Category Archives: Health

Aging, Health, Third Phase

Pain

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Imbolc                                                                         Bloodroot Moon

Put your shoulder into it.  Increasingly difficult for me, at least on my left shoulder.  This is a post about pain, aging, the third phase.  Not because pain during aging is new or a surprise, not, rather the opposite, because its common.  Known.  Experienced.  But rarely discussed.

As the body changes, at any time, sure, but especially as we age and the terminus grows closer, we bring our personal history into our consideration, our weighing, our evaluation.

The shoulder pain, for example, pushes me back to a certain Madison County 4-H fair in August of 1949.  I’m young, very young, 2 1/2 years old, but I swear I remember the bare light bulbs strung on thin braided electrical cord, pink cotton candy, my blue blanket and my mother’s shoulder as she carried me.  I also remember a shiver, a full body shudder as I registered what I later came to believe was the onset of polio.

Whether this was the moment and whether the memory is even possible is uncertain.  That I would go on to contract bulbar polio and be paralyzed completely on my left side for over six months is not.

So, 63 some years later, when my left shoulder makes me wince as I lift my arm or move it  backwards or pains me especially if I try to lift an object, like a book, with my arm extended, as I’ve done many times in the last couple of weeks as I reordered my studies and eliminated books, my thoughts go to polio.  More specifically post-polio syndrome.

Probably not post-polio, a slippery diagnosis, not completely believed in by docs.  Probably not.  But that doesn’t make me stop considering it.

This pain has persisted, now maybe two months.  Not long, compared to someone like, say Kate, who has had persistent back, hip and neck pain for over 20 years.  But long enough to make me ready to see a doctor.  I want a diagnosis.

So Kate’s hunting for the best shoulder doc in the orthopedic community.  I’ll see whomever she finds and go from there.  In the meantime I waver between accepting the pain, avoiding the movements that exacerbate it, and medicating it.  I don’t like either of those choices.  If I can help it through exercise, or if I won’t make it worse by using it in spite of the pain, I’ll exercise and use it.  Just put up with it.  Maybe add some meds to help even things out.

If I can’t help it through exercise or if moving it creates more problems, then I’ll really need a doc because I’m in a bad place at that point.  I depend on exercise as part of my personal health regimen and having to back away from any part of it is not something I’m willing to do.  At least right now.

This will be a continuing series.  Part of the third phase.

 

 

Health, Writing

Low Grade Disharmony, Dis-Ease

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Imbolc                                                                         Valentine Moon

Looking back some low grade disharmony began to sneak up on me last Wednesday.  Feeling punk.  Over the weekend I laid low.  I find it a DIY MFA for writing a couple of days ago.   It had some interesting suggestions for reading as a writer and with a specific purpose, so I followed them while sleeping and resting.

That is, in this instance I read the competition.  Percy Jackson and the Olympians.  A middle-school Harry Potter-like story of a twelve year old who discovers he’s the son of Poseidon.  It’s fun, a bit, well, juvenile, yet captivating and the plot has a propulsive force.

The gods and demi-gods, monsters and other creatures of the sacred world abound.  I love this stuff, even in its middle-school form.  Once I’ve finished the third of the Percy Jackson books, I’m going to start on Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time series.  Also on the list is re-reading Tolkein.  Of course, I read him and a long, long time ago.

There are three other lists on the reading with purpose idea: one is classics, another informative and the third is contemporary.

The same process asked for my 5 all-time favorite books.  This kind of list changes, but here is the one I wrote down on that day:  Steppenwolf, 100 Years of Solitude, Mists of Avalon, Metamorphoses, the Bible.

Now I’m feeling better, though not all the way there, and its time to get cracking on that revision.  Time’s, well, we all know what time is.  And we don’t get more.

Dogs, Health, Our Land and Home, Travel

Out of the Salt Mines and On to the Treadmill

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Imbolc                                                                 Valentine Moon

Well, I’m close, but not finished.  As the books got shelved, the remaining space seems to be inadequate for what I have left.  Probably a way around it, I’ll find it tomorrow.  Right now.  Tired again.

(a salt mine cathedral in Colombia outside Bogota.  I visited in 1987.)

Just brought in more bags of feed for the animals.  40 pounds at a time.  Then salt for the water softener, 50 pounds a bag.  But.  They have nice plastic handles.  Working in the salt mines doesn’t mean what it used to.

Discovered that my glucometer needed calibration.  Once calibrated it told me a story I was glad to hear.  At least by today’s reading my low carb diet has lowered my blood glucose level.  And, I’ve lost a bit of weight, too.  All in all a good thing.  Though Kate, a carb lover of some note, has expressed some dissatisfaction.  No pasta, no breads, no cakes or pies.  We’re figuring out now how to add carbs back into her diet without creating a cook two meals at a time situation.  We’ll figure it out.

Right now I’m getting on the treadmill.  Which, for that matter, doesn’t mean what it used to either.

This is a Landice treadmill, the brand and model I’m about get on.

 

Cinema and Television, GeekWorld, Great Work, Health, Latin, Our Land and Home, Translating Metamorphoses

95%

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Imbolc                                                                                Cold Moon

So the parade of salesmen has begun.  First up was Reliant heat and cooling.  They sent out a really good guy.  Told us what would fit, how much it would cost.  Very reasonable price.  Good furnace.  If I hadn’t had the others scheduled, I would have bought this one.  Still, we’ll hear the others out, too.  You never know.

This furnace runs at 95% efficiency.  As opposed to our current 80%.  Think about a difference of 15% less gas used.  Then multiply it by hundreds and thousands of homes.  Hard to believe.  Of all the strategies to combat global warming, the easiest and most immediate ones involve conservation.  More fuel efficient cars, furnaces.  Better insulation in homes.  Switching from coal-burning electricity generation.  Having cleaning crews in large buildings clean during the day.  Strategies that have broad application yet involve relatively straightforward choices and proven technologies.

Finally wrenched myself away from the image moving to work on the Edda’s some more.  Brunhild today.  A sad story.  Sigurd jumped into that burning ring of fire, but boy it really didn’t work out for him or Brunhild.

Also back to my one sentence of Latin.  Again, it seemed to flow today.  Based on past experience I’ll hit an impossible head-slapper tomorrow, but today.  All right.

I’m in my second week of rest for my patella-femoral syndrome.  I’ll start back on the workouts on Monday.  I’ll see how, or whether, this helped.

Been watching House of Cards on Netflix.  As the brave new face of television, I like it.  13 episodes up all at once.  We can watch it as we like it.  Cool.

 

Health, Writing

Whew.

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Winter                                                                Cold Moon

Well.  First face-to-face (other than Kate) over the finished manuscript.  Lonnie had some cogent critiques.  My experiment with multiple first person narrators didn’t work for her.  She also wanted to see more character development on major characters.  But, on the whole, she thinks Missing is strong and won’t “require a major rewrite.”  It was fun to talk about my work with someone in addition to Kate.

(Valhalla)

Then the comedy began.  I picked up my eye drops (for glaucoma) and went to Walmart (I know.  But the price was $90 less than anywhere else.) to pick up two 50 pound barbells and two 45 plates for the leg press.  50 pounds I can do.  But.  The two 45’s were in one package.  I cannot lift 90 pounds.  So.  The one time I really needed a knife, which I usually carry, I’d left it at home.

They had that plastic shrink wrap over them.  Had to saw at it with my car key, setting off the door locks, then a beeping noise.  Quiet them down.  Back at it.  After what seemed like a very long time I finally got the package open and pulled them out one after the other.  Then onto home.  Whew.

Health

My Body, My Ancientrail

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Samhain                                                        Moon of the Winter Solstice

Like many folks I’ve walked my annual physical slowly toward December 31st.  Only paid for once a year and it has to fall on or after the last one.  Don’t recall how long it took, but I’m now up to December 17th.

The result.  I get my physical and my lab tests back just before the New Year.  So.  I read them.  They’re like an empirical astrological chart.  In their patterns lie the future.  Of my body.  I can see the faint outlines now of the hammer that will probably deliver the fate of the gods.  And it’s not what I imagined.

Each time I get the feedback from my physical I have to give up, at least for an hour or a day or a week, that magical sense we all have that, despite substantial evidence to the contrary, we will be the one, the first one, yes, but the one, that will just skate on out of here alive.

The data from my physical proves that I am flesh and blood, heir to all the flaws and weaknesses of the body.  And more.  That I am not someone else, not some free floating life form, skimming just above the small hooks and lines the world throws out to hold us down. No. I have a high glucose reading.  My cretanine is up.  But the cholesterol numbers?  Wow.  Blood pressure?  Fine.  There are other little ticks and creaks in the fabric of my vehicle.

You know that right?  Each Hindu god or goddess has a vehicle.  Their feet never touch the earth.  They do skim above the hooks and lines carried by Nandi or Garuda.  I suppose, back to the incarnation post of a week or so ago, that we might each be gods, carried above the surface of samsara by this fleshly vehicle. [I should say that this is the exact opposite reading of samsara from Hinduism and Buddhism.  In these belief systems the bodies senses are the hooks and tethers that keep us chained to this world.] Riding on it like Vishnu on Garuda.  In this case, maybe I will float on, wash away from here and into the Brahma or into the heavens or perhaps crawl back on the wheel for one more ride in one more vehicle.

I suppose it could be.

But I can tell now that this one has fatal flaws.  Turns out it’s just like everybody else’s.

Final thought.  When my physical finally gets scheduled for December 31st, is my time up?

Friends, Health

And Back Again

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Samhain                                                      Moon of the Winter Solstice

Home again, home again.  Back from the doctor, back from the lunch.  Home again.

I’ve seen Tom Davis now for several years.  He’s thorough and personable, helpful, too.  When my labs come through, I’ll find out more news, but right now, I’m looking good.  No new maladies or ailments or dysfunctions.  Good news though what I expected.  I don’t anticipate any bad news on the labs either.

Lunch with Margaret Levin, executive director of the Northstar Chapter, Sierra Club.  She’s become a friend though I no longer volunteer there.  She and her partner hope to start a family and we talked about kids.  My writing, too.  Organizational matters with the Sierra Club.  All normal stuff, but frustrating.

Woollies tonight. I’m blessed with good friends, diverse friends.  Makes the holidays meaningful for me.

Health

Going to the Doc

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Samhain                                                            Moon of the Winter Solstice

Physical this morning.  Annual for many years.  In one sense it’s like a test you take and take and take until you fail.  Then, it’s not important anymore.

Health, Weather +Climate

Negatory

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Samhain                                                                      Thanksgiving Moon

0.  The weather system says the temperature is 0.  That is, an absence of temperature.  A naught.  A negation of temperature.  Not really, though.  Just an arbitrary spot on a continuum from high molecular activity to low.  Significant.  Certainly.  Around here folks begin to notice a chill out.  We have our ways.  When it gets into the 90’s, we start complaining about the heat.  Lowdown, not until it gets well below zero and then only if there’s a wind.

Our body stays in the 98.6 degree range, has to for us to stay alive.  In the language of pharmaceuticals, we can stand excursions above and below that mark, but not much.  More down than up.  In a way.  Here’s aninteresting piece: clinically hypothermia occurs when the core temperature falls below 35°C (95°F) – that’s not much of a drop.  As this website says, we’re tropical creatures, we humans, not meant to be outside in the cold for long, or even short, periods of time.

Even so.  We can and do adapt.  Some of us to the point of finding pleasure in the cold; others merely learning to tolerate it.  A winter species here in Minnesota, the snowbird, leaves town when the harshest weather hits, often January and February.  Some leave just for February because that time, if you don’t enjoy it, it can make you barking mad.  Cabin fever sets in.

Kate and I are not among those folk.  On occasion when it gets hot we go north.  Sort of the opposite idea.

Health

H.A.L.T.

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Samhain                                                             Thanksgiving Moon

Let myself get tired and hungry yesterday.  No lunch before the drive in for the Sunday afternoon tour, then working through the time period for my nap.  When I went through treatment for alcoholism, now over 35 years ago, the trainers taught us H.A.L.T.  Hungry. Angry. Late. Tired.  In recovery slips can happen and they would tend to happen, we were told, if any or more than one of these were present.  They can come in clusters.  Once hungry and tired, anger pops to the surface.  Or, being late can create short temper. Anger can lead to lack of sleep.  Being late can lead to skipped meals.

(When I found this graphic, I learned that I’d modified one word:  the L stands for lonely.  Loneliness doesn’t bother me and doesn’t happen to me too often, so I think I’ll let late stand.  For me.  I also was reminded that one other use of the acronym is to remind you what to do:  HALT.  Don’t do anything rash.  Just slow down and figure things out.)

The effect on me yesterday?  I gave myself a drubbing on the way home because my tour group didn’t clap.  How silly in retrospect.  These folks stayed with me, asked questions, showed interest to the end.  The very definition, in my opinion, of a good tour.  Still, by the time I got home, I’d done poorly, might just drop the whole thing.  I was glad this morning, rested, calm, a good breakfast and up with plenty of time to get the day going, the very oppose of H.A.L.T.  I could see yesterday’s slump for what it was, a symptom, not a diagnosis.

Today’s got good stuff in it.  Again.