Category Archives: Health

family, Health

Thoughts You Don’t Want To Think

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[Dateline: 8 July 2021, 8 a.m.]

This post will go live tomorrow, at 7:30 a.m. I write it now and schedule it because I will be quite busy at that time. Actually, I will be in a hospital waiting room at that time as Lynda will be undergoing a heart ablation. We have to be at the hospital, about a 45 minute drive, at 5:30 a.m. We haven’t had such an early wake-up and departure in a long time, our recent trip to Chicago excepted.

Lynda’s heart first went into a-fib in the fall of 2019. She began seeing a cardiologist at that time. They scheduled some kind of procedure (maybe a heart inversion), but when she got to the hospital her heart was in normal rhythm, so they canceled it. Since then they’ve been watching it, having Lynda take her blood pressure and being careful with her activity. Her heartbeat has sometimes dropped to 45. When she was in the hospital in April 2020 for her appendix, she went into a-fib and they had to treat it.

Fortunately, she has great awareness of when she goes into a-fib. It happened on the drive home from Chicago on Monday, but lasted only a short time. With a new medication, she hasn’t had those really slow heart rate.

The “ablation”—and I don’t know how I got that name—seems to me to be an odd procedure. The put electrodes through the groin up a vein and zap the vessels adjacent to the heart (arteries or veins, I’m not sure which) with electricity. The goal is to cause scar tissue to build up on the vessels, and supposedly the scar tissue will prevent the heart from going into a-fib. How that will prevent a-fib is a mystery to me. And who first thought of it to begin with?

It is also possible that they will decide instead (or maybe both) to install a pacemaker in her. That decision will be made during the procedure. They say this will be a 3 or 4 hour procedure.

I’ll be in the waiting area. Since Arkansas is now having a surge in covid cases, mainly the delta variation, I don’t know where exactly I will be. Plus this is a new hospital for us to go to. I don’t know if they will let me be in the room where they prep her, then with her in recovery after, or if I’ll be kept out away from her. While this is a procedure which might result in her going home the same day, it’s also possible she will be kept overnight or even two days. Given her general weakness right now, I suspect they will keep her at least one night.

They say this procedure, the ablation, works 95% of the time. I think that’s what they told us. Such odds don’t sound to good to me. Which got me to thinking thoughts I don’t really want to think. You know what I mean. What if it doesn’t solve the a-fib problem? What if her body isn’t strong enough to come through the procedure? What if——. Thoughts you don’t want to think. Fortunately, I have access to God through prayer, and an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ. While I’ll have reading material with me tomorrow, I suspect I’ll be praying more than reading.

If you read this shortly after it’s posted, please say a prayer for Lynda, as she will be in the midst of the procedure. If you read this later in the day on Friday, say a prayer, as she will be in recovery. If you read it anytime later, say a prayer for success of the procedure and her return to something closer to a normal life, being able to be active again.

Health, miscellaneous, reading, Writing

A Mixture of Things

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I’m now down to about 125 of Mom’s old books left, from around the 800 I started with. That doesn’t include the 100 or so that I’m keeping and are on display in the house.

This week has been just that: a mixture of things, getting done, adding to the to do list, and either worrying over or brushing aside.

First and foremost was completing our income taxes for 2020. The deadline was changed this year from April 15 to May 17, and since I knew I was going to have to pay (based on my early estimates) I embraced the new deadline and delayed my personal tax work. I did our trading partnership taxes and got them in by March 15, the deadline for partnership filing. I completed them Tuesday, let them sit overnight, found an error Wednesday, re-printed them, let them sit overnight, proofed them Thursday morning and declared them good, signed them, wrote a check, got them in an envelope, and walked them to the P.O. Done for another year.

No, not quite done. Every year, when I finish the taxes, I say I’m going to prepare my spreadsheets for the following tax season. Obviously, the Federal and State forms might change next year, which would necessitate a change in my spreadsheets, but I can’t anticipate those changes. I can at least create the 2021 Taxes folder and save this year’s spreadsheets into it, change all the date, zero-out the manual entries,  and have them ready. Also, I have my “Estimated taxes” tab to help me know if I have to send in any payments during the year. I got that prepared and entries made through yesterday. Also, I created my 2021 writing business spreadsheet, overhauled it somewhat to remove some clunkiness, and made all entries year to date. So, I feel pretty good about this.

This photo didn’t come out as well as I hoped. The left side of the street is lined with blackberry bushes awash with while blooms. I’ll be doing a lot of picking in late June and July.

Speaking of writing business issues, I sold four books yesterday. I buyer was coming to get some of my older books that I have listed for sale on Facebook Marketplace—23 of them to be precise. I took the occasion to message her that I was an author, gave her the link to my author page at Amazon, and she said she would get some. Some turned out to be four. That gives me eight sales for the month. And, yes, these are some of the things I entered in my 2021 writing business spreadsheet.

A local writing group I’m a member of, Bella Vista Village Lake Writers and Poets, met in person Wednesday for the first time since February 2020. It was a planning meeting, outdoors at a Starbucks. Only five of us met, but it was good to do so.

Work continues on my writing projects. I get a little done on the church anniversary book almost every day. Same thing with the Bible study I’m working on. This week I’ve had a break-through, of sorts, on how to do one difficult section. The Bible isn’t particularly difficult to understand at this point, but how to present the material a interesting and informative way was a question for me. I figured it out, I think, and will soon move forward with it. Also, my next short story in the Sharon Williams Fonseca series is starting to roll around inside my head. I think, when I get done with the projects I’m currently working on, I’ll be ready to write that.

Other than selling those books, our decluttering/disaccumulation efforts have slowed. Over the last month we’ve finished four small books that are not keepers. Once I get the book reviews done for this blog, off to the sale/giveaway shelves they will go.

After a two week hiatus from walking, I’m back at it. It started with short walks in the evenings with Lynda, just as much as she has strength to do. Tuesday I think we did just under half a mile, Wednesday two-thirds, and yesterday nine-tenths. Also yesterday I did my afternoon walk to the P.O. and, along with some extra trips down side streets, I did a little over two miles on that walk. How great that was. My walking shoes are almost worn out and I’ll soon need to get another pair, but the ones I have are doing alright for now.

My main observation during my walks was the blackberry blooms. The bushes are covered with them, and the number of bushes with blooms is more than ever. On our street, I tend these bushes. It’s not much work. I cut away various woody plants that compete with them for sunshine; I cut vines that grow up and choke the blackberries, and I cut away dead branches from prior years, giving the new branches a chance to grow. It seems to be working, because our street is loaded with bushes. I’ll be making cobblers and muffins and who-knows-what all July and into August, with some to freeze.

Local lore says that you need some cooler temperatures to cause the blackberries to “set” properly. Most Mays we get those cooler temperatures, and the time is called “Blackberry Winter”. Well, last week and this week we had that. We are past the frost-free date, but temperatures dropped into the 40s for the about six of the last ten nights, with the highs getting above 70 only once or twice. This morning it was 46 when I got up. We had this both before the blackberry bushes bloomed and after. This, I hope, will result in a good crop.

And, last among my miscellaneous activities, is reading. I mentioned the small books above that we’ve already read. We started on another one a couple of days ago, a non-scholarly commentary on the book of Daniel. It’s going well so far. I’m also reading in the Annals of America as research for my next Documenting America volume. Also in a very thick book on the history of the Jewish people. I don’t get a lot of pages done each day, but I’m making a little progress. I may pull off this and read the last 50 pages of a book I can get rid in less time. Also, I have volume 3 of The Collected Letters of C.S. Lewis for Kindle, and have been reading that on my phone whenever I have a spare ten minutes with nothing to do. So far I’m a 135 pages in on this 1600 page book. It’s probably the most enjoyable of all that I’m reading.

This post is longer than I expected, but I haven’t time to make it shorter. See you all on Monday.

Health, home improvements, miscellaneous, The Teachings

Getting Things Done – Latest Edition

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Thursday’s work was stump grinding from our front yard. Looks like they did a good job.

More than once I’ve posted about getting things done. I usually keep a to-do list, which I try to work through. From time to time I slack off from the list, but somehow that doesn’t reduce the amount of things needing to get done. I’m a little late with my post this morning because of getting things done. In fact, it’s likely to take me over an hour to write and post this because I still have other things to get done that are on a time schedule.

Today’s work is pressure washing the north wall and some other minor repairs. It’s going well. Just wish they had brought their long ladder.

How far back do I go? For over a year my wife has asked me to have her sewing machine looked at, but pandemic related closings and restrictions caused me to keep putting this off. Plus, the repair shop is 18 miles away, and I don’t generally drive 18 miles for a single purpose trip. But Wednesday of last week I was in Rogers for something else and could divert to the store with very little distance added. I did so and dropped the machine off. When there, they said they needed a bobbin for the machine and there was none in it. Once home I got the bobbin ready to mail. But when I took it to the P.O. I learned it was too thick to be considered a letter and would cost $4 to mail as a small parcel. I knew I would be in Rogers again this week, so I just made the slight diversion again and dropped that at the sewing shop. Now we wait for the repairs. Check off the item on the to-do list.

It’s a little hard to see in this photo, but the area to the right is weeded; to the left is not. I think this work is keeping me young and agile. At least a little more so.

Last Saturday I received a message about someone wanting to buy some of my wife’s paperback romance novels I had listed on Facebook Market place. The problem was she lived too far away to come by and get them, would I ship them and how much would it cost? I replied immediately and transitioned into salesman mode. I told her yes, I would ship them, but had many more available that weren’t mentioned in the Marketplace listing. I’ll shorten this story. We had 203 romances to sell and she wanted them all. I took them to the P.O. on Monday to weight for a shipping estimate, received payment via PayPal on Tuesday, and took the books to the P.O. in the mini-snowstorm the same day. They are now in USPS hands, “winging” their way to her. Check one item off the to-do list.

Also P.O. related, on Monday I mailed a nice group of greeting cards to the daughter of a first cousin. These are cards found in my dad’s house at his death in 1997. He kept all incoming greeting cards, and even had some that went to his father. I’ve slowly gone through them and sent them back to the families from whence they came. I contacted this cousin and she would like the cards from her grandfather, mother, and aunt. Mailed them on Monday; check one item off the to-do list.

On Tuesday, while waiting at the doctor’s office, I finally called our electrical cooperative to ask why they had never come back to grind the stumps left from when they took trees out of my front yard in December 2019 and January 2020. A different crew was supposed to come a few days after the last tree was down, but they never did. I kept finding the card for the vegetation management guy, then losing it, then finding it. The last time I found it I put it where I could pick it up easily, did so as I went out to the doc. The co-op was very apologetic, the man came out that day, and the crew arrived Thursday late-morning to do the work. They were done by 1:30 p.m., and the yard looks good. Check another item off the to-do list.

Everything above in this post I wrote over two hours ago, almost three.  I interrupted first for doing my stock market work, which is busy on Friday. Then the work crew came that is doing some siding maintenance and repair on our metal siding. Spending our stimulus money. Since I was outside lining them out, I did my yardwork, a little more than usual. Now, I’m back in The Dungeon, typing away.

I have two books to work on, but haven’t done much this week other than research, as these other tasks distracted me too much. But, really, there was one big task that was the most distracting: publishing The Teachings. Sunday (or maybe it was Monday; the days are running together) I published the e-book. I haven’t made an announcement as I wanted to get the print book published then start promoting it. But, the cover designer, who did a super job on the e-book cover, is busy with her college work and is a little delayed. That’s no fault on her; sometimes the timing of a project isn’t good.

Not bad as a placeholder. Just waiting on Amazon’s human review. It already passed the automatic review.

I decided I would try to pull it together, using the e-book cover and using G.I.M.P. Readers of this blog know that I hate G.I.M.P. Yesterday morning I decided I would just knuckle down and get it done, and I did. Today I uploaded the interior file and the cover. Amazon accepted them for human review without any problems—meaning I must have figured out the mechanics of using G.I.M.P. for creating print covers—and now I wait. My cover is a placeholder. When the cover designer’s schedule frees-up, I’ll have her do the real one. Meanwhile, the book will be available both as an e-book and print book.

So here it is, 12:17 p.m., and I’m finally coming to the end of this post. Maybe next week will have fewer things on the to-do-list. You think?

Health

These Are The Days of Covid-19

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Surprise, surprise! We’re covid-19 positive. 🙁 Not fun.

In a day or two I’ll draft our Christmas letter. I plan on starting it, “What a year, what a year!”

Yes, it has been a doozy of a year. What with the corona virus pandemic hitting, then Lynda’s appendix bursting putting her into the hospital for 19 days with two major operations at the height of the spring restrictions, then her blacking out and falling in August and an ER visit followed by seeing cardiologists about whether her heart caused her to black out. Yes, what a year.

So what do you do when in isolation because you’re covid-19 positive? Put up some Christmas decorations.

It is now worse, however. On Tuesday, Lynda and I both tested positive for covid-19. What a shock. We had both been a little under the weather with what seemed like common colds. Mine fairly mild, Lynda’s a little deeper. Her cold began Dec 1 (maybe the evening of Nov 30), mine Dec 3. Since our son is planning to visit us from the 12th to the 21st, and since any sickness in these times gets you nervous, we decided to get tested. Expecting this to be a simple, calming precaution, what a shock it was when the medical person said, just 10 minutes after the tests, “Well, you are both positive.”

Or you read in sunroom and watch the Christmas cacti start to bloom.

Obviously we are now isolated until we are no longer contagious. I don’t know how long that will be. As to symptoms, mine are very, very mild. I have no fever, didn’t have a fever. I had sniffles and a slight sore throat resulting in a cough. I also had pressure behind my eyes causing them to be very tired and…weird. In other words, exactly like my many colds over the years. Lynda had the same, but also muscle aches and a severe headache. She ran a temperature of 100-101 for a couple of days.

We were barely home from the tests Tuesday afternoon when our doctor called. She had us each describe our symptoms and how they had changed from onset to present. She didn’t ask anything about where we might have got it. The people at the clinic didn’t ask us that either.

Or, you go through yet another box of old letters: collating them, indexing them, and preparing to transcribe them.

Already, my symptoms are mostly gone and Lynda’s are much reduced. I’m back to normal and Lynda is close to back to normal. Yesterday I walked to the PO (mailing stuff outside) and today almost as far. Together we walked a slow half-mile each of the last two days. Our son ordered a pulse-ox meter for us. It arrived today and we began taking our oxygen level at rest and after six minutes of light exercise, as the doctor asked us to do. So far, so good. We are both at 96% O2 both at rest and after exercise. We’ll watch this closely for a week or so, doing the double readings three times a day, then see where we are.

And, of course, you read in your Advent devotional book every day.

As I understand the disease, the fact that we are both feeling better doesn’t mean we are recovered. Symptoms can come and go. After being better for a while, giving you a false sense of return to health, it can get worse. The worst doesn’t necessarily come when expected.

We are scratching our heads trying to figure out how we got it. Lynda’s symptoms began on Nov 30/Dec 1 and mine not until Dec 3 suggests she got it before me. But I could have been asymptomatic and got it first. Looking 14 days before that, we had a couple of outings but in a safe manner. We were outside in downtown Bentonville on Nov 19, walking around. Lynda went in a restaurant to use the restroom, and into another store out of curiosity, both times wearing a mask. Most people we encountered were wearing masks, even out in the open. I went to church on Nov 22 and made a trip to Wal-Mart on Nov 25. At both places masks are the norm. No one at church was without one, and at WM maybe 5 percent of the customers didn’t wear masks. Contagion not impossible, but maybe improbable.

I’ll give an update once I know anything more. For now, we continue our isolated state, but totally now instead of mostly.

Health, reading

Clarity of Mind

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How to re-engage the brain, short of taking questionable supplements?

I’m running late today with this post. I had time to do it early this morning (thought in fact I slept in a bit, not getting up till 6:45 a.m.), but let other things fill up the time—good things, but they caused the delay. I normally try to have my blog post up by 7:30 a.m.

I think just about everyone who does intellectual or creative activities finds themselves in times when their mind just won’t engage sufficiently to produce anything. I know that true for me. One activity that’s true for is when I read aloud to my wife in the evenings. For about three or four months we’ve read a mix of Agatha Christie novels, Bible studies, devotional books, just about anything. I do most of the reading but Lynda does some. When I read, I can tell right away if my mind is not engaged. I’ll read the words out loud but won’t comprehend what I’m reading. At some point I’ll come to a name or situation that stands out and wonder where it came from, only to go back a few paragraphs and realize I read right through it without comprehending.

Other times, my mind is so clear and so well engaged that reading is easy, comprehension is good, and the only need to go back is if I think the author has made a mistake (the curse of being a writer who reads). Right now, for instance, my mind is quite well engaged. I’ve been looking at another author’s websites and books for sale in preparation of interviewing her for a post here.

It’s not just with reading that I’ve noted the engaged or disengaged mind phenomenon. It happens with writing. Sometimes I pull up my work in progress on the computer and can’t see my way clear to write a word; other times the words just flow out. It’s not writer’s block. It’s not that I can’t think of something to write, it’s that my mind just won’t work. Sometimes it’s tiredness. Sometimes it’s clutter. Sometimes it’s overload resulting in the wheels of thought not being able to turn.

Written during the 2012 election, this book had relevance in 2020. I will soon being reviewing it on this blog, probably in two posts.

Of late I’ve had trouble engaging my mind in two particular books. One is Miracles by C.S. Lewis. The other is Kings and Presidents by Tim and Shawna Gaines [my review now posted]. I’m reading Lewis for pleasure and elucidation. I’ve been reading the Gaines for teaching the book in adult Life Group. I could easily set Lewis aside until my mind felt more lucid, but I had to read K&P because of the teaching schedule. But I struggled with it, mightily struggled. How much of that was the subject matter, how much was mind disengagement I have no idea. I suppose it also could have been the writing style. But for whatever reason, my ability to apply my mind and grasp what the authors were trying to tell me was lacking, even when I read the chapters three times.

Go back now to last Tuesday. We watched television rather than read aloud. We went to bed at the normal time (11 p.m. or a little later). Normally I fall asleep quickly, but not that night. I tossed and turned, not in pain, but in some kind of agitation. And perhaps a brain that wouldn’t stop churning. I got up around 12:45 a.m. My wife was in the same category. She got up and together we went to our reading chairs. I said, “I think I’ll read in the book for Life Group lessons; that will put me to sleep right away.”

Except it didn’t. I opened to the chapter I was to teach five days later and found I was comprehending it! The author’s words popped out at me. The concepts they stated, the solutions they proposes, the problems they solved, all of these stood out. An hour and a half later I had a good comprehension and knew how I would teach the class.

What caused this? Was it something I ate that gave me an engaged mind and excellent comprehension in the middle of the night after having days of a disengaged mind? Was it simply that the impact of getting many tasks done had built up to some milestone in my busyness in life in general that my mind was free to concentrate? I wish I knew.

In the days between Tuesday and Sunday I was able to reread other portions of the book with great comprehension. I was able to read in the evenings without excessive tiredness and lack of engagement. This status lasted for six days in a row. It remains still, now for a seventh day.

As I said before, I wish I knew what the change was. For sure I like myself better this way.

Bible study, expatriate life, family, Health, holidays, The Teachings

The Beginning of a Quiet Week

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Thanksgiving week is usually a busy week for us. People are coming in. Last year was larger than normal, as both of our children were here, with grandchildren, a sister, and a cousin, plus spouses. We had to set up an extra table for dinner. Thanksgiving has always been a busy time, yet a fun time.

This year, the pandemic has canceled all that. It will just be Lynda and me. Our son was here with his partner last week. They quarantined for two weeks in Chicago before coming, as did we here, so we all felt safe doing that. Charles also came for a week in October, and, if plans work out, they will do the same in mid-December. Our daughter’s family has sickness running through it. Not the corona virus, but the strep throat that kids seem to get every year in school and pass on to parents. So they will hunker down in West Texas.

Last week we had an early Thanksgiving dinner with our visitors, not quite traditional but close. We are now eating leftovers and soon I’ll be making soup and figuring out how much turkey I have to freeze, along with other things. For sure we will be eating leftovers on Thursday. So Thanksgiving will be a quiet affair.

That is actually back to normal. Life is quiet for us. Lynda’s health issues would have forced us into quietness even if there hadn’t been a pandemic. The double-whammy means we don’t go out. I still go to Wal-Mart for groceries and meds, but try to shop so as to go every nine or ten days instead of every five or six days as I used to. I still go to church, except when quarantining. We still see our neighbors on occasion. In this rural neighborhood we have more vacant lots than built-on lots, so you have to go out of your way to see you neighbors. Getting out of the house mostly means taking walks, not drives.

This week, as I look ahead on Monday and build my to-do list, looks to be a writing week. My stock trading activities are now quite efficient and don’t take more than an hour a day. I normally stretch that out to two or so. Last night I spent some time on a writing project: adding commentary to the transcribed letters from our Kuwait years. This went fairly quickly. I want to keep commentary to a minimum. At this point I’m halfway through the book with just a few hours work, and could easily finish it this week. I still have editing to do on the letters, then proofread it all and compare it to the original letters, then decide if I’m going to add photos and if so how many. I don’t know that I’m going to make this a continuous task or rather work on it in odd moment as the spirit moves me, such as when multi-tasking before the television.

I might spend a little time fleshing out the next Bible study I want to write. I’ve selected it and, having taught it twice, have a lot of beginning material. But other studies have been nagging at me, suggesting I develop and write them instead. I will have to spend some time deciding.

A letter to an old friend of my wife and me is in the offering, perhaps as early as today. Listing more things on Facebook Marketplace will also be a task quite soon, maybe even today. While I’ve been pleased with how that has gone, I’ve found it is time consuming. I plan on listing my box of JFK assassination magazines that I bought at auction some years ago, as well as our old treadmill and older bicycles. All of that will take some time. As will a few other downsizing activities.

Which brings me to my novel-in-progress. Yes, I want to get back to that. I think I know how to plow ahead with it and not be stymied by the historical elements. Ideas are floating through my mind and I need to get them written before they totally float away. It is a featured task on my to-do list, though I may need to do a few others first.

All of this is possible because of the quiet Thanksgiving. I will miss not seeing my children and grandchildren all together. But I will also feel good knowing they are protecting themselves where they are, perhaps getting some rest rather than going through all the trouble of travel. We will look forward to making Thanksgiving a busy time in 2021.

Documenting America, goals, Health, home improvements, reading, Writing

Weary Once More

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My plans for today’s blog was a book review. But it would be an intense book review, and I don’t know that I have the strength of mine for it at the moment. So I’ll write about weariness.

Published in 2011, I really need to do something with this, update it for later publications and correct some formatting errors.

After having written about the Kuwait years letters in a recent post, I did a little more searching in the storeroom and found a few more items and transcribed them. The collection is now up to 143 items, the computer file running to 152 pages and 89,000 words, maybe 300 of which are commentary I’ve begun to add. I think I’m done with it. I hope I’m done with it. The Saudi years will be some time from now, after I get the Kuwait years into published form.

The last two days have been full, though in some ways I wonder exactly what I accomplished. In the evenings I worked on saving e-mails to Word documents for my letters file. I also collated five notebooks of printed correspondence, a task that’s not quite complete. Wednesday morning I worked outside for an hour. I intended to yesterday, but rain quashed that notion.

Then I’ll get to correct this one in the same way.

I attended a writing group meeting via Facebook live stream and Zoom conference on Wednesday. On Thursday I attended a writing workshop on improving books for getting noticed on Amazon. Much to consider.

A writing task I’ve been planning to do was to correct and republish my original Documenting America book, updating the works by this author section all versions, and correct the running heads and locations for page numbers for the print version. I then will republish it, then do some Amazon ads for it. I originally published this in 2011, and I don’t think I ever updated it.

And, this one will also need some updating.

Alas, I found my computer files in a mess. I had files here, files there, folders inside of folders, duplicates and triplicates. I couldn’t tell for sure which was my latest file. So, while listening to the webinar yesterday, I multi-tasked by creating a good file structure and move files into it from their scattered locations. I found that work mentally exhausting, and I was good for nothing after doing that. Except I did figure out which was the latest print book file and began working on it.

That came after Thursday normal stock trading work, a Wal-Mart grocery and meds run, and getting a roast started for supper, adding the veggies after the webinar. Then it was off to the sunroom and reading in a David Morrell novel. Then to the living room and more work on e-mails. I eventually dished up supper, and store-bought pie for dessert, and went back to e-mails.

Then, I was exhausted. We had The Curse of Oak Island re-runs on, which are easy to tune out and do other things. Then it was read aloud in an Agatha Christie mystery. Now, Friday morning, I’m doing trading, and work on the book revision. Soon we’ll head on a 45 mile drive for some medical tests for Lynda.

And I’m weary. Weary in well-doing. Weary in from doing too much. Getting my book corrected and re-published has to be my top priority. I hope, when we get back from the distant lab, to get back to the print book. I could finish that today and get on to the e-book. I’m hoping some energy will return.

Health, letters, miscellaneous

The Best Laid Plans

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I’m interrupting my planned posting schedule, once again, due to a health concern. This time it’s me, not the wife. Yesterday, after a quick, early-afternoon trip to the pharmacy for some needed meds, a huge wave of tiredness came over me. I was unable to do any writing, nor did I feel like doing my afternoon reading in the sunroom. I sat, caught up on e-mails and Facebook (i.e. wasted time), but had not gumption to do much else. Heated up some supper and dished out some already prepared dessert.

Then, around 7 p.m. or so, I noted “weakness” in my left arm. I don’t know how else to describe it. No pain, just weakness. Since heart attacks and strokes are sometimes first indicated in the arms, I paid attention all evening to how it felt. Took a low-dose aspirin. No change. Didn’t feel like doing our reading aloud.  Went to bed early, around 10:30 p.m.; no change. Prayed. Got up after half an hour to sit in my chair, figuring I’d better stay awake to monitor it. Prayed. Fell asleep at some point.

Woke up around 1:00 a.m. and felt much better. Barely any feeling of weakness in my arm. Went back to bed and slept well. Up around 6:00 a.m. with just a twinge of the same weakness. Decided to go about my business, but not go outside for my early morning yardwork. The extended darkness due to heavy cloud cover, with thunder rumbling from storms to the west, helped convince me to just get my coffee and go to The Dungeon.

So far I’ve transcribed three letters (two were almost duplicates of one from before) from our Kuwait years into the Word file. That’s now up to 92 pages and over 50,000 words. It looks like about 25 more letters to go, though I’m not sure I’ve found all the ones we have.

Meanwhile, the weakness in my arm is almost gone. I’m wondering now if I did something yesterday to slightly injure it. I’ll take it a little easy today. At least typing doesn’t seem to bother it. Maybe I can add 1,000 to 1,500 words to my novel. And, re-do my now-in-a-shambles blogging schedule.

Health, home improvements, letters

Change Of Plans

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So far I’ve transcribed 2/3 of the letters in this box, and they run to 31 typed pages (the box is not full). Edit: The letters originally in this box are all transcribed. Many more are added and I’m just starting on those.

When I made my blog post on Friday, I had intended on the post for Monday to be the next in my series on racism, moving on from how to combat racist acts to how to end racism. But that’s not happening due to a change in plans.

You see, on Friday, while working in the storeroom, moving a smallish box of books, I caught my leg on a trunk on the floor and took a tumble forward. I dropped the box of books as I was going down to free up my hands to brace against the fall. I did this on another box of books that was on the floor in front of me.

A fall is never good, but I was glad this was a minor one. It’s the first one in the house, my several others having been outside. I tried to scoot a stick out of the road while walking and went down. I slipped on leaves in the woods and went down. I slipped on a slick driveway and went down. I slipped on an icy driveway at that neighbors and went down hard. That was in February 2018, and I haven’t fully healed from that. Otherwise, the falls outside didn’t do much damage. An hour or so after those others I was back about my tasks. I figured the one in the basement would be the same.

This plastic bin has more incoming letters than outgoing. Most are not from our overseas years. We will have a hard decision of what to do with them.

Alas, I soon after went upstairs to fix lunch and thought to myself, “Why is my knee hurting so much?” Then I remembered: I fell fifteen minutes ago. Ah, well, no big deal. I took an Aleve, ate lunch, then went to the sunroom to read. While there, my knee kept hurting. I looked down at it to check for swelling and saw that my leg was bleeding, down near the ankle. Obviously that came from raking across the trunk as I went down. Naturally it was my leg with the bad knee that I caught on the trunk.

I cleaned and bandaged the wound with a gauze pad and went back to my afternoon activities. Slowly my knee got worse, the pain being in unusual parts of the knee. And my leg started hurting below the knee all the way down from the ankle. Not the abrasion, which I could barely feel, but the shin and calf. It felt muscular, not skeletal. I was certain it wasn’t a break. Muscles and tendons or ligaments had suffered trauma. Just sitting in my reading chair in the living room was painful—as was lying on the floor on my stomach. Another Aleve didn’t do anything.

Slowly it got worse as evening wore on, the main pain being in the lower leg, not the knee. I went to bed a little early but couldn’t sleep. I used a topical muscle rub that may have helped some. But an hour and a half of tossing and turning caused me to move to my reading chair, then out to the sunroom. Eventually I was tired enough to sleep through the pain. But that was at least an hour after I took a hydrocodone pill.

Ah, this one had the Saudi and Kuwaiti year letters besides the 25 or so I started with. I see hours of enjoyable transcribing ahead.

Obviously my normal heavy yardwork on Saturday was out. I took it easy, reading, and transcribing letters. Same for Sunday, with some on-line church and Life Group thrown in. Came Saturday evening and I thought the leg felt better. Come the night and the pain was as bad as Friday night. I finally went to The Dungeon and laid back in the recliner. Finding a comfortable position was still hard, but I think I slept a little better than on Friday.

What does that have to do with my intended blog post? With my leg in more or less constant pain, I didn’t think I would be able to concentrate on the important topic of ending racism. So you have this fluff piece instead. The letter transcription was an enjoyable diversion. I completed the 28 letters I found a few weeks ago in an unexpected place in my mother-in-law’s things, all letters to her from our Kuwait years, all but a couple from Lynda to her mom. While I shouldn’t have, I decided to drag out the larger bin that has letters from Saudi and Kuwait.  Actually, I had to pull three different bins/boxes off the shelf to find the rest of the letters from the Kuwait years. I will consolidate all of them into a single box, properly label it with large, black lettering, and put it where I’ll never have to hunt for it again.

Letter transcribing doesn’t get the weeds pulled, or cut posts for the completion of the fort I’m building with the grandkids, or trim the bushes in the front yard. It doesn’t burn off the pounds I so definitely need to lose. It doesn’t get my novel-in-progress back to where I actually see progress. It provides great satisfaction for me, however. And it stirs the memory, as I read through things I experienced and documented but now don’t actively remember.

As of Sunday evening the text file of letters was up to 49 pages and just under 30,000 words. So far fewer than half the Kuwait letters are transcribed, and the Saudi letters are untouched. This will be a long project, most likely multi-year. What will be produced in the end is not yet clear. But at least I see hours and hours of what I would call oddball satisfaction for the transcriptionist.

books, Health, letters, memories, miscellaneous, stock market

A Strange but Good Day

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Tuesday, July 28, 2020. A most interesting day, and perhaps typical of the jumbled life I live right now.

You’d think life would be simple, being retired and mostly staying at home due to the corona virus pandemic. You’d be wrong, however. I suppose the reason is in part that I have too many interests. Let me catalog some events from the day.

So far I’ve transcribed 2/3 of the letters in this box, and they run to 31 typed pages (the box is not full).

I woke around 6:15 to see my digital alarm clock flashing. Must have been a power failure in the night, probably momentary but enough to reset the clock. I got up and weighed and checked my blood sugar. No change in weight (still at the lower end of the range I’ve been bouncing around in). My blood sugar was 81, a good number. The day before my new doctor’s nurse called to convey the doctor’s follow-up comments on recent blood work. All was normal, except iron, which is a little low. Since the nurse didn’t mention the reduction in insulin dose that the doctor said, and since that reduction wasn’t in the printed office visit summary they gave me, I told the nurse what my blood sugars had been with the lower dose—the same as they had been with the higher dose. She said she would tell the doctor. Fifteen minutes later the nurse called back and said the doctor wanted me to reduce my sugar further by a couple of units.

But that happened on Monday. I’m talking about Tuesday. It was raining at 6:15, which meant I wouldn’t be able to go outside for my morning yardwork. Instead, I went into the sunroom and just rested for 30 minutes. I then got up, dressed, got my morning coffee, and went down to The Dungeon for my normal work. Everything seemed very normal. I read devotions, prayed, recorded my health info, checked my book sales, opened my stock trading programs, then checked my e-mail. And the first surprise came.

I had an overnight e-mail from a man with Royal Australian College of General Practitioners. They wanted to use a photograph from this blog for training purposes; would I let them know how to acquire the rights to do so. Wow, this was strange. I spent 15-20 minutes trying to figure out if this was legit. I found web pages for that organization and it all looks legit, except the man’s name was nowhere on it. He’s in an administrative position, however, and they don’t list any administrators on the site. So I sent him an e-mail to try to verify that it’s a legitimate claim.

Shortly after this an e-mail came from Amazon, confirming my order for $543 and change. Except I have no orders outstanding with Amazon. I compared the e-mail with the one from my last order. They looked much the same but there were telltale differences. So I contacted Amazon, confirmed it was most likely a phishing attack, forwarded the e-mail to them for investigation, and went back to my normal business.

Normal business on a weekday includes stock trading. I placed a trade and it filled. Good work. Then, instead of working on one of my books, I began transcribing letters from our Kuwait years. Have I discussed this before on the blog? I can’t remember. I won’t go into it much now except to say that morning I transcribed three letters. That brings the total transcribed to sixteen. In the Word file they run to 24 pages. I have ten more to go in this box, and dozens more in the main box. These are just some I found lately going through my mother-in-law’s things as part of our decluttering effort. They will be added to the large plastic bin (30 x 24 x 6) full of other letters from our Kuwait and Saudi years, all waiting to be transcribed. I also managed to do a little over a half mile on the elliptical.

That got me to lunch time. From that point on the day seemed more or less normal. I made a quick run to the nearby Wal-Mart pharmacy for a couple of prescriptions, had some reading time in the sunroom since the day was cool enough. The wife and I did our evening reading in an Agatha Christie mystery. Normal seemed good.

Throughout the day I was careful of what I ate, though I wouldn’t say I dieted. Yet, when I weighed Wednesday morning I was at my lowest weight in over two months. I followed a similar eating regimen on Wednesday and we even lower on Thursday. This was while reducing my insulin dose (per doctor’s orders) and seeing only a small increase in my blood sugar. Maybe my health is improving.

As I finish this post on Thursday afternoon, I have a generally good feeling about where things stand. A good felling and outlook is…well… good. Bring on Friday. Bring on the isolated weekend. I might even get some time to work on a book or two.