Samain Moon of the Winter Solstice
The longest I’ve been dark in the last 11 years. Drugs and pain and rehab. Computer problems. Knee much better, still a long way to go.
P.T., in the form of Pat, the Irishman, comes to the house 3 times this week and 3 times next week. I have excellent range of motion, walking ability, overall doing well.
Lots of drugs however which make mentation difficult. Lots of pain which fuzzes everything. Sleeping difficult.
Kate’s a champ. She’s smart about the meds, caring, loving. Good cook, too, but I’ve got almost no appetite. My blood pressure is low, my 02 saturation low, so there are places to improve.
More later, pain returning.
In two days I go bionic. Metal in my body and a song in my heart. Or something like that.
Pre-op physical yesterday. EKG within normal parameters. Dr. Gidday walked me through the pre-op questions including one which wondered if I had dementia. When I asked her how I would know, she laughed, slapped my hand, “Everybody says something like that.”
I’ve seen two movies in the past couple of weeks, Dr. Strange and Arrival. I saw Dr. Strange in 3-D. Fantasy and science fiction still have my attention after all these years. Dr. Strange was fun, great CGI, a cast that includes Tilda Swinton and Benedict Cumberbatch, and the Dr. Strange origin story.
neither is the heptapod language. Time is more flexible than we think, malleable. No Randy Quaid flying his jet into the mothership, no Luke flying his fighter into the weak spot of the death star. In fact, no onscreen violence at all with the exception of an explosion, a brief one. Though you won’t understand unless you see it, Arrival is about the power of language.
And, improbably, it will be Thanksgiving next week. There is no hint of over the river and through the woods weather to stimulate that Thanksgiving feeling. We may get a storm on Thursday. That would help.
At 12:30 we drove over to Evergreen for mussar at Beth Evergreen. It was Rabbi Jamie’s birthday and each woman brought a cooked or purchased offering of some kind. We had cranberry juice with tea and mint, apple juice, brie and a wonderful soft cheese, warm carrots, pistachios, cashews, strawberries, grapes, melon, crackers, chips, guacamole, a birthday cake, sea-salt caramel and chocolate brownies (Kate, see pic), with Halloween plates and napkins.
The big news here on Shadow Mountain. Orthopedic surgeon William Peace added some surgery days. Result: total knee replacement on December 1st. I’m excited because this pain is distracting and medication intensive. Currently using CBD’s and acetaminophen during the day and vicodin at night. This works, sort of, but I still can’t exercise, hike, twist suddenly, get up and down easily.
Pain. Can make you tired. Can make it difficult to focus. Just plain hurts. My left knee has gone from bad to very bad. Trying various meds as a way to make it from now until January. Some success. Pain is a peculiar phenomenon, so assertive, so real; yet totally individual. Inaccessible to another. A message that, once sent, it would be nice to be able to turn off.
New x-ray of my left knee. “See that narrow space there?” Dr. William Peace points at a place where bone and bone have come very close together on the inside of the knee. “That’s about a 90% loss of cartilage. And that is a bone spur.” Pointing higher on the bone.