Category Archives: Health

Insomnia and a Cold Church

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Last night was brutal because I didn’t sleep. Hardly a wink at all. Instead, I drifted in and out of lucidity, thinking about unfinished projects and planning on how they will be completed. While laying awake, I finished almost all of them in my mind. We all have that ability, to pretend we get things done. I’m an expert at that. Making that fantasy reality is more difficult. But, it’s fun to hallucinate.

I really didn’t think I’d be able to function this morning because while golfing yesterday, on one particularly exciting effort hit the ball, I missed it. Since I was intending to hit ball really really hard, I wound up pretty tight. When I unwound, things went quickly and the torque loss my body expected, at the point of impact with the ball, was missed causing me to bend in ways I hadn’t anticipated. The result was a brief, terrible pain in my back that I thought was going to drop me to my knees, embarrassing me in front of my friends. I fought through it, though, and remained erect. The price for that, I anticipated, would be uncommon agony when I attempted to extract myself from bed this morning. Thankfully, I was able to arise easily which gave me confidence I would be able to navigate OK throughout the day.

So far, that’s been true. I made it through a very cold church service and a festive, post holiday lunch at Burgerville. Our church was cold because it’s really old and all of the heat goes quickly to the 30 foot ceiling, and stays there. We do have ceiling fans installed to circulate the warmth, but it takes a while to get enough warm air up there to move around.  There are only two heat vents in church and both are at the front of the church. When they are closed, there’s no heat to circulate and the basement gets really toasty. The vents are remnants from the past when the church was built in 1908. Directly below the vents was originally a wood fired furnace contained in a small space. The heat circulated into the church via convection. When an oil furnace was installed, when oil furnaces were first invented I think, they were connected directly to the old convection vents, and an air return was added at the back of the church. So, the warm air would go up in the front, across the ceiling to the back of the church, and down to the air return. All the people between those two points remained the same temperature they were when entering. So it was today, even though we have three fans across the top, and a new gas furnace. It was cold. Everyone was cold because the vents were closed during Mabel’s funeral service.  I just so happens the only place to place a casket is over the vents. So, they were closed and didn’t get reopened until this morning, shortly before church which isn’t nearly enough time for the heat to get all over. It needs at least 24 hours. Not economical, but it works. The hamburger warmed me up, as did the cup of coffee after service.

 To ensure a successful conclusion to this day, I’m not going to do anything else except sit on the couch, eat popcorn & fudge, and watch TV, like normal. Well, not totally like normal because we don’t always have fudge. We could, but we don’t because I only make it at Christmas.

My Root Canal

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I haven’t had a root canal in quite a while, so a few months ago I decided to make an appointment to get one done. That took an initial appointment so my dentist, Dr. Grimm (his real name) and I could agree on which tooth he should work on. He applied something super cold to various teeth, to see if any of them made me jump out of the chair, and he hit it on the third one. We agreed that was the tooth.

So, the appointment was made for today, at 1300, and that’s where I spent my afternoon visiting with Tracy and the good doctor. All of the dentists I’ve visited in the past palmed off root canals to another practice that specializes in them which incurs another office visit. My dentist, however, is a many of many trades and works in an office that provides all required services from start to stop. I like the change because it’s going to get done faster and I’ll only have one guy to blame if things go south on this tooth which was put out of its misery right at 1310, or so. That’s when I got the needle. A really long one.

After Dr. Grimm was almost finished, Tracy was kind enough to snap this photo of me on my iPad.

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I was pleasantly pleased to note that nothing was hanging out of my nose. That’s one of my main concerns when I visit the dentist because I know, for sure, that’s where they always look first. I guess that’s a little weird, but I’m OK with weird, as most of you know.

The red and white things are probes that are stuck into the roots so they would show up nicely on the x-ray Tracy took. Three roots were cleaned out so I don’t know where the blue probe went, unless it was deemed unnecessary for the x-ray. After ensuring himself things were progressing as planned, the Good Doctor proceeded to fill them with nifty little sticks of gutta-percha which is a latex material used to waterproof underwater cables during the last half of the nineteenth century. When it was first used in dentistry is not documented on the link, but I suspect it was not long after companies began making latex gloves for surgical procedures.

A large industry, whose name escapes me at the moment, was created around the many uses for gutta-percha, including a niche for dentists, and latex gloves used in many surgical procedures, including those for dentists who do not like slobber on their tender skin while working on teeth.

Latex gloves became very popular and, as all popular things do, also became a problem when it came time to dispose of them. Considering that anyone in the medical industry, and those who refinish furniture, use these gloves in mass quantities, you can appreciate what a burden this created for the dumps littering the world. Burning them wasn’t a solution, either, because doing so created a medical problem for pretty much anything that breathes. So, someone began collecting all the discarded latex gloves, melted them down, and began making condoms out of them as a way of helping curb the soaring world population and to ensure young girls still in school did not become impregnated before her parents told her it was OK to do so.

One day an enterprising dentist accidentally melted a brand new latex condom and, through a process only he knows, discovered that it worked well for filling reamed out roots in one’s teeth. Through this humble beginning, dentists quickly resorted to using virgin gutta-percha because none of them wanted to waste their expensive condoms by melting them down. Then, too, there were suspected cases that some dentists were using used condoms for this purpose. Such dentists were relieved of their rights to practice dentistry and forced to become lawyers who could only serve as pro-bono public defenders.

Now the process has been refined to the point where little, tiny gutta-percha slivers are used to obturate the empty space in the roots of a tooth after it has undergone endodontic therapy. Discovering that caused me a to question the use of that term, therapy. I mean, c’mon, they’re drilling large holes in teeth. How can that be therapy? Then, after a bit of serious thinking, I could only agree because they are, after all, ‘making it better.’ And that’s therapy, right?

Dr. Grimm filled three roots with gutta-percha, then broke out another entire set of little tiny rasps and began scraping the nerve from a 4th root he had found. Thankfully he found it before it was all closed up. Once done, he filled the 4th root with gutta-percha slivers, then applied a nifty little tool that melted them into the holes, sealing them from further incursion by bodily fluids. Then he topped it off with something else. I don’t know what it is, but it dried very quickly, it was ground off a bit, and I was sent on my way to schedule my next visit for the crown. That’s going to be on January 15th.

If you’ve read this far, not knowing just a little bit about how my little head works, most of what you’ve just read is not true. Not all, just most. I leave it to your discretion as to what parts you wish to believe.

Again, if you read this far, thanks. I appreciate it.

Tour Hillsboro For Less Than $400

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How’s the new elbow, KC?

Are your hands getting along, yet, or is it too early to tell?

Diane took me to my dermatologist today to visit the rash on my back. I know, that’s personal but I had to share that since KC hasn’t objected (yet) to my mention of her faulty elbow. Knowing this, now, you may be happy to learn that my dermatologist burned 13 holes in my face and at least that many in my back. She uses a little spray can of liquid nitrogen to burn those holes, and they hurt, in case you don’t know. Thankfully, there isn’t any skin left on my ears so she didn’t have to burn any holes there. Ears hurt the worst.

So, now, I have 20-30 more spots on my body that will never tan. If this keeps going, it’s going to be like freckles in reverse. Sometimes I think they should just dip me in liquid nitrogen, let thaw a bit, then send me home.

I’ll include a photo of the damage as soon as KC comes up with a photo of the guy she got her new elbow from.

After visiting the doc, at 1030, we went to Tom & Linda’s to deliver some Avon stuff, and to visit with Tom for a bit. They only live a few blocks from where the appointment was. Unfortunately, for us, Tom picked that day to have some blood work down so we missed him. We did get to visit with Kyle a bit, however, so all was not lost. Turns out we missed Tom by a whisker as we left and he returned. There will be another day.

IHOP got our attention for breakfast so we stopped and had some. Our morning yogurt was long gone. We both had the Senior 2+2+2 which was very good. Then we headed for Costco.

I think we went to get paper plates, napkins, and little cups for the church. When done, however, it cost us over $300 to exit the store. The large part of that was getting ink for our printers. One of us isn’t too frugal when it comes to printing ‘stuff’. I won’t say which one because I don’t want to get into trouble. Again.

From Costco we went to the Washington County Habitat For Humanity Restore Store, or the WCHFHRS, for short. We were looking for either a window, or a piece of plexiglas to fill the hole left by the storm window that suspiciously fell out of the right side of the living room window when Diane opened it a few years ago. Those things just can hold up to a 15 foot fall to the ground. Thinking it would no longer be needed, I compounded the problem by tossing the frame, into which a new piece of glass could have easily been inserted, into the metal bin at the dump. Smooth, huh?

The reason that’s important now is because of our new chairs, the ones we bought because company was coming over. Remember those? Well, Diane likes them so much that she’s moved from the old recliner couch to one of those chairs, and it’s right next to the window with the missing part. It’s drafty and cold and now needs to be fixed. As long as she was sitting by the wall, it was perfectly OK. I envision a visit to ACE tomorrow to rectify this.

We went from WCHFHRS to one of the many Goodwill stores, Diane’s favorite place to shop, that dot the greater Portland area. The one she chose is located just up the block from a BMW dealership. I sat in the vehicle and read my John Grisham book, “The Racketeer”, for a couple of hours while she cruised the isles. About 1640 I went in the store to cruise a bit myself but discovered that we were due at our next location at 1700, not 1730 as I previously believed. Diane was heading for the check out line so it turns out I showed up just in the nick of time to cart all her treasures to the vehicle. She was pleased.

Rick and Jody were next on the agenda. We had a plan to meet them at BJ’s Brewpub and Pizzararium in Hillsboro where three of us had hamburgers, and one didn’t. This was another visit to deliver Avon products, and to just visit prior to going home.

By the time we arrived, the dogs had been without us for 10 hours. In dog hours that’s about three days. Jennifer, bless her, agreed to visit the dogs this afternoon to assure them they hadn’t been abandoned, but I failed to ask her to turn on a light for them. So, when we got home, they were in a pitch black house, except for all the pretty blue and green lights on the front of all the electronic equipment scattered around the place. So, it’s really not pitch black – its pitch black blue and green.

They were fine and didn’t even get up until I opened the door for them. Normally Ozzie is yapping away as soon as the big garage door starts up, and doesn’t quit until he’s well into the yard, relieving himself. It’s funny to watch him bark and pee at the same time. I’ve tried that and it isn’t easy.

Now we’re home and we missed choir practice tonight. It was the first one, too. As expected, I got into trouble for that because I actually knew about it. Yesterday.

Caulking and Other Stuff

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Not much happened today except for the caulking I did around the porch beams. Now all I have to do is hope for a 50+ degree day so I can paint it. Anything lower and the paint is too thick to spread.

Got a call from the VA hospital today to ask me if I was going to use the dermatology referral. I explained that I had but was thinking about making a new appointment to have my terminal back rash investigated a little more fully. The guy I was talking with told me he could set up a 3-way with my dermatologist, if I wished. After a fairly long pause, I explained to him where my head went when he suggested a three-way causing him to clarify he meant call them so I could make the appointment. I knew that, of course, but he didn’t know that I knew so he was suitably embarrassed.

Got my meds Saturday and now I’m almost normal again. Almost. I’m not dizzy like I was and I’m probably OK to go on the roof. I don’t need to, but I could if I wanted to. That, or just extend the ladder all the way to 24′ and time myself.

I’d ask Diane to time me, but she’s pretty sick right now. I cooked lunch for her and fear I gave her food poisoning. She’s pretty miserable. All I cooked were eggs … over hard for her, easy for me. We each had two of them … her with an English Muffin, me with a toasted bagel with cream cheese. For dinner, even though she wasn’t feeling well, we ate a frozen Freshetta pizza. They’re square and not too bad if you add extra pepperoni, which I did. I don’t think Diane got a lot of nourishment out of it.

As an older brother said, quite often, actually, “This too, shall pass.”

It will be better tomorrow. If not, I get to force her to go to the doctor.

 

GI Tract News, Lunch, Kids, Lions, and Mom

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Today was really a long one that was filled with interesting and noteworthy ‘things’.

It started early, for me, when we had to leave the house at 0900 so Diane could get to her 1000 gastroenterlogist appointment on time. It’s terrible having to start a Monday morning so early. As I say that, the memory of getting up early enough to catch the 0545 bus to Portland comes to mind making today’s early start much easier to take. What a life that was. Everyone on the bus became like an alternate, diverse family with whom I interacted two hours a day, Monday thru Friday … an hour in the morning, and an hour in the afternoon. There are some really interesting people who ride the bus, but that’s for another day.

We arrived at Good Samaritan Hospital right at 1000 and Diane was a little concerned about it so stuffed the Buick in a parking space  near the elevator. As she bailed out of the car and headed for the elevator, she flung instructions over her shoulder for me move the car to a spot that might not result in someone calling a tow truck. I did, going around the next corner, parking in a spot about head on to the one I just left. It took about 30 seconds and I think I almost made it to the elevator before the door closed and whisked Diane away to the 4th floor. Consequently, when I arrived on the next trip up, she wasn’t very deep into the paperwork necessary for a first visit to pretty much any doctor. Not all of them, mind you, just most of them. Ya know, maybe all doctors need paperwork on a first visit, medically oriented or otherwise. I really don’t know that for sure …

Perhaps Pat can clarify …

Anyway, she really wasn’t late because they always make you show up a bit early to fill out all their disease-specific paperwork, and sign it to verify that you have told the truth, all the truth, and nothing but the truth. I really don’t know what they say because Diane goes with me to all my doctor appointments and fills all that stuff out for me. I’m spoiled that way. She just hands it to me to sign and I have no idea which little boxes she checks on those things. Apparently she hits the right ones because I’ve never been visited by the Medical Paper Police.

They took her back to her assigned exam room almost right away, leaving me alone in the waiting room with a bunch of strangers. I had my iPad, though, so had a book to read. I also have Sudoku on it which takes up a lot of my time. More than is healthy, actually, but rumor has it doing puzzles like that keeps the mind alert.

She didn’t tell me what kind of exam they were going to make her take, but I knew she was seeing a GI guy (GIG). Though I lost track of how long she was gone, I learned that it was a long time because the doctor who was going to see her said he picked up the wrong chart and walked into his 1030 appointment room instead of the 1000 appointment room. As a result, she was in there almost an hour twiddling her thumbs. I’m guessing there. I doubt if Diane twiddles her thumbs, ever. I bet she was even a little bit ticked to be kept waiting so long. Then, again, having lots of experience with doctor’s visits, and the emergent nature of their business, it’s understandable that they cannot always stick to a rigid appointment schedule. Emergencies happen.

Once the doctor showed up, she discovered that she really liked him. She like him so much that she briefly considered dumping me, then decided that he was a bit too old for her. But, he’s a doctor. With a job. A specialist. I would have understood. Really, I would have. I wouldn’t have liked it, but I would have understood.

Bottom line for the visit, beyond really liking him, she discovered that she’s a “very healthy woman.” Straight from the doc’s mouth. He actually read all of her history, checked all her labs, going back years, then had her describe her tumultuous youth and told her he was going to fix her plumbing. You see, for many years now, the semi-doctors she’s been seeing have been treating symptoms, never resorting to methods that attack the ’cause’ of her tummy grumblings. What a concept! Fight the cause! I like that approach, as does Diane. She has a much better outlook on what’s going on, now, and will probably be nicer to me as this problem goes away. She said she would, anyway. We’ll see.

After leaving the doctor we had to travel all the way from downtown Portland, to Orenco Station in Hillsboro. That’s a HUGE condo complex that turned in to an entire town around one of the trolley stops for the MAX train. If we lived there we could see all our cars and never have to go anywhere, for anything. It’s quite amazing, actually. Well, it’s more than a short walk to Costco, but a neat place, even so. We were going to BJ’s Restaurant to meet up with Jerry 1, Coleen, Nelda, Linda, Jodi, Rick,  Jerry 2, and Tom for lunch which was scheduled for 1130. We were late, of course, since Diane had to twiddle for an hour, but no one minded. Because everyone already had assigned seats, Diane and I were placed at opposite ends of the tables that were jammed together to accommodate the group.

We ate, we talked, and we carried on for hours until the waiters and waitresses made it clear we should leave. We had worn out our welcome, but we tipped them anyway. They were a good group to put up with all the grief this group can provide.

Then we departed to the parking lot where we participated in a very public display of going our own separate ways. We’re a huggy group. We’re family. We were missing Vie. Jerry 1 departed for Vancouver in his tricked out 2013 Camaro, Tom & Linda left in their little Toaster Car, Coleen in her PT, Jerry & Nelda in their PT, Rick & Jodi in Rick’s PT, and us in our Buick. It’s Rick’s PT, by the way, because Jodi has her very own PT.

Rick, thinking I actually had real knowledge about tablet computing, asked my opinion about one for sale in a nearby Office Max. He wanted to get Jodi one. Jodi, who doesn’t fiddle with computers very much, is particularly suited to a tablet. Not having an opinion to share on tables, except that I really, really like my iPad, he then asked if I would look at it and see what I thought. It’s hard to say “No” when someone trusts you that much, so we followed them over to Office Max and had a look.

We poked and prodded all the ones they had on display, comparing prices, figuring out why some models were more expensive than others. Finally, a young man with no facial hair appears and asked if we had any questions. We did, of course. Rick asked him what he thought of the one he had in mind, and the kid oooed, and awwwwed over it, wishing he could get one. It was very believable, and we bought it, but we still had questions. Some of them he couldn’t answer so he guessed. That was OK because they were trick questions and we already knew the answers. Just having a bit of fun.

Now Jodi is the proud owner of a nifty little tablet with a Windows 8 operating system, which Diane really likes. Now. She didn’t like it on her computer right away, but she’s learned to love it.

An interesting part of this visit was Diane’s encounter with Edith, 81, in the tablet and phone cover display, about 10 feet from we who were haggling over the tablet purchase. This simple encounter highlighted how approachable Diane is because she got pretty much this lady’s life story, all the way back to Japan where her shoulder was crushed when she was very young and her left arm did not grow as it should have. The story went on to relate how Edith liked to change her phone fairly often because she like “flying under the radar.” Reportedly, she lives near her daughter in Orenco Station, making frequent trips over the past seven years to Vancouver, BC to gather information about her father’s military days and his association with Winston Churchill.

Really?

Winston Churchill?

The research was done at her husband’s request, before he died in Florida, that her father’s story had to be told. So, she set about doing that over the next seven years, writing a historical novel about all her father’s covert activities. We’re not clear on the name of this novel because we cannot find any reference of it on the internet, but Diane said it’s “FF1”. Edith also reported that a movie company is making a movie of this story in Hong Kong and offered her $14 million for the rights. Being wealthy already, having earned a ton of money as a graphic artist who designed many of the currently used major league logos, she said she told the movie folks to hang on to that $14 million and they would negotiate after the movie was done and see if she liked it. “I’m 81 … what do I need $14 million for?” she told Diane.

What a story! Diane said she was perfectly believable the entire time. But, we can’t find anything about this book. Elaborate and detailed as the story is, it’s suspect. But, who knows? Could be legit. Either way, we all had a good time in Office Max.

Then we went to Costco to get ‘stuff’, and headed home to see if the dogs were still talking to us after being left alone for over 6 hours. They were just happy that we showed up.

Just before we got home Jeff texted that he was on the way up with most of his girls – that would be Ziva, Daisy, Olie, Gilligan, and Baylee. The first three are dogs. They arrived shortly after we did so we got a dose of hyper energy from the dogs and little girls running up and down the stairs, and in and out of the house. It wore us out watching all that activity from the upper porch. Jeff takes Daisy in the back yard and uses a tennis ball flinger to throw the ball for her. She chases it until she can hardly walk so he has to pace her. Olie, the puppy, runs with her but her heart belongs to Gilligan. Energy plus.

After the kids left Diane and I had a snack. She had what she calls a quickie which is simply two pieces of toasted bread between which is placed a piece of cheese food before the toast gets cold. It’s just a modified toasted cheese sandwich. We had to do this because we had to go to the Lions Club meeting at the Village Inn. Well, it used to be the Village Inn. It’s called something else, now. That meeting lasted until 8 pm, then we went to visit with Diane’s Mom, Jean , for a while. We didn’t get home until 9 pm.

Again, the dogs were very happy to see us return. They greet us the same way whether we’re gone for 5 minutes or 5 hours. Very consistent.

Now it’s almost midnight and I really need to go to bed because I’m tired and I think I’ve used up my alloted quota of words for the day.