What's She Doing up?

What’s She Doing Up?

A few weeks ago I was the hero for having driven Annie back from Eureka to Willits, when we thought she was having an attack of a kidney stone.  To say that I exceeded the speed limit, would be an understatement.  We went directly to Howard Hospital, and spent a good part of the day, until she was feeling stabilized, whereupon, we went on home.

It was a good test for me, to be able to employ my array of mental tools to keep me from having any sort of negative reaction from the stress.  I passed the test with flying colors, and we have been in a holding pattern ever since, waiting for that pesky “kidney stone” to exit the building.  I have passed two kidney stones back in the day, so I have been a good support person for Annie.

Actually, I have been a great support person for her, because I feel the need to balance the scales, that exist in my mind, because they are currently dipped down on Annie’s side and need to be righted.  You see, Annie has been my guide, coach, and mentor, for six months now, as I have unraveled the ball of twine inside my head, known as mood spectrum disorder.  She has helped me research, review, and understand my illness so that I have been able to progress through therapy, even managing up until this point, to be able to forego the use of the medication that was originally prescribed.  That would be the atypical, anti-psychotic, meds that scared me and Annie so badly, that we doubled our efforts to find out everything possible about mood spectrum disorder. 

Now I have experienced a summer’s worth of “normalcy,” combined with a rigid adherence to my primary therapeutic components of proper sleep, proper exercise, sensible diet, laden with fresh vegetables and fruit, and an avoidance of caffeine.  Am I back to “normal?”  Sure, and the weather’s been normal too for the past ten days or so, but you never know.

Bipolarism is something I am going to have to deal with every day of my life; it is a full-time job.  Therefore, I am experiencing a fair amount of challenge trying to figure out how I am going to be able to help Annie.  It turns out that her “kidney stone” is not a kidney stone at all, but rather, an eight-centimeter-tumor, taken up residence in one of her two kidneys.  I can’t even tell you which.  When I say it like that, it sounds so much more benign than cancer.  I mean, you just remove a tumor, right? Cancer sticks around and causes havoc.  Right now, the thinking appears to lean toward simply removing the kidney.

This is the part where my mental faculties want to stop the truck-dead in the center of the road, and demand a re-examining of the life’s schedule of events. Overload!  Too much going on-lay off a bit.  How is a bipolar guy, suppose to assume the nursing needs of a cancer patient?   The answer is, “He’s not.”   

In the first couple of days, I kept running at full speed into oak trees, one representing something that needed to be done for Annie, the same one representing something that I needed to be doing for me.  The result was that the two paths kept crossing, and every time it happened, I was left scattered, dazed and confused.

One good thing we had going for us, however, was that the radiologist did take a close look round, while examining the dye-encrusted region, and saw nothing else that might overly have alarmed him.  It seems as though we are early in the process, and our hope is high.  We have a consultation with the pros from Dover in San Francisco, on September 6th, and we will schedule surgery then.

In case you all are forming glowing images of Mark, still on that white steed, riding at the head of the special forces, conveying Annie along to wellness, think again.  It sounds so good, and I told Annie the very first day, that I was going to do everything that possibly needed doing, and she wasn’t going to have to worry about me one bit.

That was my best moment, in a short list of best moments.  My flaw is that the only reason I could have been doing so well, is because I had Annie.  It goes like this: Annie helps Mark; Mark is able to thrive and be productive; Mark can therefore help Annie.  If Annie now has to pay attention to Annie, first, then she cannot help Mark first, who therefore struggles, and is therefore not able to help at all.

Fortunately, it only took me four days to realize the flaw, and to take the necessary steps to correct it.  That doesn’t mean all is well; it just means that no one is functioning in an unreasonable role, and new roles take time to form.  There is a tremendous amount of immediate support within the hill community, so Annie is in good hands.  

She is forcing herself to slow down and deal with the needs of her illness.  She has expressed a desire to minimize phone calls and visits to those of the utmost of importance, so that she can get the rest she needs to prepare for her upcoming surgery.  

Whether you look to the gods and goddesses within the very existence of your home and garden, whether you follow the principles of a number of available man-made options, or whether you just trust to luck, be thinking of my sweetest of apple blossoms, as she battles something which seeks to dim those fragile flowers.  Together, I know we can make a difference.  The proof is in  all of the middle school kids, who peeked their heads into Annie’s classroom, stepped inside, and emerged to be productive members of our community.  Now I need your help to get positive energy heading this way.

I want her on her feet, with the devil looking up in alarm saying, “What the hell’s she doing up already?  I thought we took care of her.  Damn!"

Quick Strike

Quick Strike

From a softball game/barbecue to fighting a wild fire, Sunday afternoons can offer a variety of opportunities for a community to demonstrate just how much of a community it really is.  Though folks up here on the ridge have been playing softball on Sunday afternoons since 1982, fighting fires as a unit is a relatively recent thing.

Timing is everything as they say, because when a wildfire broke out Sunday afternoon, the local volunteer fire department was up to the challenge.  It was able to deploy more than fifteen volunteers to the site, and contain the fire to one acre, having it under control before either the Laytonville Volunteer unit or the Leggett Cal Fire unit, arrived.

It has occurred to me that practically every major wild fire began as something that could have been contained in a similar manner, had it been spotted quickly enough, and had personnel been able to get there.  Those are two components that must be in place.  Because the blaze was spotted quickly, it became as critically important that the response-time be equally fast.   

There have been many training sessions for Bell Springs Voluntary Firefighters, there has been a certain amount of equipment made available, there is a water tender, with a capacity of 1,200 gallons of water, and there is a determination to not sit around waiting for someone else to come in and solve our problems.

I say “our” problems; I refer to the problems of the community.  I personally do not have a hand in the firefighting work.  When the volunteer unit was assembled, not that long ago, I assessed my contributions, and compared them to my liabilities, and decided to let valor take a back seat to discretion.  I have one surgically repaired knee, one surgically reconstructed shoulder, and a tendency to fall often and hard.  The way I view it, is the same way army strategists view it.  

Disabling booby traps are intended to do just that: disable and not kill.  By hurting someone, two additional soldiers are required to move the injured one to safety.  If I go out to fight a fire, and end up hurting myself, any good I might have done, will be surpassed by the harm of needing two volunteers to help me to safety.  I am not a pessimist, so much as a realist.  The ridge is rolling hills, clusters of manzanita, rocky ravines, and treacherous footing, every step of the way.  

I ought to know, because I’ve owned my twenty acres for 37 years now, and have lived up here for the past 31 of them.  I have seen at varying distances, at least a dozen wildfires during this period, any of which could have turned on us, through different circumstances, and caused us to bail out.

Sunday’s blaze was started by a vehicle which had driven into our area, after a long haul, and had been imprudently parked in tall, dry grass.  The fire was spotted quickly and the call to 911 went out, whereupon the Bell Springs Volunteer unit was contacted.  The blaze was located on an off-road, almost five miles up Bell Springs Road.  The time required for either of the official units to converge on the scene was long enough for the home-grown unit to have already gotten a handle on the blaze.  

That’s not to say that the town units are not needed nor welcome.  Most of those other blazes, to which I just alluded, were handled by those afore-mentioned town-units.  There’s a lot of history there.  Heck, Laytonville’s unit went out of its way to conduct a fire training, geared specifically to the volunteer unit from up here on the ridge.  There is a certain amount of common sense to that approach.  Now both sides have gained from the experience.  As I said, had our home-grown locals not been available, I am confident that other forces would have conducted themselves in the same exemplary fashion, as they have so many times before.

Now, though, there is a new kid on the block, one who knows about the advantages of providing a quick strike to an incident.  Because Laytonville’s fire unit had already had the fore-sight to warn us that all fire-fighting forces were stretched out, and that we should be on high-alert, our volunteers were equipped and ready to accept the challenge.  The result was Sunday’s victory, and the heroes are those who were prepared.

In the Parking Lot

In the Parking Lot

“Because I like happy endings, I will just tell you that everything is going to work out just fine.  It says so in the manual.”

I wrote this the other morning, in summing up what seemed like a dead-end situation, in obtaining veterans health benefits.  As it turns out, I was right to have drawn that conclusion.  Because I am beginning the fourth in a series of posts, concerning the state of my health insurance, I need to do a quick review.  Form DD214 told the tale of the original quest for my documentation, that verified I had served honorably, in the US Army, for two years back in 1972/1973.  The Blender describes my mixed feelings over the acquisition of these veterans benefits, and Die-in-the-Hall Insurance describes the steps leading up to a seemingly impenetrable wall, halting the whole process, temporarily. 

Now, a scant twenty-four hours later, the haze has cleared, some emails have been exchanged, and I have an appointment for September 21st, down in Ukiah with a doctor named Shepherd.  I don’t even know if Dr. Shepherd is a man or a woman.  Having to wait close to five weeks is better than having the three-to-four month delay that was mentioned on the recording, when I first called to see if my application had been accepted.

It was that recording that started all the problems, because upon hearing about such a long delay for an appointment, plus the fact that my name had not appeared on the list, designating that I was eligible for benefits, I felt myself plummeting into the depths of depression.  With a keen sense of bitterness, I fired off an email to my older brother Brian who has spent the past few decades (quite a while, anyway) as the chief-of-staff of a Bay Area veterans hospital.  The gist of my email was that the whole veterans health benefits package was a joke, and that my personal sense of disappointment was extremely sharp.

That all took place on Wednesday.   Thursday morning, while sitting in the parking lot at J.C. Penney’s, I received a call from Brian, who asked simply for my social security number, and told me to sit tight.  I was contacted by two different individuals within the next hour.  The first was a follow-up call from the office I had phoned, when I had learned of the long delay.  At the time, my call had been transferred from the original speaker, to a second office, but in frustration, I had hung up the phone.  

Now a person named Christopher called and asked for the last four digits of my social security number, told me he had found my application, and that he would process it immediately.  He said that he would inform me of when that had taken place.  I had barely hung up the phone, when another call came in from a man named Dan, who identified himself as the Administrative Officer of Veterans Affairs for the region, and could he help me out in any way?

I explained about not being on the list, after being told that my application should have proceeded through without a hitch, and that the three-to-four month time period, alluded to on the phone, seemed inordinately long, for any sort of efficient health care.  He explained that his job was to make sure that any issues that arose from veterans’ needs, were solved to the best of his ability, and that he would fire off a few emails, and see what he could do.

When I expressed concern about the possibility of being leap-frogged over fellow veterans, he assured me that I would not be usurping any other brother veterans’ spots in my journey.  He set up a time for me to call him back the following morning (Friday) at nine o’clock.  I went home and posted an email off to Brian, letting him know what was up, and thanking him for any assistance, he may have extended to me in the matter.  

Brian responded that since I was in the NorCal region that included San Francisco’s Veterans Hospital, he had placed a call to the chief-of-staff there, a fellow with whom he had worked for fifteen years, at some earlier point in time.  It seems that in addition to working together, they had also played softball together on a team, and were fairly good buds.  Brian had called him, and he had evidently called Dan.

Included in his response to me, Brian had written, “...He [the chief-of-staff of the veterans hospital] was concerned about your experience, so he immediately mobilized the team, but he would have done the same thing for anyone else.  We have worked so hard to be welcoming and to provide the best care anywhere, that it is profoundly disturbing when something goes wrong.  I am sorry for your experience.”

The net result is that I have an appointment for September 21st, about five weeks away, which is a far cry better than three to four months.  I feel supported and I feel fortunate to have plugged the gap from the elapsed health insurance.  I may end up dying in a hallway, but at least it will not be because I have no insurance.  

Die-in-the-Hallway Insurance

Die-in-the-Hallway Insurance

The big question is, how do I pull off a major whine session, without having it sound like I am a whiny little such-and-such?  I am talking about health care for elderly and poor people, of which I am both. I have worked since I was thirteen, and now find myself without health care.

I have had health coverage since 1990, when I began teaching, but for cost-cutting reasons, retired district personnel only get a certain amount of time after retirement, before their health coverage stops.  (For me it was five years.)  It seems to be a little backwards, that you would receive coverage while you are young and able to work, but when you get to retirement age, your benefits cease.  Try being a few weeks shy of your sixtieth birthday,  bi-polar, with a surgically reconstructed left knee, a surgically reconstructed right shoulder, and in need of health coverage.  

How could I have been so short-sighted, as to end up in this kind of situation?  I wasn’t short-sighted; I knew it was coming.  But health insurance isn’t like most services, in that you simply pay the fee, and go about your way.  No, it’s about making money.  If an applicant, such as myself, is not likely to garner income for an insurance company, then where is the incentive to take me on as a new customer?  After all, I did not ask for my coverage to elapse, but neither did any prospective health coverage firm.  Any company which would accept me as a prospective customer, would be priced so high out of my economic bracket, as to be absurd. 

This brings me to my backup plan, that of applying to the Veterans Administration, for health benefits, as befits someone who served two years, honorably, and who qualifies as low-income.  (The cut-off point for health benefits, is a combined income that does not exceed $36,000.)  I have found the process to be time-consuming and laborious, but was happy to jump through the classic hoops, if I was actually able to receive health benefits.

Now, after working on the project for ten weeks, I have finally made it to the point where I am waiting for my name to appear on the magic list, the one that says I am entitled to coverage.  I was told to call on August 15, and verify that my name was on the list.  When I called, I not only determined that my name was not on the list, I also heard a woman, speaking too fast for me to take in the information (I had to place a second call to retrieve everything) explaining that I should be prepared to expect a three-four month delay, in obtaining an appointment.

I am stunned.  While in the service, I routinely waited in lines, for the very basic elements of staying alive.  I find now that things have changed very little; I just have to wait longer than when I was younger.  But three to four months?  Annie refers to “die in the hallway” insurance.  Heck, I didn’t even make to the hallway.  I get to die wherever I happen to end up.  How cavalier of me!

I am bitter and disillusioned.  Here’s where the whining comes into play.  I am well-educated, very intelligent, and have worked diligently all my adult life, only to find that I am without one of the most basic of human rights, health care.  

Because I like happy endings, I will just tell you that everything is going to work out just fine.  It says so in the manual.  Meanwhile, I guess I have something to talk to my shrink about, today, when I travel down to Ukiah.  At least we get a lunch out on the town, and a blended mocha from Poor Girl’s on the way down.

As me father used to say, “it’s better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick.”  But not by much.

More Than Chicken Soup

More than Chicken Soup

What do you do when a friend gets sick, and there is nothing you can do to help him out?  You watch from a distance as he struggles to deal with his illness, and you want to offer help, but it would take much more than chicken soup and one’s company to make a difference.  For if the illness is alcoholism, the road to recovery has very little to do with what friends can offer, and everything to do with what is going on, inside the head of the sufferer.

Unfortunately, the conflict within the alcoholic’s mind, has little to do with the resulting external actions of his illness.  Regardless of why he drinks, the outcome is predictable.  He imbibes, he parties, either with others or alone, and he wakes up the next morning, hungover.  Because he is feeling the effects of his illness, he is dealing from a stacked deck, one which includes a headache and a disrupted digestive system.  He needs to eat but his stomach says no.

He is frustrated because he has to get up and go to work, and eight o’clock is so darned early in the morning, that he automatically appeals to change it to nine.  If you say no, your friend is that much more annoyed; if you agree, then you are inconvenienced, and you feel put out, that his illness has overflowed into your work space.  You either go along with his request, or you feel the ramifications of saying no, all day.

I worked in the trades with a man for several years, at one point in my life, and he was an alcoholic.  His beverage of choice was beer, and he started drinking before morning break, and he never stopped.  He was as charismatic an individual as you will ever meet, and I loved and respected him as I would a brother.  So it pained me deeply to watch him spiral downward over the years, until he could no longer meet his responsibilities, as a reliable carpenter.  If he said he would be there on Tuesday, he may just as well have said Thursday or Mayday, for all it mattered.  If he said ten in the morning, it may just as well have been three in the afternoon.  

Eventually, he lost it all, but not after a torturous road.  He fought to gain control over his illness, while he was still in his early thirties.  Something triggered his concept of his own self-worth, and he set out to throw off the yoke of alcohol.  He  explained the whole thing to me, early one morning, as he lit his Marlboro, his hands shaking so badly, that it gave me goosebumps, I felt so badly for him.  

He acknowledged his shaking hands, telling me it was one of the main reasons why he was determined to kick the booze.  I could see that he meant every word of it, and the fact that there were no Buds accompanying him, I was willing to give him all the credit in the world.  Unfortunately, all the credit wasn’t worth a nickel, when he showed up one morning, almost a week later, with his usual twelve-pack, not saying a word about the beer.

It pains me to see young adults, seriously using alcohol on a daily basis, because they have no idea, how easy it is to take that slide.  Once a person is on that slippery slope, sure footage is never a guarantee, no matter how many days one has under his belt of no drinking.  I want to ask these young people about children.  Do they think they can just turn the alcohol on and off?  Are they saying that raising children under that cloud is no big deal, and does not leave an impact?

Think again.  And again, and as many times as it takes to recognize that alcohol is just as debilitating as speed.  Everyone has seen a tweaker or two, and it is a sad sight.  Alcohol will leave a person just as impaired; it only takes a lot longer, and it is socially acceptable.  Everyone has to determine his or her drug of choice, and the level of involvement.  No manual will dictate the acceptable rate of indulgence because different substances have different impacts.

So it behooves each of us to choose wisely, because when we don’t, friends are helpless to do anything about it.  Make all the chicken soup you want; what good does it do if your friend is too ill to drink it?  

Click it or Kick it-in the Vegetable Ward

Click it or Kick it-in the Vegetable Ward

I frequently find topics of interest from the innocuous postings from FaceBook.  The other day, someone commented that he had gotten a ticket for not wearing a seatbelt.  His take on the whole thing was that he never wore seatbelts and he wasn’t about to start now.

I immediately thought of helmets for motorcyclists, and how much resistance was mounted when the mandatory helmet laws, were first proposed.  The argument was that people resented ongoing government attempts to exert influence over the details of people’s lives.

Seriously, though, how valid is this point of view?  Is it aesthetics? After all, wearing a helmet or a seatbelt might limit my flair or style.  Is it just immaturity?  Why does the government have to get involved in my personal business?  Is it laziness?  I just hate to take the time to put on my helmet or belt up, to go around the block.

I would argue that certain protective measures, employed while traveling high rates of speed, or engaged in potentially risky behavior, supersede the notion of freedom of choice.  In other words, common sense should prevail over whimsy.  For someone to take the juvenile approach, that he or she resents being told to do something, even if it makes perfect sense, is unacceptable.  Why unacceptable?

We all have a responsibility to ourselves and to the people in our lives, to take rudimentary precautions to protect ourselves.  In yesterday’s FaceBook post, a reader gently commented that the person who made the original post, should remember that a few weeks ago, he had proudly announced that he was soon to be a father.  By keeping the big picture firmly in place, it would make sense that even if seatbelts were perceived as unnecessary in an earlier time, maybe that notion needed to be replaced with a more relevant one.

Another reader mentioned that the nieces and nephews of the original poster, routinely wore seatbelts, and maybe he should take note of that fact.  After all, if someone does not see the practical value of self-protection, maybe he should look at the bigger picture.  In behaving with callous disregard to his own safety, he puts the potential burden of his actions on someone else, should an accident occur.

If a person is involved in an accident while not wearing a seatbelt, and is thrown through the windshield, causing trauma to the head, and putting him into intensive care at the emergency hospital, who should assume liability?  Should there be no insurance, or if there is a prolonged period of recovery, or even if recovery to normalcy is impossible, who ultimately shoulders financial responsibility?  

Neither morally, nor legally, can a hospital pull the plug, nor would it desire to do so.  But the fact remains, that by not employing basic safety measures, a person’s life can be permanently, and irrevocably changed for the worse, and thus it is paramount that efforts be made to regulate the behavior of those who are unwilling to take basic precautions on their own.

I think with all of the emphasis on bicycle helmets for cyclists and skateboarders, which requires that even the very youngest wear them, that the next logical step would be to embrace other safety features of the motorcycle helmet and the seatbelt.  To get to the point in one’s life, where he is responsible enough to drive a motorized vehicle, I think would bring about a natural progression to a higher need for safety.

If not, as was obviously the case in yesterday’s post, I think the comment of still another reader should be employed:  Maybe the original poster should spend 24 hours in an emergency room setting, observing all that goes on within that facility, and possibly observing the differences between someone involved in an accident, who chose not to wear a seatbelt, and someone who was smart enough to do so.

Then the whole issue would probably become a moot point.  The saying goes, “Click it or ticket.”  Maybe it should read, “Click it or kick it-[in the vegetable ward]. 

Only Ten Pounds

Only Ten Pounds

I have been on picnics and I have been on adventures, but I have never been on a diet.  I am not saying I couldn’t stand to lose ten pounds, but I am not unhealthily overweight, and furthermore, I am actually in pretty good physical condition, jenky knees notwithstanding.

The concept of “dieting” is a foreign one to me, partially because I am a grazer to begin with, preferring to eat smaller meals, more frequently, rather than three conventional meals, with nothing in between.  Low blood-sugar is one explanation, but I’m not too sure about that.  I just know that all of the years I was teaching, there was no way I could have gone from morning breakfast, to lunchtime, without some fortification at morning break.

In the fall, it was easy because of the cukes, tomatoes and apples coming from the back yard.  But all year long, rice crackers and some celery, or carrots, or baby corn-anything to bridge the gap between morning meal and lunchtime-sufficed.

Then there was the after-school popcorn, microwaved, filling the air around the quad with its fragrant scent.  It was the perfect snack, as long as salt was not a factor.  How on earth would being on a diet affect either of these snacks?  OK, remove the butter from the popcorn, I guess, or switch the dressing I dip my carrots and celery in, to a diet ranch dressing.

But dieting?  Limiting the amount of food I take in, so as to lose ten pounds?  I don’t think so.  That sounds so painful to me as to be excruciating.  I know that countless books have been written, extolling the virtues of this diet or that one.  One year it seemed as though all of the teachers on staff were following the diet which required that participants eat nothing but meat, and lo and behold her who was foolish enough to take in any carbs.   

But I can’t do it.  I love to eat too much.  I don’t eat rich food, and I rarely eat dairy products, like ice cream or cream cheese.  But I prefer to eat as much as I like of salad, or tomatoes, or a rice dish and assorted vegetables, without having to stop when I am still hungry.  I am just too physically active, and I require a lot of fuel to keep me in full-wheel drive.

I still walk most mornings with Annie up to Blue Rock and back, about a forty-five minute stint, so I do not lack for exercise.  If I do not walk, it is because I worked the previous day, and my knees are swollen.  Between working on my construction project, and at least an hour or more, out back in the garden, each day, I get a substantial amount of credit for being an active guy.  

That’s why I maintain that I am in good physical condition, even if I pack a few extra pounds.  Being heavier than the perfect weight is not necessarily good, but it need not be bad either.  And feeling compelled to “go on a diet” remains in the background for me.  

I also recognize that if I were seriously over my optimum weight, I would not be able take such a cavalier attitude about the whole thing.  But unlike the days when I used to walk into Pompeii Pizza after a shift at Sunrize Market, and consume not only a large combination pizza, but a meatball sandwich, at the same sitting, I no longer need quite as much fuel.  Moreover, the kind of food I am more inclined to pig out on is grown in the backyard.  

It all adds up to me being able to thumb my nose at the concept of dieting, simply because I maintain a life style that allows me to do so, and because I live on a road with a lot of dips and hills on it, so that I manage to keep from packing it on in the first place.  By luck or by design, I seem to be doing just fine, so long as my knees hold out.