So one year I’ll find something else to blog about, but in the meantime here’s my reading stats for 2016.
I’d read about 72 books in each of the previous two years, but only read 61 in 2016, which is a marked drop. A measly 19,278 pages which works out to 53 pages per day, or a book every 6 days on average. This is a drop from the previous year’s 57 pages per day or a book every 5 days, so I’ve perhaps not slowed down that much it seems.
My average rating was 3.31 compared to Goodreads of 3.96, so I seem to be continuing the trend of getting kinder in my ratings (or sticking to books more likely to appeal to me). Like 2015, there was only one book I gave up on.
I also read 654 articles and blog entries. I really love the ereader integration with Pocket (although to be honest, I would probably love integration with Instapaper just as much if not more).
Favourite book would have to be Over Your Dead Body which chronicles the continuing adventures of John Cleaver that started with I Am Not a Serial Killer. Fortunately the disappointing movie adaptation of the first book hasn’t dampened my appreciation for this series.
I also enjoyed Harlan Coben’s Fool Me Once so much I read it twice! So it turns out I only read 60 unique books.
Special mentions have to also go to:
The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet and its sequal because while the story lines seems to meander around with not much point, the sheer inventiveness of the world building still drew me in.
And, Barsk: The Elephants' Graveyard for making me care about the fate of anthropomorphic elephants in a post-human universe.
I also read the The Three-Body Problem trilogy, which was recently released in English and has got a lot of attention. While I liked it and would certainly encourage science fiction fans to give it a go, it didn’t appeal to me as much as it did to others (3 star rating from me, against 4.29 on Goodreads).
Three books rated with five starts, 26 with four stars, and 17 with three makes 79% of books with a three star rating or better, compared to 60% for the previous year, so seems I went for quality over quantity this year. As with last year, all these books were read as ebook format on my trusty Aura HD.
Lastly, there were two series I plowed through which I found thoroughly enjoyable reads. The first is The Rho Agenda which I recommend reading in published order, not chronological. Initially thinking this was more of a young adult read, it sucked me in and kept me going through seven books (so far). The second is The Expanse which I decided to give a go after watching the first season of the TV series. Shame we’ve got to wait until November for the next installment.
So I’ve got a new little guy sitting on top of my monitor.
(Click on any image to see a larger version.)
It is an ultrasonic distance sensor that I use as a presence sensor to tell the computer when I’m in front of it or not.
This is connected to a LeoStick to read the distance and notify the computer when the threshold changes from “present” to “away” or back.
A shell script on my computer listens to the serial port on the LeoStick, so if music is playing when I walk away from my computer, it pauses the music player. When I return, it starts playing again. It will also wake the monitors from power saving mode when I return, too.
It was one of those little annoyances where I would walk three steps away from the desk, stop, then turn around and walk back to press the pause button.
The only issue is when the cat sits on my chair it is just on the distance threshold and you can hear the music chopping on and off from the other room.
I’m also starting to fiddle a bit more with some infrastructure for home automation, so I post presence change events to an MQTT server and a time series database, which will allow me to pull some interesting stats out while I’m at it.
I also stuck a switch on a little bracket under the desk to detect if it is at sitting or standing height, which I also post to MQTT and the database just for the heck of it.
So nine weeks ago I had a Roux-en-Y Gastric
Bypass. Thought it might
be worth writing a bit about the experience and a few of the things I would
have done in preparation knowing what I know now.
Disclaimer: I am not a medical professional. This article is opinion from a
lay person. Advice here may or may not work for you.
The story so far: A bit over four years ago I
had a Lapband
installed. It had the attraction of being reversible whereas the bypass is
permanent. While it was effective and I lost about thirty kilograms, after
four years weight loss had completely stalled and I started having other issues
with it – mainly reflux and heartburn. It turns out in the four years
since I got my lapband the prevailing wisdom on the subject has decided
lapbands generally last about four years then start having problems, and help
the recipient loses about thirty kilograms, but no more. Nice to be inside the
curve I guess.
So, still wanting to be alive in twenty years or so, I needed to do something
else. The bypass seemed like the logical option to pursue. It’s been around for
a fair while and seems to have a pretty good track record (you always hear the
horror stories, but they are the exceptions).
So, here’s the rough order of events leading up to and the weeks after the
surgery:
Two weeks before, you’ll start a very low carbohydrate diet, consisting
mainly of protein shakes and soups like
Optifast plus a cup or two of veggies per
day. The purpose of this is not to enlighten you to the virtues of a
Ketogenic diet, but to
shrink the size of your liver so it is not in surgeon’s way while they
meddle with your other internal organs.
Surgery. Don’t be a hero, take the pain medication.
All things going well, you’ll spend four or five days in hospital.
For the first week after surgery you will be on fluids only. This is
basically anything that you could suck through a straw. So soups, shakes…
more soups. Expect that you will have a very low tolerance for anything
with sugar in it (more on that below).
Weeks two and three you upgrade to mush! Anything that can be run through a
blender to become puree. This can include casseroles, pasta, risotto and
thicker soups. If you can run it through a blender without burning it out,
than it is probably fair game.
Week four you actually get to use your teeth, kinda. Soft foods. Mostly
what you’ve been eating for the last two weeks but without having to blend
it first. More casseroles and pasta, but also poached eggs, mince dishes
and chunky soups.
Week five, all things being well, you’re onto your quote long-term eating
plan unquote. Eat sensibly and all that.
Post surgery you want to be pretty kind with yourself. Not only has some of the
internal plumbing been rearranged, but the surgery itself is pretty big. Your
body will spend a few weeks going, “What the hell just happened?” I found even
five weeks later I would be going fine for four or five days then completely
conk out and want to sleep for a day, then be fine again. It’s a big
adjustment.
Another thing I found post-surgery was a high sensitivity to sugar, called
Dumping
syndrome.
Basically the stomach valve is no longer there to regulate the release of food
into the bowel, so the sugar gets dumped into your intestines all at once.
Among other things, your body responds by producing an excess of insulin.
Symptoms can include a rapid heart beat, sweats, nausea and can even trigger an
anxiety attack. Basically you feel like the sky is falling on your head for
twenty to sixty minutes.
Initially, even the lactose in milk was enough to make me feel unwell. Even the
protein shakes from the pre-surgery low-carb diet had enough sugar in them to
trigger episodes, which nixed my plan to use the left over shakes during the
first week as part of my fluids.
Fortunately around week four or five, when I started eating substantial food
again, the sensitivity started to lessen. While if I were to eat half a family
block of chocolate it would make me feel like I was dying, I can enjoy a couple
of pieces with only a mild flutter. More importantly, although lactose free
milk was okay, I can use regular milk in my coffee again, so life goes on.
For me, this negative buzz if I eat too much sugar was one of the more
distressing changes. Not so much because I want to eat more chocolate, but
because of how ill I feel if do eat something that disagrees with me.
Discovering that peanut butter really does not agree with me any more was a
rude surprise that wiped me out for a good hour. On the other hand, as a
incentive to eat a bit healthier it is certainly effective. I’ve convinced a
bypass is two parts changing the way your body processes food and one part
aversion therapy.
With the rearranged internals, you have to get use to different sensations
around eating and hunger. Feeling hungry is usually a mild thing that only pops
up if I haven’t eaten or drunk anything for half a day. When sitting down to a
meal it is also quite easy to eat too much and be over-full. You don’t get the
feeling of a full stomach in quite the same way. Also, you’ll be surprised how
little food you end up eating at a meal. Having lived with the lapband
previously was probably good preparation so I adjusted pretty fast. Looking at
the last couple of bites of food on your plate and thinking, “I’ll just polish
that off,” can be the difference between thinking, “That was a satisfying
meal,” and, “Oh, why did I eat so much?” You adjust in time. When eating out at
a restaurant I now take a plastic container in my bag to bring the leftovers
home for lunch the next day. Unless you spend the rest of your life ordering
entrées you’ll never finish a restaurant meal.
So, things to do in preparation for having a bypass? Figure out as much of the
foods you can eat for the first few weeks after surgery in advance. Especially
if, like me, you hate soup. Figure out and test the options well beforehand.
Assume anything sugary is going to make you feel sick. Even the lactose in
milk. Prior preparation will help you resist the temptation to rush the
schedule and move onto the next phase sooner. Don’t do that, you might bust a
seam.
After the surgery, your body wants lots of protein to help it heal. So
beforehand, find a sugar-free, lactose free, maybe even gluten free protein
powder that you think you’ll be able to put up with drinking daily for a while.
You’ll probably want to avoid anything that tastes sickly sweet. (Pro tip: A
drop or two of peppermint essence can really help.) First week home I went down
to the local body building supplements
store and explained what I needed and why. I wasn’t their first customer in
this situation and they were very helpful.
You’ll also have been pumped full of antibiotics for a couple of days, so
taking some sort of probiotic is probably a good idea too. Think yoghurt,
kombucha, kefir, kvass or other fermented foods. (Flavoured yoghurt usually has
too much sugar. A couple of big spoonfuls of plain yoghurt blended up with some
almond milk and half a banana or some frozen berries can work well.)
Be prepared to supply your own food while in hospital, in case their idea of a
good post-surgery bariatric fluid menu is milk shakes, fruit juice,
sustagen and a thin soup that tastes like a
doormat. Having not figured out the dumping syndrome thing, and being
completely out of it for a couple of days after three hours of surgery, I
thought feeling absolutely crap after eating anything was normal. It wasn’t.
Check with your surgeon what medications you may need to be on and for how long
after the surgery. In my case I need to be on
pariet
for about six months to minimise stomach acid production while things heal and
the body adjusts. You may need to go back to your GP to get a prescription with
repeats.
It is good to find a surgeon that is part of a larger team that does follow-up
and looks after you both before and after the surgery. You get to talk to a
dietician that will tell you some of what to expect, and make sure you’re set
with the proper vitamin supplements and such. Go over the types of food to eat
and what can be problematic. You can ring the nurse when the larger
laparoscopic incision on your left side starts really hurting after four weeks
and they can tell you that is normal and what to do about it. They’ll field
weird questions like, “My lips have been really, really dry since the surgery,
is that normal?” (It isn’t, but it cleared up after about four weeks, and you
can steal the moisturising stick out of your partners handbag to deal with it
in the meantime.) They’ll assure you that you’re not being a bother and they
would far rather you ring and ask instead of worry.
If all this sounds painful and a hard and a big thing, well it is. But remember
the end goal is still being alive in twenty years. I’ll be around too.
Listening to Kate Taylor tell stories this morning about how she founded The 2H Project reminded me of something George Bernard Shaw wrote:
The reasonable person adapts themself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to themself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable person.*
I am glad there are unreasonable people like Kate in this world.
So 2015 was very similar to 2014 in terms of book reading, which clocked in at 72 books and a total of 20,909 pages for the year. Or 57 pages per day, or a book every a book every 5 days on average.
There was only one book I gave up on (it was an early novel from an author I usually enjoy, so that was unusual). My average rating was 2.94, against a Goodreads average of 3.89 for the same set of books. Last year my average was 2.79 so perhaps I am getting a bit kinder in my ratings.
I also read a whopping 789 articles and blog entries (most done via my ereader’s integration with Pocket). A word count of about 1.15 million. (Looking at the month by month, there’s a big spike in May when I was doing a lot of bus travel.)
Two books rated with five starts, 18 with four stars, and 28 with three. That’s 60% of books with a three star rating or better (which is a 5% drop from last year). This year all 72 books were read as ebook format on my Aura HD.
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