Status update

I have been sick now for over 10 days. Pretty sure it's not covid-19 but no way to know for sure as the only people being tested are recent arrivals from away or their contacts who display the typical symptoms, and I don't fall into either of those categories. Which is fine, I am practicing social distancing and washing my hands and all that, and a couple of neighbours have offered to do grocery shopping for me. I don't feel like I am mortally ill, just not very well.

One of the most bothersome things is the level of anxiety. The other night I started obsessing about symptoms, and whether or not I have the virus. I kept looking stuff up on the internet and at one point I looked up anxiety. Bingo! At least half of what I am experiencing could easily be attributed to anxiety. How do you separate out what is real illness and what is the physical effects of anxiety?

So now I am in effect social isolating. There are certain people who raise my level of anxiety so I am not calling or responding to calls from them. Not that I dislike them, I just can't handle how those conversations affect me right now. I think we all have to forgive friends and family for being less than perfect, but in trying times we also have to protect ourselves.

All parks are closed, including the Reservoir. So no walking the dog there. I miss all the other dogs, as does Hapi. Today we met one of her buddies out for a walk and the two dogs wanted to walk together. Ironically both dogs are large and both owners are small; it was a bit of a tug-of-war to separate them. The other dog whined at the injustice of it all and Hapi dug in her feet and refused to move. If I am not careful she can slip out of her collar because I can't tighten it up enough without choking her. She knows that.

Photo notes: someone hung a bunch of teeny weeny bird houses in the woods at the Reservoir. These pics are from before the park was closed and also before our latest big snow storm.

Post-hike malaise

I did go on the hike I mentioned in my last post and it was pretty grueling. Hapi and I both survived it, but only just barely. The pace was being set by a couple of younger people and Hapi and I were the slowest. The first half was all uphill. The hike leader realized how far I was lagging behind so he chose to stick with me and let everyone else go ahead. I was grateful for that but at the same time it didn't feel great to be the slowest person.

On top of that, I was overdue for visiting B in the hospital and I thought I wouldn't be able to do it the next day due to various other commitments, so barely I got home and I turned around again to go to the hospital. Not a great visit, B was crying and trying to plan a way to escape the hospital. Since she's on oxygen and can hardly make it from her bed to the toilet with her walker it was all very hypothetical but I went along with it.

After all was said and done, I had cold symptoms a couple of days later. Great. Meanwhile the world is going crazy over covid-19 and since the overlap between flu, cold and covid-19 symptoms is pretty fuzzy, there was the additional anxiety of maybe this isn't a cold. I couldn't tell if I had a fever or not. Turns out my thermometer is well past its best-by date and you can't get a thermometer for love or money, anywhere. A little more anxiety.

This morning I woke up feeling hellish. Hapi spent the night in the basement because of the wind and rain (she doesn't like it) and sure enough she had peed the bedding so I had to get up to let her out and start a laundry. A few hours later the wind had diminished somewhat so I drove her to the Reservoir for a walk. I photographed some tiny new "birdhouses" hung in the bushes. Very brightly coloured, like Easter decorations.

And so it goes.

Country eggs

Free range rooster

It was a lovely sunny day today, I spent the morning in my writing group and the afternoon running errands and walking along the Gaspereau Canal with Hapi. I think the canal was the first open water she'd seen this year and could not resist going for a wade. Later we walked along the river and by the time we got back to the car her fur was full of ice. The trail along the river was in the woods and completely icy. I could have put my ice grippers on but instead I just slid along the trail, almost like skating through the trees.

Spring lambs

I stopped at the Dabro Farm Market for eggs and took photos of the sheep. Lots of little lambs there now but they won't last long, unfortunately they are all doomed for Easter meals in the city. I took a picture of a sheep by the barn and could hear honking behind him, I looked around the corner of the barn and saw the lone goose amongst the sheep. The goose is alone because its partner was sat on last year by a horse and died of its injuries.

Sheep posing for photo

Goose with friends

After the writing group meeting some of us went to the Brown Bag Lunch downstairs from our meeting room. Every week there is a different speaker and people bring their lunches to eat while listening. Today the topic was immigration. there was a lively discussion. The speaker is part of an organization that helps immigrants integrate into the community and the country.

While running errands I met a man I hadn't seen in a while. He is in his late 80s and Hapi nearly knocked him down. I wasn't sure if he was who I thought he was but he remembered me. I'm the lady who bought yellow paint from him for my house. I asked if he was still selling paint. He said he was. He said he never advertised his business but people just knew about him and he had enough customers to support himself and his family all his life. His son refinished my hardwood floor, I called around and they had the best price and I knew that it was a family business and they took pride in the quality of their work. I know that he is also very active in his community and his church. He has such a lovely smile, it would be hard to dislike him.

For years I have been working on a fantasy story but have been having a lot of difficulty with it because I feel I got sidetracked with it, the story was going in a different direction than what I originally intended and I wasn't happy with it. This past week I just couldn't go on with it. I have been aware for some time that things were not going well but I thought that if I just persevered to the end then I could write the story that I intended in the first place, but this week I realized that while perseverance is certainly a virtue, it is not always the right path. I have decided to abandon it, at least for now. Instead I am writing something else, something I have been wanting to do for a very long time but didn't know how to start. Apparently the answer is, start at the beginning.

Two people at the local air force base are in quarantine, waiting for coronavirus test results. If positive they will be the first in this province. They had just returned from Italy and weren't feeling well. I read that the World Health Organization is saying not to use cash because it can be very germy, but I pay cash for my eggs at the farm market. I could pay by e-transfer I suppose, I know they are set up for that. I was talking to a friend who is a nurse at the local hospital, she said the hospital is chock-a-block full now, there is no room for the coronavirus. We were joking about how to greet each other instead of hugging or touching. She demonstrated a two-handed wave that she thought might be good.

Slumpy

I'm in a bit of a slump these days, I'm guessing too much screen time. Just don't seem to be able to tear myself away. Tried turning off the internet access but that doesn't last long, within minutes I come up with some question that I need an answer to which only the internet can provide. Maybe it's the weather, or the reduced social life due to not-so-healthy dog. I don't know. Just feel slumpy.

Hapi has always had "loose stool", AKA diarrhea. She had it when she lived with my son and she has had it all the time she has lived with me. For the most part I just put up with it although I did try various dietary treatments over the years. Nothing worked. So now that she is old the diarrhea has gotten way worse and I finally reached a breaking point and called the vet's office. Turns out they have a nutrition expert, and she recommended a "gut reset" involving a week of probiotics and an expensive veterinary dogfood. This morning I went in to the office to pick up the gut reset food at a hefty $80 for one week. Wow.

From there I went to the Reservoir where Hapi and I walked with D and her dog and I told her the gut reset story. She said, Been there done that, six years ago. For her dog it was an instant cure (the dog had projectile diarrhea! I can't even imagine that!), but they could never take the dog off the diet. She advised me where to go to get the food at a lower price. Still expensive but not $80/week-expensive.

Hapi got her first gut reset meal today and she seems to tolerate it. I looked at the ingredients and was quite appalled. Just about every "bad" dogfood ingredient I've ever read about is there, front and centre. But feeding her "good" dogfood hasn't worked so far, I may as well try the "bad" stuff. I looked up the dogfood on the internet and sure enough the technical reviews point all that out and don't seem that impressed, but the customer reviews are overwhelmingly positive. One reviewer said that their dog did great on it and there were no digestive issues because there was nothing there to digest.

I called a couple of old friends on the west coast a couple of weeks ago and left messages. The 4-hour time difference makes it hard to schedule but both friends have now called me back. One has a terminal lung disease and is fading fast, the other is fine but she relayed that a mutual friend is also not well (also terminal, but not for a while). Argh! But I had good conversations with both of them. The healthy friend called me today just as I was peering into a squirrel's nest that D pointed out to me at the Reservoir. The squirrel was higher in the tree screaming disapproval and then my phone chimed in.

There were three of us that used to hang out together (along with a couple of spouses): me, J-one and J-two. J-one and I used to joke about J-two being such a Pollyanna, she always saw the good in everything to the point of naivety. It was J-two who called me today and we had quite a wonderful conversation about the state of the world and various personal events. I take back all that stuff about Pollyanna naivety, she is one of the wisest people I know. Her spouse has Parkinson's and she is tasked with caregiving. She said it's like caring for a toddler and she was never good at that with real toddlers, so she is constantly working on strategies for staying sane. Recently I have been feeling that way about Hapi so I was agreeing with her vigourously. After we hung up I remembered that she had recently travelled to Mexico sans-spouse but I completely forgot to ask her about that trip. Next time.

I told J-two that as long as I have Hapi I won't be travelling but some time after that I would like to visit out west again. She said that she and J-one could provide accommodations for a week each (I sure hope J-one agrees with that!) so there's two weeks covered right there. I have two other friends that I'm fairly sure would consider a week each if the timing was right so I think it could be good. I would love to do a train trip...

Happy Hour

A dog walking friend is always talking about "Happy Hour". Today she was saying her dog is getting fat from all the treats she gets at Happy Hour. She's an ex-American, so at Happy Hour she turns on the (American) news and has a drink. I think "Happy" is ironic these days and she can only stomach the news with a nice drink. I was saying to her that maybe I should try Happy Hour, and what time of day was that anyway? She said 4-ish, which is when I go for a walk in the woods with Hapi (a much more pleasant activity than watching to the news!), she said maybe I could take Hapi for a walk earlier, that is what she does.

So today I tried it. The weather today was beautiful, sunny blue skies and above (just barely) zero temperatures. Hapi and I went for our walk in the woods at 3 and were home by 4, I gave her half of her supper and poured myself a glass of wine. No news, just Beethoven on the CD player. I probably won't manage to do this every day, but today it was nice.

* * * * * * *

B is still in the hospital, her doctor told her it would be 2-6 weeks before she could leave. She heard 6 months and freaked out. I had taken 5 days off from visiting but the day I did visit was right after getting the bad news and she was being interviewed by a psychiatrist. Apparently she had been talking about killing herself.

Anonymous advice in the snow

On the bright side, she has a new roommate, S, and those two hit it off like a house afire. S insisted on having her bed moved right up beside B's bed, hardly room for a curtain between them. Turns out S is a friend of B's daughter. She has spina bifida and all sorts of disabilities and medical issues as a result, but very friendly and upbeat; hard to believe she has as many issues as she does to deal with.

The three of us yakked and laughed for a bit and then the shrink came to get B for further conversation, and S filled me in on B's reaction to the news from the doctor. Then she told me how she ended up in the hospital: fell in the bathroom, didn't have her emergency button on her and couldn't reach the phone, had to drag herself all the way out of her apartment into the hallway so another resident could see her and call for an ambulance. I am glad B has S for company, but I don't know how long S will be there. She thinks she broke her leg but nothing showed up in the X-rays so she's waiting for further tests.

Anonymous encouragement in the snow

I've decided I can only handle once-a-week visits to the hospital. I spent more than a week playing catch-up on all the stuff I wasn't doing because of physiotherapy, visiting B, and Hapi's various health issues, and yesterday was the first day that I sat down and thought, Okay, what shall I do now? I actually had an afternoon of Free Time!

I made a chocolate pudding cake, something I've been meaning to do for years and never quite got around to. I misread the recipe and put an extra tablespoon of cocoa in it, didn't hurt a bit! Maybe I'll read a book or knit something, or make another pudding cake. A friend told me her mother used to make something called Hasty Pudding that was almost exactly the same as my chocolate pudding cake, only caramel-flavoured with raisins. If I ever get tired of chocolate, I could try that!

One Out of Three Ain't Bad

(Three out of Three, plus The Dog)

This past week has been perfect winter weather, it has warmed up but there is still snow on the ground, there's no wind to speak of and the snow has been cleared off the long pond for skating. Supposed to get a lot of rain on Sunday so I don't know how long this will last. Yesterday Hapi and I went for a long walk in the Acadia woods and my youngest son called my cell phone, so we chatted while I walked. Hapi used to be his dog.

Things are going very well for him now, he has several projects on the go and they are all looking promising. The best one is his new girlfriend. He is in his forties now and has never had much luck with women. I can remember telling him when he was in early 20s that if he was still single by the time he reached his 40s he'd be in big demand, and that turns out to be more or less true. That's how it went with one of my brothers, he didn't meet his current partner until his mid-forties, after many years of not being quite good enough. Anyway, my son has a couple of other projects happening and they are turning out well too. He moved from the west coast to Ontario and this is his first experience since childhood of 'real' winter. It was nice to hear from a child who was doing well in life.

When I came out of the woods onto the road there were three young women walking towards us. They asked to pet Hapi and were oohing and aahing about how beautiful she was. My son was still on the line listening to this. When we parted ways he laughed and said he remembered when that used to happen all the time with Hiro, Hapi's brother.

* * * * * *

I visited a friend to drop off an application form she needed and to pick up some cheese her husband bought for me at Costco. We were talking about our various offspring and she told me a heartwarming story about one of her sons. She said, "One out of three ain't bad!" I told her some stuff another dogwalker told me, she also has three offspring and two are not doing well. I never hear about the third one, The Good Daughter. We both laughed and said, "One out of three ain't bad!"

* * * * * *

B is still alive and still in the hospital. She is a lousy patient. I was visiting her every other day but that became exhausting and very depressing so I dialled it back to twice a week. Still exhausting and depressing. Last night I googled "pity party" and thought, Yup, that's what we have going on here. She told me that her son F couldn't visit every night any more because he didn't have enough money for gas. I called him and said I'd loan him the money but he said he only told her that because he didn't want to go every single night. They moved her to another room, she no longer has a window and there's a woman with dementia in the bed across from her. I think they moved her because she was disturbing the other patients in the room she used to be in.

F says the doctor told him she won't be moving to a nursing home for 2-3 months. There's a bed waiting for her but she's not well enough to leave the hospital. I suspect they don't want to move her while she is in such a foul mood because they don't want her disturbing the other nursing home residents. She is not nice to be around. I know she's dying, I know she's very uncomfortable and can't sleep. She has to drinked thickened liquids and eat pureed food and hates it with a passion. She tells me terrible stories of being abused by the night nurses. F says to take everything she says with a big grain of salt, she's not in her right mind. Listening to a constant stream of complaints and nasty gossip about the nurses and orderlies is distressing. I may be some kind of naive Pollyanna but I just can't take that anymore. Beginning to see why F and I are the only people visiting her and we are both secretly trying to figure out how to reduce our time with her.

* * * * * *

Yesterday I walked by the skating pond with Hapi and another dog walker. I was admiring how beautiful it was. The other dog walker said I should take Hapi home and come back with my skates. I sighed and said I couldn't, that today was a day to go visit B. I thought about that last night, I don't think I am doing anyone any favours not going skating. Today is Friday and it's going to rain on Sunday and who knows what the ice will be like after that…

Relief in sight

B's son F came by yesterday to do a minor repair on my car. I asked after his mother and he told me she was in the hospital. F spoke to the doctor who admitted her and asked him to please not allow her to sign herself out. The doctor assured F that wouldn't happen, that she was too sick to go home anymore. They plan to keep her there until a nursing home bed comes available.

F is relieved: "Now I can get some sleep!" Not only is B unable to sleep but anyone taking care of her cannot sleep either. After getting her admitted F went home to bed, but the hospital called him in the middle of the night for B's CPAP machine. F got up and delivered it; he said he didn't mind being woken up for that, knowing he could go back to bed afterward and sleep the rest of the night and into the morning without interruption. I feel relief too, I have been rather stressed by the whole situation.

The doctor said they were going to run a lot of tests on her to find out what is wrong and how to treat it. They are even going to test for dementia. That worries me a bit, if they decide she is demented what exactly will they do? I am pretty sure that is not her problem. The main symptom the doctor and nurses are seeing is extreme grumpiness. I think after months of difficult breathing and little sleep, coupled with financial difficulties and inability to get help from Social Services or our healthcare system, I'd be pretty darn grumpy too.

But overall I am glad she is in the hospital and not coming out until they get her into a nursing home. I think that is where she needs to be, let's hope the next available nursing home is not too far away (the rules say up to 100 km away is allowable). If you go to the hospital in an ambulance you jump to the head of the queue in Emerge; and if you are already in the hospital when you need a nursing home bed then you jump to the head of that queue too.

Pre-Christmas newsletter...

It's been a good news/bad news kind of week, but I guess that's normal for this time of year. Going shopping for the necessaries is torturous due to all of the seasonal gift shoppers out and about. I have kept my own gift shopping minimal; in one short hour I went on Amazon to pick out five gifts—four for grandchildren and one for a distant terminally ill long time friend—and had them gift wrapped and shipped to various parts of the country. Sons and their wives will get Amazon gift certificates on the 24th. Easy-peasy if a little ethically compromised. I'd just as soon skip the whole thing but right now might not be the time for it. Maybe next year…

Hapi is cruising along uneventfully, her limp comes and goes. She has discovered garbage which I suspect is deliberately being left out for her, someone out there likes to see her snooping around their back yard and is encouraging her illicit activities (the garbage was not only not in a bin but carefully placed in what looks like a dogfood bowl!). Now that there is a bit of snow on the ground I can track her and managed to catch her in the act, so now she is locked into my back yard. The picture above is her looking morose about her captivity.

After years of sending unreciprocated Xmas cards I decided to give it up this year, and then two of my dogwalking buddies gave me cards at the Reservoir. Now I am considering rushing out to buy cards to give back. Who knew we would become a little community of card-exchanging friends?

The ponds are now at their most dangerous, covered in ice that looks thick enough to walk on but really is not. Hapi learned her lesson long ago and avoids ice-covered bodies of water like the plague, but many younger dogs don't know any better. Then dog owners attempt to rescue their dogs with the not unexpected results, soaking wet and freezing cold humans and dogs.

The park maintenance guys have been busy doing post-Dorion clean-up and over the past few weeks have come to know all the regular dogs. They stop their chipping machine when we walk by to chat and pet the dogs; the dogs have come to look forward to these little encounters. The other day one of the guys was asking after one dog in particular who they hadn't seen in a while and we realized that we hadn't either. The dog's health has been iffy lately so we wondered if something bad had happened. But that very same morning the dog showed up with his owner, who explained their absence as a happy event. They were off in PEI celebrating her 65th birthday.

The bad news is two-fold. One is finding out about the terminally ill friend mentioned previously. That was shocking. I have been debating going to see her (she lives on the opposite coast), but leaving Hapi behind is problematic and taking her with me is out of the question. So for now our relationship will be confined to the telephone.

The other is regular visits with B, who is in terrible shape. Can't move, can't breathe, can't sleep. All efforts to get her help have either failed, been put on hold due to the holiday season (!!!) or been sabotaged by B herself. It is so depressing and makes me so angry that I am almost beside myself after such visits. I fantasize about angry calls to various authorities but am afraid I will only make matters worse if I follow through on such fantasies. Three times in the past few weeks her son has called an ambulance to take her to Emerge because he can't move her himself. At $140 a pop it's an expensive proposition and they have no money. I said to him, well, they can't get blood from a turnip so keep those bills coming. Maybe someone will take notice of her if she becomes a regular ambulance user. He agrees.

Good advice

These days I am not taking a lot of photos, so pictures for my posts are going to be scarce.

Last night I ushered at the Jeremy Dutcher show. Wow. Powerful music. I'd never heard of him before, but last night was amazing. We ushers were invited to a reception for Dutcher after the show but I had already agreed to meet another usher at a local pub so I didn't go to the reception. Some nights the last thing I want to do is usher but I go anyway and sometimes it is really worth it. Dutcher and the previous show, Between Breaths, were spectacularly worth it.

Dutcher talked about his (and his parents') efforts to preserve their language, Wolastoqey (Maliseet). He said that there are only a hundred native speakers left now. He said that it was not just about the words lost but the unique worldview lost. Every language expresses a worldview, when you speak that language you participate in that worldview. When a language goes extinct, so does that worldview. I think this is true.

* * * * *

The usher that I met at the pub is francophone, from Montreal. At 77 years old she is one of the most beautiful women I have met. I love the sound of her voice and her laugh as well. Mostly I spent the evening just listening. Our server recognized her as someone who had participated in a panel on women aging in her sociology class. The server said she really appreciated my usher friend's advice. After the server took our order I asked my friend what her advice had been.

"I told them to get an education, it would set them free."

She said that living free is the most important thing; and maybe a university education these days doesn't get you as far as it used to, but it is still important enough to help young women be free in their lives. Apparently our server took that to heart.

* * * * *

I gave myself a good scare this week, really silly of me. It started out consulting Doctor Google about some signs (symptoms?) that Hapi was displaying. I came to the conclusion that she had Cushing's Disease. Among other things, one sign of this disease is increased appetite, so one day I let Hapi eat as much as she wanted to see just how far she would go. She used to be very picky about what, how much and when she ate but that seemed to be changing. So that day I just kept refilling her bowl to see how far she would go. She ate twice as much as usual. In my mind that kind of confirmed the Cushing's diagnosis. However the next day she didn't eat a single thing and she seemed to be in pain. All she really wanted to do was hide in the basement. So I made an appointment for Friday with the vet to discuss, by which time Hapi had recovered from her day of overeating.

The vet darn near laughed in my face. She waved the results of Hapi's recent bloodwork at me and said, "She's healthy! Old, but healthy!"

I got myself all worked up for nothing. Hapi might have Cushing's, but it's kind of irrelevant. The tests are expensive, there is no cure, and dogs can live for years with it. I'll try not to overfeed her again.

My knee versus Hapi

What ElizabethAnn saw on a recent trip to the big city

My knee gave out last week. I have a longterm issue with my left knee, stemming from an injury in 1975 now turned arthritic. During the summer the pain gradually increased but I ignored it, figuring it would go away on its own. Not so. Last week it became almost intolerable climbing stairs and then driving my car. Since my car has a standard transmission and clutch and the problem is in my left knee, that proved to be an unfortunate combination. These days they don't make standard transmissions any more but my car is old. I know I have to replace it but was hoping to keep it going at least as long as I have Hapi because it accommodates her quite nicely.

Now it's a race to the finish, my knee versus Hapi. A couple of months ago I would have said my knee was going to last much longer but Hapi has perked up so much with the onset of cold weather that I think she will outlast my knee. With a knee brace and some knee exercises and a slight adjustment of the seat in my car I can get by. I've signed up for physiotherapy as well. We have a free physio clinic in town but of course there is a waitlist for that. I spoke to one of the physiotherapists there and she thought I had a good chance of getting in before Christmas.

One of my dog walking friends at the Reservoir cautioned me against getting knee surgery. She has had numerous surgeries on her knees and back and says that in retrospect she never would have had the knee surgeries; it was a downhill run right from the get-go. The back surgeries are another story, although they were high risk she felt she had no alternative if she wanted to save her mobility for a few more years.

My friend B was checked into the hospital last week by her doctor (good news: B has a doctor now!!). She can't breathe and I guess he was quite horrified by her condition. I went to visit her in the hospital in the next town over and was amazed at her improvement. They had her on an oxygen tank and she was her old self again. Not exactly mobile but in good spirits and joking about everything. I think the nurses were quite enjoying her rough good humour. However she was quite bored and the hospital charged almost fifty dollars a week for watching TV, which is B's main activity during the day. She doesn't read, she rarely knits and she was in a room by herself. So after a few days she checked herself out.

Her son came to drive her home and her breathing problem immediately resumed. I came to visit her a few days later and she was in a far worse mood than she had been before the hospital stay: depressed, angry, spiteful, self-pitying. I commented on how being able to breathe while in the hospital had enormously improved her mood, her son seemed relieved that someone besides himself was telling her that.

B said that she couldn't get an oxygen tank at home until she was assessed and that they wanted to keep her in the hospital for another four days to do the assessment, but she refused to do that because it was too boring. She had been given a bunch of forms by the Housing Authority to get her doctor to sign but he would only sign one of them. She showed me the forms he refused to sign and frankly, I can't say that I blame him. In order to jump the housing waitlist queue she has to prove that she is in dire need and although it is plain as day to anyone familiar with her situation that that is the case, the form is so bureaucratic and convoluted that the doctor would be forced to sign his name to things that he could not prove.

I can certainly understand B's mood in the face of her ill health and all the barriers to getting help, the problem is that she is lashing out at the people who are trying to help her and that is not furthering her cause. But I'd be mad and spiteful in her shoes too.

Another friend suggested that perhaps B would be better off in a nursing home. I am now inclined to agree, but as near as I can tell the process of getting her into one is almost as bad as getting her into decent subsidized housing. Never mind that she will fight tooth and nail against being consigned to a nursing home.

This is all taking a toll on me, I feel quite helpless to do anything for her and visiting her when she is in such a foul mood is not fun at all. Besides her son, I am the only person who sets foot in her apartment, and the main purpose of the visit is for B to feed treats to Hapi. They adore each other. I am thinking that my next visit will be at a time of day when her son is not around and I am going to have a hard talk with her about hospitals and nursing homes. She is very hard on her son but inclined to be gentle with me since I am her only friend now, so I might be able to get through to her if he is not around.

On the positive side of the ledger, I have been invited for Christmas dinner with a bunch of fun people, and am considering joining a committee to bring another refugee family to town. This committee has already successfully settled four Syrian families and is looking to take on a fifth. Apparently there are a million Syrian refugees currently living in Turkey and the Turkish government is looking to send them all back to Syria as soon as their push to end the Syrian war is done. Many Syrians are desperate to get out of Turkey before that happens, they do not think their chances of survival in a war-torn Syria are great. I think that for all our problems one of the big pluses of living in this country is our attitude towards refugees and immigrants. It would be nice to be actively involved in that.

Sleep

Hapi at the Reservoir after the snow

The cold snap we are having fueled an energy burst in Hapi, she is enjoying the weather a lot. She still limps but it doesn't seem to bother her, we are doing a lot more walking than I thought she was capable of.

I had an appointment with my doctor this week, I was hoping to convince her to give me a prescription for sleeping pills. Not that I want to be on sleeping pills but I don't know what else to do, I've tried everything else. It took six weeks to get the appointment, and then the day prior to the appointment the clinic called me to say the doctor was sick and would I mind rescheduling with a substitute doctor the same day. I didn't know whether that was a good thing or a bad thing but I sure wasn't going to say no.

The substitute doctor was a locum, a young woman who does not have her own practice but just substitutes for other doctors as necessary. She scheduled extra time because she didn't know any of the patients she would be seeing, and it became immediately obvious that she had done her homework. She knew why I was there, my medical history and recent bloodwork results, and was very engaging. I quite enjoyed the meeting with her and she was very informative and helpful.

I asked a question about my hearing. I know it is going and I am trying to put off hearing aids as long as possible. I can hear better if I can clear my Eustachian tubes, but the one on the left is difficult to clear. She said she had the same problem and had been told she should blow balloons. She had never tried it but hoped that I would so she could find out if it really works. She said I could also try decongestants but they don't work well on Eustachian tubes and the side effects are not good.

In the end she gave me the prescription for sleeping pills, saying that my regular doctor was probably going to kill her for that but she wasn't going to be around then so I will have to deal with that in three months time. She also told me that my bloodwork was fine, and not only that but she said that it was reasonable to expect that it would stay that way more or less indefinitely. She saw no warning signs of impending trouble. Of course all that can change on a dime but it's nice to know that for now everything is fine.

Interestingly, doctors (in this province anyway) are being strongly advised not to prescribe sleeping pills to seniors. There is currently no recommended treatment for chronic or longterm insomnia with the exception of cognitive behaviour therapy, which is essentially not available due to lack of certified therapists. But provincial Pharmacare for seniors subsidizes sleeping pills at the highest strengths available (formerly they only subsidized lower strengths). I guess the right hand does not talk to the left hand. Not only did I get my prescription but it cost me less than ten dollars for a three month supply, which is a lot cheaper than any over-the-counter medication.

I spent some time on the internet following up on some of the stuff the locum had referred to. I found an interesting article about a sleep clinic in the UK that apparently is very successful and popular, with a years-long wait list of patients. They do cognitive behaviour therapy for insomnia (CBT-I) and apparently have a 50% cure rate, with around 80% of patients experiencing significant improvement. That means half of patients who come to this clinic are not cured, and 20% see little or no improvement. The head doctor of the clinic is rightly proud of their record, nevertheless he says that doctors should be prescribing sleep medication because chronic insomnia is a severe malady and there are simply not enough therapists to provide CBT-I for everyone who needs it.

Also, not everyone responds to CBT-I. I have read that seniors are less likely to see significant improvement because of age-related changes, although some studies seem to show that seniors are especially benefitted by CBT-I. I tried to do it on my own last winter and had some success, but could not break through a limit of six hours a night. Months of six hours a night left me exhausted. Non-prescription medications—including herbal remedies and cannabis—have been unreliable, ineffective, and/or left me groggy during the day. My one experience of sleeping pills for about one month of daily use a couple of years ago was effective, reliable and did not leave me groggy during the day. But they were hell getting off of when the supply ran out.

I haven't used my new pills yet. The bottle sits in my bedside table drawer, a kind of talisman against sleeplessness.

The sorry month of November

High tide in the harbour

Hapi has her good days and her bad days, today was a bad day.

Yesterday at the Reservoir she took off on her own into the woods and was gone for almost twenty minutes. She came back looking quite proud of herself but very shortly started limping. By the time we got to the parking lot she was limping pretty badly and another dog walker offered to drive us home.

During the night she was licking her paw and in the morning she had no desire to get out of bed. She didn't seem ill, she just didn't want to get up. Around 11am (with the time change that would have been the equivalent of noon) I made her get up. I decided that even though she was limping very badly now it would still be a good idea to go to the Reservoir. I drove this time. She limped slowly down the road to the ponds. We met several dogs along the way and she was happy to greet them all. Three dogs were leaving the Reservoir and she looked like she really wanted to go with them but I coaxed her down to the pond. She went in the water and just stood there. Some more dogs arrived and she got out of the water to greet them too. Then I took her home. I think that even though she was in pain she still appreciated the little bit of social time she had there. She spent the rest of the day in her doghouse. I hope she is a little better tomorrow.

I'm not in great shape either. Sleep has become elusive and after multiple nights of insufficient sleep I am tired all the time and quite lacking in energy for anything. Even reading has become difficult, a couple of pages and I'm done. It's depressing. I have pretty much exhausted all the various remedies and relaxation techniques out there and am wondering how I am supposed to function. Hapi and I are a sorry pair right now.

Hapi tales

Right now I am dealing with a stabbing headache, a gum infection and a sore tongue (from accidentally biting it) all on the left side of my head. I'm thinking this is stress-related. Usually I get these kinds of ailments after the stress has been mostly relieved so I suppose this is good news, I'm out of the woods. But it is not pleasant.

We're seeing some daylight at the end of the tunnel for my friend B. Her son who lives with her will see an increase in income, over $250/month, which will go a long way toward alleviating their financial situation. There is potential for more in the long term as well. Also I made contact with the Continuing Care people in the provincial government and they are going to assess B's situation to see if there is anything they can do to help. Bottom line, she is not invisible anymore; there will be people aware of her circumstances and troubles who actually have the power to do something about it. There is a Seniors department in the government but I couldn't see anything there worth pursuing. Seems to be mostly about "positive aging" and keeping fit.

Hapi's fur yarn and the woollen tail sock

My dog Hapi has been losing the fur on her wonderful tail, there is now a four-inch strip of exposed bare skin near the tip (see photo at top). I've taken her to the vet a couple of times and the diagnosis and treatment has been not so useful. I joked with friends about making her a "tail sock" to cover her bare patch in the wintertime, and this week I got serious about knitting one up for her. I remembered that I have a ball of yarn that was spun from her own undercoat fur a few years ago so I thought it would match her tail fur. It is very soft. I made a test tail sock from sheep wool that is not so soft and before winter I will make the final one, assuming that her tail fur does not miraculously grow back before then.

Life goes on, sort of

Pre-Dorian Avondale Sky Winery

Another windy rainy day but not a hurricane. There are still parts of the province, even parts of this town, that do not yet have power restored. My neighbour with the generator that I mentioned in my last post is still having to use that generator. The kayaking expedition that I was supposed to go on yesterday is probably cancelled, since the location is closed due to wind damage and some of the participants still do not have power so would have been unable to prepare food in advance and keep it cool. I haven't talked to any of them, I bowed out several weeks ago due to concerns about Hapi and her dogsitter.

On the good news front, the MLA's assistant finally called my friend B back and made a suggestion that might give her more income. Her son is following through on that. But her breathing is far worse. I thought it was because of the heat wave but we are into cooler weather now and she is, if anything, worse. She cannot finish a single sentence without gasping for breath.

I said, "You need oxygen."

She agreed but said, "You can't get oxygen if you don't have a doctor. A doctor has to refer you."

She's been on the doctor waitlist for a year now. Getting a doctor is along the lines of getting a pony for Christmas, assuming you want a pony. If your Daddy is rich then you have half a chance, but if not then forget it. I gather that the MLA's assistant is still working on that but it didn't sound like he was optimistic.

I went online later to confirm that she did in fact have to have a doctor in order to get oxygen. Close but not quite. The provincial health people say you have to have a "designated physician", and then give a link to a list of "designated physicians" in the province. There is one in a nearby town. So I will call their office and find out if they can do anything for her. If not then I may have to go to the MLA's office, even though they say I am not a nice person. I just think that not being able to breathe can't be good for her, it must be doing damage to other parts of her body if she's not getting enough oxygen.

There is a rent subsidy available to seniors but there is over a year's waitlist for it. And, unbelievably, she doesn't qualify. First of all they calculate how much you should pay in rent as 33% of your total income. In other jurusdictions it's 30%, but no matter. If your heat is included in the rent then they will include it in the subsidy, but if it isn't they don't. So taking her rent alone into account, they tell her that they would actually INCREASE her rent payment rather than subsidize her. If she moved into a place where the heat was included in the rent payment then she might qualify, but first of all she doesn't have any savings to pay for a move. Last time she moved she borrowed from one of those horrible high-interest "payday" loan companies, couldn't meet the exorbidant interest payments and ended up going bankrupt. She's terribly ashamed of that, she's never not paid her debts before.

And second of all she doesn't have the energy to pack up and move due to not being able to breathe. Her son could do a lot of it but it would be really hard to force her to sit still and not lift a finger to help. She likes to give Hapi dog treats, I buy them for her. But she insists on breaking them up into smaller pieces so that she can prolong the treat-giving process and the effort to cut the treats in half wipes her out. Nevertheless she insists on it, and someone would have to sit on her to force her not to help pack up for a move.

B's Seniors Club was on hiatus all summer but they started meeting again yesterday. B couldn't go. She has a walker but she can't get it up or down the stairs to the outside door of her building. She needs a ride and many of the people in the club either can't help her with the walker or they can't take it in their cars. There is one guy who can and will, but of course she doesn't want to call him every week about it. And even if the walker and the ride were taken care of, there's the small matter of not being able to breathe. And the requirement that everyone takes a turn at providing snacks for the whole group. No one else visits her, that Seniors Club and I are it for social life. So now it's just me. I'm not good at caregiving, I find this whole thing stressful and I just don't want the responsibility. But there's no one else to pass it off to.

The latest news is that the government health people think they will have the proper ratio of doctors and patients in a few years time. They are on course and making progress. I don't think they have any clue what "a few years time" means to someone like B.

Dog treats and other stuff

There is some movement around the plight of my friend from the previous post (we'll call her B), but it's early days yet. My dog lady friend contacted her Famous Filmmaker Daughter who replied that she'd talk to someone she knows about the situation. One of her films was about child poverty and featured a local social worker; my dog lady friend thought she might be helpful dealing with poverty of older people. Haven't heard back from the MLA's office, but don't really expect to right away. Maybe later. I just delivered some groceries from me and my neighbour; another friend said she'd put something together later so she's not swamped with food right away. The heat in B's apartment is overwhelming and B can hardly breathe. She speaks between gasps.

One of B's unfortunate habits is to badmouth other poor people. Mostly people I happen to know, I think it just wouldn't be as appealing to her to talk about people I don't know. Anyway it's mostly stuff about poor people gaming the system. Which I have no doubt goes on, but when you consider the gaming of the system by poor people up against the gaming of the system by not-so-poor people, it's pathetic. I really wish she wouldn't do that, but I understand that it comes with the territory. Being poor is dreadfully hard on you in so many ways. But it is hard to listen to and I came away feeling exhausted.

Hapi is always excited to see B, she knows she's going to be fed treats. When I arrived we had to put away the perishable groceries and Hapi just went bananas. She expected her treat to be Item Number One on the agenda. Eventually we sat down and she got her treat, tiny bits of dessicated liver. I offer her these things and she turns up her nose, but when B does it's the highlight of her day.

Hapi has had a bout of diarrhea. Not unusual with her but unpleasant when she has indoor accidents in the middle of the night. I started out withholding food for a day or so but she objected pretty strenuously to that. One of my dog lady buddies recommended rice and applesauce for her, another friend said cooked egg. So I mixed up a concoction of rice, cooked apple and scrambled egg and gave it to her two days in a row.  It was an apple left over from a bag of apples I bought last winter that I chopped up and nuked. I don't know what they did to that poor apple but it wasn't shrivelled or bruised or anything. Had to be a year old. Hapi scoffed it up like candy and OMG, I have never seen such hard little turds come out of her back end in all the time I've had her! It's a miracle!! I probably can't keep her on that diet forever but I sure would like to!!!

Can a malamute survive on rice and apples?

Subject line: Disappointed

Here is what I wrote:

Dear [MLA for my riding],

Wednesday morning I was talking to some ladies who were telling me how helpful you were in finding solutions to problems of constituents. They urged me to contact you for help. Since the help I was seeking was not for me but for a friend, I passed this information on and my friend called you. She is an old woman with serious health issues and no doctor, and poor as well. She cannot afford to pay her bills and buy groceries any more. She raised a family and worked hard all her life. Her father made her quit school when she turned 16 so she was never able to complete high school, consequently the jobs she has had were not well paid. She was okay as long as her husband was alive but he got Alzheimer's and died. 

My friend's bills have mounted to a level she can no longer afford. In desperation she went to the food bank. She is only allowed to go once every 6 weeks and what they gave her was: 3 potatoes, 3 apples, 2 stalks of celery, a small bag of carrots, a few cans of soup, some bread rolls, a few tea bags and a package of frozen hamburger which turned out to be rotten when it thawed. For 2 people for 6 weeks (her disabled son lives with her). After paying all her bills she has $6.00 left for groceries for the month. Not just this month but every month. She has tried the housing authority but they told her there is a 2.5 year waitlist for subsidy. She has her name on the 811 waitlist for a doctor but they say it's up to the government and they have nothing for her. She has diabetes, COPD, acid reflux, arthritis, a pacemaker, high blood pressure and lives with constant pain. She needs a walker just to get around her tiny basement apartment. Nova Scotia Power told her the reason her electric bill is so high is because of the baseboard heaters she uses in the winter time (with the thermostat set at 15C … 15C!!!) and the fans she uses in the summer because it is so hot that she can't breathe (COPD).

I talked to my doctor, hoping to get her to take my friend as a patient. She said she couldn't do it. I am reasonably healthy so I offered to give up my place with this doctor to my friend but the doctor refused, said it couldn't be done unless she was a family relation. Told me I should call my MLA.

I told my friend to call your office and she did. She got your assistant who professed to be sympathetic but told her there was nothing to be done, she should try the churches. Then he hung up on her. She tried calling back, left a message, but no one returned the call. 

Clearly I was wrong to advise her to call you, and clearly my lady friends were wrong about your willingness to help. I am sorry that I caused my friend to fall deeper into despair, one more door slammed in her face.

I am appalled at your callousness, appalled at this government's willingness to let old women lose their homes and ability to feed themselves. I am not a Liberal, but before my friend called your office I thought to myself that if you could help her then I would change my vote. Unfortunately for her but fortunately for me, that won't be necessary. You have lived down to my expectations. 

You have connections and you know people, so you are in a better position to help my friend than I am. I can buy her a few groceries sometimes but she won't accept them from me. Do you know what it feels like to watch someone's health deteriorate dangerously all because of their living conditions and stress, and not be able to do anything about it? Probably not. 

Don't bother replying to this email message for I really am not in a mood for listening to excuses and pretenses at sympathy. If you are willing to help my friend then I'm sure your assistant took her name and phone number when she called so that you can act on it. I think that you need to get out more and understand what some of your constituents have to live with thanks to this government's lack of care for the most vulnerable. 

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

I first ran it by one of my dog walking buddies because I was afraid I might come across too angry (ya think?) and thereby make the situation even worse. My buddy said: No No, Mr MLA needs to hear your anger! Then I called my friend in trouble to get her permission and she gave it right away. So I hit Send.

Ten minutes later my friend phoned to say that our MLA's assistant had just called her (after numerous messages left unanswered by my friend). Said he hadn't hung up on her, they just got disconnected. Said I was not a nice person and was trying to get him in trouble with his boss (Mr MLA). And where did I live, anyway? My friend professed ignorance, didn't know where I lived, somewhere in the county she guessed. 

But in spite of me not being a very nice person and getting the facts all wrong he was going to look into the situation and try to help my friend. And a few minutes after that call I got an email from the MLA's office politely telling me that they would look into the situation, and have a nice day. I replied: Thank you.

Well, if he accomplishes anything of assistance for my friend, then I guess that means I am on the hook to vote Liberal in the next provincial election.

That sucks.

The rain and the ramifications of aging

The downpour last Friday was pretty significant, lots of flooding and washouts. 72 mm, which is a lot in one day around here. Damage to roads, flooded basements, so on and so forth. I heard that Main Street filled right up and overflowed the sidewalks onto adjacent lawns. But my basement stayed dry! All the work done two winters ago paid off. Of course the sump pump was very busy for a couple of days after that.

I just got email from a dear friend out west, she has been very sporadic about replying to my emails. She said there was a reason for that, the last couple of years have been awful for her. And now she knows why, she just got a diagnosis of Parkinson's. Apparently before any of the physical symptoms show up there is depression and anxiety. I remember that the last time I visited her (two years ago) she did seem uncommonly anxious, but I attributed it to recent events in her life. Which it may very well have been, but exacerbated by this other thing. We have a mutual friend who was diagnosed with Parkinson's around about the time I left BC, on subsequent visits I have watched his deterioration and the effect on his partner. Not good.

I was shocked by my friend's email and I was just headed out the door to a meeting. For the first half of the meeting I was kind of out of it. I did eventually get into things, but it was always there in my mind. Still is I guess.

My brother's birthday yesterday, I called to wish him Happy Birthday. We chatted about a bunch of things and he told me about our other brother's call, how other brother was quite upbeat about treatments for his liver cancer. I pointed out to my birthday brother that that may very well be, but other brother's prognosis is little more than a year without treatment, and a few months more than that with treatment. Birthday brother said he did not know that. Birthday brother is very busy right now and I said I hoped he could get everything done this year because next year we may be needing to travel out west …if not sooner.

The meeting I attended this week was a Green Party thing. First campaign meeting for the newly nominated Green Party candidate in my riding. Potluck and strategizing, very exciting. I met a very dynamic young woman in the committee I joined who kind of left all of us older folks gaping. Amazing energy and activism. WWW take note, she's headed your way, going to Memorial for first year university studying the ocean. Molly. We are sorry to lose her but she has left behind everything she can think of, all of her connections and history, for our candidate to use. Voting age is 18, which means high school grads, and I guess there's a lot of them wanting some meaningful change.

On another note, I went for an eye exam today. The local optometrist has quite a shop, employs a whole lot of people. I went to him back in the day when it was just him and his receptionist. Anyway, after the exam he sent me to talk to someone about prices for glasses. After a bit of a wait I talked to this woman who laid out all the options, ranging from the "cut rate deal" of $299 (just the lenses, frames extra) up to $869 (lenses only) for the super duper lenses that make you think you are not wearing glasses at all. We discussed coatings and angles and health benefits and she gave me a bunch of pamphlets and I noted down manufacturers' names and prices for turther investigation.

One of the things she told me about was this coating that is supposed to filter out "high energy blue" (or something to that effect). Used to be UV was bad, now it's creeping up the spectrum through blue.

So I went online to find out what the big deal about blue is. Turns out there is a lot of conflicting information. Blue is good/blue is bad. At my age, cataracts are starting, a number of my friends have already had the surgery. Cataracts cause your vision to yellow, blue is filtered out. One study says blue causes insomnia, another says blue cures insomnia. Cataracts protect against macular degeneration (caused by blue!). Cataracts good/cataracts bad.

Another thing I have been researching is lawn mowers. As noted previously, I can't start my gas-powered lawn mower, so I was looking into alternatives. My lawn is broken up with bushes and garden beds, there is a very dry area and a very wet area and a steep slope on one side. Not to mention all the holes that Hapi has dug either as hidey holes for precious bones or as cool nests to sleep in. A corded electric is out of the question, too many twists and turns. Self-propelled sounds nice but it means you can't mow backwards in tight spaces. I looked at a cordless electric (battery powered) and that was promising, but it was 20 pounds heavier than my rinky dink gas mower. It's big and hard to maneuver, but it's quiet and doesn't vibrate and it stores well.

For the life of me I cannot find a mower that is easy to start, light-weight and maneuverable, and doesn't cost an arm and a leg. I may have to give up on the idea.

In the mean time I am weight lifting in hopes of being able to start my mower before mowing season ends. And I decided not to worry about blue, I soon won't be able to see it anyway.

Phone call

August 2017

My brother phoned me yesterday. Usually we only phone on birthdays and Christmas despite good intentions to do better than that. It was not good news.

He started by describing surgery on his wrist for a longstanding problem that had worsened in recent years, we had talked about this upcoming surgery on our birthdays (two days apart in early April) and so I thought he was calling to talk about the results.

Pre-surgery he was required to do a regular physical check-up, and it turned out that in his medical records was a 5-year-old diagnosis of liver cancer. Somehow that report was overlooked at the time. My brother has his suspicions about how that happened and it pretty much amounts to grounds for suing somebody, but that is kind of beside the point now.

At the time of the diagnosis the cancer was operable, but if nothing was done he had a prognosis of 18 months to live. Five years ago. Now it is not operable. He will do chemo for it but the prognosis is considerably dimmer than 18 months even with the chemo.

He has been healthy as a horse the past five years. He quit drinking, he ran, he lost a bunch of excess weight, he renovated his house and built a monster workshop/garage/guest apartment pretty much by himself. He still has no symptoms.

I'm kind of stunned. His first appointment with an oncologist is after I get back from kayaking. He is my youngest brother and I don't want him to die. I wasn't planning to go out west this year but maybe I should.

Grooming and Vetting

On Monday I took Hapi to the groomer. It was a 4 hour ordeal, Hapi and I were exhausted by the end. Things went a little better than the last time though. I think the groomer, Mary, is getting used to Hapi and is a little less afraid of her, so she was firmer and more confident around her. Also she changed the way she did some things. She used to blow dry Hapi in the bath area which has three walls, and Hapi looked and acted like a cornered rat. This time she did the blow drying on the grooming table where Hapi could look out the window. She looked more resigned than terrorized.

Mary uncovered a big black spot on Hapi's tail that was new to me and she couldn't identify ("maybe a hot spot?"). So on Tuesday I took Hapi to the vet to have a look at it. A quick internet search suggested some kind of dermatitis but I am so sensitized after Hiro's death that my mind goes to worst case scenarios. The vet (Natasha) thought it was more of a dermatitis thing and recommended washing it and keeping it dry. "Benign neglect" she said. We also discussed end-of-life options, euthanasia and such. She recommended starting Hapi on some kind of painkiller regime. Natasha also said I should be aware that some cancers have a genetic component and what happened to Hiro could very well happen to her.

The only thing Hapi doesn't like about the vet's office is the weigh scale. We did eventually coax her into standing on it for a few seconds, just long enough to get a rough estimate of her weight. I was overfeeding her during the winter since she spent so much time outdoors, and sure enough she had put on weight. So it's time to scale back on that.

My son is going to mail Hiro's leftover painkillers to me, Natasha said she could give me a prescription but she wants to do regular bloodwork to keep an eye on Hapi's kidney and liver health, since that is the most likely drawback to the painkillers. So I guess the next time we see her I'll order that up. Probably expensive but what can you do. Natasha said that I should see dramatic change in Hapi's disposition and activity level if she goes on the painkiller.

I do like this vet, she combines pragmatism and compassion in a nice way.

When your kids are sick

The dogsitter I lined up for the upcoming kayak trip lives just around the corner from me but we communicate via text. The other day I ran into his mother who works at a local big box store. She told me that actually her son is in the hospital seriously ill, but he has his phone with him.

I was alarmed. I admit my first thought was that I was going to have to find someone else and my second thought was that he is often quite ill and who's to say he won't get ill while I am away. His mother assured me that he was on the mend and would be able to dogsit very soon.

"He loves your dog. He misses seeing her," she said.

"This must be hard for you having him be so sick," I said, feeling a little guilty for that not being my first thought.

"Him and his brother," she replied.

I remembered that my dogsitter's brother is in even poorer health.

"Every day that I still have them is a blessing," she said.

Can't be fun.