Autumn 2011

And it is here. The beginning to the ending of the year has arrived today. Today is the first day of Autumn. Tomorrow is the saddest day of the year as I close the pool and put the period at the end of the sentence which is summertime for 2011.

I can still remember sitting in St Lucia during July drinking a Piton beer enjoying the heat and humidity of the summertime now past. The warm waters of the Caribbean lapping at my toes as it invited me to slide into its warm waters for another fantastic experience.

Or napping on my floatie, now deflated, in my pool.

Behind me is the heat of the summertime sun beating on my now tanned back.

Ahead are the rains and snows of the cold, dark seasons ahead.

We are a mere three months from Christmas.

When I close the pool tomorrow, it will be seven months almost to the day until the cover comes off for another season of fun in the sun. Really, seven whole months. It is hard to believe that I enjoy my pool for less than half of a year and long for its use during the remaining months of cold and darkness.

But through the months of cold and dark I will carry with me the memory of lounging on my floatie in the hot sun with a cold beer, dozing, and letting the troubles of the world pass me by for just a bit. I always come out of the pool a bit refreshed and ready to face the challenges of the day.

April--pool opening day will arrive soon. Until then, I am sojourning in a hostile land.


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Reflections on a song - East to West

I've been listening to a song lately titled East to West performed by Casting Crowns. I urge you to listen to the song if you have not heard it. Part of the song goes as follows:

The chains of yesterday surround me
I yearn for peace and rest
I don't want to end up where You found me
And it echoes in my mind, keeps me awake tonight
I know You've cast my sin as far as the east is from the west

The line about ending up where I was found is especially poignant and states the reality of my condition. It is too easy to end one day and start the next day being in the same place where I started the day before. It seems as if I am not gaining any ground.

The chorus of the song, though provides some comfort

Jesus, can You show me just how far the east is from the west
'cause I can't bear to see the man I've been come rising up in me again
In the arms of Your mercy I find rest
'cause You know just how far the east is from the west
From one scarred hand to the other

Everyday, there is forgiveness for not making the progress we should be making. I just need to accept it. I can't earn it--and I don't deserve it. It is given freely to me.

My response is to grow a bit every day--to be different today than I was yesterday and to put behind me the earthly things and leave the man I was yesterday behind in order to become a new man today.

That is the journey.

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NPDH

Today marks one month of being afflicted with NDPH. I have read that about 82 percent of people with NDPH know the day when their headaches started--and I am most certainly one of those. I even remember where I was, in my gold La-Z-boy chair on a Sunday evening, when my now persistent headache arrived.

Until a week ago, I did not even know that NDPH existed--and the name almost made me laugh when the doctor diagnosed me with this syndrome. Who would call something, New Daily Persistent Headache?

I am not trolling for sympathy--but rather I am reflecting upon how something I never thought about until a month ago and did not even know existed has become a persistent and almost ever-present part of my life.

I am lucky, so far, in that I am not debilitated by the persistent headache. I can function--but I know that even on the best days so far, that I am achieving only about 95 percent effectiveness--and on bad days, I am running about about 75 percent.

From my reading, I have found that usually they do not diagnose NDPH until someone has been afflicted with it for three months--so I am grateful that the doctor made the call early. I definitely fit the profile.

There are bloggers out there devoted to NDPH. One that I have been working through is titled Living with NDPH. I am saddened by many of them because there is not a lot of hope--one person has been afflicted for 14 years. The hard part is that there are three natural outcomes and no medical treatment has been identified to speed achieving outcome number one. The three are:

1. The headaches go away after a while and never return
2. The headaches go away for a while, but return sometime in the future.
3. The headaches never go away. (ugh!)

For my part, I have discovered two things that relieve the pain temporarily--racquetball and wine (beer works too). Coincidently, two of my favorite activities. Alas though, I am pain free only temporarily--but I take time to enjoy feeling almost normal again for the brief respite that I am given. Fortunately, it only takes one or two glasses of wine.

Other than all of this--life is pretty normal. Most days are good days with low pain levels. Some hours are bad--but I get through them.

I know there are a lot of prayer warriors out there praying for me--and I want to thank them because I am convinced that my pain is manageable and low because of your concern and intervention for me.

I am reminded of Paul's thorn in the flesh, from 2 Cor 12:7. While I make no comparison between myself and the Apostle Paul, other than this one, the response Paul received to his prayers in 2 Cor 12:9 is truly something I am holding fast onto: "My grace is enough for you, my power is made perfect in weakness."

Everyday--

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Lost in the Middle of the Week

It is only Tuesday and already the week has charged off like a run away train similar to the one in the movie Unstoppable which starred Denzel Washington and Chris Pine.

Unfortunately, the only way this week is going to end is to crash into Saturday.

It is not that I don't like being busy--not at all. But I do appreciate some time to think in-between meetings to keep from providing a knee-jerk response to items that really deserve some application of gray matter to them.

And it is only Tuesday morning.

Well, better busy than not.

I believe it is going to be an interesting couple of weeks ahead as the Republican controlled House and the Democratic controlled Senate attempt to keep the country functioning when the new fiscal year begins on October 1.

To everyone on Social Security or other government programs, like military medical and retirement, we need to be very cautious. From the tones of the spending reduction plans all of the promises we based our futures upon may be nothing more than dry grasses waving in the wind.

And so the week will rocket on.

We can only hope that the Congress and the President come to their collective senses and begin trying to lead the country in a bipartisan manner.

And I hope that the week slows a bit--that said it is just after 5am and I'm heading out the door to play racquetball followed by a match tonight.

But then, I love racquetball--it makes my headache go away.

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Monday Musings - September 19, 2011

1. Grandsons, one at a time, are not so bad.

2. Windshield wipers are an essential part of an automobile--it is really hard to drive when they don't remove rain from the windshield. I finally replaced the ones on my truck which were pretty rough and long past their prime.

3. Flying antique and historic airplanes is an inherently dangerous activity. My prayers go out to the families of the victims of the Reno air show crash.

4. It is amazing how the yearly television season kickoff season has changed. I really am not interested in too many of the new shows.

5. I was amazed at the number of projects I was able to knock out this week end. I guess it is good to hang around the house on weekends occasionally.

6. The movie Contagion did contain one interesting quote: Dr. Ian Sussman: Blogging is not writing. It's just graffiti with punctuation. -- IMDb Quotes: Contagion (2011)

7. I am spending time with my pair of Kees (pair-o-kees) again as we are watching Ben while Nicole and Jeremy are away. It is amazing how much time we have spend trying to figure out where that dog is hiding--we finally found him in the closet with the door closed, not once but three times. I had to convince him to "come out of the closet."

8. Pool closing day has been set--it is next Saturday, September 24th. Volunteers will be appreciated. No prior experience required.



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A Saturday Flurry of Activity

What a day.

Amazingly, it was an incredibly productive day which also saw me do something for the first time.

Lots of projects around the house were accomplished. Lights changed, crown moulding installed and the general Saturday activity that we can do when we are actually home. I even went to the mall and we had batteries installed in four, yes count them four, watches. Two each for Chris and I. Somewhere in there I even had time to shop for some wine at a local wine store.

During the middle part of the day, Chris coerced me into getting a massage that she scheduled for me without my knowledge in an effort to help me deal with my persistent headaches. I admit--the massage was way outside of my comfort zone, but I did it. And it was OK. I'm not sure it helped my headache too much, but it sure helped my racquetball strained shoulder and back.

So, I will be getting more massages to see if they can really improve the way my shoulder, back and head feel.

All in all--the day didn't end until 9pm when I drove the last nail into the crown moulding. It still needs to be painted, but it has already changed the appearance of the room for the better.

Well it definitely wasn't a Renaissance Festival day, but it was a festival of activity.

And I collapsed into bed after seeing that the Orioles had won again feeling fulfilled and with that feeling of accomplishment.

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Contagion - Movie Review

I finally got out to a movie the other night and decided to see the movie with the blockbuster cast and which had done so well at the box office. I was disappointed with what I found in the movie Contagion.

Steven Soderberg directed the movie and Scott Burns wrote the script. Despite the great cast, the plot is predictable and the suspense isn't suspenseful. The acting was very perfunctory and with the exception of Jude Law and Laurence Fishburne, the characters just did not generate any interest or creativity. Matt Damon was especially uninspiring in his role, which, was an extremely predictable role as he loses his wife who he later finds was cheating on him and is stepson as some of the first victims only to find out that he is immune to the virus. His subsequent portrayal as a single father of a high schooler--his daughter by a previous marriage, is equally predictable, uninspiring and somewhat thuggish.

The story is simple--a new virus, the combination of two species DNA through a unique and hopefully improbable event, gets started in China and rapidly spreads around the globe through the wonders of the interconnected nature of our world. The Centers for Disease Control, CDC, play a central role in defining and developing the vaccine to counter the breakout. There is the typical bureaucratic and governmental slams highlighting the inefficiencies of the system and of course it all works and we are saved through the actions of a renegade hero doctor who finds, tests and gets the vaccine deployed in record time. Yawn!

The character development is very weak and the movie never develops the relationships between the characters nor provides a reason for me to care about the characters even when they contract the virus and die. It is almost as if, since they we going to die, the editors carved out any scenes devoted to character development to shorten the movie.

Fortunately, the movie is only 1h46m long--even though it seemed like it would never end.

Recommendation--MUST MISS! I cannot recommend this movie unless you need some dark, alone time for a nap.


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Moon over the Roof

I noticed the moon, full and bright
hanging in the predawn sky
while I was walking Makayla.

It was casting faint shadows on the ground
blotting out the stars in its immediate vicinity
in the still dark sky.

Hanging there.
The light given for the night.

I remember,
not too many weeks ago,
when it was light as I walked
Makayla this early in the morning.

Yet today,
it was 45 degrees outside.
Cold.
I am going to have to wear a jacket
ver my Aloha shirt
when I head off to work.

September is full of seasonal changes.
I guess swimming season in the pool is over
and I need to begin planning for that saddest day of the year
when I give in to the changing seasons
and close the pool.
I do not enjoy looking at the green mesh covered pool
during the months from late-September until late-April.
It is as if the fun
has been taken from the world.

But the moon shines bright
on my rooftop. Bathing my world
in the cold light that it provides.

Whispering into my ear
that change is near.


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Flowers in the Setting Sun

I was reviewing some of the images from August and ran across this one of Brown-eyed Susan's illuminated by a setting sun.


I was walking around Newport, RI with the camera and spied this clump of flows in the golden light that happens as the sun heads towards the horizon at the end of the day.

Right there, in a garden in the middle of the main shopping area of Newport. Sandwiched between the shops and the harbor.

They caught my eye with the sun behind them giving them a bit of a halo appearance. A small spot of solitude in the center of a busy area to soothe the soul.

I need to grasp these moments more and struggle to remember them when I get too intensely focused on the crisis du jour.



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10 Reasons why Men don't Willingly seek Medical Help

As I wrote about two weeks ago, I have been experiencing some medical issues during the past few weeks which have caused me to visit doctors of various professions on four occasions. During this time, it has become clear to me that the medical professions really cater to women. The whole experience is set up to cause women to feel comfortable. Men on the other hand appear to be after thoughts in the patient care arena.

Men want answers--and then results. I am a "do this and then . . . " kind of guy. My recent experience has been anything but definitive.

So I think I have discovered some reasons why men do not like to seek medical treatment, unless we are unconscious and being taken for medical treatment in an ambulance after some horrific accident.

1. Usually, the symptoms go away before I can get an appointment. And then I feel stupid going to the doctor.

2. I am feeling so much better by the time I get an appointment that I should have canceled the appointment, but I didn't have the time to call and cancel or it was too close to the appointment and I didn't want to pay the cancellation fee.

3. There is almost never a definitive answer--just more referrals and more tests.

4. "Take two aspirin and call me if you don't get better," is a real treatment plan.

5. The doctor tells me: "Don't laugh when I tell you what you have, it is real."

6. My reaction when receiving the name for my diagnosis is "No kidding, did someone get their doctoral thesis coming up with that?"

7. The is such a treatment plan as, "Well there really isn't anything to help, it will either go away on its own and not return, or go away and return, or not go away." I needed four doctors and 45 minutes alone with my thoughts in a really noisy MRI to get that?

8. I get stuck in a small room or 30 minutes waiting for a doctor to see me, armed with only my iPhone are really lousy reception. And I am watching the clock tick closer to my scheduled racquetball match time getting stressed about being late--and then they come to take my blood pressure!

9. I'd say I'd rather have a root canal than go to the doctor--but wait, dentists are doctors, too!

10. In the end, I am expected to feel better because what I have has a name, there isn't any effective treatment, and it will either go away or not on its own. And I saw four doctors to tell me that, why?

So my recent experience left me less than fulfilled.

Face it, I'm a guy! I guess that is why they call it medical practice and not medical science.

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