Category Archives: Health

Art and Culture, Asia, Health

Looking

Leave a comment

Fall                                                                      Fallowturn Moon

Glaucoma keeps my eye-docs in spare change since I have to go twice a year to get my nerves photographed (retinal), pressures taken and on one of the appointments play space invaders, a visual field test.  I’m happy to say that this effort, now over 20 years long, has kept this sight robber at bay and I’m grateful for the care.

Also got an intermediate prescription today, for the computer.  Certain things are not as clear as I’d like on the screen and since I spend a lot of time in front of one, seemed like a good plan.

After that I went to the museum, not far from the Phillips Eye Institute where my doc works.  Looking at the Terra Cotta Warrior exhibition again, walking through thinking about tours and touring logistics.  This will be a fun show.  I’ve got a good bit more research to do for I feel fully ready, but I’m gettin’ there.

 

Aging, Family, Garden, Health

Heavy Lifting

Leave a comment

Fall                                                                               Fallowturn Moon

Unanticipated consequences.  Kate’s upper body, shoulders and neck, screamed at her yesterday and are still doing it today.  Why?  She’s had to do all the (more or less) heavy lifting since my surgery.  One of my jobs in our marriage is to do the heavy lifting, literally. Now, I have my limits, too, of course, but they’re much higher than Kate’s.     Singapore

We’ve had to buy dogfood in 20 pound bags rather than 35 so I can carry it.  I made sure the water softener got it in, finally, before the surgery.  40 pounds per bag.  When Kate weeds, she takes the plant out roots, soil and all.  Puts them in plastic buckets.  They get heavy quick.  She had to empty her own this past month, using smaller buckets to empty the larger one.  I had the surgery in late September to be sure I could move honey supers if I needed to.  No need this year, unfortunately.

There’s also laundry and groceries.  Various items to take up and down stairs.  We’re done with our Excalibur (geesh) food dryer so it goes back in the basement.  Jars of canned tomatoes, peaches, apple butter go down, too.

Today I’m going to split a bag of composted manure in half so I can carry it down to the bed where I’m to plant the lilies and iris I have left to put in the ground.  I’ll be glad when this is done and I can get back to doing all these things plus my resistance work.  One more week.

Health

30 pounds, no more. Two weeks.

Leave a comment

Fall                                                                            New (Fallowturn) Moon

Down to the land of Lexus for my post-op.  7500 France.  Dawn Johnson, my surgeon, came in with a black suit and high heels. (stupid shoes as someone close to me calls them)

She checked me over, said, “Well, now you’re feeling better, but it’s still no lifting over 30 pounds for another two weeks.” I thought she might shift a bit on that given my healing, but no.  Still there.

Driving down there confirmed our recent decision to change dentists.  Now the drive to the dentist takes less than 5 minutes.  This took 45.  When I lived in Indiana, Indianapolis was a long drive, too far to do except for a specific purpose like the state fair or a doctor’s appointment.  It was 50 minutes from home.

On the way experienced, again, the halo effect.  A state trooper I encountered on 252 turned onto 100 with me and went as far as 62. (a long ways for those you not familiar with our highway system.  So, for that length of the trip there were many cars clotted around him, all scrupulously observing the speed limit.  Then he turned off.

Yiippee!  Speeds went back up.

 

Health, Latin, Myth and Story, Translating Metamorphoses, Weather +Climate

Jason and the Argonauts

Leave a comment

Fall                                                                                   Harvest Moon

The Harvest Moon has waned almost to New.  Leaves have begun to disappear, going from haute couture to essentials during the Harvest Moon’s month.  The temperature has taken a turn toward the cool, too, welcome in this household though not necessarily in others.

Working out stalled for me when I felt an ouch beyond what I felt made good sense.  On Monday I have my post-op visit and should have better information then.  I walk and lift modest weight with no twinge now, so I imagine I’ll be back to working out as soon as next week.  My capacity to recover quickly from this operation reinforces the resistance work I’ve done over the years.

Spent this morning dipping myself in the waters of the Jason and Medea story, Book VII of the Metamorphoses.   It was hard.  Not sure what happens, but some days the translating flows, other times it comes as if clotted and running through a pipe with bends and twists.  Today was a clotted and twisted day.  This is where we get the story of the golden fleece among other narratives.

A bit more now in the afternoon, just to see if I can bounce past the morning’s grind.

I also have the week 3 quiz to do in the Greek and Roman Mythology class.  Probably tomorrow.  Without much effort beyond review of my notes I’m hitting about 92% and that’s fine.  I could pump it up, but I have no need.  Look for a post in the next few days about some interesting things I’ve learned about the Odyssey and about myth.  Interesting to me, anyhow.

Health, Weather +Climate, Writing

Wednesday Big Event: Flu Shot

Leave a comment

Fall                                                                      Harvest Moon

Worked on revising Missing this am, then went out with my retired spouse to the local CVS, into the minute clinic and we got our flu shots.  A real treat.  I don’t use them for anything else, but for getting a flu shot, the minute clinics are perfect.

Our dwarf lilac (now huge) has dropped all of its leaves though most trees and shrubs continue to hang to at least a few.  The only other with no leaves at all is the ash in the vegetable garden.  It feels like November, or an old-fashioned October.

When we went out today, there scallop shell cirrus high in a blue blue sky, a bright sun and various shades of red and orange all round, reflected back to us from Round Lake.  A northern fall day.  Just right.

 

Feelings, Health

Mr. In Between

Leave a comment

Fall                                                           Harvest Moon

This hanging in between, between the trauma of the operation and a recovered back to normal state, has begun to wear on me.  Already.  I’ve forced myself, as I said below, to go slow, rest.  Now that the pain has almost totally subsided, that’s not so easy.  When there was an ouch or two or more to deal with, I reached into the reserve we all carry for those things and pushed through it.

(former web page vanished)

In the time while I’m still vulnerable to undoing the repair that has been done and beyond the pain, this time, my guard goes down.  Fatigue and unrealistic expectations begin to set in.  I remember this from my Achilles repair, too.  As I got closer to the end of the two months in a cast and on crutches, my desire to throw them away, cut off the cast and get on with it was extreme.

The main effect I see now is mental.  I’m physically fatigued and my body still has work to do on integrating that mesh which leaves my mental acuity less than I need.  Latin just seems too hard.

 

Health

Lifting

Leave a comment

Fall                                                    Harvest Moon

The pain from the operation has mostly dissipated.  Now I have to pay attention and not lift 30 pounds for a month.  Sounds easy, but most lifting for me is automatic.  See it.  Do it. Like last night.  A bag filled with 8 jars of canned produce, several apples, some raspberries, tomatoes and a green pepper.  Just yanked up the Katy made bag, put it in the truck and took it out at the destination.

Then, at home, later.  Oops.  Sure hope I don’t have to go through this all again because I’m not paying attention.

Still experiencing a bit of the wuzzies, but that’s much improved with reduced and, as of today, no use of the vicodin.  Which I really like.  This addictive personality I have likes to flex its muscle every now and again.

 

Health, Woolly Mammoths

Love Regina

Leave a comment

Fall                                                                                 Harvest Moon

The Woolly Mammoths, together now over 25 years, have entered the third and last phase of life, the autumn/winter years in which the final harvest begins to bend toward the grave.  We have, so far, been able to remark on this reality from the outside, fortunate in our health and in our spouse’s health.  That is no longer so.

Regina got her diagnosis of stage 4 cancer while Bill was in a Woolly meeting.  We knew it from the beginning.  She’s done well and poorly, shown up at events since then and been asked about at others.  Bill has, from the beginning, embraced the process, sometimes trembling, buttressed by a chiropractor’s suggestion that before all else, “He love Regina.” Thus, whatever happens at this point, as Regina lies in the ICU of Hennepin General, he has leaned into loving Regina, a comfort.

Her illness is no surprise, hers in particular, yes, but a potentially terminal illness that’s part of the body’s journey in this last phase of our lives, no. This is not a test.  This is not a test of the Woolly Mammoth emergency hearfelt system.  A potentially life-threatening situation has been spotted.  It will not be the last.

Dogs, Health

In Recovery

Leave a comment

Fall                                                                            Harvest Moon

Kate said I recovered from the hernia surgery like a kid.  Day two and I’m moving around pretty well.  Still painful in certain instances, but not too bad.  The pain meds, which I’ve cut back on, still fuzzy up the head and make sorting things through a problem.

Last night was a full moon.  I’m not a big fan of the full moon drives folks crazy argument, though it does pull the tides in the Bay of Fundy (where Paul and Sarah are) up 80 feet at high tide, but I’ve never seen the real connection between lunar gravitation and human life.

It’s a different matter, though, when it comes to dogs.  The moon casts more light on the woods, animals run around more and squeal more and our dogs go nuts more.  In general we try not to reinforce them in behaviors we don’t want, so if they bark and bark and bark and bark and bark (and so on), we don’t get up to let them out.  But, after three hours of barking, not kidding, we gave in.  Now we have tonight to get through.  We’ll see.

Still wuzzy from the vicodin.  Maybe clearer tomorrow.

Health, Woolly Mammoths

Medicine

Leave a comment

Fall                                                                          Harvest Moon

Medicine, for all its grandeur and power, still presides at those moments when things go bad.  When a clot breaks loose and heads toward the brain.  When a portion of an inner wall opens, allowing things to move beyond their proper place.  When a child has cancer or a brother, too.

No matter how strong and how grand, medicine is not our bulwark against death.  No, it’s a bulwark against death’s timing.  So far though, and the Taoists of the Qin and Han dynasties in China tried mightily, there is no immortality.  We all end our journey, our ancientrail.

Medicine can delay death’s arrival at our door, sometimes delay it for a long time, but it can not ban death’s presence.

Especially when we seek the shelter of hospitals, most especially when we end up in hospital ICUs, medicine’s work can be tender, to the mark and in vain.  We know this in my family as my mother went into the ICU at Riley Hospital and never came out.

But, too, these are where the modern miracles occur.  I’m hoping for one for Regina.