Medical Dropoff
Back on Feb 2 last, Groundhog Day, I did indeed call my friend L., over on the Northern Neck. The conversation went great, except that I should have waited longer, because during its course a pain that I had been having in my stomach all morning suddenly got worse, and finally I had to cut short the call and report to the toilet room. This was after getting basically a clean bill of health from the doctor and a blood test just a few weeks earlier.
That was followed by upchucking all afternoon, till the little sack that is called my stomach had done a pretty good job of emptying itself. And that's been followed ever since by some serious weakness, with my never robust appetite not doing a very good job at all of pushing me to take in enough food to bring the sack back to its normal, partly full state. As a result I have no strength to get around as I once did, though that is improving day by day, after I gradually digest a little more.
Because it is my thing to report to hospitals only during the most dire events, I still have no good explanation for all this.
The same thing happened, my wife E. claims, six months ago, in July, when I very reluctantly had to call to ask her to come back home to give me a hand. She was down in Florida, tending to her mother, who had had a stroke not long before, while her stepfather, who had entered the hospital on exactly the same day, was recovering from a back operation. I could appeal to her, successfully, with a clear conscience since I figured that there were a lot more people helping her mother in the hospital and at the therapy center than I would feel comfortable with calling on here at home, which was exactly none.
But this time the medical event happened while E. was here, and I feel bad that my illness has caused her to delay returning to Florida, though she has gotten no emergency summons from there, which means her mother is making enough progress in the therapy center. But in the next two days I expect to see E. setting sail once more for Florida, after which the long period that I will then spend entirely on my own with the energy level of a crushed snail will be a big adventure.
Meanwhile I'm wondering whether I should be highly concerned about the way that my major activity nowadays consists of sitting around the house doing precisely nothing, except writing long weblog posts in my head. After my close friend S., a beekeeper like me, died a few years ago, at just a little older than I am now, his wife told me that she knew that something serious was up when he started sitting around the house doing nothing.
That was uncharacteristic of him, plus the two of us had made a vow that we would never spend the rest of however many years we had left doing what we had observed to be the lot of many old men in the county, which was sitting on their front porches and just chewing the rag. By crackey we were both going to go out instead while DOING SOMETHING!
Well, even reaching one's early 70's doesn't save one from such juvenile bravado, and we can have little to no control over the many forces waiting to take from us our energies of former days, though I had been thinking that S. went out like that, keeling over with no warning while sitting quietly, because he had a bunch of stents in his chest, while so far I have had no trouble with my heart, But how can a person ever really know?
It's already a major miracle that the muscular little pump that we are all born with can stay on the job for a very large number of years without ever missing even one beat.
That was followed by upchucking all afternoon, till the little sack that is called my stomach had done a pretty good job of emptying itself. And that's been followed ever since by some serious weakness, with my never robust appetite not doing a very good job at all of pushing me to take in enough food to bring the sack back to its normal, partly full state. As a result I have no strength to get around as I once did, though that is improving day by day, after I gradually digest a little more.
Because it is my thing to report to hospitals only during the most dire events, I still have no good explanation for all this.
The same thing happened, my wife E. claims, six months ago, in July, when I very reluctantly had to call to ask her to come back home to give me a hand. She was down in Florida, tending to her mother, who had had a stroke not long before, while her stepfather, who had entered the hospital on exactly the same day, was recovering from a back operation. I could appeal to her, successfully, with a clear conscience since I figured that there were a lot more people helping her mother in the hospital and at the therapy center than I would feel comfortable with calling on here at home, which was exactly none.
But this time the medical event happened while E. was here, and I feel bad that my illness has caused her to delay returning to Florida, though she has gotten no emergency summons from there, which means her mother is making enough progress in the therapy center. But in the next two days I expect to see E. setting sail once more for Florida, after which the long period that I will then spend entirely on my own with the energy level of a crushed snail will be a big adventure.
Meanwhile I'm wondering whether I should be highly concerned about the way that my major activity nowadays consists of sitting around the house doing precisely nothing, except writing long weblog posts in my head. After my close friend S., a beekeeper like me, died a few years ago, at just a little older than I am now, his wife told me that she knew that something serious was up when he started sitting around the house doing nothing.
That was uncharacteristic of him, plus the two of us had made a vow that we would never spend the rest of however many years we had left doing what we had observed to be the lot of many old men in the county, which was sitting on their front porches and just chewing the rag. By crackey we were both going to go out instead while DOING SOMETHING!
Well, even reaching one's early 70's doesn't save one from such juvenile bravado, and we can have little to no control over the many forces waiting to take from us our energies of former days, though I had been thinking that S. went out like that, keeling over with no warning while sitting quietly, because he had a bunch of stents in his chest, while so far I have had no trouble with my heart, But how can a person ever really know?
It's already a major miracle that the muscular little pump that we are all born with can stay on the job for a very large number of years without ever missing even one beat.
posted by Carl (aka Sofarsogoo) | 4:14 PM
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