Beltane New (Closing) Moon
Got to feeling like I was a victim, not of any person, but of the insults to/from my body. I hunkered down, quit working out, quit Latin, quit writing. Almost a month now. Tired of feeling like a victim and I know the only way around the feeling is to stop acting like one.
So, back on the treadmill. Back to Latin and Superior Wolf, let the health matters develop as they need to.
Beltane Beltane Moon
N.B. This is a debbie downer post but I wanted to include it for completeness. Skip it unless you want to hear a modest tale of not so much, but nonetheless real, woe.
I’ve left out some struggle over the last few days. The Colorado Native Plant class went up a steep incline, not in learning curve, but in altitude. It found me breathing hard. Which flummoxed me a bit since I live at 8,800 feet and this was 5,800. The effort required left me exhausted after the 4-hour class.
But I wanted hiking boots, so I drove into the Denver REI and began another chapter in buying footwear with a male size 7 foot. It’s hard to be body positive about your feet when nobody carries your size. Two hours of boot trying later a pair of Vasque 8’s seemed almost right. Even tireder then, I bought them. We’ll see if they work. I imagine with some custom orthotics they will.
By the time I got home late that afternoon, I had no reserve left. Granted, this is the day after the biopsy. Perhaps not the best time for a physical marathon. Still, the class was one of only three and it was the first day of the annual sale at REI, everything 20% off. 7s are hard to find under the best conditions and a picked over store would not be the best.
I made my focus for yesterday rest and recreation. Which meant TV. I watched a Woody Allen comedy and caught up with a series or two on Hulu. Still exhausted at the end of the day.
Got up this morning. Still tired. Went back to bed and slept until 9:30. Feeling better now, around 11:00.
Beltane Beltane Moon
Day after. Feel pretty good. Some discomfort yesterday, not much this morning.
Another native plant class today, one tomorrow in Sterling, about 2.5 hours east on Hwy 76.
After, I’m headed into the Denver REI, the flagship store, for a pair of hiking boots. Gonna check out women’s. Yes, my feet are so small that sometimes I can only find what I want in women’s shoes. No high heels, or stupid shoes as Kate calls them. Just flats with goretex and high tops. Hat, my western hat, soon, too.
O2 saturation up. Looking reasonable at 93% up here. 96% in Lonetree yesterday. Guess that trazadone was the culprit. Whew.
The water torture of closing details continues. This needs to be signed. This needs to get fixed. Yes, you can sign far away. We’ll mail you the documents. Rented Kate’s car on Thursday. We only have one car so we rent cars for trips like this. Saves putting miles on the truck.
Beltane Beltane Moon
Well, as they say in the movies, “That happened.” Results in a week. Mild discomfort. Eigner (urologist) said a portion of the left medial looked “suspicious.” We’ll find out. Glad we’re on the way to a diagnosis and next steps.
Unpleasant, and that’s about it.
Beltane Beltane Moon
It’s a wonderful day in the neighborhood. For a biopsy. Slept well. Think I sussed out on my own the culprit in my lower oxygen readings. Trazodone. I stopped taking it a couple of days ago and I slept well (ironic, since it’s a sleep aid.) plus my breathing has returned to normal.
I have no fear, not even of the procedure itself, nor its possible information. Doesn’t feel like denial. (But, would I know if it was?) The details of the procedure and its possible results are clear to me. Though death does seem to hang around these intersections like a prostitute looking for a trick, I’m in no way tempted. Life, as long it runs, is good.
Whatever transpires, this whole month (it was april 14 when i saw lisa for my physical) has been an intrapsychic marathon, 26 miles of self-examination, staying with the feelings, considering worst outcomes. It has also been a month in which friends (especially the Woollies) and family have helped me stay strong and clear.
It could have been otherwise. One of the things that worried me when we moved out here was the loss of my friends. But I’ve found that those relationships, docents and Woolly Mammoths alike, transcend distance. The warmth and support I’ve felt from all of you is no less, perhaps even a bit more, for traveling 900 miles.
So, thanks to you all. I’ll get back to you with the results.
Beltane Beltane Moon
Tomorrow the biopsy. I feel fine, relaxed. Except. For those 12 tiny needles which will get their section’s worth of cells to analyze.
Just had a nice meal out, now for a quiet evening. Then…
Beltane Beltane Moon
The hits just keep on comin’. Now, in addition to the biopsy this Thursday I have lowering oxygen saturation. This is not good. It can and does destroy brain cells and my brain is my favorite organ. So, I have an appointment with Lisa Gidday sometime in the next three weeks. Geez. This all converges with long standing, but well-managed issues (right now) like high blood pressure, cholesterol levels too high or too low, stage 3 kidney disease and others like left ventricular hypertrophy.
Now, I choose to see this all in a positive light. I have some chronic conditions that are common to many people and the dietary and pharmaceutical solutions to them have been successful so far. The kidney disease and left ventricular hypertrophy (LVH) are not good, but they both seem stable.
Unless. The LVH ends up reinforcing the lowering oxygen saturation. That’s for the follow-up to my appointment with Lisa.
My sense of myself, in spite of all this, is that I’m healthy and strong. Doesn’t feel like denial. I know about each item here and its implications. My choice is to take positive and aggressive action where I can and to accept the limitations or ultimate consequences in those instance where no action can be taken.
Two different streams of thought have lead me to a calm place. The first, experienced immediately after the beginning of the prostate journey, involved facing my actual mortality. We maintain throughout most of our life a subtle innocence about the probability and even the possibility of our own death. In my opinion this attitude is the reverse of unrealistic. In fact it is protective of our need to get on with living in the face of an inevitability about which we can do nothing.
The prostate findings lifted that protective innocence from me. There was death peeking over my shoulder, the agency of its coming perhaps revealed. This shook me. Hard. Finding my way into it, not running away, took the better part of a week and a half. Then, I realized that, if not this, something. If not now, sometime. With that frame and the palliative effect of taking the actions I could take, I became peaceful again.
The second thought involves living until I die. This has always been intention, not to run away from life or problems but to embrace them. Make choices. Take action. If I see a problem that affects me deeply, my tendency is to move toward it, see if I can do something. The realization here is that no disease, no condition can stop me from living until I die. I will, in other words, continue doing those things that matter to me. As I have done. Death cannot defeat my life, just end it.
So far these two thoughts: something, sometime will kill me and death cannot defeat my life, have helped me see that I am in no different situation now that at any other time in my life. Nor will I ever be.
Beltane Beltane Moon
Dewpoint and temperature hovering together. Smoke in the mountains. Ponderosa pines covered in low hanging clouds. The air is, uncharacteristically for most of the year, humid. The green revolution has moved up Shadow Mountain to Black Mountain and Black Mountain Drive. No flowers yet, but lots of grass, ground cover, dogwoods and willows.
We’re down to the final movement in the Real Estate Symphony. The pace picks up as it does in the music hall. The inspection report is done. A few items to attend to, but not many though managing their completion from 900 miles will present some challenge. Not insuperable. Closing by May 29 if not before.
With the Andover house rocketing toward new (and appreciative) ownership and my biopsy scheduled for next Monday resolution of difficult issues could be close. When the closing is over, the house sale will be over. And none too soon. When a diagnosis is on the table, then next steps can be considered, action taken, not just waiting.
It’s possible, even likely, that we’ll hit June with the energy from resolution spurring us into the summer.
Spring Beltane Moon
Maybe it’s anxiety, but I don’t think so. My sleep habits have changed over the last couple of weeks. Where I used to get up once or twice, then return to sleep, now if I get up around 3:30 or 4:00, I’m awake! Oh, boy. Also, my naps in the afternoon have been briefer to non-existent.
If I were looking in on me from the outside, I’d say it’s anxiety. It makes sense given this time of not-knowing. Yet I don’t have that jittery, over caffeinated feeling. Distraction still marks some of my day, so maybe I’m not reading myself quite right. Repressing. Could be.
Anyhow I decided that sleep hygiene is not the most important facet of my life right now. It can wait until I’ve had my biopsy. If it stays like this, I’ll seek some help.
Spring Beltane Moon
This is shaping up to be the most significant week since our move-in week in December. We have a firm, funded offer on the house. Contingent on an inspection only and there won’t be much found. Closing date, May 29!
The urologist visit yesterday. Action, not anxiety. Always better.
The first of several plant identification classes tonight. This one is basic botany, mostly taxonomy, how to use identification manuals.
And, on Thursday, the Woolly retreat in Ely. In addition to the physical reconnection with friends–at an important juncture for me (prostate)–it will also give me a chance to reconnect with the Ely/Boundary Waters area. Superior Wolf will be richer for this trip and my motivation for working on it will go up, too.