Category Archives: Health

Commentary on the news, Feelings, Friends, GeekWorld, Health, Politics, Third Phase, US History

Impeach

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Samain and the Gratitude Moon

Monday gratefuls: Facebook. Yes, I know how evil it is, but I love it anyhow. Keeps me up with friends from faraway-in distance and time. Internet. Wow. Keeps on enthralling me (literally [sigh] and figuratively). This desktop computer that works. Always. My handheld computer which I rarely use as a phone. Electricity, whether from IREA, our solar panels, or our generator. And, by free association, Nicholas Tesla.

I’d like to apologize to all of you who read this about my near constant airing of my existential crisis. Must get old, but it’s on my mind. This is an online journal, meant to be an airing of what’s up, what’s current in my life and thinking. Not trying to be commercially friendly. Still, I like readers, so I hope I don’t lose you to the scattered thoughts about this guy’s attempt to grab hold of life. Again. And, again.

So. Whaddya think of this impeachment thing? I don’t know how to read it. Impeachment will happen, I’m sure. Removal from office will not. I’m pretty sure. In that case will we have accomplished anything as a body politic or will we have (or, have we already) baked the Trump bloc into our lives?

The separation of powers is, to me at least, sufficient reason to have proceeded. Congress needs to reassert its fiscal, policy, and military roles against an increasingly imperial presidency. Which, if we’re to be honest, Obama did a lot to nurture, too.

The shifting stances of the propagandists who want to keep Trump in office are not as friendly to democracy as we need them to be. The Trump faithful, an unreasoned but strong cult, is strengthened, not weakened by impeachment; they are driven more into each others arms. DJT right or wrong. Political differences, yes. Political battles, yes. But a devotional attitude toward this guy, no.

Where does all this lead us? I come from the rust belt. I know its politics, its people. I’m one of them. Those of my hometown who follow the Trump are many, but not varied. They have lost well-paying factory jobs, now in the long ago 1970’s, and nothing comparable has replaced them. Their community, Alexandria, which thrived while General Motors had Delco Remy and Guide Lamp in Anderson (25,000 jobs), has become a wasteland of dollar stores, boarded up businesses, and many homes with deferred maintenance. Where do they find hope?

The children of my classmates, who’ve known only this depressed economy, have a right to their disenchantment. We’ve earned it as a country by ignoring their needs. Their parents voted Democrat, understood strong unions, but the day the factories died, so did their political will. Trump has stepped into their hearts and into their children’s hearts. He and his kind will not be easily dislodged from them.

Not hopeful about this at the moment.

Aging, Cooking, Family, Health, Memories, Shadow Mountain, Third Phase

Learning and Doing

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Samain and the Gratitude Moon

Friday gratefuls: The grandmother tree at Congregation Beth Evergreen which just lost a large limb. It’s a large Ponderosa. Looks like it will be fine. The mind of Rabbi Jamie. Filled with knowledge and caring. SeoAh’s energy. She cleaned our whole house yesterday afternoon.

Learned something again. That I seem to have learned again and again only to forget. Hot dogs give me gas. I’ve stopped eating bacon and hot dogs except when I’m out. Bought two CJ’s classics. Vienna all beef wienies with mustard and relish. Oh, my. Desire is often not a good match with need.

A strange and unsettling moment on Wednesday. No, not buying the hot dogs. SeoAh and I went to the post office to mail Annie’s phone back to her. The priority mail box that I chose came flat and needed to be folded. As Kate will tell you, spatial reasoning is not my long suit, not by far.

Anyhow I began to fuss with it. SeoAh’s right beside me. When I couldn’t get it, at first I laughed. Then, I began to become self-conscious. What if she thinks I’m getting senile? Made it harder. Which made me more self-conscious. Finally got it, but the momentary damage had already been done. By me to me.

We went from there to King Sooper. Got out of the car in the parking lot and went to lock it. Nope, keys not in that pocket. Or, that one. Surely… Nope, not that one either. Or, that one. In the jeans? Right side, no. Left side. No. OK. Car started when I got in it at the post office so my keys are here. Somewhere. Check all the pockets again. Nope. Nada.

These two incidents left me a bit shaken. Not because I considered them signs of anything other than my usual self. (the keys had slipped between the seat and the center console. I’ve done it before with glasses and phones.) But because they could have made me look feeble in SeoAh’s eyes. A realization for me about aging. Oh, so this happens to me, too.

Little things. Hard, though. We laughed about it.

Aging, Art and Culture, Cooking, Family, Friends, Health, Judaism, Mountains, Mussar, Third Phase, Torah, Weather +Climate

Mundane

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Samain and the Fallow Moon

Stayed out late Tuesday, for us past 8 pm. Makes the next day slow. Tried to get into the resistance work, couldn’t. Muscles complained. Did thirty minutes on the treadmill.

In to see my ophthalmologist. (spelling gets me every time) Glaucoma check. Every six months for over 20 years. Now every 4 months. The usual. Eye charts. A small glass instrument pressed against the pupil to check pressures, 16 and 14. Scan of the retinal nerve. Mine’s still abnormal. Has been for as long as they’ve been following me.

Stopped by Tony’s market. Picked up a few things. Cooked supper. The end of the day.

Big day. I’m meeting Alan to go over our bagel table plan for Saturday morning. The Dandelion again in Evergreen. Slippery roads this am, freezing drizzle. Driving freezing drizzle down the mountains can be challenging. The Blizzaks went on Ruby last Friday and she has all wheel drive.

At 12:45 we’re meeting Steve and Jamie at the Staples parking lot. We’re going to a CBE tour of the Monet show at the Denver Art Museum, a four hundred object exhibit arranged by a curator at the Denver Art Museum. This is its only stop. Looking forward to it.

This evening we have MVP, the mussar vaad practice group. Had to be moved from Tuesday due to the shiva at Steve and Jamie’s.

That’s a lot of moving parts for us in one day. Good ones, yes, but still a lot.

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

OK, Boomer

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Samain and the Fallow Moon

Sprinkling of snow here this morning. 24.

Yesterday did additional cardio on my non-resistance day. Got in 4 days of exercise this week in spite of missing Monday and Tuesday. Feel good about that.

Helped Kate more with her sewing room. Moving this and that. Carrying stuff to the trash, to storage in the garage. Decluttering. She’s working her back. She went to Needleworkers last Wednesday. Gradually.

Grocery store. Contrary to my usual practice I went in and shopped, put my own stuff in my own cart. Went through the checkout line myself. Whew. Took me ten minutes to the find the Chinese five-spice powder. Out of practice.

It was a busy day at King Sooper. A young boy, maybe 4 or 5, sat in the children’s seat of a cart. “Hi,” he said to me. “Hi,” he said to the woman buying tomatoes. “Hi,” he said to the other guy walking by.

Worth it though. Made a Vietnamese beef stew and it was wonderful. Everybody thought so. Ruth helped me. I worked with the chuck roast, cutting it into one inch cubes, browning the cubes after the marinade. Ruth made the marinade, then got to cutting up tomato, lemon grass, scallions, cilantro. She was, literally, my sous chef, doing prep work.

“OK, Boomer,” she said. I laughed. “You’re the only good boomer, I know.” Oh? “Well, you’re the only boomer I know.” Just like you’re my favorite granddaughter? And my only granddaughter. “Yes, just like that.”

Cooking together bonds us. She asks to help and she knows what she’s doing. Wonderful. And, special.

Health

Saw Lisa

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Samain and the Fallow Moon

COPD. Mild. Shouldn’t progress unless I do something to aggravate it. Like start smoking again. Nope. Good news. Does mean I’m stuck with some shortness of breath, some vulnerability to lung disease. Well within livable parameters.

Family, Health

Mild!

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Samain and the Fallow Moon

Not sure what to do here on Shadow Mountain. Kate got good news at the docs yesterday. Dr. Taryle, the National Jewish pulmonologist, started out by saying, “I’m confused.”

What confused him was the appointment with Dr. Gruber, the cardio-thoracic surgeon. The pulmonary function test Taryle had ordered came back with only mild impairment. Mild! That was a week ago. And, he said, the c.t. scan you had two weeks ago, looks the same as the one in May. The same! Lung disease not progressing.

Why do something as risky as a lung biopsy if your disease is mild and not progressing? Why, indeed. We canceled it.

The mood here has swung. Fist bumps. Peace signs. Arms in the air.

She does have some kind of lung disease and she needs oxygen still but the drumbeats of the fourth horsemen have receded into the distance. With her weight stabilized above 100 pounds, her stent, and her feeding tube the malnutrition horsemen has ridden off, hopefully to never return. Sjogren’s still plagues her, but we’ve discovered that having a healthy diet ameliorates a lot of the worst symptoms.

Oh, and she had cataract surgery in both eyes over the last couple of weeks. More colors. The newspaper has started printing the type more clearly, much easier to see for that crossword. We’re counting this as three victories in a short period of time.

Here on Shadow Mountain with the atmosphere shifting.

Friends, Health

Chronic

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Samain and the Fallow Moon

Met David yesterday for coffee. He has metastatic prostate cancer, a more serious situation than mine. His doc told him on Tuesday that they were now treating his prostate cancer as a chronic disease. This is more and more the case with cancer, prostate cancer in particular.

Makes me feel more positive. My trajectory is still toward a cure and it’s looking like I might make it there. But, if I don’t. There’s always David’s route. Beginning to sound more and more like prostate cancer will not take me across the threshold to the next world.

David’s a Beth Evergreen friend, as is his wife. They brought us a meal during the hard days at the end of my radiation treatment.

After David and I had coffee, at the Starbucks in Safeway, I took the opportunity to do some grocery shopping. It was busy, odd for 3 pm on Wednesday. The bagger said it was folks getting in ahead of the fog storm. Huh? When I left, I couldn’t see any mountain peaks. All in clouds. Driving home made me wonder how folks who live along oceans and big lakes drive in fog since it’s more frequent.

Second day in a row with no doctor appointments. Feels a bit vacant. A good feeling.

Aging, Health, Third Phase

A Visit to the Oncologist

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Samain and the Fallow Moon

Got in Ruby at noon and drove, once again, to Lone Tree. Through the everlasting construction project that is toll roads for 470 West. Wanted to drink water, get my bladder in shape for the next radiation treatment but no. That’s over with. August. Now it’s November and I’m on my way to a three month follow up with Anna Willis, Dr. Eigner’s physician’s assistant.

I have one question that matters to me. Is the cancer still there? The reason? I have two. First, that 0.03 result on my September PSA (test for prostate specific antigen). I thought, I’m on lupron which suppresses testosterone. I finished a course of 35 sacrifices under the Cyberknife. Shouldn’t this mean no cancer? Or, could it mean, that 0.03 is detectable psa, that the radiation didn’t work?

The second reason is Gertie. Gertie’s is our eleven year old German wirehair pointer. She’s deaf in at least one ear and her eyes have cataracts that cloud them. Her nose though works fine. During the time leading up both to the prostatectomy in 2015 and the recent recurrence Gertie sniffed my pee a lot.

I know, gross, right? Well, no. Not for dog owners. Dog’s get a lot of information from urine. That’s the whole fireplug thing. And, dogs can smell cancer. She seems fascinated again. Still. Could be my paraonia, I know. Still, it factored in to my hunch that the cancer was still there.

Yes, indeed, it is. That is in fact what the .03 means. There are still psa producing cells in my body which means prostate cells. They’re supposed to be eliminated by first, the surgery, second, the radiation, and third, suppressed by the lupron.

However. It’s ok. Dr. Eigner “stole” me from Anna Willis, his p.a. That is, he watched for my appearance on the schedule and arranged his day so he could see me in place of Anna. His schedule books far, far out so his schedulers won’t give me time with him. He checks and so far has seen me each time I’ve come in. That makes me feel good. He remembers me.

Good to see you! He’s in blue surgical scrubs, looking thinner than when I saw him last. He does seem glad to see me. I only have one question that matters to me. Is my cancer gone? Or, does the .03 mean that the radiation failed?

Well. Let me show you. He got a piece of blank paper and a ballpoint. At the top he wrote .2. Not so long ago .2 was undetectable. Then, .1. He inscribed .07, then a .05, then .02, and finally a .01. Each of these have in their turn described undetectable. So, 5 years ago we would have said your cancer was undetectable, but now our assays are more sensitive. That means your .03 is a really low number, but, yes, it also means there is still some cancer in your body.

Have you heard of secondary cell death? No, I haven’t. Radiation kills directly most of the cancer cells, but it continues working for a long time after treatment finishes. How? It damages the DNA of some cancer cells, but doesn’t kill them outright. Only when they go through mitosis, division, do they die.

Oh. Glimmer of hope.

He then drew a graph that showed the effect of lupron on my psa. PSA decreases rapidly, then flattens out near the bottom and remains there over time until it’s discontinued. At that point testosterone begins to rise again and psa goes up.

This line though is radiation. This line sloped down gradually, but where the lupron line began to go up, signifying its discontinuance and the resulting rise in psa, the radiation line continues to the bottom of the graph and stops.

Here is the critical time. He indicated the spot on the graph where the lupron line, going up, met the radiation line on its slope down toward zero. Your psa will rise here until the radiation effect takes over. This spot was well before the radiation line met the bottom of the graph.

Both you and I will be concerned until it flattens out, then begins to drop. That would mean a cure, right? Exactly. Sometimes, of course, it continues to rise, but even then we’ve knocked it back a long ways. Can you go back to the lupron then? Oh, yes. And there are other drugs, too. It’s the trend line over time that’s important.

OK. I see. How long do I need to be on the lupron? Ah, the great debate. One year, some say two years. What’s right? With you, a year. Your last lupron injection will be next March. Then, in June we’ll have a psa that will tell us where we are. Might still be going up some, then. Remember the graph? Then the psas following that will show us the trend.

I get it. Thanks.

Aging, Cooking, Dogs, Health, Memories, Weather +Climate

Saturday

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Samain and the Fallow Moon

Saturday. Worked out. Getting back to six days a week. Three cardio. Three cardio plus resistance. Tough to pull off with the scattering of doctor appointments on our calendar, but I’m getting there.

Weakness is still an issue. Is it the lupron? The COPD? Stress? I’m not moving up on my weights, but I’m accepting that. It will come back.

Realized had I not had my Achilles tendon rupture repaired and my arthritic knee replaced, it would not be possible to exercise now. At least not at the level I’m used to. Made me think about the downstream consequences of decisions made long ago. Smoking was another one. Drinking, too. Two marriages, then, at last, Kate. Seminary.

Made garlic and herb pork tenderloin last night. Oven fried potatoes and lemon/garlic green beans. My cooking skills are improving. Having Kate as a consultant gives me backup.

Oh. yeah. DST. Gone. Thank god. Except. We have dogs. I get up at 4:30 am to feed them. 4:30 is now 3:30 to them. Need to wait, gradually introduce them to the new time. Grrr.

Snow still on the ground. I imagine there will be more mitigation opportunities before winter fully sets in. The white Rav4, Ivory, has snow tires on now. Will put snowshoes on Ruby, maybe after Thanksgiving. She has good tread on her all-seasons and AWD. Works well.

Aging, Beyond the Boundaries, Commentary on Religion, Faith and Spirituality, Health, Judaism, Myth and Story, Original Relation, Reimagine. Reconstruct. Reenchant., Third Phase

The Narrow Room

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Samain and the Fallow Moon

Two important things. 1. I get now, in a gut way, that the Tao that can be named is not the Tao. 2. In the fallow time the harvest moves toward death and decay.

Been considering the text of Chayei Sarah again. Reading some interesting Jewish commentaries and sermons preached by various rabbis on the parsha. Immersion in biblical literature turns all my inner lights on. Woke, I guess.

Also had an interesting e-mail conversation with Rich Levine about Emerson’s notion of a religion of direct revelation to us, not the dry bones of theirs. He said he found revelation in the experience of joy. I had said much the same about awe. When I wrote him back, I introduced a thought. Could it be that access to the sacred, the divine, the world next to this one can come only through feelings? If so, could it be that words written about it might be barriers rather than illuminators?

In that exchange it hit me, the Tao that can be written is not the Tao. Oh, yeah. The name of God that can be written is not God. The stories about God and those who follow Her are neither sacred, nor divine in themselves. They may evoke an experience of the sacred, but they are not it.

The fallow time moves toward death and decay. These diseases that Kate and I have, the ones you will have, augur the fallow time for our bodies. They propose death, not as imminent necessarily, but as inescapable. And I hear them

The COPD is not an enemy, but a marker along the trail of mortality. So is prostate cancer. Interstitial lung disease. Sjogren’s syndrome. These sign posts show the way, the path toward a universal destination of the body.

Learning to live with these signals is a life long process. If we learn how to admit them into our awareness as signals rather than foes, then we can nod, say yes, I see.

No, this does not mean that we say, oh, I see, well then measure up my narrow room. (see Bryant’s poem below) This does not mean that we cease treatments that can prolong our life. Though it could mean that if you want it to. It simply means that we live with a clarity about the end.