• Category Archives Health
  • Coronavirus

  • Baby Plants, Nuclear Energy, and Influenza A(H1N1)

    Posted on by Charles 1 Comment

    Spring                  Waxing Flower Moon

    All my baby plants have moved from the nursery into big plant pots.  Now we have to wait until May 15, the average last frost date here, and all these babies can go outside into the garden.

    The Minnesota House refused to repeal the moratorium on the construction of new nuclear plants citing waste storage and transportation as primary issues.

    Kate’s off to the frontlines of the Swine flu (or, as it will be called from now on:   influenza A(H1N1) pandemic.  This has put some new energy into her practice as she approaches retirement, a real crisis which requires her medical skills.

    If the pandemic moves to level 6, there will be a division between sick clinics and well clinics.  Doctors in the sick clinics will have to wear hazmat like protective gear when treating patients who have risk factors for the disease.


    Family Health Politics 📎and tagged

  • Kate’s Ready

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Spring            Waxing Flower Moon

    Rain.  We had a red alert, a fire danger warning over the weekend, but now we’re soggy.  Soggy is better.

    Kate came home with information from the Minnesota Department of Health on how to handle potential swine flu patients.  We’ve had no cases here yet, but the protocols for patients with high indices of suspicion are very clear.  It’s impressive.  The level of detail has been planned some time ago and gets implemented in a reasoned way in response to evidence, not panic.

    Kate has a sense of eagerness about it all.  She likes the edgier aspects of medicine:  arrests, lacerations, dealing with a possible pandemic.  I’m glad it’s her doing it and not me.  I’d be edgy myself rather than professional.


    Health Weather +Climate

  • Two Colorful People Together

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Spring                  Full Seed Moon

    Yes, we need no appraisal, we need no appraisal today.  Our bank, Wells Fargo, decided we do not need an appraisal to refinance our loan.  Something about our loan balance, equity and that it would be a roll-over instead of a brand new loan.  OK.  That means we can refinance sometime next week.  A good thing.

    The last week and a half, since the root canal, has had dealing with the infected jaw, then one organ after another taking up my mornings.  All important to my long term health, but it has left me tired and with a sense of little accomplished.

    This need to accomplish, to achieve continues as a backdrop.  Kate says when she retires she’s ready to rest on her laurels, sit back and reflect on her life.  “We can just be two colorful people together,” she said.  I’m not sure I can give up the hope of something over the horizon, a realization, a book, a political action a defining event for this stage of my life.  If not, I may find the last two decades or so of life a struggle. Or, I suppose, they might be very productive.

    Drifting right now.  The melancholy at bay, but not too far away, ready to bring a tear or a heaviness to my now.  Feels empty.


    Aging Faith and Spirituality Family Health 📎and tagged

  • Aurals

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Spring           Full Seed Moon

    The audiologist works in a 17th floor suite in the Medical Arts Building.  Downtown Minneapolis spreads out toward the west and the smaller buildings look faraway.  Todd has very white teeth, a bright blue and white striped shirt, black  pants and shoes.  There is no one else in this oddly empty space.

    After clucking a bit about my deaf ear and gathering some pertinent information, Todd took back to a small room within a room.  It has acoustical tile on the walls and ceiling, a small window through which I can see Todd and a chair for me.  Todd puts a red earphone on my right ear and a taupe earphone on my right ear with a careful, practiced movement.

    “Click this if you hear a sound,” he says, handing me a small plastic device with a button.  Then he closes the thick door.  Oops.  A bit of claustrophobia.  I close my eyes.

    Warbling sounds, the aural equivalent of sine curves ping out of the headset.  Then, spaces of time when I wonder if he’s not sending me anything or if I’ve lost whole chunks of hearing. Ah.  A sound.  Another.   Now a sonar like ping.  Then a washing noise with the warbling sounds fainter under it.  In giving myself over to the test I’ve forgotten my claustrophobia.

    That was my right ear.  He then puts a static noise, like cellophane crumpling over and over, in my right ear so it won’t help out and give a false reading.  In my left ear, nothing.  Then, mild pain that I feel, but do not hear.  One or two low warbling sounds, faint and far away, but heard in my right ear in spite of the static.

    “Let’s look at the results.”

    As I thought, I’ve lost hearing in the high ranges in my good ear.  The sibilants are harder to distinguish in challenging environments, s, f, th.  Yes, I’ve noticed that.  In my left ear, “You have no functional hearing.”  Oddly, this pleases me.  I guess it confirms my reality, again.

    There are options for me, but not really bang on good ones, at least not at the level of difficult I have now.  Maybe later.


    Health 📎and tagged

  • Feelin’ Glum

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Spring              Full Seed Moon

    Today was the second organ day in a row.  Yesterday, eyes.  Today, skin.  Tomorrow, ears.  Doing fine on all counts so far.  Even so, I find visits to the doctor a bit stressful.  The waiting room.  The waiting for the doctor.  Their evaluation/assessment.  I have a good relationship with all of my doctors and intend to keep it that way.  Bill Schmidt and I had lunch today and I told him I view doctors as health consultants.  I’m responsible for my health, but they help me stay healthy and intervene if something gets out of whack.

    After seeing Dr. Pakzad I came home and had a sit down with Kate.  I’ve been feeling glum, an unusual state for this time of year and unusual in intensity for me over the last couple of years.  It’s a little difficult to sort things out.  In part the Sierra Club work may be more of a challenge than I anticipated.  In part I found myself counting up all the little insults that make me realize my age, no, not really my age, but my sense of competence.  Do I have it anymore?  A tough question to answer from the inside and one always colored by mood.

    Kate thinks that may be the wrong question.  I’ve prodded her several times over the last year about retirement and whether she’s ready for it.  She turned the question around on me, “I wonder you’re ready for retirement?  To let go of the need to have to have it?”

    Hmmm.  Projection isn’t just a machine in a movie theater.  She may well be right.  Pondering this pushed me to wonder about the last regression I had where I got credentialed for the UU ministry.  I did that during a time when I was down about the writing.  But, John Desteian said, in a regression, you always go back to pick up something left behind, or unresolved.  Stuff to bounce around.  Enough for a coup contrecoup injury.

    Good lunch with Bill Schmidt.  We covered a lot of ground from genetic modification of seeds and nuclear energy to motorcycles and dealing with difficult personalities.  I came away still opposed to nuclear energy, but willing to hear arguments about how to handle the waste.


    Friends Great Work Health Woolly Mammoths 📎and tagged

  • Stars In My Eyes

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Spring                 Full Seed Moon

    I have stars in my eyes.  Literally.  The opthamologist dilated them and I forgot to ask for the reversal drops.  I see little extra rays of light if I look at something bright.

    My suspicious nerve has not changed, looks good.  Yeah.

    Kate and I plan to try a new Vietnamese restaurant for lunch.  Sounds fun to me.  I always like dates with Kate.

    The Dow continues to hop around, uncertain of this or that.  Investor psychology is the whole deal on Wall Street in spite of the fancy numbers and elaborate formulas, even those generated by theoretical physicists.  The  gyrations and chaos of the market make it more appealing to me than it would be otherwise.  I like its tendency to defy expectations.

    If something as straightforward, relatively speaking, as the market confounds us, why do we expect life to come in a easy to understand form?  We have many more transmutations than the market.


    Health

  • They’ll Need a Resurrection. But, They Won’t Get One.

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Spring         Waxing Seed Moon

    For the first time since last Thursday, I feel like working out.  When I tried before, each step on the treadmill transmitted up to and resonated in my jaw.  I no longer look like a chipmunk although I can tell the infection is still there, though now it is like a folded section of cloth about 8 inches long as opposed to the walnuts in the cheek look of before.

    The pain has throttled way back, too.  I hadn’t popped any Alleve today at all until about a half an hour ago, but I decided that before I went back on the treadmill I wanted a little cushion.

    All this is because we went after the infection in the first place so this was the hard part of getting to a healthier state.  I look forward to that moment, though I’ve appreciated the intimacy with my bodies defenses that I’ve had over the last four days.   When my body and the penicillin worked hard on the infected bone, it took my attention away from the outer world.  I got sleepy and in fact slept a lot.  My energy level was low so I laid around, not exerting myself much.  It’s good to know my bodies still enough punch to fight back hard.  Even if it means some discomfort.

    My thinking has been a little fuzzy too so if there’s anything strange in the last few posts chalk up to distraction by infection.

    The legislature will go away on Easter break and will come back needing a resurrection.  They won’t get one.  The budget deficit will not go away and all the federal stimulus dollars don’t patch the holes in our revenue stream versus our expenses.  Something has to be done and the legislature and the governor are the ones we elected to do it.

    The outlook for significant environmental legislation has gotten mushed up in all this fiscal dithering, but I think we’ll still see some important bills:  green jobs, sensible communities, maybe something on clean cars and atv’s.  It ain’t over till its over and that date is in May, not April.


    Great Work Health Politics 📎and tagged

  • Grandma Told Me So

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Spring            Waxing Seed Moon

    Kate is home.  As is our habit, I met her at the Loon Cafe after she took the LRT into downtown.  To park I went in a ramp, promptly scored the first parking spot, which allowed me later to just pull around a concrete pylon, turn left and give my money to the cashier.  Very cool.

    The other amazing part was the rat in the maze experience.  Getting out of the ramp I exited onto a skyway, walked until I found Butler Square, went into Butler Square, wound through a few hallways, found the entrance, exited, then turned left and went one block to the Loon Cafe.  The truly amazing part was that after Kate and I had supper I reversed field and followed the path back to the truck without a misstep.

    I’m glad to have her back.  This tooth business has been a hassle and I wanted to complain to somebody about it, but she wasn’t here and who else would listen?  I complained for about a minute over supper and that was enough.

    Ruth is a prodigy, capable of astounding feats of linguistic and muscular agility.  I know this because Grandma told me so.

    Gabe is the cutest, friendliest baby ever.  I know this because Grandma told me so.

    Grandma loves being a grandma.  ditto.


    Aging Family Health 📎and tagged

  • Under the Lights

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Spring            Waning Moon of Winds

    The United States themselves are essentially the greatest poem. – Walt Whitman

    Business meeting and plants this morning.  The business meeting went just fine, our financial management continues to work for us and not against us.  Wish I could say the same for the financial markets.  Sigh.  Decided to check.  Wish granted: Dow Leaps 497 Points on Treasury Plan.  Yeah.

    My seedlings, grown over the last couple of weeks, sprouted roots which is the time to move them to their next medium, in this case soil in peat and coconut fiber pots with the exception of four chard and one mustard green that I put in lava rock and in the hydroponics.  The broccoli, egg plants, onions, leeks, mustard and collard greens, cauliflower and huckelberry now have soil around their sprouting medium.  They are all under the lights still.   Moving to larger size containers strained my space, though with some jiggering I got them all in new places and still under the lights.

    Some of them have to move out soon to make way for the seedlings that need to get started on April 1st and April 15th.  Just when they were getting comfortable.  Hmmm.  I may have problems here.  Seems onions started by seed should not go outside until May.  This will definitely cramp the April batch of plants.


    Garden Great Work Health Hydroponics permaculture 📎and tagged