• Tag Archives illness

  • Strummed

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Summer                                            Waning Strawberry Moon

    I have a pediatric illness:  an ear infection.  Well, of course, if I have it at 63, it’s not technically a pediatric illness, but my in-house pediatrician recognized it with her very own otoscope. I have a lot more empathy for her young crying patients now.  The damn thing hurts.  And right in your ear!

    It’s in my left ear, which is deaf already, so it can’t do any damage to my hearing.  But wow.  When the pressure strums the nerve, it gets your complete attention.

    I’d felt off for the last couple of days and the ear ache presented itself this morning, just as the bee guy came and the electrician who restored power to the honey house and the playhouse for Ruth and Gabe.  Kate’s really good with managing pain and illness.  I’m not.  I’m more like a dog; I want to crawl into a kennel and sleep until its over.  Fortunately, it began to drain this afternoon which relieves the pressure.  No strumming after that.  At least for now.

    I forgot to mention that Dave Schroeder also said, “You’re not a beekeeper until  you’ve been stung.”  I’m a beekeeper several times over!

    This afternoon and evening passed in a haze with pain and narcotics.


    📂This entry was posted in Bees Health 📎and tagged

  • A Happy Story about the Big C

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    78  bar falls 29.59  1mph W  dew-point 55  Beltane, cloudy and warm

                   Waxing Crescent of the Flower Moon

    Grocery shopping.  Lunch and feed the dogs, then off to Minneapolis to Abbott-Northwestern Hospital.  When I got into the Piper Building, the information desk had no one there.  Up to the second floor.  They directed me to the east elevators and floor 3.  Lonnie was in 3556.

    A closed door.  I asked the nurse to go check. Stefan was in there.  Lonnie had had a rough night and was still anxious from the meds she had on board.  But.  If the path from frozen sections on Wednesday confirm the initial findings during surgery, she will not need chemo or radiation.  That means a clean excision.  No penetration of the uterine wall.  Therefore no cancer floating in the body at large.

    Stefan and I talked for awhile.  About waiting.  Waiting for an appointment with an oncologist.  Waiting for surgery and the prep for surgery.  Waiting for the results of the surgery.  Now, a much easier form of waiting.  Waiting until Lonnie improves enough to go home.

    A happy story about the big C.  Not the one’s I recall from the paper.  Diagnosed last week, dead this week.  One to remember.

    Taylor came by while Stefan and I talked.  He had made jello for Lonnie, but it took longer than he thought to jell.  He was on his way to a recording studio.  He’s laid down 50 hip-hop songs, “kept 30 of them.”  He has serious folks interested in his work. His ambition is impressive and his willingness to lay it out there suggests to me that he will succeed. 

    He had on a big billed hat with gold and logos, a hooded sweat shirt done in an almost 50’s preppy sock diagonal plaid.  His pants, the low hanging denim variety have purple stitching on the rolled up cuffs and gold threaded designs on extra large back pockets.   Trippy.

    Back home for  a snack and now a workout before Kate comes home from work.


    📂This entry was posted in Woolly Mammoths 📎and tagged

  • The Most Ancient Trail of All

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    54  bar falls 30.06  1mph NE  dew-point 51  Beltane, cloudy and drizzly

                       Last Quarter of the Hare Moon

    A change has begun to creep over the Woolly Mammoths.  It is at least late fall for us.  One of us had an episode of Bell’s Palsy over the weekend.  He first thought, as I would have, stroke.  The effects lingered into this week. 

    Late last night came news of a Woolly spouse.  Cancer of the utereus.  Adenocarcinoma.  A hopeful prognosis if tests next week find it in an early stage.  Even so.   

    Frank’s heart attack before he came to the Woolly’s and his bypass surgery after have kept medical issues in front of us, yes, but these are new.  Fresh.  Signals that we have begun to age.  The fact is that such matters are no longer unusual in our period of life.  While still not common, they will begin to pop with increasing incidence until, one by one, this herd of Woolly Mammoths and their spouses follow those of the Ice Age on that most ancient trail of all.

    On a cloudy, cool day with a light rain falling this news could be depressing, but I find it just so.  These matters are as key to our developmental age as were graduations in our 20’s and weddings in our late 20’s and early 30’s.  Like those earlier rites of passage, the action is not in the event itself, but in our reaction to it over time. (to paraphrase Saul Alinsky)

    I spent an hour and half outside today, planting and transplanting.  Cloudy, cool, drizzly.  Perfect for that work.  Blue fescue, Maiden Grass, cucumbers, watermelon, squash and morning glories will each enjoy the rain on their first day in their new locations.  The daylily transplant project was part of this and continues, in dribs and drabs, as it will until we finish it, probably some time in July. 

    We go out to see RJ Devick, our financial planner/money manager, today.  These situations become more and more pertinent as Kate nears retirment age and I  enter that time when eligibility for both pension and social security are upon me.  Considering these matters thoughtfully are also part of our development period.  We are at the cusp of a major change in our lives.


    📂This entry was posted in Friends Garden Weather +Climate Woolly Mammoths 📎and tagged