"The grave's a fine and private place, but none I think do there embrace" (Marvell)

.....Yesterday I drove to the VA Hospital by myself even though Rhoda volunteered.  I didn't want her to give up her freedom for the day, and she made good use of it going to get her nails done and shopping for groceries at Publix.  It's not a bad ride on the Florida Tpk; takes about 35 minutes and I get $19 travel pay every time I go there. PB asked for a health report, and so I shall oblige.  I had to have blood work at 11am and then I saw my primary doctor at 2pm.  I never had to have a wait like that at a VA facility.  When I finally saw her we went over all my medication and she was very concerned about the fact that my liver enzymes were at least 10 times more than the normal and she wanted to put me in the hospital.  At first I didn't understand that desire, but when I did, I asked why she wanted me in the hospital right away.  She said that my liver enzymes had to be monitored or I would become in very serious condition.  I told her I couldn't stay in the VA Hospital because my wife would not be able to make the trip back and forth in order to see me, as I assumed she would want to do; and secondly, I wanted to get a secondary opinion from my private primary doctor.  So, that's the current situation with my health.  I have to admit that I was shocked when Dr. Ducille told me she wanted me in the hospital RIGHT THEN!  There was no way I was going to do that.  

.....I'm beginning to think that the only sane people here are the one's who are writing the comments.  I know I'm not. So the thing to read are their comments, not my blog.  If you do that you will maintain your sanity; mine is under pressure.  This past year was a horror; I could not prevent the things that happened to me.  I had no control.  Now, I have even less control.  I am confessing to you that I take no joy in anything I do, and there are very few things that I can do.  Foremost in the joyless category is the inability to help my wife even it's for the little things like emptying the garbage or cleaning the dishes from the table.  I can't even walk the mall anymore to buy my wife a present.  You can't do much with a scooter, but look like a damn fool.  I have a dozen things that I would like to do but can't.  And so where do you think that puts me?  Read the comments; they define sanity.

"I could be well content to entertain the lag--end of my life with quiet hours." (Henry IV)

.....One of the enduring problems in my life right now is deciding what color to use when writing this blog.  There are simply too many colors to choose from.  It's like being in Macy's with RH+ as she is deciding what color to wear on a blouse that she needs to buy.   It is quite fascinating to be sitting in the aisle on my scooter and making a mind wager on the color she will finally select, and in how many minutes.  I don't consider this a waste of my time; it is a legitimate attempt to come up with the color she will select and in how many minutes it will take her to make a decision.  It only gets boring when I lose her as she goes up and down the aisles and she is too slight  and too quick to keep track of.  Macy's, like UPS, should supply tracking numbers to husbands who accompany their wives as they shop.


.....Speaking of keeping track of wives as they shop, it's difficult keeping track of former students, of colleagues, and of friends.  Recently, Harold Mack and Jane sold their house in Virginia and moved to Connecticut--I believe.  Hal is the last living member, besides myself, naturally, of my flight crew.  Also, today, surprisingly I got a phone call from Bob Fox, a  former student.  He also sold his house and moved to Vermont as well--to be closer to his children.  I don't know why these guys moved to Vermont; they are both good golfers, but in Vermont they need to learn how to ski.   I'm not so sure about Hal; he's older than I am so he better stick to Scrabble.  Bob, surprisingly, is now here in Florida and refereeing high school basketball games.  We have a breakfast date on Wednesday, and I'll have a few questions for him.  Bob had a great teaching career and recently retired.  I don't know what to think when I learn that a former student is retiring. It simply confirms the fact that little kids consider me old.  But little kids should not speak unless they are asked.


.....I certainly do not dispute the fact that I have passed puberty successfully.  And now, when I think about it, I don't have any life threatening diseases.  My health is excellent; my cholesterol is about 116, my blood pressure is always what it should be, my clothes fit me very well.  My problems are not health problems, they are physical problems.  I've had two hips broken since March, I've had a gash in my ankle that required stitches and staples (sounds like a good song title), but they have been removed.  The only thing that I have is pain--since March; and now I'm getting used to it.  Maybe I should wish myself a Happy New Year.

"I have seen a medicine that's able to breathe life unto a stone." (All's Well That Ends Well)

.....If you have been reading the comments lately, there is a medicinal conspiracy afoot to have me switch from my Warfarin treatments for A-Fib to Pradaxa, a relatively new drug--and an expensive one at that. Changing one drug for another when the one you are using is doing the job is not an easy choice--as I have found out on several occasions in the past with the VA medicines. Since I knew nothing about Pradaxa I checked it out on Google. This is just one of the articles I found.

I have atrial fibrillation.  How do I know which medication is best for 

me?  Whom should I talk to if I want to take dabigatran? (Pradaxa)

Talk to your health care professional to help decide.  There are many factors to 

consider when determining if warfarin or dabigatran is the best choice for you – 

stroke risk, bleeding risks, kidney function, personal and family factors, and 

financial considerations are just a few.  Each person should be evaluated 

individually to decide which blood thinner is best for them.  Some people with atrial 

fibrillation do not need to take a blood thinner at all.  Others may only need to take 

aspirin, while those with high enough stroke risk should take either warfarin or 

dabigatran. Kaiser Permanente health care professionals generally agree that 

people who are stable and well controlled on warfarin should continue with warfarin 

therapy.

.....Now, after reading an evaluation like this--especially the last sentence--it starts tremors in Baron's

 body; nevertheless, I promised I would discuss this with my doctor--and (as promised) I will--and that should make some of my readers happy for me. And I will pass my findings on to the Baron and his merry cohorts! (And I, myself, will be enthralled as long as I don't fall down).

"Foolery, sir, does walk about the orb like the sun; it shines everywhere." (Twelfth Night)

.....I've been engaged in this sublime activity since August 2007, along with the medication that has been accompanying it; so, at times I point my index finger out from a cloud in order to see who would reach out to touch my finger with their finger---or is this only done in bars, or in movies, or in the Sistine Chapel?  I keep hoping that the medication would work its wonders and have someone like Jane Fonda, Marilyn Monroe, or Whoopee Goldberg be at the other end of this phantasmagorical inane episodic word play.  Doesn't usually happen--actually, it doesn't happen at all.  

.....What should happen and which hasn't is that Jon  (my stepson) should be able to get a job which is steady and long lasting and which pays well for him...he is deserving. He did have such an arrangement with some airline which moved away from Norfolk and left Jon behind.  And he loved that Job.  Today is Jon's birthday and he is several years' old.  And the good news is that he is going back to school...The school is on the internet but it's still a school which gives degrees.  I believe that Jon will be going on to study business courses.  Maybe someday he will be a stockbroker after he learns how to break some stocks.


DECEMBER 16, 2011


.....Funny thing happened today.  I had received a Citizen's watch as a gift at my retirement party last 1982, and I never had to put a battery in it.  I was so proud that I went all the way to 2011 and never needed a battery.  What I didn't know as I was bragging about the longevity of that watch is that Citizen makes watches that need only light -- not batteries.  Well, it broke down, finally, and I sent it away to California to be repaired.  I received an e-mail stating that the watch did not have the proper parts to fix it--and no wonder--it was 29 years old, and I'm sure the repair guys lost all the parts by 2011.  I was offered the choice of a new watch at half price and I grabbed at the opportunity.  I bought a new watch and I watched the tracking at the UPS web site.  I learned that the watch would be delivered yesterday afternoon.  It was never delivered!  Citizen requested UPS to ship the watch back.  So I called Citizen and learned that the reason they requested that the package be returned was that the package contained my old irreparable watch--not the one that I bought!  Can you believe that?  The repairmen are not Harvard grads, I imagine.  Well, I will just have to wait for the new watch to be on its way--I don't know when--the old one is probably still on its way back to California.

"This fellow is wise enough to play the fool..." (Twelfth Night)

.....I imagine that everyone (Ha! Everyone? How many could there be? Count them on the comments--that is, if you can find the comments for the previous blog posting.  It's like a treasure hunt.)  Any hooo--I expect that all the treasure hunters (I count about five) are concerned about my recent stupid accident.  I cannot blame myself for it because I happened to see my degrees hanging on the walls (like MDs do) so I figured I was smart enough not to fall off the scooter.  So, who can I blame, if not myself?  The engineers who put that monstrosity together are to blame.  The slightest movement of the driver's body to the right or to the left would cause the scooter to flip over--along with the driver.  It's been two weeks now since that unfortunate, unexpected surprise.  Yes, a surprise.  As I lay upon the ground in the parking lot with part of the scooter resting on my ankle, I asked myself, "Why are you falling again?"  Surprise!  I had no intelligent response, therefore I had no choice but to remove all the degrees from my  walls.  So, now , instead of just pain in my left foot there is now pain in my right foot.  This time, however, it took several stitches and a few staples to bind the wound.  For this indignity I cursed Office Depot.

.....However, I was used to being stitched like an Afghan quilt because only a few weeks earlier I had stitches put in my face after the dermatologist extracted whatever little cancer happened to have taken up residence there.  But I'm bearing up under all of this painful activity, because I've had much worse "wounds" to carry around with me for much longer periods of time.  Now, I have to admit that if not for Rhoda, my life would be much more difficult now.  Unca Phil hit the nail on the head or is it "...hit the fly with the swatter"?  She is a caregiver to me, at the same time that she is having serious medical issues of her own which is taking an unfair toll upon her life in these "golden years".  I can't begin to write of the help she is to me, as Hindy is to Phil, and I am mortified at having to depend upon her for some things I cannot do for myself -- at this time.  Yes, I have to use a walker, but I hope to graduate to a cane sometime in the future.  It is much more "genteel".  And if I grow a beard on my chin, just think how professorial I would look.   Oooo Haaah!

"Who can control his fate?" (Othello)

.....Why does this happen?  Is there some mysterious force at work attempting to send me a message--which, as yet, I haven't interpreted. We were supposed to have brunch with "Eliza" and Dick, and then go on a boat ride on the Inter-Coastal along with about 30 other people from the Ping Pong Club today; but we couldn't make it.  Obviously, and predictably I fell from the scooter in the parking lot; of course the scooter fell mostly on me and the pebbles, tearing the skin from my right elbow, both knees, and my right ankle--which at the moment appeared to be fractured, or broken.  
.....Of course, since I have been taking Coumadin for A-Fib, I spewed blood all over my sandals and over the pristine ground.  Fortunately, a young lady jogger appeared and proceeded to call 911, which number I detest.  When the medics arrived in their beautiful red truck, neighbors appeared--almost like osmosis--the last thing that I wanted--to be gawked at.  Shortly thereafter I was loaded onto a gurney, then into an ambulance, and then to the ER of the local hospital where I was expeditiously bandaged like a mummy.  Both knees, right elbow, and right ankle--which took six staples and four stitches to close up.  I needed that right foot to step on and off curbs, and in and out of cars. 


.....I can't continue this for a few days--until the pain subsides to the point where I can remember what it is I want to say; but keep checking.  


     ok Just to clarify, I did not say that I broke my ankle. It was very painful and what I wrote was that it appeared to me that there was a break there, but when I got to the hospital, they cleaned the blood from my knees and my right foot & my elbow, but x-rays showed no break.  However, there was a deep gash on the foot which required stitches and staples. They will be there for a few weeks before they can be removed.  (The stitches and staples, Joel, not the ankle.)