An ebike, and camping at Te Haruhi Bay

With my health declining I don't have the oomph to get very far on my bike any more, so a while back we decided to get me an ebike.  However, Martin's got a lot going on at the moment and I don't really have the knowledge to figure out which one to buy, so nothing happened for a while.

Then a couple of weeks ago, I thought I should just have a look on TradeMe and see if I could come up with a shortlist for Martin to go through.  It seems that thought came from God :-)  I came up with a list of around 8, but one seemed particularly suitable.  When Martin looked, that one stood out to him, too.  It was brand new, and reduced from $1700 to $700 as it didn't have as powerful a motor as people expect from an ebike.  Other than that, it seemed like exactly what I wanted - and an incredible price.

Electricity price inflation

I've been feeling like our power bills have been going through the roof recently, despite our usage not going up much.  I happen to have both usage and billing data going back 20 years, so I thought I'd check.  It turns out my gut feel was correct!

This is a graph of total monthly bill (for January and July each year from 2026) divided by the number of kWh used in that month.  Back in 2006 we paid 15c per kWh; now it's 48c.  (That's the total we pay, including all the fixed charges, not the marginal cost per kWh).

For contrast, if the bill had risen in line with CPI inflation, 15c would have turned into 25c, according to the RBNZ. 

As an aside I have no idea what happened in July 2012.  That spike is from a freak enormous bill with average usage - presumably a clerical error?

Not sure what, if anything, I can do with this information, but it's nice to know I'm not mistaken, at least! 

World Sjögrens Day

 

Today is World Sjögrens Day.

Last November I was having trouble swallowing, which I initially assumed was a recurrence of trouble I'd had earlier where stomach acid was burning my swallowing muscles so they didn't work right. However, it now seems that I've developed Sjögrens disease, an autoimmune condition where your body attacks glands that produce moisture. In my case I had dry eyes that were so dry I was getting blotchy vision, and a dry mouth that made it hard to swallow. Eye drops and being careful to drink really often have made an immense difference.

However, I recently came across the idea that having low stomach acid can trigger autoimmune conditions. As I understand it, low stomach acid alters what bacteria are present in your gut, and one of the things 'good' gut bacteria do is mediate what can get from your gut into your bloodstream. Messing with the gut microbiome can mean that larger molecules get through to your bloodstream, and those can then lodge in bits of your body that are in some sense vulnerable (I don't understand the explanation of what makes them vulnerable), causing inflammation that then triggers an autoimmune response.

Some fun things :-)

My health continues to be pretty dicey, but I've been trying to make sure I include some fun things in my life day to day.  That's definitely helping me to feel more human!  Here's some pictures of some of those :-)

A felt picture I made for my nephew's birthday

Health update

 I thought it was time to post an update on where I'm at with my health.

1. It looks like I've developed Sjögrens syndrome, an autoimmune condition where your immune system attacks glands that make moisture.  This explains my swallowing issues (which seem to be due to a dry mouth, and have gone away since I've been a bit more careful about drinking regularly).  The dental hygienist has suggested some products I can try if it gets worse.  It also explains my dry and scratchy eyes.  For that I'm now using eye drops every 1-2 hours, which helps heaps but is a pain to do!  I've been given new drops to try that might work for a bit longer, but I decided to finish off the current bottle before I open those, as they go off pretty fast.
2. It also seems that I've had a recurrence of my concussion symptoms, which is where the brain fog and nausea fit in.  There's some medical controversy as to whether this can actually happen, but my symptoms are responding to the treatment that helped with the concussion, at least.  My GP is of the opinion it doesn't much matter why this has occurred, seeing as I've found something that's helping!

Camping at McCreadies Paddock

Over ANZAC weekend Martin and I had four nights at McCreadies Paddock campground, near Karekare in the Waitakere ranges.  With my health at the moment AND the trains not running that weekend AND some campgrounds being fully booked for part of the time we wanted, we ended up choosing a place we hadn't been to before and having a friend drop us there and back by car.

It turned out to be a really lovely spot.  It was two areas of flat ground surrounded by trees and a creek.  One of the flat areas had a small cooking shelter and some toilets at the edge, and there was a carpark with space for maybe 6-ish cars.

I'm not very well...

In July of last year I had a cluster of 'real' migraines.  For some years I've had clusters of auras without other symptoms, but these came with light sensitivity, nausea and headaches as well.  I've only had a handful of those in my life and each time, as with the first of these, I haven't recognised what they were as they happen so rarely.

Over time the headaches stopped, but I developed other visual weirdnesses and the nausea became near-constant - never gone, although sometimes better and sometimes worse.  In recent months I've developed huge fatigue, too.  Issues with swallowing that I had a few years' back have returned, and haven't gone away with a medication increase.