Spring New Shoulder Moon
Still not home. I went over yesterday after lunch only to find Kate struggling to eat a bite of a bacon sandwich. She couldn’t keep that down, water either. Extremely unpleasant for her. Kate hates nausea.
When I went in yesterday, the busy M-F buzz of the hospitals had disappeared. There were fewer cars in the parking lot, a guard at the concierge desk, the Ortho small cafe closed. Nobody bustling about guiding patients, taking preop folks back, people with canes or walkers stayed at home. On the third floor, patient rooms, only a scattering of folks remained, three that I counted on Kate’s wing.
It’s disconcerting to have Kate in a place that feels emptied of its vitality, just when she’s having trouble. Being in a hospital over a weekend is not something you choose.
Meanwhile, after a full Sunday of lying around stoned, looking pretty damned unpleasant, Gertie’s tail wags furiously (normal) and she ate. Back to normal after a trip to the late ’60’s. Kep sniffs Kate’s side of the bed.
On Thursday, the day of Kate’s surgery, I left Rigel and Gertie outside while I was at Ortho Colorado. Staying outside that long, several hours, is unusual for them. When I let Rigel inside, she ran to the couch, jumped up on it, jumped in the air a couple of times, then flopped down into her usual position. Ah.
(Rigel yesterday hunting for voles.)
I hope Kate comes home today. Having her in the hospital, uncomfortable, makes this whole process feel suspended. When she’s home, I know her shoulder will be recovering, right now its her system adjusting to the insults of surgery. Not where we wanted to be right now, but what is.
In a bit of nostalgia for me all the seats in the place were taken up by residents from a group home for the developmentally disabled. A young man with a plastic helmet to protect against seizures, another autistic young man davening and crying out, and four Down’s Syndrome young women. When I worked with the developmentally disabled, which I did from 1974 to 1980, taking clients out to places like the laundromat was a pleasant diversion, teaching independent living skills and being away from the residence.
My physical was, at least so far (before lab results), unremarkable. Dull is my favorite medical term. Boring. Nothing happening here. My ekg was like last years. My blood pressure is low enough that Dr. Gidday wondered if I was over medicated. No, I said, I want to keep it low. All those strokes in the family of origin. O2 saturation fine, as it always is when I descend 3,600 feet to her office. Knee? Fine. Other knee? Surprisingly fine. Prostate? Still gone. PSA’s good. No hernia. Lungs and heart sound good. Still upright and moving.
It is the tao of springtime reminding us that winter passes, too, as will all the difficulties; and, that even in the midst of a tough season, underneath is the movement of life itself, struggling to emerge, to take back the moment. All we need to do is follow its cues.
Sometimes. Well. So, the washer failed first, on Thursday. Then, a day or so later, the dishwasher. 1 Stop appliance, the folks who do Samsung repairs up here, only have two days in Conifer, Monday and Wednesday. Monday was full, so Wednesday. That’s the day before Kate’s surgery.
Went to see the Blade Lady out in Centennial. It surprised me, when I saw the directions on Google, that it was 50 miles from home. I remember when 50 miles required a picnic basket and a living will. Jennifer was nice, picked up our knives and scissors personally. They finish fast. We gave them to her at 12:45 and we could have had them back at 1:30, but Rigel had to get to her 2pm vet appointment. She’s mailing them.
Rigel’s gained 8 pounds on her rabbit protein and potato diet. When we went to the VRCC on Friday, the tech said she’ll probably have to continue this diet indefinitely. She also has to get a B-12 injection once a week, also probably indefinitely. The key word, for us, is indefinitely. This is a better word than terminal, which we had expected.
The snow drought continues here with snow pack levels about 40% lower than normal. That’s bad news for those of us who live in the Rockies, but also bad news for the Colorado River Basin states that depend on our annual snow fall for a significant percentage of their daily water. This reality will have a definite effect on our summer.
Sandy, our house cleaner, who is about to have brain surgery for a second time on the 20th of this month, got her quilt Kate made her yesterday. She’s a strong woman and she’s had a very, very tough year. Unfortunately, the tumor did not debulk as they had hoped after the first surgery. It’s benign, but large. The aftermath of the surgery is awful. Disorientation. Nausea. Headaches. And these last a while. A quilt is such a great gift in this situation, since a lot of time in bed is part of the recovery. Covered in love.
Hippity hop to the ortho shop. Kate’s got an appointment at Panorama Orthopedics today. Her right shoulder. She can no longer hold things up with her right arm and has to use two hands to put dishes away, sometimes to lift a cup. Annoying and painful. Screws up her sleep, too. She needs some kind of solution, more than likely a shoulder replacement. This is the first step, a consult to see what her options are.
An interesting week ahead. A session on green burial tomorrow night at CBE. It’s part of a conversation about creating a Jewish cemetery up here in the Evergreen/Conifer area. Oddly, I think I’d like to work on that. The next night, Wednesday, is Tu B’Shevat, the New Year of the Trees. Judaism has a lot of pagan inflections, Tu B’Shevat and Sukkot, a harvest festival at the end of the High Holidays, for example. Looking forward to this one because there’s a seder, too, with seven species of fruit and nuts. I’ll explain more on Wednesday. After the this celebration is another Kabbalah session, more double letters in the Hebrew alphabet.
Rigel has her second appointment at the Vet Referral Clinic with Dr. Bayliss this Friday, too. I’m excited about it because we’ll get a clearer picture of what’s going on with her. And, it’s not the dire prognosis we anticipated when we took her in a week ago last Friday.
Kate sewed most of the day yesterday. May not seem like a big deal, but it is. Her energy and her energy management skills are both improving and she’s enjoying life more. I’m so glad to see it.
Work on online education for Beth Evergreen will continue today, too. Marilyn Saltzman found some mussar sites and I’m going to add Coursera and EDx courses. I also plan to look at other, more general online education sites. So far I’ve focused on online education focused on Jewish studies, but I imagine there are more courses. A fun project.
Here’s another one, which he titled, Can’t. This is forward art, playing with the notion of found objects and the limits of traditional print making. As often happens with art, this work came out of the struggles he had during the long divorcing.
I don’t miss the heavy lifting (the literal heavy lifting) for the most part, though part of my time at Beth Evergreen involves setting up for Adult Ed events and I do like moving chairs and tables, that sort of thing. Go figure. But I also need purposeful, intellect engaged physical activity. Different from exercise, which I also need. Cooking is physical and intellectual, also creative.
The sumi painting I’ve not yet fully engaged, still collecting materials, setting up my work space, learning techniques, but I intend to stay at it as long as it takes to get some proficiency. Precise or artistic hand work has never been my thing, but I’m going to change that, at least to some degree.