Category Archives: Health

Health

36 by 12.31.2012

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Summer                                                   Under the Lily Moon

Wore myself out this morning and slept awhile longer than usual during the nap.  Felt good.

I’ve started playing an online game called Superbetter.  I heard about it on the TED hour, a talk given by a woman gamer who had to overcome a severe concussion.  She invented a game, called Superbetter, to help her win back her health.  It’s adaptable to the goal that you have and in my case I’m going for a 36 inch waistline by December 31st, 2012.

I want to feel better about how I look and improve my health.  Want to see all my grandkids.  Finish writing as many novels as I can.  Live here with Kate and be healthy during that time.

In all instances but my extending waist line I have either come to peace with myself or celebrate myself.  Yes, I’ll always suffer fools poorly.  Just gonna be that way.  Yes, I’ll learn new things, keep interesting projects in front of me.  I can say yes to everything about me except this bad eating habit.  So, I’m gonna kick it. Once and for all.  Before I have to.

If you know me, I’d appreciate your support.

Aging, Health, Retirement, Third Phase, Woolly Mammoths

Yet More Loss

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Beltane                                                              Beltane Moon

Got back from the retreat about 12:30.  Took a shower, rested a bit, then hopped in the car for Moon’s reviewal at Washburn-McCreavy in Bloomington.

The bulk of the mourners were Chinese, the Fong family, but there were friends of Scott and of Yin who, like me, are round eyes.   A bowl of red envelopes, take one please, sat next to cards of hand-written calligraphy and a second bowl of hard candy.  An order of service for the funeral the next day had a color photograph of Moon on the cover.

Moon lay in a casket at the end of the first hall, hands crossed over her chest, fabric work and calligraphy with her.  Next to the coffin a video played, showing pictures from Moon’s life, including one with a curly headed Yin, young and beautiful.

Mourners wore red bands to indicate celebration of Moon’s life, though a few wore black bands to indicate her centenary; while 97 at her death, Chinese custom adds four years, so her age according to Chinese tradition was 101.

There were the usual clots of well-wishers gathered around person they know, wandering from board to board of photographs and watching, again, the video shown in two places in a hall separate from the reviewal room itself.

I spoke to Yin, then to Scott, said we’d talk later and left.

When I got home, I had an e-mail from Warren that his father, Wayne, whom he had put in hospice care only Wednesday, had completed his journey.  Warren’s phrase.  Warren, referencing the end of Longfellow’s Hiawatha, said he thought his Dad might last longer, but “he was in a faster canoe.”

These are times of transition, of change, of loss, of gathering in the lessons of a lifetime and using them for this third, last phase of our own journeys.  We knew it before the retreat and now we have fresh and poignant evidence.

 

Family, GeekWorld, Health

Auntie Biotic

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Spring                                                       Beltane Moon

Kate is home and her arm (cellulitis) looks much better.  Still a ways to go both on the antibiotics and healing, but the right direction.  Among the vagaries of strong antibiotic treatment is its kill all nature.  Like Round-up can’t tell the difference between weed and grass, most antibiotics can’t tell the difference between the pathogens and the friendly flora and fauna of your gut.

As a large symbiotic organism with literally billions of helper one-celled creatures throughout our body, it’s not a good idea to kill the guest-workers.  It would be sort of like throwing all the immigrants in jail (or deporting them) that you need to do the work in agriculture, manufacturing and domestic services.  Oh, wait…

How does the old song go?  You don’t know what you’ve got ’til its gone.  The digestive tract needs these wee beasties, needs them bad.  When they get killed off in sufficient quantities, the intestinal tract can get thrown way outta whack.

Now, I’m not sayin’ the cure is worse than the disease, but at certain points in time it can feel like a toss up.  This very problem can cause cancer patients to push away chemo-therapy, concluding that in this case, in spite of a terrible disease, that the cure is worse.

A lot of medicine relies on harsh chemicals, the internal equivalents of pesticides, fungicides and herbicides.  It’s popular in some circles to acknowledge this and give a blanket condemnation of Western medicine.  This kind of criticism only makes sense in a world where dying from an infection triggered during gardening seems impossible.  Why impossible?  Because we have the harsh chemicals to combat the even harsher outcomes of untended infection.

Overuse has begun to erode our edge against infections, so we might again have an era when the yearning will be for the time when we could beat stuff back.

Bees, Family, Garden, Health

The Quotidian

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Spring                                                            New Beltane Moon

Kate has taken her still healing cellulitis off to Colorado for a weekend with the grandkids.  Gabe’s fourth birthday is tomorrow.  Her arm looks much better than it did on Monday, swelling much less pronounced and the area of red, heated skin has reduced considerably.  It took four doses of IV antibiotics and the follow-up oral meds to get this infection under control.  No fun at all.

(Gabe and Grandpop, January, 2012)

Meanwhile back at the apiary, I’m going to check the bees tomorrow for larvae, need for syrup and pollen patties.  A few garden chores tomorrow, too, notably digging up the potato patch and amending the soil.  I can’t plant potatoes in the main vegetable garden for a couple more years because the beetles found them last fall.  Too many to pick off and drown in soapy water.

Also, I really need to fix the tire on the Celica, get it started and get the tire repaired or buy a new one.  Then, I’m going to give it away one way or another.  Know anyone that needs a car?  I may have a taker, but I’m not sure.  If not, I’ll pass it on to someone for free.  It has 280,000 miles on it, but it runs well.  We’ve decided to go with one car for financial reasons and it’s the one with the most mileage, so it has to go.

Cinema and Television, Cooking, Family, Health

Kate is Home!

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Spring                                                              Bee Hiving Moon

The home is full again.  Kate got home at 7:00 pm.  Four of us were wagging our tails and I hugged her.  She took off for the doctor yesterday and never came home until just now.

Her arm looks better, not well, but better.  Her spirits are good; though she says she’s “going to play the invalid tomorrow and Thursday.  We’ll see.  She’s not too good in that role.

We had grilled chicken, chard (from last year’s garden) and whole wheat spaghetti with olive oil and butter.  After the meal we both scratched our heads during Tree of Life.

It evoked the era of my childhood so well:  kick the can, swimming, roaming in the fields, running down alleys, getting into mischief.  I pulled back from understanding and went with the flow, the feel of things.  I liked it.  Don’t know that I’d want all the films I see to take that form, but in this case, well done.

Tomorrow.  Some errands.

Family, Health

Ah.

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Spring                                                          Bee Hiving Moon

A much better sounding Kate called a couple of times this AM.  The swelling has begun to recede which means she’s responding to the IV antibiotics.  Which, thank God, means it’s not one of the resistant strains of strep infections.  She will have her fourth IV infusion at 4 pm, then she’ll come home.

She ordered grilled chicken breast and vegetables for dinner tonight.  The chef is on duty.

She has to keep her arm elevated at or above her shoulder, will have oral antibiotics, but, and this is the really important part, she will be able to go to Denver.  She would not have been a happy camper if she had been unable to see Gabe and Ruth (grandkids).

So.  A big whew here.

Family, Health

In the Hospital

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Spring                                                        Bee Hiving Moon

Mentioned Kate’s cellulitis the other day.  Got worse.  She went to the doc today, her regular doc for over 30 years.  Kate called at noon, “I’m going to the hospital.  IV antibiotics.”  Oh.

This had me worried because not long after we were married Kate developed a very serious infection, it turned out to be her first ever herpes simplex to which her body way overreacted.  She damn near died with that one.

So, I’m relieved she’s getting full bore attention for this.

Only one problem.  She has our car.  We talked about my taking a cab in but decided it was too expensive.  I don’t have anything until Wednesday since I passed on the Woolly’s tonight.  If they can knock this back in a day or two, I’ll stay here and take care of the home front.

If she needs me, she’ll call and I’ll get in there.  I could take the Northstar in tomorrow or Wednesday morning.

An unforeseen occurrence in our one car plan.  Weird, huh?

She leaves Friday for Denver, at least that’s the current plan.  Hard to say now.

Aging, Health

Trust Your Senses?

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Spring                                                  Bee Hiving Moon

I’ve reached the age when hearing that I have mild cataracts counts as a good thing.  Eye exam today.  Playing space invaders (visual field), still good in both eyes in spite of the glaucoma (eye drops).

My ophthalmologist of 20+ years retired last year so this is only my second time with Dr. Brown.  She’s about 5 feet tall.  That’s with platforms.  She’s bright. “I see a stable eye today,”  she said.  A stable eye.  A good thing at any age.

Every time I to go the ophthalmologist (which I cannot spell) my thoughts turn to epistemology.  Today I got to thinking about medical specialties that focus on senses.  ENT.  Dermatology. (sort of) Ophthalmology.

Dr. Brown said to me today, “This visual field test tells me that your optic nerve is in good health.” A lot of ink has been spilled in philosophy over the degree to which we can trust our senses–since they stand between us and the world out there–but it occurred to me today that we never consider less than optimal senses.  What kind of information does an unhealthy optical nerve give me?  Does the degradation of visual stimuli correspond to a diminished or corrupted reality for me?  Ditto for olfactory, taste, touch, hearing.

I know my world is different from yours acoustically.  With only one ear bringing in sound data I cannot easily find the source of sound.  My aural world is less rich than yours.   I don’t know that it’s less real, but it’s different.  In some critical instances, very different.

Two examples.

Emergency vehicles.  When I hear a siren while I’m driving, I can’t tell where it is.  That’s different than the experience of a person who hears normally.

Vehicles approaching in a manner other than customary.  In England where they drive on the left I had to constantly remind myself to pay very close attention.  From the left is where I don’t hear.

Anyhow, I’m curious about sensory data.  And what it can and can’t tell us.

 

Aging, Cooking, Family, Health, Reimagine. Reconstruct. Reenchant.

Saturday

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Imbolc                                   Woodpecker Moon

Did my workout last night so I have Saturday and Sunday free.  Feels very luxurious.  This short burst workout economizes time while maximizing result.  What a deal.

We had our business meeting.  Still tinkering with the budget.  We’ve got the large outline and the big expenses well in hand, now we’re looking at other areas where we spend less per transaction, where the patterns are not yet obvious.  Kate’s learning Excel and grumbling all the way about it, but I can tell she’s proud of her progress.

Kate made pumpernickel bread.  It has molasses, espresso and chocolate among other things.  Who knew?  A moist tasty bread.

I’m feeling good about the start on reimagining.  I want to get a little looser, more free-form with the words and their implications.  Over time certain things will begin to clump together.  Right now, this writing aims toward a presentation on April 1st at Groveland UU.  It is also the first essay of maybe 10-12 that will constitute Reimagining.  At least as I imagine it now.  Ha, ha.

Off to the grocery store.  Using that former exercise time for the common good.

 

Art and Culture, Bees, Garden, Health

Time Marches On

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Winter                                  Garden Planning Moon

Kate sent the check off for the bees.  Two two pound packages of Minnesota Hygienics.  They should come around tax filing deadline.  A happier thing to hive bees.

We also decided on the plantings for our garden this season.  I’ll wait a bit on sending out the order.

In other news:  yes, I left the honey I intended to take Roy Wolf on the counter top.  Here. Yes.  I left the rug I intended to take to American Rug Laundry in the garage.  Here.  Yes, I apparently sent a test back to my doctor without my name on it.  And that’s just this week.

Who’s turning 65 soon?

On a different note.  Two fun groups of kids today.  Asian art tours.  One kid said, “I have a wonder.  I wonder whether the Chinese see our living rooms as weird?  Like we see theirs?”  Don’t know about you but I imagine either one would see our living room as weird.

The museum has artificial turf and tropical plants, brightly colored metal outdoor chairs and outdoor umbrellas up in the lobby.  Called a popup park.  One kid asked, “Is this art?”  Geez, how would I know?