Friday, November 11, 2011

On the knife edge

I was released from hospital on Sunday, armed with a diet advice sheet. On Tuesday afternoon I filmed three lectures on the subject of "Science and its Human Context", part of a summer course I am teaching over the web. Each lecture is about 30 minutes long, with the topics "Science and Humanity", "What is Science?" and"The Value and Values of Science". They are public domain and can be viewed through the following links:

SCIE 201 - 02 Science and Humanity
http://mdsweb.vuw.ac.nz/Mediasite/Viewer/?peid=1c16cef06418446eb2c48c9bb075cc42

On Wednesday evening Miang and I went to Zealandia, the predator free enclosure in Karori, to visit Sirocco, the Kakapo superstar. There are only 130 Kakapo left on planet earth. A flightless parrot weighing in at around 4 kg, the Kakapo was once the third major source of protein for pre-European Maori. Sirocco is particularly famous because, having been brought up by humans, he thinks is is one, and occasionally wishes to mate with them. To learn more about this, see the youtube clip from BBC series "Last chanc
e to see" where Sirocco takes a fancy to Stephen Fry's cameraman. This clip has had over 3 million views!

My bowel functioned fine through to Wednesday but on Thursday morning I awoke with wind pain and a swelling in the abdomen. It was another obstruction though less severe than the week before. It finally passed about 10 pm. The worrying aspect is that this episode happened despite my following the low fibre diet. I am now on an even more conservative diet and still, I am having difficulty.

FOOTNOTE: Monday 14 November: After a weekend of "baby puree" food my bowel is functioning superbly. I'll stick with this cautious approach for a few weeks in the hope of coaxing the plumbing back to a more robust state.


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