Category Archives: Family

Family, Health

Mary’s Work

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Tara suggested I write down what Mary’s been doing as a way to assess what I might need in the future. That’s what this is. It’s also a thank you to Mary for all she’s done.

  1. Here 24/7.
  2. Makes coffee. Heats (if needed) breakfast entree. Makes toast. Plates fruit. On tray. Brings all downstairs. Retrieves trays, returns upstairs.
  3. Similarly for lunch and dinner.
  4. Often lets Shadow in and out.
  5. Gets mail/packages
  6. Walks and exercises with me
  7. Attends medical appointments (not as driver)
  8. Companionship during the day.

Without her I do all this myself. A lot. She’s helped me past a tough time.

Mary. If you think of other things, please tell me.

 

Family, Health, Jefferson County, Politics, Shadow Mountain, Weather +Climate

Through the Looking Glass

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Day three post fall and gash. Wound gets cleaned today. Not sure how I’d do it by myself. Maybe Ginny.

Reverberations. Can I handle myself alone? Just me and my life alert medallion? I think so, but some doubt now. Don’t like that.

Melissa provides a cushion I needed and still need. Mary, too, but she’s leaving late July, going back to winter in Melbourne. Tara and Arjean will be here right after until late August. After that, back to the old ways.

Investigating.

Flash flood. Bear Creek, Evergreen and Kittredge. Wednesday night. There are state installed flash flood warning signs in Kittredge: climb to higher ground. Took out private bridges, sent logs rushing downstream, flooded basements. Hwy. 74 closed overnight.

Like Minnesota the West has weather that can kill you, too. Flash floods. Wildfire.

Texas to require bible reading in public schools. Trump’s inaptly named Religious Liberty Commission plans to work against the separation of Church and State. Vance compares himself to Nixon. Iran and U.S. trade strikes after peace document signed.

We have fallen through the looking glass. Red-pilled and angry.

Family, Great Work, Health, Shadow Mountain

One More Reason to Dance

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The Summer Solstice. Sol Invictus, the all-conquering sun. Put Sweden and the Solstice in your browser to see naked blond people dancing around huge bonfires. The growing season, whose beginning we celebrated at Beltane, has come to its midway point. The energy giving power of the sun available during longer days. Corn in Iowa well beyond knee high even in June.

We need this maximum sun for agricultural crops, flower gardens, trees and grasses. Photosynthesis is Sol loving us as only a nuclear fusion reaction can. Vividly. With all its fullness.

Yet. All these positives granted and celebrated, I find one more cause to dance. The Summer Solstice marks the end of the triumph of the light begun on the longest night, last Winter’s Solstice. From this point forward darkness will grow, the nights will become longer until at the Vernal Equinox, the nights will be longer than the days. This is the beginning of the triumph of darkness. I love those cold, dark nights of Midwinter. I look forward to a blazing fire, snow falling, Black Mountain turning white.

Mary has a mission. Using her librarian’s fundamental need to impose order, she’s going through each room, sector, and cabinet rearranging, culling, making sure each item has a place. Expiration dates runout? Toss. Smell rancid. Trash it. She’s filled bag after bag, all headed to the landfill in Park County, This work energizes her, makes her smile.

I’m going through anoter of trial related imaging this week and next. Feeling stronger, stamina an issue. Better than before!

Family, Health

Ouch

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Oh what a day! About ten-thirty I began to feel a familiar pain my groin. This was after Mary and I completed our first round of leg exercise. The pain got worse, I laid down. Yup, my hernia making sure I didn’t forget it.

Waited an hour. Still hurt. Called triage nurse at my clinic. “Sit tight. I’ll call the doctors. You might have to go to the emergency room, then have urgent surgery.” Oh, boy. How I wanted to spend Thursday.

No surgery. Go to Evergreen. Randy Sklar will see you. OK. Decided to drive myself. First time behind the wheel in two months. I remembered. Another bit of confidence restored.

Randy had lost a lot of weight. You’ve lost weight, Randy. So have you! Yep, I have.

Drove back home up Brook Forest/Black Mountain. With all the walking, I was tuckered out but happy.  Glad I didn’t need surgery.

Mary has become my companion. So nice. Family, yes!

 

Family, Health, Politics, US History

MMA

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Low 40’s last night. I slept well. Sunny and cool this am when BJ, who came last night, set out to look at 6 more houses.

Mary has had an allergy flare-up. No fun. A cough, too.

I’m feeling incrementally better. I’m told I look better which makes me wonder how I looked before. PSA still high. Guess the petscan two weeks from now will tell the tale.

Still very weak, but a bit of improvement from more moving around.

On June 14th, 1777 the second Continental Congress passed a resolution defining a national flag. The design has lasted.

I can’t even. I mean, come on. Where’s Jackie and her rose garden? Or, Lady Bird Johnson beautifying America? In their place: boorish thuggery. MMA=Miss My America.

Family, Health

Infused

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A very odd day. Although I’ve had cancer a long time, until yesterday I’d never been in an infusion center. Chemotherapy comes last in prostate cancer protocols.

Yesterday I stepped into a large room filled with large, lounging type chairs. Chairs had an i.v. pole next to them if a patient occupied it. Glass windows showed a blue sunny Colorado sky. A few folks sat next to the occupied chairs, holding a hand, knitting.

“I’m Melissa and I’ll be your nurse today.” Melissa was young, blonde, with an air of experience. “Pick any open chair you like.”

I chose a chair against the far wall. Isolated. Melissa inserted a butterfly i.v. in my left arm and connected me to a bag of saline solution preloaded with four aliquots of potassium. One aliquot requires an hour to deliver, drip by drip. Four aliquots, four hours. At 11:40 am the dripping began. It would not end until just past 4 pm.

Most of the chemo and other infusion patients stayed no longer than forty-five minutes, some far shorter than that. The infusion room filled and emptied several times over my four hours. Potassium has to be given slowly or it can affect your heart. Potassium chloride has a spot in many lethal injections. It stops the heart.

As the minutes and hours dripped away, I witnessed the treatment of so many cancer patients. Each patient embedded in a family, in a friendship network, their journey affecting others. The infusion signifies one step in the struggle to overcome, outwit an inner assassin.

When the saline bag finally emptied and my electronic controller gave its finished bleat, I raised my arm, “Winner, winner, chick dinner.” Happy to have finished the four hours and twenty minutes

Melissa unhooked me and wished Mary and me well. A sweet lady.

Family, Health, Politics, Shadow Mountain, Sport

A bullet proof terrarium

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Mary and I watched an episode of Grace on Britbox. Stars John Sims, a favorite of hers from the mind-twisting, post-modern Life on Mars.

She made a list of cleaning supplies. I ordered them and Melissa will pick them up. Not sure what she means to clean since she’s done nothing else for the last few days. But, go Mary.

 

So the Toad Prince glared out of his bullet-proof terrarium as the Spurs extended the finals by beating the Knicks in the Garden. Didn’t protect him from the boos.

 

Meanwhile on Shadow Mountain I grow a bit stronger each day. First working session of PT today. Looking forward to gradually regaining some strength. OT on Thursday.

Ruth’s coming up today. Her surgery is tomorrow. It will shorten her too long ulna which has caused her a lot of pain. This past weekend she returned from her week long stint as a camp counselor in Wasilla, Alaska. A camp for hemophiliacs.

Shadow loves the sunny, low-70s days. Lounging. Barking at intruders. Coming in only to go back out.

 

 

Dogs, Family, Health, Politics, Shadow Mountain

Abe wept

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Looks as though winter has given way to summer, transiting from low 40’s night time to high 50’s. Spring sprang, retreated, and never returned. The vagaries of climate-change inflected mountain weather.

Mary continues her clean sweep (literally) of all my cabinets. Madam librarian brings order out of kitchen chaos. I have not yet seen her work. Soon.

Meanwhile my muster dog goes out and in, in and out. She’s a sweet presence in my life, affectionate and mostly calm.

Have now completed the length of my driveway and back. Ready for my appointment. I’ll walk in. Walk to the phlebotomist and to Christina’s office. Oh, yeah!

The angle of my recovery has increased a bit, gains coming faster. A virtuous circle of eat more, do more, eat more. May it continue.

In my day (ha) Gillette sponsored fight night. Now its POTUS. With ceremonial weigh-ins at the Lincoln Memorial. Jesus and Abe wept.

Family, Fourth Phase, Health, Shadow Mountain

Mattering

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A visit from my rabbi.

A month ago, not sure if I would ever feel better, I asked Jamie to come see me. At the time I’d had thoughts of dropping out of the trial, going into hospice. Tired of all of it. Feeling sick. Life on the line with unproven drugs. Too. Much.

By the time we synched our calendars a month had passed. A month in which I hired a housekeeper, started getting better nutrition, sleep. I was no longer feeling from a mood of weariness.

I wondered now about my purpose in these last years of my life? Jamie told me of some material he’d been reading about mattering. I found it intriguing. Here’s a quick Gemini summary:

  • Significance (or Importance): Feeling seen, essential, and having the small things about you remembered by others.
  • Appreciation (or Recognition): Being valued strictly for who you are, rather than exclusively for what you achieve.
  • Investment (or Ego Extension): Knowing that others are genuinely invested in your well-being and that you are mutually invested in theirs.
  • Dependence (or Reliance): Having people in this world who safely trust and rely on you, without overextending you.
  • Attunement: The feeling that you are worthy of being understood and responded to meaningfully by your community. [1, 2, 3]

I like this because it wraps the question of purpose-self extended outward-in a broad context which includes family, community, and the inner experience of being human. And, in particular for me right now, it shows that purpose can be showing others that they matter.

Not, imh, strikingly new or revolutionary, yet a full advance over achievement and accumulation as life’s purpose. Also, it does not denigrate those, rather it sets them in what seems to me their appropriate context.

I’m focused now on mattering, especially the ways I can help you, reader, know that you matter.

On a health note I have walked unaided almost the full length of my driveway and back. Mary is my wingwoman in case I falter.

Mary has been a kind and helpful presence since she got here. Setting herself things to do like eliminating expired food, cleaning the fridge, and all my kitchen cabinets. Most of all she has come, showed up as my friend Paul likes to say. Family at its best. She matters to me.

Family, Fourth Phase, Health, Politics

The Toad Prince

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Mary. Cleaning. Culling. Making breakfast, a snack basket.  Helping with Shadow. Helping me with workouts. Kind. Good to have family here. Links to the past and the future.

She expressed surprise when I told her mom wanted me to read only Tarzan comic books. “But mom was so open minded.” Not when I was seven, eight.

While we’re approaching the Summer Solstice, Melbourne is well into fall. Headed toward the Winter Solstice. Down under.

Liz, occupational therapist, came yesterday. Bubbly, easy to talk to. Both she and Carol, p.t., had to do assessments. Then submit those to United health, see how many sessions they will allow. Work with both of them starts next week.

With Mary alongside I’m walking unaided on the driveway. A little further each day. Feels good. Challenging. Small workouts start today. Legs.

I can feel the progress, slow though it may be.

 

Meanwhile the Toad Prince dreams of a Trump promenade. Talks of leaving the UFC platform on the Whitehouse lawn. Like the French did with the Eiffel Tower. What a strange man.