TW3: That Was The Week That Was

Flat on my back again. But good weather for it, wet and grey.

This week has been kind of interesting, but not sure if it is in a good way or a bad way. I had two phone appointments with my occupational therapist (OT) and my care coordinator, one zoom call with the Dizziness clinic physiotherapist (PT), and one in-person appointment with my doctor. Each had something diffferent to say.

First off, on Sunday I started moving some firewood from outdoors into the woodshed since there was now room for it. I figured that if I split the job up over three days I'd be within my energy envelope. I also went to a neighbourhood Christmas party that evening, which I really enjoyed. However my first day of moving firewood I racked up 92 minutes of "fat-burning exercise" (according to my fitbit), which was definitely not within my energy envelope. But I felt okay enough to go to the party and get silly drunk.

Monday I still felt okay so I did the second third of the firewood, but there was so little left and I felt pretty good so I decided to finish the job. 46 minutes of fat-burning, still not good but I thought, oh well I can rest all day Tuesday. Then I went to move the sheet of plywood that had been covering the wood pile back to where it had been. Too heavy to lift so I was sliding it across the ground. The front end snagged on something, I pushed again and my feet slipped and I fell flat on my face onto the plywood.

Boy did that hurt! Amazingly, my glasses didn't break although the frame bent a bit. My face was a mess though. I went inside and laid down for some time and then went out to finish moving the plywood. Spent the rest of the day resting, I was pretty shook up.

Tuesday I talked to the OT, told her what happened, we discussed staying within my energy envelope and lessons learned from making mistakes. She was very gentle about it.

Wednesday I went to the doctor's and also the optometrist to get my glasses bent back to shape. I am thoroughly grateful for masks, I did not have to show off my really banged up face. Discussed some medication options with my doctor and she gave me a prescription for something new to try. I asked about a couple of other drugs but she felt they were way too new for her to feel comfortable prescribing them. They're not actually new, they are just starting to be used off-label for what I have. I was happy about the prescription that she did give me though.

Stopped at a farm on my way home to pick up some kindling and braided trivets. Went home and utterly crashed, I could barely make it in the door and to the daybed. Managed to get up long enough to get something to eat, but that was it, I was toast.

Thursday was no better, I did not bother getting out of my pyjamas because I felt so sick. It is post exertional malaise (PEM), the hallmark of myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS). It can be delayed by as much as 72 hours after one has overdone it. So I overdid things Sunday-Monday, continued along thinking I was sort of okay (I knew I was going to pay for it but whatever) and then Wednesday afternoon it hit. It feels like a bad flu, minus the fever, respiratory and/or gut symptoms, one just feels awful.

My physio zoom call was Thursday afternoon and the PT just threw the book at me.

"What did I tell you? 

And what did you do? 

You fell because you didn't listen and you didn't do as you were told! 

You think you can just live like you did before but you can't!"

And on like that. I've gotten used to her style so I kinda knew this was coming. Among other things she mentioned that her mother has ME/CFS and she has lectured her mother about pacing and her mother continues to mess up. I get her frustration, but, a little bit of transference maybe?

The OT is very gentle with me and the PT is the opposite, but maybe getting lectured like that will make it sink in. I CANNOT exceed my energy envelope. Not only does it result in PEM, but as long as I am continually putting myself in that state I will NEVER improve.

Friday I am still sick. I have an phone appointment with my care coordinator. I tell her the story of my week and she asks me if I know what my anaerobic threshold is. I don't even know what that is, let alone what mine is, so she says she'll email me the formula for calculating it. She is happy to hear about the prescription my doctor gave me but warns me that if it makes me feel more energetic I have to resist using that energy, it is a kind of false dawn.

I get her email and the formula looks familiar. It is: 

(220 - your age) x .6 or .5 (depending on how severe one's illness is). 

This is meant to be the heart rate (HR) that I must not exceed, the limit of my energy envelope. I do the calculation and realize that it more or less coincides with what my fitbit tells me is fat-burning exercise. In other words, I must not get any fat-burning exercise at all (never mind cardio!). That's a steep challenge! I optimistically used .6 as the multiplier; if I used .5 I would pretty much have to confine myself to bed.

Today, Saturday, I am still sick but I needed to bring in a load of firewood from the woodshed to the smaller stack beside the woodstove. It was 7 minutes over my threshold to get it to the back door, another minute to get it stacked. 

This being winter, I will probably average a load a day. That is 8 minutes outside my energy envelope every day, at minimum. And if I do anything else (shopping, a short walk, a visit with friends, etc) I am so toasted.

This sucks.

John

I got a phone call yesterday from a stranger telling me that a dear friend John had died a month ago. I almost didn't answer the call because I didn't recognize the number, but he was legitimate. It was shocking and extremely sad, I spent the rest of the day in tears.

John lived on the other side of the country, where I used to live. I met him a couple of decades ago, warmed up to him gradually. He was the kind of person who was a little bit in your face, but not in an aggressive way, he meant well. I got used to that and eventually appreciated it very much. When I moved across the country he was about the only person aside from family that I kept in touch with by phone, and our calls usually lasted over two hours. We talked about everything, we laughed a lot. Ostensibly we were talking about my financial affairs—he was my financial advisor—but rarely did that part of the conversation last for more than 15 minutes. And it went right over my head. I trusted him though and was glad that he knew what he was talking about, because I sure didn't.

The few times I went back out west to visit, he was on my list to check in with. We'd meet in his office and later go for lunch. He was into ikebana (Japanese flower arrangement) and he made a new arrangement for his office waiting area every week. Sometimes he'd explain the meaning of it to me, but I'm afraid that went over my head as well. They were beautiful though.

The last time I talked to him was a few weeks before he died. I knew he had cancer, I knew it had metastasized, but he was so upbeat and optimistic that I thought he had more time. During the past summer when he knew his cancer had metastasized, he went with a friend to visit their family in England, something he often did. I gather it was a very good visit. He was also an extreme skier and hiker. He always took his dog on his hikes, sometimes his daughter would accompany him. He loved the west coast.

The man who called me yesterday gave me his daughter's email address, with her permission. I wrote to her today to tell her what a wonderful man I thought he was. She just had a baby the week after he died, how sad that John never met his grandchild! And how sad that she must deal with grief and joy at the same time. Understandably, she has not planned any celebration of life (nobody has funerals these days!).

It is so distressing to get such news and have nobody to talk to about it. I tried phoning a couple of people but no one was home, and none of them would have known who John was and how much he meant to me. I do hope his daughter is coping.

Surviving a broken brain

A couple of weeks ago I went to the Atlantic Balance and Dizziness Clinic in Halifax to have the dizziness I have been experiencing pretty much non-stop for two years now assessed by a physiotherapist. She was very thorough, the appointment was about 1.5 hours long, taking my history and running me through countless tests.

She diagnosed my problem as Persistent Postural Perceptive Dizziness (PPPD, or "3PD"). The standard treatment is a low dose SSRI for anxiety and cognitive behaviour therapy to train my brain to reframe what I experience as "not dizzy". Since I pretty much deny experiencing anxiety and am very wary of SSRIs she suggested pacing instead.

She emailed me a pacing checklist which I am supposed to use to assign points to all my daily activities and limit myself to only 10 or 15 points a day. So far I have scored 25 and 32 points daily, so obviously I have a long way to go to get it under 15 points.

The trouble with this system is that it assigns a lot of points for reading and computer use, and since I am very limited in the amount of physical activity I can do, I score lots of points in those activities. I am at a loss as to what I am supposed to do when I cannot do much else. This blog post alone is going to count for more than 5-10 points, meal preparation and "ADLs" (activities of daily living: getting dressed, brushing one's teeth, washing, grooming, etc) will account for another 5 points, and the rest of the day is toast.

I can see where such a system of pacing by points would be good for recovering from concussion, and limiting one's time on the computer or tablet or phone is probably a good idea, but I am at a loss as to what else I can do other than stare at the ceiling. Even talking to a friend racks up points at an alarming rate.

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I have been chatting on the phone with an old friend out west several times a week. The time difference (four hours) makes scheduling difficult, but so far we manage. She has Parkinson's. It affects her ability to communicate and think straight, resulting in a lot of anxiety and depression about her situation. Unlike me she can still do two hour hikes in the nearby mountains and play ping pong, although her coordination is failing so she has some difficulty with the ping pong.

Last night we were talking about cognitive and memory testing. A year ago I had my memory tested at a local clinic and she is undergoing cognitive testing at her local Parkinson's clinic. She agreed to the testing for the good of research but has been finding it frustrating. We both have memory and cognitive problems. But the tests that they do seem quite irrelevant, as if the people who are doing the testing don't really know what memory and cognitive loss really is like. The tests feel useless and beside the point.

In my own case, the memory tests started simply enough but gradually became more difficult. They required remembering words shown to you on cards in a particular order. On the final couple of tests my mind just went blank, I could not think of anything. The tester prompted me with hints and I was able to recall the words she was hinting at, but doing it without the hints was impossible. 

She gave me my final "score" and I asked what it meant. Was I normal? Average? Deficient? She hemmed and hawed and went into this whole thing about what is normal, what is average, so I knew she wasn't going to tell me.

The thing is, my memory deficits have nothing to do with words on cards, or counting backwards from 100 by sevens. They are not testing the real memory losses, just what they think memory loss should look like. Likewise for my friend, she feels very frustrated because the testing she is undergoing has hardly anything to do with what she is experiencing.

Our conversations are halting and involve long silences as we search for the words we know are there but can't speak, and we lose track of what we were talking about it in the first place. But I feel like we are on the same page so the communication difficulties are irrelevant. We laugh a lot at our shared experience of cognitive loss.

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Had a visit from the local Homecare Coordinator to see if I qualified. It's a tricky business. What I want is a little light housekeeping. What's on offer is personal care: help getting in and out of the bathtub or help getting dressed. If I need personal care they will throw in light housekeeping as well, but my income is too high to just get the light housekeeping. Also, the amount they would charge me for this is equivalent to what it would cost me to hire a housecleaner for a few hours a month, which is all I need. 

The problem is I don't know who does that sort of thing other than agencies which charge a lot more. The Homecare Coordinator said that they largely use VON for nursing and personal care, and Caregivers NS for the housekeeping. She told me the name of the local contact for Caregivers NS and it turns out I know that person, she lives down the street from me. I will call her to see if she can provide leads for housecleaners.

The visit was very helpful, and if I ever do need help getting in and out of the tub, I know who to call. She liked my woodfire and sat next to the stove because she said it was impossible to be too warm. Later she asked how I got my firewood into the house and I showed her my somewhat complicated system involving a firewood bag, wheelbarrow and an old bath towel. She marvelled at it.

"You have a system for everything!" she said.

Yup. That's what you do when you're old and live alone and want to stay that way.

Attempts to expand one's horizons

Lovely autumn weather has me attempting short walks. I have been driving to the Reservoir and walking around one pond there, this past weekend I tried walking around two blocks in my neighbourhood. They have been"repairing/constructing" a major road and I have not seen it since the beginning of the summer. My neighbours said it is considerably narrower now, since they put in the dedicated bike trail. I finally went over to see.

I only could see the top half and it is a mess. At this late date I doubt they will finish it before winter, so it is not going to be pretty. And it is indeed much narrower. One of the rental housing areas off that road has numbered parking spaces for tenants only, visitors must park on the street. Only now the street is too narrow to accommodate parked cars. Could get interesting there.

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Also on the weekend, a friend called me to ask if I wanted to go to a concert of the provincial symphony orchestra, in 20 minutes time. If I did she would pick me up and drive me home afterward. One of the benefits of not having anything to do, one can take up such invitations at a moment's notice. It was a lovely concert and I really enjoyed it. At the intermission I got to talk to several people I hadn't seen in many months.

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One of our town councillors resigned in September, would love to know the story behind that, but I can guess. Anyway, now there is a by-election for a replacement councillor only they got no candidates by the deadline so they have extended the deadline. A friend who has been a bit of an activist in my neighbourhood was considering it. She writes a weekly email newsletter for anyone who wants to sign up, most of the neighbourhood and some folks from other areas are on the list. Several councillors were too, only the mayor told them they were not allowed. Don't ask. Anyway, most of them, including the mayor, have access to the newsletter via friends and family. My friend is pretty critical of the town council and has more than once been told off for her comments. A recent blasting from the mayor for being so outspoken really upset her.

When the by-election was announced several of us urged her to run, but that was right after the blasting she got so she was kind of reluctant. She did not want to mount a campaign with signs and all, and she did not want to give up her newsletter which she thought would be required if she was on council. However, the deadline got extended, and several town employees urged her to run, and indirectly she heard that some councillors would welcome her to council. Also most of our neighbourhood would like it very much.

She is still sitting on the fence. I said, why should you have to give up your newsletter? Shouldn't councillors be talking to their constituents? Maybe all the councillors should be required to send out newsletters! This secrecy business makes people not trust democratic institutions. I hope she runs, I am pretty sure she would be acclaimed.

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At the same time as the by-election was announced, it was also announced that positions on various town committees were also taking applications. I looked at the list of committees and thought that maybe I could apply for the Accessibility Committee, since I now have life experience in accessibility barriers. The application document was a bit daunting, wanting to know what work experience or education qualifications I had for this committee. This is all very youthful and ableist, zero consideration for life experience. What, I have to have a degree in Accessibility? Well I applied anyway. I am not expecting a lot of competition, but if there is maybe I'll apply for another committee. Dip my baby toe in the local political arena.

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After my weekend walk around two blocks I thought I'd try walking downtown and back. The bottom half of the road under construction is not finished either but at least it has one layer of asphalt so it looks kind of finished. They might get a second layer before winter, I don't know. However walking down and up that hill was a very bad idea. That was on Monday morning and I am still in recovery from that little jaunt. So I guess I can walk around a block or two but not all the way into town, definitely still have to drive. Only a few months ago this was still doable, now it's not.

Lazy days of autumn

Wet spider web at Tai Chi class

It's been a while but I am still here. I spend a lot of time on my daybed, reading, surfing and watching shows in the evening. I am currently ploughing through Mick Herron's Slough House series. I get each book at the library and since right now this series is very popular (thanks to Slow Horses on Apple TV+), I am not reading them in the proper order. I put holds on the ones I want to read and it's luck of the draw which one comes first. I still haven't read the first book in the series, but I have read the most recent (Bad Actors, 2022). I am currently reading the penultimate, Slough House. In the TV series Gary Oldman plays Jackson Lamb so when I read that's how I picture him. Likewise for some of the other characters.

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Hurricane Fiona did a lot of damage here but one good thing came of it, a few friends faraway texted and emailed to see if I was okay. As a result I have reconnected with a couple of old friends I haven't been in touch with for a few years. One of them has a similar illness to me and we both are rather restricted in what we can do and who we can talk to. So it's nice, we're kind of on the same page. We used to joke around a lot, and that hasn't changed.

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I got a Handicapped tag for my truck this week, I no longer have to worry about finding a parking spot close enough to the grocery store. I still hate that I have to drive everywhere, but at least it is less frustrating. Today I drove to the Reservoir to go for a walk, I did not park in the Handicap spot because it wouldn't have made a difference. No ducks on the pond but a nice walk. There's a look off point where you can see the Minas Basin and Cape Blomidon, I sat on a bench there for a while. Someone walked by with their little dog, the dog stopped to say hello. That was nice. I love the smell of autumn, not to mention the colours. Just a lovely day for a walk. I am still holding out hope for more ducks, they cheer me up.

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Next month will be full of appointments. I will be assessed by the Home Care Coordinator to see if I am eligible for services, and at the Balance and Dizziness Clinic to determine the cause of my dizziness and what treatment, if any, will help. Also see my doctor. She does the only one symptom at a time thing, so last time I went it was about my cough. I tried to bring up the dizziness (yet again!!! so frustrating!!!) and she said not now, next appointment. Earliest appointment available was in six weeks. So I went through the Nurse Practitioner at the Chronic Conditions Clinic and she made the referral immediately. 

At some point I am scheduled for a CT scan to see if I have lung cancer due to being a former smoker. My doctor's idea. But through a combination of prescription drugs and over-the-counter meds, I have the cough more or less under control, and I don't think it is due to lung cancer, or any of the other lung ailments caused by smoking. Also, out of the blue, I got called by an organization that tests your memory to see if you have dementia. I had gone in for a free assessment a year ago, and now they want to offer me a DNA test to see if I have genes for dementia. What the hell, why not. At this point I really don't care one way or the other. 

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Still going to Tai Chi but it is getting more difficult by the week. I am finding out just how short my short term memory is. The instructor says this is normal, but it doesn't feel normal.

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I put my birdfeeder out early this year. It is mobbed by the blue jays who literally guzzle down the seeds. But the chickadees, cardinals and nuthatches manage to get in between mobs. 

One day a nuthatch came and the feeder was not up. It flew around and around where it should have been, perhaps thinking it just hadn't looked hard enough (I know the feeling!). Then it flew away, but a few minutes later it came back and landed on a potted plant nearby. It dug up a sunflower seed and flew away with it. Ahah! Now I know who is burying seeds in my potted plants! 

The mourning dove is back too, hoping for messy eaters to drop seeds on the table below the feeder. The blue jays have cleaned up their act, they don't drop so many seeds any more. I take pity on the very patient dove and scatter a few seeds on the table for it. 

My friend that I reconnected with was telling me about the bears that visit her area. And the coyotes. She enjoys their visits. I think I would too, but not a lot of bears or coyotes here. Rare visits by pheasants is as exotic as it gets.

Beginnings, endings and inbetweens

Students are back and my neighbourhood is surprisingly quiet. I keep waiting for the other shoe to drop. What, did they all mature over the summer? I saw one guy walking up the street with a bong, and later a couple of guys carrying 12-packs of … water! Maybe they all gave up booze? I don't know. I am enjoying the peace, for however long it lasts.

The dry sunny weather continues on and on. I've never had to water my garden in September before. We have water restrictions right now so it is a good thing I have a rain barrel. The water restrictions are not due to lack of water but rather a broken part in the reservoir that needs to be replaced, but is caught up in supply chain issues with no ETA.

I started a Tai Chi class. I really am hoping this is a level of activity I can tolerate. My Fitbit tells me that the first class hardly raised my heartrate at all, a good sign. But the following two days I've been pretty much confined to home due to dizziness, not a good sign. The instructor of the class is really good, plus he has volunteer helpers—more experienced students—to help guide us. There's one woman in the class who I am pretty sure has dementia, she sticks pretty close to her husband and only vaguely follows the instructions. But nobody says anything about that, the class is very inclusive. I don't have to pay for the class until I've completed two sessions, to know whether it suits me or not. At this point the jury is out. I really enjoyed it, but spending two days after virtually bedridden is a little disconcerting.

Shortly after I got out of my Tai Chi class I saw the news that the Queen had died. It feels almost like a death in the family. I know that some people disapprove of the Monarchy but I for one do not. She has been a source of stability for a very long time. When I was three years old I went with all my extended family to see her when she visited Toronto back in the day. Since our house was closest to the parade route, the family gathered there afterward. I remember the gathering but not so much the Princess (she wasn't Queen yet), just that it was a momentous occasion.

I liked living in a country with a Queen, I like that Canada is part of a larger community, the British Commonwealth. I realize that the Commonwealth is just the old British Empire with a new name and that the British Empire was a great colonial power that did a lot of damage in many parts of the world including here, damage that people are still having to deal with. But being part of a larger whole, for better or for worse, and having a long history, also for better or for worse, seems to me a good thing in the long haul. And I'd rather be part of the British Commonwealth than the Russian Empire.

Anyway, I miss Queen Elizabeth II, the end of an era that lasted almost my whole life. I think she did a very good job of it. It will be strange to have a King rather than a Queen, but I hope he does well too. I read something about him, how he was in the habit of espousing weird ideas that people made fun of him for. You, know, organic food, the environment, that sort of thing. Now he looks a little prescient.

Brain fog, experts and good neighbours

Third heat wave of the summer, although it being late August the nights are a bit cooler so it is not quite so debilitating.

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A while ago I quit Facebook, but then re-upped in order to join a couple of groups related to Long Covid and ME/CFS. There have been some very helpful, to me, discussions there about these disease syndromes, their symptoms, and the various drugs, supplements and remedies people have tried. Also a lot of comments on how helpful or unhelpful various healthcare professionals have been.

Recently there was a discussion of "brain fog", a symptom of both LC and ME/CFS. If you consult Dr. Google it is generally described as mental confusion, cognitive and memory deficits. These are all true, but that doesn't nearly describe what it actually feels like. So in this discussion, one fellow described it as like a concussion on a bad day and a hangover on a good day. A woman described it as like having a concrete block in her head and another like someone has poured concrete into her skull and it has set solid. I especially like that last description but they are all pretty good. I often have to lie down just because my head feels so heavy… like a concrete block. I have never heard a healthcare professional describe it as anything other than cognitive and memory deficits (in other words, dementia).

I have had no luck getting anyone to understand what I mean when I say I feel dizzy, and I am thinking maybe I should use the concrete metaphor instead. More and more I agree with Michael J Fox when he says that the true experts are those with the condition themselves.

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I set off a bit of a firestorm in town this week. Over the weekend I had a rather unpleasant encounter with a local landlord who accused me of driving away all his tenants by my constant complaining about noise. Funnily enough, I had given up complaining and his tenants were going elsewhere to party after 10pm which suited me fine. Anyway the encounter was very upsetting, so I wrote an email to the Town Council about it and I told a friend who writes a weekly newsletter for the Good Neighbours Association (a group of residents living in the student part of town who are having to put up with a lot of student and landlord bad behaviour).

A whole lot of people are horrified by my experience, including the Mayor. I am going to be interviewed this afternoon by a town employee looking into town/gown issues. A lawyer in the Association wants to know who the landlord is. He is not above pursuing such matters within legal limits.  

I am not interested in going after this guy, he's unlikely to change his opinion and not being friends with him is not a huge loss. He is just an ignorant bully with no power. What I do want is for the Town to wake up to the bad behaviours of landlords, not only in how they treat the neighbours but also in how they treat their tenants (some student houses are very badly maintained and packed to the gills with young people who don't know any better).

What the Good Neighbours Association wants (among other things) is for the town to keep a registry of all landlords and require them to have business licences. I would hope that being registered would hold them accountable for complaints about how they run their businesses.

Sunny days, the birds and the bees

Finished varnishing the kayak, have moved it back to under the house since it is unlikely I'll be kayaking in the near future. But it does look good now. Had to take a few photos because otherwise I won't be seeing it again for another year. Sigh.

Dances with Whales

Traditionally one carves a fish or sea-going mammal into the bulkhead of a wooden kayak to help it stay afloat.

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The solar panels are now installed and running, but of course there's been a major weather change to rain and cloud for the foreseeable future. On a solar energy discussion group I saw that people with already up-and-running solar panels are ecstatic about all the sun they got in May and July. I missed out entirely. Might get a bit of sun in the fall, but by that time the sun will be much lower in the sky and sunlight will be shorter in duration. This year is a write-off. 

A little stress around my heat pump. Turns out the heat pump company installed it in the wrong place, and as a result the power company failed my solar installation. The solar guys told me if I could get it moved in the next few days there was still hope, and if needs be they would move it for me. But the heat pump people said that would void my warranty, and lucky me, they had a cancellation so they could slot me in the same day the solar guys put up the panels. 

Two guys came to move the heat pump, after a half hour of standing around waiting for head office to get back to them about what exactly was the problem and where they were supposed to move the it to. A couple of days later I got the bill, $200 for two guys to stand around waiting for a callback and then maybe twenty minutes moving the heat pump.

Not supposed to block access to power meter

I called the company and said, look, this is your fault not mine, you installed it in the wrong place as per the Electrical Code of Canada, you should have known better and there was plenty of space to install it elsewhere. They said they'd call me back, and an hour and a half later they did call to apologize and tell me the bill was being reversed. 

I don't believe for one second that this was news to them, they just tried to see if they could get away with it. But according to my new Fitbit, the stress of waiting those ninety minutes was equivalent to a half hour jog with respect to my heart rate. Got all my cardiac exercise for a couple of days in one shot.

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As I mentioned earlier I may have given myself a concussion and was slow to realize it because the symptoms are so close to what I have with long Covid. However, I've been looking into things people are doing for concussion, besides the usual stuff that doctors tell you. One of the things I happened on is creatine (not to be confused with creatinine). Body builders and athletes love the stuff, it helps them to build muscle fast. But more recently there has been some research into using it to treat concussion. 

I started thinking, if my symptoms overlap concussion symptoms, maybe this stuff will help me? Because the local university is big on athletics, there's a lot of athletes in town and guess what, a shop called Supplement King that caters to them. So I went there to enquire about creatine. 

The very buff owner was happy to tell me what he knew. Yes, he's been using it for a couple of years, no side effects but it's not recommended to people with kidney or liver problems. I told him why I wanted to try it and he was very supportive, even telling me that there's a prof at our university researching creatine for concussion. So I bought 300gms of the stuff and have started taking it. So far, no side effects, but no positive effects either. Not that I am expecting instant results, the research I have read suggests that it might take a couple of months.

If I could rid myself of only one symptom, it would definitely be the dizziness. Two years of it is depressing, and it has totally wrecked my social life. If it weren't for my garden and the birds, well, let's just leave it at that.

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In yet more boring health news, my doctor is on about my blood pressure again. When I measure at home it is fine, but when she measures at her office it is through the roof. Why am I not surprised. Anyway, she wants me to take a bunch of readings over the next couple of weeks or so, and gave me an instruction sheet and form to fill in. Problem is, I have a chronic cough, have had it from the get-go, and now it is much worse. I suspect allergies have kicked in. Well it turns out that when I am having a coughing fit my blood pressure rises into the hypertension zone, not as high as when I am in her office, but high enough to make a liar of me. 

I've started doing various things to get the cough under control, which sort of help, and I am dispensing with her instructions. I am supposed to sit up straight in a chair but that's the perfect position for a coughing fit too. So, I take the reading lying down. 

It's all very annoying having to do this. I feel like the pharmaceutical companies are pushing hard to get all old people on medication one way or another, and lowering the threshold for what is considered hypertension is one good way to do that. When I read all the potential side effects I just want to stay away from such meds if at all possible. Even if it means acquiescing to the prescription and dumping the pills down the toilet.

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Okay enough about that. In other news my onion crop is a bit of a failure, I am going to end up with bags of onion sets but not much else, maybe enough onion greens to make another batch of onion greens pesto. Tomatoes are coming along like gangbusters, I am freezing all the ones I don't eat; I have no energy for canning. Lettuce greens are a bust, and the broccoli did not do well, too dry in July. But still holding out hope for the brussels sprouts. Potato plants are dying so soon I will be digging them up, I think they will do okay. 

I got a few blueberries but the two resident song sparrows got most of them. It wasn't nearly as good a crop as last summer anyway. Green beans did great, froze most of them. I've left the bean plants in place because sometimes I get a second crop in the fall. I already notice new flowers on the bean plants. Green peppers are doing well but the peppers, although prolific, are just long skinny things which I don't like.

I planted a few scarlet runner beans, not knowing that that's what they were. Hastily set up poles for them to climb and they produced a profusion of bright red flowers that the hummingbirds love. One day while picking green beans I heard a familiar whirring sound just behind my head. I turned to see a hummingbird hovering not five feet from me, trying to decide if he was safe to feed on the flowers. In the end he decided not, but I have since seen a hummingbird (maybe the same one?) at those flowers and then later perching on my laundry line to scan the garden. Wow! Definitely will plant those again.

I was picking tomatoes the other day and unfortunately a bumblebee crawled up under my shirt. I was not aware of it until I got indoors, a kind of creepy-crawly sensation that caused me to try to shake it out of my shirt. Bad idea, the bee stung me. Bumblebees can sting multiple times, they don't have barbs on their stingers like honey bees do, so they can withdraw the stinger without injury to themselves. However, this bee was definitely injured and died soon after I shook it out of my shirt, I must have hit it. Poor bee. But now I have a very large angry red sore under my armpit, swollen up to egg-size. Have to be more careful next time I'm in the garden.

And that's all for now…

Five ships a sailing

One day this month I was wondering if I could remember how to fold a paper boat. I can't do much else these days so I looked it up on the internet, and successfully folded myself a little boat from the card that is inserted in New Yorker magazines to sign up for new subscriptions. I had a bunch of magazines lying around so I shook out the cards from all of them and have started to fold my fleet of New Yorker boats. A relatively simple craft I can wrap my deteriorating brain around.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

It has been so hot and humid, with half the rain we usually get this past month. Longest heat wave ever (I looked up Environment Canada records for our local area). Some parts of my garden are doing well, others not so much. I am now overwhelmed in food processing: garlic, green beans, green peppers, tomatoes and soon potatoes. The onion crop does not look good, I may end up with a bunch of onion sets that I can try to plant next year. However I chopped a bunch of the onion greens off and found a recipe on the internet for onion top pesto. Don't think I will ever make basil pesto again, the onion greens pesto is so-o-o good! I already harvested the garlic that I planted last fall, and the garlic that I planted in the spring is dying off. That was just an experiment so I am not surprised it is not faring well. But I planted enough in the fall to have leftover garlic cloves to replant this fall.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

I've been re-varnishing my kayak, it's almost done. I just have to give the hatch covers a final sanding and then replace the deck fittings. Right now the kayak is sitting upside down in the crow family flyway, they've made a total mess of the hull so I will have to wash that off as well. Looks like I won't be kayaking this year, maybe next year. It's quite depressing: no paddling, no swimming, no cycling, no nothing.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

I may have a concussion. I hit my head hard on the corner of a table in May or June—I didn't write the date down, why would I—and aside from a very painful bruise I didn't think much of it. But in mid-July I was feeling like things were worse and in particular I had a headache that seemed to be increasing in intensity. The dizziness and fatigue were worse too but I just assumed that was my underlying illness. Also it was getting harder to read or watch TV. I don't know how I clued into the concussion possibility but when I looked it up I realized that given my existing symptoms it could easily have passed under the radar. 

I spoke to the NP at the chronic conditions clinic and she started talking about going to an ABI clinic (Acquired Brain Injury), but that's in the city and I have been avoiding driving or riding my bike for that matter even short distances, never mind to the city and back, so I don't think that is in the cards for me. Nevertheless the NP recommended that I get assessed by my doctor and at least get it logged into my medical chart.

In a way a concussion diagnosis would be a good thing because it would mean that my worsening symptoms were due to something else altogether. That would mean that a recovery might be a possibility. Assuming of course the concussion is just mild. When I told a friend about it she then recounted the story of her father's concussion and how because of his age the doctors assumed he was demented and chose not to do anything. But one of his daughters was a doctor herself and she insisted that there was no way he was demented and they should operate. He had a large hematoma pressing on his brain, they successfully drained it and he returned almost to normal. So you just never know.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ 

I asked my painter guy to take the rest of the summer off, I just couldn't hack having to wrap my schedule around his anymore. When he only works a couple of hours a day it takes forever. The power company inspected the work done so far on installing the solar panels, the next step is installing the actual panels and then one final inspection after that. That inspection is already scheduled for August 11 so they have to have the panels installed by then. 

The solar installers told me an interesting story about my panels. So, they were manufactured and shipped from China. They were supposed to come by ship to the port of Vancouver, but Vancouver is so clogged up that the ship captain decided to dock in Halifax instead. Long way to go for an alternative port but the solar installers thought that was great; they could just pick up the panels from the port themselves. But no, that's not the way things are done. The shipment had to be processed in Edmonton so they offloaded everything into trucks to drive back to Edmonton for processing. Then they loaded my panels—and whatever else was intended for the east coast—onto more trucks and drove them back to Halifax.  

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

I recently bought a Fitbit, on sale with a one-year Premium membership thrown in for free. So now I am obsessing over it, checking my heart rate and sleep records and so forth. It has a feature where I am supposed to drink 64 oz of water every day and somehow it is very motivating, I am trying ever so hard to meet that goal, getting a certain hit of satisfaction every time I add another glass of water to my score. A couple of days ago I mowed my lawn, which just about killed me in the heat, and the Fitbit promptly congratulated me on my aerobic exercise achievement. It thought I was out there cycling up a storm when really I was just slogging back and forth over my lawn. I think I even got a "badge" for it. Never have I ever been rewarded for mowing the lawn!

The sleep thing was the real reason I got the Fitbit and that part is quite fascinating. It tells me how much time (and when) I spend in REM, deep sleep and light sleep. It also tells me how much time (and when) I was awake during the night, most of which I have no memory of. The manual explains how it determines this stuff and quite frankly I am a little sceptical. The awake time is based on my heart rate and the amount of movement my body makes (apparently it has a motion detector?). I think a lot of that is just me kicking around in my sleep. When I was a kid there were occasions when I had to share a bed with my mother and that was her chief complaint about sleeping with me. There are a couple of other things it will measure, but it needs at least a month's worth of data to do that.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

It rained today and the temperature stayed relatively low, but it will be back to sun and heat tomorrow. My friend (daughter of the man with the concussion) suggested we do a day trip somewhere and I leaped at it. She will do the driving and it will be a chance to get out of town for a few hours. How my horizons are reduced! But then deciding when and where took us awhile. She wanted to go to a beach and Nova Scotia has a ton of beautiful beaches, but do you think we could find a list or map on the internet? 

We know they are out there but O.M.G. the Tourism folks are too busy extolling the virtues of trails and package holidays and tours. We found a webpage entitled "Beaches of Nova Scotia" and it was a list of parks and trails, no beaches. Another website touted as a map of Nova Scotia beaches had no map and only one or two beaches listed amongst all the package tours you could sign up for. There are a few famous beaches that are jampacked with people and a whole lot of others that you only hear about by word of mouth: miles of white sand beach and hardly any people! I guess we'll have to do a bunch of asking around.

I've been told

Crow family on the roof

Quite depressed now. This month I am way sicker than I was same month last year (July 2021), which was worse than the same month the previous year (July 2020). Not a good trend. Between pandemic isolation and now isolation due to ongoing illness, I feel like my once very satisfying social life is now dead in the water and I lack the ability or energy to try to revive it. 

I went out for coffee yesterday and after about an hour I was reduced to gibberish. I was trying to respond to a topic we were discussing and was at a loss for words, which very quickly degenerated to not even knowing what I wanted to say or even what the topic was in the first place. All I could say at the time was, I'm done, I need to go home. Fortunately my friend understood my illness and agreed that it was time to go home. She's all that is left, I get so tired of explaining to people that even though I look fine I am not fine at all, but she gets it and we don't have to waste our time time talking about it.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Had an interesting experience on Canada Day. I went for a 30 minute walk with an 88 year old friend and her golden retriever M at the Reservoir. M knows me well and is always happy to see me. About 20 minutes in M suddenly went kind of crazy leaping up into my face. She'd just been in the pond so she was one big wet dog and I quickly became one small wet woman. M's owner tried to call her off, I tried to ward her off using my hands and saying sternly "Off!". Finally M's owner leashed M because she just wouldn't stop and we walked back to her car that way. On the drive to my house M continued her strenuous efforts to get into my face, I would say she was quite frantic. However, as soon as I got out of the car she settled right down as if nothing had happened. Afterward, M's owner and I discussed what had happened, since this was very unusual behaviour for M.

We have sometimes joked that M must have been a nurse in a previous life, she reacts quickly when she thinks someone is ill. Shortly after this incident, maybe a couple of hours or so, I crashed big time, I could hardly move or even think. I was already quite sick, starting maybe a couple of weeks before this incident (I say "starting" loosely, more like "intensifying"); that 30 minute walk put me over the edge. I've been instructed in pacing, but since symptoms of "post exertional malaise" (PEM) don't kick in until hours or even days after, it's hard to know when enough is enough. But I think M just told me: 20 minutes.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

We are having such nice weather and about all I am capable of is sitting in my recliner gazing out the window. I leave the back door open so I can hear the birds in my back yard: a couple of song sparrows, several cardinal couples, a bunch of starlings (big batch of new ones this year), and of course the crow family (see photo above). One whiney teenager and two very patient parents. The whiney teenager is the sole survivor of three, I had to pick up and dispose of the bodies of its siblings. One got trapped in my woodshed and couldn't get out, the other got sick, returned to the nest and died.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Step one: rails and inverters for solar panels

Finally they are starting to install the solar panels on my roof. It is a long drawn out process involving multiple inspections by the electric power company before proceeding to the next step. I will be lucky if it is all completed by mid-August, so not a lot of solar energy will be generated this year. 

At this point the mounting rails and inverters have been installed, the next step is for an electrician to hook up the inverters to my electric panel. Then an inspection, then on to the next step, hopefully the installation of the panels themselves.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

My painter has completed most of the exterior wall painting, he is now working on staining the front porch and the back deck. Then it will be the exposed concrete basement and the trellis work in the front of the house. I have purchased a welded wire fence and T-rail posts for along the north side of my property, the painter has said he can help install that. Bye bye money. I don't particularly enjoy having workers around even if they are as unobtrusive as they can be. I look forward to very rainy days when none of them can come.

Son #3 comes home

Peony time!

My son just left this morning to return home. It was a very good visit, we seemed to be on exactly the same page as far as activity level and need for alone-time. I was pleasantly surprised at how good-looking he is becoming as he ages, I almost didn't recognize him when I went to pick him up at the airport. 

Mind you, that wasn't completely due to handsomeness. With his knitted cap, sunglasses and mask he looked like an alien. Towards the end of the week he talked about how much he was enjoying this and how sorry he was he hadn't booked a longer visit. After so many years he was afraid that a week was about as long as he could stand.

I bought tickets for us to go to a concert together at a local community hall. I thought it was a great concert, he was more critical. He thought the band's sound system and/or how the sound was being managed was lousy. Lousy enough that he didn't want to venture an opinion about how good the band actually was. 

Before we went into the hall we met some friends of mine and there was a lot of joking about how many friends/neighbours had Covid, how many last minute cancellations there were due to Covid. My son forgot his mask but I had two. We went in and shared a table with some more friends of mine, and they too joked about how many people they knew with Covid. Initially my son took has mask off to imbibe the drink he ordered, but quickly put it on afterwards. I asked him later about the fact he wore his mask for the entire concert when hardly anyone else (including me!) did.

He said, Are you kidding me? This place is a cesspool!

I had to admit he was right. The longer since the mask mandate was removed, the laxer we all got. The rate of infection and number of deaths have come down since April, but they are still much higher than previous waves. They say it is so bad here because we never got any herd immunity. We were so strict about the rules that we all stayed safe, but once the mandates were removed we all went a little crazy and ended up with one of the worst rates of infection in the whole country.

While here my son reconnected with an old friend. They hadn't seen each other in over a decade and a lot has happened in both their lives in the interim, so I think they were a little reluctant to meet since they didn't know if they still had a relationship. Turns out they very much did. They had several very long conversations while hanging out together and one of the things that came up was that neither could remember a time when they didn't know each other. They became friends before their memories kicked in. 

It's true, they were very young when they first met, and they only met because their parents were friends since before either of them were born. In spite of long periods living in different parts of the country, they had some remarkably similar life experiences. On his last night here the friend took him on a quick tour of the area, they hit several beaches and some other places, after dark. I thought that was pretty cool of the friend to do that.

My son was a little apologetic to me about how much time he was spending with his friend. I said, Don't worry, I'm not jealous. Spending an intense amout of time with anyone—even a beloved offspring—still takes its toll on me and I am happy for a bit of a break. I would have been very happy if he had booked a longer visit, but at the same time I don't know whether I would have had the stamina for it.

One morning he was up before me and he wanted to make coffee for me. But he took one look at my fancy espresso machine and decided otherwise. He referred to it as my Junior Chemistry Set that I call a Coffeemaker.

We had to be at the airport two hours before departure time, and it takes over an hour to drive to the airport. We had to be up at 6.00am and leave without breakfast. I was giving him directions (he drove), but normally he relies on Google for directions. I got distracted and we overshot the highway exit for the airport and had to drive an extra 25km to get back. I said something about there being highway signs but then realized that he probably never looks at the signs because he relies on Google to tell him. I am old school, I even keep a paper map of the province in the car.

So today I am so exhausted that I am just killing time till I can go to bed. Not so good at napping.

Alternative realities

My pet monster, can you guess what it is?

Went to see my doctor on Thursday. The NP at ICCS strongly recommended I talk to my doctor, get a referral to an internal medicine guy (internist?) and maybe a referral for ADHD assessment. Boy was that disaster. I am still in recovery.

You know that feeling of how you've just entered an alternate reality where up is down, right is left, black is white? At first you don't know how to handle it because it is so shocking and unexpected, and then you keep trying to say, No no, up is up, right is right and black is black! The other person proceeds to read you the riot act about how wrong you are, and further more she can prove it and even further more she has documented evidence that everyone else agrees with her: you are certifiably crazy. And of course 'everyone else' are people you know and respect and thought they respected you, only now you are being told that no, that's not true, here's what they really think of you.

So for example, my doctor offered me an opportunity to see a sleep specialist at some point in the past, but I had refused. Obviously I am a malingering drug addict who refuses to seek appropriate treatment, what other reason could I possibly have? Except that, this is the first I've heard of such an offer, and if I had in fact been offered that referral I would have leaped at it. Are we living in the same time-space continuum? 

For another example, apparently the NP said that the referral to the internal medicine guy was my idea, not hers. Not that I even knew this guy or what the heck internal medicine is. Or why such a referral would be appropriate for me (the NP said it would be helpful, the guy in question would run a bunch of tests and hopefully provide some answers, when I asked her why she was suggesting this referral). 

My memory of the conversation is that it was the NP who suggested it and I accepted the idea. Anyway, that's not true, according to my doctor it was me that suggested it and further more it was a very bad idea. I should instead go to the neurologist in the city that I saw a year ago, the one who took more than 8 months to finally deliver her report to my doctor.

The internal medicine doc is right here, the neurologist is more than an hour's drive away on the highway. After the NP suggested this referral a month ago, I had asked a couple of friends if they knew this doctor and was told that he was really great, spoke to you like you were a real human being, and further he has recently been in the news speaking out about healthcare problems in this province. Oh boy, sounds like a really bad idea. 

I did manage to insist on the referral to the local internal medicine guy but he's probably backed up till hell freezes over. My doctor quoted from the neurologist's report (the report that took over 8 months to write and deliver) about how thorough and comprehensive her consultation with me was, most of which I do not remember actually having happened. I do recall an unpleasant nerve conductance test that showed that I was perfectly fine, and a nice chat about her mother the veterinarian. My doctor did not mention a veterinarian. 

So, she told me that this very unpleasant alternate reality experience was all my fault because I only make appointments every six months and she expects her patients with chronic conditions to see her every month. News to me, first time I have heard her admit (albeit indirectly) that I might have some kind of chronic condition (other than malingering drug addiction or insanity), and secondly that I was supposed to make appointments every month (I'm gripping my head and shaking it, I'm supposed to be a mind reader?). 

When I asked her about getting a referral for an ADHD assessment, she said that she could have done the assessment herself, but since I clearly didn't trust her she couldn't possibly do that now. 

She gave me a card with a phone number on it to call. I looked at the card later and it was for Mental Health and Addictions, I had a hard time remembering what the heck I was supposed to call Mental Health and Addictions about. I did call, they told me they couldn't refer me or give me any information on how I might get an ADHD assessment, and further that it wasn't covered by provincial health insurance so I would have to pay out of pocket to get it done privately. They gave me a number to call which I did, I left a message but there has been no response. Oh well, it wasn't high on my list of priorities.

And that reminds me, she effused over some new drug that all the doctors are raving about for insomnia, but of course it costs an arm and a leg and is not covered by Pharmacare. She just shrugged her shoulders when I asked about that. I guess doctors don't concern themselves with such things as cost of medications.

What else. At a certain point I blanked out, trying to focus on not crying or hyperventilating. Oh yes, my doctor has a very soft voice and she was wearing an N95 mask plus a face shield, and sitting over ten feet away from me. I have a bit of age-related hearing deficit, not enough to warrant hearing aids (I was tested) but just enough to render my doctor's voice a distant mumble through the mask and face shield. Several times I asked her to speak louder and more slowly, which she did for a few seconds before reverting back to the mumble. I asked for a couple of prescriptions which she said she would fax to the drugstore, but she did not provide the details of what exactly she was prescribing. As I was leaving I asked what she was prescribing, just to confirm that it was what I wanted and she impatiently told me that yes she got it right and would I please leave now because I'd gone overtime. 

Sure enough when I picked up the prescriptions, one of them was wrong. Can't actually view the medication until it is paid for (it's delivered in a stapled brown paper bag), and since there was a line-up and I had other things to pick up, I did not actually open the brown paper bag until I got home. Of course, once you leave the drugstore you can't return it. The best I could do was call my doctor's office to ask for the right prescription, and the receptionist relayed my doctor's response the following day that she had already faxed the revised prescription to the drugstore and I should return the wrong medication. I spoke to the pharmacist about what had happened, and while she couldn't take the wrong medication back, she could fix it so it was usable. I appreciated the pharmacist's effort to make things right for me, free of charge. 

Note to self: be way more vigilant about making sure the prescription is right before leaving the pharmacy counter. Even if they are lined up out the door.

On a lighter note, my garden

I was around the bend with frustration and useless anger, I called a friend but she was busy. The friend recommended that I have a good stiff drink and she would meet with me the next day to listen to my tale of woe. I proceeded to obliterate myself with more than one good stiff drink; sometimes you just need to shut down your brain in order to cope. We did meet the next day, my brain was semi-obliterated so the emotional edge was dulled. We laughed about the insanity of it all. 

She happens to go to the same doctor and told me that she used to have such problems with this doctor until she made herself vulnerable by talking about her fears, and after that the doctor was nice to her. I guess I am supposed to do the same, but I have to say my anger at the alternate reality experience has not abated enough for me to even think about it. I remember dealing with the alternate reality when I was much younger, this just brings it all back. I think the modern term for this is being gaslighted. Gaslit? 

Just keep me away from matches, I'll be fine.

And finally, that reminds me that the good doctor recommended I see a psychiatrist, she would make the referral if I liked. I said, Sure, what the hell. I may regret it, but at that point I was focussing on not hyperventilating. And besides, it may be fun to see which referral comes up first, if at all (before hell freezes over). Who has the shorter waitlist, a shrink or an internist?

There's more, but it just stirs up more than I can cope with to write about it and besides this is getting long.

Photo from an article on abortion in the USA, in The Economist

Rovelli, Zanny and Arkady

ebikes, big and small

I just wanted to make note of the book I am currently reading: There are Places in the World Where Rules are Less Important than Kindness, and other thoughts on physics, philosophy and the world, by Carlo Rovelli (2018, translated 2020). It's a book of short essays, accurately summarized by the title. A gem of a book, imminently readable no matter what your level of understanding of physics/philosophy/the world.

The last essay was written in Italy near the beginning of the pandemic (April 2020), in which he talks about his observations of what is happening, in Italy and elsewhere. The last paragraph is probably the best last paragraph of a book of essays that I have read so far:

"We are not the masters of the world, we are not immortal; we are, as we have always been, like leaves in the autumn wind. We are not waging a battle against death. That battle we must inevitably lose, as death prevails anyway. What we are doing is struggling, together, to buy one another more days on Earth. For this short life, despite everything, seems beautiful to us, now more than ever."

I recommend this book, no matter what your level of understanding of history, poetry, science, philosophy. The essays are short and easy to read, but you will need to allow yourself extra time to muse about them. 

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

As a subscriber to The Economist, I get to listen or participate in their zoom calls on the War in Ukraine and its implications. Each episode is one hour long, with three or four Economist editors, including the chief editor Zanny Minton Beddoes, on a Friday afternoon. For one episode two of the editors, Zanny and Arkady Ostrokov, travelled to Kyiv to interview Volodomyr Zelensky. 

Another episode included Arkady in a vehicle somewhere in eastern Ukraine reporting first hand on the eastern front of the war. That was a somewhat tense episode since it was live and they were unable to connect with Arkady until the last 15 minutes of the hour, due to internet connectivity issues (but since he was in the middle of a war there was some speculation as to whether his lack of connectivity was due to more ominous problems). 

One can actually submit one's own questions which the Economist editors field and attempt to answer on air. I have not tried to do so, but I guess it's an option. One participant asked why Arkady was in a car without a seatbelt, which Arkady assured the world was because the car he was in was parked on the side of the road (on the eastern front). 

The Zelensky interview was very interesting to watch, Zelensky switched from English to Ukrainian to Russian randomly and without a hitch. The start of the interview was delayed somewhat due to the absence of the translator who was busy translating elsewhere, Zelensky commented that it says something when the President must wait on the availability of the President's translator (strictly speaking it was interpretation not translation; translation pertains to written language). 

During the interview we saw Arkady, Zanny and Volodomyr in the same shot; the look of awe on Zanny's face communicated very well her sense that she was in the presence of a great man. She commented later that as a journalist she would leap at the chance to interview Putin, but knew that going to Moscow to interview Putin would be far more risky and dangerous than going to Kyiv to interview Zelensky, her employer would never allow it. Still...

Sunny Days

Last few weeks have been terribly busy, and I have probably been pushing myself too hard. I am keeping lists of things I have to do, and as each item gets checked off two more get added on. I am not making progress.

A pile of turtles

Went kayaking, it was fun (and exhausting). As it turned out, the second Covid booster seriously set me back. I almost didn't go kayaking, I felt so sick. A full week after getting the shot I think I recovered, but the first day of kayaking left me almost too dizzy to function. It was only a bit less than two hours of an easy paddle up a quiet meandering river. We saw piles of turtles. Literally piles, they were perched one atop another on floating logs in the sun. The second day of paddling was much better, I had recovered from the booster shot and was able to spend the whole day out on the water. 

There were six of us in a three bedroom cottage, ranging in age from early sixties to mid-seventies. The difference in energy level between the three in their sixties and the three in our seventies was pretty stark. The other two seventy year olds were recovering from bouts of Covid in April, so they were in only slightly better shape than me. On the second and third days we split up into two paddling groups, the younger women wanted to go further faster. They even went swimming!

It felt good to be out in my kayak again, the trip was so worth it.

Shortly after I got back, the roofers arrived to reroof my house. The idea is to have brand new shingles under the solar panels. In three days they had most of it done but there are some ridge shingles missing because of shortages; none to be had in the entire province. They'll be back to finish the job when the ridge shingles are available again. I warned them about my crow family, but there was no conflict, the men and the crows did not bother each other.

I called the solar panel installer after the roof was done to get an estimate of when he planned to start. Turns out some document or other got lost so there is a delay. Surprise surprise. He thinks he will start in 3 weeks, and it will take about 6 weeks. I am not holding my breath.

Then I put my car up for sale, it sold within a couple of days. I priced it at an amount that I wanted, then after it sold I looked on the internet to see what it should be priced at. I was about $500 under what they said it was worth. Even so, the guy who bought it tried to talk me down in price. I am pretty sure he knew it was already underpriced, he just wanted to see if he could get an even better deal. Nope.

My next big job is to get the house painted. I had already lined up a friend to help me do that, and she wanted another person to do the ladder work. A friend of hers has a son with a mental illness that pretty much prevents him from getting a steady job, she arranged for him to help, after running it past me of course. But she can't start until June and I had the idea that the young man could start this month doing cleaning and scraping. So he's been here for the past few days. He's a good worker, he just has difficulty relating to people. That's fine with me. He has some experience with this kind of work so I don't really have to supervise him. I know his mother from the dog park, she used to have a border collie that Hapi liked, which says a lot because Hapi didn't much care for border collies.

New garden frames and transplants-in-waiting

Since coming back from kayaking we've had beautiful sunny weather and I've been working in my garden. It is slow going because it's heavy work and I am tired and dizzy. I'm not making progress as fast as I would like. My transplants are huge and desperately need to be planted, but strictly speaking it is too early yet and I haven't got the beds ready for them. I did manage to get peas, spinach and some potatoes planted.

I love seeing the goldfinches and cardinals flitting about, and the male cardinals are quite noisy now, declaring their territories. Pinky and Big Red are still fighting, I saw them in a showdown in my neighbour's driveway. But they saw me watching and flew away before they really got into it.Traffic at the bird feeder is dropping off, but I keep it up because the cardinals always come in the evening and I like seeing them.

I am being referred to an internal medicine guy and I am supposed to go to the Chronic Conditions centre for a NASA Lean Test. That's to see if I have Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome (POTS). If I have POTS then I guess it means my heart has been affected, but not sure how much. Not even sure I have it, but it would explain the two years of dizziness and fatigue. It's also a known complication of Long Covid.

I am reading an interesting book, A Primate's Memoir, by Robert Sapolsky. It's about his years in Kenya studying a troop of baboons. He obviously has a deep fondness for his study subjects and a wicked sense of humour. At the start of the book he says that the tragic last chapter is completely true, but he did change a few names. My curiousity caused me to read the last chapter first, and it was so tragic I almost couldn't go back and read the first chapters. Who knew you could be so fond of baboons? Stuff I've read about baboons suggests that the males run the show and females are completely under their control, but it turns out that is wishful thinking on the part of (male) animal behaviourists. As usual, things are a lot more complicated. However, because Sapolsky's research involved taking blood samples, and the females were mostly pregnant, lactating or generally taking care of children, he couldn't take samples from them. Taking a sample involved darting a baboon, waiting for it to fall unconscious, carrying it back to his vehicle where he took the sample and then returning the baboon to where it was when it fell unconscious. Since he couldn't really do that to a female who couldn't afford to spend time away and unconscious, most of the baboons that he knew up close and personal were male. 

All the lovely sunny weather we are having does not bode well for summer crops. The land is unusually dry. It is supposed to be a La Nina summer which is unusual too, and that means more hurricane activity. The large number of snow storms we had this winter were due to a La Nina winter. Not sure what unusually dry ground and unusual hurricane activity will add up to, not much good I guess.

My new daybed and other new things

I did not get Covid. The crows' eggs have hatched. The daybed arrived and I have assembled it. I am getting better. Next week I am going on a 3-day kayaking trip, based at a Lodge so no camping. My garden is progressing in spite of bad weather.

One morning this past week when I was still in bed, I could hear a Mourning Dove cooing. One of the new baby crows was replying to it, too cute! The roofer has not arrived yet even though he promised 'in a couple of days.' The weather has not been good for roofing. With a bit of luck, he'll get to it before the solar installer comes calling, but after the baby crows have fledged.

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The daybed actually arrived a week early, and coincidentally my neighbour said he was coming by to install new hemlock garden frames in my garden. So I had a rather strenuous weekend assembling the bed and helping to install the frames. I also had to take out the old couch and move some furniture around to accommodate the daybed. Clean Up Day (or rather Clean Up Week) was this week, so having the daybed arrive early meant I could get the old couch out on the kerb in time for Clean Up. I saved some of the cushions from it so it was not complete, nevertheless someone eventually nabbed it before the Clean Up garbage truck came by. 

I am happy with the daybed but it does have a couple of drawbacks. One is, it's so high that my feet dangle. Another is, it's so wide that even with the old couch cushions along the back I can't lean against them when I am sitting up. There was one non-critical defective piece and Wayfair promised a replacement by tomorrow. 

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Yesterday I got my second Covid vaccine booster shot (finally!). Last night I had a roaring earache and this morning I had a sore arm and felt very tired. I think an ear infection was brewing before the shot, and once my immune system engaged with the vaccine, the infection took off. It's still there but not as painful.

In spite of all the activity I feel like I have turned a corner, the post-exertional malaise was relatively mild and short-lasting. Just two weeks ago I was having second thoughts about going kayaking due to low energy, but this week I feel excited about it. And, as it turns out, three of the women (six of us in all) had Covid in the recent past and are still feeling dragged out by it. So I secretly feel happy about that, it means that I won't be the only one going slow. They will understand exactly what Covid fatigue feels like.

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Sometime shortly after my birthday I had a long phone conversation with one of my sons. One of the things we talked about was ADHD. He's pretty sure he has it, his brother and two nephews have already been diagnosed. He can't get diagnosed because he doesn't have a doctor and going through private channels is just way too expensive. It is causing problems for him at school (he's halfway through a B.Ed.). We talked at length about how that was for him, and I just saw way too many similarities between his experience and mine. They say it is hereditary, my sons have different fathers so the common link is me. 

After that conversation I went looking for information on the internet, and now I am pretty sure I have it too. It was kind of a shocking discovery, especially in how it complicates any chance of recovery from my illness. Also in how it has affected my entire life. If I had had an early diagnosis things might have been very different. When I told a friend she said, Now you know that what happened is not your fault, you don't need to feel ashamed of your past. You should be proud instead.

I've just started reading ADHD 2.0 by Dr. Edward Hallowell (2021). He more or less says something similar. It is encouraging. I don't know whether pursuing an official diagnosis is useful or not. My sons say that the medication that they have been using has a downside, sleeplessness. Consequently they only use it in situations where they really need it and can afford a night or two of sleeplessness. My son at school uses the medication (he doesn't have a diagnosis therefore no prescription) on the occasional Saturday morning to get through a project due the following week. The other son (diagnosed, with prescription) uses it to get through very busy times at work (his work involves periods of extreme activity followed by periods of rest and lowkey activity).

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The photo above is my homemade indoor greenhouse, currently full of transplants. I planted peas and spinach outdoors this week (in one of the new garden frames!) but the transplants need warmer weather to go outside. I may have to get my neighbour to come in to water them while I am away kayaking. They are sucking up a lot of water and I don't think they will make it through 3 days without watering.