Category Archives: Health

Sandwich a Bio-Hazard?

March 10, 2010 Charles Leave a comment

Imbolc Waning Wild Moon

Those in the health care world, at least the care provider part of it, use medical in a way most of us lay folk don’t. They ask people they meet, especially spouses like me, if they’re “medical.” Kate payed me a compliment in this vernacular a few months back by saying, “He probably doesn’t realize how medical you are.”

What does it mean? In part it means a familiarity with the everyday life of medicine, that is, a life dealing with blood, sputum, questions about constipation or overactive bladders, stitching up wounds or struggling with life or death in a code blue type situation. I sense, too, that it refers to an acceptance of the brute facts of life. Illness and trauma happen and they happen to all sorts of people at all sorts of times in their lives.

At some point the news can be bad, “He didn’t make it.” or “You have lung cancer.” kind of bad. They also know, better than most of us, that death comes in many forms and that it comes to us all. There is a contradiction here; however, since contemporary medicine sees death as the enemy and procedural medicine as their chief weapons in this apocalyptic struggle. I use the word apocalyptic here in reference to the universe that dies with each person.

Medical also means going into the refrigerator for something to eat, taking what looks like a sandwich in a ziploc bag and discovering the container says: Specimen Transport Bag and has the red and black bio-hazard emblem with BIOHAZARD written in bold black letters against the red field.

Being medical does put you in a world different from the day to day, where we consider normality health, enjoy a certain consistency to our routine and find trauma or illness an upsetting deviation. It’s been a privilege, this past 20 years, to learn about it from the inside.

Family, Health, Weather +Climate, Writing

Frosty Saturday

February 13, 2010 Charles Leave a comment

Imbolc New Moon (Wild)

Outside temp is 11.6 degrees and the dewpoint is around 9. With them so close together, we have two phenomenon at once: more hoarfrost as the water precipitates out on shrubs, tree limbs, fences, porch rails, then freezes and fog. Visibility is low here and the same conditions which create hoarfrost makes roads slick. An odd combination. We also have what looks like snow, but I think is actually flakes forming near the ground as cool air freezes water vapor. Fog is a cloud on or near the earth so we could be witnessing outside what usually happens in the skies above us.

After printing out 40,000 words of new novel (redundant), which represents all I’ve written so far, I decided this was a good time to revise, go back, get familiar with its arc again after a week off. That’s underway now.

It’s also Saturday, grocery day. I can go any day of the week I want, but my patterning about grocery shopping on Saturday is very strong. I know it, but don’t change it.

Kate has finished her second week of work. She has come through them in much better shape than pre-surgery, yet she is not without pain. Her neck bothered her last night and her hip has grown progressively worse. She thinks digging the Celica out of the snowbank last week did some damage, so she’s not taking any of this as too bad a sign just yet. She is visibly better than before, her face less tight at the end of the work day and her movements less stiff. Still, as she says, she’s rather retire. Soon.

Aging, Great Work, Health, Politics

The Year We Make Contact

January 1, 2010 Charles Leave a comment

Winter Full Moon of Long Nights

Hmmm. You know you’re getting old when the sequels to movies, one’s you saw when they came out, are now getting passed by the actual dates.

The year we make contact. Indeed.

What will the next 10 years be like? On an equally geezerly note the end of this new decade, Lord willin’ and the creek don’t rise, will find me 72 years old. I’ll be the first to admit that I’ve known people that were 72 but I wouldn’t let my daughter marry one. Of course, I don’t have a daughter, so that makes that easy.

My sense, my hope is, that in this coming decade, the teen years of this century, we will come to grips with climate change and in a way that will have a lasting, positive impact. We won’t have completed the Great Work, the movement to a benign human presence on the earth, but we will have made substantial strides.

Terrorism will decline as a front-burner issue, though it will remain with us, if for no other reason than the continuing disparity between rich and poor countries, disparities exacerbated over the next ten years by the continued growth of India and China.

The Millennium generation will push us further toward a race neutral or race positive world. It may be that we will develop the strength to see difference as a possibility for enrichment. Or, maybe not. I hope the tension begins to move in such a way that the fulcrum tips toward embracing pluralism.

At the end of this decade the grandkids will be ten years older: Ruthie 13 and Gabe 11. Yikes.

By the end of this decade I hope Kate and I have got this gardening thing well integrated into our lives.

I hope for, I want a move toward, as one foundation puts, “a more just, verdant and peaceful world.”

Aging, Cinema and Television, Family, Great Wheel, Health, Holidays

A Quiet New Year

December 31, 2009 Charles Leave a comment

Winter Full Moon of Long Nights

We have gained back a few minutes since the Winter Solstice, so the New Year will arrive, as it does every year, with a bit more daylight than the grimmer days of mid-winter.

The neighbors have begun to shoot off fireworks. They are a restrained lot for the most part, but when they perceive an excuse for celebration: holiday, birthday, new year, they always bring out the fireworks.

(Methuselah Grove
The Methuselah Grove with the world’s oldest living things. The oldest living tree at 4,723 years, Methuselah, is not identified for its own protection.)

Kate and I have clinked glasses of champagne (her) and Fre (me), wished each other a happy new year and not shot off a single firecracker. We did watch Jules and Julia, a middling movie in my judgment, though it had some interesting observations about cooking. We also watched a great Nature program on the rise of the dog. Apparently a Swedish geneticist has pinpointed eastern Asia as the origin of all dogs.

Kate’s neck has begun to bother her again this week and her left hip is now worse than it was before the operation. The back, though, has improved markedly. A day at a time.

Well, a happy new year to you, whoever you are. Back at you next year.

Aging, Family, Friends, Great Work, Health, Politics

Gettin’ Ready

November 25, 2009 Charles Leave a comment

Samhain Waxing Wolf Moon

Let the scramble for the unfinished and the not yet purchased begin. Thanksgiving day is tomorrow. We decided to purchase a turkey from Williams-Sonoma since we didn’t see ourselves doing the whole meal. They gave us a call last night to tell us that the turkey will be delivered today. Reassuring.

We go this morning to Kate’s physical medicine and rehab doc, Dr. Bewin. He’s her medical home for the issues related to her back. He’ll evaluate her pain management regimen and discuss the surgical results so far. He’ll also weigh in on rehab, physical therapy.

Lois, our housecleaner is here today, doing that before holiday buffing up, though frankly with five dogs we don’t maintain an Architectural Digest home under the very best of circumstances, this even though Kate spends many happy hours watching HGTV.

The latest Wired has an article that gives a very gloomy outlook for global warming, using phrases like “we’re toast.” It goes on to imagine the techno-geek fixes that we’ll come up with to save the day.

Ooohhh…the turkey has come, I think!

Aging, Cooking, Health

Aspects of Our Lives

November 16, 2009 Charles Leave a comment

Samhain New (Wolf) Moon

Kate and I had our business meeting. It involved the always fun annual chore of signing up for benefits with Allina. This is probably the last time we’ll need to do it. Even though it’s an overly complex task, it does have significant repercussions throughout the year, so it pays to do it thoughtfully.

After the meeting we began our first (of what we intend to be continuing) weekly menu planning. This week I chose a red beet soup and a white bean and winter squash soup. Kate picked a vegetarian slow cooker recipe and the brisket. Tomorrow we’ll make a grocery list and I’ll go buy the ingredients, then we’ll cook together for a day or half a day. The grocery list will include fruits, one serving a meal, and ingredients for tabouli, which we both enjoy. I’ll make the soups and Kate will cook the meat and slow cooker meals. We’ll add in salad and fruit along the way.

Kate’s recovery seems to have stalled and I don’t know what to make of it. I’m glad we have an appointment with Dr. Schwender on Thursday morning. I’m feeling a need–and so is she–for some reassurance about the healing process and the eventual outcome.

Now, I have to make up for the lost hour of sleep last night while I completed my trip through hell.

Aging, Dogs, Family, Friends, Garden, Great Work, Health

Garden Crusader

November 7, 2009 Charles Leave a comment

Samhain Waning Dark Moon

Welcome to another sunny, warm November day. These are days I’ve come to expect from October, but, as Paul Douglas often says, nature tries to balance, so here we are close to Armistice Day with a 60 degree and bright day about to unfold. That means time to finish what I hope will be the last Rigel barrier of the season, extending a wire across the top of our wooden orchard fencing to make it really, really hard for her to get a purchase.

Kate’s lying low for the next few days, taking care of that not yet healed back. A wise decision on her part. She’s most at risk just as she begins to feel better, chasing down dogs, picking up the mail down our sloped driveway, loading and unloading the dishwasher, making Danish pancakes. These are all part of the routine of a normal life, not important, perhaps even a bit annoying on a daily basis, until you cannot do them at all, then they loom large as important, even critical parts of identity.

A shout out here to Vicki Nowicki. I met Vicki at the annual Seed Saver’s Exchange conference in July. I ate dinner with Vicki and her husband. We talked about permaculture, Celtic holidays, the odditys of American landscape preferences and the importance of becoming native to a place. Vicki told me she’d won a Garden Crusader award from Gardener’s Supply Company. The notice came today in a e-mail from them. I’ve excerpted a bit from the interview with her.

When we spoke, and as I read this, I found myself speaking when she talked. We were in synch. She also has a Liberty Garden project that I admire.

2009 Garden Crusader Vicki Nowicki

Vicki’s life work has been to help people slow down, learn about the land they live on and take better care of it. “What I’ve been trying to do for 30 years is to glorify the place where you live,” she said. “I want to use food gardens to nail people down to their place. A garden helps to reveal the nature of your site and bonds you to the land,” she said. “When you have a garden instead of a lawn, you are now producing something, not just consuming at the maw.” 7150-nowicki-bench

Liberty Gardens

Her newest project pulls together everything she knows and believes about gardening. It is a website called libertygardens.com. The site will include tutorials and garden journals and will be a resource for anyone interested in gardening.

Here is how she describes it:

“It’s for the 21st century and it’s about growing food at home in order to make it a home. Our lives will change and our world will change when we start to plant food gardens at home. It’s a simple act that each person can choose to do at any time without a new law being passed, or a feasibility study being run or a stimulus package being doled out. But talk about a shovel-ready project! If our land is worth caring about and if our families are worth caring about, we can each choose to create the food supply that we have been asking for. We have the liberty to choose what to grow and how to grow it. People have always done it.”

And with Vicki Nowicki’s help, more and more people will be joining in, and doing it too.

Aging, Family, Health

Kate

November 5, 2009 Charles Leave a comment

Samhain Full Dark Moon

Kate’s recovery has, as she expected, plateaued. That means she’ll have time without the rapid gains she made over the last two weeks. According to her, the physical gains will not be lost, but the hope engendered in the immediate post-op will erode, since the body does not, at least for awhile, continue to send positive signs. Psychologically the matter may be more problematic. Without care the slowed or even apparently stopped healing can make the long time since getting ready for the procedure, the blur of the first couple of days on the morphine drip and the joy of increased mobility afterward add up to disappointment, fear of a failed outcome, or a weariness with the whole no longer countered by good signs.

Out for errands.

Aging, Dogs, Garden, Health, Sport

A Good Day

November 1, 2009 Charles Leave a comment

Samhain Full Dark Moon

Rigel and Vega spent much of the day defending us from visiting neighborhood dogs. Of course, thanks to our record setting fence-lines no battle could be joined, but jaw-boning was much in evidence. This evening they came in, flopped down on the couch and went to sleep. That is except for the show on birth and babies in the animal kingdom. Rigel turned her head toward the TV and watched a mule-deer born, penguins enfolding their single chicks and musk-ox turn to face down the white wolves of the Arctic. Would loved to have been inside her head.

Kate worked outside today, weeding the blue-berry patches and other parts of the orchard. The good news is the clover has become established and has choked out the weeds. The bad news is that the clover threatens to choke out the blue-berries. Sigh. She is only two weeks out from her procedure tomorrow. Amazing.

Our defended (defenced?) vegetable garden can now be worked without fear that a Rigel or a Vega will come along later and try to emulate any digging I might have done. Their work is not up to my exacting standards. The last greens came out today with the exception of some Swiss Chard that still has vitality. All that’s left in the garden now are strawberry plants, asparagus, garlic, parsnip and carrots. The first two are perennials, the latter three crops from this year that can stay in the ground for a while, carrots, or need to over winter, the parsnip and garlic.

I couldn’t bring myself to patch the damage from the dogs. It is quite extensive and I find myself reactive when I work on it. It will keep until next spring.

Then of course there was the Vikings-Packer game. Our defense had a bit of a let down late in the third quarter and the first part of the fourth, but they played brilliantly otherwise. So did Favre. At one point a Packer named Jennings fell on the Viking sideline very near Favre. Favre’s concern and his action, bending down to see how Jenning’s was, moved me. He seems to genuinely care for his team mates both current and former. He also plays like a little boy, jumping and waving his arms, picking up players who’ve just scored a touchdown.

After the game he had an interview in which he spoke warmly of the Packers and the fans there. It was a mature and sensitive moment.

It’s fun to see him play as a Viking. Didn’t think I’d feel that way, but I do.

Aging, Dogs, Health, World History

Mammals Here Nap

October 29, 2009 Charles Leave a comment

Fall Waxing Dark Moon

It has been a strange fall for leaf change and leaf shedding. Our trees were green until just a week or so ago, then the trees with golden fall colors like the birch and the poplars changed. A few of the red changed, but the large numbers of oak and ash trees still have their leaves. They are brown, not green.

The wet, cool day put all the mammals here in a stupor. Rigel and Vega slept in their crates instead of playing outside; the whippets dozed on chairs and the couch. My eyes began to wink shut while I read about the masterpiece and Kate decided for an early nap. So did I. Something in us furry creatures find wet, fall days a nice time to head into the den and rest up.

Sarah, Lois our housekeeper’s daughter, took care of the 17 year old at Hennepin General. She’s a nurse in the pediatric ICU. That was a good story about backs against the wall medicine.

If I had a school age child, I told Kate, I’d be worried. The random nature of the H1N1 serious complications makes it difficult to know just what to do. Kate then reminded me of a reality I knew vaguely, but which surprised me.

Parents as late as the 1950’s and early 60’s lived in an age when it was still common for children to die. Measles, mumps, diptheria, flu complications, polio all claimed the lives of children while adults who had them and lived were unharmed. This is such a different reality from our own, an era when the death of a child is seen as an anomaly, an act against nature, when in fact, for the bulk of human history, living into adulthood has been the anomaly.

Even so, if you were a pioneer and you knew the odds of your children living into adulthood were low, the death of a child would still be the death of your child. Hard. In that regard those must of have been times of uncountable sorrow.