Tuesday, March 14, 2023

 Tuesday, March 14, 2023

I’ve been hugging Elsa in the morning and checking her for lesions. When I find one, I apply Animax. That seems to help. She came to me today for our morning huggle. I rocked her back and forth and kissed her belly. Such a delight! Once that was done, I picked her up and carried her to the doggie door. She was still reluctant to go out. I had to stand there blocking her way.

  I put on another half a pound this morning. The rate of weight gain is impressive. Some would say, ‘Look at the amount of chocolate you eat.” Yeah, but it’s not more than I had been eating. I consume about five ounces daily, including the almonds in the chocolate. There’s enough chocolate to ruin my teeth but not enough to account for the weight gain. It could be because I started eating prepackaged soup with noodles once a day or because of the muscle gain. Could there be a totally different explanation? When I ask people, they don’t see me as gaining weight.

 I limited my walk this morning because of pain in my right hip. Is it because the muscles on my right leg are adjusting to a new situation, or is it due to arthritic degeneration?

 I was sitting in the living room when I heard my refrigerator dump ice cubes on the floor. I rushed to the kitchen and opened the refrigerator door. That stopped it. We were without electricity for half an hour from six to six-thirty this morning. At that hour of the morning, the batteries would have been drained, and we would have depended on the grid. I think this is what caused the refrigerator’s seizure. The fridge must have spit out at least thirty ice cubes. I swept them down the tiled hallway and out the side door.

 I drove to town for my 10:30 appointment with Katie, my PT at Hawaiian Rehab. When I checked in, the receptionist said I had no appointment. Did I call back to confirm the appointment? I spoke to the person. That appointment was for Thursday. I was sure the woman who called me yesterday said the opening was for tomorrow. However, there was an opening at 11:15 today. Did I want that? Yes. I had forty-five minutes to kill. I head off to Lowes.

   I checked for 30% vinegar first in the cleaning aisle. There were two. I grabbed them. Then, I went to the garden section to look for Osmocote, the fertilizer Margo recommended. I wandered around the open-air gardening section. Wow! Their selection is much better than that of Home Depot. It was lovely wandering among the plants. It took me a while to find the section with the fertilizers. I didn’t see Osmocote. I found an employee and asked if they carried it. It was in a special area with organic products sold in small quantities. I had been looking for a 20 lb. bag.

  I asked Katie about a side brush exercise she gave me. What was the objective? She watched me do it and noticed I dropped the standing hip. I thought the objective of the exercise was an inner thigh stretch. Nope, it was strengthening the glute muscles of the standing leg. Got it! I do the exercise every chance I get, in other words, whenever Elsa stops to smell the roses.

   My friend Melissa called. She’s a ‘retired’ doctor. I put that in quotes because she travels to Seattle and the Australian outback to volunteer. Besides other things, I told her about the results of my medical tests. I had a bone density test. My results were -2, osteopenia.

  Right after my first hot flash, I had my first bone density test when I was fifty. I had the bones of an eighty-year-old. I had terrible osteoporosis. I had a bone density test every year after that. My bone density increased by the standard deviation every year. Standard deviations aren’t considered a real change. However, ten years of a 2% increase every year accumulates. Kaiser asked me to get one when I arrived here. My measurement scale was incompatible with the original tests. I’m not sure why that would be a problem. If I measure something using inches or centimeters, the actual length of the object doesn’t change. Why would a different standard of measurement alter my comparative results? My recent test showed a slight additional loss from the one I had five years ago. My diagnosis- osteopenia. I don’t have osteoporosis. Could I have had severe osteoporosis at fifty and osteopenia now? That doesn’t make sense.

  Katie also addressed my shoulder problem. The pain in my left shoulder would wake me up at night, and it was getting worse. Katie relieved the knot in my upper traps. We both thought it was a result of the work I do on the computer and the many, many FreeCell games I play. She noticed the left shoulder was turned in and told me to watch it. I should do shoulder rolls periodically.

  On the evening walk,  I had more twinges in the inner right thigh. Katie says those sudden pinches are signs of arthritis rather than soft tissue damage.

  I walked with Lutz and his son Brian for a while on my evening walk. The pace was too fast for me. He and Brian continued on. I turned back with plans of running into them again when they came around the third time. I had reached the end of the road before they arrived. I headed back and ran into Carol and Phil. I turned around and walked back south with them until I ran into Lutz and Brian. Carol and Phil got involved in a conversation with Lutz. I walked on. I ran into John with his two labs. I asked if Elsa could meet with them. Sure. The two large dogs scared Elsa. She circled around me. The dogs followed, pushing me over. I went down. I bent my knees and went down in what Lutz described as a soft landing. Nonetheless, I felt a sharp pain in my ribs, that spot that had been bothering me since I was injured when I was ten. I lay there until I felt ready to get up.

  Lutz and Brian offer to walk me home. John stood by to protect me from oncoming cars but kept his distance, concerned that the dogs would throw me off again. As I started home, Darby came holding a glass of water. She had seen me fall. She offered me some water and declared she would walk me home.   She showed me her new tooth. She takes hers out every night. Soon, I will be able to show her my new teeth. She also told me she tried my walk modification, thinking of sliding the heel back in the shoe to move the body forward. She saw an immediate difference. Fortunately, I warned her that it built up muscle quickly. She was sore that night.

       More on the romantic notions of the phenomenalists and Goethe. Reading about these men in Time of the Magicians informed me where I got many of my bright ideas. Daddy funneled them into me. Mostly, I enjoyed the attention and thinking about heady ideas. When I was a senior in high school, I visited an old family friend. He told me that he told my dad what he was doing wouldn’t be good for me. It did set me apart in ways I still don’t appreciate. It also taught me to think for myself and to be an ace problem solver. That combination makes me a good teacher, just not for the classroom.  

   There is one marker that makes it clear he didn’t do it for my good. He had no adults to share his ideas with. He was using a child to explore them. That’s not good. His focus was on creating a human being for a new world. He wasn’t as concerned about the impact on me. Did he ever realize it? I don’t know. I survived. I had a decent life. I had a good marriage. I found a suitable career in which to express my creativity and do something worthwhile in his world. I wouldn’t give him an A rating as a parent. But both his children survived and made lives for themselves that had satisfaction. That sounds like it warrants at least a B+.