Category Archives: Health

Health, Politics

Dark Guests

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Samhain                                                               Thanksgiving Moon

Last night Dick said, “I’m a pacifist, so I refer to my cancer as the dark guest.  I’m not fighting it; I’m inviting it to leave.”

Third time I’ve encountered this idea of abandoning the war metaphor for cancer or serious illness, third time among folks I know, that is.  I heard on the radio last night the current Drug Czar (an oxymoronic type title for a democracy) make a similar point.  He wanted us to stop using the phrases War on Drugs and War on Cancer.  As if these were situations where we could win and something else lose.

(Nótt-rides-her-horse-in-this-19th-century-painting-by-Peter-Nicolai-Arbo)

Metaphors matter.  Think how much different our world would be today if George the Bush had chosen to describe 9/11 as a criminal conspiracy that needs dedicated police and law enforcement action rather than as an act of war.  When he put us on a war footing, he wrong footed us in this whole matter from the very beginning.  A metaphorical mistake that has cost literally trillions of dollars and thousands of lives.

I can see terrorism as a dark guest; a violation, say, of the old Bedouin laws of hospitality or the Greek xenia.  I see it as a violent criminal enterprise, not much different than a heavily armed Mafia, one with a code of sharia and jihad rather than silence.  By not much different I do not mean benign or insignificant.

No, terrorism is a true dark guest, just like cancer cells lurking after radical surgery.  And we need to invite it to leave with urgency and active intervention.  Just skip the F-16’s, the warthogs, the marine recon teams, the infantry.  Send in the CIA, the FBI, the ATF and other counter terrorism specialists, even special forces.

Health, Travel

Just Me and the Dogs

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Samhain                                                                      Thanksgiving Moon

Kate called from Denver.  A normal flight.  She’s had her nap and will head over to Jon and Jen’s.  I’ve worked on Missing.  Making progress, now more than 2/3’s through this first revision.  When I finish, I’m going to print it out and read it, pencil in hand.

Did a fitness test and my aerobic fitness is good for a man my age.  Which is fine.  Good is good enough.

Quiet here.  No thump, thump, thump from Kate’s sewing machine, which sits just above my desk, on the main floor of our house.

The dogs and I have a rhythm for times alone and we fall into it pretty easily.

Dogs, Family, Health, Latin

Friday

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Samhain                                                             Fallowturn Moon

Boy, my Latin was not working for me today.  Like I had elephants tugging to keep my thoughts from surfacing.  I failed to go back over it, to check my work.  Over confident, I guess. Anyhow, felt slow, thick.  Not a good feeling.  It does, however, make me want to double down, get more consistent with my work.

Kate’s been gone yesterday and today at a supportive care cme (continuing medical education).  She’s prepping for what we’ll need, hopefully a couple of decades from now.  She wants to renew her medical license when it comes up in three years and she has to have some number, I think 75, of hours of continuing ed to qualify.  Keeps her head in the world of medicine though she’s very happy that her body is out of it.

Gertie continues to improve, bouncing with a three-legged, then a tender fourth legged, gate.  She’s decided to ignore the plastic cone on her head so she just barrels into doors, gates, people, furniture.  This means she’s feeling better and that’s good; it also means she’s cranking her nuisance quotient up a notch.  Not so good.

Health

New Aerobic Activity

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Samhain                                                                 Fallowturn Moon

Oh boy.  New aerobics.  Used my felling axe, now that the weight restrictions from hernia surgery are over.  First tree just cut down.  The small scrub ash that the %@#%# squirrels used as an intermediary road when highjacking our Honeycrisp crop.  The pirates.

This is going to be good aerobic and upper body resistance work.  Got my heart rate up pretty fast.  I imagine I’ll get more efficient, but even so this went smoothly.  Another lesson relearned, even small trees are heavy.  I had to shove this one off a path.

Next stop, unwanted trees to be cast out of the garden.  I will send them east of eden and guard the entrance with a flaming sword.

Art and Culture, Asia, Health

Looking

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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

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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.

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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

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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

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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

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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.