Category Archives: Health

Family, Great Work, Health, Minnesota, Our Land and Home, Shadow Mountain, The West, Travel, Weather +Climate

Tilt A Whirl

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Summer                                                                     Park County Fair Moon

teton-pass-jackson-hole-wy-postcardSwirling. The world, or at least the part of it connected to me and mine, has taken flight, gone up in the air like dust devils. BJ had surgery on her shoulder in the late afternoon yesterday in Jackson Hole. Kate said she liked the surgeon, which is roughly the same as saying he’s a rock star. The Hitching Post, a motel next to the hospital, has rooms for $45 a night if a family member is in the hospital. She’s staying there.

Jon is rushing to finish remodeling a bathroom, put on a deck and doing other fix-it chores at the Pontiac house. He has to be out of there before Jen and the kids return on Monday evening. A restraining order makes it so. The heat-and, ironically for this arid state, the humidity-have been high. It was 99 there yesterday when he and I ate lunch at the wonderful dining table he built.

Though, for those of you in the Gopher State who read this, I know it’s been pretty bad there, too. Both places remind me of Singapore in April when Kate and I visited Mary. We managed to hike across the Singapore Botanical Gardens on a day when the temperature was within one degree of an all time record and the humidity created a watery, heated bubble around us as we walked. Can anyone say carbon tax?

Timberline Painters finished staining the garage, shed, and two decks yesterday. One garage door is green, the other will follow. Interior painting starts on Monday. The dogs, who have to be inside while the painters are in the yard will be happy when this is done. Yesterday, while Gertie and I were in the loft, unbeknownst to me, the painters sealed off the door out of the loft with 3M plastic. The mammoth bone handle knife gifted to me by Tom Crane came in handy as I sliced through the plastic. Felt like I was being born again as I stooped through the small hole with Gertie behind me.

In Colorado, so far, it has been the summers of our discontent, the winters have been fine.

Family, Health, Our Land and Home

Now

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Summer                                                                          Park County Fair Moon

Hard to believe how much the Republicans want Hillary to win. In any other combination of opponents she would be up against the ropes with her gloves covering her face. In this case however Trump and crew bang their head repeatedly on the ring posts, leaving themselves bloodied and confused. The convention so far: rogue delegates try to unseat Trump’s nomination, plagiarism, former candidate refuses to endorse. Wonder what they have for us today?

Mark in Saudi ArabiaBrother Mark is doing well in Saudi Arabia. He’s in his second year of teaching at Jubail, his students members of the Saudi Arabian navy.

Kate leaves today for Jackson Hole where her sister, BJ, will be moved tomorrow. A fan of BJ’s, a former anesthesiologist at the Jackson Hole hospital, has found a very well respected orthopedic surgeon for her. He only does shoulders. They may operate tomorrow after her move. Kate will be there tonight.

Jon had his sawzall at work cutting through the old bathtub in their downstairs bathroom when I visited yesterday. He’s made a lot of progress, but the working conditions, hot and humid, are brutal. The divorce continues with the level of conflict continuing to amaze both him and me.

Staining still underway. The shed has had two coats as have portions of the garage. The monsoon rains here have impeded progress somewhat.

 

Family, Health, Music

The Fall

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Summer                                                      Park County Fair Moon

Rebekah Johnson
Rebekah Johnson

Kate’s sister BJ is a classical violinist who bows with her right arm. She has, for many years, played the Teton Music Festival in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. Schecky, her significant other, a cellist, called Kate yesterday to say that BJ had suffered a bad fall trying to climb down from the deck of their new home in Driggs, Idaho. They live in the Beacon Hotel on Broadway in NYC and spend a lot of time apart due to their career, so Schecky being in NY while she’s in Idaho and Wyoming is not unusual.

Apparently the door to the deck slammed behind her and locked. When she couldn’t get back inside, she decided to climb down. She fell, experiencing a bilateral fracture of her pelvis, a dislocated shoulder and a humerus broken at the ball that inserts into the shoulder. On her right arm.

So this summer of interesting times for the Buckman-Ellis/Olson family has gotten more interesting. Kate’s driving up on Thursday to Driggs and will stay a while, maybe a week or so. I’ll remind behind with the dogs, the Timberline painters and Jon. Family is forever.

 

Health
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Summer                                                               Park County Fair Moon

PSA test today. The first one after my one year surgery anniversary. This has become routine, though not without its still high stakes character. As Kate often says, the more tests that are done, the more likely irregularities are to show up.

 

Health, Science

Looking Back

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Summer                                                           Park County Fair Moon

post op daze, July 8, 2015
post op daze, July 8, 2015

Two days until the anniversary of my prostate cancer surgery. Last year the whole summer was in cancer season and the 8th of July was the denouement, matters then slowly relaxing until the September PSA (prostate specific antigen) test which showed no identifiable antigens in my blood stream. At that point I declared cancer season finished.

Which does not mean the matter has been settled. I’m still getting quarterly PSA’s and will for another year, I believe, then six months until five years of negative findings. Then back to annual.

These days, almost a year beyond the most critical moments of cancer season, I rarely think about prostate cancer. The whole process was then and is now, surreal. No symptoms. Found on a prostate exam. Biopsy confirmed. Cancer. Yikes. Really? How can I have a life threatening condition that has no effect on me? Then, with the surgery, the cancer was gone. The threat that never presented itself to me removed by a robot. The most damaging and problematic aspects of the whole matter were sequelae from the surgery: the catheter, changed erections, incontinence. The latter is now a nuisance and usually not that. Point is that the disease itself caused me no trouble, but the treatment did. Odd.

I do not feel like a cancer survivor, though I am. Instead, I feel like the same guy as usual, sans prostate. I consider myself and feel myself to be in excellent health. Yes, aging has its insults, no doubt about that, but they come and recede. Of course, there will be a time when one doesn’t fade away. But that is not yet. At least not for me.

Dogs, Family, Garden, Health

Kep’s Last Visit to Award Winning Pet Grooming

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Beltane                                                               Running Creeks Moon

ellipticalNo lumberjacking today. This old body needed time to recoup. Back at it tomorrow.

The elliptical we bought has spared my knee the throbbing and swelling of high intensity workouts on the treadmill. I can now do the same workout, but in a fluid, joint friendly motion. The old P90X workouts help round out the return to serious muscle and cardio-vascular exercise.

KepTook Kep over to Award Winning Pet Grooming in Bailey. Bailey is to the west on Highway 285. It’s the big city in Park County at 8, 859 souls. Amanda Gordon has defurred Kep several times as the alternating hotter and colder weather of this year’s El Nino winter has caused dogs all over the front range to blow their coats. This was probably Kep’s last visit to Award Winning since he will head to Georgia, early July. Kate and I both will go.

Kate’s been gardening today. She’s wanted to do some, finally decided to just do it. Her friend Hannah and her husband Seth ate lunch with Kate. They cleared out most of the logs in the front. There are about twice as many in the back, maybe 3 times as many.

Anoka County, Bees, Faith and Spirituality, Family, Health, Jefferson County, Latin, Memories, Minnesota, Mountains, Our Land and Home, Reimagine. Reconstruct. Reenchant., Shadow Mountain, Weather +Climate, Writing

Write It Out

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Beltane                                                                             Running Creek Moon

freshman year
Freshman Year, Alexandria H.S.

Ever since the great iconoclasm, my voice has been muted. Not sure why.  Topics don’t seem to occur to me. I’ve never had a theme, a particular ax, though felling and limbing the occasional political issue shows up once in awhile. Philosophical, quasi-theological pondering. That, too. Lots of did this, did that. The online continuation of a journal keeping way I’ve had for decades. Art. Yes, but not as much as I want.

Maybe there was a more intimate link between the images and the vitality of this blog than I realized. Apres le mitigation the whole copyright issue, the fate of images in an age of digital reproduction, will occupy some of my time.

Work on both Superior Wolf and Jennie’s Dead have been ongoing, though not yet much writing. Reimagining Faith occupies a lot of my free thinking time, wondering about mountains, about urbanization, about clouds that curve and mound above Mt. Evan’s, our weather maker. No Latin yet. Not until I can have regular time up here in the loft. Not yet.

Could be that underneath all this lies a reshuffling of priorities or a confirmation of old ones. It’s not yet a year since my prostate surgery and a friend of mine said it took her a year to feel right again. This year has felt in some ways like my first year here, a year when I can take in the mountain spring, the running creeks, the willows and their blaze of yellow green that lights up the creek beds, the mule deer and elk following the greening of the mountain meadows.

My 40 year fondness for Minnesota has also begun to reemerge, not in a nostalgic, wish I was still there way, but as a place I know well, a place to which I did become native, a place which shaped me with its lakes, the Mississippi, Lake Superior, wolves and moose and ravens and loons. Where Kate and I became as close as we could with the land we held temporarily as our own. Friends. Art. Theatre. Music. Family. Perhaps a bit like the old country, an emigre’s memories which help shape life in the new land. An anchor, a source of known stability amidst a whirl of difference. The West. Mountains. Family life.

So. There was something in there anyhow. Now, back to fire mitigation.

Dogs, Health, Our Land and Home

Wounded

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Beltane                                                                      Running Creek Moon

Gertie
Gertie

Dogs. Gertie chased a critter yesterday afternoon. Fast. Paying apparently quite close attention to the critter, but not to the downed tree in the way. She ripped open her right side, a good tear. She’s at the vets right now getting sewn up. Again. Wounds are her trademark. Since we’ve had her, she’s been into the vet many times for torn flesh. Part of it is her go for it mentality, part of it’s her bite first, bark later attitude. We’re good customers at Sano.

Spent some time this morning cutting up downed trunks into logs for Seth. Lugging the peavey and the chain saw around wears me out. I’m not as strong as I was last fall. Restarted my resistance work with modified P90X workouts on Monday. Between the logging and the P90X, my strength will improve. Better than what I was doing last summer this time, fussing about prostate cancer.

 

Dogs, Health, Mountains, Our Land and Home, Shadow Mountain, Weather +Climate

Go-go girls

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Beltane                                                                           Running Creeks Moon

Rigel
Rigel

Rigel and Gertie are the go-go girls. Whenever we leave the house, together or singly, they get big grins, bump us, start moving toward the back door, then back to us, repeat. Into the truck they go, bounding up and into the back. Only to lie down and often go to sleep. They don’t seem to care how long the trip. On the way home Rigel always gets up, starts looking around. They’re having fun, so we enjoy taking them with us.

Dr. Repine sweeps into the room with her white-gold hair. Her examinations are thorough, practiced. She sweeps the various magnifiers over my eyes, the ones that allow her to see the inner parts of my eye directly, dons a headlamp that would not look like out of place on a miner and picks up a thick magnifier. Look up. Look down. Look to the right. To the left. Good. Everything’s looking fine.

Gertie
Gertie

Eyeball pressures are 14. Which is in the normal range. Glaucoma held at bay by Latanoprost. Cataracts, however, are advancing, changing my reading prescriptions. She says if they get much worse we’ll just take them out. Oh. Just? The good news is that cataract surgery often helps glaucoma by lowering the pressure in the eye. Something to look forward to?

Kate went with me. We went over to Whistling Duck, a furniture maker, to discuss beetle kill pine dining room tables. Kate had her measurements. She talked tables while I wandered around looking at the displays. We’re still in the early stages, getting quotes.

And, the sun. The sun. Blue skies. Winter to summer. Down the hill, that is. It was 78 in Littleton yesterday, but as we drove back up into the mountains the temperatures dropped, 54 when we got home. Ah.

 

 

Aging, Dogs, Family, Health, Writing

Weather, Vision, Life

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Beltane                                                                              Running Creeks Moon

snowmarch2
March 19th

This last round of snow, ice and colder weather got a lot of grumbles. Fortunately, we didn’t get the 5 inches predicted and the roadways were warm enough to melt what fell, but the part of our bodies that wants blue skies and somewhat warmer temperatures felt cheated. Not rational, I know. And the snow was pretty as always. But still.

Today Dr. Repine gets a look at my eyeballs, a glaucoma check, and a refraction. Might produce new reading lenses. After that we’re going to Whistling Duck, a carpentry shop specializing in beetle kill/blue pine. Our upstairs dining is still on the round bar table we bought as a temporary measure the month we moved in.

Life’s been eventful since our return from Asia with Vega’s death, the legal wrassling and the reluctant iconoclast moment. There’s another major event swirling in our lives right now, too, one I can’t write about openly yet. Not a health issue, not about Shadow Mountain or any of its residents.

Last night I got glimpses into the way forward on both Jennie’s Dead and Superior Wolf. That means my creative mind has emerged from the fog of image expunging. The Superior Wolf concept pushed me back to the origin idea, made me see that the way forward lay in the mythos, starting the story at the beginning. Solving a way for a magician to pull off a remarkable trick pushes the storyline of Jennie’s Dead past a road block. Feels good.