:: Sunday, September 04, 2005
Farter's day
Today is Father's Day. If Nushie's posterior-mounted orifice is anything to go by, it's farter's day as well. Especially in the car. I think something crawled in there and died; like anything could live with that smell anyway. We drove home from Thames this afternoon with Nushie emitting noxious odours at random intervals. It was so bad we stopped for a break and an ice cream in Paeroa.
Nushie didn't get one.
So I was very pleased to finally get home today, although more so for the fact that I was almost asleep at the wheel for half the trip and feeling like throwing up for the last 20 minutes. Thank God the traffic, though heavy, was well behaved.
It is Day 8 without a cigarette on the quest to not be a smoker any more and things are going very well, not-smoking wise. Things are going very well craving wise, too. But things are not going very well MS wise and I'm starting to see why perhaps Nick didn't think I should quit puffing.
Physiology Lesson:
When you form a thought, any kind of thought, or when your body performs an involuntary action or task, the brain goes through some fairly elementary states. And everyhting it does is performed by electrical impulse. Switch on, switch off.
Binary, just like your computer you are reading this on. When I was still at Poly, a guy in my class, Mark, broke his arm and before he had the cast removed he got us all to sign it with our initials.
In binary. It's very exciting signing "01000001 01000001" on someone's arm for posterity, you know.
Anyway, that's how the brain works and that is exactly where PWMS are screwed because it's the wires that the MS is destroying when it eats up the myelin sheath that are the intended courier for some of the information and instruction delivery around the body. But sometimes the courier breaks down and then we aren't very switched on at all.
When it does arrive at its intended destination, though, it goes through a few delivery motions. In your brain, all the goss is carried by neurons, and they all zip around doing their courier deliveries all the time. When neurons have to exchange information, the communication between the neurons is mediated by special chemical messengers called neurotransmitters. These Neurotransmitters bridge the physical gap between two neurons and bind to special protein receptors on the destination (postsynaptic) cell. Once bound, these receptors set in motion physiological changes within the neuron that allow it to send the signal on down the line.
Etc.
Each neurotransmitter has its own specific family of receptors. Nicotine works by docking to a subset of receptors that bind the neurotransmitter acetylcholine. Acetylcholine is the neurotransmitter that (depending on what region of the brain a neuron is in):
* Delivers signals from your brain to your muscles
* Controls basic functions like your energy level, the beating of your heart and how you breathe
* Acts as a "traffic cop" overseeing the flow of information in your brain
* Plays a role in learning and memory
We already know that my own, personal cerebral traffic cop redirects traffic to the wrong destination, but now instead of re-routing my legs to springtime in the rockies, we've ended up in an Eternity in Hell (and not the frozen-over kind). Add to that a rapidly increasing numbness, loss of visual focus, extreme fatigue, shaking hands, nausea, sore muscles, weak and wobbly legs and that God-awful all over inner writhing at night and it's not a cigarette I want, it's a loaded weapon.
The more I read, the more I feel that because I was a smoker for so long, maybe my brain is missing all the nicotine I imbibed while smokingg. When Nick comes back from sick leave, I think I might ask him about nicotine replacements that aren't going to be considered a quit-smoking device and therefore cost a fortune. Besides I'd rather smoke a doob anyway.
Sometimes my whole world just seems so fucked up compared to you real people.
In a soldier's stance, I aimed my hand
At the mongrel dogs who teach
Fearing not that I'd become my enemy
In the instant that I preach
My pathway led by confusion boats
Mutiny from stern to bow.
Ah, but I was so much older then,
I'm younger than that now.
My Back Pages - Bob Dylan
PS - why does everyone keep asking me why I stopped smoking? 
Nushie didn't get one.
So I was very pleased to finally get home today, although more so for the fact that I was almost asleep at the wheel for half the trip and feeling like throwing up for the last 20 minutes. Thank God the traffic, though heavy, was well behaved.
It is Day 8 without a cigarette on the quest to not be a smoker any more and things are going very well, not-smoking wise. Things are going very well craving wise, too. But things are not going very well MS wise and I'm starting to see why perhaps Nick didn't think I should quit puffing.
Physiology Lesson:
When you form a thought, any kind of thought, or when your body performs an involuntary action or task, the brain goes through some fairly elementary states. And everyhting it does is performed by electrical impulse. Switch on, switch off.
Binary, just like your computer you are reading this on. When I was still at Poly, a guy in my class, Mark, broke his arm and before he had the cast removed he got us all to sign it with our initials.
In binary. It's very exciting signing "01000001 01000001" on someone's arm for posterity, you know.
Anyway, that's how the brain works and that is exactly where PWMS are screwed because it's the wires that the MS is destroying when it eats up the myelin sheath that are the intended courier for some of the information and instruction delivery around the body. But sometimes the courier breaks down and then we aren't very switched on at all.
When it does arrive at its intended destination, though, it goes through a few delivery motions. In your brain, all the goss is carried by neurons, and they all zip around doing their courier deliveries all the time. When neurons have to exchange information, the communication between the neurons is mediated by special chemical messengers called neurotransmitters. These Neurotransmitters bridge the physical gap between two neurons and bind to special protein receptors on the destination (postsynaptic) cell. Once bound, these receptors set in motion physiological changes within the neuron that allow it to send the signal on down the line.
Etc.
Each neurotransmitter has its own specific family of receptors. Nicotine works by docking to a subset of receptors that bind the neurotransmitter acetylcholine. Acetylcholine is the neurotransmitter that (depending on what region of the brain a neuron is in):
* Delivers signals from your brain to your muscles
* Controls basic functions like your energy level, the beating of your heart and how you breathe
* Acts as a "traffic cop" overseeing the flow of information in your brain
* Plays a role in learning and memory
We already know that my own, personal cerebral traffic cop redirects traffic to the wrong destination, but now instead of re-routing my legs to springtime in the rockies, we've ended up in an Eternity in Hell (and not the frozen-over kind). Add to that a rapidly increasing numbness, loss of visual focus, extreme fatigue, shaking hands, nausea, sore muscles, weak and wobbly legs and that God-awful all over inner writhing at night and it's not a cigarette I want, it's a loaded weapon.
The more I read, the more I feel that because I was a smoker for so long, maybe my brain is missing all the nicotine I imbibed while smokingg. When Nick comes back from sick leave, I think I might ask him about nicotine replacements that aren't going to be considered a quit-smoking device and therefore cost a fortune. Besides I'd rather smoke a doob anyway.
Sometimes my whole world just seems so fucked up compared to you real people.
In a soldier's stance, I aimed my hand
At the mongrel dogs who teach
Fearing not that I'd become my enemy
In the instant that I preach
My pathway led by confusion boats
Mutiny from stern to bow.
Ah, but I was so much older then,
I'm younger than that now.
My Back Pages - Bob Dylan
PS - why does everyone keep asking me why I stopped smoking?
Some content included in this site has been liberated at (and from) great peril from the internet. Where possible, credit or a link has been given or is marked as "Unknown", except for jokes - I don't make up jokes. All other content comes straight from the Brain of Moi. I reserve the right to retain ownership of my own drivel :-)
2002 - 2005
