rns.recipes

Trying to write an interface driver for it.

Not quite sure what usable bandwidth it will provide yet, and reverse engineering the interfacing is turning out to be rather tricky. Makes a mess every time I try to splice in a protocol analyzer.

And yes, the above post is me. I'm in the hospital right now, and don't have my main computer with me, so can't post from my normal web account, but did have an ident backup on this one. So if you've sent me anything the last couple of days, I haven't seen it yet.

Doing fine now, they'll probably let me go tomorrow. But the last day and a half was a bit of a wild ride. Story time:

Shortly after releasing the last bunch of updates, I figured I'd try to not smell like programmer, so went for a shower, which was nice, until I started losing my vision. Interesting experience at first, messing around with looking at my hand, and it simply not being there. Not black, white, or such - just not there. No signal. Gone.

The "signal loss" then started spreading, covering more and more of my vision, to the point were I figured it'd probably be better to go lie down and try and figure out what was going on. The vision loss continued to expand, so figured it was probably better to go to the ER than try and play doctor myself.

Got driven there, and they pretty quickly slid me into a CAT scanner to have a look inside ze head. Queue tension. Queue a whole lot of waiting for radiologist. And then, very suddenly, a whole lot of not waiting, getting whisked around, having an assortment of tubes, probes, sensors hooked up to me, while a doctor - very profesionally, mind you - informed me they'd found something in my brain that shouldn't be there.

No, it wasn't the unnatural obsession with peculiar indentation alignment patterns, they missed that one, thankfully, but a currently not-quite-identified lesion, somewhere deep in the right half of my brain. Pretty small, he tried to reassure me (you can imagine the pinching gesture for yourself).

In the moment, I had really very little clue about what was actually going on, and a lot of the details were filled in hindsight, so this is the abridged version. Either way...

They apparently couldn't determine whether this was an actively bleeding lesion, or "something else" from the CAT scan, and since it was small enough that it probably wouldn't kill me just there on the spot, even if it was bleeding, they took the (probably, I'm not a doctor) sensible route of getting me more or less ready for potential brain surgery, just in case, you know. So, got hooked up to IV drip, told not to eat or drink anything (very strict on that one), and put under observation until they would scan me again.

Then, twelve of the most simultaneously boring and tense hours of staring at a ceiling.

Finally, the prescribed time arrived, and I was wheeled off in my bed towards the claustrophobic engineering marvel that is the MRI machine. No, I could not be allowed to walk myself, that was for sure. While getting the thing ready, there was some lady with an air-freshener fetish going absolutely mental in the control room. Maybe I didn't manage to banish the programmer smell well enough, I'll never know. Caus currently, I still smell like some bizarre combination of hospital disinfectant and synthetic roses. Looking back, that was probably the most gruelling part of this whole adventure.

I was finally allowed to don a very interesting paper suit, and place myself onto the feeder mechanism of the super-cooled marvel. Nice periodic swishing of vacuum pumps providing the background ambience. Then, smooth servo-driven insertion into the tighest little beige-plastic chamber I have ever entered. Still smelling of "roses", yes.

As such, the scanning itself is very uneventful, but one bonus of the experience is that I now know, with a high degree of certainty, where the inspiration for dubstep music came from. Wish I had brought a sampler or something. Probably not allowed, anyway.

After about half an hour of wuwuwuwuwuw-mrrrrrrr-wrab-wrap-wrab-wrap-mwrrrrrrrrrrr, I was released from sphicter of the superconducting magnet contraption, back to my bed, queue more waiting. At this point, it was pretty hard not to think about steak and fries. A bag of IV saltwater is a bit spartan, in terms of meal coverage for 18 hours, if you ask me.

You get used to the idea that your brain might have an active internal bleed surprisingly fast, so at this point I was more or less just eager to figure out what was actually going on in there. It took quite a few more hours to get any assurance, but two hours after the MRI, they hadn't come running for me yet, so I figured the immediate danger was probably ruled out. A couple hours later, the neurologist dropped in and told me it's definitely not an active bleed, or anything that requires immediate attention or surgery. Very nice! Also, food allowed again, yay!

I still don't know exactly what it is they found in my brain. It may be a hard lump where all the sarcasm is stored or something. But they've promised me a proper meeting with the neurologist tomorrow, and then (hopefully) I will be free to go as well.

And, someone brought me pizza, so I'm not starving anymore. I still smell like roses though, which is getting quite unnerving.

So all in all, I am in fine condition, albeit a bit battered and exhausted. If you sent me something, don't expect a reply for a bit. Right now, I just want to go home and sleep for a day.

Also, the vision loss is most likely just a phenomenom know as scintillating scotoma. So most likely, it's completely unrelated to the mystery blob in my brain. Fascinating stuff, actually, a propagating wavefront in the occipital cortex where neurons overstimulate, then shut down momentarily (my vision returned after around 45 minutes). It can be caused by stress, sleep deprivation and other factors in susceptible individuals. The doctors will probably have a word or two to say about that.

So there you have it, that's what I've been up to since the last time around. Was a nice distraction sharing this. Being in a hospital is epically boring. I have to sign a friggin document to take a walk, and until a few hours ago, they wouldn't even let me, lol.

Mark, please, get well soon! I wish you a speedy recovery. I've been on the hospital bed more than once or twice and I know the feeling oh too well. Wouldn't wish it to anyone.

Best wishes!!!

Glad you are comfy and not having to do heavy surgery. Hope all goes well. If I recall, they figure you can survive for about 24 hrs on saline only, then they add the glucose drip…. Certainly not steak and eggs but gives you some energy! Ahhh, hospitals. Maybe your country has some more easygoing feeding arrangements.

Damn! I hope it was only a scare and nothing too serious. Wish you all the best (and steak and fries)! Get well soon!

Take care, Mark. Wishing you the best!

Thankfully you're in good spirits, as it's the only approach that works.

I hope you have uninteresting results soon and got to enjoy the marvel of modern medicine, rest well.

I’m thinking of you and hoping for as easy an outcome as possible 💗. My partner and I have both experienced neurological issues (some resolved, some an ongoing mystery thanks to the joys of American healthcare) and they can be some of the scariest things to go through. It’s ironic that the place where all the nerves go is one of the few places in the body that can’t directly sense itself.

I hope the air “freshener” doesn’t cause any more lesions! (It usually feels like it’s going to...)

I wish you a speedy recovery, Mark!!!
More of us than we know have such small bleed lumps in our brains, they are very normal as small blood vessels fail on a regular basis. As long as they don't turn into a full fledged stroke, we don't even notice them as the body isolates them very fast. The scintillating scotoma manifests most often as a bind spot and rarely cascades into a full vision loss, most probably you also had a blood-pressure different at the same time (both ways has the same effect), that can actually drown the vision like this. This sounds like stress overtaking. If you get in touch with Stan in the USA, he can actually help with fine-tuning a dietary setup for overcoming such situations (https://www.drekberg.com/). His insights saved my life once.
If you are in need of a second opinion or just for peace of mind, my father has more than 45 years of kick-ass neurosurgical experience - just upload the MRI set somewhere, together with the viewer (DICOM most probably) and send me a link by email! I will get him to look at it. Also, please bundle in their take on what is going on.
Be well and chill!
Bill
P.S. Dubstep does indeed live in MRI machines! I concur! And it also sounds like transformers having sex... :D
P.P.S. This serial port, that you got installed, looks like a classic RS485 setup for ModbusRTU! Sorry, you have been slow-speed hacked...they are fucking slowly dumping your registers, using a bidirectional, small-amplitude pressure-change modulation...RESIST!!!
P.P.P.S I hope the sun rises on you this morning as beautiful, as it just rose on me :)

Mark, Praying for your speedy recovery. Make sure you get your rest, but I guess they're not giving you much of a choice right now!

I will never forget the sound of the MRI, and I had the same thought regarding the origin of dubstep. Never a fun time. Here's wishing you a stress free recovery and plenty of your favorite meals <3