The Fall, and beyond

 Somehow, on Tuesday night, when we left a restaurant, I fell at the bottom of the escalator on my way to the Metro train at Gallery Place.

From the time of the fall until I came to my senses in the Emergency Room Trauma Unit at George Washington University Hospital, I seemed to have blacked out---though Joan tells me I was at one time crying in pain that I wanted to die.

In the Trauma Unit, they examined me in every way possible, including X-Rays and an MRI, but their major work was stitching my wounds: one very ragged one low on my left leg, three parallel ones on my forehead, and a number of small ones on the crown of my head. I was bruised in many other places.

We waited an endless period while they "did the paper work,"and I was eventually released at about 5.00am. They gave me a pair of baggy pants and a sweat shirt to wear, as they had cut off my bloody pants and shirt when I arrived. Joan called an Uber, and we got home quickly.

On Wednesday I began to have serious neck and back pains, and we fixed an appointment with the spine specialist for 1.25 pm on Thursday. That Wednesday night was awful: great difficulty in finding a position in which I could sleep--often excruciating pain when I got up to go to the bathroom and then had to struggle to get back into bed.

On Thursday we saw the spine specialist--Dr. Eva Hoffman--and she reviewed the report from the Trauma Unit and had me X-rayed. Her conclusion was that there was no need for any surgery and that I would just recover slowly over time...take it easy was the basic advice.

She prescribed a muscle relaxant and strongly urged me to make an appointment with my primary care physician, which I did when we got home: an appointment for 9.25am on Friday morning.

Before going to bed that night I took two Tylenol and the muscle relaxant. I slept soundly for a few hours, but then I was awake and felt like a complete zombie--and from then until getting up I slept very fitfully, and I still seemed a complete zombie when I got up.

We went to see my primary care doctor--Dr. Vassallo, a heart specialist, and he checked me over, gave me an EKG, and an echo cardiogram, and declared all was well with my heart. But he wanted to see an X-ray of my lungs as the Trauma Unit X-rays had mentioned small nodules. So we left his offices and went downstairs to an X-ray unit, and there we waited and waited until at last they did the X-ray. Joan went to get the car, and--amazingly--I arrive at the pick-up spot at exactly the same time as she did...and home we went.

And then, a shower and a clean up of my wounds, Joan applies new dressings, breakfast...and then what? How to fill the day? Well, partly by writing this record--and, of course, Spelling Bee, Connections, Wordle, the Mini crossword, and my 6x6 Kenken, reading a novel, taking a few corridor walks, and sometimes just sitting with my eyes closed and thinking.

Joan did some research with Dr. Google about lung nodules, and she reached a happy conclusion about minimal chances of any particularly danger.

So, that is the straightforward narration of The Fall and of the few days after it. Throughout those days, Joan has been a tower of strength and support, doing everything she can for me.

The Four Mile Obsession

     I just do not recall when I adopted 4 miles walking as my target each day: or why I chose four miles.

    It couldn't have been something like 10,000 paces, as my 4 miles at 28 inches a pace only gives me 9,051 paces. I'am, in any event, suspicious of the 10,000 paces requirement: it seems to have started in Japan, and its origin is unclear.

    But, somewhere along the line, 4 miles became the aim, and I do try --religiously or obsessively--to achieve it. Today, for example, Joan ran this morning, and I walked in Rock Creek Park--she taking a longer route while I did my usual, which comes out at about 3.5 miles.

    And so, when later in the day, Joan suggested we take another stroll, I was keen to go, and my pedometer now shows 6 miles--which makes me feel very virtuous.

    Sometimes, in the evenings when I go to get the mail from the mailboxes on the 5th floor, I walk a few corridors to get the mileage up--one corridor in our building from the staircase in the northwest corner--next to our apartments--to the staircase in the southeast corner is about 150 yards, and often I often check my pedometer to see if I can get up to my four miles with a few corridors.

    I am not sufficiently obsessive to make sure that every day I achieve the four miles--sometimes on a rainy day, I might walk all the corridors from the 15th floor (our floor) all the way down to the first floor--boring, but often I can listen to a podcast or some music on my phone.

    So there we are: not an obsession, but something that encourages me to take exercise--and I am sure I am the better for it, rather than lying or sitting around all day.

A Day in the Life of David Cutler

 On so many days of my life, so little happens, and I have in many respects to find ways to "kill time'' in activities that have no great value, but at least they stop me getting bored or simply sitting in a chair with my eyes closed, quietly relaxing--times when Joan thinks I am asleep, but when I believe I am awake. 

So let's take Friday March 22nd as a typical example. On Thursday night I went to bed at 11.15pm: up to urinate at 1.35am, 4.35am, and 7.18am. Back into bed for another hour. Up, say, 8.30am, coffee, make the bed, bathroom, shower, and then proceed to breakfast--almost always the same--bran flakes, some fruit, usually a sliced apple and blueberries, bread with margarine and Marmite, and a handful of (nominal aphasia cuts in, as so often)...I have to ask Joan...pistachios.

During breakfast, I go into the New York Times on my phone, finish Wordle, and start on Spelling Bee. I take my morning pills--one a blood thinner, one to control blood pressure, and a multivitamin (probably unnecessary, as we eat a good diet). Maybe more coffee, maybe some water.

So there we are. At, say, 9.15 am, and nothing to do until I have to set out to have my pacemaker checked at about 10.50am, when I will have to Metrorail to Friendship Heights and walk for eight minutes or so to the doctors' offices.

But Spelling Bee was unfinished, so I switch on my Mac, go into the NY Times Games section, and perhaps, after 20 minutes or so, I reached Genius level, my daily aim. I needed to use the 'Hints'--but that's not cheating. If I need to cheat, I go into Inges Anagram Generator, put in 2 of each letter, and usually (but not always) get a few words that get me up to Genius.

The next puzzles are the Waffles word puzzles, followed by KenKen, which can take me anything from 12 minutes to half-an-hour. (I do the 6x6 Hard version.) So exercising my brain is off to a good start.

Now it's time to go and get my pacemaker check. Down in the elevator to the 4th floor, thru the garage and into the Giant food store, out onto the plaza, down the two escalators to the platform, and along comes the train. Two stops to Friendship Heights, walk to the doctor's, two minutes wait, three minutes examination--all is well, you have AFIB, as you already know, and the battery will last six and a half more years: I wonder whether I will outlive the battery, or vice-versa.

I walk home from the doctor's office. When I get back into the apartment, I check my pedometer, and I see I have just passed my daily goal of 4 miles--a goal I am not too obsessed about, but I generally get there: and sometimes, in places where we do long walks, I far exceed the daily norm.

When I get back, I go into apt.1503, where my other computer lives, and go into the German paper Die Zeit. They have an equivalent of Wordle called Wortler, which uses 6 letters. I do it with my German dictionary at hand, and I have got it right several times. Then I finish watching a program streamed on PBS Passport about a Chinese American artist called Wong...very interesting. He died at 106. He was a serious artist, but he also worked in film studios on sketches for film sets, and as an artist at Disney doing the backgrounds for animations. He designed Christmas cards and simple decorations of pottery for tableware, and he made beautiful kites that flew like birds and butterflies.

Lunch--a typical repast--big sandwich with turkey breast, cheese, and  chutney--topped off with an non-alcoholic beer.

And then what? I turned to writing this account of my day. So, having dealt with everything up to now (3.45pm) I shall have to wait until tomorrow to finish it...

No, I can pick it up again now, at about 6.00pm.

I have just got up from one of my 'shut-eye' periods--the times when Joan swears I am asleep and I say I wasn't--just brooding. When I got up, it was like a rusty old piece of machinery moving into action, and I stumbled and nearly fell...it happens. I should note--as we are tracking activity--that before I took my 'shut-eye I went into the Guardian Crosswords to look again at last Sunday's puzzle, which I hadn't finished. And, as is often the case, coming at it afresh, I was able to put in the last few words.

At 6.15pm, I asked the daily question (if we are eating at home)--"When should I start the salad?" And Joan's answer is "now."

Salad making is my task: same ingredients most nights: peppers, tomatoes, cucumber, carrots, shredded cabbage--red and white--Feta cheese, wontons, and Asian sesame dressing.

Eat, do the dishes--I am the washer and Joan the wiper. Walk down to get the mail, using the far elevator going and coming to add a little more to my mileage.

Next into 1503 to watch a Netflix series, ending at about 9.30 pm.

Into bed about ten o'clock, intending to read for the period before Joan announces that she is falling asleep, which happened quite shortly after we had started reading. I leave her with a good night kiss, and retreat to the living room, where I decide I will go into the Guardian and do the crossword, which I solve with minimal cheating. This lasts me to about 11 o'clock.

Teeth-cleaning--an evening ritual, which includes my electric tooth brush, ordinary toothbrush, pointy tooth brush, flossing, and the tricky flossing under the lower right bridge. Topping off with an antiseptic mouthwash.This ritual is probably excessive, but it is a long time since I needed anything done apart from the routine cleaning.

Bed at 11.15, and I was still awake at midnight....

(BTW...I have mentioned very little about Joan. This was a day in which was engaged in important Zoom sessions in the morning and in the afternoon she went to the hairdresser. On other days, we spend more time together.

And there is one activity that occurs every other day: the morning back exercises that I have been doing ever since the attack of sciatica immobilised me in London.)

Mistake...there's nothing there

 Nothing

Last Day in Sydney

 Well, not quite the last day--we leave tomorrow, but we took one of our favourite walks today--Heritage Trail, I think it is called. It takes you along the cliffside above the water for a couple of miles, crossing little beaches here and there, and with lots and lots of steps, up and down. With constant views out over the harbor down to the Bridge and The Opera House. The last stretch takes you inland along streets with magnificent houses overlooking the water--the area is Vaucluse, which is often mentioned as the most expensive housing area in Sydney.

When we arrived Watson's Bay, we ordered our usual Fish Chowder, which we ate accompanied by Doyles trademark lager--an excellent beer.

Gelato for dessert at Gelatissimo. 

Bus home, where we have been puttering around, filling our cases, and generally getting sorted out for our departure tomorrow.

Joan has just gone off to the Greek food place in Elizabeth Bay, where she will get carry out Barramundi and vegetables.

David Bleeds....

    Yesterday--Valentine's Day--was my appointment with Dr. Pang, the dermatologist, and over a period of a couple of hours I spent time answering every question you could think of about my health (down to 'false teeth?'), waiting around, lying in my gown, and then 'under the knife,' as they say, while he cut out and stitched four skin cancers. Three of them in awkward places--the top of my head, and one on my left forehead and one on my right temple, close to my eye--which was blackened by the operation. I felt awful when it was all over.

    Prior to the setting up of this appointment, Joan had booked matinee tickets at a small local theatre, where they were performing an old musical. So we went from the dermatologist to a cafe close to the theatre and had a small lunch, and spun out drinking our coffee until we could check in to the theatre--with me in a fair amount of pain.

The show was alright, but underwhelming.

One day later, and we have been wrestling with the various ways in which these incisions should be treated. We had been given instructions but there was a lot of ambiguity, with which we are still wrestling...finding the right size dressings, cutting away my hair in places, icing my black eye. All of which has kept me in a state of misery for most of the day. And Nurse Joan Nightingale has been doing her very best to sort out these problems. Poor Joan...

Cronulla: Friday Feb.9

    Today we went by train to Cronulla...a seaside town on the coast, to the south of Botany Bay, about an hour from central Sydney.

    From the train, we took a ferry to Bundeena, which sits inside an extensive bay open to the Pacific. After a short walk through suburban streets, with large number of architecturally interesting houses overlooking the sea, we continued across a sandy beach and along a rocky rough trail through the bush above the water to the headland where the bay ends, looking out over the Pacific.

    We retraced our steps, caught the 2.00 pm ferry back to Cronulla, and crossed the peninsula from the ferry wharf to the Pacific side, where there was an attractive rock pool--a swimming pool where the breakers splash over the wall closest to the sea, but swimming is safe in calm water inside the pool. Joan swam for half an hour, while I sat and listened to an elderly Australian who engaged me in conversation, although apart from brief answers to his questions, it was really a monologue on his part.

    We then followed a seaside path above the sea for a couple of miles to the north, passing Cronulla's South Beach--lots of surfers and kayakers--and a taking in a section of Cronulla' North Beach, which stretches for miles in a great curve out towards the Pacific.

    We reversed our steps and ended close to railway station, which abuts a long traffic-less street, with shops, restaurants, beauty parlours, liquor stores, gyms, physiotherapists, nail and eyelash experts, burger and pizza places, hair-dressers etc. etc.

    A meal in what seemed like a modest fish and chip shop provided us each with a super meal of grilled barramundi, chips, and salad, with two Peronis to wash it down. And when we were through, we bought gelatos at another store. 

    A train was in the station when we returned there, and back we went to Sydney.

    I would just add that my pedometer for today shows 11.2 miles.