Summer Waning Strawberry Moon
Talked to Kate this morning. She has walked a bit on her hip, not with much weight yet. She says now that she’s exhausted. Well, duh. A lot better than the pain she felt on Wednesday. She had a couple of tasks for me when we spoke this morning. That’s the Kate I know and love.
A bee day today and I want to get out there before it gets way hot.
Summer Waning Strawberry Moon
Back from seeing a much improved Kate. The pain has receded somewhat and she’s coherent. Back to her old self with a gimp leg–for right now–and lots of tubes. As I left, the nurse had begun to set up an IV for 2 units of blood. She lost a lot, one of the possibilities in this type of surgery. After she gets that, they’ll probably get her up for her first post-op walk.
She says she already has noticed a positive difference with no pain shooting down to her knee.
I took her one of the yellow Asiatic lilies from our garden. They look cheery and there are several right outside the patio door.
Summer Waning Strawberry Moon
Kate’s into her second post-op day, just. I talked to her on the phone and she has dry mouth and wants lozenges. She says her fever went up overnight, but has now gone down. Wind, water, walking, wound, wonder-drugs is a sequence for diagnosing the likely source of an infection post-op. Wind related fevers usually occur in the first to second day post-op and result from breathing tubes, being on a ventilator and other anesthesiology related sources. 3-5 days post-op come catheter related infections-water and especially in orthopedic patients, walking at 4-6 days. Walking as soon as possible usually prevents the walking related fevers by eliminating the deep vein thrombosis that is their cause.
The wound itself becomes a concern after 5-7 days. Again, as with walking, preventive measures, like pre-surgery anti-biotics, care for the surgery site before the operation and, now, an occlusive bandage over the site all help prevent this.
Finally, wonder drugs themselves can cause a fever in the week post-op.
All this means is that Kate’s progressing through the post-op maze of possible problems. She’s not worried about it and neither am I.
Gotta go. She needs lozenges.
Summer Waning Strawberry Moon
I went into see Kate this evening. The first day post surgery can be brutal and it is this time. A lot of pain. She’s a stoic and the pain went well beyond her threshold . It was hard to see, but I talked to the nurse and they adjusted her pain meds. I’m going to call around 10:45, near the end of Clare’s shift, Kate’s nurse. I want to know if things have gotten any better.
On stupid things people do: I saw a motorcyclist riding his bike, his mobile phone pinned to his ear by his left shoulder.
Wanted to know what was going on in the head of the older red haired woman I passed. She was behind the wheel of a bright yellow late model Volkswagen bug with plates that read: Manilow.
Drove behind a new Cadillac with the license plate: NINES. Won it in a poker game?
Summer Waning Strawberry Moon
Ah. Some sleep.
As we age, Minnesota becomes a better and better place to live. In spite of the rigors of the winter months, the high quality medical care creates a sense of safety and security that I’m not sure I could find in other states. With Kate I’ve been through many hospitalizations and procedures, each one handled with professionalism, leaving me more and more confident as do the results. I’ve only had the one instance of hospital based care, the achilles repair, and it was out patient, but that one time was as the others with Kate.
Given my perspective on this life, that is, barring some information I don’t have, this is it, having good medical care is important. We have it here.
Summer Waning Strawberry Moon
Kate’s out of surgery and in recovery. Dr. Heller said the procedure went well, “Perfect. Just what we like!” He’s an upbeat guy with a bald head, lots of confidence. Better than a melancholy doc filled with self doubt. I wouldn’t make much of a surgeon.
Fairview hospitals seem interchangeable with Abbott-Northwestern friendly, well-laid out, competent staff, procedures that make sense. Comforting.
A new University Children’s Hospital is under construction and it has a poster in the elevator: Bold, Inspiring. There are images of Minnesota and the Twin Cities in the tunnels leading from the Gold Parking Ramp into the main campus with East and West buildings. Surgery is on the third floor of the East Building.
Here’s a new wrinkle. Just when I thought parking validation was dead, the surgery lounge validates my parking. That’s not the new wrinkle. The new wrinkle is that I paid for validated parking. $6. Unvalidated it would have been $15. So, validation now gets me the rate I would have paid back when validation made parking free. Hmmm.
Anyhow, I’m gonna catch a nap since 5:00 am comes earlier in the ‘burbs.
Summer Full Strawberry Moon
The dew-point and the temperature are one, 67. That means a cloud hangs not above us but around us. It’s a drippy, soggy Saturday fit for neither garden work nor bees. And I have work to do in both places. There’s always Latin.
Hilo now takes naps with me every day and sits upstairs with me longer at night. I want to have as much time with her as possible before her kidney disease takes over. Kidney disease is strange. As long as there is at least some kidney function, the disease doesn’t manifest itself much except in heavy drinking of water. The creatinine level and other measures of kidney function reveal a different, starker picture. They show the gradual, then exponential depletion of effective kidney reserves. Once the body tips over into renal insufficiency, things can get bad quick.
As the universe would have it, at the same time Hilo had her labs confirming her problem, I had to go to the lab at Allina Coon Rapids to get my creatinine levels. Witnessing the steady and relatively rapid deterioration in Hilo’s situation, I awaited my lab results with somewhat more intensity than I might have.
Mine remain unchanged from December and not appreciably different for several times in the past. Looks ok for now.
After my thumb got all black and blue following my last sting, I began to investigate bee defensive behavior. I learned a lot of interesting things, a few very practical that I hope I remember the next time. It seems that when a bee stings it releases an alarm pheromone that attracts others to the location of the sting. So. I should scrape off the stinger (not pull it out because that causes the stinger to pump more venom into the wound), then smoke the area stung to mask the pheromone. I also learned that the same alarm pheromone expresses when a bee gets crushed during hive inspections. Of course I try to avoid this but it happens. That situation, too, calls for smoke. Last, and most obviously, if the bees are ornery on a particular day, put on gloves. Oh, yeah.
Beltane Waning Planting Moon
I’m still deep in the The Romance of the Three Kingdoms, following the exploits of Cao Cao, Liu Bei, Guan Yu and Zhang Fei among many, many others. Still not a third of the way done with it.
Tomorrow, weather permitting, I’ll do more weeding. Weeding and pruning. Those are the main tasks at this point in the gardening year. That and finding some weedless straw for mulch. It’s hard to find.
A week and a half past my colds onset I feel pretty good, back to normal with the exception of remaining sludge. I feel like an engine in need of an oil change. I even went back to the ramped up work outs today and had no repeat of the dizziness and nausea I experience a couple of weeks ago, the last time I did this workout at the new pace.
Feeling a bit of a let down, not sure why. Maybe it’s just the push, push of garden, Latin, dogs, food or, more likely, it’s just a cycling through of a bit of melancholy. Whatever it is sleep will help.
Beltane Waning Planting Moon
A trip to the warehouse for the temple of Mammon, Costco. Dogfood, dog treats and propel for Kate. Escaped without extra items or involuntary confinement.
Felt great yesterday, today not so much. That they left the shredded paper insulation behind in my sinuses feeling. Anticipating thunderstorms this afternoon and a cool down tomorrow, I’m going to work inside today, outside the rest of the week.
Beltane Full Planting Moon
Ah, the sweet feel of being in synch with the moon. I planted Scarlet Nantes carrots and golden beets amongst the green onions and the radicchio. Threw in a few zinnias for good measure. Next in the onion bed with storage onions, dill, marigolds and some other flower I can’t recall, I planted more carrots, more golden beets and some Red Russian Kale. Over in the bed with the Russian sage, some leftover onion and garlic and the bok choy, I planted Swiss Chard, beets vulgaris (I love that), the deep red ones, arugula and flame lettuce.
At that point the direct sun got to me so I retreated to the garage to turn on the zone for the area I had just planted. The beds seemed dry to me, so I wondered about its time and its arc. Sure enough, it’s going 360 when I want 180. That means the veggies only get half of the water they need. Later on the drip irrigation will provide most of what they need, but now, in drier conditions and with seeds starting over-head watering is the best. I’ll change the arc when it finishes this round.
The cold also leaves me more exhausted than the work would usually suggest. Now I’m inside for the siesta time period: lunch, a nap, perhaps some Latin. As the evening cools, I’m going to go out and at least dead head the grasses and other weeds that are about to go to seed. Then I can take them out with a hoe at my leisure.