Friday, September 2, 2022

 Friday, September 2, 2022

 

 I walked around the block this morning without trouble. There was an email from the podiatrist when I got back. He wanted me to get a weighted X-ray of my right foot with the wandering hammer toe. There was only one problem: I had to go to Oahu to get it. Kaiser pays for the trip there and back, including the cab from and to the airport. My problem wasn't bad enough yet to warrant such an energy output. I wrote him asking to be considered for surgery in a moment of panic. My foot hurt in all positions, including lying in bed at night. Icing it and slathering it with Salon Pas remedied the immediate problem, the pain. The foot hurt more when lying down than it did when I walked. I asked the doctor if we could have a telephone conference so he could tell me what to expect. My hip may be good now, but the rest of me is falling apart. The problem with my hammer toe started a few weeks before the hip surgery. After the operation, the issues with my teeth ramped up. I was up for three extractions. One of the teeth had already sheared off at the gum line. Are we having fun yet?

  I had an appointment with 2nd-grade-homeschooled L today. She was better at holding sounds and blending them but still couldn't remember letter names or sounds. Boy! This poor kid. She works hard and gets nowhere. When she does anything, it's exciting. Sweet kid! At the beginning of the session, she remembered to blend the+ r to get something close to the pronunciation of there. She could infer the correct meaning and pronunciation when I used her pronunciation in a sentence.

  I reached my left ankle in the shower for the first time in seventeen years. I took a plastic scrubby and rubbed the layers of dead skin off the ankle. It is the first time either of my hands has touched my left ankle in years. Wow!

  Esther Gokhale posts articles and videos on movement regularly. She figured out the correct movement by observing groups of people known not to have back problems. She took an anthropological approach. Someone like Katie Bowman takes an anatomical approach. Katie argues that the feet should be in parallel when walking. Ester Gokhale argues the feet should be turned out. From what I saw in a video of Esther's class, she claims the feet should be turned out to engage the glutes. I've been in the feet straight camp. I didn't have much choice. For me, it was feet straight versus turned in. Turned out was not an option. I was also in the straight feet camp because I observed people with their feet turned out from the ankles or knees instead of the hips. They rolled over the instep as they walked. Their inner thigh muscles were as slack as their abdominal muscles. They were a mess. Walking with straight feet would be a vast improvement for these folks. 

   Today, I read that Gokhale was talking about a minimal degree of turnout, 5 to 15 degrees. Also, the turnout should come from the hips, not the knees or the ankles. But how do you guarantee the person does the turn out correctly? Since my hip replacement, I can manage some turnout from the hip. I tried a small turnout. Whadaya know? It engages different muscles. I have to rotate the hip more to get the back foot forward. I will work on it.

   I finally completed a small chore. The ring on a towel rack fell out of the wall mount. I glued it back in. Done! Now, let's see if it works. I may not have gotten the piece in place in time once I applied the glue. I may have to buy another. 

   Joe, the educational support person at the prep school two of my students started attending this fall, called me back. I had questions about 8th grade K. Joe said much of what the boy's mother said. He is highly visual. He would prefer to express himself through drawing than words. His verbal expression skills are poor. Joe's impression was K was unwilling to do the hard academic work. I believe he is missing basic verbal expression skills.

  K's mother and Joe mentioned K's school from K through 7th grade. I asked Joe what the implications were. The school promotes Hawaiian culture, although it is not a Hawaiian language immersion school, where all lessons are taught in Hawaiian. Children have to learn to read English independently. K's school wasn't limited in teaching English language skills, the classes were large, and there was no special attention for children who fell behind. Joe said other children came to them from that school, and they did fine.

  After speaking to Joe, I talked to K's mom later. She told me he has problems with reading as well. His mother said they read "together" each night before he slept. This 8th-grade boy reads a page of two, and his mom reads the rest of the chapter. Oh, boy. I suspected a reading problem, probably an overriding auditory processing problem, much the same as with adolescent D. K is also asking why he needs tutoring. I have my work cut out for me.

   This boy's background is interesting and so Hawaiian. He has a Hawaiian first name and a Japanese last name. His mom has a pure haoli (mainland white) name. I love it. It's so mix and match. There is truly a lot of aloha here. There is also anger; the Hawaiians are angry at the whites for taking over their land. I can't blame them on the one hand.

   On the other hand, as Mike pointed out, the Hawaiians had a choice between being dominated by the Americans, the Japanese, or the Russians. There was no way they would have been left alone, given the strategic location of the island chain. It isn't just that the US assumed political power. They made the indigenous people a disdained minority. We human beings aren't very nice, are we?

  I watched the end of Speed. I do love Sandra Bullock. How did that woman wind up in that marriage? She looks so centered. Yes, I know. She's an actress. I listened to a lot of the movie without watching it. I didn't enjoy the stress. I never enjoy malicious psychos. I watched it because Miss Mojo said Speed was Bullock's best movie. I watched it just because she was in it. It was all too edgy for me. I'll take Miss Congeniality over Speed any day. Love that woman's comic sense.