Saturday, July 24, 2020

 Saturday, July 24, 2020

 

            I spent the morning writing and doing a little cleaning. At noon I left for the Post Office to mail three boxes of Mike’s ex-father-in-law’s books to a friend of Jean’s. Getting these books out isn’t too bad. They’re a finite number; it’s getting rid of all the rest of the three thousand books that weighs on me. 

            After Mike died, I had a young woman living with me for a while. It was perfect timing. She was a thirty-year-old that Yvette met at the massage school who needed a place to stay. Yvette asked me; I said sure. Yvette thought she would stay for a few days until she found another place to live. She was here for six months. 

            In the beginning, I loved having her here. She had some infection on her lower legs, a staph infection she got from scraping her legs on lava rock. Because she didn’t want to treat it with antibiotics, she worked out this elaborate cure that took at least a month. She would sit on the lanai soaking her wounds in some poultice. She was here, and she was a delightful presence. It couldn’t have worked out better for me. I had recently lost Mike and loved having the company.

            Then she got involved with a boyfriend. That worked out okay for a while. Then they became more involved, and I hardly saw her. At first, I had fantasies of the two getting married and living in the converted library. IT sounded wonderful to me. It didn’t work out that way. As they became more involved, they avoided me more and more. Living with them became the opposite of companionable. It made me feel even lonelier. Eventually, I asked them to leave. 

            At the time of my fantasies of having them living here permanently, I was happily finding books to mail out. Now, I Was facing the prospect of an empty room. It was not so joyful. I found myself reluctant to do more. I have to write John Coughlin and see if I can convince him to let me take over the monthly expense of the online catalog of the books. I know I have someone who will take all the books to do with religion and philosophy, Matthew Horowitz of  St. Patrick’s Seminary. That would only leave me with history, politics, and science books. I may be able to sell them online. However, now the idea of that room devoid of Mike’s books, just an empty room, fills me with sadness. 

            Where I expected the Post Office to be crowded on a Saturday morning, I found it exceptionally empty. The two clerks were already serving the two people before me. A third showed up and helped me immediately. I left with time to spare for my 1:30 follow-up appointment with the stem cell crew.

            I took this opportunity to visit a beach. There was one I could stop at briefly just beyond the turn-off for the new Industrial district where I had to go. I just stood a distance from the shoreline and took in the water. I wasn’t close enough to hear the waves crashing. Also, they weren’t doing much crashing at that moment. 

            I made it just in time for my stem cell appointment. I received my last stem cell transplant in January. These folks do several follow-ups with ozone and platelet injections. Today it was ozone. That’s a fast in and out. The last time I was in, the doctor told me he could see a bone spur on my femoral head. He has a small ultrasound gadget to determine where to inject the needle. He looked. He saw one small one and a larger one. Depressing. He said it would take a year until he could see a difference in the cartilage from the stem cell transplant. I asked about his success rate with hips. He said 80%. However, the existing damage and the patient’s age make a difference. My left hip is almost devoid of cartilage, and I’m eighty—depressing prospects. Again, I had to consider if I should get a THR while I could. 

            The good doctor advised me to exercise to promote turn-out in both legs. Did he think that exercising would make a difference? I thought that wouldn’t do much good given the damage to the joint. Well, it’s worth considering. He also told me my left glute hurt because it was tight. He took away all hope with one hand and opened several new doors with the other. Wow! He inspired me to push for an even greater change in my walk. 

            Some blueberries fell on the floor as I was making dinner. Elsa gobbled them down. I grabbed my computer to check if dogs could eat them without being damaged. They’re okay. I’m wondering if eating these will help slake her appetite for grass. We’ll see.

            I spent some time this evening checking the final version of the video Tommy compiled for me. I thought I would check how well he spliced the video sections together so it looked smooth. I found a much more serious problem. Everything was blurry, and in some sections, my mouth movements weren’t in sync with my speech.

     I watched a Kate Winslet movie, A Little Chaos. I loved it; Mike would have loved it. It’s not only a period piece; it’s based on a historical event. However, the Kate Winslet character is a total fabrication. Good luck allowing a woman to lead a team of men in designing a section of the Versailles gardens at that time. But it was a fun movie.