Category Archives: Health

Sneeze

January 6, 2017 Charles Leave a comment

Winter Cold Moon

And then, just as the knee began to cooperate and be much less painful, I sneezed. That was yesterday. Last night and today I’m living with a full fledged cold. Kate and I both were dismayed.

Over the last week + I’ve gradually begun taking back daily chores: putting the dogs to bed, getting them up in the morning and feeding them, shoveling snow from the deck, that sort of thing. Now I’m backsliding on all that.

It’s been a long siege for my sweetie, punctuated in an ironic and awful way by the endoscopy on Tuesday. This cold is not forever, no, but it will be very inconvenient for 3-4 days. I’ll need to keep up my exercises, though I’m not sure whether I will today or not.

Looking forward to being clear headed, sometime next week, maybe? Till then, oh, wait a minute, where’s that Kleenex?

Dogs, Family, Health, Third Phase, Weather +Climate

Snow. Falling.

January 4, 2017 Charles Leave a comment

Winter Cold Moon

The snow has come. It started right on time at 9:30 am and continues now, at 5:30 pm. Not a lot of accumulation so far, but the forecast has the big shot coming tonight through tomorrow morning. After a quiet November and December, it’s fun to get the snow groove back. Here the weather forecasters gleefully predict the potential for lots of snow. Colorado is that sort of state.

The knee has calmed way down. I’m doing my exercises, three sets a day, and attending out patient p.t. twice a week. The whole pain, trauma, drug, rehab arc, while positive on the whole, has upset my body and refuses to let me come to a stable, yippee I’m better! place. Nausea, achiness, insomnia are hardly the four horsemen of the apocalypse but in the moment they can make a day miserable. This will pass.

I’ve also been a bit weepy today, crying (or about to) at silly stories on facebook, in the newspaper. You know the ones where the big, burly guys row out onto a fully iced lake, breaking the ice in front of them, to retrieve a dog hanging onto the edge of a hole into which he has slipped. Heroic things, compassionate acts, that sort of stuff.

I’m in that transitional phase between invalid and a returnee to normal life, neither one nor the other, pining for unremarkable days with routine moments, yet not far removed from agony and narcotics. Makes for an emotionally friable inner life. At least today.

Kate, I’m happy to say, has brightened since her normal endoscopy. She’s had a hell of a few months, especially December. She had me to care for, the grandkids here for 8 wonderful, exhausting days and the threat of some dire disease lurking under her constant fatigue. It’s enough to throw even this steady Norwegian into a bit of a spin.

Gertie loves the snow. She goes outside and immediately plunges her face into the snow, pushing along with her nose as a plow. Then she hops up, shakes off and falls over on her back, sensuously rolling this way and that, legs in the air, squirming like an overturned bug. Kepler and Rigel like the snow, too, but they’re not that enthusiastic.

Family, Health, Weather +Climate

Sleep. Gone.

January 4, 2017 Charles Leave a comment

Winter Cold Moon

Sleep has finally gone on holiday for me. Not sure why, maybe no reason. Over the weekend I did have withdrawal symptoms since I stopped my narcotics: chills, upset stomach, agitation, generally feeling lousy. Kate says lost sleep might be part of withdrawal, too. I hope so.

We’re in storm’s coming mode. Not much of a storm by last winter’s showing, but at least a bona fide winter weather warning. 6-12 inches at the outside. I like it. We have no where to go and can enjoy the snow as it comes. I’ll be cleaning off the deck, which is pretty easy, but if plowing is required Ted will do it, that’s Ted of All Trades.

The knee has largely quit hurting, moves with more ease and is easier to use to go up stairs. The recovery arc is positive.

Haven’t mentioned the divorce in a while. Final orders were cut, so the marriage dissolved officially on Nov. 28. The house is the big remaining obstacle. It needs to be sold because both of them need the proceeds to pay for lawyers and to buy new homes. The hot, hot Denver housing market suggests the house will sell quickly and for a substantial gain. I hope so.

Of course, with joint custody and decision making, as I discovered, you are really divorced to someone, rather than from someone.

Colorado, Family, Health, Judaism, Mountains, Shadow Mountain, Third Phase

Negative. Good.

January 3, 2017 Charles Leave a comment

Winter Cold Moon

Kate’s endoscopy is over with gratifyingly negative results. The GI doc was a right jolly old elf with white hair and a belly that shook like a bowl full of jelly. Swedish Hospital, where the procedure was done, is an old hospital, built in multiple oddly connected buildings of different ages. Some are brick, some the same tired modernist shtick that infests elementary schools. Overall the mood is mildly depressing.

Swedish is in Lakewood, the first ‘burb in the Denver metro after we leave the mountains headed east on Hwy. 285. Its massive ongoing construction, buildings separated from each other and a general confusion about what goes where, makes their offering valet parking a very nice gesture.

This one had Kate worried. Not me, but it wasn’t my alimentary canal being scoped either.

After Kate woke up, she got dressed and asked that I drive further east on Hampden (also 285) to the New York Deli. There we picked up a half gallon of CNS, one huge matzo ball and a pastrami sandwich. We turned back west on Hwy 285 and made our way out of the Mile High City and into the foothills, then the Front Range.

Each time we leave the Denver metro and head home into the mountains, one of us says, “I love living in the mountains.” Kate said it today. As we climbed into Conifer, flakes of snow began spitting around us, not much, but a reminder of the bigger winter storm scheduled to hit us tomorrow and Thursday.

As the storm comes, we have plenty of CNS and leftover pastrami sandwich to see us through. New York Deli has come to the mountains.

Aging, Cinema and Television, Family, Health, Holidays, Judaism, Latin, Shadow Mountain, Translating Metamorphoses, Writing

The Year of the Absent December

January 2, 2017 Charles Leave a comment

Winter Cold Moon

lion Two good friends, Allison and Tom, have recommended I see Lion, on my list for this week, especially now that I’m mobile, both on foot and behind the wheel. Yes, the knee is becoming much less painful though strength and stamina will take a while to regain. Not sure whether it’s the drug cocktails I’ve been taking or what, but sleep has become a precious commodity again, not easily found in batches long enough to feel rested. Ick.

2016 will be year of the absent December for me. My 20161203_083526 surgery was December 1st and much of the first two weeks + I spent in a narcotic haze. Or so Kate tells me. The remainder of the month has been physical therapy and figuring out how to manipulate the meds so they help me rather than hurt me. Not an easy task.

The good part was having the grandkids here for most of Hanukkah. When Kate and I returned them to Jen yesterday, Ruth came back to the car to say goodbye to me. We touched hands and she smiled, a furtive lightning of her face. I said, “Remember what I told you about your audition.” (that I have faith in you) She said she remembered. This is her audition for the Denver School of the Arts. She presents her portfolio and sits for an interview.

Next big medical event is Kate’s endoscopy tomorrow. This is a follow-up on an occult blood finding, so it could have serious implications, though I’m not expecting them. I have physical therapy at 7:15 a.m., then we head down the hill on 285 to Swedish Hospital for a 9 a.m. procedure.

A sequelae of the absent December is waking up from it to a New Year. What will I do in 2017? Will it be continuous with the first two years here? Or, will I rethink it all, maybe reshuffle the deck one more time? I’m leaning toward the latter. There will be Superior Wolf, yes. There will be workouts, yes. There will Beth Evergreen. There will, I decided yesterday, be Latin. I’m picking that project up again beginning this week. But, beyond those and how those fit with other potentials? I don’t know. I do know that taking a big insult to my physicality, even for a good cause, has got me in a contemplative mood, wondering, once again, about how life fits together.

Dogs, Family, Health, Holidays, Judaism, Reimagine. Reconstruct. Reenchant., Shadow Mountain, Third Phase

The Holidays

December 31, 2016 Charles Leave a comment

Winter Cold Moon

The grandkids have been here since December 23rd, with the exception of one day. That means a full house, lots of zigging and zagging. Adding Hanukkah to the mix leaves empty boxes, unfurled wrapping paper and gifts cluttered in the living room. Lots of watches this holiday: Ruth, Gabe, Kate all got watches. Too. There were legos, several games like Pandemic, Mexican Train, Rock of Archimedes, Mille Bourne, an assortment of clothing items like socks, ski jackets, t-shirts and the odd book or dvd.

While their presence here is a blessing and one of the really good things to happen as a result of the divorce, it gets pretty stressful with five people in the house, two under 11. Not to mention that Kate has had a wounded me to care for, in addition to the other work she does for the grandkids like laundry and cooking. We will miss them when they leave tomorrow, but both of us will require some time to decompress and get back to our usual, slower old folk rhythms.

Gabe enjoys the dogs, sometimes too much. Yesterday he squeaked and squeaked and squeaked a nerf football at Kepler. Eventually, Kepler told him to stop that. He did.

Ruth and Jon went skiing again yesterday, a wonderful warm day with reasonable numbers of folks at A-Basin even though it was New Year’s weekend. Ruth loves to help. She offers to get the mail, feed the dogs, help make supper, buy presents. And then does just that.

Her audition for the Denver School of the Arts is January 7th. She has an hour before an admissions committee. By herself. At age 10. She has a portfolio of work she’s done, a lot of work, much of it prints. That weekend I’m going to take her to this place, The Inventing Room. She’s been there and loves its emphasis on nitrogen fixing of food.

The knee. So much better now. Still achy, but not bad. Biggest problem now is that it still interrupts my sleep. My workouts for p.t. are a lot of bending the knee, straightening the leg, strengthening muscles that support the knee. I have to do 3 sets. Since my p.t. is scheduled at 7:30 a.m., I’ve shifted my workout from the afternoon to the mornings. I’ll likely keep it there since it’s much cooler then in the summer.

Art and Culture, Asia, Beyond the Boundaries, Commentary on Religion, Faith and Spirituality, Great Wheel, Health, Myth and Story, Original Relation, Reimagine. Reconstruct. Reenchant.

Yamantaka for the New Year

December 30, 2016 Charles Leave a comment

Winter Cold Moon

Existentialism is a philosophy for the third phase. No matter what other metaphysical overlays you may have the tick-tocking grows louder as you pass 65. When this clock finally strikes, it will take you out of the day to day. Forever. Strangely, I find this invigorating.

In case you don’t get it the occasional medical bomb will go off to make sure you pay attention. Last year, prostate cancer. This year, that arthritic left knee. Kate goes in for an endoscopy on January 3rd. She’s waiting approval for a biologic drug to help her rheumatoid arthritis. All these are true signs of the pending end times, but they are not the end itself. These medical footnotes to our lives press us to consider that last medical event.

I’ve followed, off and on, the Buddhist suggestion about contemplating your own corpse. I imagine myself in a coffin, or on a table somewhere prior to cremation. This is the work of Yamantaka, the destroyer of death, in Tibetan Buddhism. I’m not a Buddhist, nor do I play one on TV, but I became enamored of Yamantaka while learning about the art of Tibet and Nepal at the Minneapolis Institute of Art.

This mandala is a profound work of art on view in the South Asia gallery (G212). Adepts of Tibetan Buddhism use this mandala as a meditation aid to make the journey from samsara, the outer ring representing the snares that keep us bound to this world, and the innermost blue and orange rectangle where the meditator meets the god himself. The impact this work and the portrait of Yamantaka that hangs near it have had on me is as intimate and important as works of art can evoke.

Death is more usual, more understandable, more definitive than life. Life is an anomaly, a gathering of stardust into a moving, recreating entity. Death returns us to stardust. Yamantaka encourages us to embrace our death, to view it not as something to fear but as a friend, a punctuation point in what may be a longer journey, perhaps the most ancientrail of all. Whatever death is, aside from the removal of us from the daily pulse, is a mystery. A mystery that has served as muse to artists, musicians, religions and poets.

Yamantaka has helped me accept the vibration between this life and its end. That vibration can be either a strong motivating force for meaningful living (existentialism) or a depressive chord that drains life of its joy. I choose joy, meaningful living. Perhaps you do, too.

Commentary on Religion, Faith and Spirituality, Family, Health, Judaism, Shadow Mountain

P.T. and Hanukkah

December 29, 2016 Charles Leave a comment

Winter Cold Moon

Katie, my physical therapist, is young, only a year and a half into her career. She’s thin and a somewhat recent transplant from Florida. Colorado and its mountains, its snow, even its trout streams are her playground. She went snowshoeing on Hoosier Pass yesterday, the road from Fairplay goes over Hoosier Pass to Breckenridge. It’s high, you can access altitude above the tree line. She did, being out there “a few hours.” Afterwards, she said, she fished. Fly fishing. Which she took up a year ago with classes and a membership in Trout Unlimited.

She tells me my flexion and extension are remarkable. She says, too, that the stiffness and achiness that I have is typical. “It’s not scar tissue or anything else like that, it’s the body’s reaction to the surgery. It will pass. You’re doing very well.” That was nice to hear.

As the day winds down and night falls, the knee begins to kick out pain again. Feeling better, I’m going up and downstairs more often, walking more, generally putting the knee to work. By day’s end it’s tired of the effort and says, “Slow down. Stop.”

We’re on the sixth night of Hanukkah, many candles have burned to get us here. Lots of wrapping paper and delighted squeals. Opened boxes litter the coffee table and the couch, gift sign. Ruth got skins for her skis today. These get put on skis when you want to go up the mountain, rather than down. Gabe got Pokemon cards and a sketch book.

Hanukkah requires some discipline, apportioning presents so there are some left for the end of the 8 days. Jon enforces a strict two-present openings a night rule for both kids. Kate recites the Hanukkah blessing in Hebrew while Ruth and Gabe try to follow along.

Our three generation household runs pretty smoothly in spite of the usual sibling rivalry.

Commentary on Religion, Faith and Spirituality, Health, Memories, Minnesota, Mountains, Shadow Mountain

Rambling

December 29, 2016 Charles Leave a comment

Winter Cold Moon

When I worked for the church, the days between Christmas and New Years were an enforced break. No church wanted Presbytery executives in that time frame, everyone was coming down from the Advent, Christmas Eve, Christmas push. I took to using the time for research, usually on one topic. In those days it was organizational development, urban politics, a political issue coming to prominence, matters related directly, in some way, to my work.

This might be a way to use this enforced down time. Until the knee pain goes away and I’ve returned to a more normal routine, I could use the time to research a given topic. Not sure what yet, but something will occur to me.

Realized the other day that I’ve gone from an office halfway underground in Andover to a second story loft on a mountain. The Andover house was a walkout. The basement was open to the outside on two sides and built into the earth in front. Here on Shadow Mountain I look out at Black Mountain to the west and can see the sunsets. In Andover I saw sunrises.

Weary of the whole pain, stiffness thing. I know it’s part of the healing process. I know it’s going to recede and eventually vanish. Yet yesterday it got to me. Too damned long with a painful knee, reminded of its presence at every step, every sitting and rising. I couldn’t sleep, couldn’t get comfortable sitting or lying. Next morning now and I got some sleep last night so feeling better.

Health, Mountains, Shadow Mountain, Weather +Climate

Not Snowed

December 28, 2016 Charles Leave a comment

Winter New (Cold) Moon

Though our Shadow Mountain winter has had little snow so far, west of the continental divide has had substantial storms. Snowpack is at 115% of normal. Important for us in Colorado and nine other states. These storms have also put snow on ski resort runs, already late in their opening.

Jon and Ruth skied A-Basin yesterday. She wore a new winter coat received the night before for Hanukkah. Jon fell and whacked his head, torqued his neck, but fortunately no concussion, no broken bones. They both remarked on the high winds up slope. “They take the fun right out of it.”

The snow here will continue melting under moderately warm upcoming weather. No big snowstorms in the forecast either. So far, very slow.

I drove for the first time a couple of days ago. Weaned off the narcotics. Felt good. Trouble sleeping. Still have aches in the knee, can’t figure out a good drug regimen. Of course, I had trouble sleeping pre-op, too. I might be returning to my usual sleep challenged life.