Category Archives: Health

Colorado, GeekWorld, Health, Mountains, Our Land and Home, Third Phase, Weather +Climate

Mr. Atom and Back to the Treadmill

Leave a comment

Imbolc                                                                             Settling Moon II

62 here yesterday. A record warm spell for Denver, not sure about up here on Shadow Mountain. Kate and I went out in shirtsleeves, looking at plants in the front, trying to decide what they were. Bearberry, I think, or kinnikinnick, which it turns out is used as a tobacco by Native Americans. A small, evergreen shrub that lies low to the ground, kinnikinnick is a ground cover I tried to grow in Minnesota but could never make last. It grows on the edge of Montane forests where it’s sunny. Just where this is.

Had the Geowater folks here yesterday testing our water from various spots in the house.Looking mostly at corrosivity and radionuclides. We have a radon mitigation system in place so the latter is not out of the realm of possibility. Corrosivity will test the ph of the water, specifically to see if our well is the source of the acidic water in the boiler.

Started my exercise regime yesterday evening. Painful. I have detrained aerobically and in terms of resistance, plus there’s the effect (complicated) of altitude. I started over after a 7-week layoff during our cruise and this is about the same length of time away, so the difficulty getting back to it is familiar, if not welcome.

 

Colorado, Health, Humanities

Finishing One Step, Moving to the Next

Leave a comment

Imbolc                                                                                       Settling Moon II

Up in the loft again after feeding the dogs this morning. A bright, Raphael-esque pink paints the clouds I can see between the lodgepole pines.

Yesterday I came very close to getting all my books stacked by rough category and I will finish today: American studies, emergence/Lake Superior/climate change/science/, art, philosophy, war, aging, weather, bees, classics/mythology/ancient history, poetry/spirituality/religion/renaissance, literature, Asia, Latin America.

Once done with that task I can move on to filing. That will involve moving some files out of banker’s boxes and into my horizontal file.  Many of my files, including all my novel manuscripts and research, will stay in boxes. A convenient place for them will to be created.

The congestion has decreased considerably and will decrease a lot more after the filing is done.

My two large rubber mats for the gym area won’t arrive until mid-month, but when they do that will allow me to finish off the workout area. At some point Jon will get started on the built-ins. This whole process will take a good bit of time, but the end result will be wonderful.

 

Colorado, Cooking, Health, Third Phase

Dehabituation

Leave a comment

Winter                                                                                 Settling Moon II

The move has occasioned some changes in long standing habits. In Andover I regularly went to bed at 11:30 pm, getting up somewhere between 7 and 8 am. Since the move happened close to the change from daylight savings to standard time, I was able to move my bedtime back to 9 pm with little effect. That means I now get up between 5:30 am and 6:00 am.

It is, for example, 6:15 am here now and I’ve been up since 5:30, fed the dogs, got the newspaper and come up here to the loft for some work time. It’s not actually work quite yet, but I’m developing a new habit, working in the time after I’ve fed the dogs. Working in this time helps me delay breakfast until after 7:00 am, another new habit. This one involves eating only between 7:00 am and 7:00 pm.

So far this latter new habit has allowed me to maintain my weight at 153, almost 20 pounds lighter than my heaviest in Minnesota. I lost the weight, most of it, in the move, a combination of stress, physical exercise and my low carb diet taking hold.

Kate, too, is at an all time slim, down to 115. The move has been good for our BMI. I suggested to Kate that we’d both lost weight because people are just fitter here in Colorado. Irony aside the emphasis on fitness here does reinforce good eating and exercise habits, something I like. Yes, these are my choices and I’m responsible for them, but it helps to have societal support.

Art and Culture, Colorado, Family, Health

Can You See Me Now?

1 Comment

Winter                                                                                  Settling Moon II

No post yesterday! Uncommon. Got too wrapped up in doing stuff.

First instance. Drove over to Conifer III (we have three retail areas, this is the one furthest south on 285, but closest to our house) to see an eye doc about my glaucoma. Due to a screw-up (mine) with the prescription I’d been out of my eye drops for a couple of weeks and, not wanting to go blind, got an appointment. Jennifer Kiernan, doctor of optometry, is a late 30’s woman with a common sense approach.

We discussed the fact that my pressures, 15 and 16, were normal without the drops. She looked at my retinal nerve, “Hmm. Suspicious.” She says the  current move is toward no drops, using a very tiny stent to drain the pressure. “But, medicare will only pay for it when it’s done in combination with cataract surgery. Let’s see how bad your cataracts are.” Not too bad, as it turned out. “Let’s keep you off the drops, see you in a month.” Sounded good to me.

Back at home Kate and I came up to the loft and entered her drugs in medicare.gov. This was in preparation for our appointment at 3:30 with John Downing and Larry Seligman. We needed advice about the maze of plans. Larry recommended the very plan that we had considered on the medicare site, so we signed up. Here’s the good news. $0 premium. Weird, I know, but there you are. Larry said it was a very popular plan, no complaints, and it looked like a good fit. Besides, it’s only until 2016 under any circumstances. We needed to get this done because our U-Care coverage expired January 31st.

After that we asked Ophelia (our Garmin) how to get to the exhibition space where Jon had five works on display. This is the annual show for Aurora art school teachers and is held just off Colfax Ave on Florence, deep in the heart of Latino Denver. Jon, Jen, Barb (Jen’s mother), Gabe, Ruth, Kate and I were there. The whole family. That felt good.

Back home. With no thought for a post. I guess that’s probably a good thing.

Aging, Colorado, Family, Feelings, Health

Yikes

Leave a comment

Winter                                                                            Settling Moon

Both Kate and I feel like we’re ahead of what we’d expected in terms of getting stuff liberated, sorted and placed. We’re maybe 60% unpacked in the house, somewhere between 40 and 50% in the loft and very little in the garage, which will probably wait until spring.

Had a bit of a scare last night when the dogs rushed inside ahead of us after we returned from the science fair. The dogs’ feet carried in snow which quickly melted and Kate slipped right at the door and fell. Scared me for her, with two metal hips. Fortunately, she has strong bones, no osteoporosis, and walked away with a skinned shin. Yikes.

This morning I got up and put a new indoor/outdoor rug down in the front of the door. We’ll do that at the other two entrances as well. All tile makes sense with the snowy weather here, part of the charm, but it also makes slipperiness an issue. Part of getting used to a new space, a new climate.

A light snow last night covered the driveway and our small deck. With the temps forecast into the high 40’s or low 50’s tomorrow and the next day, I’m going to see whether it will melt without shoveling. An experiment. Getting used to a new place.

Colorado, Health

Early to Bed…

Leave a comment

Winter                                          Settling Moon

Up at 4:30 this morning. Not insomnia. Since moving to Shadow Mountain, I’ve been going to bed at 9 pm.  This means I have 6-7 hours of sleep by 4:00. I prefer 8, so 5 am or so is better, but 4 am on will do.

This transition occurred naturally thanks to switches from daylight savings time to standard time and the exhaustion brought on by unpacking while acclimatizing. I like it. It’s quiet in the early morning, just as it is late at night. Plus there’s the cultural lift that goes with being an early riser. I know about and believe in chronotypes (different sleep patterns), but there’s such a positive Western cultural value placed on early waking, especially among northern Europeans.

 

 

Colorado, Health, Politics

Last Big Piece (other than selling the other house)

Leave a comment

Winter                                                   Settling Moon

We’re in a long spell of days in the 30’s and 40’s, apparently normal January weather here. That milder winter we were talking about.

The main big transition piece undone is health care: doctor, dentist, health plan. Made some progress this week, but nothing done yet. More complicated than it needs to be, than it should be.

Linking the pieces of primary care doc, hospital of preference and health insurance has the feeling of playing three card monte on the streets of Times Square. But at least there you knew the con was on from the minute you stepped up to the piece of cardboard and the tented cards. With medicine the putative beneficiary is you, the patient, who receives good health care; but, in fact, just like Times Square, the game has other intended beneficiaries whose needs count more than yours: the administrative apparatus of hospitals and clinics, the vast network of employees working for the insurance organizations and the greedy bastards who run the pharmaceutical industry.

OK. So, it’s a rant. Doesn’t mean it’s not true.

 

 

Colorado, Health

Still Paying Attention

Leave a comment

Winter                                                   Settling Moon

Another on task day. At ten we met with a Minnesota financial adviser by phone. She praised our methodical process and its result. There is one more missing piece, the selling of the Andover property, but we won’t know more on that until next month at the earliest.

Kate went on a sundries purchasing trip: shampoo, conditioner, cleaners of various kinds, laundry basket, trash can, rug for the lower level door. Meanwhile I got the material together to convert our title to a Colorado title and register the car with the state. Tomorrow I’ll get the Rav4 emission tested, the VIN number verified and hopefully complete the title conversion and registration.

There’s also the Medicare advantage plan. We have a couple of months to switch from UCare, which we’ve liked, to a Colorado plan. The Medicare.gov site, which has a lot of information, makes determining which plan makes sense a sort of complex game I’d rather not play. I consider myself able to read and understand with the best of them, but it baffles me. Another financial adviser has reached out to a Colorado colleague to find us a trusted broker.

We’ve had to keep one or more items related to the move in our consciousness since May, 2014. As the time for the move grew closer, the number of them increased. We’re now in a time period when the number has begun to dwindle, but it’s not zeroed out, not yet.

Colorado, Health

Thresholds

Leave a comment

Winter                                                        Settling Moon

Found my Swede saw and loppers. Went out in the 60 degree! afternoon and pruned the pine tree whose drooping limbs obscure the view of Black Mountain Drive to the left. When driving out, I like to see what’s coming.

Opened a few book boxes while Kate napped this afternoon and finally found the light switch for the single overhead light that has been on since the movers packed boxes in rows four deep against it. Turned it off.

Both of us passed a significant threshold today. We were able to work with fatigue as the only barrier, though the fatigue did come earlier and deeper than comparable work in Andover. We are becoming of the mountain.

In Andover our woods obscured sunsets, but here the sky is clear over Black Mountain to our west. Clouds form above it (or above other, higher peaks) and reflect back the sun’s last light. Clear air and an unobscured vista make for the regular extraordinary.

 

Colorado, Family, Health

Little Boxes, In a Pile

Leave a comment

Winter                                                                   Settling Moon

All the kitchen boxes are empty. The cupboards have begun to fill up. A milestone. Ridding the living room of boxes was another. Getting the Swedish shelving  up (all Kate) another. The washer and dryer, one more.

Also, our acclimatization has continued. We can both work longer now without fatigue setting in. No light-headedness on exertion. Sleep’s much better. There still remains a good distance to go before we’re fully here physically, but we’re both here emotionally. In a short time this spot on Black Mountain Drive has become home.

Monday afternoon we’re going to take the grandkids while Jon and Jen are in meetings. This will be the first time we’ve seen them together since we got here. Illness and some lingering disagreement about where we should have lived have dulled the joy on this aspect of our move.