Archive for November 2022
Two Patients
That was one heck of a day, yesterday. It turns out that I have two patients to take care of because, in addition to Cyndie recuperating from her surgery, Delilah is experiencing a problem with continued vomiting.
Delilah’s condition isn’t too concerning at this point because she is regularly drinking water, pooping healthy, and is full of her typical spunk at normal times. It is, however, inconvenient to have her making disgusting messes unexpectedly at the worst times possible.
We can’t rule out stress as a possible contributing factor but there is also a possibility we have a bad batch of food or she could be developing an allergy to an ingredient.
I’m pretty sure Delilah doesn’t grasp the concept but I have her fasting for a while in an attempt to disrupt the troublesome routine she has fallen into. Then I will need to decide what food I will start testing to see if we can solve whatever is ailing her.
Tuesday night didn’t start out well for her because the thunderstorm we endured was quite dramatic with booms of thunder that shook the house. She was having a fit in her overnight crate trying to bark back the storm that wasn’t letting up. I tried staying up late with her to give some support but that didn’t seem to ease her distress much.
After a few-too-few hours of sound sleep, I was woken by Cyndie at 3 a.m. because she could hear Delilah throwing up. With her splinted leg propped up on pillows, Cyndie couldn’t do anything about it.
Last night, Delilah threw up again, just before dinner time. I was in the middle of cooking my own dinner and manning the phone tree of contacts with reports on Cyndie’s status. The doctor had called me to say everything went well and there were no complications. It was time to walk Delilah and tend to the horses but I was waiting for a sitter to show up and take care of those tasks.
I put Delilah on a leash in the front yard, tossed paper towels over the mess in the front entryway, answered my phone, and turned over fish fillets baking in the oven.
I thought last night was going to be a moment of rest while Cyndie was tended to by professionals. Nope. Forgot about the other patient here needing TLC.
At least Delilah doesn’t seem to realize anything is ailing her. If she had a bum leg, she’d still try to run anyway. That’s the way dogs are.
Good thing Cyndie doesn’t take after her dog.
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Good Citizenship
Neither wind, clouds, nor a barely attached foot kept Cyndie from fulfilling her goal of voting in person yesterday in the 2022 mid-term U.S. election.
It wasn’t a sure thing for a while there. As we were driving home from the lake last Friday, Cyndie was on her phone trying to find somewhere she could get in for surgery right away. Not sure when she might end up being anesthetized, Cyndie called our town clerk to find out her options for voting in a situation like hers.
She broke her leg after the deadline for requesting an absentee ballot, so she was told that her only option would be to make it to the polling location for our township on election day between the hours it would be open. If surgery was going to happen on Tuesday (yesterday), the clerk said she could try to show up just as they open at 7:00 a.m. and someone could bring a ballot out to our car for her to fill out.
There were no other options for voting if emergency situations arise close to election day. It seems like a strong case for requesting an absentee ballot whether or not it is known to be needed. Vote at your convenience and no waiting.
Luckily, our Tuesday schedule was wide open. We were busy on Monday and surgery is happening today.
We chose to head out after an assumed morning rush of people voting on their way to work and before a possible lunch rush. Living in a rural area, it’s not really an issue. There were two electronic voting machines and three booths for manually filling out a ballot. Two people were signing in before us and several people were voting.
Cyndie picked an electric option and since they were then both occupied, I selected manual. I fed my completed ballot into a machine reader and then Cyndie came with a printout of her votes from the electronic ballot device and fed it into the reader as well.
It seems the only thing their electronic device does is color in the selections for you. The choices from both methods were ultimately recorded by one machine.
The flow of voters was consistent while we were there such that the poll workers were kept constantly busy but the waiting was a mere matter of seconds for our township neighbors fulfilling their civic responsibility of voting for our representatives in local and national government.
I didn’t watch the news last night and avoided any hype about results. Regardless of the outcomes, we will continue to put our shoulders to the wheel of healthy progress and send love out into the world.
I read an interesting perspective on navigating the election storm written by Dahlia Lithwick. Think about the weather and the stars. The weather can get rough and the direction we are going can be obscured by clouds. Hang on long enough and the stars will be visible again to guide us toward our goals.
I vote for love. Follow the stars in the sky.
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Some Facts
- The Associated Press offers a weekly roundup of some of the most popular but untrue stories and visuals that are shared widely on social media called, “NOT REAL NEWS: A look at what didn’t happen this week.” It is both entertaining and informative.
- Yesterday, handlers from This Old Horse deduced that the problems Light presents in her resistance to picking a leg up for the farrier seem more likely to be arthritis than a possible PTSD we wondered about.
- Surgery for Cyndie’s broken bones is scheduled for tomorrow. We met the surgeon yesterday and like him a lot.
- Cyndie’s bone breaks just above her ankle are not clean but they are not as bad as what is commonly seen in a fall from a roof or an automobile accident.
- Cyndie had a CT scan yesterday to confirm there is no damage to the ankle joint. The joint looks good in the X-rays. The surgeon is confident it won’t be a problem to stretch the tendons and ligaments enough to straighten her foot from the odd angle it has acquired since the bones broke.
- It takes 180 times longer to drop off a patient on crutches, park the car, ride the elevator, roll a wheelchair to and from the imaging center, retrieve the car and pick up said patient than it does to have an ankle CT scan done.
- John will be required to cover for Cyndie in walking the dog and tending to the horses for a minimum of 8 weeks. The surgeon said she will be able to do therapy exercises and flex the ankle sooner than that, but he doesn’t want her to put any weight on it until after the 8 weeks.
- It is unclear how long Cyndie will be unable to drive, but John has every confidence she will find a way before 8 weeks. Until then, John will be her full-time chauffeur.
- John has not been 100% successful in keeping her out of the kitchen, especially since she figured out that using a walker in the house is easier than hobbling around on crutches.
- Visiting hospitals and clinics, John has needed to wear a mask more in the last few days than he has for over a year.
- It is election day in the U.S. today. To those of you who are eligible, please vote. Hopefully, with a healthy understanding of what is NOT REAL NEWS before you do.
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Chugging Along
Like a freight train chugging along the tracks, we are slowly making our way toward an appointment tomorrow morning with a trauma surgeon for an assessment of Cyndie’s situation. Just about 24 hours to go. Of course, we had to suffer the curse of setting our clocks back one-hour last night to move out of daylight saving time, making this weekend an hour longer. What’s one more hour?
I don’t have as much time to write as I am usually granted, given that I am now thrust into the head cook and chief bottle washer duties in addition to the solo animal feeder. I noticed a shift in allegiance from Delilah. She is normally glued to Cyndie’s side but since I was the one slinging food around the kitchen, Delilah made sure to keep a close eye on my actions, leaving Cyndie alone in the bedroom.
I got the impression there might be a shifting of relationships among the herd of horses this morning, too. It seemed as though Light was making a play to put much more pressure on Swings’ herd-leader position, repeatedly and strongly commanding control of whichever feed pan from which Swings was trying to eat.
In an unusual pairing, this morning Mix easily volunteered to take up a position opposite Swings and Light, on the side with Mia. I was very happy to oblige because those two receive a similar, but larger serving of feed. Mia usually finishes sooner, but she won’t steal from Mix.
On the other side, Light and Swings each get a smaller serving portion so I don’t really care if they keep swapping pans.
Today I must do laundry and make a grocery run.
Chugging along down the tracks.
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My Experience
Moms and dads who are primary caretakers of kids who need to be clothed and fed, helped in the toilet, and supported and encouraged day and night do not get enough credit for the loss of their own personal time. Having sat down only to get right back up more times in the last two days than my old body is used to has revealed how much I prefer to stay in one place for as long as possible once I settle in for a rest.
My emergency room experience frequently involved feeling like I was in the way while slowly accumulating things to hold in my arms. I took the thick fleece jacket from Cyndie that was now overly enmeshed with fragmenting dried leaves after she had fallen and then tried using it to support her dangling right foot. It was dropping a trail of leaf shrapnel everywhere I went.
I was handed the dish towel she had tied up around the jacket to make a sling. I was handed the sock they cut off her foot. I was already shouldering Cyndie’s purse and handing her phone back and forth as she looked up info for the nurses. I was given Cyndie’s pants to add to the bundle.
Not long after, I was sent to the pharmacy to pick up her pain prescription before closing time. Cyndie asked me to buy a pair of loose pants to wear home from the hospital while I was there. Picture me trying to pick out pants for Cyndie to wear. Now stop laughing.
After the chaos of an emergency room, we got home to the challenge of getting her up the stairs into the “cabin” and settled into a lounging position. I was back and forth to the car several times. In my personal chaos, I set my wallet somewhere after returning Cyndie’s health card to her.
By bedtime, I knew I had no idea where that wallet was, except it had to be in the house somewhere because I knew the last time I used it.
Luckily, the routine at home is rather familiar for me, having taken care of Cyndie through multiple surgery recoveries. I still remember how to make coffee for her.
We need to survive the weekend. While driving home from the lake yesterday, Cyndie was on the phone with several treatment places, seeking immediate surgery, if possible. We had possession of her x-ray and the detailed analysis from the Hayward ER that Cyndie was providing to the people on the phone.
The description of her condition included the word, “comminuted.”
Comminuted: adjective
reduced to minute particles or fragments.
• Medicine (of a fracture) producing multiple bone splinters.
She was told she will need a trauma surgeon and none were immediately available Friday afternoon.
An appointment for assessment by a trauma surgeon is scheduled for Monday.
Moms and dads and people raising their grandchildren don’t get enough credit for their loss of personal time.
Luckily, love is the key that more than makes up for the loss. It’s a privilege to take care of our most beloved friends and family.
That’s my experience.
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Unexpected Break
We didn’t see this one coming. After a day of watching more spectacular heroics of the tree-clearing professionals yesterday, things quieted significantly around the property. The calm did not last.
It’s funny that we were on edge over some of the brave antics demonstrated by the crew operating the heavy machinery and chainsaws. We would catch ourselves holding our collective breath until the workers had completed some risky-looking feat.
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When all the tree work had been completed and nobody but the three of us and Delilah were left on the property, we settled in by the fireplace with a late lunch snack to start watching a television series that held the potential for becoming a binger.
When the time for an afternoon walk triggered Delilah’s persistent ask to be let outside, Cyndie skipped out on the tv program to take the dog for a walk. Not long afterward, my phone rang with a call from Cyndie that shattered our tranquility.
I knew instantly that her trauma was real by the way she sounded as she cried for help, suspecting she had broken her ankle in a fall.
Driving Marie’s SUV like one of the tree guys, weaving around obstacle trees to reach her location, I was able to transport her to the Hayward hospital emergency department for immediate help.
An x-ray confirmed both the tibia and fibula were broken just above the ankle and she will require surgical repair.
Cyndie says she had just climbed the steps on the far side of the walking bridge that crosses our lagoon when Delilah made a dash after a squirrel and pulled her off the bridge. Cyndie landed on her right foot while trying to avoid hurting her replacement hip or either of the artificial knee joints.
I guess we could say she was successful in that regard.
She now has pain meds, a temporary splint, and a plan to head home as soon as possible to find somewhere close to home where she can have the surgical repair done.
Tread carefully, dear readers. We just never know when a misstep might significantly interrupt our serenity.
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Perfect Aim
You can color me duly impressed by the grand tree-cutting performance for which we had front-row seats yesterday. A large crew of workers with an impressive assortment of equipment showed up at sunrise and started their third day of work on the collection of properties that make up our Wildwood Lodge Club association.
They had saved the more complicated trees requiring a boom truck for yesterday and they began with the most challenging one while they were fresh. It was a tree that had a deck built around it so it was close to the house and didn’t allow for letting cut chunks of the trunk to just free-fall.
By the time they got to our place, they’d already brought down more trees than I could keep track of, and the choreography of their process had people spread out across multiple properties, tending to all phases of cleanup behind the guy in the bucket truck. He was a one-man wrecking crew. Said he’d been doing this for 34 years and his ease of working the controls of the bucket and cutting with the chainsaw provided visible confirmation of the proficiency that decades of experience provide.
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After a period of contemplation before he started, bucket-guy wandered off to recruit an assistant to place some tires and plywood at the base of our tree to protect some shrubs and the pavers. Then he proceeded to drop every last limb and section of cut trunk in a pile directly on top of his target. Only one piece rolled away after landing. Everything else stayed right where he put it.
His only faux pas was letting go of his handhold on the chainsaw one time when he thought it was in the pocket of his bucket, but it wasn’t. Luckily, it landed harmlessly in the pile of debris below and he calmly navigated the bucket down to the truck, climbed out, walked around the truck to pick up the saw, and then when right back up to finish the job as if he meant to do that.
I discovered the attachment I need for the skid steer I don’t own yet. Hah! I worry that I would find it hard to learn how to drive a skid steer. I doubt I would live long enough to also operate a claw device like they used to pick up everything that lands on the ground.
I’m pretty sure that guy could successfully pick up a penny off a glass surface with that clamp and not scratch the glass. He grasped bundles of branches and twirled the jaws to drop them on top of other debris so he could then scoop up the larger pile and haul off in reverse to the vicinity of the giant wood chipper.
I told Cyndie’s mom, Marie, that I should probably put one of those machines on my Christmas wish list.
I took a picture of the tree before they started and then again after it was removed.
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We were surprised that it didn’t appear like there was a gaping hole after it was gone. With the big tree no longer there, the surrounding trees that weren’t as noticeable before suddenly took on a new stature and prominence.
Upon completion of their day’s work, it was the bucket guy’s perfect aim that left the greatest impression on me. I’ve cut some big trees and I know how tricky it can be to get them to comply with our humble intent.
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Lake Trees
Because we can, we are up at the lake in the middle of the week to witness some tree trimming and/or removal by professionals planned for today. We came up yesterday afternoon with Cyndie’s mom and brought Delilah with us so we only needed to find someone to feed the horses while we are away.
The water level of the lake is much lower than usual, clearly reflecting how dry we have it at home 125 miles to the south. It’s no less gorgeous, thank goodness.
We quickly found evidence that some trees have already been removed around the Wildwood property.
This hollow beast was close to the area Cyndie and I created a small labyrinth in the woods on the edge of the driveway. Whatever machine they used during the job tracked over a portion of the rustic path we had tried to create. It is likely they never noticed because the ground is blanketed with leaves and the circuitous route was entirely hidden.
We had barely placed enough rocks to define the pathway and some of those appear to have rolled out of position so reclaiming the original circles of travel out from under the cover of leaves was an exercise in approximation.
Close enough for now.
I just hope there are no more trees in that section of woods they need to deal with. Cyndie said they took down some trees which they were able to cut from the ground and today we expect them to show up with a bucket truck. There is one tree in particular over our driveway between several cabins that needs to go.
I’m looking forward to watching the process as if it were a spectator sporting event. It will be easier to enjoy this show than when I watch crews work on our property at home because up here, I won’t be responsible for cleaning up everything they cut down.
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Expression– Revisited
Happy November.
In a curated version of the wayback machine, today I bring you a Words on Images post from November 2011. I somewhat randomly selected it after a period of exploration through the archives of images I used in my first three years of Relative Something. What a long interesting trip it has been.
Expression
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Words on Images
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Relative Something 