Brought low by something so small

I like to think that I’m tough. Don’t we all? That we can face adverse events and unpleasant surprises without being set off course. But then a tiny little medical situation made the assumption of resiliency coming crashing down.

I had a bad nosebleed right before New Years. And then I dislodged the scab twice in the following week, causing two more bad nosebleeds. A visit to the hospital emergency room ended with my nose cauterized and packed with some gauze. A few days later, back at emerg, they removed the gauze and no more nosebleed.

Until about a week after that when I had another bad nosebleed. Cue a return trip to the emergency room, where I sat waiting for the doctor as my precious blood slowly leaked past my pinched nostrils, or dribbled down into my mouth. If I tried to talk or breathe at the wrong moment, I’d disperse a tiny shower of blood droplets in random directions.

I discovered weeks later that there were droplets on my running shoes

You may not realize this, but waiting is difficult to do when your body refuses to keep its most vital fluid inside where it belongs. The nurses who checked in on me were sympathetic, which is nice but not really helpful. I don’t want you to feel bad for me, I want you to plug this leaky nose.

Now, I knew that I was objectively in no real danger. Though I was seeing way more of my blood than I ever wanted to see, it was still a minor amount. But that objective awareness did not stop the fear. And a thought of profound terror struck me as I sat hunched over a tupperware container that contained a mix of blood and bloody paper towel: if I can barely handle this trivial emergency, how will I endure it when real crisis shows up? Because everyone gets medically fragile as they grow old. I was almost brought to a complete emotional meltdown by a nosebleed. How will I get though something worse?

A strange understanding accompanied this moment of fear. This sense of powerlessness is why people turn to god. When given a choice between having no hope, or having the illusion of hope, the idea of an all-powerful being who could end your suffering instantly is very appealing. I can’t say that I stopped being an atheist, but I see why people need god in one form or another. Otherwise, you are left to the mercies of random chance and a universe that is profoundly disinterested in your continued existence.

But let’s come back down to reality from these heady realms of amateur theology. I waited no more than 10 minutes to see the doctor. He gave me medicinal cocaine to constrict the blood vessels in my nose, which was a strange way to learn that I would hate the sensation of doing coke for fun. As our Canadian medical expert the Weeknd told us, cocaine is also has anesthetic properties, so it numbs your nose and lip. I don’t care for the lack of sensation. I like feeling my face! And then the nice doctor burned the inside of my nose again to cauterize the pesky nasal arteries that were leaking, and plugged my nostril with a stiff cotton log of gauze. Feel free to refer to the gauze log as an extra large nose tampon. And it worked!

Well, mostly. My nose was still finding a way to trickle a tiny amount past the plug, which I found upsetting. So I decreed to my wife that we were returning to the ER. My decree ended up sounding a bit panicky, which understandably upset my wife. We drove back to the ER, waited about 5 minutes, and saw the same doctor. He pulled out the plug, which was moderately uncomfortable, sprayed the area down again using the clotting agent they give to trauma patients with gory serious injuries, burned a little bit more of my nose, and then escalated the plugging plan. If you thought that cramming one extra large nose tampon deep into your nasal cavity was unpleasant, imagine a second one being shoved into the very same hole. And then imagine what happens when those two stiff tubes of gauze absorb blood and snot. They swell.

My poor, poor nostril. As least I could breathe through the other one.

So for 5 long days, I had a perpetual headache from my poor left nasal cavity being over capacity. The pressure was constant and distracting. But there was no additional blood. Hurray for that. I slogged my way through those uncomfortable days and stuffed nose nights, and then it was time to go back to emerg to have the plugs removed. I can recommend that if you have a say in when you go to the emergency room, pick 8AM on a Sunday morning. There was almost no wait at all. They prepped my usual room for me, and a new doctor came in to pull the plug.

Here’s a fun fact: your body will adjust to most ongoing conditions. So if your brain gets used to the pressure of your nose being packed, then it registers a sudden lack of that pressure as pain. I was surprised, in the worst possible way, at how much it hurt having these gross crusty bloody wads of cotton extracted from my poor, battered nose. I think a gave a tiny grunt/scream at the midway point. But they came out, and they did not bring a deluge of fresh blood with them. The lack of bleeding was a relief. The post-removal headache was not enjoyable, but it ended soon enough.

And if you’ve read this far, you’re probably hungry for an answer of why did this sudden nose crisis occur. What mysterious illness or condition turned me into a blood faucet? What caused such a prolonged ordeal? After much thought and investigation with my family doctor, we came to the most reasonable culprit.

My nose got too dry.

That’s it. Really. Dry nose led to the skin breaking, like when your capped lips start to bleed. Bad luck placed the tiny cut in my nose right on top of a fun spot called the Keisselbach plexus (or Little’s area) where several tiny arteries knot together. And then through dumb decisions like blowing my nose or breathing too hard, I subsequently dislodged the scab that had formed to stop the initial nosebleed.

So now I pay too much attention to how dry the air is, and I try to keep my nose adequately lubed up and moist at all times. It’s a strange thing to have as a priority. And just to make things more interesting, my aging body has decided to have seasonal allergies. Tree pollen now gives me a constant post-nasal drip, and irritates the lining of my nose and my sinuses. And what can that irritation cause? A tiny amount of blood in your mucus. So I’m on a low-dose nasal corticosteroid until the the trees stop molesting my immune system. But, and I say this while knocking on all the wood around me, no more nosebleeds since the winter. I’m happy about that, because I like it when my blood stays in my body. It’s easier to keep track of that way.

But as much as this very minor medical episode messed me up and traumatized me, it was manageable because of my wonderful, strong, and supportive wife. A regular Florence Nightingale! She kept me calm and hydrated as we sat in the hospital, and she kept the house and our lives running smoothly even though I was out of action. I am lucky to have a partner who cares for me when I am low. Love that woman!

Me? A techno-optimist???

We’ve all enjoyed a hearty dose of doom over the last few years, haven’t we? It’s been so easy to see the possible calamities (both natural and manufactured by humanity’s poor decisions) and fall to the ground with hopelessness. Wildfires! Pandemics! Culture war strife! Actual war! Sinking fertility rates! Rising global temperatures! DOOOOOOOOOOOOOM.

Did you notice how tiring it is to be alarmed constantly? To be on the edge of panic every waking moment, scanning the internet for news on the newest thing to be terrified of? It is exhausting. Luckily, my innate contrarianism has offered me a path to salvation: techno-optimism!

Techno-optimism is the belief that humanity will find technological ways of rising to the challenges it faces. Before I go any further, I want to make it very clear that I do not invest technology with some sort of quasi-religious infallibility. Anything made by humans can be horrifying and disastrous, either by intent or by accident. But on balance, humanity stumbles forward with each tech step, not backwards. We might unleash some kind of hell that is impossible to recover from, sure, but odds are we can fix any mess we’ve made. Specifically: climate change and fertility rates.

Climate, she’s a changing. It’s getting warmer, and inconsistently varying from regular weather patterns. The bad news is that the effects we see now are the result of pollution from 10 years ago (give or take) so the next 10 years are already baked in. It does not matter if we dropped to zero emissions tomorrow, riding around on our wooden bicycles and eating only the limited food grown within walking distance of your house. But what does matter is how we adapt to the changes. Better waterway controls to reduce flooding. Aggressive building intensification in urban areas, with strict boundaries protecting woodland and farmland. And technology! Renewable energy production is skyrocketing, most notably in the places where its vital (China and the U.S.) Battery tech is improving dramatically, making full solar/wind more possible, and making a full shift to electric vehicles likely to happen at an accelerated pace. The final piece is carbon capture, and if that can get fully implemented, we’ll be a much better position.

As for dropping fertility rates (how’s that for a jarring change of topic?): Cloning and/or genetic engineering will give us the ability to choose our population growth rate. Will this open up a Pandora’s box of moral, ethical and legal issues? Oh boy will it. But the alternative solutions are worse. Do nothing and have a world full of old people with no one to care for them, or mandated babymaking which is never as fun as people assume it will be.

And what would a tech post be without mention of our newest techno-darling, AI? AI has a lot of potential, some good, some bad, and a whole lot of unknown effects. I think AI can be a very helpful tool, but I would not trust it for anything that needs to be more than 80% accurate. You still need a human to review the AI output for signs of it being completely and utterly wrong. As an example, I can see AI helping reduce the bloated costs involved in video game production. The big “AAA” games now take half a decade and hundreds of millions of dollars to get made. If AI can reduce the time and cost, that’s great. The danger is that game studios will use AI on the creative elements of game design and creation, which will be a net loss for us.

So what we need from our political leadership is facilitation. A buffet of cheap solar power is useless if there aren’t enough transmission lines to get the power to where its needed, when its needed. A city that refuses to build apartment buildings taller than 12 storeys because people don’t like tall things is a city that is dedicated to emission-intensive sprawl. Speed up the process to convert unused office space to rental apartments, change zoning rules to make it easier to build dense, multiuse neighbourhoods. Make sure our arterial roadways are focused on efficiently allowing the highest volume of people to travel across the city, by car or by mass transit, and designate secondary streets as lower speed networks.

Election signs are important

The menace of colourful rectangles!

Ah, the municipal campaign season is nearing its end. And soon, the flock of sign grouses will return to their roosts and hibernate until the next campaign begins. You can identify the sign grouse by their grumbling complaints about the existence of campaign signs. To them, evidently, there is no greater blight on the urban landscape than colourful rectangles by the roadside. And some of those rectangles have pictures on them! THE HORROR!

I’ve even heard politicos themselves mutter their displeasure at signs, hoping that someday they will be banned completely. They say signs are expensive, installing them is time and labour-intensive, and sign clutter is messy. All true. But campaign signs are also important to a healthy democracy for 3 reasons: candidate legitimacy, candidate name recognition, and election awareness.

Candidate Legitimacy

Campaign signs tell the public several important facts about your campaign. They demonstrate that you have the resources (people and money) to purchase and install signs across the area that you’re running in. They demonstrate that you have an ability to follow the rules ( or reveal that you can’t). A well-designed sign shows the voters that you are a serious candidate who will act professionally and understands political norms. And overall, they show that you have a functioning campaign.

Name Recognition

I know you want to believe that the average voter spends time researching the candidates, examining their positions, and making an informed decision, but I have to burst your bubble. Political weirdos like me do that. Most people don’t. The average person spends about 5 minutes thinking about any given election, and that five minutes takes place during their walk to the voting booth. The only political name they have been exposed to in the period between elections is the incumbent, and a lot of voters will choose the name that sounds the most familiar. Campaign signs are the only opportunity the other candidates have to shout their name at the electorate and build name recognition with those voters. So if you like making it even easier for an incumbent to get re-elected, ban campaign signs.

Election Awareness

Those voters I mentioned above, who only spend 5 minutes of political thought per election? They may not even notice that an election is happening. Politics has so little meaning to their day to day life that they can ignore the entire election without being inconvenienced. But each campaign sign they see as they drive to work is an unavoidable reminder that an election is indeed taking place, and they should probably get off their ass and vote. My suspicion is that is really the reason why people get irrationally angry at colourful rectangles: they hate being nagged about their civic responsibility.

OF COURSE ROAD SAFETY IS IMPORTANT

To head off one of the common anti-sign complaints, let me clarify: There is a legitimate need for a sign by-law that prevents campaign signs from being placed in a location that interferes with road safety. I’m not arguing against that part of the sign by-laws. Good god, why would anyone? But I am arguing against the elements of the by-law that are driven exclusively by esthetics and feelings. Your feelings are your business, not the governments.

Oh, and the 48 hour deadline to takedown all your campaign signs is arbitrary and malicious. It’s a petty deadline meant to discourage campaigns from putting up signs in the first place.