All posts by Charles

Aging, Dogs, Family, Shadow Mountain, Weather +Climate, Woolly Mammoths
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Fall and the Rosh Hashanah Moon

Kep in the loft
Gertie

Worked out yesterday. Was sleeping really well, really well. Until. Cold noses in my face. Yes, Kep. Yes, Gertie. A yip from Gertie. Kep jumps up on my legs. OK, OK, give me a minute. Forces head back onto pillow, hopes the dogs will disappear for about fifteen minutes. Nope. All right, all right, I’m getting up. Geez. 4:30. Right on time, but no slack for a tired dad.

Rigel, “Who, me?”

Kate had a dentist appointment in the morning. We took Gertie and Rigel with us since it’s cooling down up here. I drive because her ability to walk very far has diminished. I can put the car as close as possible to the entrance. She came out with brighty whities.

requires moving 5 tons of river rock. 10,000 pounds.

We’re scheduled for an absurd temperature drop on Thursday along with some snow. Hope the cold and snow calm down the extreme fire conditions we’ve had for the last month or so.

The CBE Mitzvah committee may help with my fire mitigation. My energy level for doing it is low. My desire to get it done is high. Susan convinced me that she might find some folks willing to help in some way. Here’s my e-mail to her after we talked:

Susan,

How I feel most days.

I needed your directness. It’s tough for me to ask for any help, ever. I know, I know, I’m a guy. Partly that. Partly, too, I want to do as much as I can as long as I can. It’s about love.

I promise when I wear out, before I wear out, I’ll give you a call. Right now I’m really fine. Except for that fire mitigation stuff.

It has surprised me how much having people out there that care matters. As you say, just knowing that is so much.

I’m pretty self-reliant, one of those blessing and curse sorta things, but I’ve always needed friends and community. Beth Evergreen is both. And, more.

So, gratitude to you, to your committee, to the ancient path that breeds such caring folks. We’re in this together and that makes all the difference. Really, not rhetoric.

Beyond the Boundaries, Dreams, Great Wheel, Holidays, Myth and Story

Årsgång

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Fall and the Rosh Hashanah Moon

Årsgång, The Year Walk. According to Swedish folklore, the year walk was a method of divination in which practitioners would, on either Christmas Eve or New Years Eve (I’ll bet on the Winter Solstice, too.), sit in a dark room with nothing to eat or drink until it was night. Then they would set off into the woods with no technology, no flashlights.

As they wandered, they would have supernatural encounters (lots of supernatural entities in the Northwoods.) In one case they would place themselves far enough away so they could not hear the cock’s crow, not eat or drink, and not look into any fire the day before the walk.

After they set off, they would walk until they came to a road. When morning came, they could see funeral processions, including their own if they were to die that year. The village field beyond the road would show if the crops were to be good or not. They might see, too, if a fire was going to break out in the coming year. We could use this info up here on Shadow Mountain.

If we didn’t live in the mountains, I’d be tempted to try this. However. Cliffs and ravines. Oh, my. The Year Walk fits well with my winter solstice night vigil, even though I rarely make it through the whole night. Never thought of divination, but it would be interesting to try. Must have been pretty scary.

In the dark woods with no light. Even with no cliffs and ravines nighttime woods have many obstacles. Fallen trees. Undergrowth. Ponds. Marshes. Perhaps the occasional nocturnal animal. Add to those the supernatural and it would take a hardy or desperate soul to take a year walk. Wanna go?

There’s a cheap, six dollars, video game based loosely on this idea. I bought it. I’ll let you know about the game.

Aging, Cooking, Family, Feelings, Shadow Mountain, Third Phase

Hmmm

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Fall and the Rosh Hashanah Moon

A culinary Saturday. With a few oddities.

Invited Jon and the grandkids up for a High Holiday meal of brisket. I bought a brisket, two actually, at Safeway. Brought them home, froze one, put the other in the fridge for the meal. Looked up a holiday brisket recipe. Found one for the Instapot. Chopped the onions, salted the brisket, added the tomatoes. Put it in for 65 minutes. Got it out. The meat was tender. Looked good. The jus in the pot also smelled wonderful.

Kate came by and looked at it. That’s corned beef, isn’t it? Oh, boy. Category mistake. I had bought, technically, a brisket. But, well… Anyhow I’d also picked up a white cabbage for the borscht I wanted to make for Kate. It only required a quarter of the head. I cut up the rest, threw it in boiling water and, voilá, corned beef and cabbage! The meal included baked potatoes, not normally part of this actually Jewish, too, dinner, but they fit well with the original brisket plan.

Everyone said it tasted good even though the menu got altered in a strange way.

Made mine with golden beets, too.

I did make the borscht, too. That was all day in either the grocery store or the kitchen. Tired.

Jon and the kids were late. Very. When Jon came in the door, I’d just gotten off the phone, the dogs were sending up their usual storm of barks for visitors. I came into the living room. Jon, I gotta tell you, I’m pissed. Oops. Not in front of the grandkids, Charlie. Too late, outta the mouth.

OK. I’ll try to remember this.

I wanted to talk to him about his chronic lateness, explain that it upset me, see how we could change the settings. Kate suggested this after I fumed when they were almost an hour late. She was right. Didn’t intend (mostly, anyhow) to do in that manner.

Apologized to Jon, Ruth, and Gabe. Not for what I said, but for when and how I said it.

Family. Not always easy.

Aging, Family, Health, Shadow Mountain, Third Phase

Yet More

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Fall and the Rosh Hashanah Moon

Piling on. Saw Dr. Gidday yesterday. Follow up on the c.t. scan from Monday. A new nodule on Kate’s lung. Will have to be assessed for malignancy. Dr. Gidday also prescribed a burst of steroids to possibly help with her shortness of breath. Since we have no diagnosis for her interstitial lung disease this is what physicians call an empirical treatment. Basically, making an educated guess.

Kate reluctantly agreed to a lung biopsy, a procedure that will be both painful and dangerous, but is the only way to definitively diagnosis which of two basic types of interstitial lung disease she has. The treatments for the two types are very different, and a pathology defined diagnosis is the only way to know the difference.

We got the name of a cardiac-thoracic surgeon whom Dr. Gidday trusts. The biopsy will happen sometime in the near future. Kate’s new pulmonologist, whom she likes, is unavailable, off for two weeks. He’s at National Jewish, the U.S. hospital for respiratory disease.

A lot. More than we need right now, but this stuff doesn’t honor fatigue or worry. It just keeps coming. Kate’s done well, keeping her spirits up mostly, but a steady stream of new matters to consider makes that difficult.

I’m doing well. Did a six-minute walking distance test (self-administered) yesterday. Walked as far a healthy person my age, something like 1580 feet. Means my exercise capacity is still in the normal range. That’s a good sign for life-expectancy with COPD. I’ll take any good signs I can get right now.

Aging, Commentary on Religion, Faith and Spirituality, Family, Garden, Great Wheel, Holidays, Jefferson County, Judaism, Reimagine. Reconstruct. Reenchant., Shadow Mountain, Third Phase

Days of Awe

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Fall and the Rosh Hashanah Moon

Here we are, paused between the New Year and the Day of Atonement. The book of life is open, waiting for your next year to be inscribed. This is a new liminal space for me. A holiday(s) in which repentance and forgiveness are the focus, both at the beginning of the new year. It’s location in the early fall (a lunar calendar) makes it a part of the Michaelmas springtime of the year and part of the harvest festivals that end with Samain on the 31st.

Sukkot follows the Days of Awe, coming three days later. Rabbi Jamie says that Sukkot used to be the primary festival at this time of year with the Days of Awe sort of a preparation for it. Sukkot is the big harvest festival in the Jewish liturgical year. It’s fun, ending with Simchat Torah. “Sukkot through Simchat Torah is nine days long. The first two days (Sukkot) and the last two days (Shemini Atzeret and Simchat Torah) are full-fledged festival days, and the middle five days are Chol Hamoed.” chabad.org

The Jewish month of Tishrei is a holiday filled time for Jews. And, they vibrate between profundity and joy. This feels congruent with the turning of the Great Wheel which has three harvest festivals over the same time period. The middle one, Mabon, on the fall equinox, is a celebratory time followed by Samain, the end of summer when the veil between the worlds thins and the dead can walk among us. (where all the goblins and ghosts and ghouls come from at Halloween)

At least in the temperate latitudes temperatures begin to cool, leaves change on deciduous trees. Farmers and gardeners harvest fruits, vegetables, grains, nuts, then prepare gardens and fields for the fallow season. The days grow shorter, frosts and freezes mark, then kill many plants. The bare trees give forests a stark look. A friend was of the opinion that the thinning of the veil came from being suddenly able to see through forests.

Kate and I need all of the spiritual juice available right now and these two holiday traditions, Jewish and pagan, fill that need.

General

Lupron II

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Fall and the Rosh Hashanah Moon

And, yet more medical news. Went in for my second Lupron shot in the morning, at Swedish. Then, drove back in later in the day with Kate to the E.R. (see below)

Talked to Sherry, the nurse practitioner for prostate cancer at Urology Associates. Turns out the protocol for the Lupron works like this. Get two undetectable PSA’s in a row, that is, 0.01, and they stop the Lupron. Mine was 0.03. Low, but not low enough to give me one undetectable. That means I’ll get at least a third Lupron shot in January, January 6th.

New PSA the week before each Lupron shot. This means the earliest I’ll know about the efficacy of the radiation is June, 2020. Possibly not till August or September.

the prostate specific antigen

Sherry did say that the hot flashes do tend to tail off. Hope she’s right about that.

A bit disheartened. With some detectable psa, even though low, does it mean the radiation didn’t work? Seems like it to me since the idea was to cure me. If the radiation is over, and successful, shouldn’t there be no detectable psa? Guess I’ll get clarity on this in early November when I visit Anna Willis, Dr. Eigner’s P.A.

Aging, Family, Health

Another E.R. Visit

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Fall and the Rosh Hashanah Moon

One more trip to the E.R. Well, after a no-good, pretty bad Monday, described below, we got home around 6 pm. Both tired. Both hoping things would just magically get better.

They didn’t. When Kate went to bed, the feeding tube that is her main source of nourishment popped out. The nurse at the E.R. said, “It happens.” Kate, being Kate, inserted a #16 Foley into the ostomy, the hole in her gut, and inflated its small balloon with ten ml of water. The Foley plugged the hole, but didn’t serve well for her nighttime feeding.

Kate said this day sucked. Yes, indeed it did.

She had to have a new feeding tube, right away, because that’s how she gets the bulk of her nutrition and calories. Our primary care folks said, “Call the surgeon.” She did. Ed Smith, a solo practitioner, no spring chicken himself, was out getting a total knee replacement.

The E.R. was the next best place. So down the hill we went. New feeding tube number 1, but following up with them on the shortness of breath, number 2.

Dr. Stader, a helluva nice guy, took over. What is that? A 16? Yes. Kate had handed him the defenestrated feeding tube. The feeding tube and the Foley both have a small balloon attached to the end of the tube. It’s inflated by using a syringe to push water into it. See pic. The yellow capped port is where the water goes in.

Getting the new tube in was easy. They had to inflate it a bit more after the first try, but it worked fine last night. Yes, in a first, our fourth trip to the E.R. did not result in a hospitalization.

Kate also gave Don, Dr. Stader, a cd of her c.t. from Monday late afternoon. It had not been read. Don and the E.R. radiologist reviewed it and found no sign of a pneumothorax. Kate had feared that her shortness of breath was a second one, the first one happened back in May or June.

They did find abnormalities, interstitial lung disease, but no obvious reason for a sudden increase in, as they say in the E.R. notes, SOB. We checked out, went to the car, and drove back up the hill. She’ll followup with both her pulmonologist and Dr. Gidday.

This is getting old we both remarked while she was on the hospital bed in Swedish E.R. room #20. But, so are we.

Aging, Family, Health, Shadow Mountain, Third Phase

Another Hard Day

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Fall and the Rosh Hashanah Moon

Even tougher day for Kate yesterday. Still short of breath. I took her in to see Tabitha, our doc’s P.A. She ordered a chest x-ray to see if another pneumothorax (collapsed lung) had manifested. Kate felt similar to the time before her last hospitalization which found a small one.

Chest x-ray negative. Hmm? So, Tabitha ordered a ct scan, still searching for either a pneumothorax or another cause for her shortness of breath. Got the scan late in the day yesterday. No results yet.

Meanwhile at home something happened to her feeding tube and she had to effect an emergency repair. Still waiting for what to do about that. Whatever it is, it will happen today along with any other followup from yesterday. And, of course, we will have to fit it in around my 9 am Lupron shot.

Kate’s made tangible progress, but having to deal with this lung stuff dispirits her. And, me. So much going here and there, waiting. Waiting. Wondering. More to come today.