Category Archives: Health

.015

January 14, 2016 Charles Leave a comment

Yule Stock Show Moon

Tomorrow I have my third post-op appointment with my urologist. My new super sensitive PSA, done early this week, was .015. As I learned three months ago, when my PSA was the same, this is the equivalent of no prostate specific antigens, indicating that so far no stray prostate cells have found a home in my body far from their old place near my bladder. In essence this is a test for metastases and having it come back negative is a primary goal of any cancer treatment.

As I get further away from the surgery, the dramatic peak of cancer season, ordinary time makes a bid to return. In this case ordinary time is not the cessation of holiseason stimulated spirituality, but the relaxation of uncertainty and return to a less urgent awareness of mortality. There is though a deep impression left by the pressure of cancer season.

Cancer season began for me on April 14th, 2015 when Dr. Gidday noticed a suspicious hardness in my prostate, sufficient to make her refer me to Ted Eigner, the urologist. From April 14th until my surgery on July 8th and first super sensitive PSA the week of September 25th, cancer season pulsed with energy. It crackled with biopsy results, recommendations for treatment, visits to the this medical facility and that. The decisions made during cancer season were life-altering, even life determining.

There was anxiety and fear, of course, the presence of a fatal actor in my body was an unfamiliar and unpleasant experience. For the first time a part of my body was no longer onside with the goal of continuing the body’s existence. Betrayal. At its most intimate. But. There was also excitement. New information, new things to learn, to know. Things that had immediate relevance. Kate and I moved closer as we sorted through the maze of medicine, bureaucracy, treatment statistics and understanding my situation as well as we could.

Then, with one three hour surgical procedure, it was over. Sort of. Cancer season trailed on to the first super sensitive PSA because until then even the clear, negative margins of the removed prostate and the positive eyeball analysis of Eigner during the procedure were not definitive. Some cancerous cells could have escaped. Though there is still some chance of metastases, nothing is 100% certain in these matters, with each clear PSA it becomes less likely.

Now I have to decide whether to emphasize cancer season, become a cancer survivor, or whether to let it bleed into the background, a highly charged moment with a successful outcome but with little relevance for daily life. So far I seem to be choosing the let it bleed into the background option, though this post is, I suppose, contra that.

That is, I want to live my life forward, not returning to and chewing over the undigested lumps of the past. Not yet background, no longer foreground, cancer season has a fading, but nonetheless potent presence still. It will be interesting to see where I am on July 8th of this year.

Family, Health

Kate

January 10, 2016 Charles Leave a comment

Yule New (Stock Show) Moon

The stock show weather arrived. It’s 7 degrees here this morning.

Kate’s face has lost all of its puffiness and most of the bruising has receded. Now she’s working on hand physical therapy to complement her thumb surgery from September. She’s using a tennis ball I bought for shoulder/elbow exercises and I’m using her cervical traction device bought when her neck had begun to give her serious fits several years ago. Our aging bodies have similar needs, just at different times.

Family, Great Work, Health, Holidays, Latin, Shadow Mountain, Translating Metamorphoses

Smart

December 11, 2015 Charles Leave a comment

Samhain New (Winter) Moon

The wind was calmer today so I got more tree trunks cut into logs. Used my smart holder for the first time. It works pretty well, but I’ve got to get more facile with placing logs on it. A learning curve. Lots of fireplace size logs stacked between two trees, three stacks in all. This is the last step in the fire mitigation process for this season. Now the wood will dry for a year, be ready to split next fall. As soon as I get all the front tree trunks cut into fireplace size, I’ll move to the back and begin felling and limbing.

Getting my regular hour of Latin, but boy it’s coming hard right now. Not sure why. Struggling. Back to regular exercise, too, though most of my resistance time is still spent with arthritis alleviating exercises from Dana. I backed off a bit on them, tried to work in some other resistance, but the tingling returned, the left shoulder began to ping. Struggling a bit here, too. Not anywhere near my pre surgery levels.

Tomorrow we’re going to Sushi Harbor with Jon and Jen to celebrate Jon’s 47th birthday. I met Jon when he was 21. 47. Realized another milestone birthday must be when your first child turns 50.

Our neighbor Jude came over to wish us a Happy Hanukkah. Sweet of him.

Faith and Spirituality, Family, Health, Holidays, Reimagine. Reconstruct. Reenchant., Shadow Mountain, Third Phase, Weather +Climate

Not the Thanksgiving We Got Ready For

November 27, 2015 Charles Leave a comment

Samhain Thanksgiving Moon

And so, we spent Thanksgiving on Shadow Mountain, watching the snow come down in lazy lines, thinking of Gabe and his second surgical procedure in a week, the roast and the pies and rolls in the freezer. It was downbeat, too quiet for a holiday.

Kate the clinician, a person with a bias for action, stewed. She wanted to do something, fix something, but the snow came down and no roast could be cooked, no salad prepared, no engagement with the medical issues of her only grandson. Impotence, or the feeling of impotence, is a terrible burden because it shrouds the capacity to act with an inability to do so. So many revolutions have been borne. So many political movements.

Later, after Gabe’s delayed procedure was over in the late afternoon, she relaxed. Jon had called and asked us not to come. The snow. The stress of the day. All made sense to me.

The holiday hung in the air like a sneeze not completed. Thankful, of course, for the good outcome with Gabe’s procedure. Thankful for the snow and the flocked lodgepoles, snowy Black Mountain, the dogs running pushing muzzles into the snow, rolling. Thankful that Kate and I were together, playing Bethumped, talking.

I ate too much of the sugar cream pie I made. Really more like a delicious pudding. It didn’t set up. No matter. We had shrimp with Bookbinder’s sauce while we answered questions about word origins, eponyms, general history, homophones and pushed our plastic markers around the board.

It wasn’t the Thanksgiving we had prepared for, but it was the one we had. And it was a good one.

In fact, this year we’ll have two Thanksgivings, yesterday and the delayed meal on Saturday around noon. Now, there’s plenty to do. Gabe’s better. Kate will have tasks to be done. And that prime rib roast. Well, I’m looking forward to that.

Family, Health, Holidays

Canceling Thanksgiving

November 26, 2015 Charles Leave a comment

Samhain Thanksgiving Moon

“Thanksgiving’s canceled,” Kate said when she called me on the intercom. I’d just finished my workout, was in a very different mental place. “Huh?”

“Gabe’s at the hospital. His port’s failed and is leaking into the site of the other port.” Oh.

Grandson Gabe has a port embedded in his upper left chest, its purpose to provide easy access for the regular infusions of clotting factor. His old one failed a week ago and was replaced last Thursday. Hemophilia makes many things complicated.

This new development means surgery today, Thanksgiving. The pies and the breads, the prime rib roast, all into the freezer. We’ll celebrate when Gabe’s better.

Family, Health

A Hand Out

November 20, 2015 Charles Leave a comment

Samhain Thanksgiving Moon

That green cast? Gone. Kate’s left hand is free, free, free. She celebrated with a trip to Target and Nono’s, the New Orleans restaurant in Littleton. She’s happy; I’m happy. Over the next few weeks she’ll work on strengthening her thumb, but she’s already got good mobility with it. This quilter/handy woman needs her hands to be in full operating condition. A big step forward yesterday.

Health

Heal

November 19, 2015 Charles Leave a comment

Samhain Thanksgiving Moon

I’m finally back into a mostly regular rhythm with my workouts. Feels good. I haven’t added back in the resistance work I was doing, the P90X exercises, but I’ll get back to at least some of them soon. Dana’s got me doing a suite of upper body exercises, some tailored exactly for the cervical arthritis, some for the tendinitis. They occupy one full workout every other day. I’ll be able to do leg and back work plus the minimal p.t. exercises on the other days.

Family, Health

Gabe’s New Port

November 19, 2015 Charles Leave a comment

Samhain Thanksgiving Moon

Grandson Gabe’s port finished its work a couple of days ago. Through it Jon and Jen infuse the factor that helps prevent joint bleeds, good for Gabe since he receives a prophylactic dose. That means he gets two to three infusions a week. A port is less painful than a needle stick.

The day the port stopped functioning Gabe had to be infused the old fashioned way, with a needle in a vein. Apparently he did not like that.

Kate and I went into Colorado Children’s yesterday to spend some time with Gabe and his folks. A real family thing and one I was glad we could do so easily. He had just come up from the recovery room, sort of groggy. A constant stream of nurses, nurses’ assistants, cleaners, doctors, hospital functionaries came in to probe him, ask questions, set up IV’s and o2 monitors, position the bed, bring water with ice.

Really, there’s gotta be a better way. In the hospital rest is important, but the pattern, the culture of the hospital works against it. Of course, you don’t want to be a hospital whose patients die of neglect, but there’s got to be a place between the current high traffic and the opportunity to heal.

This port lasted four years, some last six or seven, so he probably won’t have to have this done again until he’s old enough to really get what’s happening. The goal is for him to self-infuse but he dislikes needle sticks so it may be a while.

Health, Our Land and Home

Randy

November 13, 2015 Charles Leave a comment

Samhain Thanksgiving Moon

That mattress guy. Randy. I called Mattress Firm, a location on Colorado Avenue, mostly because it was somewhat close to Groundswell, the cannabis boutique we wanted to see.

Randy was eager. “If you come in tomorrow, I’ll give you two free pillows, a free mattress pad, free delivery and the $300 off for the Veteran’s Day Sale.” We wanted a tempurpedic mattress, Mattress Firm sold them and Randy wanted our business. So yesterday we dropped by to see Randy.

Randy, 58, had a watch larger than a silver dollar with a band and case of a mother of pearl like substance, white. His face had a flattened, slightly toad like look, unusual. His clothing would have been appropriate in church save for lack of a tie.

He remembered me. “Charlie, good to meet you. And this is?” Kate.

Over the course of much lying down we learned a lot about Randy. This store had been Mattress King, but they got bought out about a year and a half ago, and Mattress Firm was “Much better. They really cleaned the place up. And I didn’t know whether I could stand the change. It’s been a tough year and a half.”

He went away and came back with two pillows, “Kate, you’re a side sleeper. You’ll like this latex pillow. Charlie, you’re a stomach sleeper?” Yes, I said. “You’ll like this one, you want your head close to the mattress. This one has bigger circles, means it flattens down more than the one with the smaller circles.” OK.

Like a magician, the Great Randy, he produced a pint size jelly jar with a blue liquid and a cloth stretched over its top. “See, this is the mattress pad. Zero dollars. Smell the windex? Now feel the top.” The top was dry. “Any accident, pet, other on this mattress pad, nothing gets through. Nothing. And, it breathes. That’s why you can smell the windex.” Randy throws it on the bed, letting it bounce around, seemingly ready to spill. Randy the showman.

“Kate, you’re petite, so you don’t need the firm. You won’t press it down. This one is softer, it will conform to you. And, it’s cool. Tempurpedics don’t sleep hot. Feel this tinsel mattress cover. Cool, right?”

Later Randy told us about his brother, “A bad guy. But he had an accident, wrapped his SUV around a pole. He was dead at the crash site, but they revived him. Then, he died twice at the hospital. Only one in ten would survive that, but he survived. And now he’s changed. He goes to church, is in the Knights of Columbus. A changed guy.”

“I had to learn the computer, the new process. I like the new process. It’s better. I’m glad I learned it.” This while Randy input our order. “I’m the Felix Unger of Mattress Firm. My store’s clean. My bathroom’s clean. Neat. And they keep it up. See that sign out there? New. Mattress King’s was bad.”

Randy also didn’t get his pick of his stores, but he was happy he ended up here. “My last store, you just sat back.” He tilted back in his big padded office chair, stared at the ceiling. “All I got there were customers from the Taco Bell. They ate their food in my parking lot. I didn’t mind. But when they threw their trash out? Meh.”

“I live up north. Moved in with my brother. Good for both of us.” He sighed, “I’ve learned if you poke the keys over and over, he doesn’t like it. Slows down. So, I just wait.” The big dell monitor divided Randy from us. I had a bottle of water, cold. He’d asked if I preferred warm or cold.

“So. Two pillows. Zero dollars. Mattress pad. Zero dollars. Delivery. Zero dollars. It’s all on here. $200 off the mattress. Rotate it every 3 months, the first two years, then 6 months. If you have any problems, just call the number. They’ll take care of it.”

At that point two women walked in. “Just finishing up here. I’ll be right with you,” Randy said.

Colorado, Health, Third Phase

It Feels Slightly Illegal

November 4, 2015 Charles Leave a comment

Samhain Moon of the First Snow

Kate called up to the loft, “Do you want to go shopping for pot and out for lunch?” “If you still want to.” “I do.”

Down the mountain and into Denver. Broadway, a fascinating street filled with specialty furniture stores, vinyl record collections, funky restaurants and a block of marijuana dispensaries both medical and recreational.

We have to go into Denver because Jefferson County, where we live, does not allow marijuana sales of any kind. This conservative streak did not show up in the election results yesterday however when Kate and I and our fellow citizens of the county turned out a trio of right-wing school board members. They wanted our schools to teach only capitalism, American exceptionalism and a softer view of slavery. Oh, and they also treated teachers and teacher’s unions like pariah’s.

Still, though, no Mary Jane in Aspen Park or Conifer. We drove past the green block all the way to the Imperial Chinese Restaurant, a Chinese seafood restaurant we’d eaten at a month or so ago. Over shrimp, egg rolls, hot and spicy and egg drop soup, we discussed our pending purchase.

“This feels faintly illegal to me. Sort of guilty.” Like, I thought, I should be watching over my shoulder. Buying weed, after all, was a signal illegal act of the ’60’s.

When we got to Walking Raven, a premiere marijuana dispensary (as it says on its very own signs), it had a furtive appearance, much like the Adult stores of yore. No windows, nothing cheery about it, a block building, low and dull, as if embarrassed itself at what it did.

Stepping through the blue door above takes you into a narrow waiting area with a locked door in front of you and the entrance behind. A glass cage is on the left and a bearded young man looked at us. (His name is Matt and this is his picture.) A sign said, “No one under 21 admitted.” He asked to see, then take our driver’s licenses. “Do you really see us as under 21?” “You’ll get your licenses back when you’re called up.” Oh.

A door buzzed and Matt appeared on the other side. “There are three ahead of you.” We sat in comfortable chairs in the tiny waiting area. The three ahead of us were not Denver’s leading citizens. One man had the crippled walk of a person in permanent pain. Another sported a bushy red beard, jeans and a crumpled shirt. The third wore a Nepalese or Tibetan wool hat pulled down over bushy hair. He had on khaki shorts and displayed green socks sporting a marijuana leaf decoration. His tennis shoes were colorful keds. A hipster.

And us, two graying remnants of the ’60’s.

A young woman called us up in a bit, handed us back our driver’s licenses as Matt had promised. She had a leather glove on one hand and seemed confident. “We haven’t bought any pot recently,” I said. “Since the ’60’s,” Kate added. “No problem. We’ll make it as painless as possible for you.”

We told her we were interested in edibles. “Oh, they’re over here in the cooler.” The cooler was a small upright, maybe four feet high, but on a stand. It looked like a medical cooler you might see in a pharmacy. Inside were various colorful options: Edipure, Highly Edible Gummies, Cheeba Chews, Bhang Ice Chocolate, and Dew Drops among others. “The recommended dose is 10 milligrams. So the chocolate bars have small squares that are 10 milligrams, the gummies are 10 milligrams, one drop of the Dew Drops is 10 milligram.”

Kate chose Cheeba Chews*, a non-psychoactive blend of thc and cannabinoid. She wants to try it as a non-narcotic alternative to Percocet for arthritis pain. It was not cheap, at $55 for 8 chewable tablets. She’s not tried it yet, but I’ll let you know how it goes.

While waiting for her change, Kate noticed a second clerk reading things on the wall above the cash register. “I’m trying,” she told marijuana socks, “to tell how high I am.”

*A tasteful blend of chocolate taffy and CBD extract.

Each batch of high grade cannabis oil used to make Cheeba Chews™ is tested at three critical stages…The Flower, The Oil, The Edible…to ensure each individual chew is consistently infused. Individual 10mg chew in each bag.

Find a stocked Colorado dispensary

Ingredients: 10mg – CBD, Sugar, Glucose Syrup, Vegetable Oil, Skim Milk, Cocoa, Whey, Butter, Soy Lecithin, Flavorings | Calories: 10 cheebachews.com