Category Archives: Third Phase

Joints. No, Not That Kind.

October 10, 2015 Charles Leave a comment

Mabon Elk Rut Moon

As cancer season faded out in late September, so joint season took over in early October. Kate’s surgery for her painful thumb took place yesterday. Tom Crane had the same surgery last year. It’s a well practiced procedure with consistent results, after the swelling goes down and the three months of swaddling the hand is over. There are many things to learn how to do right handed: tie your shoes (not), hold a stair railing going up, take a shower without getting the bandage wet, dress yourself. And many more.

She also got a platelet injection in her right thumb, the one that has rheumatoid arthritis. This is a non-covered procedure that improves joint function in some people. The physician takes your own blood, puts in a centrifuge, separates out the platelets, then injects those platelets into the base of the thumb. My physical therapist’s mother got three years of back pain relief from platelets.

While Kate figures out how to engage life with one hand, the physical therapist has me doing an increasingly long series of exercises to exorcise (ooohh, exercises to exorcise) the referred pain from my arthritic cervical vertebrae. I like p.t. because it’s non-invasive and has worked well for me each time I’ve done it.

Here on Shadow Mountain we’re all about joints in October.

Aging, Health, Jefferson County, Shadow Mountain, Third Phase, Weather +Climate

Uh-oh. Gotta close the windows.

October 3, 2015 Charles Leave a comment

Mabon Elk Rut Moon

Started physical therapy for my arthritis, scoliosis, muscle tightness on Thursday. Dana, my therapist, is a very sharp woman, maybe early 40’s. She has me tucking my chin into my chest, folding my shoulder blades up, then down and paying attention to the tilt of my head in a mirror. The muscle relaxant I’ve been given is peculiar. It has a sedative effect and knocks me out when I take it. But, each night at 1:15-1:19, it wears off and I wake up. It’s half life goes on a bit longer so I get back to sleep pretty well.

Tonight though, it’s 2:00 a.m. right now, I woke up at 1:15 and noticed a flash of light. Then some thunder. Then the sound of rain drops. Ooops. I’d forgotten to shut the windows in the loft. No. I shut them. No. I didn’t. It’ll be ok. It won’t rain much. You don’t know that. Oh, alright. So up I came. Sure enough the windows were open. Not raining much, but hard to predict.

Kate and I went into Conifer last night for appetizers and every restaurant we tried had 25-30 minute wait times. Unusual. Tourists out for something. People drive away from their homes, even come to stay for a few days, to get to the place where Kate and I live. Sorta neat. Except when the restaurant wait times are 25-30 minutes. We turned around, drove past our house and on down Black Mountain Drive to Brook Forest Inn. Good choice. This old lodge is between Evergreen and Conifer, just like we are, out of the way for tourist traffic unless you’re staying there.

And, the food is good. It’s the local joint closest to our house. We’re semi-regulars there now and are beginning to get to know people. We may go over there on Sunday for the Vikings-Broncos game. Cutting cable means no local channels, so no football.

Aging, Health, Third Phase

Can I Hear You Now?

October 1, 2015 Charles Leave a comment

Mabon Elk Rut Moon

More testing of the new hearing aid. We went out last night to Brook Forest Inn, the closest eating place to our house, about 2 miles toward Evergreen on Black Mountain Drive. TV’s were on and people chattered in the background. Doors opened and closed. After prompting by Kate I sat with my left ear to her and my right (good) ear to the noise.

She asked me how I was doing. I said, “Well, you can probably tell better than I can.” She had not had to repeat herself, even sitting on my left, to my deaf ear.

The technology, whatever it is, is pretty amazing. It seems to fade into the background, just doing its job helping me hear. OK. I just looked up the noise filtering tech and my eyes crossed. Whatever it is, it works pretty well in the environments where I’ve tried it so far.

A minor revelation, along the lines of seeing stars clearly with new glasses, is the clacking of my computer keyboard and the mouse. Too, eating is particularly noisy. All that chewing sound that comes with vegetables. Who knew? Well, everybody but me, apparently. The last and oddest revelation is the different version of my voice. A gravely, low pitched sound comes to me when I start talking. Weird.

I have not yet tried the new tech on the grandkids. Their voices are very difficult for me to hear and I’m hoping that will improve.

Final thought. Many people, when considering the question, say they would be lost without their sight. Can’t imagine it. But, those of us with hearing loss, especially profound deafness as I have in my left ear, know that hearing is the relationship sense. It’s how feelings, wishes, desires, the subtle cues of how we’re getting along with others transit from one singularity to another. Imagine life without being able to hear I love you. Imagine being unable to hold a nuanced conversation about some matter of intimate importance. Or, a nuanced conversation of any sort.

Even with sign language, in which a nuanced conversation is possible, the number of people with whom you can hold one is severely limited. Not many people know sign.

I can’t imagine life without sight either, but I know that life without sound would be devastating.

Aging, Faith and Spirituality, Reimagine. Reconstruct. Reenchant., Third Phase

Quadfecta

September 28, 2015 Charles Leave a comment

Mabon Elk Rut Moon

September has seen me accomplish a rare third phase quadfecta. First I drove to Indiana for my 50th high school reunion. After my return I had three appointments: internist, audiologist and urologist. The internist ordered x-rays and gave me my first ever diagnosis of arthritis. The audiologist told me what I already knew, deaf in the left ear and not hearing well out of the right. The urologist told me I was nominally cancer free.

This morning I picked up and am now wearing my new hearing aid. That’s right. Aid. Just one. So far my voice sounds gravely and I’m hearing the computer keyboard clack. No real revelations so far.

So, in less than three weeks cancer vanquished, hearing aid, arthritis and my 50th high school reunion. That’s roaring around the corner into the third phase, pedal to the metal.

Aging, Beyond the Boundaries, Faith and Spirituality, Reimagine. Reconstruct. Reenchant., Third Phase

Self-ish

September 27, 2015 Charles 2 Comments

Mabon Elk Rut Moon

I’ve had false dawns on this recent journey, thinking the time was right to get back to writing, to Latin, to dreaming, to acting. A flywheel somewhere in my psyche has pulled me back into the day-to-day, letting the sweep of things carry me along like a piece of driftwood on the tide. I pushed against it a couple of times, trying to will myself into a more productive place. I’ve failed.

Now I’m waiting, trying to flow with the direction of my psyche, following the ancientrail of change without attempting to bend it to my own wishes. It’s hard. Perhaps this is the third phase way, a more Taoist one, one where the day-to-day and our Self’s work can merge, then diverge.

There is no clock. No agenda set by others. (other than doctors) No career mountain to climb. No financial aspirations. Those of us in the third phase and out of the work life can be more open to the currents of our inner life. We do not have to cut and shape our day to meet the demands of second phase goals.

Not all who wander are lost. This Tolkien phrase unintentionally captures the problem. If you wander, the second phase life assumes you are lost. Though there are no second phase norms by which to judge your direction in the third phase, no child raising (hopefully), no boss or vocational directives, no 401k to plump up, our long affiliation with these norms often carries them over into the third phase anyway. It is in this sense that wandering in the third phase can make us seem and feel lost.

Yet I believe that the true norm of the third phase is to wander, to become like a planet to your Self, pulled by the gravitational attractions of its values and its directions. Now is the time, if you have not availed yourself of it earlier, to listen to the voices of your own heart, your own dreams, your own ancientrail. You may think or feel that, because second phase norms require us to chop and curtail our own desires to fit the needs of institutions, workplaces, family that this is selfish.

I say yes, it is. Just so. Self-ish. Always the world would have been better off if you had let your own voices guide you. Why? Because you are the only you this universe will ever see and to shortcut your development for what others want is to deny the universe your particular gifts. Now is the chance to give expression to that you hidden by the often crushing world of family and career. Now is the time to become the person the universe needs. You.

Aging, Health, Literature, Our Land and Home, Third Phase

Books and Docs

September 21, 2015 Charles Leave a comment

Lughnasa Elk Rut Moon

Have begun to shelve books. Will discover whether the crude tool of measuring book stacks has produced enough shelving.

A place to work, a place to be the person you want to and can be. Necessary. Kate’s sewing studio. Jon’s ski manufacturing space. The whole backyard for the dogs. And this place, this loft, for me.

Over the course of this week I’ll fill all the empty shelves, then begin to unload all the art now stored in plastic bins. Our art, up here, and in the house, is still packed away. The house will not feel like it’s ours until the art is hung.

We have yet more medical tasks this week, too. The crown that chipped when put on will be replaced today. Kate and I have separate appointments at Arapahoe Internal Medicine. Me for the elbow, shoulder pain and her for elevated potassium. On Friday is the last scheduled appointment following up on my surgery. The super sensitive PSA test for which I had the blood drawn last Tuesday will be done. Looking for a low number. If it is low, it suggest that none of the cancer cells escaped into the rest of the body.

We want to get past this constant medicalization of our lives, but…

Colorado, Jefferson County, Shadow Mountain, The West, Third Phase

A Harem

September 20, 2015 Charles Leave a comment

Lughnasa Elk Rut Moon

Coming home from an appliance purchasing excursion we saw a herd of approximately 20 elk does with one large racked bull standing just off to their side. This was along Shadow Mountain Drive about a half a mile from our house. A couple of hundred feet away, looking at the herd from a slight rise, was another bull, also with a large rack. Probably the loser.

We stopped in Morrison, the town next to the Red Rocks Amphitheater, for dinner at the Cafe Prague. It was 70 degrees, sunny, but headed toward evening. A lone guitar player strummed and sang pop tunes. Orange roughie and Weiner schnitzel.

The move to Colorado has been a good one for us: smaller grounds, smaller house, living in the mountains close enough to the grandkids, out west. Every day has an element of vacation attached to it.

Yes, the medical issues seem to just keep on coming, but that would have happened in Minnesota, too. The health care here is excellent. We should know. We’ve met more healthcare professionals than anybody else since our move here.

Our third phase has become a Colorado event. Kate’s removed from her former work environment and I’m removed from the context of my Minnesota life. We’re developing our third phase life in a place that nurtures us both and where we can also be nurturers.

Aging, Health, Third Phase

A Come to My Senses Day

September 18, 2015 Charles Leave a comment

Lughnasa Elk Rut Moon

Into the booth yesterday, a come to my senses day. Brandi, a bright and cheerful doctor of audiology (a new degree to me), found significant hearing loss in the middle and high pitches. That was my right ear. She tested the left ear, as all audiologists feel obligated to do. The little boxes on the report which record results at the various frequencies all had a downward arrow from the left corner. That downward arrow connotes no response. I did hear the 115 decibel sound. Through bone conduction in my right ear.

So, a hearing aid. Many of you who read this made this decision long ago. But, I only need one! That cuts the cost in half. A sort of good thing.

An hour later I was over at Corneal Consultants playing space invaders. The ophthalmologists (boy is that a hard word to spell) insist on calling it a visual field test. It uses little points of light (think G. Bush I) to evaulate peripheral vision. Aced it. Pressures good, too. Got that glaucoma under control for now.

As long as I’m on this medical note, I’m also experiencing the return of a shoulder/elbow problem I had three or four years ago. A lot of pain, most right now focused on the elbow and the upper arm of my left arm. The shoulder has less pain this time around. I got rid of it with P.T. last time, choosing not to have an MRI to diagnose it. This time I’m going to find out what it is.

Colorado, Cooking, Health, Jefferson County, Shadow Mountain, The West, Third Phase, Travel, Weather +Climate

Went West as an Old Man

September 16, 2015 Charles Leave a comment

Lughnasa Elk Rut Moon

Drove home Monday night, got in around 10 pm. Pretty whacked out from the drive and whatever is bugging my left elbow. The elbow made sleeping difficult to impossible. No sense paying for a bed I couldn’t sleep in.

On previous driving trips turning north marked the turn toward home. This time it was heading west. A different feeling. Turning north meant lakes, pine trees, wolves, a border with Canada, 40+ years of memories, cooler weather. Heading west conjures up wagon trains, First Nations people, the plains, aridity, mountains, elk, mule deer, moose, mountain lions and black bears. And less than a year’s worth of memories.

When I hit the Denver metro, an L.E.D. highway sign reminded truck drivers that they had to have chains with them from now until May 16th. The folks installing the generator wanted to get it done in early October because it’s possible to have thick snow cover soon after that.

Altitude makes a big difference. The aspen have begun to turn up here on Shadow, Black and Conifer mountains. The effect is subtle, but beautiful. Various stands of aspen, small compared to the lodgepole and ponderosa and Colorado blue spruce that dominate the mountains above 8,000 feet, turn gold, accenting the evergreens. It’s a sort of arboreal mimicking of the gold rush as the color of the precious metal shows up, fleetingly, on mountain sides.

While I was gone, Jon finished five more bookshelves and put doors on the lower unit I’ll use for coffee and tea among other things. That means today I’ll start installing shelving and books. This should be enough to get all the remaining books onto shelves and off the floor. Organizing them will be a task of the fall.

Kate goes in for thumb surgery on Friday. That means three months or so of one-handedness, a long time for a seamstress/quilter/cook. The gas stove gets hooked up tomorrow and I’ll head to the grocery store for the first time in quite a while on Saturday. I’ll be at home on the range. Looking forward to it. She’s lost a lot of weight so one of my tasks will be to help her gain weight. An ironic task if there ever was one.

In further organ recital news I have yet another visit to an audiologist tomorrow. We’ll see what the new technology can do for the deteriorating hearing in my right ear. Kate’s hopeful they can do something for my left (deaf) ear, but I’m doubtful.

Friends, Memories, Third Phase

Compassion for the Young

September 2, 2015 Charles Leave a comment

Lughnasa Labor Day Moon

Next week, on Tuesday, I’m leaving Shadow Mountain for the familiar plains and fields of the Midwest. My 50th high school reunion. Not so long ago it seemed unlikely that anyone could be old enough for a 50th high school reunion. Now. Well.

A friend on whom I had a long schoolboy crush, Tony Fox, has been posting a countdown on Facebook. She came up with some photographs from the Spectrum, our yearbook. These are from our freshman year, 1961. That’s me on the left.

class officers freshman year, Alexandria H.S.

This photograph caused a shock of recognition when I saw it the other day. 54 years later I still find myself in this pose from time to time. The look. Also very familiar. Still.

And yet there is the question of my relationship with this 1961 version. My cells have changed over completely at least 7 times. The narrative that I have or that I am includes this young man, yes, but how? Am I his literal descendant as we tend to think, or am I only a thought, a continuously updating Self that is really brand new from moment to moment?

This photograph raises in me a lot of compassion for this young guy, knowing as I do now what the future, especially through his teens and twenties, holds for him. He will be tested in ways the innocence captured here cannot comprehend.

High school. A complicated time. As were the teen years themselves. Soon to come roaring back for a couple of days in mid-September.