• Category Archives Aging

  • Springtime of the Soul

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Fall and the RBG Moon

    Wednesday gratefuls: Thoracentesis. Valet who got our car from a distant garage. The imaging employee who found an unused machine for Kate’s catscan. Phase two of the three stage plan done. Remembering to take out the blue foam. Clear vision. Michaelmas yesterday. Cool morning.

    Michaelmas. The Saint’s Day of the Archangel Michael, he of Lucifer ejecting mythic fame. God’s great warrior. Also the name of the first term in British colleges and universities.

    But best of all, the springtime of the soul. Rudolf Steiner. The growing season has finished. The external world had its glorious moment at the Fall Equinox, the celebration of the harvest. The body will be fed.

    We turn our attention inward after Michaelmas. The nights grow longer, the angle of the sun shortens, and the days grow cold. Courage and sadness. A touch of melancholy encouraged.

    When we drove down the hill yesterday, golden leaved Aspens had burst out among the Lodgepole Pine green. Framed by a typical clear blue Colorado sky the beauty made me gasp.

    The beauty, the chill in the air. We know its brevity, like the beauty of the young. Those Aspen speak from the sides of Black Mountain, Conifer Mountain, Shadow Mountain. We are done now. Good bye. See you on the flip side. Their golden glamor a farewell to summer.

    We know it. Many falls. The outrageous, over the top color of a Midwestern fall. The remnant of the Big Forest, the one that stretched from the east Coast to the Plains. Before the modern era a squirrel could travel tree to tree from the Atlantic to the Great Plains without ever touching the ground. So much melancholy in those colors, the abstract landscapes of a vivisectioned ecosystem.

    Piles of Leaves in the yard, on the Forest floor. Running, jumping, landing in the piles. Dogs racing into them, through them. Do you remember, as I do, burning Leaves in the street? An acrid smell combining with earthy wetness. A strong seasonal memory.

    One day soon Winds driven by the Cold slumping down from the Arctic will strip them all, Maple, Oak, Ironwood, Elm, Ash, Locust, Hickory, Sycamore, dislodge their Leaves and the tree naked against the coming winter. The Aspen gold rush will disappear and only the ghostly gray-white of their Trunks and Branches will remain.

    A woman I learned ritual craft from thought this denuding of the deciduous Trees might explain Samain and the Celtic belief that the veil thinned between this world and the next during the transition.

    Kate’s sister Sarah married Jeremiah Miller. A painter. Before I met her, Kate bought two of his very large paintings. One hangs in our bedroom. In it the Sky is a gunmetal blue and its complement of cumulus Clouds show as reflections in a Pond. Both Sky and Pond show through a Forest of bare Trunks and Branches, a before Winter comes scene we see all year.

    This turn of the Great Wheel follows the gradual waning of the Light until the longest Night, the Winter Solstice. What better time for introspection, for the Soul to rise?

    May this season of the Soul’s Springtime give you what you need for the next months and years of your journey, your ancientrail.


    Aging Dreams Family Feelings Garden Great Wheel Health Jefferson County Mountains Myth and Story Original Relation Our Land and Home Plants Reimagine. Reconstruct. Reenchant. Shadow Mountain The West Third Phase US History Weather +Climate

  • Paying the Price

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Fall and the RBG Moon

    Monday gratefuls: Groveland. The Ancient Ones. The ancientrails of wondering and friendship. The Darkness. The Stars, now steady. Kate’s stoma site. Getting clear and healthy. Kate. Just Kate, always Kate. Exposure. Fear. 28 degrees this a.m. The Gold in them thar Hills: Aspen. Magwa, the hero Rat. The clan.

    So what happens to me. I over prepare. I go deep but the subject has only so much time. I’m disappointed. Did I give them anything? Did I intervene too little? Was I defensive? Will they want me back? Especially yesterday with It’s Beyond Me.

    Zoom of course. Perhaps my choice of style, a discussion rather than a straight presentation. The inherent ambiguity of the topic. Felt off when it finished.

    Also, I need this. I need to try something new. Learn something new. Be in this zoom moment as an actor, not only a passive observer.

    Watched Social Dilemma on Netflix. The second of three documentary recommendations from the ancient ones. Again, not much new. Still, disturbing. I’m writing this in Firefox, using duckduckgo as my search engine. I practice good hygiene on Facebook and still love the old friends and Irish Wolfhounds. I heard the young, bright manipulators, but did not hear the path forward. Unless it’s regulation. Which is a duh unless you hate regulation as evil government intervention. I’m for it.

    As I changed Kate’s bandage yesterday, we talked. I’m wondering how we can lift ourselves out of, or away from, this medicalization? I mean, I don’t want to see you as a patient all the time, but with all these appointments and treatments, it’s hard. Our life is not that. Yet, it is.

    Right then, Rabbi Jamie called, wondering how Kate was? She mentioned this thought I’d just had. He listened. He had some time before Yom Kippur and wanted to connect with some folks. They miss us. We’ve been absent even from zoom mussar for over a month.

    Covid. Makes all this hard. Kate can’t go to Patchworkers or Needleworkers. We don’t go to mussar at CBE. Or, services. Or the occasional program. It will soon be Sukkot and the booth is up, but we’re not there to participate. Yes, this is life now. Yes, it has its price.

    God, this is cheery.


    Aging Coronavirus Family Feelings Friends GeekWorld Health Jefferson County Judaism Minnesota Mussar Myth and Story Reimagine. Reconstruct. Reenchant. Shadow Mountain Third Phase

  • Apres

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Fall and the RBG Moon

    Saturday gratefuls: Kate. Our ancientrail of man and woman together. Dr. Gustave and his wife, the artist Lindsay Smith Gustave. The cataract, the eye. Its evolution from one-celled life. The hand and the eye together. Art. Seeing and making. UFO’s in Ode’s mind. The threat to our democracy. Our opportunity to act.

    In the car to see Dr. Gustave. One day after. Bright light. Eye still dilated. Colors more intense, more clarity. Less sfumato. In closing the dominant left eye, the one with the new lens replacing its cataract, I can return to the sfumato that the cataract created. Damned if I don’t prefer it in some ways. Aesthetically it’s pleasing to me, the gentle blending of colors, their slight smokiness, which I couldn’t identify before. Guess I’ll have to high these eyes to a gallery of Renaissance painting after the second one’s done.

    You had an extra large cataract. Yes! So I take out a cataract shaped like a walnut and I slip in a lens shaped like a plate. When the two sides of the eye close over the plate, there can sometimes be a fold. If you get a straight line in your vision at night, that’s the fold. No matter. If it’s still there, we’ll just laser it out.

    This morning, here in the loft, as I look at my banks of track lighting, they have a lance of light through them at about a sixty degree angle. It does not impair my vision. We’ll see.

    My distance vision is already 20/25 and will get to 20/20 in time. I could watch TV without glasses last night. This computer screen is far less fuzzy than it was on Wednesday.

    At the lower left of my left eye, I have a sensation of light. Not a big deal. If it hung around though…

    No resistance work for a month. Can do aerobics. No heavy lifting. (see the resistance work) Not sure what I’m gonna do with the Chewy order when it comes.

    Watched a live, real time video of cataract surgery last night. Takes about 8 minutes or so. Involves slicing the mature organelle into quarters, then vacuuming them up with a teeny vacuum. The lens slips in through a tiny incision, unfolds, then gets straightened out, flattened. The edges of the eye right there are polished to prevent problems later.

    All this time a retractor has the eyeball served up like an over easy egg. John, the nurse anesthetist, told me not to fight the retractor. I didn’t. Didn’t even know it was there.

    Surprisingly tired both Thursday and yesterday.

    Around 4:15 p.m. Kate and I drove into Swedish hospital. She had to get a drive up Covid test before her catscan on Tuesday and the draining of the fluid on her lungs the next day. Really hope this gives her some relief, She needs it. Meanwhile the stoma site has begun to heal. Almost normal looking.


    Aging Family Health Science Third Phase

  • Aarggh.

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Fall and the RBG Moon

    Friday gratefuls: Alan. The Tesla experience. The kind folks at Cherry Hills Surgery center. The Latina who placed my IV and gave me enough eye drops I thought I was being waterboarded in a minimalist way. Savannah, my nurse, who kept giving me warm blankets. John, the nurse anesthetist. And Dr. Gustave, eye surgeon. My dominant eye, now pirated. Kate, for her encouragement and support. Tom and Paul for notes yesterday. Cheri Rubin (Alan’s wife), too.

    I was back home by noon after going down the hill with Alan in his computer on wheels, as Tom calls the Tesla. At a recent cosmetic visit to repair dings Tesla replaced, at no charge, the car’s whole motherboard and added software updates. One of them added the ability to read signs and, I think, included reading speed limits. Very, very cool.

    At the surgery center I filled out the usual absurd number of forms which got added, I assume, to the absurd number of forms I had already filled out. I got more forms on the way out. How many trees died for my eye surgery?

    Pre-op was a series of bays separated by curtains on a snaking metal fixture attached to the ceiling. One interesting feature. I got to keep my clothes on! I guess the head is far enough away from the rest of the body.

    My legs went on a triangular pillow and my head rested on what looked a hell of a lot like a mortuary head rest. Similar to Chinese pillows. Savannah gave me drops. Then the Latina, whose name I did not get, came and gave me more drops. and inserted a needle into my left hand.

    I felt bad for her. When I asked her to repeat something because I was deaf in that ear (left, the side she was on), she said, “Oh. that’s o.k. I’m Hispanic and people say I talk really loud. So that’s sort of normal for me.”

    “I know a lot of loud Caucasians.” I wanted to tell her not to denigrate herself, not for me, not for anybody, but I didn’t. She was quick, efficient and cheerful. Good at her job.

    Savannah, my nurse, would have been at home in Minnesota with her blonde curly hair and blue eyes. She had an unusual amount of eyeliner, emphasized by the mask. Are you in pain? Not yet.

    More eye drops. And, then, a much longer than 20 minute wait. Staring at the ceiling, considering all the eyedrops, where did they go? What would I do when I get home? No, be here. Do deep breathing. In through the nose, out through the mouth. Reverse that. In through the nose, out through the nose. Variations.

    Thoughts of aging, maturing cataracts, the disturbing article about the upcoming election I finished in the waiting room. Cataract surgery as a metaphor. Wait, they’re cutting into my EYE?

    Dr. Gustave came. What are we doing? Why doesn’t he know? Taking a cataract out and putting in a lens. I agree. Which eye? Geez. That, too. The left. I agree. Are we going for the distance correction or the reading correction? Distance. I agree. He was agreeable.

    John picked up the ball by asking questions I’d already answered twice. Any drug allergies? No. Bad reaction to anesthesia? No. Anesthesiologist questions. He wanted to anesthesia in the sun. Which seemed unlikely to me.

    In the operating room a name I know from astronomy loomed above on a robotic arm. Zeiss. That makes three robots who have been critical parts of my health care: the DaVinci, the preying bird of radiation, and now this Zeiss. It looked far more delicate than the other two though bulky, or blocky.

    After that John hooked up the versid and I leaned into the drug, falling away. Mostly. I could see during the operation. In the eye that was being sliced and diced. I saw three large purple gangly things, topped with white. Felt pressure, some pain part of the time. Not long, maybe twenty minutes.

    Recovery was fast. A Latina, older than the one before, took me by the arm as if we were about to walk down the aisle, and led me to the car.

    Alan asked if I spoke pirate now?

    A clear plastic shield covers my left eye. I still see circles and haloes around lights, but I can tell already that the vision is clearer, more distinct. Much more on an eye to eye comparison. And, yes, the white’s are much whiter.

    A bit achy since I had to sleep on my side or back and I’m a stomach sleeper. Other than that, ok. I go see Dr. Gustave today at eleven. Driving there is the test of the eye, I suppose.

    Anyhow. Done for now. No lifting heavy objects. Might mean I can’t exercise for a month. Arrggh, matey, not what we wanted.


    Aging Health Science Third Phase

  • I Can See Clearly Now

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Fall and the RBG Moon

    Thursday gratefuls: Alan. Dr. Gustave. Kate. Angelique. Rigel. Kep. The night sky. A decent night’s sleep. Cool. The Denver Post. Life. In all its forms. Animacy in its unexpected forms. The turning of the Great Wheel. Old friends. The buck in our yard yesterday afternoon.

    A Mule Deer Buck jumped our fence yesterday afternoon to eat Grass. Kep and Rigel were outside, wandering around the back, too. Just us animals here. No barking. No disturbed looks from the Deer. Yeah, we all live up here on Shadow Mountain. Our place.

    Alan’s coming by at 7:30 to take me to the Cherry Hills Surgery center near Swedish Hospital. Old cataract out, new lens in. Dr. Gustave at the robotic controls. With Kate’s multiple medical procedures, appointments, conditions this surgery seems ho-hum. I’m neither excited nor fearful. Gonna go do it. Come home.

    Go back on October 8th. Repeat. Tomorrow I have an appointment with Dr. Gustave. Post-op. Another on October 2nd. Then, post op the 9th. And follow up on the 14th. Then, a month after that. Lots of miles for a better way to see the world. Way worth it.

    Used gift cards to buy more easy entrees for Kate. More meatloaf. Mongolian beef. A salad. Easier for me, what Kate wants to eat. Perfect match.

    Tomorrow at 5 pm we go to Swedish for a drive thru Covid test. This is for Kate prior to her catscan on Tuesday and the thoracentesis on Wednesday. Hope all this provides her some relief from her extreme shortness of breath.

    Continuing the medical theme. Kep sees a doggy dermatologist next Thursday. The last two times we’ve had him defurminated he’s broken out with serious hot spots, lesions on his back. We need to figure this out so we can have him groomed. Otherwise his hair piles up around the house.

    Speaking of Dogs. Brenton White, the kind man in Loveland who is caring for Murdoch, had a small tragedy. Seventeen days ago he brought home Mocha, a very cute chocolate lab puppy. Murdoch loved him. They played together. Then, two nights ago, he died. Heart. Likely a congenital anomaly Kate believes.

    The Atlantic Monthly sent out an article by e-mail yesterday. Said it couldn’t wait for publication. I haven’t finished it yet, but it’s about November 3rd and the potential democratic crisis. The Election That Could Break America.


    Aging Commentary on the news Cooking Dogs Family Friends Health Mountains Politics Shadow Mountain Third Phase

  • Courage and Sadness

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Mabon (Vernal Equinox) and the RBG Moon

    Tuesday gratefuls: Kate resolving the missing $5,500.Rigel eager to get up this morning. Orion in the south. Mars in the west. Venus in the east. Sirius in the southeast. Small bursts of color. The Great Wheel, turning.

    The vernal equinox. When the night hours increase. Daylight shortens. Crops come to fruit. The Earth begins to gather back to itself the plants that grew in fields and meadows.

    The Elk rut. That strange strangled cry of the bugling bull Elk. The cough of the mountain lion as they hunt in the dawn and twilight. Bears in their hyperphagia phase (a new word for me), 20,000 calories a day. Preparation for hibernation. Upturned trash cans, detritus on the roads.

    Orion returns to the night sky. Getting the paper while feeding the dogs. In the dark now. Seeing the stars. Or, rather, their cataract driven explosions of light.

    Earth/Sky, a favorite website, has a fascinating short article about the Chinese sense of autumn. This observation I found significant: “…it’s part of Chinese culture to maintain and add to ancient wisdom. In contrast, we in the Western world tend to replace old ideas with new ideas. So – although our Western way of thinking encourages advances in things like technology and economics – the Chinese understanding of natural cycles remains far deeper than ours.”

    The emotions associated with autumn for the Chinese, courage and sadness, rise in full measure this 2020 harvest season. Sad. The feeling of Leaves falling, Grasses withering, light diminishing, the Sun’s angle shortening. RBG’s tzaddik death. The pandemic. Our beleaguered and chaotic nation. Isolation and its discontents. Courage. Facing the election, doing what’s necessary. Mourning, then fighting. Going on as the Vegetative world dies, changes. Living with the pandemic instead of in spite of it. Leaning into the third phase for those of us old hippies and radicals still here.

    The Great Wheel is ancient Western knowledge. I have chosen to maintain it and, I hope, add to it. As the Earth/Sky article notes: “To the Chinese, nature means more than just the cycling of the seasons. Nature is within and around us…” It used to meant that in the West, too, but our emphasis on reason, on results, on arriving at destinations, on a monotheistic creator who controls nature, have become mature cataracts for us, occluding our vision.

    We see what we believe useful. We find the laws of nature, then proceed to own them, use them. This gives us the impression that, like magic or miracles, we can control nature. The rapid warming of our planet gives the lie to that.

    I’m neither a Luddite nor anti-reason, anti-science. I am sad about what we’ve lost in our rush to understand and after having understood, manipulate.

    I find comfort in knowing as autumn comes to the Rockies, it has also come to me. My life has matured, has headed for the fallow season, the long season in which I return those borrowed elements, become again one with the universe. Though of course I’m one with it now, too.

    Which makes me feel the turning of the wheel, it tugs on me, pulls me toward not only death, but also spring. The cyclical renewal. Who knows? Maybe autumn prepares us not for annihilation, but transformation and renewal. It does for Mother Earth. Why not us?


    Aging Asia Beyond the Boundaries Commentary on Religion Great Wheel Holidays Humanities Mountains Myth and Story Original Relation Plants Reimagine. Reconstruct. Reenchant. Shadow Mountain Third Phase Weather +Climate

  • Getting to 5781

    Posted on by Charles Comment

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

  • Marriage is stronger

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    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 Dogs Family Health Politics Third Phase

  • Beyond the Twilight Zone

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    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 Denver Dogs Family Health Jefferson County Shadow Mountain Third Phase

  • Ooff

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    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 Jefferson County Shadow Mountain Third Phase