August 11, 2023

 Been a long time since I wrote something...

We have visitors--John, Julian, and Sharon--here for a day before returning to Santa Barbara. They are on their way home from Greece, where they went with John's mother. She has a house on an island there. She remained there, and they came back on their own.

I think the three of them are at the Zoo this afternoon. We will take them out to a meal this evening, and tomorrow I will drive them out to Dulles to catch their flight back to California.

Great to see the single grandson, but he is very small, which makes me sad to think of the problems his height might create for him as he gets older. I am very reluctant to ask John any serious questions about his development.

Since my last posting, I saw a doctor here in Washington for my sciatica. She had me x-rayed and saw a few things that were problematic, but she sent me for physiotherapy. At least she saw nothing that suggested the nuclear option of back surgery.

After 6 sessions of therapy, I am back to the pre-sciatica situation. My left leg has reverted to a slight numbness--the numbness I have had for some time (I cannot remember how long). And I can walk freely, although the therapist suggested I work up slowly to my original 4 miles a day. I have a set of exercises that I have been doing conscientiously each morning.

The therapist's last instructions were that if the problem returned in the next few weeks, I should come back to him. If the problem recurred in a couple of month's time, I should go back to the doctor. 

Joan is busy with her various assignments--quite apart from her running and swimming. I have some problems with filling my time. I don't seem to be able to get a book from the Library that I do not get fed up with and return early.

Maybe I should go back to some classics...I must look around here in 1501 and see what Joan has available. Jane Eyre, maybe? Or maybe some more modern author whose books I read twenty years ago. David Lodge, for example.

I am going to go back in the blog and see if there is a book that I praised highly.

Font Size

 At the start of each blog, I set the print size at "Large." 

Not "Largest."

And then, throughout he time I work on my entry, I am seeing the font at that size.

But, if I 'publish' and then go into the blog again, I see that the font has switched to "Largest' in a number of places.

I do not understand it.

August 7,2023

 It has been several days since I posted a blog, and maybe I should cover the period since we have been back from England.

Health? Well, I saw a doctor shortly after getting back. She had my back and neck X-rayed, and she noted a number of things that might have caused  my sciatica. But she did not conclude that surgery was needed (thank God) and recommended (i) that I have a series of physiotherapy sessions, and if these did not bring relief--then have an MRI. And rely on the physiotherapist's opinion as to whether the MRI was necessary.

Since then, I have had several physiotherapy sessions, and I have been doing prescribed exercises every morning. Generally speaking, I think I am back to 'normal'--by which I mean the state I was in before I got hit by the sciatica. Pre-sciatica, I was finding uphill walking a bit of a strain..and I still do. I am doing a bit of walking each day, once over four miles. The therapist advised me to take it easy in getting back up to my four miles a day. Today, for example, I did two miles in 88 degree heat and felt very weary at the end--perhaps because of the heat.

As I type this, the wind is whistling and roaring outside. We are under a threat of a tornado. The rain is bucketing down. The sky is black. The clouds are racing by.

The high point of the last two weeks was the arrival of John, Julian, and Sharon to stay a night before they went off to Greece with John's mother. They will be back again this week--on Thursday--and they will stay two nights before going back to California.

Otherwise, I putter on from day to day--Spelling Bee, Wordle, Waffle, KenKen, Guardian Crosswords, reading--anything to keep the brain working and pass the time.

If I am brooding about anything, it is my age and the state of my health--which is supposedly in good shape according to my go-to doctor, whom I visited for a six-month check-up. But there is always something of a lurking feeling of 'what might be next.' And suddenly the actual figure--88--somehow makes me feel old in a way the earlier eighties didn't.

Frightening weather outside. Joan is keeping an eye on what is happening on the balcony, and we are checking whether the water is coming in at the base of the windows.

I had to pause this blog as the rain was so hard against the windows that I needed to check 1503, as I know the rain does come in through those three windows that face the rain from the west. And, yes, there was an amount of water inside each window--in the channels where the windows run when you slide them. So I mopped them up and the rain seems to have eased, though thunder and lightning persist.

But to get back to life, where one of my fears is dementia. Again and again, a word escapes me, a name escapes me--I cannot figure what day it is. And if I mention it to anybody, they always reassure me--"we're all like that as we get older." But what is never clear to me is whether my memory lapses are at the level of the norm, or have they deteriorated below that level. I am encouraged by my ability to solve crossword puzzles, and do the word games--but that is active analysis and not pulling up names from the 88-year-old brain.

My evening meal task is to make the salads. I do it almost every night, while Joan deals with the main course. My salads do not vary very much--usually green stuff, peppers, carrots, onion, red cabbage, tomatoes, feta cheese, Asian balsamic dressing...very healthy, though perhaps a little too much sugar.

So I await the call--'David..time to start the salad.'