Category Archives: Health

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I Know

October 30, 2018 Charles Leave a comment

Fall (last day) Healing Moon

The weather gods have chosen an apt offering for the last day of fall, 8 inches of snow. In true Colorado fashion it will probably be here tonight and tomorrow, gone by Thursday if not late Wednesday. Looking forward to it. A difference between Colorado and Minnesota exists in forecasting snow. Here in Colorado people pant for the snow, welcome it, do celebratory dances. In Minnesota, not so much. It means work and slick roads in the Gopher State; here snow means beauty, tourist dollars, and will be gone conveniently.

Scheduled my first full chart reading with Elisa on November 16th. I’m curious. The ancientrail to self knowledge never ends.

Having said that. I want to claim what I’ve learned, not keep shuttling it to the back to let new information in. That’s why I’m reluctant to avoidant when it comes to converting to Judaism. I find it compelling in many ways, a practical down-to-earth way of life lived out in a solid community. I love the people at Beth Evergreen and I feel member of the tribe solidarity when anti-Semites shoot up synagogues.

But. I long ago quit molding my perceptions and beliefs to outlines drawn by the dead. Said positively it’s the Emersonian insistence on having revelations to us, not the dry bones of theirs. Doesn’t mean I can’t learn and learn deeply from other faiths, other political beliefs, other gendered views. Of course I can. And I do.

I’ve never found the balance between stating what I’ve discovered, seen, had revealed to me, and the obvious limitedness of it. I know that my knowing is fragmentary, tentative, subject to change. Yet, it is mine and I do have it. On the one hand I seek knowledge like a thirsty desert traveler seeks an oasis. On the other I’ve done so for so long that I have accumulated my own wisdom.

In spite of my logical bent, in spite of my study of systematic thinkers and even my desire to emulate them, I’ve not been able to pull off anything book length. I seem to function best in shorter formats like sermons, blog posts, brief essays. I guess that’s why fiction appeals to me. It’s a medium where my writing can extend itself, dig into the depths of my soul and reveal mySelf, but obliquely.

It’s not that I don’t want to learn new things about myself. I do. It’s just, how do I stop, say that for now this is what I know. It may be different tomorrow, but today, perhaps just for today, I claim this understanding and offer it. Haven’t figured that one out.

Here’s a couple of things I know, at least right now. Death is. As is life. The two are the ultimate dialectic, the ur form of creative tension for all of us. We literally live into death. If we do so without fear or with less fear, then the tension of our end can enliven our present, make it rich and precious. Confronting and accepting death is a key to living well.

This fundamental truth is writ both large and small in the turning of the seasons. Tomorrow we move into the fallow time, the time of a death-like pall on the earth, a necessary pause, rest. During the fallow time, the spring time of the soul, we can dig into our own substrata, let our roots seek nutrients in the collective unconscious. Bloom, even, with new understanding, new acceptance.

With spring the subtle gains of decay will have fed the soil, which will feed the plants, which will feed us.

I also know that love is a rose and you’d better not pick it. Neil Young’s song, made popular by Linda Ronstadt, is a moment of that revelation to us that Emerson sought in each generation. Hear it on Youtube.

(love) Only grows when it’s on the vine.
Handful of thorns and you know you’ve missed it.
Lose your love when you say the word mine.

Family, Feelings, Health, Jefferson County, Mountains, Our Land and Home, Reimagine. Reconstruct. Reenchant., Shadow Mountain, The West, Third Phase, Travel

Incognitum

October 20, 2018 Charles Leave a comment

Fall Healing Moon

Exhumation of the Mastodon: Peale, Charles Willson, 1741-1827.

Another of life’s inflection points. I want to consider it, honor it, respond to it, but I’m having a hard time. Just too tired. And, I feel guilty about that. Like somehow I should be able to just power my way through and get back to the usual. Which is unrealistic. Certainly for the next few weeks, maybe on an ongoing basis. Need to know what the new normal might be like. Too soon. I know it. So I’m trying to hold back, not speculate, not project. The fact of trying though suggests I’m not always successful.

Here’s an analogy I discovered in the High Country News, my favorite source of information about the West. In reviewing a novel called West there’s a quote from a widowed farmer on his way to the land beyond the Mississippi. He says, to a Dutch land agent he encounters on a river boat, “I am seeking a creature entirely unknown, an animal incognitum.” Apparently Thomas Jefferson also sought the animal incognitum, probably a Mastodon.

Humanity has always wondered what's on the far shore -- even if our guesses sometimes miss the mark. — Humanity has always wondered what’s on the far shore

Right now, I’m on the riverboat, looking at the western shore of the Great River, wondering what lies on the land which spreads out from there to the Pacific Ocean. It contains, I know, a life incognitum, a life so far unknown. Not entirely unknown, certainly. There will be familiar elements in familiar places, but the rhythm, the demands, the joys? Will change. That farmer and I share a desire to explore the land, to find the incognitums, to embrace them, and find our way anew.

It’s a source of energy. I love the unknown, the strange. Vive la difference! More news as this pilgrim sets foot on the shore, buys an oxen or two and loads up the Conestoga with supplies.

Commentary on Religion, Family, Health, Mussar, Reimagine. Reconstruct. Reenchant., Third Phase

Stop the Squirrel Cage

October 19, 2018 Charles Leave a comment

Fall Healing Moon

stress Went to mussar yesterday for the first time in three weeks. Lots of hugs. Lots of obvious caring for Kate. One of the ironies of this whole situation is that three weeks ago yesterday Kate and I co-taught a mussar session on compassion, rachamim. The next morning at 6 a.m. she was in the E.R. at Swedish. She’s been gone from home ever since.

Yesterday’s mussar was a sort of going away party for Rabbi Jamie who starts a three-month sabbatical on Sunday. Lot of folks brought sweet thangs. My first buffet in memory with snickers bars on the table.

Since I’d had a tough day at CBE on Wednesday, I wondered how I’d react in this setting. At first I was uncomfortable, both with the attention and with the fact that it was Kate who was ailing, not me, yet I was the focus. That lasted awhile. Roughly until we got into the discussion about emet, truth.

emet-truth It was not the content of the discussion, but its nature that finally lifted my stress. Considering the meaning of truth, identifying the Jewish take on it, relating the search for truth to loving-kindness all stimulated my thinking, made me go deep. And that was the solace. Leaving the squirrel-in-a-cage stressors behind for a while, I went into that realm of memory and creativity where old ideas and new conditions meet, changing each other.

Rabbi Jamie is a great interlocutor. I learn from him, but mostly with him.

talmud There is, I’m coming to understand, a unique Jewish epistemology, one which places a possible truth on the table and passes it around to the many gathered in its presence. Each one comments, shares the part of the elephant that they can see. The process iterates since commentators will comment on others reactions. It does not mean that there is no truth, this is the key move, but that truth itself is multi-perspectival. It takes a village to know a truth.

This has similarities to pragmatism which recognizes that truth with a capital T is not within our grasp, but that our search for it can identify useful approximations, their usefulness identifying their degree of truth.

So now I know a great stress reducer for me. Challenge the mind. Make it work. Let go of the present troubles in a search for new ideas, new ways of grasping what it means to be human.

Family, Health

Day 19

October 17, 2018 Charles Leave a comment

Fall Healing Moon

Kate on the morning of her retirement, 2011

Day 19 and the first day I’ll not go in to see Kate. I’m back to my religious school class this afternoon at 3 p.m., then there’s a teacher’s staff meeting afterward. I told her yesterday I’d feel guilty if I didn’t go in and see her. “I give you my permission to skip tomorrow.” This is a landmark moment. She’s feeling good and I don’t feel a necessity for going in save for continuing presence. That last is enough motivation any day, but it feels great to know she’s not in crisis anymore. (I’ll probably feel a little guilty anyhow.) Yes, in two days this incident will reach its three week mark. Wow.

Dogs, Family, Health

Day 18

October 16, 2018 Charles 1 Comment

Fall Healing Moon

Kate’s taking full advantage of the power of the waxing healing moon. She’s gained weight, had several p.t./o.t. sessions, has a brighter outlook and has begun to have visitors. I took Gertie in to see her on Sunday so she could report back to the pack that mama was still alive. It was a sweet meeting and as we pulled away toward home Gertie looked back at Brookdale, obviously expecting that Kate was coming home with us.

Family, Friends, Health, Jefferson County, Judaism, Mountains, Shadow Mountain, Third Phase

When it rains…

October 14, 2018 Charles Leave a comment

Fall Healing Moon

9 degrees here on Shadow Mountain with snow blowing in the air. A bit unusual since snow most often comes straight down up here, like rain. The storm has underperformed for us, but it’s here and I like it. Black Mountain is gone, disappeared by the gray blue clouds.

Without going into details that shouldn’t be in writing yet, Jon is in trouble again. To say that this is bad timing colossally understates the case. Kate’s in a delicate moment of her recovery. The stakes this time, as they were last, are very high: custody of his kids, his job, his ability to pay his mortgage and therefore to keep his house. He and the kids were up here yesterday when he got a call from the Denver Police and had to return home.

Not sure what to do, not sure there’s anything I can or should do other than support him emotionally. I’m not making any assumptions about the situation, about his “guilt” or innocence. I don’t understand it very well and it’s intricately complicated. I do know that the implications are dire.

Spoke with Kate yesterday afternoon and her heartburn/nausea from a breakfast without ativan prior to eating has passed. She and her body are trying to figure out a new way to live together, to become healthy again. Not easy after the insults of the last couple of weeks. She’s determined, stubborn and this last trait will mostly serve her well right now.

A mutual friend from CBE, Rick Levine, will bring a meal to Brookdale today at 4:30 p.m. I’m sure that’s well beyond whatever traffic difficulties the current storm will bring.

New snow tires, Blizzaks, purchased last month, sit in the garage still bound together from shipping. I mean, it’s mid-October! I’m not unhappy about that. It’s unlikely this presages the full on beginning of snow season. November, even late November, makes more sense as a time to have them installed. The reason I buy snow tires, even though good all-seasons would probably suffice in this milder winter climate, is that Kate and I are older drivers and need all the extra advantages we can get. I leave the lights on during the day for the same reason, that additional clue to others that we’re coming.

Aging, Family, Health, Judaism, Mountains, Shadow Mountain, Third Phase

A Fortnight Ago

October 12, 2018 Charles Leave a comment

Fall Healing Moon

moon waxing As I drove home yesterday from Brookdale Green Mountain Rehab, the healing moon was a sickle in the evening sky with gaseous Jupiter a planetary pendant sparkling beneath. This morning as I walked up to the loft Orion stood tall in the southern sky, guarding the entrance to winter, to the fallow time.

All this week we’ve had fog, sometimes up here on Shadow Mountain, more often after Aspen Park on the way down the hill on 285. Fog presents the mountains like a fan dancer, revealing this patch of rock and ponderosa pine, only to conceal it and reveal a gulch filled with a lower down cloud. The interplay of climate, weather and mountains. Beautiful.

A new phase of Kate’s ordeal has begun, a more upbeat one, but one that will demand a lot, too. In the first phase she had to endure, now she will have to act. Eat. Exercise. Eat. Exercise. Sleep. Repeat. She’s ready, but also tired, drained. Down to 80 pounds.

I’m putting my toe back in the water at CBE. Alan Rubin and I will visit Kate this morning at 9:30, then have some time together to plan next week’s religious school session. I feel a need to get myself out of the drive in, drive back, take care of the dogs, sleep cycle I’ve felt necessary for the past two weeks. Not all the way out, just far enough to reengage, to connect with both my commitments and folks I care about who care about Kate and me.

Don’t know how long Kate will be at Green Mountain, but I imagine it will be longer than I assumed. She looked frail, but determined when I saw her in her new spot. She’ll need that. A new cycle will probably emerge from this new living situation for her.

Family, Health

Day 13

October 11, 2018 Charles Leave a comment

Fall Healing Moon

Feeling much lighter today. Kate’s headed off to Brookdale Green Mountain Rehab, probably after lunch. Bleeding stopped. Other markers like hemoglobin stabilized. Moving better, but not quite well enough to come home.

She’s also eating, having found that ativan prior to eating avoids nausea. This is big because it means she may finally be able to gain back some of her weight. More weight can mean more muscle mass, more muscle mass, less fatigue. Sjogrens has played a definite negative role all along, perhaps being the primary culprit behind her weight loss and fatigue. We might be able to fight back against at least some of it with ativan and marinol.

marinol We both hoped that a positive from all this would be a way to attack her persistent nausea. May have found it. If we have, it will make for something upbeat other than survival. Which was, of course, the first and most necessary result.

Even my exhaustion seems less this morning. All along I’ve gotten reasonable, most times good, sleep. I’ve eaten. Trying to stay in shape for whatever Kate might need. Got back to my workout yesterday. That felt great.

There is, too, modest snow cover and the stage 1 fire ban has been lifted. Less to think about for now.

Of course, Trump’s still in office, but, hey, everything can’t be looking up.

Art and Culture, Beyond the Boundaries, Dogs, Faith and Spirituality, Family, Friends, Health, Jefferson County, Judaism, Mountains, Our Land and Home, Reimagine. Reconstruct. Reenchant., Shadow Mountain, Third Phase, Weather +Climate

Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow

October 10, 2018 Charles Leave a comment

Fall Healing Moon

Hard freeze. 23 this morning with some snow, mostly ice. A neighbor reported on Next Door Shadow Mountain that Shadow Mountain, 285 and even 470 were icy and in thick fog. Bad driving. But, poor conditions for a wildfire. That’s something.

Ode's portrait. At Blue Sky Abbey, some years ago — Ode’s portrait. At Blue Sky Abbey, some years ago

Feeling a bit down this morning. Nothing 12 days of Kate’s hospitalization + general exhaustion doesn’t explain. We’ve both been thinking about death. She told me yesterday if things go south that her friend (and mine) Jamie Bernstein can take care of all her sewing stuff. I handled that poorly. “I don’t want to hear that. That’s not what you want is it?” “No,” she said. But she had breached that barrier and I pushed it away, out of my own fear, I suppose. Gonna rectify that today.

I’ve slept in our bed now for 12 nights without her there. She’s gone from the house and her absence is palpable, a thing in itself. She’s not on the bench in the morning. Not in her chair in the evening. Her sewing machine is back from the repair folks, but sits still in its rolling container. No hugs. No I love you’s before leaving and on return. Nothing can, in fact, be something.

Thoughts of a permanent absence, death, come easily in this situation. I don’t shove them away, I don’t embrace them. I acknowledge them as the mind running scenarios, what ifs, based on current reality. I also imagine her return, negotiating the steps, setting up the bedroom and the downstairs for her. All part of the I don’t like surprises part of the mind. A survival tool that can seem cold, unfeeling. It’s not. Just stuff that needs consideration, not rejecting.

Yamantaka teaches us that considering our own death in an unblinking way can cure our fear of it. I both believe that and believe I have reached that point in my own soul. I suppose there’s an analog here about Kate’s death. Hers is as inevitable as mine. And, considering it doesn’t make it more or less likely. It simply means that I’ve accepted an assured reality though the timing is, as always, unknown.

OK. That’s out in the open. Not an obsession. What’s happening occasionally.

Another hard part right now is odd. On Friday we’ll be at two weeks since Kate went into the E.R. Am I supposed to collect myself, get back in the groove, accept this bifurcated existence, her in medical care, me at home? I definitely have to spend time tomorrow sorting through the bills and starting to pay them. Something she does.

I’ve been cooking, doing laundry, keeping the house picked up, feeding the dogs, playing with them, driving in to see Kate, trying to keep up with the medical information. But, I’ve set aside working out. Gonna pick that back up today or tomorrow. I’ve set aside teaching in the religious school, attending mussar or the adult ed committee. I canceled the first Jewish Studies Sunday Sampler.

I’m struggling with what’s a normal response in an abnormal situation. Is it ok to just focus on the domestic, on Kate and on home? Or, do I rob myself of the emotional support I’d get from being back in the mix at CBE? What about the things I’ve agreed to do?

Or, am I too soon in thinking about any of this? How will I know? A sort of strange twilight right now, matters shrunk down to the nub, life at its most basic with questions of health, the future, even death in every moment.

Let me finish with this. I am not depressed. Even my slight down feeling I mentioned earlier has lifted somewhat as I’ve written myself into my current reality, leaving it all out there, not hiding. This is my life and unless my health changes it will be my life until clarity declares itself either toward Kate’s recovery or a continued decline, perhaps even death.

End note. I realized as I wrote that last paragraph that a key sticking point right now is uncertainty. Will Kate’s various medical issues resolve? That is, will she get well enough to leave for rehab? If so, when? If she’s in rehab, how long? How much care will she need when she comes home? I’m not wracked by any of these questions, but they illustrate the fundamental issues in play right now, with no clarity about any of them available. That’s what makes knowing how I might react so difficult right now.

Family, Health, Jefferson County, Our Land and Home, Reimagine. Reconstruct. Reenchant., Shadow Mountain, Third Phase, Weather +Climate

Day 11

October 9, 2018 Charles Leave a comment

Fall Healing Moon

If you’re interested and haven’t found Kate’s Caringbridge website, you can keep up more often on it.

Cream of wheat, she ate the whole thing!

She’s progressing, as I’ve posted there. Her attitude has brightened, she’s eaten solid foods including fish and pasta, and she passed a fitness test that qualifies her for in-hospital acute care rehab. Nausea is still an issue though Ativan seems to knock it back. Now the questions turn to recovery, to discharge. Still not clear even though this is day 11, unusual in these days of get’em outta here hospitalizations.

Annie’s been in to see Kate each day, bought stuffed animals for her, has helped with the dogs and the dishes, made it possible for me to see Kate without worrying about home stuff. Thanks, Annie.

Here’s how it is with me. I’m tired. Even though I’ve been able to extinguish anxiety, at least of a crippling sort, I’m still concerned about what’s happening to Kate, traveling with her along the emotional and physical ups and downs. When I go in to see her, it’s usually six hours plus, sometimes more, before I return home. At the hospital I see many more people than I usually do in a day, wearing for this introvert who’s happy alone most of the time.

All this drains me, of something. Not sure what, exactly, but by the time I get home, reading, do anything with intellectual nuance repels me. I suppose I could do it if I knuckled down, but that’s sort of the point, the draining part of all this takes away my will to buckle down, get more done. That’s part of what I’m allowing to be the case, part of the flow of the chi that I simply acknowledge, accept.

Interestingly, I have found physical labor soothing. On Sunday I went over to Big R and bought a 4x6x3/4 rubber horse stall mat. Kate had this idea a while back to mind the gap between our house and the garage. I mentioned it a few posts back. Got the pallets she wanted and I came up with the idea of using these mats as the surface for the pallets.

Cutting the mat proved a challenge. Getting just one was to see how difficult this was gonna be. Very. I tried a bolt cutter. I tried a hack saw and a miter saw. Then I had what was probably not one of my brightest ideas, the chain saw. It worked. But. The rubber particles produced covered the floor, my eyes (I put on goggles.), and got into the chain saw’s filter, pushing out an acrid, afternoon at the dragstrip sort of smell. Hmm. Better stop.

That was when I decided to check the internet. Oh, a box cutter. I had one, so I used it. It was a little dull and the mat’s are 3/4 inch thick. Not to mention that I’m 71. Difficult. But it worked. I got a somewhat clumsily cut mat that was 44.5 by 44.5, the width of the larger pallets. Plunked it down. These mats by the way are also heavy. “Like moving a body,” said the guy at Big R who loaded it in my Rav4. I’m pleased to say that after the snow and ice of the last two days, it maintained its grippiness and snow removal from it was easy. Two more to go.

If it gets a bit warmer and less inclement, I plan to start splitting wood.

Though when we went to the E.R. a week ago Friday this felt like a sprint, it’s obvious now it’s a marathon. For both of us. We have Beth Evergreen folks and family, other friends. So important at times like these, even for committed introverts (as we both are).

BTW: When I came home yesterday afternoon, the internet was down. I knew that meant we’d had a power outage. A transformer near Aspen Park. The point here: the generator was chugging away, keeping the lights on. Literally. Made me happy I went through all that bullshit to get it installed. Power was out for about 4 hours.