Category Archives: Aging

Aging, Cooking, Dogs, Family, Health, Holidays, Judaism, Myth and Story, Shadow Mountain, Third Phase

Getting to 5781

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Lughnasa and the Labor Day Moon

Wednesday gratefuls: Kate. Always Kate. The night sky. Venus. Life on Venus? Rigel. Kep. Deb from on the move fitness. Her grief. The new workout. Cool morning. Mountain Waste. Rage, by Woodward. The internet. DSL. The Gift on Netflix. Borgen, too. Dark sky spots in Colorado: Dinosaur National Monument. Great Sand Dunes. Westcliffe. Black Canyon of the Gunnison. More.

Up early for the Clan call, forgot to post yesterday. Forgetting is rare, but it happened. Mary, Mark, Diane. Singapore, Riyadh, San Francisco. The wonders of our age. In real time, no lag other than the one I understand Zoom introduces to create smooth conversation.

Kate didn’t feel up to it. The pleura effusion continues to create problems for her. She now has some pain in her right chest, the side of the effusion. No imaging study scheduled yet, but she’s going to call today. It makes her shortness of breath worse, restricting her movement.

Some sleeplessness for me Sunday night. Wondering where things were headed with Kate. Rumination. Not my usual fare at night. Not for a long time.

We decided not to see Amber this week at Advanced Wound Care. We needed a quiet week. No medical appointments. With my upcoming cataract surgery I’ll have a few of my own.

As the Labor Day Moon wanes, it moves us toward the High Holidays. The Jewish lunar calendar starts each new month on a new moon, Rosh Chodesh. The head of the month. Rosh Hashanah, head of the year. Each new year celebrates the creation of Adam and Eve according to legend.

Since 2020, based on the Gregorian Calendar, has sucked, I recommend choosing 5781. No more of that 2020.

Got a new workout yesterday from Deb Brown. She lost her husband, Dave, to glioblastoma in the midst of early lockdown. I hear Dave’s voice often, I told her. I love to teach deadlift technique. Hold that band out from your chest as long as you can. She hears it, too, she said. Only louder and a lot.

We met on Zoom. A little clunky for this purpose, but it worked. The exercises: goblet squat, flat bench press, dipper, staggered stance row on stability ball, bicep curl, skullcrusher, stability ball prone back extension, plank, 1 leg balance with transverse step.

I like switching up my workout every six to eight weeks. It helps keep me interested, but more important, it changes up muscle use. Muscles don’t become acclimated to the routine.

Easy Entree tonight. Cod in a white wine and tomato sauce.

And, a trip to Happy Camper this morning.

Aging, Dogs, Family, Health, Politics, Third Phase

Marriage is stronger

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Lughnasa and the crescent Labor Day Moon

Monday gratefuls: Kate’s better day. Rigel’s bland diet. Kep snuggling with Kate last night. Jon bringing up Ruth and Gabe this Saturday. Finally, the appointment with Taryle. The crescent moon with Venus in the eastern dawn sky. Lengthening nights. Instapot and rice.

Kate was in much better shape yesterday. Breathing easier, color better, more chipper. Her Friday in emergency mode while I drove Rigel to the VRCC for her antibiotic overdose drained her battery. She has few reserves. Saturday was struggling to get back to some equilibrium. She made it.

Today we see the pulmonologist. Try to get a handle on her pneumothorax. She could end up back in the hospital depending on Taryle’s assessment. She needs relief and I’m in favor of whatever will bring it to her. We’re packing a bag.

It’s a difficult time.

Rigel, recovering from her self-medicating, continues her interest in things on our table. Yesterday she chewed up the small pouch that holds our marijuana money. She ate a fifty, chewed up a twenty, and took a healthy bite out of a hundred dollar bill. And left no change. Geez.

Yes, we need to stop putting things on the table. She’s not done this before, at least not this persistently or comprehensively. We have to adjust to her. Otherwise she’s feeling perky. Ate all of her rice and hamburger, took her meds, seems happy.

Medicine and the medical took over our lives well over two and a half years ago. It continues and has gotten more pronounced in the last six months. Not unusual with aging, but still disruptive, heart rending at times.

Our marriage is stronger than ever, mutuality and intimacy at a peak. Love does not know illness or fatigue; it does not decline. Instead, it increases. Kate’s mental acuity and her composure during these troubles is a thing of wonder to me.

In less than two months, a major source of chaos and disruption will be gone. Trump will be dumped. That should mean a much better pandemic response, too. Eliminating one and reducing the other will help all of us.

BTW: No, I have no crystal ball. I’m stating my belief. Just a bit stronger than hope right now.

Aging, Denver, Dogs, Family, Health, Jefferson County, Shadow Mountain, Third Phase

Beyond the Twilight Zone

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Lughnasa and the Labor Day Moon

Friday and Saturday gratefuls: Ruby. Air con and heat, needed in the same day. Hwy 470. Amber and Lizzie and Monique and Lisa. Dr. Gustave. Michelle Schmitz. VRCC. Dr. Timian. Dr. Rump. Vet techs. Rigel. The rascal. Kate’s support by phone. Kate’s staying calm, lying down. Broadband service. DSL. Century Link. That macaroni and cheese place on Wadsworth. Snow lingering in the forest and on the mountain sides facing north.

In the space between Friday afternoon and late Friday afternoon, in a small house on a medium sized mountain, one dog and one package of meds took us out of the normal twilit zone in which we lived this week and pushed us: Beyond the Twilight Zone.

It started as an ordinary day. Up at 4 am to feed the dogs, catch a little extra sleep because the day had a lot going on.

Out the door around 10:15 for the drive to Corneal Consultants in Littleton. I met Michele, the surgery scheduler. Two Zeiss machines later, taking pictures of my retina, other images to help guide cataract surgery. On me. Pretty straightforward, all told out of pocket around $400. Worth it.

Got in the one of the new safe places, a maskless zone, hung my Katy Did It mask on the turn signal column, and headed to the bank on Kipling.

Safety deposit box. Put my passport in and retrieved the title to Ivory, which we have to transfer to Jon. Looked at the flash drive which contains photographs of our worldly possessions, divorce decrees, some jewelry, insurance documents, the deed to our house and to Ruby. This box is part of our emergency plan in case of wildfire.

Forgot the check for cash at home, so I couldn’t do that. Left the bank and got back on 470 for the 20 mile drive to Wheatridge and Advanced Wound Care. They made some bandages for Kate’s stoma site that I had to pick up.

A decision point. Rigel’s meds would be ready in two hours. Should I pick them up today, staying out a lot longer than I wanted, or should I go home, get them on Saturday? These were more antibiotics for Rigel’s endocarditis. I would run out of one after Saturday.

I decided to get some lunch at this place that serves only macaroni and cheese, drive over to VRCC through Denver on Santa Fe, eat lunch, then see if the meds were ready.

That worked. I got a paper bag with a plastic bottle of enroflaxcin and clavamox. Drove home. Put the bag on the dinner table. Kate had worked the phones to set up the meds and she was ready for a nap. Me, too.

Got up from the nap, maybe an hour plus later. Rigel had chewed up some paper. I bent down to pick it up, throw it away. Oh. The bag the medicine was in?

Yep. After getting the enroflaxcin only a couple of hours before, Rigel had chosen to self-medicate. She ate all 21 of the tabs. The clavamox, wrapped in foil, was harder and she left most of it.

I got Rigel in Ruby. Kate called Pet Poison Control. I drove my cautious fast way perfected getting Kate to the E.R. Activated charcoal, fluids injected under the skin, vomiting, diarrhea, and a new bottle of enroflaxcin, not cheap, later, we headed back home, arriving around 8 pm. Thus endeth yesterday.

Now I’m up, made rice for Rigel’s bland diet, cleaned out the dishwasher, and cleaned up the kitchen, got the newspaper, and am ready to relax for a couple of days. Haircut at noon, a short grocery store trip. Old buddies tomorrow morning. In between, books and tv, naps.

New workout on Tuesday.

Aging, Family, Health, Jefferson County, Shadow Mountain, Third Phase

Ooff

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Lughnasa and the Labor Day Moon

Thursday gratefuls: Amber. Lisa. Wheatridge Pharmacy and its wheelchair rental. Freddy’s Steak Sandwiches. Fries. Chocolate shake. Kate’s Inogen. The X-ray tech. Madame Curie. Roentgen. The snow. The ice. The cold. Colorado and its weather. The Rocky Mountains. Shadow Mountain. Kate, her toughness.

Ooff. Yesterday. Kate, very short of breath. So much so that we had to rent a wheelchair so I could wheel her in to Amber’s Advanced Wound Care and Dr. Gidday’s. Got some new powder for Kate’s stoma site, includes a crushed up Tum’s to counter stomach acid.

Dilemma then. Home was 45 minutes away. It was 12:15. Dr. Gidday was 45 minutes in the opposite direction from Amber, also about 45 minutes from home. Did we go home, get there around 1, wait 45 minutes and head out again, or do we go to Dr. Gidday’s, stop for some food, nap in the car?

We chose the food and nap option. That meant Kate’s Inogen battery became a limiting option. A while back we miscalculated and Kate’s O2 ran out before we got home. Not a whole lot before, thankfully. Made me a bit anxious.

When we saw Dr. Gidday, who had failed to get us on at 2:30 as she said she would, it was 3 pm. The exam and consult took a half an hour, 45 minutes. You need a chest x-ray. Umm. Oxygen?

Kate thought we had enough, so we went to the Imaging place on Coal Mine Avenue in Littleton. By this time Kate had an exhausted look, slumping a bit in the wheelchair as I wheeled her. Twice on this trip I started to go into a building without a mask on, my brain back in the long lost pre-pandemic era. This was one of them.

Got her in, parked, got my mask on, and returned. About 4:00, a little after. At 5:15 we finally heard her name. The tech led us back, me pushing, Kate so tired. Me, too.

She stood, gripping the bars on the equipment like a sailor in heavy seas. Hold your breath. Hold. Breathe. Turn to the side. Hold your breath. Breathe.

At last, toward home. Into rush hour traffic. O2 at 8% battery life. Gotta remember that extra, smaller battery next time. Going up Shadow Mountain Drive the Inogen beeped. Plug battery in to charger.

Kate went straight to bed, connected at last to the O2 concentrator at the foot of the bed. Lying down, which is her preferred position these days. She breathes easier.

Nothing bad happened. The battery held out until we were near home. A hard day nonetheless. I need to do better at remembering the spare battery, timing these days. No more 11 am appointments followed by 2:30’s. Just not good.

Aging, Family, Health, Shadow Mountain, Third Phase, Weather +Climate

A New Chapter?

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Lughnasa and the Labor Day Moon

Tuesday gratefuls: Rommertopf. The Chicken that gave its life for our meal. Potatoes. Carrots. Onions. Our quirky bottom oven. 25 degrees this morning. Snow. The Clan meeting this morning. Rigel’s two week follow-up appointment this afternoon. Memories. Photographs.

It was 101 in Denver yesterday., 36 now. 25 degrees here on Shadow Mountain this morning. A Rain Snow mix began to fall last night, some Snow cover, but not much yet. Supposed to Snow all day today and into Wednesday. We’re in an 8-16 inch forecast blue blob on a Weather5280 map. As Seoah says, wait and see.

We’re shopping for wheelchairs. Pushing the rollator has begun to be too much for Kate. Two appointments on Wednesday, so we may have to rent one until we figure out how to handle Medicare. Shortness of breath has become an extreme limiting factor for her.

She’s beginning to talk about her old life. She still folds our clothes and likes doing it because it’s something she could from her “old life.” What? When I did the laundry. No idea whether this is a permanent transition or not.

Whether it is or isn’t, her essence, her keen intellect, her experience as a cook, her knowledge of medicine, her skills as a seamstress, her empathy, her roles as wife, sister, mother, grandmother, remains.

Of course, part of her life has been as the energizer bunny. Doing this. Doing that. Finishing a quilt for a friend or family member. Sewing shirts for me. Grocery shopping. Cooking. Working as a doctor. Gardening, especially weeding, her special skill. Honey extractor. Right now, those are part of her old life.

This is a new chapter for her and for us. We’ll adapt, get the most from it. The third phase continues.

Aging, Cooking, Dogs, Family, Friends, Health

Shadow Mountain Clinic notes

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Lughnasa and the Full Labor Day Moon over Black Mountain

Friday gratefuls: Rigel, who went with me to Evergreen and came back with a big smile. Kep, healing. Kate, enduring and endearing. Alan, who will take me to my cataract surgery both days. That snow coming. Fish fry tonight. Pizza from Beau Jeaus. The new mailbox, standing behind it to get the mail out of its second door. Safer.

Some mornings. Out of bed at 6:45. Geez. Still groggy. Slept fine last night, maybe a bit too fine.

Rigel needs her meds every 12 hours. She’s taking clavamox and eroflaxcin, antiobiotics, and prednisone to lower her fever. Recheck on Tuesday with the cardiologist and a neurologist?

She has some foot drop in her rear legs and some weakness. She can no longer climb the loft stairs, nor can she bring her leg back when it begins to slide out while eating. Slick tiles. I put a rug down by her bowl to solve that. Otherwise she gets around fine.

Her appetite has returned to normal and her mood is infectious. So far, so great. I feel so good. Take action without imagining the result.

Kate can manage her discomfort by staying in bed with the fan cooling her. Also, NCIS. The telemedicine visit with Dr. Gidday yesterday resulted in a physical appointment next week. We’re in serious pursuit now of the increased shortness of breath and the leakage at her stoma site. I feel confident with absolutely no data to back that up.

I know. This blog has turned into an organ recital. My life, our life, right now. And, that’s what this blog is, more than anything, my journal on the web, a weblog, a blog.

Aging, Cooking, Dogs, Family, Health, Jefferson County, Memories, Minnesota, Shadow Mountain, The Move, Third Phase, Weather +Climate

No Need to Push Into the Future

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Lughnasa and the Labor Day Moon

Thursday gratefuls: The lovely Labor Day Moon hanging over Black Mountain. Orion’s return. 44 degrees this morning. Snow in the forecast for Tuesday. Kate, dealing. Rigel, eating. Kep, smiling and jumping. Brother Mark at work in the Sands of Arabi. Retired Mary waiting out Malaysia’s quarantine policy. Murdoch and Brenton’s new chocolate puppy, a real cutie. Alan. My cataracts.

So. Tuesday. According to Open Snow, a website for ski enthusiasts and those who live in the Mountains, Snow. Could range from showers to 6 inches, depending on the forecast model. The full winter after our move, 2015-2016, Shadow Mountain got 220 inches of Snow. Surprised these Minnesotans used to deep cold, but nowhere near that much Snow. More like 45 inches on average.

Another tough day for Kate yesterday. She canceled her appointment with Amber, the wound care therapist. Nausea. General discomfort. Enough problems with breathing that she wants a wheelchair for her out of the house times. Shifting from the rollator, a sort of moving walker with four wheels and a seat. Whatever she needs.

The arc of her symptoms is not a good one, It bends not toward health, but toward increasing infirmity. A telehealth time with Dr. Gidday, our primary care doc, today. If we could get a good grip on the shortness of breath and on the leakage from her feeding tube site, she could improve quickly.

These days are just difficult, not knowing what to expect from her body. What can I get you? A new body. If not that, new lungs. We laugh. We’ve cried enough.

Rigel. On the mend. Eating more like her old self, now dry food as well as canned. Smiling more. Looking brighter. What a joy. I’m taking her illness in, yes, I know it’s there, but I rejoice with her improvements. A gamble, a good one as of this morning.

Kep has stopped nipping at his skin. The last two times we’ve had him furminated he’s developed itchy skin, which he nips, sometimes bites. Licks. He ends up looking like a dog with mange. He’s healing, but what we’ll do the next time his double coat starts releasing fur for his comfort, I don’t know.

We’re as much medical clinic as we are home. Nurse Charlie tends to his various charges. Changing bandages. Preparing and serving food. Giving medications. Paying attention to changes. Scheduling appointments.

An oddly fulfilling role. Satisfying, I think, because I can do something for each of them, help them. Not my role to cure them, fix them. Though stressed, I remain calm, unworried about tomorrow. Today has plenty, no need to push into the future.

Aging, Cinema and Television, Dogs, Family, Feelings, Friends, GeekWorld, Health, Our Land and Home, Shadow Mountain, Third Phase, Weather +Climate

Zoombies

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Lughnasa and the Labor Day Moon

Monday gratefuls: Rigel’s appetite. Kep’s centeredness. Our home. Kate feeling better last night. Chicken and blueberries and asparagus and beets. Our front, cleaner, more natural after the stump grinding. The night sky, visible now at 5 a.m. 36 degrees this morning.

Cold here overnight. Down to 36. Refreshing, invigorating. Up early, 4:30 a.m. with enough sleep. I go to bed early, around 8 p.m. The night Sky. Don’t see it much when I get up later, around 5:30 or 6:00 a.m. though that’s changing as the Great Wheel turns toward the vernal equinox.

Kate had a hard day yesterday with shortness of breath and not feeling well. I moved a TV into the bedroom. She can watch NCIS and Blue Bloods while resting. She feels better lying down. Our agreement is that the TV goes off when I come to bed. This is a change from her last year and a half when she read through books in a day or two, filling shelves of books she had read.

Rigel’s appetite, boosted by the prednisone she’s on for fever control, is good. She’s gradually returning to her old habits, a couple of cups of dry food with some wet food mixed in. Since her time in the hospital, she’s eaten a lot of canned food. It all has to be single protein, rabbit. That makes it expensive, three to four dollars a can. And she’s a big dog.

Zoombies. Don’t know why I haven’t seen this word yet, but it’s my neologism now. This is the zoombie apocalypse, characterized by so many seen but not felt. I don’t find that zoom eats my brain, but I do know it can cause a deadening if done too much. Many working at home have overloaded.

Yesterday the old zoombies met for what Paul calls our church. The topic was staying healthy as we age. A table with four legs: diet & exercise, relationships, sleep, and regular medical care. Couldn’t remember medical care as the fourth leg so I added curiosity. That works, too. So, five legs.

What we’re trying to do is lengthen healthspan, that period of life where you can do what you want to do with minimal interference from frailty or disease. As we age, so many of us experience dire insults that don’t kill us, but do render us weaker, less able to engage in our lives as we used to know them.

Ideas from the zoombie session: exercise bands, going to the club, cleanses of various sorts, walking, physical labor, interval training, workouts from a trainer, staying in touch with loved ones, with friends, with dogs.

I mentioned curiosity because it acknowledges mystery, wonder, and an openness to the future without trying to control it.

Here’s to your health, your loved ones health. May you live long and prosper.

Aging, Coronavirus, Family, Health, Shadow Mountain, Third Phase, Weather +Climate

Dealing With A Rough Patch

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Summer and the Lughnasa Moon

Tuesday gratefuls: Almost reorganized living room. Kate’s hands. Dreams. Rains. Cool. The life we live. Nyquil. Pollen. Tramadol. THC. End of the staycation tomorrow. Perry Mason on HBO. Wet earth. Petichor. The tragedies and joys of our days.

Dreams. Trying to find third gear in a GTO going up a snowy hill. A new phone, different design, metal plate beside the screen. Meeting folks in a coffee shop. Choppy memories.

Kate’s going through a rough (rougher) patch. Breathing more difficult. Feeling weak. Not eating much. Scares me. Good thing we see the doc tomorrow. Hard to know how to be. Honest? This scares me. Me, too, she says. Or, should I try to remain upbeat, better tomorrow, some new drug?

Not wanting to send her down, but not wanting to be dishonest either. I find it hard since my default is to go with the clearest, most real. Not sure what helps her. Me.

It’s been a cool week plus here, nice sleeping. That’s helped both of us. On the other hand the cooler, cloudier weather also dampens the inner weather.

Derek works hard, moving logs first on a dolly, then with his jeep over to his house and his wood pile.

Good seeing Mary and Mark this morning. Things are still in between for them both. He’s awaiting the late August, early September startup of his school in Riyadh. She’s waiting for Malaysia’s borders to open so she can go there into 14 days of quarantine. After she’ll be with Guru until the next academic year in Kobe, Japan. Retired. Sorta.

Aging, Family, Feelings, Health, Third Phase, Writing

Living

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Summer and the Lughnasa Moon

Friday gratefuls: The Norsemen, a funny sendup of the Vikings. (which I also liked.) Derek’s continuing to cut up and cart away our felled trees. Children of Time, a sci fi book about terraforming, genetic manipulation, and the end of earth’s history. Spiders and ants and humans, oh my. Peter Praski who fixed our fan and our lights. Alan’s commitment to the political process. Sally’s thaw. The Mussar crowd.

Still on vacation. Enjoying my focus on domestic chores like putting up smoke detectors (10-year batteries. Thanks, Tom.), laundry, getting the fan fixed, the stumps ground down, windows washed, and gutters cleaned. Cooked a bit, not up to my pre-Seoah standards. Out of practice. Will improve.

Pleased with the healing of the angry skin around Kate’s stoma site. Gradually. Gradually. Next up we have to knock down the nausea that ruins her days. Not sure how to do that, but we’re gonna focus on it. Help her have more strings of better days. So dispiriting when she has to leave the breakfast table to lie down.

Still feeling that limbo Kate talked about. In between. Not at a threshold, not in a liminal space, though I’ll appreciate that when it comes.

Getting things cleaned up and reorganized has been good. Feels good. My mind has fewer anchors like, oh, when will I get around to that? That being those books and papers on the bookshelf in the living room. That being getting the final trees down for fire mitigation. That being the gutters that need cleaning. That being the disorganized state of the loft.

As I pull up the anchors, I can feel the engine beginning to rumble below decks. No idea of the destination when I can finally slip away.

A friend recently talked about all the volunteer work he’s been doing since retirement seven years ago. Do I still need to feel productive, he asked? Maybe there’s something deeper going on here?

Has made me think about our American obsession with work. A Calvinist slant to our hearts. If we work, we’re good. If we don’t work, we’re lazy. Or, bad. Makes retirement a conundrum. Work is over with. Let’s get to it, then. Get to what?

Work. In my imagination a post-neolithic revolution idea. Tend the field. Care for the animals. Fix the house. Govern the village. I’m sure the hunter-gatherers had their obsessions, too, but I don’t think it was work. In the third phase we try to leave work behind us only to reinstate it covertly. Or sometimes vertly.

My suspicion is that we all need something that gratifies us, satisfies us, gives us a chance to be who we are. I cast off the mantle of work for those things and name them living.