few days, I will travel throughout Israel and Jordan. Visiting the Holy Lands of mayor religions is exciting in itself. And it was Lawrence who claimed that "nothing is written" when he crossed the heat-wise impassable Nefud desert to attack Aqaba/Jordan in 1917 - which made him a hero to 10 year old Stefan. To me, these days of travel will also mark the 1^stanniversary of knowing that my bone marrow can have a significant impact on the way I die. In other words, despite previous hopes, there seems to be something written in my bone marrow.
Lawrence died at the age of 46. He died from a fatal injury after an accident when riding his bike. His motor bike I should say; because apart from risking my live daily and on two wheels as well, I am quite aware that I am not even close to this guy, when it comes to experience.

Once in a while, I still have a hard time to to accept that I can not go beyond other's and foremost my expectations as I please. On the other hand, with age comes lesser resistance to laziness. One or another Sunday afternoon, it is OK without 10k swimming. :D

Hopefully, the opportunity for swimming in the death sea will come. Maybe, I will be just floating and thinking about changes and limits.

As enclosed sphere, the brain allows redirection of thoughts.

Something that keeps me thinking at the moment is this one:




Web-psycho-socio-technological it is a clone of TED. But it concentrates on the binding forces of religion & humankind. Usually, I see myself as having little missionary attitude. This time, I admit, I feel the need to share this over http.
Thanks for paying attention.

Crisis, what crisis?

There are two reasons why it took some time for this new entry.
The first one is that the last blog's title remained longer true than expected. Just after having started, and back from holidays, I broke my metatarsal. Which just sounds more sophisticated than "I broke my foot". Most likely, the pain is ignorant to sophistication. Am I starting to get old because such events make me wonder whether this happens because I get old? I had a cross country run with corresponding (new) shoes. And after a while off road and in the woods, back on a straight and easy road, I stumbled at the border from concrete to soil. At least, there are some stars who are by nature prone to this injury: football players like Mr Beckham.
The other reason for this sign of absenteeism from blogging turned into the title of this entry. At the moment, the percolation of the diagnosis throughout myself more or less ended; or there is no notable change in its meaning during every day, and other, life. A lot has changed in short time. Major mental adjustments. But then, there are again days where I might not have spend a single thought on the bone marrow and its production rate.

Holiday also meant Budapest. Which is famous for a long tradition in public pools / baths / spa. For the first time since the 18th of Jan. this year I was swimming in luxurious decorated facility with 50m outdoor pool, sauna, several hot in- and outdoor pools, with built-in chess boards on the side. I had a 5k swim, which was OK. But...since then...no second try.

Out of office

Retro medicine

My reduced posting frequency does not reflect a similar trend in the presence of the illness in my stream of thoughts. It is just that this presence gets more and more interwoven with the fabric of my thoughts. Nevertheless, I still feel more rapid changes of perspective than during usual times, a constant historical overdose. Which might become a new "usual".

As an example, the advice by health officials, to wash hands more frequently as prevention against a pandemic outbreak of one of the H-something-N-somthings gets instantly related to my illnesss. Here, it is one of the treatments of my illness, e.g. phlebotomy.
To me, both hand-washing and phlebotomy to manage serious illnesses sound very antique (In reality, phlebotomy is much older than hand-washing.) Compared along the historical timeline, I am lucky to get phlebotomy in a clean environment by trained staff, and with washed hands. From own experience and in comparison, phlebotomy gives me the better kick. The other week, I "received" the 2nd one ever. In contrast to normal people, this gave me 3-4 days of increased physical power and endurance. What spinach intake is for Popeye is blood outflow for me.
I still observe all recommendations from my Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) doctor (unfortunately, his business model is not traditional, i.e. successful prevention is not his only source of revenue). It does not hurt, but eating warm three times a day is no fun either, especially during summer. On the kick scale, his acupuncture is close to hand-washing.
On the retro scale of medicine, my treatments are real high scorers. In order to thrive under these circumstances, I added hand-washing. Maybe, I will grow this hand-washing into regular swims I had previously.