I was wondering how to approach this blog when I decided to toast some raisin-bread for breakfast. Shortly after I started eating it, I began coughing. I have shared this “type” of story with a few people. I often continue eating something regardless of my exact circumstances – that is to say, oblivious to the consequences. As I ate more of the raisin-bread and my coughing worsened, I eventually reached for my inhaler. (I have been diagnosed with borderline asthma now by two doctors.) I only use the inhaler when I need it, which is infrequently. I thought to myself, perhaps I should check on the heath metrics that I get on those days that I have eaten raisin-bread. I present the DOS output below. I don’t have an elaborate illustration just yet.
The output shows that in relation to 13 different health metrics that I currently maintain, overall raisin-bread hasn’t been associated with many good days. I checked the worst time for eating raisin-bread: the output shows 7 AM – 50 incidents negative and only 8 positive. I checked the clock on my computer – 7:15 AM! Once again I had placed myself in the worst-possible scenario. This technology demonstrates how lost I would be without it even in relation to common day-to-day choices. The next image shows an Rk-Rw comparison for the entire day. It suggests that if I must have raisin bread, in the past my best bet would have been around 6 to 7 PM, which for me is around dinner time. Clearly by far the worst time would be 7 AM, which a moment ago caused me to grab my inhaler.
I don’t want to give the impression that I avoid foods. Generally speaking the exact opposite is true. I have started actively monitoring the numbers carefully and developing a holistic calendar – I call it a “circadian calendar.” On this calendar, I intend to retake the to analyze day-to-day events every month – and compare changes that occur over the years as both my body and its environment changes. Lemon is something that has a relatively neutral impact on the metrics in general – but not on the metric series involving breathing, throat, and voice.
In the summer of 2015, my voice started to disappear. My inability to stop it was frustrating, and I eventually gave up on my technology. But after I “gave it up,” I found myself hospitalized a few months later. When I reemerged, although I don’t recall the exact chain of events, I decided to redesign the event model such that the system monitors time differences, compares families of events, and allows for the formation of tactical metrics: e.g. those related to my voice. When my voice began returning, I decided to celebrate by learning Mandarin – apart from practicing French (Canada’s other national language) and Tagalog (my native language). I’m wondering if I can fit Russian since I already have some books, familiarity with its history and authors. By the way, the diagnosis in 2016 was that I had a partially paralyzed vocal cord. Below I present a few charts showing a few of my health metrics.
It’s funny – truly a bit comical – what sorts of things I avoid and do in an effort to influence the metrics. In those situations where I think total avoidance might be a bad idea, at that point I try to determine my best bet. For example, I generally avoid Vitamin D; but such is its lofty reputation among a cheesy fondue of proponents, I am sometimes willing to place a bet on its periodic use. It is extremely relaxing not having to remember what things to avoid – not that I ever put much effort into this anyways. And what a coincidence I am so dependent on technology that I had the ability to develop.
