Category Archives: Health

Family, Health, Shadow Mountain

Transactions

Leave a comment

Imbolc and the Megillah Moon

Monday gratefuls: Talking with Kate. Kep in the morning. More Snow. Chili. Making. A dawn red Sky over Black Mountain with blue sky behind. The Ancient Ones. Going deep. Life pivot points. Alcoholism. Covid. Vaccines.

Sparks of Joy: Red in the Sky. Bill’s love story. Purim.

20th Anniversary, 2010

Realized yesterday that one of the issues with caregiving is that so many interactions are transactional. Change a bandage. Free oxygen tubing from the door. Take down the feed bag. Get coffee. Food. Talk about how to deal with illness. Money meetings. Getting the newspaper. And so on.

Nothing wrong with these. Nothing at all. In fact they define caregiving. But. They are not the casual back and forth of a couple meeting in the kitchen while making a sandwich. Talking on the way to a restaurant. Over a meal. While working together in the garden or listening to music at a concert.

Transactions are typically one way in caregiving. Who wants that? No one, but it is a fact of life with someone who is chronically ill. I know this is obvious, but it has just occurred to me.

Why is it important? Because it’s the casual interactions when the relationship grows, learns about itself, nurtures both ways. This can happen during transactional moments; but, then the emphasis, the attention, is on completing a task, making sure it was done well. Not the same, not the same at all.

Working on how to introduce more casual time into our day. Kate wants to play games. OK, that’s one way. I want to sit down and talk. Her fatigue and lack of stamina make even these simple ideas difficult. Often she’s in bed. Disappeared.

Any ideas from out there in Ancientrails world? Happy to hear them.

Cinema and Television, Commentary on the news, Coronavirus, Dogs, Family, Great Wheel, Health, Holidays, Judaism, Myth and Story, Reimagine. Reconstruct. Reenchant., Shadow Mountain, US History, Weather +Climate

The Frozen Rose of Texas

Leave a comment

Imbolc and the Megillah Moon

Sunday gratefuls: All the Megillah’s. More snow. More cold. A good sleep. Cold chicken. Red Lobster biscuits. My Ecuador alpaca coat. My new LLBean insulated plaid shirt. My duckies. Love the cold, don’t love being cold.  Vaccines. Covid. 45 gone. 46 in. Judah and the Black Messiah.

Sparks of Joy: Fresh, white Snow. Rigel jumping up on the deck like a 5 year old. Life.

 

 

Those vaccines. Hard to come by up here in the mountains. Not yet. We’ll get them though. Sooner, I imagine. Haven’t gone the obsessive click now, click again, click now, click again route. We’ve survived Covid so far doing what we’re doing. Gonna keep at no visits, grocery pickups, only essential medical visits. Probably for a while after the vaccine, too.

Love that they’re out there. That we’re eligible. That others are getting them. That more will get them. Might be Happy Hanukah and Merry Christmas. Ho, Ho, Ho. or Dreidel, Dreidel, Dreidel. If that happens, I’ll still enjoy the darkness of the Winter Solstice, but I’ll be right there with the light worshipers, too. Can you imagine how festive a season that will be?

Meanwhile a hyper clean, car sized robot will roam Mars punching holes in its surface and storing soil in special containers for the second part of a three stage project. The second stage is a lander that picks up those containers and the third stage returns them to Earth for NASA and European Space Agency labs. 2025-2027. Far away from the virus infected planet it left last July. Smart Perseverance.

And, maybe, just maybe, our nation will have made progress on sorting out its painful contradictions. I watched Judas and the Black Messiah yesterday on HBO Max. Fred Hampton was 21 when J. Edgar conspired with the Chicago P.D. to eliminate him. 21. When I watched, I kept saying yes, Fred, yes. Power is people. Capitalists, no matter their color, exploit the people. A Rainbow Coalition. Yes, Fred. Then he died in his bed, never waking up, his pregnant Deborah arched over his body.

Of course, the move reminded me of the damning curse of racism, but it went further, much further. Fred brought together Puertoricans and poor whites. He saw the thread that wove together the oppressed and was able to speak to it, to help others see it. No wonder they killed him.

What if the Proud Boys and the Black Panthers saw common cause? They could. It’s corporate capitalism that keeps them both down. What if those of us on the far left joined, too. And Chicanos. And Asians. And Native Americans. There would need be no violence. That sort of self-awareness would win at the ballot box.

I know. Texas. How would you like a $16,000 bill for keeping the heat on? See the paragraph above.

Health, Politics, US History, Weather +Climate

A Cold South

Leave a comment

Imbolc and the Megillah Moon

Tuesday gratefuls: Dr. Thompson. House cleaners. Vaccine. Covid. Carl Hiaasen. Screen writers for The Alienist. Oximeter. Blood pressure monitor. Prostate cancer. PSA’s so far. COPD.

Sparks of joy: Dr. Thompson. Snow coming. Poetry. Perseverance getting closer to Mars.

 

Cooked Steak Diane and saffron rice for a birthday supper. Easy Entrees. Steak was wonderful. Thick and the sauce a great complement. Plenty for more meals. The rice. Meh. But, if it was gonna be meh on one, the rice every time.

Saw Dr. Leigh Thompson today, replacing Dr. Gidday. I like Dr. Thompson. She’s humble and knowledgeable. A good combination in my opinion.

Cold in the south. When I saw the forecast map, I thought, They’re all gonna die. Not all, but a lot. And suffering.

Power grids down. I learned on NPR that Texas is an island, power grid wise. That means it won’t go down along with other nearby states, but it also means that they can’t import power from the grid outside their borders. A tough reality right now.

I like the idea of a 1/6 commission. The more we learn about the web of propaganda, organizing, and negligence that helped create this insurrection, the safer we will all be. Oh, and it might cement even further 45’s culpability. That would be ok.

What a time! We’re about to dump 1.9 trillion dollars into the economy. The weather is crazy. Covid has new variants up its sleeve. Kids are out of school. Millions are out of work. The next few years will define interesting times for the United States. Looking forward to being part of that.

 

 

Colorado, Dogs, Family, Health, Holidays, Jefferson County, Politics, Shadow Mountain, US History

Life in the Mountains

Leave a comment

Imbolc and the Megillah Moon

Saturday gratefuls: Psalms. Rabbi Jamie. Gwen, Ayelet, Dean, Jan, Cherie. The class. Much needed, as I said before. Jackie. Hair stylist and lovely human. Covid survivor. Kep and Rigel, Kate. In our family crate. Yeti blue microphone, a stand. Dreams of podcasting.

Sparks of joy: A new hair cut. Kate’s revived color. Vaccines. Ruth. Hawai’i. Always there, waiting. My poem, Death’s Door. The Trial of 45.

 

 

Couple of odd mountain anecdotes involving emergency vehicles.

Told you I bought Kate one of those help I’ve fallen and I can’t get up buttons. It has three receivers. One in the loft, one in the kitchen (for when I have the fans on), and one in the great room. She’s turned over on it a couple of times and alerted me. Learning the system.

A couple of days ago I’d gone downstairs to watch TV. I heard the alarms sound from upstairs. Kate was up there! I ran up. Kate sat quietly at the table, playing solitaire. What? An emergency vehicle had gone by, lights and sirens. Something in its passing, like calling to like, had set off the alarms.

Second story. On Thursday we went into Swedish hospital for another visit with Kate’s pulmonologist. On the way home there were again lights and sirens, Hwy 285 closed ahead of us with pylons and ambulances; police cars just under the overpass where we turn to go back to Shadow Mountain.

I noticed the flight for life helicopter circling above us. It went west over 285, then came back as we routed around the traffic backup. As we made our way back to Barkley Road, it came down, then went back up again as if searching for a place to land. Even though there was a clear stretch of highway.

Jackie, our hair stylist whom we saw yesterday, told us that a man driving a truck that repairs windshields had plowed into the back of a CDOT truck. The workers were repairing the cable that prevents cars from going into the lanes of opposing traffic.

The truck driver died. As we watched, a flight for life was made unnecessary and went back to its home.

 

Impeachment and Trial. Guilty. You know it. The GOP knows it. Even Trump knows it. See his phone call to Minority leader Kevin McCarthy:

“…in her statement Friday night, Ms. Herrera Beutler recalled a conversation she had with Mr. McCarthy, where the Republican leader described Mr. Trump telling him, as the attack on the Capitol was unfolding, that members of the mob were “more upset about the election than you are.”” NYT, 2/13/2021.

This is state of mind. No uncertainty. Just glee. Put him in jail. Orange for the orange menace.

Rolling the years over for the 74th time tomorrow. That’s beginning to be high mileage. I’m good for another couple a decades, if not more. At least that’s how I feel. Of course, we’ll see.

Gonna cook a special Valentine’s dinner for my sweetheart and always Valentine, Kate. And, for me, too.

Commentary on the news, Family, Friends, Health, Humanities, Judaism, Kabbalah, Literature, Poetry, Politics, Reimagine. Reconstruct. Reenchant., US History, Woolly Mammoths

No More Checking on the Idiot

Leave a comment

Imbolc and the waning Wolf Moon

Friday gratefuls: Kate. Scott. Bill’s tough assignment for Sunday morning. Seeing into ourselves. And talking about it. Biden. Better than expected. He’s got momentum. And, public opinion. 45 fading out. His impeachment. Colder weather here. Sleep. The Psalms.

from 2016

No more checking on the idiot. Thank god. Still, for the duration of the impeachment his peculiar style of unthinking, thought garbling, strangled rationales is on display. Gee, his lawyers, the first group, didn’t think he could make a good argument that the election was a fraud. Hmm. The next set convinced him that a constitutional argument made sense. Doesn’t matter anyhow since Republicans (what does that word even mean) won’t calve a 17 vote iceberg to sink his Titanic. More’s the pity.

It’s important, I believe, to try him for inciting insurrection. No matter the political reality of judgement. If it were up to me, I’d have the Attorney General arrest him for sedition. Try him. Sentence him for as long as his unnatural life lasts. He likes orange so it shouldn’t be much of a hardship.

Rabbi Hillel

After some prodding by Rabbi Jamie, I’m going to pick up the study of Psalms this morning at 9:30 a.m. I’m three classes behind, but he assured me I could catch up, no problem. We’re going to work on the 23rd Psalm today.

One insight I’ve had in re-reading it, reading his translation, reading a couple of others. Walk through the valley of the shadow of death. Or, through death’s dark vale as another has it. I always imagined this as a personal confrontation with death, my death, your death. Not sure why I thought that, but I did.

Now, it’s clear to me that the issue is grief. Death’s dark veil thrown over life. Mom’s death. Regina Schmidt’s. 450,000 Covid deaths. We are in death’s penumbra as we have not been in my lifetime, save perhaps for the Vietnam War.

I shall fear no Trump, no matter what he doth.

Looking forward to this class. It’s been a long slog with Kate and with Covid, mostly life shaved down to workouts, sleep, cooking, shopping for food, TV. Not much intellectual challenge. It’s like meat and drink for me, learning.

When I look inside, as Bill has suggested we do for this Sunday, and define myself, I first see a student. A curious man. Not sure why I never moved from student to scholar, but I never did. I’m a fine student though and learning feeds my soul.

I’ll let you know how it goes.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Aging, Coronavirus, Family, Health, Judaism, Kabbalah, Literature, Myth and Story, Politics, Torah, US History

100 Days

Leave a comment

Imbolc and the waning Wolf Moon

Thursday gratefuls: Wolves and their moon. Deb Brown and her workouts. The Monk Manual. A better afternoon and evening for Kate. Buddy Mark’s swallow test. A Fib and its treatments. Vaccines. Covid. The writers for the Alienist, Titans, Gomorrah, 30 Coins. Writers, books, printers, ink, distributors. Podcasts. Oh, came back up here to mention: 45 gone.

100 days. Another tradition. A lot of juice for an incoming president and their administration. How they use it often determines the effectiveness of their presidency. Biden has made moves worthy of a change agent President. His long time in the senate, 36 years, could make him an LBJ lite. I say lite because he doesn’t have the Democratic majorities that Johnson did, nor does he have Johnson’s personality.

The leavening aspects for Biden’s presidency are the long reign of error and mendacity, rampant stupidity and cupidity that preceded him. The Covid crisis in both its medical and economic forms. The final triumph of climate science. Now policy must follow. The George Floyd stoked rise of Black Lives Matter and the surge of Black and Latino voters. They provide a platform for strong, effective reform of policing.

The $%!!@#$%^ Republicans cannot bring themselves to do more than slap Marjory Greene on the wrist. Bad girl. This means the slime, the Thing still covers GOP minds, corrodes any hope it has of returning to normal political party status. We need Trump’s Patriot Party. Carve off these deluded folks and clump them together.

Rabbi Jamie wanted me to be part of a class on the Psalms, “Psalms Resung in a Kabbalistic Key.” Called me twice. I’ve missed three classes, but I decided to give it a try. Tomorrow morning will be my first time. Zoom, of course. Something hard, mind-bending, scholarly. Yes. Much needed.

Yesterday, as I cleaned off my art table which I had allowed to become loaded with filing, I turned on Pandora. Bette Midler, the Rose. Lacrimae. On the Wings of an Angel. More tears. Guess I’m carrying a load of sadness not very far from conscious awareness. Surprised me. Then, it didn’t. Felt good.

Kate seems to be having a good start to her day, down to make her breakfast, get her some coffee. Tomorrow.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Aging, Family, Health, Politics, Science, Shadow Mountain, Third Phase

Bearing Down

Leave a comment

Winter and the Imbolc (Wolf) Moon

Friday gratefuls: Caring Bridge. Kate’s community of friends. Story. The Ancient One’s theme this Sunday. Workouts. Deb, a new workout next Thursday. The Wind, 20/25 mph this morning. Our hardly wind tight house. Covid. Vaccines. Aging. The old homestead in Andover. The Lodgepoles, swaying, bending, waving.

 

It’s been, overall, a rotten week. Kate’s been in bed, or wanting to go back to bed the whole week. This morning is better. We’ll see. A hard week emotionally for both of us, including one fight which had both of us admitting fault, sorry, no, it’s just really hard right now. Yeah, I know. Me, too. Then on beyond that one.

This follows three weeks that have been no good, very bad weeks. Tubes in and out, in and out of the hospital, a new diagnosis of atrial fibrillation, hypoxia, failing oxygen concentrator, general icky feeling for Kate. Disheartening.

As for me. Better rested. Lower expectations about what I can get done in a day. Taking care with fitness, food, sleep. Going with it.

Scheduled a new workout with Deb. We’ll do it on Zoom because I don’t like to be away from the house very long. We have two red “need you” buttons and receivers placed in the loft, the kitchen, and near the stairs in the living room. Kate keeps one around her neck and the second one is in the bathroom downstairs.

Oil and coal industry readies its fight back against Biden’s climate policies. Jesus H. Can’t they see this is over? Why can’t they be part of the solution? Could you really be a board member of a major oil, gas, or coal company and say, “Hey, it may the downward slope for us. That means we have to squeeze all the profit out. No matter what. Fuck the world.”

The cynicism here is apocalyptic. I mean, literally apocalyptic. If we don’t throttle them, and ourselves, back, our grandchildren and certainly our great grandchildren will bake in the oven of our discontent. I’m Mad as Max and I can’t take it anymore.

In cheerier news friend Tom Crane sent a note about the Mars rover Perseverance “bearing down” on Mars. That’s so exciting. It lands February 18th with a package designed to search for signs of life, new and old. One of things they will be looking for are Stromatolite formations. This ancient life form can still be seen on the west coast of Australia. A trip I’d like to make someday.

I put bearing down in quotes because at the time of the article Perseverance was 4.5 million miles from Mars. I guess that’s the in dark cold of space equivalent.

Aging, Dogs, Family, Health, Shadow Mountain, Third Phase

Dry Well

Leave a comment

Winter and the Imbolc Moon

Tuesday gratefuls: Cold. Snow. Still falling. Coffee. -45 here in the good ol’ USA. But, +46, too. Rigel, recovering. Kep. Murdoch in Hawai’i. VRCC. Climate change. Action against emissions. Dr. Gustave, back to North Carolina. My third doctor to leave this month: Dr. Gidday, my primary care provider, Dr. Gilroy, radiation oncologist, and Gustave, ophthalmologist. Geez, guys.

Rigel gave us a scare yesterday. She lost full control of her right front leg, started shaking her head in a rhythmic tic, walked into corners. This went on for about 20 minutes while we debated whether I would take her in to VRCC.

Pretty tough on me. The thought of another dire visit to a clinic with a loved one in trouble. Too much. Decided to wait and see. She calmed down, got up in bed with us and took a nap. After that, no head shaking, full control over her right leg. As if nothing had happened.

Sent a note to her cardiologist. This could be a stroke or stroke like incident occasioned by the vegetation in her atrial valves. Or, not. A mystery. Even to Kate.

I feel better now, like I could take her in if necessary.

Kate continues a low-key, modest recovery after her recent stay at Casa Swedish. Her feeding liquid includes the higher calorie version. She’s using two cans of the new and one box of Jevity. A gradual moving up. Makes her feel strange, she says.

She’s not gotten the changed beta-blocker for her atrial fibrillation. It’s on its way. That may help change her day-to-day symptoms, calm them down. May it be so.

Rigel’s episode yesterday revealed the extent of my exhaustion. I’m running on empty. Which, believe it or not, is an actual improvement over where I was last week. Had a good workout yesterday, a long nap. Good night’s sleep. All helping, but the deficit is high.

Thanks to Easy Entrees, gift cards, Tony’s market. Microwaves and dishwashers.

Dogs, Family, Health, Politics, US History, World History

Will we?

Leave a comment

Winter and the Imbolc Moon, waxing

Saturday gratefuls: Guinness beef stew, Easy Entrees. Furball cleaning. A clean house. A fib. Rigel, licking my face this morning before I got up. Kep, bouncing on the comforter, eager for breakfast. Murdoch’s flight landed 7 hours ago. Murdoch in Hawai’i. Kate. Enduring. Me, too. -45. +46.

Let us speak of good things. A clean house. Hopefully a reliable house cleaner. The wonderful Guinness beef stew from Easy Entrees. My PSA undetectable. Better knowledge of Kate’s heart. Alan on Thursday. A week of workouts at 3X reps.

Most of all for me. Rejoining the Paris climate accord. Pushing out Trump’s dismal deregulations. A 60 day ban on drilling and leasing on public lands. The clown with the big shoes and funny long tie, the leaning into the wind stance, gone. Feels so good. Lifted from me a terrible everyday burden. Perhaps from you, too?

Not quite so battered by the day. Checking on the idiot no longer required.

“We will not march back to what was, but move to what shall be: a country that is bruised, but whole; benevolent, but bold; fierce and free.” 

Amanda Gorman, The Hill We Climb

Fierce and free sounds like Mary Oliver to me. What will we do with this, our one wild and precious country?

Lean into the future. Huddled masses received with an outstretched hand and a smile. Racial justice on every agenda from health care to vaccinations to jobs to education. Economic justice. Unions reviving. Wages increasing. Essential workers paid like they are. The rich taxed. Corporations taxed. Police cultures struck down and rebuilt. Emissions controlled. A carbon tax. Yes. Lean into it. Put your hand to the back of the wagon and push forward.

Vaccinate everyone. Faster. Faster. No excuses. Everyone. Make this Covid reel. Make life real.

And, yes, I believe this is what Biden wants. Finally. Congruence.

Come with us. Not Sisyphus. We roll the rock up the hill with no intention of letting it come back down. We will let it gain momentum, roll with crashing thunder down the other side, careening into the future.

This experiment, this nation founded on ideals, not history, not language, not ethnicity, not religion, can dream its way forward again. Americans dreaming, smiling. An American dream. Not just for those like us, but for those unlike us. Not just for American citizens, but for all humans, everywhere.

This is the magic here. That we can do this. Will we?

Family, GeekWorld, Health, Politics, Shadow Mountain, Third Phase, Travel

46. Yes.

Leave a comment

Winter and the waxing Imbolc Moon

Thursday gratefuls: Golden Solar. Finally. Solar power. Running the meter backward. Kate’s better day yesterday. Up until bedtime. Sleep. Exhaustion. Thoughtful gifts from Mary and Diane. Brother Mark. Alan. Tatiana. New West Physicians. Coffee. Did I mention coffee?

Lima, Peru, 2011

Another good day for Kate yesterday. Until bedtime when nausea and chest pain came for a visit. The damned feeding tube now leaks worse than it ever has.

To compound this situation we have the retirement of our primary doc, Lisa, as of January 1st and a confusing, still not resolved hand off of us as patients to a new doc. Health care reform. Police reform. Racial and economic justice. Hear my cry, oh Congress. Hear my cry, oh Biden.

Golden Solar picked yesterday morning to come and replace two microinverters that have been dead since our solar installation. The inverters report to the makers of our solar panels and we can download the reports through our own webpage. They have nothing to do with actually producing electricity. I’ve been asking them to do this for almost five years. Why now? No clue, but I’m glad it’s done.

On a personal note my PSA test results from Tuesday came back. No detectable psa. This is the test that comes after Lupron has truly left my system. It could signal a cure.

That is, I had a recurrence. My psa went up. That triggered the radiation in 2019. Coincident with the radiation I began Lupron injections. The Lupron, as I have said, suppresses psa, but does nothing directly to the cancer except deprive it of the cells it prefers. Lupron does not not cure. When it stops, the cancer can begin to grow again.

Unless it died in the radiation bath I had over 35 treatments. With the Lupron now gone, the cancer could have begun to grow again, but this test results suggests that it didn’t. That could mean that the radiation did in fact kill the cancer that had reemerged.

How will I know? I won’t. If I continue to get undetectable results for a couple of years, they’ll move my psa tests from every three months to every six months. If I continue to get undetectable, at some point, five years or so, I’ll have a presumptive cure. But. I had one of those in 2015 with my prostatectomy. So…

I’m planning a celebratory meal anyhow. Probably Sushi Win. I’m cured until I’m not. That’s the way I want to think. Not always possible, but it’s my goal.

My deep exhaustion continues. Not sure there’s a way around it until the vaccines. Naps. Long night’s sleep like last night. Ten plus hours.

Biden. 46. 45 a painful memory, but a memory. Microinverters replaced. Kate’s having good days. I have the psa result I needed. There are bright spots. And, you, dear reader, are one, too.