Monthly Archives: January 2023

Family, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Friends, Health, Judaism, Mussar

Salvage. Catastrophic.

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Winter and the Wolf Moon

Friday gratefuls: The Assistance Fund. Bridgette. Urology Associates. Bond and Devick. Rich. Muddy Buck. Cancer. Bureaucracy. Government and private. Kep the unsteady. Jon, a memory and a hurdle. David, his father. Shirley, his step-mother. Jen. Friends. The staff of life. Coming home to the Mountains. Curvy roads. Snow. Lodgpepole and Aspens. Black Mountain. Climbing Shadow Mountain on Shadow Mountain Drive. The pregnant Mule Deer Doe that crossed my path on the way to Evergreen this morning.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: the pregnant Mule Deer Doe, life in its wonder

 

Well. Somewhat better news. Still. So. I pay the full copays this month, around $3,000. That tips me over into catastrophic drug coverage. My portion goes to 5% or about $850 a month. Right now that’s the best deal I can get.

However. The Assistance Fund might pick me up again sometime during the year. If they do, they’ll backdate my account and repay me for all my expenses. Fingers crossed on this one. I’m on a long wait phone line right now to discover how my situation looks.

This is the problem with charity and philanthropy. Haven’t been on this end of it before. If things change or the funder decides on different priorities, no appeal, and as in this instance no notice. Just gone. We can’t count on the wealthiest among us to share our values or recognize our needs. That’s what government is for.

Erleada and Orgovyx. Salvage therapy. This charming term refers to all therapies given after the hope of a cure falls away. After the prostatectomy and the radiation failed to cure me, I landed in salvage land. In order to get my salvage therapy cost down I have to get into catastrophic coverage in my insurance plan.

Had to get an urgent cash infusion to cover the first month’s copay. Paying that should do the trick to put me in a drug cost catastrophe. If my position on the waitlist ends up getting funded, I’ll be made whole. No promises. No way of knowing. Just pay and wait.

Due to this problem I got kicked off McKesson Pharmaceutical’s account list. Result: Doc has to represcribe. Which means probably Monday at the earliest. Then a shipment has to get here. Good thing Urology Associates fronted me some samples. I should be able to cover the gap between the time all of this gets processed and a new shipment comes to my door.

 

Had a great breakfast with Rich this morning. He’s teaching a new course on applied philosophy and the Constitution at the School of Mines. Here’s a link to his syllabus. A smart guy. Obv. Also my lawyer. Estate planning and Jon’s probate.

We click intellectually and decided to meet more often. Maybe every two weeks.

Breakfast at the Muddy Buck in the tourist part of Evergreen. On our way out Rich greeted a guy he told me was a movie star from Evergreen. A former Seal who had a role in the movie Act of Valor. It might have been his story. I forget right now. A mammoth guy with lots of tattoos. and a Yeti t-shirt on.

 

Feelings, Health, Mussar

What? Anger.

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Winter and the Wolf Moon

Thursday gratefuls: The Ancient Brothers. Cancer. Co-pays. High anxiety. Workouts. Kep the unsteady. Oh, man. Fear. Box breathing. Numbness. Rock. Deer Creek Canyon. Its consolation. Kate’s holy Valley. Kate’s creek. Need her today. Big Pharma. Big problems. Shadow Mountain. The Hermitage. Herme. Jon, a memory. Ruth. Gabe, the Legomaniac. Northfield High.

Sparks of joy and awe: The Sun

Correction: Ruth’s school has allowed her to make up her work in the two classes I mentioned. Glad for that.

 

Big news today. Yikes! Just got off the phone with McKesson pharmacy. Source of Orgovyx and Erleada, my two prostate cancer drugs. The Assistance fund has exhausted its money for prostate cancer. Oh? Your co-pays are now $800 a month for the Orgovyx and $2,000 a month for the Erleada. What?! The. Hell.

Had a shipment supposed to arrive today. I have two Orgovyx left. A bit more Erleada. Maybe a week. McKesson has faxed my doc forms for me to be added to the pharmaceutical company’s assistance plan. In this instance then the company will dispense my drugs.

This causes me some anxiety. Managing it with box breathing. By calling my doc. By writing this. Still. Stunned. Unsure. Uncertain what will come.

So many cancer patients have the same trouble. Fighting a terminal disease and insurance and big pharma. There is something wrong with this at a root level. Can you help me? Yes. But it’s gonna cost you. What if I can’t pay? Well. Buh bye then.

Not surprised. Not really. That this has happened right now. Today. Yes. But that there would come a kink in the system. No. A sad commentary on the state of medicine in our wealthy, wealthy country. Wonder if Bezos or Musk could shoot me a check?

This will occupy my day until it’s sorted. If it can be.

 

Anger. MVP last night. Some thought anger comes from fear. We agreed it rises up. I admit I don’t understand emotions. How and why they come. But they sure do. My anxiety above has an obvious trigger. Glad I’ve spent a lot of time on how to cope with anxiety. Anger though?

Before I went to sleep I came up with this idea. Anger comes when something or someone assaults my values. Then. Thinking as an anthropologist. What adaptive advantage does anger hold? Might be like joking behavior. Who and what you laugh at can identify the cultures or subcultures to which you belong. If you’re a Swede, you might make Norwegian or Finnish jokes. If you’re a Northerner. Jokes about Southerners. Southerners. About Yankees. So on.

It could be the same with anger. Those things which make you angry can identify the culture or subculture to which you belong. If seeing the Confederate flag flown from a pickup truck bed makes you boil? Probably a liberal Northerner. Obama in the Whitehouse. Probably a white supremacist. If you believe your spouse has belittled you and you get angry? The underlying value is self-worth. A challenge to it.

If you took a community and recorded every instance of anger for a week, I think you could identify the various solidarity groups in the community with ease. Shared values = shared anger. And anger means those values have been belittled or scorned.

A passing thought.

Anoka County, Family, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Friends, Hermitage, Memories, Minnesota, Mountains, Shadow Mountain

Good memories

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Winter and the Wolf Moon

Monday gratefuls: The Good Life. Helen and Scott Nearing. Kate and mine’s version. Garden catalogues. The Bees. Their Superorganism. The Squirrel that used to steal our Honeycrisp Apples. Gertie standing on my electric fence. Those first Shoots in the Spring. Grape anemones. Daffodils. Crocus. The eagerness to get out there. Plant something. Reluctantly waiting for May 15, the last frost. The Woods in Winter. That Opossum that visited me one Winter Solstice.

Sparks of joy and awe: Horticulture

 

Happy and fulfilling memories. The Andover years. Kate and I working as a team in the Vegetable Garden. I handled the Orchard, the Bees, and the Flower beds, but the ongoing work of the growing season in the Garden. A mutual task. Harvesting Honey. Also mutual.

Kate earning money allowed me to work in the Gardens and in the Woods during the day. If I had worked full-time, we couldn’t have had as much. With writing I could take a break and plant. Cut wood. Tend to the Bees. We both felt the division of labor worked well.

We did have a housecleaner. Cooking and shopping were also my responsibilities. It was a good life. And a level of physical effort we did not want to continue after we both got older. Moving to Colorado came at the right time in our lives. Out here we had the grandkids, CBE, the Mountains. Travel. Also a good life, one suited better to our energy.

As I said in the Ancient Brothers yesterday, even the years of Kate’s decline were good years. Sure there was anguish, pain, frustration, anxiety. But we had three solid years of working closely together again to keep her healthy and alive. In her last year I would apply lotion to her arms and legs because they would get very dry. A lot of touching. Not the rosy glow of forgotten difficulty, rather the difficulty was the point. The connection. As our many hours in the garden had been all those years ago.

 

The same with these years after her death. Two in April. The adjustments, the adaptations. The work on the house. They have been the necessary domestic duties that kept me grounded. As did caring for Rigel and Kep as they cared for me.

Even the cancer. Not fighting it. Learning to live with it. With the now much reduced stamina occasioned by androgen deprivation therapy. Going slower. Doing things in slower increments. Resting more. Also a good life.

Yes, I may recognize the benefits later. Sometimes in the moment. But, I do find them. More and more the realizations of the good life I’m living come to me daily. As a result, I’m calmer, more accepting.

Blessed be.

 

Dogs, Family, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Friends, Garden, Great Wheel, Great Work, Health, Hermitage, Judaism, Memories, Minnesota, Mountains, Mussar, Plants, Politics, Shadow Mountain, The Move, Writing

Dutiful

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Winter and the Wolf Moon

Sunday gratefuls: Breakfast with Jen, Ruth, Gabe, Barb. Driving back up the hill. F1. The MIA. The Walker. The docent program. My many years there with good friends and art. Acting class. Creativity class. Origins of North America. Finding the volume of a Mountain. Korean. Pruning moving forward. Interior painting, early February. Probate. Still moving. slow. ly. The Good Life. Scott and Helen Nearing. Eudaimonia. Kristen Gonzalez. Psoriasis. Mark and the USPS. Mary in Kobe. Ancient Brothers.

Sparks of joy and awe: Eudaimonia

 

Human flourishing. Eudaimonia. Satisfaction. More important than happiness. Duty is just another word for cultural norms received and accepted. Obligations. On the other hand. Imposed. Why do we do what we do?

Assessing the life that is neither heroic nor mediocre. Since that’s where most of us end up. No need to measure ourselves against the ends of the bell curve. No need to measure ourselves. But can we be at peace with a life without comparisons?

As for me, I choose eudaimonia. Flourishing. Satisfaction. And, yes. Duty plays a role. Family. Sacrifice. Friends too. Being there. Wherever love is, there is duty. To be honest. Sincere. Kind. Helpful. To support the best for the other. Right down to the end. And by implication to support the best for yourself. Also, duty. The unexamined life is not worth living. Yes. A duty to yourself to know thyself. And to thy own known Self be true.

 

What’s interesting for me right now is how much a sense of duty has played in my life. Oh, no! The original oppositional defiant guy admitting to a sense of duty. I who even rebel against my superego. You can’t make me!!! Yes, duty.

A minor yet significant example. As a convinced feminist of the Betty Friedan/Simone de Beauvoir second wave. At the age of 26. In seminary. Went to the Rice Street Clinic late on a Winter afternoon. A scalpel I felt on the first cut slashed my vas deferens on both sides. Shutting down sperm from my testicles. Being responsible for my own contraception.

Another. One I’ve mentioned before. Fits here. No. I don’t want a Johns-Manville full scholarship to college. Managing people in a large corporation is not me. Will never be me. High school.

Once convinced of Vietnam’s sturdiness as a nation, one that had held back China for over 3,000 years. No. I will not fight, nor support that war.

After reading a convincing study about the future job prospects for Ph.D.’s. No to graduate school.

Family. Staying in the fire with Jon. Ruth. Gabe. Kate in later life. Mark. Yet also. Cut your hair or leave! Leaving.

These may not at first reading seem like duty. But they are. A duty to myself, to my own understanding of how to be present in the world.

When I realized Ruth and Gabe needed us in Colorado. Broaching the idea of a move. Kate on board. Following through.

Those two and a half acres in Andover. Leaving them better than when we bought them. How? Working it out with Kate over the years. Together. Staying the course with the full cycle of responsibilities throughout the year. Each year.

And, dogs. Living into their lives. With them from puppyhood to death. Oh. Sweet duty. Painful duty. Life realized in full.

Aging, Dogs, Family, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Friends, Health, Hermitage, Shadow Mountain

Like a book end

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Winter and the Wolf Moon

Wednesday gratefuls: Earth trivia. Perihelion today.* Also, happy birthday Isaac Newton! Who discovered calculus and wrote the Principia Mathematica. An alchemist, too. Kristen Gonzalez. My favorite doctor ever. Aside, of course, from Kate. Evergreen, my Mountain town. Low T. The Valley between Shadow Mountain and Hwy. 73. Mule Deer. Fog on Black Mountain yesterday. Korean. Rational, real, natural, and imaginary numbers. Geez. DNR. Yes. Approaching 76. Colonoscopies.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: A straight forward doctor, Kristen

 

Annual physical. Kristen. Kind and wise. Thorough. Practical. Do you have an Advance Directive? Yes. If we could put it in your chart. One more place for it. Are you DNR? Well, if I’m fragile and decrepit, yes. Like I am now? No. This is only for if you die. If we bring you back, we break ribs and you end up in the ICU on a ventilator. After that you are fragile and decrepit. This is not what I wanted you’ll be thinking. I advised my own parents the same way. Ah. I see. Well. DNR then. Straight, this Kristen.

Colonoscopy. When I had one last? Before I moved here. Well. You’re at the cutoff. Your choice. Can I think about it? Of course.

She referred me to a vascular specialist for my left foot which seems to have problematic blood flow.

Nothing new. But the conversation about death and the colonoscopy. If we think you’re going to live a long time, we’d stretch that to 85. The colonoscopy recommendation. Oh. Later. Huh. That means.

A new, more realistic sense of my life span. Though not changed in length. Just the inner awareness. I’m guessing now somewhere between 85 and 90. Which was Dad’s. He died at 89. Trick now is maintaining health span as long as possible. Which I’m doing by managing my prostate cancer, exercising, eating a healthier diet, staying calm, remaining in close contact with friends and family, having a dog. Most you can do. Which is enough. Need an emergency contact. Maybe Rich?

Interesting feeling. Like a book end. Yes, a date out there somewhere. Ten, fifteen years from now. Buh, bye. At first. Huh? A time sort of certain? That seems, oh I don’t know. So sudden? Yeah. So sudden it’s taken me 75 years to get to this point. Ha. Will welcome death when it comes. Until then, I welcome life and all its wonders. Including you, dear reader.

 

Will see Ruth on Saturday. Breakfast at Jen’s. The whole remaining gang. Jen, Ruth, Gabe, Barb. Barb is Jen’s mother. Talked to Ruth for only a moment but her voice was strong. Excited to be back  home. To start school. I’m excited to see her.

 

Kep has gone out and returned on his own since his stuckness the other day. I’m giving him intermittent reinforcement. Treats. When he comes back. That seems to have encouraged him to find his way home before he exhausts himself. Also warmer weather for a while reduced the Snow depth. I want the joy of wandering in the Snow for him.

 

Seeing Marilyn and Irv today for brunch at Aspen Perks. Always a pleasure. Looking forward to the chicken fried steak and eggs.

 

 

For 2023, our closest point to the sun comes this morning for us in North America (16 UTC  on January 4). It’s our annual perihelion, from the Greek roots peri meaning near and helios meaning sun. In early January, we’re about 3% closer to the sun – roughly 3 million miles (5 million km) – than we are during Earth’s aphelion (farthest point) in early July. That’s in contrast to our average distance of about 93 million miles (150 million km). Read about perihelion today.  earthskynews

Dogs, Family, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Friends, Health, Shadow Mountain, Weather +Climate

Ruth comes home

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Winter and the Wolf Moon

Tuesday gratefuls: Memories with Tom and the dogs. 8 years ago. 12 degrees. Dusting of Snow. Rabbit tracks on the driveway. Kep in the Snow. Ruth came home. 15 years of Solstice entries. (lost 3 years somehow) Lodgepoles with Hoarfrost. Aspen Branches coated, too. Fog. Kristen Gonzalez. My PCP. That Kringle. Eggs. Apples. Peanut butter. Yogurt. Blueberries. Blackberries. Raspberries. Sourdough bread. Ramen. Mother Earth’s bounty. Made into us, to me. Oatmeal.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Ruth at home

 

Got a call about 4:30 pm yesterday. Jen. Ruthie’s coming home. We had a family therapy session (on Zoom) that went well. Half an hour later they called. I said I couldn’t go get her. I have work tomorrow. They insisted. Also, I wanted to invite you to dinner some night. Would you like to come? Yes. Of course.

We’ll see how things go. Part of the logic in sending her home was the chaotic nature of the Cedar Springs Hospital unit she was on. Back to a calmer, more stable environment. Made me wonder though about the therapeutic nature of such a place. Though. Ruth says she got what she needed. And more. May it be so.

She will go back to school starting tomorrow. Holiday break is over and she’ll start her second semester as a junior at Northfield High. A Denver STEM school. Unlike her she failed two classes last semester. One in which a teacher refused to let her make up work in the weeks after Jon’s death and during her hospitalization. Jerk. Another in which she didn’t turn in assignments. Doesn’t seem right to me.

She and Gabe both had a very tough fall semester. Jon’s death. The transition to living full time at one parent’s place. Ruthie’s own struggles with mental health before she left for Cedar Springs. Yet another example of the Cartesian split. If the body is sick, say Ruth had had cancer, the school would have accommodated her. But when the mind is sick, what do we do?

 

The Hoarfrost on the Lodgepoles make them look like sage elders, gray bearded and wise. Ephemera. It will not survive the warming Sun. The Aspen Branches look arthritic, curled up and accented by the Rime. I can see the dawn Light striking a few Trees. Gray white branches, red Lodgepole Bark, and the glow of the Sun. A beautiful moment on Shadow Mountain.

 

Kep. The fourteen inches of Snow has created trouble for him. He goes out, often breaking trail the whole time because he can not see where he’s been. His back legs tire out. So he sits. When he’s not exhausted, he finds his way back. Not sure  how, but he does.

Exhaustion makes him frustrated and he sits, then strikes off in a new direction. Maybe toward the house. Maybe away from it.

Yesterday I had to go out and attempt to lead him back. I say attempt because he’s an Akita. And has chosen those moments to become very stubborn. Glad I had those forty years in Minnesota. The cold was not an issue. It took a while but between spurts with a leash on. He pulled it off. Then my hand on his collar. He found the house and walked along it to the back door. His back legs quivered when he got inside.

He did recover quickly however. I may have to put him on a lead when I let him out. I don’t want to because he loves the Snow and wandering around in it. Still…

 

 

Asia, Family, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Friends, Hermitage, Holidays, Korea, Mathematics

Connected

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Winter and the Wolf Moon

Monday gratefuls: A day into the New Year. Talking to Ruth. Who comes home Friday. Bit of Snow. So far. Limits, differentiation, integration. Functions. Two youtube calculus lessons. Back to Korean. Another thousand word plus day. Content rich Ancientrails archives. Annual physical tomorrow. Flagged off Robin until April. Prepping the house for interior painting. Car insurance. Bill for my PET scan. The Ancient Brothers. Mark’s interview. Mary’s introduction to me of the god Toshigamisama, a Shinto deity. the God of the New Year-he brings good luck.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Toshigamisama, may he bring you good luck

 

Talked to Ruth last night. Said Happy New Year. Asked her if she had gotten what she needed at Cedar Springs. More than what I needed. I’m coming home Friday. That was big news. Maybe a week earlier than anticipated. I plan to take the two of them for regular Saturday morning breakfasts every two weeks. Hope we can get back to some of the normal things like the Planetarium in Boulder. The Zoo. Science Museum. Might start taking Ruth to Dazzle Jazz. Gabe to the Rockies.

Gabe texted me with the rules to a card game called tycoon. All the rules. It was a long text. He wants to teach it to me when he comes up next. I look forward to it. As I wrote before, my relationship with both Gabe and Ruth has deepened since Jon’s death. Grateful for that. Feels like it will continue.

As we discussed on the Ancient Brothers Sunday morning, relationships are a key to good health. Especially in old age. Zoom has opened more venues for retaining friendships. As somebody said, I think Paul, 2D is great. Though 3d is better. When possible.

With my buddy Alan set to move to downtown Denver I told him how important our breakfasts were to me. Why’s everybody so worried about our moving to Denver? We go down the hill four times a week. This just reverses the trip. We might have to meet in Morrison, but we’ll make it work. glad for that.

 

I did restart my Duolingo Korean lessons. I was rusty, but also pleased with what I had retained. The trick with both Korean and calculus is to work at it daily.

I started a youtube series on calculus. Gonna hunt around for a bit to find the best series for me. I felt a little used (recently) portion of my intellect wake up. That strictly logical part. It was fun to try to figure out how the first derivative might work before the lecturer explained it. I wasn’t right but the muscle used in thinking it through? Oh, yeah. I remember that.

Languages. Mathematics. Music. Not my strong suits. Ever. Means I can stretch myself, torque the mental engine into the red zone. Like visiting a foreign country. Seeing how different disciplines solve problems. How working in them helps me see the world from a different perspective. Very much looking forward to the journey in both instances.

And, when I take that trip to Korea late this year, I’ll have some ability to read signs and menus. Speak. Or, at least understand some.

Maybe calculate the area under the flight path? I’m kidding on that one.

Till tomorrow.