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….. here – not yet.

Sunday, Nov 13

For Nov 12 CPAP. Reported figures. AHI= 0.83. Events: 4 H, 5 RERA. Time on 5 hrs 28 min with (max = 13 L/min). Oximetry: SpO2 one blip to low 81, 24 below 88 (all off CPAP) with avg., 91.1%. Total time almost 9 hrs.

John used his patio-door carrier creation to move a couple of large rocks without lifting into the truck. Using a ¾ inch piece of plywood as a ramp worked like a charm. The wheels are heavy duty plastic from a kiddy-car acquired many years ago at a yard sale.
John with the re-purposed carrier. This rock went from back to front and will be part of a landscaping wall.

The next collage will be explained below it.
Left shows the rock with John’s work glove alongside for scale. The right photo is of a bed between the patio and our TRANE heat pump. The space used to house 3-4 Nanking cherry trees which were pretty and provided small red fruits for birds. Rascal-cat would occasionally get to the roof of the house via these trees.
The area will be covered with gravel and a small firewood shelter that now sits on the patio. The photo shows dirt and rocks being removed – the rocks will go back and then gravel on top. The dirt will follow the big rock to the front.

While we are on yard things, I will use this space to update you on our Veterans’ Day walk around the place 2 days ago, which I didn’t have room for in last week’s blog.

We started our walk with John showing me the bulbs & tubers for 3 plants he is digging up, separating, and saving two of out of the cold ground for winter protection.

First, the separation of the Iris we got from our friend, Celia.
This is a handful of Iris John showed me and then separated and replanted. After a few years the rhizomes, just below or on the soil surface, fill in so much they become like a very thick heavy carpet. Large sections can be lifted or peeled up. Behind him on the hill are the gladioli corms that he will protect in the garage over winter, and you can see below (right) the dahlia tubers.
Left are the glads with many pea-sized youngsters, and right is a dahlia. A couple of years ago John did not dig up the dahlias – two types and both pretty. This year only one of the 2 types was nice. John is trying to save that one, and will also find a few new ones. We hope this year will be more successful. Many of our friends and others at celebrations where we shared, enjoyed both this year, presented in beautiful bouquets. It replaced the normal garden veggies we were light on in 2016. But, we made up for some things when the cherries came and later we picked Honeycrisp and Gala apples across the valley at our friends’ orchard.

We traveled around the property for stories of John’s changes I had not seen for over a month. Here is a short version in two collages.
Out around the Iris garden to see new fencing for the horses. Then on the right is the new entrance to the pole barn, where John has made room for both trucks under cover in front of the hay. Below, the left photo (#1) shows poles and gate in the fence he set up temporarily last year – and never completed.
Number 2, middle, is a large dead tree leaning toward the camera. On the upper left of the tree is a broken part where a limb came off – now cut into firewood rounds but not yet split. These old Cottonwoods and Poplars drop lots of dead wood and then other things grow up through (rose bushes and Hawthorns, for example) such that the tangle is impenetrable.
Photo #3, top right, shows a fence that was in that area that has been uncovered and a thin pole hung along the top wire. All the dead stuff, vines and small plants have been removed on both sides. About 8 years ago a small deer died in this spot. John assumes it got caught, but that is not certain. Regardless, the passage is now easier and visually clearer. The bottom right is a view of our neighbor’s awesome red maple tree, about 100 feet from our fence line. We hope to get cuttings next spring but will also try seeds. We invited ourselves over to do that but haven’t gone yet.

I returned to reviewing the thesis, for tomorrow’s defense. I expect to awake to a completed PowerPoint for the defense to review in the morning.

Monday, Nov 14

For Nov 13 CPAP. Reported figures. AHI= 0.00. Events: 0 H, 1 PP, 9 RERA. Time on 6 hrs 46 min with (max = 16 L/min). Oximetry: SpO2 minimum to 88, with avg., 91.4%.

I awoke at 5:30 a.m., and checked my computer. At 2:00 a.m., my student sent a humongous slide show of 160 slides. There is no way she could show those in 35-40 minutes. I made suggestions of where to cut and went back to bed.

I awoke a couple hours later and received a “shortened” version, but it still had 160 slides. She had plans to flip to certain slides by number.

This time I made a new slide show for her with 71 slides of which the last 4 could be eliminated. I put it on a jump drive and planned to get there early, give it to her before her presentation, and go through it with her.
I called and paid our invoiced bill at Brad & Burke for their heat-pump “tune-up” mentioned last week. It is the Trane Heat Pump, which provides electric heat in the winter months and a/c in the summer. We were charged for 2 hours of time, mostly cleaning plus a paper filter (20x24x1) for an empty slot we did not know was there. We hope to find a carton of those someplace. John cleaned the two electrostatic filters – washed one at a time in the in the top of the dishwasher.

I went by Bi-Mart to get a large desktop calendar for 2017 that we hang annually on the kitchen wall to keep us aware of all our activities. While there, I picked up more of two kinds of cough drops.

I also took time this morning to put in all my meds into a daily case for morning and evening. For those running low, I called in for refills.

Okay, the defense is scheduled for 1:00 p.m. and I left to get there with plenty of time to share my version of her PowerPoint.

I was going through it with her when her main adviser (aka Committe Chair) approached and said her planned PowerPoint was too long. I told her what I had done, and the chair suggested she use the smaller version. She had it on her computer, but she chose not to use it. At 45 minutes, she was cut off and changed to answering questions from the audience. She had made it through 80 slides by flipping the last 10 one after another with no comments for most. The introduction was adequate to demonstrate the research time spent. The question/answer part went well, and then the audience was dismissed for the committee’s interrogation. The results were successful, but now the pressure is on to get the large word document in shape within two weeks. For a 250+ paged thesis, this will be a challenge.

From there, eight of us went to late lunch/early dinner at El Caporal at 3:00 – 4:20 p.m. It was a nice celebration and I brought home part of my meal for the next day.

Tuesday, Nov 15

For Nov 14 CPAP. Reported figures. AHI= 0.13. Events: 1 H, 1 PP, 18 RERA. Time on 8 hrs 6 min with (max = 10 L/min). Good night. Oximetry: SpO2 minimum 88, with avg., 92.1%, avg. pulse 58.5, low 52.

We both went together to our second part of the annual physical today with Dr. Paul Schmitt. It poured rain just before we left, but no more for a good trip up. I drove to Cle Elum and we arrived at 9:15 a.m.
We did a good visit together. First, we went over my blood test results, and he checked me. All is well. John was next, and Dr. Schmitt had planned last week to evaluate John’s inguinal hernia. Luckily, it was “out” so there was something to actually touch and manipulate, where in two previous visits with P. A.s, it could not be “seen.” Our doctor explained what he thought it was and that he would start a referral process that day to have Dr. Harris get him on the docket as soon as possible. First, we have to have him review it. That happened sooner than expected (see Friday below). Dr. Schmitt also noted that John’s blood pressure has increased over the past few years, and he wanted him to start on a low dose of Lisinopril. We made an appointment for John to see him again in a month, after taking the medication and monitoring BP.

I have driven my Subaru Forester for 3 years, and never had a problem with opening the door, but today, I pulled it too hard, hit my head; John was already in the passenger seat and heard the thump. It put a large knot on my head and was hurting, so John drove us home.
I changed clothes and went back to town for Jazzercise, although having gone without exercise for several weeks and with the bruised bump on my head, I only participated in half the routines.

I drove by the Conoco station south of the freeway for these pictured below.
This hardly used set of Merrill shoes were gifted from a friend (Ann Draper) in our old “Buy Nothing Ellensburg” (BNE) Facebook group. She was the one who donated the lovely Native American poster (1989) I gave to my Yakama band friend, Allen Aronica, and you saw written up here back in July with our picture of my presenting it to him, alongside a photo of him in his native Head Dress. The old BNE group subdivided into 3 groups, and now I am away from most of my old friends, who now belong to the North and South Ellensburg groups. Many have switched to a new group, Free Givers of Kittitas County, and that is where these shoes came from. I will now put my efforts into that group.

John was doing his normal surfing and came up with this I am sharing with you. Check this Super Moon Rising from Dr. Roy Spencer in Huntsville, AL. Roy is known for temperature readings of the atmosphere using satellites. He likes to do time-lapse videos. A couple of years ago he did “frost flowers.” Frost Flowers

Here is Mr. Moon: Super Moon Rising

Wednesday, Nov 16

For Nov 15 CPAP. Reported figures. AHI= 0.00. Events: 0 H, 11 RERA. Time on 5 hrs 27 min with (max = 8 L/min). Oximetry: SpO2 one blip to spurious low 71, with no events below 88 and avg., 92.0%. Two blips predictably caused by changing oximeter to a different finger. Avg. pulse (bpm) 60.2, low 50. My defibrillator is set to increase it when it hits 50.

The 2016 Thanks to the WTA Volunteers; 2 minutes.

Some of the WTA folks and things they do

Now we received our picture from that WTA Appreciation Dinner, Nov 4, where Evonne Ellis took our picture.

Thursday, Nov 17

For Nov 16 CPAP. Reported figures. AHI= 0.31. Events: 2 H, 11 RERA. Time on 6 hrs 33 min with (max = 13 L/min). Oximetry: SpO2 one blip to low 87, 1 event below 88 with avg., 92.4%. Pulse 61.5, low 56.

I think I will start today with something from John regarding his newly acquired mediation (his only prescription-needed pill). All he usually takes is OTC Acetaminophen and Naproxen sodium.

John says: I’ve been doing a bit of reading trying to figure out why my primary care physician wants me to ingest something akin to snake venom. It helps to start with this word: angiotensin

This is a complicated chemical in the body and the 2 parts of the name are:
angio ← meaning vessel or arteries and veins that carry blood
tensin ← meaning tension or tightening
So this thing causes a tightening of blood vessels and raises blood pressure.

See if you can make it through this (no fair if you are a trained medical person):
Angiotensin is a peptide hormone that causes vasoconstriction and a subsequent increase in blood pressure.
Angiotensin I is converted to angiotensin II (AII) through removal of two C-terminal residues by the enzyme angiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE), primarily through ACE within the lung.
Bradykinin is an inflammatory mediator. It is a peptide that causes blood vessels to dilate (enlarge), and therefore causes blood pressure to fall.

In 1970, using bradykinin potentiating factor (BPF) provided by Sergio Ferreira, Ng and Vane found the conversion of angiotensin I to angiotensin II was inhibited during its passage through the pulmonary circulation. BPF was later found to be a peptide in the venom of a lancehead viper (Bothrops jararaca).
This lovely snake is found in southeast South America to the right of the aqua-colored line in the map below. The photo of the Jararaca is by Felipe Süssekind:
Original and more here
So, the “Jararaca” injects venom into a mammal and the blood pressure drops and the animal dies, but not before a number of other nasty things happen, including but not limited to “immediate burning pain, dizziness, nausea, vomiting, sweating, headache, massive swelling of the bitten extremity, …” – it is a long list.

Okay, chemists have altered the concoction so it is supposed to do only one thing in a very controlled way.
Let’s hope. John

Nancy is back now:

My music group friends all met at Pacifica Senior Living @ Ellensburg, and they had the chairs set up and tables moved. We had a good audience and a good play set. I had to hit the road soon to get home to take care of some things before we took off for the Audubon Society local chapter meeting. The topic was about 2 trips (2013 and 2016) on rafts down the Colorado River through the Grand Canyon. The speaker is a WA Fish & Wildlife person. One was a private 3-week trip on the river. One was a scientific data gathering trip shocking fish at night and other catch methods, and going through rapids in darkness. It was fascinating. We had called ahead and stopped after the program to pick up our dinner, a 3-meat pizza from Dominoes.

Friday, Nov 18

For Nov 17 CPAP. Reported figures. AHI= 0.00. Events: 10 RERA. Time on 6 hrs 35 min with (max = 12 L/min). Oximetry: SpO2 one blip to low 86, with avg., 92.0%. Pulse 59.9, low 53.

I received a surprise call from the scheduler for the surgeon our PCP set up on Tuesday for John’s visit to the internal surgeon, Dr. Kenneth Harris, for fixing his hernia. The earliest was today, which I first refused, and put off until later, because I knew John had to continue with the chipping crew explained below. However, he came in for his camera, and heard what had happened and said he would be free earlier than expected because the crew had to leave at 1:00 to return the chipper to Cle Elum for maintenance. I immediately called back, and we were able to get an appointment this afternoon!

John began the 8:30 a.m. meeting with the Chipper Crew of four and Lance, the supervisor from the Kittitas County Conservation District (KCCD), for discussing the work on our property. John signed a contract (at no cost to us) for all the preliminary brushing and other work completed by John and others (bulldozing a new access drive to our house where a large fire-fighting rig can access and turn around). Today, with Monday, Tuesday next week, will consist of this year’s fire-wise cleanup efforts on our property. Today was chipping brush piles John has created over the past several years of clearing, and adding adjacent brush or thinning trees, where appropriate. We keep the fallen timber. All the chips will be redistributed on our property; hence, the photo below shows the crew at work, blowing chips into the back of our old Chevy farm truck to be moved and deposited around our place. The first pile created will be near the newer garden so John can make pathways through it.
The two people on the left are pulling brush from one of the piles near our driveway entrance and the middle fellow is putting the pieces into the shredder. The fellow on the right has a chainsaw (a Stihl, similar to John’s) and he is taking out chokecherries.

I drove by and said thank you as I left for my couple of hours in town. I had met them earlier when they arrived, but I did not take the trip around the property because I had previously done that (and it is written in our blog) a month ago with two folks, Lance and Rose, from the KCCD.

My first stop was at the hospital because the temperature was 33°, and I could not leave my violin in the car for over an hour. I am loaning my 3/4 size violin (I started with in the 4th grade), to the daughter of my drawer-of-blood (phlebotomist) friend I have known for 7 years. Her daughter’s teacher told her she would have to get a smaller violin than the full size one she had, which belonged to her grandfather. She claimed it would cause the little girl to acquire carpal tunnel syndrome. When I heard that, I offered mine.
Our scholarship luncheon this time met at the CWU Alumni office on Main St. across from my bank. I thought I might have to park in the bank’s parking lot, but I found a space on the street.

After lunch (pizza, pasta salad, and green salad) and some little sweets, I went by Hospice Friends for some supplies and to give a donation for the Tree of Life, which accepts donations in memory of others who have passed. [Someone was soliciting for the Food Bank at Grocery Outlet and John bought them large boxes of pancake/biscuit mix. Then we went by the Food Bank and picked up a loaf of date-expired Rosemary/Olive bread.] At Hospice Friends, the donations go toward the benefit of those in town still needing medical services, supplies, medical equipment, in home care, and grief counseling. Also with advanced notice, Hospice Friends provide rides as far as Yakima, to doctor visits for those without transportation. Needs are met for any person regardless of age and insurance.

On my way home, I went by Grocery Outlet to grab some canned dog food and salsa we forgot to get yesterday. Well, John had gotten some salsa but it was a bit too spicy so we’ll mix the two.

I returned home to get John so we could be at the surgeon’s office, Dr. Kenneth Harris, by 2:40 to sign in and collect information and vitals for a 3:00 p.m. appointment.

John and I went by Super 1 for a few things on our way home. We were both tired from awaking so early to be ready for the chipping crew, so we quit the trail a little sooner than normally.

Saturday, Nov 19

For Nov 18 CPAP. Reported figures. AHI= 0.00. Events: 14 RERA. Time on 5 hrs 6 min with (max = 9 L/min). Oximetry: SpO2 two blips to low 87, with avg., 91.7%. Pulse 60.3, low 54.

Our Kittitas Valley Fiddlers and Friends, 8 of us, played, sang, and ate with an appreciative audience at Briarwood Commons Retirement center today. I invited our neighbor with her mom, who is considering moving into Briarwood. I thought that would be an excellent introduction to many of the active participants living there, who feed us every 3rd Saturday of the month. Next time will be Christmas music. Our meal today was little pigs cooked in a barbeque sauce, three different salads (potato, macaroni, and fruit). Some other stuff such as chips (Fritos & potato). Then a table of desserts.

Before we started, two of our guitar players sang through the song, Cotton Jenny, written by Gordon Lightfoot, in 1971, and sung by others through the years.

This link is a live performance in 1979 by Gordon Lightfoot, who is from Canada. He performed at the University of Iowa while we were there (? about 1971).

Cotton Jenny

I brought the music home to put into my SongWriter software for us to add to our repertoire.

I put in my meds into the week’s container for the a.m. and p.m. dispersal. That’s the only way to go when you’re on as many as I am.

Sunday, Nov 20

For Nov 19 CPAP. Reported figures. AHI= 0.46. Events: 1 H, 1 OA, 4 RERA. Time on 4 hrs 22 min with (max = 10 L/min). I kept my oximeter on for the rest of the night. Oximetry: SpO2 many events, 31, below 88%, for 12 minutes between 5:30 a.m. -6, and a few between 7:30-8. Once to low 80, with overall avg., 90.7%. Pulse 61.9, low 50.

We both slept in (after I got up and turned off the CPAP at 4:00 a.m.). It did not freeze overnight.

We had early morning visitors in our front yard – the doe and her twins. We can now see the nubs on the larger twin, we had figured was a buck. They were coming to clean up the mountain ash berries John cut and had not yet picked up the single berries. He takes a few branches out to them, starting with the lower ones. Now he will not have to worry with cleaning anything up but the leaves, inside our fence.
The trio walked in the front gate and the twin doe (right) came up to see the cat (Lemon), who now is leaving the scene. Mama doe is in the middle, and the buck fawn is to the left. You can see John’s ladder and the Mountain Ash tree. After the fruit freezes the birds will eat it, but they won’t take it now.

Next, a collage close-up of the fawns at work:
Left, note the coloration of his nubs for antlers to come, and the doe fawn on the right demos the cleanup with a few berries showing beside her left foot, between her legs in front, and behind her right foot. Before the three left, they cleaned up all the berries, leaving only the leaves for John to sweep up.

We fed two cats and now John is out to feed the horses and take the dog for her morning walk. I need to get to work on the blog.

It is overcast but he may be able to accomplish something before it rains (a slim chance). The third feral cat arrived and had her morning vittles. Our inside/outside cat ate at 4:00 a.m. and went back to bed where he remains.

Actually, it is now 12:30 and the sun is out, and John returned to make an omelet for brunch. I am making good progress on the blog to hand over to John (probably not until dark because he needs to be working while light is available). At least tomorrow’s forecast is for sunny weather for the continuation of the fire-wise work. John flagged a few trees and flowering shrubs to be left.

The weather stayed okay for John all day so he didn’t come in until near dark – still that is early now. We managed to feed 2 of the ferals, and another came in and cleaned up the plates. We’re calling her Sally, but we don’t know where she originates, nor if she is girl or a guy. She has located the hard food feeder at our front door, but also will eat from the leftovers in the bowls of canned food for the two girls, Woody and Sue. Lemon eats around back. Tonight we missed picking up the girls’ leftovers, and apparently Sally scooped them clean.

Hope your week was fine.

Nancy and John
Still on the Naneum Fan

Sunday, Nov 6

For Nov 5 CPAP. Reported figures. AHI= 0.16. Events: 1 H, 9 RERA. Time on 6 hrs 15 min with (max = 10 L/min). Oximetry: SpO2 one blip to low 86, only 1 other below 88 with avg., 91.8%.

Experienced a long day, mostly away from home. We took a field trip, conducted by Nick Zentner (CWU Geologist) to find the location of courses the Columbia River has taken in the past. It was a fascinating day.

We went to town early for gasoline for John’s car, and got to the leaving point on campus before the 10:00 departure time. We did not get home until almost dark.

Our first stop was south of Ellensburg, was to view rocks deposited by the Yakima River, with access from Ringer Loop.
John is visible in the top right of the left photo, with his light blue hat. The right photo has 3 of his small rounded found rocks at the top left. Most of the rocks are darkish and many are not very roundish. Such are typical of the Yakima River because of the closeness of the mountain source regions and types of rocks found there.

The second stop was past Moxee at Konnowac Pass, an old wind gap (a failed water gap).
I took both of these photos on my way slowly up the hill to join the crowd for Nick’s presentation. The trees are fruit orchards, still with leaves but most of the color is gone.

The next stop was likely my favorite of the trip. First, the view when we got out of the car is directly below.
To appreciate this, watch my very short movie of Emerald Road Cobbles, laid down by the old Columbia River.

Appreciate these cobbles

Next is a collage of some close-ups of the river rock cobbles at that site.
Finally, from across the street overlooking the Yakima River is this collage:
Left Nick explains how the river rocks across the street were not deposited by the Yakima River behind him, but by the Columbia River during another route it took long ago. The middle photograph is to his left and focuses on Toppenish Ridge, with the Yakima River in the foreground, and below our position. The right photo is looking (northeast) at the many feet of cobbles, all very roundish and most orange-ish, unlike the rocks from the Yakima River (1st photo, above). The Columbia River begins near the Village of Canal Flats (Canada), but other big rivers also flow in the region, namely the Kootenay, Clark Fork and others near Missoula, MT. So the small rock he is holding has an unknown source, but it did not come from the drainage of the Yakima.
Story of Quartzite inside Cobble on Snipes Ridge near Sunnyside, WA pictured above, and videoed below.

The Quartzite Story

Nick Zentner with cracked-open cobble explaining the Quartzite inside from the old Columbia River deposited rock along Emerald Road on Snipes Ridge near Sunnyside, WA on 11-6-16, Field Trip, “Chasing the Old Channel of the Columbia River.” It is Precambrian Quartzite, older than 500 million years. Brief intro here, 21 seconds, see above link.
Below is a further short video introduction (1 minute) to the old channel of the Columbia River that deposited this picturesque river rock feature.

Old Route of the Columbia River near Sunnyside, WA

Below are the rocks we carried away from our day in the field.
These (just on the board) are what John collected. Top 4 (whiteish) are from the current Columbia just downstream of Priest Rapids Dam. The large flattish orange one (and the others close by) are from the cobbled hillside (southwest side of Snipes Mtn., between Granger and Sunnyside. The new rocks will find a place among our other rock-garden treasures. Do you have anything that is 500 million years old?

Monday, Nov 7

For Nov 6 CPAP. Reported figures. AHI= 0.40. Events: 3 H, 15 RERA. Time on 7 hrs 34 min with (max = 19 L/min). Oximetry: SpO2 3 blips to 88, 0 < 88 with avg., 92.2%. (Probably low considering a spurious 83 which doesn't show on the graph I received & inexplicable considering the events below 88% is zero)

Much of my day was spent assembling my medical reports for tomorrow’s doctor appointment, filling in our voting ballots to drop off at the courthouse on election day, and reviewing more of the master’s thesis for which I’m on the committee (to be defended in a week) at the graduate program at CWU – Cultural & Natural Resource Management. I retired April 2010, but stayed on this committee. It is my last. Over the past several years, Terri Towner researched this thesis, entitled, “Everyday Farm Life in the Moxee Valley 1915-1950 Historical Ethnography.” We went through the Valley just before our 2nd stop on the Sunday field trip.

Tuesday, Nov 8

For Nov 7 CPAP. Reported figures. AHI= 0.29. Events: 2 H, 19 RERA. Time on 6 hrs 58 min with (max = 16 L/min). Oximetry: did not record properly.

We left for the start of our doctor appointments at 9:25 a.m. in
Cle Elum, 45 minutes away. We participated together. This was part one of our annual physicals. Part two is next Tuesday, same time. Today was primarily data gathering of vitals and a fasting blood draw. After the nurse collected information, we visited with our doctor, who will be retiring in May 2017. He was going to retire in December but a new Doc isn’t coming in time. Regardless, this will likely be our last appointment with Dr. Paul – started in 1988/89.

On the way home, we drove back through Ellensburg to Grocery Outlet for ice cream and cat food and dropped off our election ballots at the Courthouse drive-up box receptacle. Ballots are mailed to us and we drop them in a box, but could mail if we needed to. The car in front of us pulled away just before we got there, so no waiting. Our citizen-duty done, we talked with John’s sister Peggy (in Ohio) for the trip back home.

I returned home, changed clothes, and went to Bi-mart to check my number and bought two kinds of cough drops; luckily, one type was on sale for 50¢ off, a 25% larger package than I had recently bought.

I went to get my 3-month medical supplies (for CPAP machine, supplies and equipment), and found out starting Oct 13, I no longer get a break on prices for supplies and equipment paid for by Medicare. They have cut back 45% on payments for the stuff I have been getting without any $ crossing hands every 3 months. The medical costs are rising all around – not a surprise but not welcome either.

I picked up limited supplies today at Kittitas Medical Supply. Now it will cost me almost $185.00 every quarter. I did not get the mask, nosepieces, and short tubing, saving that money. I will just clean the mask I have and keep using it. At least they gave me the two filters, one foam and three paper ones. That is charged out at $48.00 to Medicare, and my supplier decided to take the loss on that, but not on the mask parts or both sections of tubing.

Here’s the scoop — especially if you depend in part on Medicare.

2016 is the year of Medicare’s Rural Payment cuts.

You can voice your concerns, in WA:
with Senators
                       Patty Murray  866-431-9186
                       Maria Cantwell   202-224-3441

Ask them to pass Senate Bill 2312  to roll back the rural Medicare cutbacks.

Congressman Dave Reichart     202-225-7761 

needs to be requested to sponsor Bill 4185, which will do the rollback needed.

IF you have a specific Medicare complaint about the decline in your home healthcare services, call the Medicare Complaint Hotline (NOT AFFILIATED WITH MEDICARE). You will be asked to leave your name, phone number & complaint, and they will get back to you.
 CALL 800-404-8702. 
I did this, and if you follow below, you will see the interesting results.

I also went to Jazzercise class this afternoon for 45 minutes and it was too much considering I have not exercised in 3+ weeks.

I canceled my contribution playing and singing music at Hearthstone tonight because I am not up to it. It is with The Connections and is religious music, twice monthly.

Wednesday, Nov 9

For Nov 8 CPAP. Reported figures. AHI= 0.00. Events: 7 RERA. Time on 6 hrs 57 min with (max = 10 L/min). Oximetry: SpO2 one blips to low 87, all rest > 88 with avg., 91.5%. (Spurious blip to 78, probably from changing fingers on Oximeter).

I picked up Gloria and we went to the Food Bank to sing and eat, and to SAIL exercise. I was feeling much better today. I came home to more thesis chapter reviews.

Thursday, Nov 10

For Nov 9 CPAP. Reported figures. AHI= 0.64. Events: 5 H, 19 RERA. Time on 7 hrs 50 min with (max = 18 L/min). Oximetry: SpO2 blip to low 86, 5 < 88 with avg., 91.8%. A friend shared this interesting link with me. You may wish to check it out, especially if you want to voice your comment about the Medicare cutbacks. If you do not live in Washington State, there likely is something similar for other states. The information on all the elections we have voted in, since 2005 is informative. (No, nothing is revealed about your voting behavior. Just that you did.) weiapplets.sos.wa.gov/myvote/#/login

I went to Meadows Place today for music. I forewarned the activities director and the head as to the count for armless chairs, but they were not ready for us, having no chairs out, tables moved, or fireplace turned off. We had to set up ourselves. We only had 7 of us there to play because of scheduling conflicts with doctors, school functions, and other activities. We had an appreciative audience.

I filled the Forester’s tank with gas, so it was not a completely wasted day.

Most of any spare time left the past few days, even when I was feeling bad, I have been reviewing the thesis, for which the defense is Monday. I am on my third read of every chapter (of eight). I am the only committee member reading not only for content, but also for grammar, syntax, phrasing, details, spelling, margins, style, and anything else I see. To me, I have to get those problems out of the way to be able to digest the content. The committee consists of me, a geographer, the chair, an anthropologist, and the other member is an historian.

Friday, Nov 11

For Nov 10 CPAP. Reported figures. AHI= 0.13. Events: 1 CSR, 1 H, 14 RERA. Time on 7 hrs 57 min with (max = 13 L/min). Oximetry: 0 events < 88 with avg., 92.0%. (Spurious blip to 79 probably from changing fingers on Oximeter).

I am downloading the first 7 chapters’ final copies of the thesis, with all the edits I have noted over the past couple of weeks, corrected. Her defense is Monday from 1:00 – 4:00 p.m. This is my last ever thesis committee! Having been retired since April 2010, it is about time I quit doing professorial work, don’t you think? This is all volunteer time. I no longer have any salary or a phone, or access to previous student / class information from being a full-time faculty member since 1988. However, I do still receive mail at CWU and maintain my old email account there, have a permanent (free) parking sticker, and access to the James Brooks Library (including an excellent Music Library with access to Inter-library loan), so I have a few benefits left. I also continue to get requests for letters of recommendation for former students for jobs for which they are applying. I know few of the students any more, except through my continued work on a Google Groups job announcement list with almost 800 members, NW Geography Jobs. Via it, I actually publish daily job opportunities in many disciplines besides geography (biology, environmental sciences, geology, economics, political, forest service, government jobs (DNR, DFW, DOT) graduate school opportunities, faculty jobs, and techniques such as GIS, mapmaking, geospatial, & engineering.

Regardless of your voting preference, this link is a HOOT!

Donald Trump meets Barack Obama – five awkward photos

Today, I received a phone call from the research group collecting information on my Medicare Complaint Hotline call earlier this week.
They requested my “story” – and here it is below. I plan to submit it via email so they will receive on Monday morning, Nov. 14. This was my letter to the research team examining nationwide Medicare Complaints Hotline. Skip to the next photo if the text doesn’t interest you.

Nancy’s Complaints Regarding Medicare cutbacks proposed for 2016 of 45% in Pap, wheelchairs, oxygen and other healthcare equipment.

I called the Medicare Complaint Hotline at 800-404-8702 on 11/10/16 and had a return call on 11/11/16, Veterans’ Day. Luckily, I was home.

The first call came at 11:26 from an Iowa number: 319-274-7913, with the caller ID, V GM MGMT LTD. I let the answering machine catch it, and then when I realized what it was, I picked up the phone. I imagine we talked 20 minutes. After I told her my story and all the information she wanted (mostly my location and how I am affected by the monetary cuts), I mentioned I was going to search our recent garbage to look for my mask I threw away before realizing this week I could no longer replace it, as I had been doing every 3 months, since September of 2014. This mask was particularly dirty from in-taking dust from our dirty rural house. I SHOULD have kept it and washed it thoroughly–especially now that I know the cost, I will have to pay for a new one that is no longer covered 100% by Medicare reimbursements (and my supplemental Group Health insurance). It seemed worth the effort to search our garbage for the unit, now worth an outlay of $34.99 (reimbursement of $19.00 later) for the headgear straps, and the clincher, the connected Mask/nasal pillow with short tubing for an outlay of $129.99 (reimbursement of $61.02 later), reimbursements to come to the patient sometime in the future. It will be interesting to see the amount of time that elapses. Those figures mean my out of pocket cost for the head mask every three months will be $15.99 + $68.97 = $84.96. This time, I chose not to pay the cost for the head mask and accessories (tubing). I chose not to buy the longer tubing because I have a couple left I can use. And, I can wash them out as well. I did not check their replacement price. The filters cost total for one foam filter and two packs of 2 each of the paper filters which need to be changed every 2 weeks, or possibly more often in a dusty house as ours, are $48.00 total. Medicare used to cover the longer compressed air tubing and all filters, but now they will not. My medical supply provider, Kittitas Medical Supply, has decided to continue “giving” the filters to clients because their loss on them is not as drastic as the loss on the payback for the masks, headgear, and tubing. I am grateful for that perk and support. Therefore, on Tuesday this week, 11/8/16, I only walked away with the filters for replacement, and no money exchanged hands.

We started searching and an hour after the research team called, and she returned a call and asked me if I was willing to write my story for an on-line “article.” When she heard I was, she asked me to take pictures of the search and of my find. I told her I would. Sadly, I had to report that we did not find it. We both find it difficult to believe we missed it, but I know I put it in the garbage and we searched every bag clear back to May. We could not locate it, but I did take some photos of the effort.
I will try to answer the following questions the researcher asked me, on a returned email, and I have marked in bold.

How is medical equipment important to you? 
Of the equipment affected by the cutbacks, I only am hurt by one, the PAP, or the CPAP machine’s supplies for operation nightly. The importance to me personally is not for sleep apnea, but for keeping my SpO2, blood oxygen saturation level above 90%, while I sleep. In my case, it is very necessary because of a heart valve (Mitral) replacement I had in Dec 2009. I bought myself an Oximeter (my cost, sadly not covered by insurance of any type), because it is necessary to measure my SpO2 while sleeping with the CPAP machine running. CPAP machines do NOT measure that parameter, or the actual pulse throughout the night. I have an implanted defibrillator that controls my pulse, if it goes below 50. I wear my oximeter now throughout the night so that it measures and records my pulse and my SpO2. Each morning I can read the data from the CPAP (on an SD card) and from the Oximeter, and merge the values via software, with the ability of displaying graphs of everything coordinated from the CPAP and the Oximeter. I have also kept my oximeter on, after turning off my CPAP machine, and recorded the data without the CPAP operating. I review that each morning, and I have printed graphs to share with my cardiologist and my sleep doctor to display my findings. It definitely makes a difference in the value of the SpO2 figures. One interesting thing (to me anyhow) is that the CPAP does not prevent all decreases below 88% SpO2, and that on occasion there is evidence that continuing the recording off the CPAP does not show a decrease in the SpO2.

I will add two graphs from the CPAP’s SleepyHead software comparing to the Oximetry, and another from the Oximetry’s SpO2 Review software showing the graph overnight of the pulse and SpO2 values, with and without the CPAP. You on the blog have previously seen those graphics, so I won’t include them here.

What do you use? 
I have answered this question above. The only equipment I use is a CPAP machine with its associated needs for a mask, tubing, and filters.

How have Medicare’s funding cuts personally impacted you? 

I have also addressed that above in the first question. I am hopeful that Senate Bill #2312 and House Bill #4185 will be passed in Congress, and the result will be to roll back the rural Medicare cutbacks. I have paid into the system, and I believe others and I should not be limited in our ability to get care and supplies. I realize that some other folks are more financially restricted than I am, but it should be helpful across the board. Yes, I certainly also understand the huge expenses of the medical system and Medicare’s need to adjust, and I am also aware of the large debt our country has incurred.

What medical equipment were you looking for in the trash bags?
I was looking for this part of my nightly garb attached to my machine’s main tubing (not shown) and using filters embodied in the CPAP machine. The ruler is in for scale.
CPAP Mask Head Gear (Nasal Pillow)

How we could have missed this is beyond me. However, we searched for an hour and a half.

We live 12 miles from the transfer station (dump), we compost as much garbage as possible, recycle newspaper, plastic, and glass, and we only drive a truckload in every several months. We started with the most recent garbage bags, sorted through and repacked mostly into new black bags, but we also used some dog food bags. We had 15 repackaged and checked when we stopped. We do not have any more bags in the house, garage, shed, or barn.
Here is Nancy, in yard clothes, frowning, standing in front of the searched and repackaged 15 garbage bags.

Here is another:
I have on my Washington Old Time Fiddlers hat which goes with my normal activities about town, playing Old Time Music with a group, visiting assisted living and retirement homes providing sing-along entertainment, with a mostly string band.

Just last Friday, in honor of Veterans’ Day, the Ellensburg Adult Activity Center (Senior Center) provided lunch and activities for 100 people. Our group provided a 1/2 hour of patriotic music.

That’s me on the right with my photo from a previous year there:This year (above), we began with a color guard with two of our local veterans in military dress, the pledge of allegiance, then the patriotic songs, and we closed with the National Anthem, acapella, always a moving experience. After that, all the veterans present were brought to the front according to their branch of military service. Two of our players were honored.

I have the names and numbers of our WA senators and our representatives to share with everyone I can to request them to pass these two bills. I am trying to spread the news via email and by Facebook.

I will also give them your Medicare Complaint Hotline number so they can do what I did. Thank you for your service.

Sincerely,
Nancy Hultquist
Ellensburg, WA
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ This above was in response to the following email:

Hello Nancy, 
 
Thank you for sharing your story! If you could send me some photos of you looking for your equipment from the garbage (with you in it) that’d be good. 
 
If you could email me back with the following information
 
How is medical equipment important to you? 
What do you use? 
How have Medicare’s funding cuts personally impacted you? 
What medical equipment were you looking for in the trash bags?
 
Thank you!
 
Lalaina Rabary
Digital Content Strategist
VGM Marketing
Lalaina.rabary@vgm.com
866-544-7913
My mission: To make the internet a better place one word at a time

Saturday, Nov 12

For Nov 11 CPAP. Reported figures. AHI= 1.30. Events: 6 H, 8 RERA. Time on 4 hrs 38 min with (max = 13 L/min). Oximetry: SpO2 one (maybe spurious) blip to 82 , 25 < 88 with avg., 91.2%. Oximetry continued to 8 hours.

I spent the day doing a serious computer backup after problems last night and this morning with computer not restoring properly from an update/shutdown. Now we have to get to work again researching a new computer for me to replace this old worn-out laptop.

Details of my Seagate backup drive. Has 997 gig used and available, 865 Gb as of 11-12-16.

Intermingled was working on the thesis review comments and going around our rural block for a long overdue haircut.

Hope your week was fine.

Nancy and John
Still on the Naneum Fan

Monday, Oct 31 Happy Halloween!

For Oct 30 CPAP. Reported figures. AHI= 0.71. Events: 1 CSR, 4 H, 9 RERA. Time on 5 hrs 37 min with (max = 16 L/min). Oximetry: SpO2 two blips to low 85, 9 < 88 with avg., 91.0%.


Yesterday, we posted our weekly blog in the evening.

I am planning on staying home another two days to recuperate. Yesterday, I began a new cold symptom I have not had for the past 19 days – runny nose and sneezing. I am ready to be done with this. I will skip Jazzercise tomorrow, again, but pickup with SAIL exercise at the AAC on Wednesday afternoon.

I thought I had only 5 pages to go in the final chapter of the thesis review when I went to bed last night. Found out this morning, I have 31 more pages I missed from part 6 of Chapter 8. Today, I finished the last chapter and have reviewing the part I missed. I hope to finish it today!

We put in a call to Spokane today for Culligan to service and replace our under-kitchen-sink water filters next Monday. Service is coming from Yakima. We will hear the timing this Friday via telephone to plan arrival for Monday. It will be between 10:00 a.m. and noon.

I stopped for a not completely nutritious lunch, but I am continuing my fluid intake. I drank a can of apple juice that has been waiting for me for months in the fridge, and continued with the yogurt and Ensure. Also threw in a couple Almond Roca pieces.

I went to the car to check on some things, enjoying the sun – first time in several days. I’m happy for all the night’s trick or treaters not to have to deal with rain as we have been having. No one comes to our house; it’s dark and spooky. It is better to go to town to all the planned (or unplanned) events. I learned of a few good places to share with my friend and her 3.5 yr. old daughter.

I have been alternately working on music for this week, and on the last pages of the thesis review. Finally, I finished just before 6:00 p.m. Things have been mixed in with calling the bank, dealing with music for the group this week, and now just fed all cats for the night. Also, I managed to wash one filter and replace the paper filter on a machine next to my bed – long overdue.

Today was a special Brittany day. We got a report from Jeri Conklin, my co-owner of our young Brittany, Cedaridge Kip’s Camelot Shay Tre’ JH (call name, Daisy) about her run in a CA field trial over the weekend, in an Open Gun Dog event. Jeri handled her. She had a nice forward run and a point, but unfortunately, it was a non-productive. Jeri searched and searched the bushes and could not locate the bird.
Daisy wants those birds – here in that trial, with ears flying and all four feet off the ground.

Then the point and search:
On the same day, another Brittany occurrence happened to take us back to the past, with our ownership of FC Simons Ruff-Shod O’Dee. He was the dog we bred to our DC/AFC/CC Sirius Sashay, the best cross we ever did, that resulted in several dual champions, and many single champions.

I received an unexpected phone call from the original owner of that dog we didn’t bring home to live with us in Idaho, until he was 9 years old. We had been breeding to him and running him for Dan Richmond in Amateur events. I tried diligently to find the owner, but never succeeded. (That was likely 30 years ago.) The phone call came from Texas, from David A. Simons, who found our Cedaridge Kennel on line with the email and phone number since we have been in WA. He was looking for a dog descended from that dog for a hunting buddy in Arizona. We talked for almost 45 minutes. He was a youngster when he bought Ruff for his hunting dog at 8 weeks. We are enjoying reminiscing on line about a great dog, sharing stories from his early life with David and his later life with us. Ruff/Ruffy had a long life for a Brittany – 16.5 years.
David with Ruff, getting his Derby points, (a dog cannot be over 2 years to run derby stakes). Right, Dan Richmond and me with Ruffy, 1984, when he won the Open All Age at the Washington Brittany club field trial. (Right photo taken by Jeff Sandman, given to the owner in the plaque with the placement engraved at the bottom of the frame.) The trophy was revolving and had to be returned to the club for the next year’s use, and we had to engrave his name on the trophy.

Tuesday, Nov 1

For Oct 31 CPAP. Reported figures. AHI= 0.25. Events: 1 H, 6 RERA. Time on 3 hrs 37 min with (max = 13 L/min). Oximetry: SpO2 one blip to low 88, NONE below 88 with avg., 92.0%. Short, but sweet.

I set up Thursday and Friday’s music play dates. Nine came to play Thursday and nine different ones made it on Friday.

Three deer came in the front gate for Mt. Ash berry dinner, then went out, and lay down next to John’s car. We guess they are staying away from the hunters in the hills.
Yes, a couple of the does have learned to step up on things near the base of the tree to gain height to reach the berries. The lower branches they can reach by standing on their back legs. Last year, they used a blue plastic bin.
With tummies full (?), the deer lay down to rest, just outside the fence.

I continued working on cleaning the den for the furnace (heat pump) maintenance person to come tomorrow morning.

Tonight to Cle Elum and dinner at the Cottage Cafe. We are meeting friends from Ellensburg on their way back from their cabin on South Cle Elum Ridge. The Cafe sends gift-letters for our birthdays and wedding anniversary. Instead of costing us $20 per meal, it’s $10. We bring enough home for the next day. While waiting, I saw a BB World Series grand slam.

Wednesday, Nov 2

For Nov 1 CPAP. Reported figures. AHI= 0.00. Events: 3 RERA. Time on 2 hrs 7 min with (max = 12 L/min). Oximetry: SpO2 several spurious blips from moving off finger, only 7 hits below 85 with overall avg. 91.0% (surely affected by the spurious ones).

Darren Allen arrived from Brad & Burke (B&B) about 9:30. He has worked on Trane heat pump units for 20 years, or at least for B&B, who is a Lennox dealer. He really seemed to know what he was doing, and we both felt comfortable with him.

He inserted a new (additional) 24″ x20″ filter and left a back-up, because of the serious dust problem we have in our house. We need to check each month, and maybe more often at first to see how it responds. The slot has been there all along but no one ever mentioned it nor provided a filter. We’ll check on line to get a price for a box of filters.

I left just after he did to pick up my friend Gloria to attend music and lunch at the food bank, get gasoline in my car, and go to SAIL exercise at the AAC afterwards.

Thursday, Nov 3

For Nov 2 CPAP. Reported figures. AHI= 0.26. Events: 1 H, 7 RERA. Time on 3 hrs 52 min with (max = 8 L/min). Oximetry: SpO2, 2 dips to 88 on CPAP, only a few to 89 off CPAP for 2.5 hrs, with overall avg., 92.1% (a spurious low of 84).

I went to the hospital for an INR before music, and had a very strange occurrence. I have written it up and tomorrow will submit a “care and service report” to the quality assurance folks at the local hospital. The phlebotomist (new one to me) performed the wrong type of draw and had to repeat it to get it right. I was not happy, and realized she was doing it wrongly. I asked her to redo it as it always is done and to send the results to my lab in Cle Elum. On my way out the building, I stopped at the front desk to speak with the front desk receptionist, a person who knows me by name and has since 2009, when I became a regular in the hospital, going to the lab and to the outpatient services, in addition to being a patient. She listened intently and gave me the appropriate form to complete and return. I was grateful. I have written the report, and will deliver it to the front desk tomorrow, on my way back from playing patriotic music.

My INR was low again (1.8) and in the afternoon I talked to my Coumadin Clinic advisory nurse, so we could adjusted the dosage. I will have it retested in Cle Elum, when we go up for our annual physicals mid November – nurse and lab first, then a week later we see the doctor. He’s retiring at the end of the year. John has had visits with a Nurse Practitioner and a Physician’s Assistant, but we do not have a new M.D. – yet.

I went to play music at the Rehab at 1:45, where we had a full house, but we did well.

I came home to work on the Star Spangled Banner to have the front row (fiddlers, accordion, and flute) lead off the group Acapella tomorrow at the AAC on the National Anthem. We are scheduled to have 90 participants there. I have to take audience copies of the lyrics as well. Photos will appear later, when the photographer who was there publishes them.

Friday, Nov 4

For Nov 3 CPAP. Reported figures. AHI= 0.22. Events: 1 H, 7 RERA. Time on 4 hrs 34 min with (max = 16 L/min). Oximetry: SpO2 one blip to low 89, all above 88 with overall avg., 92.6%.

Today was Veterans’ Day music at the AAC, offered by the Kittitas Valley Fiddlers & Friends group. We had 9 players and played 12 songs (patriotic and USA songs), plus the National Anthem without instruments at the end. We played for 1/2 hour, following the honor guard and the audience pledge to allegiance. I dressed in my sequined flag vest, and the group had various combinations of red, white, and blue clothing.

The Senior Center personnel fed us at our own table after we played, and continued with the program for the veterans present, honoring them and bringing each branch of the military forward to receive an honor and to tell the audience what their job was and where they served. Two of our music players are veterans, and one of those served in 2 branches. Our lunch was excellent. We had meat loaf with sides of various casseroles (our table had servings of a rice casserole, a SW cornbread one with a sauce of beans, corn, & tomatoes, and a serving of peas and carrots. We were presented with a soup bowl of mixed green salad and a platter of several different dessert choices. I had a little piece of 3 different ones.

I took my paperwork to the hospital on my way home, as planned.

I was not home long before we changed clothes and got into my car to make the drive to Seattle. We left at 2:30 and got there with traffic slowdowns starting near the 405 cut off on I-90. John was my navigator and I was the driver both ways. It took just over 2 hours. The thinking about driving in Seattle was worse than the doing but we only had to travel several blocks non-interstate.

We were attending the WTA Volunteer Appreciation Event in Seattle at REI, …
… which was set to begin at 6:00 p.m. with nice appetizers, fruit drinks, beer, and wine. Fortunately, we had our parking sticker validated, and saved the $15.00 fee. We visited with a few folks, grabbed our name tags, walked around REI some, and then went back for a seat on the front row to watch the slide show and see the program (which was full of reports and awards) – John didn’t win any this year, except a pass through November 2017 to a National Park. We already have one for all National Parks, that I bought for $10 at Mt. Rainier, years ago. We were offered free WTA “trail crew” T-Shirts. I got a couple for my exercise classes (red & gray). They are men’s size. I hope the red XL fits me; also, I got a L (gray). The prettiest colors (chartreuse and blue were women’s sizes but way too small for me). John doesn’t wear short-sleeved shirts except under long-sleeved shirts. These are made of plastic and so don’t get and stay wet. Hikers like them. See this:
From those that do long trail hikes in sections

Food provided was spicy-seasoned shrimp, 2 to a skewer, grilled (John said pickled) veggies, mushrooms, 2 different dips, crackers, twice-baked potato bits (little red ones), Swedish meat balls, and I thought chicken but John thought fried pork pieces (cold). I didn’t like that offering. The rest of the presentation food was warm. Wine and beer was from local folks, although the wine grapes were from east of the Cascades – like us.

We dressed in shirts (Nancy in black and John in Orange – for his orange hardhat assistant crew leader color), with patches honoring the 50th anniversary of WTA. We got many comments from folks there. A friend, Evonne, (a blue hat crew leader) took our photo on her camera, and will get it to us in a month, probably. She is busy still working and studying sustainability as a graduate student at an Oregon University. Perhaps if it comes out all right, we’ll put in the blog then. I did not take my camera to the party.

John made a small picture of the two shirt pockets with their patches:
John had ironed the patches on the shirts earlier in the week. We are protecting them to wear only on special occasions, so they don’t have to go through the washing machine and chance losing the patch, or messing it up.

Saturday, Nov 5

For Nov 4 CPAP. Reported figures. AHI= 0.00. Events: 17 RERA. Time on 5 hrs 54 min with (max = 18 L/min). Oximetry: SpO2 one blip to low 80 (off CPAP), quite a few below 88 (off CPAP) with an overall avg., 92.1%.

John worked outside some but it began to sprinkle. So he came in and worked on lunch. I worked on in-house chores after sleeping in to recover from yesterday’s activities.

Tomorrow we are going on a neat geology field trip, hosted by Nick Zentner, CWU Geology, for the IAF’s local chapter. Here are the specs: 10:00 am – 5:30 pm (Daylight Savings Time clock change!). Carpool from CWU’s Hebeler Hall.

Old Columbia River Field Trip

Did the Columbia River really used to flow through Sunnyside?
How do we know that?  What’s the field evidence?
Why did the Columbia River keep changing its course through time?


Prior to 17 million years ago the main drainage came south from the Spokane area (green color). After many lava flows, the river was pushed up against the mountains toward the west (red color).
Basalt province of NW USA

Major flows are subdivided into “members” as discussed in the link given and shown in the maps (incomplete) below. Ellensburg is off the upper-left corner and the details for the area are not shown.
For the trip, the weather is supposed to be sunny and a bit cool, unlike today’s rain.

Hope your week was fine.

Nancy and John
Still on the Naneum Fan

… Still not 100% but heading there
… Fall has come
… the rain won’t stop
… fill in your own feels like

Monday, Oct 24

For Oct 23 CPAP. Reported figures. AHI= 0.68. Events: 3 CSR, 6H, 10 RERA. Time on 8 hrs 47 min with (max= 19 L/min). Oximetry: SpO2 one blip to low 86, only 10 below 88 with avg., 90.9% (lower than should be because Oximeter recorded a spurious low of 61 that doesn’t show on the graphs. Must have been when moving off the system. No clue.

Yesterday, we posted our weekly blog late afternoon.

Today, I’m staying home one more day before I hit the ground running.

I am still working on reviewing the thesis.

Got a call in for Brad & Burke to service our Trane Heat Pump. (they will schedule us in, in the next few days). Kelly will call today. She called about noon and we set up 10:00 a.m. next Wed. Now we have to clean a path to the air-handler in our den. It’s the first room after the entryway, and where we drop everything that gets carried in, or the resting place for things that need carried out.

John fixed a nice breakfast (sausage, hash browns, egg, and toast).
I spent too much time on too many projects the rest of the afternoon and until 11:30 tonight. We took time to have lunch leftovers from yesterday.

Tuesday, Oct 25

For Oct 24 CPAP. Reported figures. AHI= 1.27. Events: 1 CSR, 7 H, 4 RERA. Time on 5 hrs 31 min with (max= 16 L/min). Oximetry: SpO2 blip to low 82, with avg., 90.5%. Lowering on CPAP, but more so off CPAP.

Wow..it’s been 10 days since I left the house and drove to town.

We left today at 12:30 and didn’t get home until 4:00 p.m. Too long a day for not feeling well, even though I’m better than I have been. First stop was to a CWU acquaintance for 3 boxes of his red delicious apples. We had a longer visit than originally intended, but we enjoyed it. Barney’s solution to exercise cramps is a teaspoon of baking soda in a glass of cold water, as soon as the pain happens. John sometimes gets cramps after being in the car for 2 hours after being on a day-long work trip in the mountains. I’ll have to be ready when John drives in the driveway, and he’ll need to warn me from down the road he’s nearing. [John says: This, and other suggestions, has very little credibility from medical, chemical, or mental research and may unbalance one’s electrolytes. There are many such suggestions and sometimes the explanation for the effect varies. What’s yours?]

From there we went to the hospital just two blocks from his house for my blood draw. I had to wait longer than normal for them to locate the standing order in the paper filing system (for my INR to check my blood for planning the dosage)… ??? why the delay ??? It’s been there for the entire year, is renewed annually, and I have gone there now for six years. Personally, John and I think it should be in the medical records on their computer able to be brought up immediately. What a horrid way to do medical business, in a hospital, no less.

Trip included Bi-Mart for Fisherman’s Friend and Ricola cough drops, Anne’s for mail pickup plus taking sorted mail to her sofa, and watering plants. Someone else is doing the cat chores this year.

They did finally take my blood draw, and we left for the Adult Activity Center. It was just to deliver two boxes of apples: one of Galas and Honeycrisp and one of Red Delicious we’d just gotten. We’ll keep the rest for our use, likely for making applesauce (nice red colored). I did not stay for Jazzercise at the recommendation of my teacher. We did ask if they could use a large pumpkin with cutting and decoration materials packet, and they would love it. We returned to Anne’s house to take an offering off her front porch to donate to the AAC for their Halloween Party on Friday. It had been put on her porch by a local realtor, Coldwell Banker, as a Happy Halloween gift and request for considering using or recommending their realtor business help in the future. I should have photographed it. It was probably at least a 20# pumpkin. I first contacted the two lady donators (the Clerfs) and asked them to come retrieve it for someone else, but when they said they might not have time, I asked if I could donate it to the senior center.

We stopped at Hospice Friends to pick up pads for a friend (I get them every other month for 2 people) and a few Ensure drinks for me to mix with yogurt, when I’m not up to eating a meal. It’s a nice community offering and well worth my occasional monetary donations (not required). If anyone needs a medical equipment, they can borrow it or have it. For example, when I had a large-wheeled walker, I donated it back to them for them to loan out. They also provide transportation as far as Yakima for people in need of doctor visits.

We stopped by Safeway for my Telemisartan med, where I can pay cash, not use my insurance, and get it for 1/3 the cost it would be from my own pharmacy (after insurance). However, I was supposed to get 90, but for some reason they were only sent one bottle (30). They reordered and said I could get them tomorrow at 1:00. Wrong. They weren’t in until the weekend!

Have I mentioned my displeasure with the medical care system and costs? We just found out our monthly cost for Group Health (supplemental to Medicare) is going up in 2017 by $90/month.

We had a nice encounter at Grocery outlet on our way home, meeting an EMT teacher at CWU in the waiting line (J E Pierce). He and John visited and exchanged information about John’s wish for better medical training than one gets in the Red Cross First Aid class. We need to follow-up on that opportunity. Found out he knows and worked with our friend, Jeff Sandman, in the Fire Department on the west side.

On our way home, we stopped for a free donation of a bag of English-type walnuts from an acquaintance. John has dried them (a large cookie sheet full) and we will have some to add to our cooking with the ones we got from our own trees this year.

Came home to a report from the Coumadin Clinic Nurse in Cle Elum that my INR was exceptionally high, 4.6. That’s the highest I have had in 6 years. We went through all sorts of questions. I knew that alcohol would increase it, and I have not had a drop. We later found out that diarrhea increases an INR reading, and that has been associated with the bug that invaded my system. So anytime the reading is high or low there is an adjustment in dosage needed and then another test. If the INR is in the correct range, then the tests are less frequent and my arm/vein has time to heal.

Wednesday, Oct 26

For Oct 25 CPAP. Reported figures. AHI= 0.35. Events: 1 CSR, 2 H, 2 RERA. Time on 5 hrs 46 min with (max= 8 L/min). Oximetry: SpO2 only 2 blips below 88, but removing oximeter caused a spurious low of 62 that messed up the avg., 91.3%.

John roasted a pork tenderloin to take to a 5:00 p.m. Kittitas potluck/practice session of our music group. He also cooked a pan full of red delicious apples halved with brown sugar, butter, and cinnamon in the middle along with two pecan halves. Boy, they were scrumptious with the pork roast. Others brought food, and it was all good.

I finished the notes about the upcoming Thursday night meeting on the Manastash Trails and sent to Alan (WTA) and Bill (a WTA volunteer, here in EBRG). Alan and John went to the meeting, but Bill had a conflict. John and I have a conflict with the next meeting, planned for December 1.

We enjoyed the Wednesday night at Evie’s house in Kittitas. John and I took separate cars so I could stay for 2 hours for the music practice session. We made good progress on fixing timing problems, some notes, and I actually was able to change the key on one problematic song with tough chords for the guitars.

Amy brought a bunch of cut up Nanaimo Bars she made. Oh how rich and wonderful.

Nanaimo_bar

Nanaimo, a city on Vancouver Island in British Columbia, claims this treat originated in Nanaimo. Where else? However, the cocoa, almonds, and coconut in the list of ingredients could lead one to think the residents are too full of themselves.
I only had one small piece but I could/should have eaten more. I halved one of John’s already halved apples to share with John, had a slight bit of Crockpot ham & beans, slaw, passed on the melon, had some rice and chicken casserole, and a fantastic Artichoke dip with long chips.

Tonight, we learned of a cougar sighting on Thomas Rd ½-mile from us (closer through the woods). It was posted on Facebook, and someone who knows where I live tagged me. I called or notified as many as I knew, including Frank Bacon (whose family, parents, and brother Andy live by the Leather/saddle Shop). They had not been notified.

This was the message: “Angela saw a cougar on Thomas Rd near Don’s Leather this evening. Share if you know people in the area.” The person writing (her husband) and she live at the west end of the road, which is near Wilson Cr. road. At the luncheon I attended this Friday, someone told me about another sighting on Wilson Cr. Road. All know, or should know, that the Cougars are in this area. Reported sightings are not common. They see more of us than we of them.

Thursday, Oct 27

For Oct 26 CPAP. Reported figures. AHI= 0.43. Events: 1 CSR, 2 H, 1 PP, 1 RERA. Time on 4 hrs 38 min with (max= 9 L/min). Continued resting for 4 more hours without recorders. Oximetry for: SpO2 to low 87, 5 times, avg., 91.9%.

Today, I ran off copies of the new key for “In My Merry Oldsmobile” music and took with me to the five people who were able to be there today. We had a nice time with the folks there. I’m sorry I didn’t have my camera. Our little mascot, 3.5 yr old Haley, was there all dressed up as an evil witch, but she handed out candy from a black bucket. They love her. Amy was kind enough to send me a photo of her in her costume near their house. I cropped it to share here.
Haley with her pot of goodies. Looks like a sweet witch, not an evil queen.

Friday, Oct 28

For Oct 27 CPAP. Reported figures. AHI= 0.00. Events: 2 RERA. Time on 2 hrs 32 min with (max= 10 L/min). Oximetry: SpO2 blip to low 83 (spurious at end), several below 88 even on CPAP with avg., 90.2%.

I went first for an INR, following up on the very high one recorded on Tuesday. Today it was back down, to 2.1, but I have to return next Thursday for a retest. Then I was off for a scholarship luncheon – chili, cornbread, salad, and apple pie. From there I went in my pumpkin garb to an Oktoberfest Spooktacular party at the AAC. I missed the lunch there, but heard mine at school was better. I got there late for games, but I managed to win enough play $$s to be able to bid for gifts donated by the community businesses. I succeeded in getting a couple of things we really don’t need.

Here are some photos from the afternoon.
I guess I should have held the sign on my other side, and higher!
Left, my first win of the day, camouflage gloves in a Knudson Lumber coffee mug. Right, the last win of the day at 2:00 p.m., a matching coffee mug with candy. I’m sitting in front of Frank, who back in 2010 had a stroke, and we were together in physical therapy at the local Rehabilitation Center (acute care home).

Saturday, October 29

For Oct 28 CPAP. Reported figures. AHI= 2.17. Events: 9 H, 5 RERA. Time on 4 hrs 9 min with (max=13 L/min). I was miserable and the machine was causing me to cough. I removed it and slept for 4 more hrs. Oximetry: SpO2 spurious blip to 62 throwing off avgs., with overall avg., 92.1%, and overall looks good with only 2 below 88, low of 87.

I went to Ada Perry’s 90th birthday celebration at Briarwood, taking Gloria Swanson along with me. We also ran errands.
Both out of focus because people don’t push the button half way down to focus before taking, and I did not have the flash turned on, which really helps in low light. Left photo: Ada, Nancy, and Gloria (Gloria will be 91 on Veterans’ Day). Right: Michael Buchanan, Ada’s son, who was my student in two classes in 1993. He invited me to the party, and is always complimentary about my being the best teacher he had. He went on to be a successful urban planner and now is a software developer / engineer. Gloria and I knew Ada from our SAIL exercise class at the AAC. He and Norma came over to Briarwood to visit a year or so ago on a 3rd Saturday of the month, when our music group goes there to entertain. Imagine my surprise, when I saw him in the audience. I said something such as, “I know you!” I never knew until then that Ada was his mom. Small world.

Michael’s wife, Norma, made a huge frosted carrot cake (the yummiest I have ever had), and brought it over from Moses Lake to the Open House at Briarwood (went from 1:00 to 4:00), with all the large family coming in for the celebration from as far away as Texas.
Here is the cake & raspberry punchbowl. On the right is Norma. I guess I should have used a flash, because I took these photos and cannot blame anyone else for their being out of focus.

Finally, while there, I sat and visited with Katie Patterson, one of the Briarwood residents, who always is at our music Saturday there. She was admiring my shirt, and went out to her car and brought me back a ceramic pumpkin for my neck and gave it to me. It was meant to be part of a wind chime. She teaches ceramics at Briarwood. Here is a collage of the gift. I will enjoy it next year when I get all dolled up for my Halloween gigs.
On the bar stool seat, left, it lacks scale. On a standard sized paper napkin, right, its size is better shown.

Sunday, Oct 30

For Oct 29 CPAP. Reported figures. AHI= 0.16. Events: 1 H, 11 RERA. Time on 6 hrs 12 min with (max= 20 L/min). Oximetry: SpO2 spurious report low 54, but I don’t see it on the graph produced. Low avg. < 88% is 86.5%, but I see only 2 blips to 85, with avg., 91.3%. I have no clue about the report. I took off both machines at 6:00 a.m. and slept another couple hours.

John has been winterizing and trying to complete a few lingering projects, but came in for a snack for lunch. It was probably not the most nutritious, but it hit the spot. We each had two oatmeal/chocolate chip granola bars. We both agreed we like Snickers bars better. One cat got fed early, and Sue just appeared for a late breakfast. We haven’t seen Woody yet. Now we’ve had Woody come back and Sue is here too at 4:20 p.m.

I have continued with dishes and working on the blog, and will switch to reviewing the last chapter of the thesis soon; well, I may file first and thereby clean up a mess or two before the heat pump repairman on Wednesday.

Today, after 2 weeks of cold symptoms not including a runny nose, it started today, early morning and has bothered me all day, with sneezing.

Finally, some 2016 Halloween Humor for tomorrow’s special day.

Left comes to me from my cousin who lives on Sullivan’s Island, SC of a lawn display there this year. Right comes from our friend, Tanya Myers, on the other side of our valley, of Zombie Fingers she made for son Michael to eat. Recipe is from the food.com network, but she added red coloring to the almond fingernails and fingers. She says they are quite tasty.

Supper was good: chicken, coconut shrimp, and baked apples. Last night we had butternut squash as a side.

Hope your week was fine.

Nancy and John
Still on the Naneum Fan

Monday, Oct 17

For Oct 16 CPAP. Reported figures. AHI= 0.86. Events: 0 CSR, 7 H, 16 PP, 2 RERA. Time on 8 hrs 3 min with (max= 12 L/min). Oximetry: SpO2 several blips to low 84, with avg. 90.1%.

Yesterday, we posted our weekly blog.

Today, I am staying home to try getting well.
I canceled going to the Rehab tomorrow night for music.

Today John was outside digging holes, moving rocks, hay, and short sections of recently cut Poplars. Frequent job changes help to not overuse a single muscle group – or he has a short attention span. He came in for lunch and to respond to a few emails.

I spent the day resting, but also scanning a copy of an exercise book so I can return it tomorrow. I also washed dishes and worked on bills, email, and scheduling.

We received a medication compound preparation via FedEx from Trinity, TX early morning. Late afternoon in the mail, our new horse water tank heater and stainless steel cleaning pads arrived via USPS. The box was too large for the mailbox, so the carrier drove it in. Glad we were home and John was outside.

I worked on reviewing the thesis.

I’m sorry to report I’m not feeling well tonight.

But, there was a beautiful sunset to cheer me up, visible out our back patio door.
When the leaves are all gone and the sky is clear the top of Mt Rainier can be seen in the low-center of that view. Mornings work best because the Sun is to the East and shining on the snow covered top.

Tuesday, Oct 18

For Oct 17 CPAP. Reported figures. AHI= 0.17. Events: 0 CSR, 1 H, 1 PP, 1 RERA. Time on 6 hrs 1 min with (max= 8 L/min). Oximetry: SpO2 one blip to low 86, with avg. 90.2%

Staying home today to recuperate. I was certainly not wishing to go to Jazzercise, and the other person likely to be there was also sickly feeling. Katrina was happy to have us keep our germs away from sharing. A couple of people there at the Senior Center on Tuesdays have comprised immune systems, so it is a good idea to stay away. I have been busy with all sorts of things inside.

I received an email from my friend Elise in NJ and followed it to a big surprise about two characters we knew in our past from Troy, Idaho. We left that house in 1989.

I know bones in the Smithsonian

This morning, I commented on line to the article. Here is the content of my message:

My husband and I knew Grover and his Irish Wolfhound well. We lived in Troy, ID from 1974-1989 and ran a Dog Boarding Kennel out of our house. I can assure you Clyde preceded him in death, and being the research Anthropologist he was, Grover would have been able to preserve the remains of Clyde’s bones properly. In fact, he had the bones of all three of his dogs, Clyde, Icky, and Yahoo. Icky was the one we got to know best at our home. I don’t think we boarded Clyde before he died, but Icky’s name we remember for sure.

I think this Smithsonian presentation is awesome and while I understand space is a problem in museums, I hope they will put it on display again in the future, perhaps with the bones of a Sasquatch (Bigfoot). We also followed his research with interest.

Look him up at
Link wiki Grover Krantz
I suspect they will put the human bones and the dog’s in storage, after all the work of merging them into one. The only other possibility would be they will be returned to WSU for Forensic studies and education.

Thanks to the commenter, Angela, who provided the link to the story in the Washington post, 2009, when Grover’s wife went back for a visit, and they told more of the entire rebuilding story.
To my post on the life-with-dogs site, I added my last comment because of another’s comment on line wondering what they did with the human remains after no longer displaying at the Smithsonian.

Link to that:
WoPo article
Be sure to follow the NEXT on the photo in the Washington Post article to see other photographs.

I managed to get an announcement out to our music group for receiving a count of how many are attending, so I can call in for the number of armless chairs. We are limited to 12. A few people can play in a chair with arms.

I also washed a load of clothes. Dishes are a more common occurrence. Gosh, we dirty a lot, and add to those daily 2 large saucer dishes x 4 for the cats.

John broke from outside chores and came in with the mail (which was useless), and fixed a casserole for dinner (chicken, peas, cashews, celery soup, with crispy dried onions on top). The chicken is a neat ingredient we buy at Costco, cut off the bone, of their roasted whole chickens they roast and sell there. I don’t know what they do with the dark meat, as all we ever see is packed white meat. John says they package thighs and legs separately. This is deboned, so makes it a bit pricy but convenient because we don’t have to deal with any other part of the carcass. We gather stuff over weeks/months and then run all the garbage to the transfer-station (aka dump).

I also am not in good enough shape to go to tomorrow’s activities, so I canceled those as well, and canceled picking my 90 year-old friend (almost 91) whom I usually take with me on Wednesdays to the Food Bank (music – she sings with us – and they feed us). From there, we go on to SAIL exercise and run other errands before I take her home.

Wednesday, Oct 19

For Oct 18 CPAP. Reported figures. AHI= 0.00. Events: 0 H, 0 RERA. Time on 4 hrs 24 min with (max= 11 L/min). Oximetry: SpO2 blips to low 86 with avg. 90.0%. Definitely shows the impact of having a CPAP machine on to keep the SpO2 higher through the night, although it still went to 87 even on the CPAP.

Stayed home to recuperate and am canceling going tomorrow too.

I wrote an email to our neighbor Allen. Called him this afternoon, to tell him we had apples and no Internet, so if he contacted me I wouldn’t see it. He was in town and hadn’t seen the email, so he dropped by on his way home. John had dropped a box of smallish ones off at the senior center, with any ones with “issues” taken out. Our Grocery Outlet store uses an out of the way space to place wine boxes. We always get one or two at each visit, especially if we get anything frozen. They hold about 20 pounds of apples.

Called Sandy Morris (new Activities Director at the newly named Pacifica Senior Living at Ellensburg, and talked to Laura who left her my phone number and she will give it to her again to have her call me today. It worked this time.

I was working on things this morning, and both of us were standing away from our computers, when we had a 3 second power outage and then the back-on power surge. Sadly, it zapped our modem. John could not get it working. So: We called tech support. Then John had to start our old WinXP system. That’s always a pain because it is only on 2 or 3 times a year now and services that can, want to update, and those that are no longer supported send warnings. So after a bit of fuss, the computer could deal with the DSL line via an Ethernet Cable. We spent an hour on the phone with a guy in South Carolina, only to find out we could not reset the password connection on the modem, and someone would have to come to our house to troubleshoot it. They put a high priority ranking, but the maintenance person did not call until 4:07. John had gone out to the barn, but I got his attention because the person asked if we could bring the unit to town. So, off he went with only the modem and the power cord. I surely hope that is the problem and they will just replace it, nicely at no cost, but I think they are now charging for modem replacements.

He had gone an hour ago for 3 stops for me because I couldn’t go today or tomorrow. At one stop, he dropped off music at a guitarist’s house who shares with another guitarist in our group, and also left him a box of apples. I usually carry it along with me for them, but I’m not playing tomorrow. Also, John took him and his wife a box of Honeycrisp and Gala apples. On to Bi-Mart to get me some Ricola cough drops. Always reminds John and me of the old singing commercial in the Alps.

Link

That link points to the 2011-2013 version, but we don’t remember the dancing with the stars version as this is, but see at the very end the footage of the fellow in the Alps. Looks as if we are in Leavenworth, WA.

John left there for the Adult Activity Center to return the exercise book I borrowed to scan and to leave another box of apples for the center folks. They love the apples.

It’s a good thing the maintenance person did not call during the 50 minutes he was in town. He did call (as mentioned above), and John drove the modem in, and the fellow (Jake) was able to fix it.

We were thrilled to have our Internet back after being off (about Noon until 6). Maybe the power surge was what we needed to prompt fixing it. I wonder if that modem has been the cause all along of our spotty Internet connection availability. In a month or two of good connection, we’ll celebrate.

Thursday, Oct 20

For Oct 19 CPAP. Reported figures. AHI= 0.55. Events: 1 CSR, 5 H, 4 RERA. Time on 9 hrs 3 min with (max= x L/min). Oximetry: SpO2 blip to low 86, ~12 at 88 or below, with avg. 90.9%.

I stayed home today to recuperate, and missed the music gig. I was told seven members of the group provided music to an appreciative crowd.

We received an email early from John’s sister in Ohio. At 11:15 last night, she had gone with a friend (Chris) to the airport to welcome the Cleveland Indians back from Toronto, where her team won the American League Championship Series (ALCS). Growing up, she and John rooted for the Pirates when, in 1960, the team won one of the most storied World Series ever.

Roster: 1960 Pittsburgh Pirates

John remembers many of those names and can’t name a current player on any team.

Peggy sent us detailed instructions of how to get to the photos to see her and a photo of Ryan Merritt.

“The plane landed at midnight. Not a big crowd. But fun. Crowd cheered plane when it landed near the International Exposition (I-X) Center, adjacent to Cleveland Hopkins International Airport. Then it drove right into a big hanger and all the players came out, got in their cars, and drove off.

They really went so fast and it was dark so was hard to identify them, but we did recognize several.
Someone called for the players to come over so we could take their pictures. Finally, the rookie pitcher who started the game, Ryan Merritt, came over and everyone was taking pictures and selfies with him. I couldn’t get too close and the TV camera light was shining at me so my pictures were not very good. I was behind the man in glasses and suit at left top (of the second picture) so didn’t get a good picture.

If you can go to Fox8.com and see the pictures of the players coming off the plane, there are a few others. In the one of the crowd, I am right in front of the pole with blue jeans and a yellow blouse. My neighbor Chris is beside me wearing an Indians’ t-shirt.”
————————
Nancy back:
I tried but could not find them until Peggy sent us (at my request), explicit directions, which John used to find and download the two best. Peggy also sent the one with her and Chris in it by the telephone pole (left below).
Left-Peggy Hultquist, in yellow blouse and jeans by the light pole, and on the right photo, she is standing behind the guy in a suit on the left – close to the action. She couldn’t get a good picture, but this shows Ryan Merritt well.

Friday, Oct 21

For Oct 20 CPAP. Reported figures. AHI= 0.19. Events: 1 H, 0 RERA. Time on 5 hrs 8 min with (max= 15 L/min). Oximetry: SpO2 one blip to low 80 (off CPAP), with avg. 90.3%.

I talked with my doctor’s nurse and decided to wait until next Tuesday to get my INR, and we discussed my progress on getting better. It’s looking good.

John has been looking for some time for his “lost” cell phone. This morning he found it under the driver’s seat of my car. Last time he drove that was when we found his car battery dead and had to take mine for him to let me off for music. He previously had looked in my car, but under the passenger’s seat, where he normally sits. What a relief. He found it in time to have it with him on the road to a WTA work party near North Bend, WA tomorrow. Now he has just tied a hunter’s orange-colored tape to the side of the container. Maybe he will be able to keep better track of it.

Well, I went to take my pills, and realized I need to refill for the whole week my little weekly box, starting today. That took awhile and I had to call in refills for two major costly ones.

I worked mostly today proofing Chapter III of the Master’s thesis I’m reviewing. I did one chapter, but sadly, it was only 30 pages, but lots of detailed reading, and critiquing. Unfortunately, too late to take a nap I started feeling worse, with eye and aches, and even my upper teeth left side (above the surgery place) were hurting. John says it’s probably ’cause I’m getting better. That’s after a recent morning comment, “I wonder if you have pneumonia.” Well, I guess I didn’t have a clue, but no fever is a good thing, and not gasping for breath. Tonight it is too early to go to bed, so I’ll keep at it. BP is ok. Took my last pill of 14 today. I’m sure you all do not need a play by play of my sickness, but part of this blog is to answer the questions I’m asked in the future by my doctors. I have an annual physical coming up, and I have been in contact over this recent “cold symptoms” route with my family physician’s nurse, who also is one of the leaders of the Coumadin advice team for INR (regarding dosage and frequency required).

I was ready to go to bed quite early for me, but I stayed up and actually got a little better. I convinced myself I did not have the signs and symptoms of pneumonia that the Mayo Clinic reports may include the following:

Chest pain when you breathe or cough
Confusion or changes in mental awareness (in adults age 65 and older)
Cough, which may produce phlegm
Fatigue
Fever, sweating and shaking chills
Lower than normal body temperature (in adults older than age 65 and people with weak immune systems)
Nausea, vomiting or diarrhea
Shortness of breath

I had the cough that started my episode, but the production of phlegm was from the Musinex DM tablets I started 10/14 every 12 hours.

Saturday, October 22

For Oct 20 CPAP. Reported figures. AHI= 0.90. Events: 4 H, 1 RERA. Time on 4 hrs 26 min with (max= 10 L/min). Oximetry: SpO2 one blip to low 79 (off CPAP), several below 88 (85s on CPAP), with avg. 89.9%. The oximeter I kept on after awaking in the middle of the night, so it recorded the lower sessions of SpO2 during two 20-minute segments.

John pulled out of here at 6:00 a.m. with temperature 37° to be at the trailhead by 8:00 a.m. They are supposed to have a break in the weather and have a nice workday. I surely hope so. It is a crosscut saw training day – all are sawyers with various amounts of experience, training, and certifications. Except John hasn’t been able to get to a “certification” day and his is expired. On I-90, he passed by an accident (lots of flashing lights) but could not see what was going on – still dark and dozens of red, blue, and white lights.

I stayed in bed and slept until 9:30 a.m.! I am sure I needed it.

Worked on thesis critiquing, feeding cats, and cleaning the kitchen. Thankfully, I’m feeling better than last night.

For lunch, I felt like making a tuna fish salad with cheddar and hard-boiled eggs. Now, that should give me energy to work on the blog before John returns home from the Pratt River Trail work. Also, will continue with other chores, wishing the two female cats would appear for a late lunch.

Here’s a follow-up to the Lori Rome’s contribution last week. After looking at this link below, I commented on her send:
NICE – thanks, Lori Rome, again very much for sharing. I just followed this link, and it makes me want to see what they did for the Mississippi River also applied to all the rivers that empty into the Columbia. I like the flow orientation maps as well. I’ll add this link to my blog this week as a follow-up to the story on you last week.

Flow to this Link

Finally, near the end of my day, is one of our resident deer enjoying apples with bad spots. Later the two little ones (twin fawns) appeared, too late for a photo. Mama has a dark patch on the left side of her face. That’s her in the picture below.
John made it at dusk, in time to feed the horses with available light.

Supposedly, he has some good photos forthcoming from a person on the trip, so we await morning in hope they will make it to us. It is a video of how cutting an uprooted tree can allow it to return to standing, on the base of the old root ball. You WILL get to see that below, along with comments of John’s day on the trail.

Let’s start with Joe Hofbeck’s note to the crew that came this morning (actually at 12:45 a.m.). Joe was the blue hat (crew leader) today:
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
“So… is single bucking the way that God intended logs to be bucked? I suppose we still don’t have a consensus on that one. But ya gotta admit, single bucking sure gives you feed back on your sawing technique.

It was a great day and I think everybody learned something. I was reflecting on the huge root wad that JB’s crew cut. A few years ago, we would have never attempted something like that. Surprising how far training and practice has raised our skill levels.

So now, you my acolytes can go forward and stamp out butt sitting / arm sawing.

Thanks for being out there and being safe. Joe”
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Go here for pics and JB Robinson’s video of the grand root wad tip up:

Joe’s Dropbox page

=====================================
If you go to the link above, you will find many trips Joe Hofbeck has been to in recent years. (I don’t know the timing, but today’s trip is listed under PrattC.) You can get to JB’s video below, or via Joe. The second photo is from the past, not taken today. The next to the last is a beautiful shot of the Middle Fork Snoqualmie River on their hike out on the Pratt River Connector trail. This is about 30 miles east of Seattle.

Please follow the link to the video (or check below for an update to one under my control). You will not be disappointed. It is very much worth a watch for 43 seconds of educational entertainment few people get to experience.

Since I wrote this, JB Robinson sent me the video with permission to publish it here, and there is a link below you don’t have to go through all the dropbox things…but that is the public version (above in dropbox) to see many wonderful photos of work in the woods:

Saw Sings -Hemlock Stands up

Now I can share the photo before and after of the videoed tree:
Steve, the cross-cut sawyer, before left, & after the fall returns the stump up to standing with the root ball below.

I’m going to let John react to a few photos below, starting with the first clearing shot of the day and ending with a photo of the entire crew.
Two trees and 2 teams of 3 each. At the start, the crews had to clear brush to get access to the trees and to make the work site safe. They remove limbs so afterward the cut pieces can be rolled, and there won’t be anything to snag an arm or leg. Two other teams are not seen here.

Next is just a cool picture I wanted to include:
John is on the tree, Rick beside him and their leader is Claire, 2nd from right. The other three are the crew in the background of the first photo. When the sawing is done, the handle(s) are removed and a protective guard is put over the sharp parts.

Finally, a parting shot of the entire crosscut sawyer team (+1) who worked the trail today:
On the left with the red shirt is the +1, next to Claire. That is Bud Silliman, our saw sharpener and handles guy. The weather was nice so he came out to see if the teams were handling the saws with proper respect. If he doesn’t do his sharpening well, the sawyers struggle, and the saws don’t sing.

Sunday, Oct 23

For Oct 22 CPAP. Reported figures. AHI= 0.13. Events: 1 H, 1 PP, 2 RERA. Time on 7 hrs 46 min with (max= 13 L/min). Oximetry: SpO2 one blip to low 84, a few below 88 with avg. 90.5 %, all night on CPAP.

This morning marks the arrival of the photos of John’s trip yesterday to complete this week’s blog.

Neat for lunch John made a tuna melt sandwich for each of us with the remainder of the salad I made yesterday.

Hope your week was fine.

Nancy and John
Still on the Naneum Fan

Monday, Oct 10

For Oct 9 CPAP. Reported figures. AHI= 1.28. Events: 1 CSR, 1 CA, 8 H, 16 RERA. Time on 7 hrs 2 min with (max= 22L/min). Oximetry: SpO2 one blip to low 84, probably moving from finger, with avg. 91.7%.

We got ready go for toenails trimming, arriving at 10:45, but we were not seen until 11:00 a.m. We checked by Safeway for drinks and the dark meat chicken Monday special, and on to deliver something to a friend in Rosewood.

I sent a message about the count for Meadows Thursday, and have heard back from 7 people, fewer than needed. I have to arrange in advance how many armless chairs they will put out for us.

I wrote some needed emails, but I need to read more on a master’s thesis (my last one to serve on the committee) – been retired for 6 years! This defense is Nov 14. My annual physical is the next day; hope this defense does not raise my blood pressure.

Home for lunch and a few things, and back over through Kittitas to pick apples – apples and a nice pizza dinner with Tanya, Andrew, Jessica, Michael, and a friend.
This was early on with John picking and then I joined in awhile.

Here you see Honeycrisp very close to the ground and with white powder on them to protect against sunburn, which makes a dark orange skin injury. I should have taken a photo of that phenomenon.

These were taken on my walk back to the house with Michael, age 5. The western clouds were rather foreboding, but John and the others picking from part of the orchard I had been, moved to where the Galas were, and picked a few boxes of them (probably John will use for making nice red applesauce). They did not get rained on. We had been scheduled to pick yesterday, but the rains came instead and kept us away.

After taking pictures and changing to picking lower apples, my shoulder and back started bothering me, so I went back to the house to play checkers with 5-year old, Michael. I have not played checkers in over 58 years, I suspect, but it all came back. I had fun trying to advise him how to look ahead and anticipate what a move might cause to happen in subsequent moves. I would not let him make a move that would result in a “jump,” if a safe move still existed on the board. I would explain what his proposed move would set up, but I would not tell him where to move. He had to find that. If he said, can you jump me if I move here, I would say, no. Or yes, possibly later, if that was the case, and see if he could tell me why.

On our way to pick apples, we had stopped in Kittitas to pick up ASL stuff for a friend who lives 2 miles from me, and while there, we got some tomatoes for us.

By the time we returned, it was dark, and we found two cats waiting to be fed. Two were missing; however, now both Rascal and Sue returned, so all are fed and accounted for.

Tuesday, Oct 11

For Oct 10 CPAP. Reported figures. AHI: 0.53 Events: 4 H, 24 RERA. Time on 7 hrs 34 min with (max= 9 L/min). Oximetry: SpO2 one blip to low 86 with avg. 91.9%.

We left at 9:00 to go to the Retired Geographers’ meeting at Hearthstone. We left at 10:30 to get back for our 11:00 meeting with Rose Shriner from the Kittitas County Conservation District (KCCD) about fire-wise issues. While at the meeting, we discussed having Rose (a former CWU Geography student), come speak to the group at our December 13th meeting. I could invite her then, with their permission.

When Rose arrived at our house for our fire-wise discussion, she brought along a colleague, Lance, and the two of them walked around the parts of our property to assess the thinning and brushing John has been up to for several years. They have to assess if we are eligible for a chipping crew to come into our property to chip the huge piles of brush that have accumulated. We qualify, but it won’t likely happen until next year.
We began on a walk through the woods behind our house (northwest side of our property). The prior owner had a big “pond” bulldozed behind the house and next to the creek. When the water is high in the creek, the pond has water; otherwise it is dry and we call it Jay’s folly. It grows a lot of brush and trees (fuel) close to the house. We talked about that.
These are behind our house. She discussed the spacing desired between the trees. John has been working on that, because we have attended a fire-wise workshop, have the literature, and know the recommendations.
Rose talking with me and John about the rules of the clearing for fire-wise protection around our house and creek, and the possible need to ask for an amendment to the floodplain map. This is called submitting a Letter of Map Amendment (LOMA).
The left shows a dead tree next to the creek but not close enough to hit the house if it falls, and the right photo shows Tamaracks too close to our house that need to be removed. We planted them for shade and because we like them. Behind them but a little farther away from the house are Carpathian walnut trees (see below). We planted many trees (spruce, pines [Austrian and Pondersosa]) lining our driveway that we obtained from the tree and plant sale at the KCCD, where John once volunteered. John, via KCCD, also obtained the Carpathian walnut trees that are not native to here, and so not part of the plant sale. The nursery, in Plains, Montana, does not usually sell to retail customers.

Lawyer Nursery

Our Carpathian Walnut trees. On their tour Rose and Lance were happy to see all the results of the Roy Bach Plant sale through the years; now suspended, maybe temporarily.
As we walked around, our Brittany, Annie, was with us, and she went over, picked up a fully in-husk walnut, and proceeded to crack and eat the nut.
These brush piles are on the NE part of our property. The left photo one shows our neighbors’ barns in the background, so this is near the end of our driveway. The right photo shows our driveway in the foreground and 3 brush piles behind; in addition, the entrance to our pasture and the back of our house, shows a new access drive we put in for firefighting reasons to give ingress and exit for a Mini-Pumper or Quick Attack Units.

See Quick Attack and others

The original driveway does not have enough room to turn around. In case of a fire, properties/houses are flagged (not to be protected) if safety of the fire crew is questionable. We need a couple of truck loads of rock/gravel to make the roads look like roads – but the space is there. Next year we hope to finish a complete loop around the buildings.

After our visit, I was due in town for exercise, and I stopped by Bi-Mart to check our number; won nothing.

I carried a wine box of Galas and Honeycrisp to the AAC for Jazzercise and for others there using the senior center. Returned a printed copy of something I already had for SAIL, and borrowed a booklet with a discussion of the specific exercises from them that I do not have access to, never taking the instruction class for teaching SAIL (Stay Active and Independent for Life). I will copy it to share with my physical therapist. Two of us went through the Jazzercise class today at 2:00. Then I left for Goodwill (10% off for Seniors on Tuesdays). I found a nice pair of rubber-soled bedroom shoes to use to replace the ones I wore a hole in. They are a little tight so I willl have to wear smaller socks. They are lined, but I don’t think I want to use them barefooted.

Checked by the Food Bank bread room – good sweets found that we had for dessert. Tuesday is a good day, because it is open all day, and when I’m there to play music on Wednesday, it is already closed. We have been encouraged to take up to 5 items because once delivered there, it has already reached the sale by date, and if it molds, they have to trash it. Now that cooler weather is back, it is better and lasts longer.

Wednesday, Oct 12

For Oct 11 CPAP. Reported figures. AHI=0.00 Events: 1 CSR, 0 H, 14 RERA. Time on 6 hrs 31 min with (max= 10 L/min). Oximetry: SpO2 one blip to low 86, with avg. 91.1%.

I picked up Gloria for our trip to the Food Bank and to SAIL class, and while there picked up food for my neighbor.

Once home, I worked on critiquing a master’s thesis.

I washed dishes and went to bed. I have an irritating cough.

Thursday, Oct 13

For Oct 12 CPAP. Reported figures. AHI= 0.16 Events: 1 H, 12 RERA. Time on 6 hrs 8 min with (max= 13 L/min). Oximetry: SpO2 one blip to low 87, spurious to 80, with avg. 92.1%.

Play at 2:00 p.m. at Meadows Place.

I had to spend time AGAIN (third time is a charm), straightening out the delivery of the WSJ. I cannot believe they have screwed it up so royally.

John drove me to the Thursday music, carried some apples for two guys living alone, went to Bi-Mart and the grocery store, and came back to pick me up. We had 12 members there today, including our 3-year old dancer. Good appreciative audience.

Friday, Oct 14

For Oct 13 CPAP. Reported figures. AHI= 0.15. Events: 1 H, 1 PP, 6 RERA. Time on 6 hrs 44 min with (max= 14 L/min). Oximetry: SpO2 one blip to low 85, with avg. 90.5%.

I called my doctor and his nurse returned my phone call after I had checked with my pharmacist about her recommendation for something over the counter to use that would not conflict with my heart medications. They both agreed the Musinex DM, one every 12 hrs. is safe for me and would help my condition. I surely hope so.
On my way to town, I drove to Kittitas to check out the new clothing/food pantry, because I heard they had some bedroom slippers there. I found two pair to carry away, and also donated some winter boots I had that I don’t use much. They were too light, suede, and high with a zipper in the back. While there I found a western shirt for John, mostly greenish. It has a small hole (dog chew, or something) on the tail that will get tucked in. Still, we’ll iron on a patch to keep it from enlarging.

I drove to my pharmacy (at Super 1 grocery store), and realized too late I did not remember my wallet. I went in anyway, and the pharmacist (my friend a long time previous to her job there), said she would loan me the money for the OTC med. Then she helped me find it, when I returned to ask if there wasn’t a Western Family brand that was cheaper. John had told me to look for that. She couldn’t find it either, but this was on a special $5.00 off, so I bought it. I will pay her back when I’m in town tomorrow.

On my way home, I carried slippers for a woman’s grandson. John bought 2 pairs from a catalogue but different patterns. That wasn’t all that was different – this pair did not fit – too small.
I tried them but they were too big, even with bulky socks. That’s why we gave them away.

Interestingly, the recipients live in the house of friends from our past. They had 4 apple trees but didn’t know names except the yellow delicious. I wrote my friends an email and found out they planted the trees, and there are Red Delicious, Golden Delicious, Jonathan, and Jonagold apples. So I was able to find out what the apples are in their backyard to tell them. The former owners even offered to come by and tag the trees, if I would give the original owner their email. I had to find out and then did. I only had a phone contact.

Now I have to get to work on my critiquing a master’s thesis.

Saturday, October 15

For Oct 14 CPAP. Reported figures. AHI= 0.00. Events: 0 CSR, 0 H, 0 RERA. Time on 7 hrs 53 min with (max= 9 L/min). Oximetry: Was only on from 1:00 (didn’t turn it on correctly), and spurious 49 low from a finger change lowered the avg. SpO2 to 89.6%. I will ignore last night’s Oximetry and go with the perfect CPAP reading of AHI=0.00.

Heading to town for music at Briarwood. My cough is better but I’m still rather hoarse, so I probably won’t be singing along. I stopped by and paid back my pharmacist for covering my charges yesterday, when I forgot my wallet.

We had a nice time at Briarwood, today, with a large audience, and players: Manord (Joy in the audience singing), Gerald, Charlie (those three on guitar), Evie and me on fiddles and Amy playing the first violin part, and Haley dancing. Maury was expected, but a bull Elk got gored by another and picked Maury’s yard to die in. He had to stay to talk with the game warden. Unfortunately, it took him long to get there and so the meat was tainted by the time they opened him and gutted him. Otherwise, Maury would have been happy to fill his freezer.

I was not in good shape with my no voice and cough. I have taken 3 of the new medication and will have another before bedtime tonight. It seems to have lessened my coughing, but I still need the lozenges. It also has the product of increasing my phlegm expectorant. I guess that’s good before it goes to my lungs.

We were treated afterwards to nice meal: ham & bean soup, an apple cake with ice cream (I passed); three types of sandwiches: deviled ham, egg salad, and chicken salad, grapes, chocolate, cookies, cucumbers, and hot cider. Today was Gerald and Jeanne’s 67 wedding anniversary and five in the audience had October birthdays, so we sang Happy Birthday and congratulated Gerald, our guitarist.

I came home to this Facebook message and link from a former undergraduate geography student at Central before 1997, Lori Rome, who worked at several US National parks, including a long stint at the Grand Canyon, then went (with her husband) to Paris for a job for a couple years, toured all over France and several more countries, and now has returned to Arlington, VA, where she works for the American Battle Monuments Commission. Interesting gal.

Here’s the link to follow if you have a Facebook account, to see the animation of the Mississippi River watershed unfold in front of you with illustrative graphics.

Mississippi River watershed

Lori Rome and the video she sent (ending). Lori is famous for this:

Or watch her here:

The Adventures of Salt and Soap

I am honored that she sent me a copy of her book, signed.
How special !!

Speaking of great animations, here is another site you can reach without being on Facebook.
Blow ye wind, blow
Last night when we visited this view, at 10:20 p.m., Oct 15, 2016, here’s what we saw. Check it out today. It’s still rather active, but here is from last night. Move the image eastward in the animated version to see the outline and orient yourself.
Still view of the winds off the coast and inland to the western U.S.

Sunday, Oct 16

For Oct 15 CPAP. Reported figures. AHI= 0.00. Events: x CSR, x H, x RERA. Insufficient time on 3 hrs 43 min with (max= 1 L/min). I awoke with congestion at 3:30 a.m., and removed the CPAP mask. I left on my oximeter, however. Oximetry: SpO2 several blips to lows between 80-82, in a 13 minute period after 6:13 a.m. with avg. 88.1%. The rest of the night it hovered around 88%.

40% chance of showers today, but we have blue skies now. At noon, it is clouding over.

Waiting for John to return for lunch and to put in time on the blog, if/when it starts raining. I have filing, scanning, dishes, and clothes to do, and then to get back to thesis critiquing. May have to push off some of all that to tomorrow. At least the blog is done for another week.

Hope your week was fine.

Nancy and John
Still on the Naneum Fan

This blog will start with autumn colors, which around our house are not as beautiful as back in Pennsylvania, where John’s hometown, Clarion, has an Autumn Leaf festival. Some places in our valley have red-leafed trees, but our only leaf colors are yellow on the walnut trees and eventually the tamaracks (Larch).
Fruit trees are mostly still green. A few more colors below.
Yellow Carpathian walnut, Red Mountain Ash, and bottom right – a few different gladioli in colorful bloom.

Monday, Oct 3

For Oct 2 CPAP. Reported figures. Events: 2 CSR, 10 H, 20 RERA. Time on 6 hrs 3 min with (max= 15 L/min). Oximetry: SpO2 one blip to low 87, all rest above 88, with avg. 92.9%.

I sent off the photos to AAC for possible use on Facebook from the 9-30-16 Fall Prevention and Exercise Bingo party. They posted a few, and you already saw a selection from me in last week’s blog.

Now need to finish music for this week: Cotton Fields (I never finished) but changed to Anytime, along with Faded Love. We have a total of 20 tunes with lyrics, and backup instrumentals at the end, if needed.

Tuesday, Oct 4

For Oct 3 CPAP. Reported figures. Events: 1 CSR, 4 H, 19 RERA. Time on 7 hrs 46 min with (max= 17 L/min). Oximetry: SpO2 had 2 spurious blips to low 80 caused by finger change, all the rest high, with avg. 92.7% lowered by the changes.

Off to get an INR at the KVH hospital lab, and report back in the afternoon it was low, 1.8. Probably because I took my pill late, missing it during the normal night period. So, that gave me a chance to have a glass of wine with dinner (alcohol raises it).

On to pick up mail at Anne’s, talk to her neighbor, and water plants. I was involved in a huge rainfall downpour there and on my way to Jazzercise, where we only had two participants. For a change, I did not have to leave for a PT session. I have been in that mode for the past 5 months.

I left the AAC to copy our group’s new music for October / November. Once home I had to sort and clip packets for the players to deliver to them this Thursday. It is a lot of work, but someone has to do it and I know it is appreciated.

Wednesday, Oct 5

For Oct 4 CPAP. Reported figures. Time on 6 hrs 9 min with AHI=1.79. Events: 1 CSR, 1 CA 10 H, 29 RERA. Oximetry: Just fine all night. On the SpO2 review chart, SpO2 showed 2 blips to low 88% with avg. 93%. Awoke at 6:40 and back for 2 hrs without either recorder.

This Wall St. Journal delivery is turning into a pain. Now two days without anything and we have paid for two subscriptions. The merge attempted 9/29 failed. I tried again today, and we will see what happens. We will miss two days until they get it straightened out, and so I asked to be credited for that. Then John wrote a note to our deliverer, who responded saying she usually has an extra and will leave it for us the next 2 days.

I went to town, picked up Gloria, and we made it to the Food Bank, just as it started sprinkling. That was all we saw the rest of the afternoon, but the weather alternated between overcast with occasional sunny times. We had a good crowd singing along with us on a number of old songs, with a few religious, such as, Shall We Gather at the River, Count Your Blessings, and Just a Closer Walk with Thee. I carried cooked beef to put on my plate today for my main course instead of the garlicky pasta, had some salad, and a nice chocolate frosted brownie for dessert.

After we left, we stopped for me to fill up my gasoline tank, which was running quite low. From there on to SAIL, where we arrived a couple minutes late and found a full house. Katrina squeezed two chairs in for us to max at 15!

When I returned, I took some more yard photos.
Left is the Black Walnut tree with an old unsplit Cottonwood round that allows a table for the Douglas squirrel to feast on the walnuts. I picked up one off the ground and added to his plate. In the middle is Lemon, one of our feral cats, looking toward his own flower “bed.” John planted a 4X4 ft. pallet sided box with daisy seeds, and there is a wire fence with an opening. Lemon climbs in the opening and uses the surface to roll and rest on. One plant survived, started with one bloom, and now has several.

Thursday, Oct 6

For Oct 5 CPAP. Reported figures. Time on 7 hrs 21 min with AHI=0.27. Events: 2 H, 20 RERA. No mask leaks (max= 6 L/min). Oximetry: Just fine all night. SpO2 showed one blip to low 87 with avg. 92.4%.

Going to town in John’s car today for gasoline and his trips to the grocery while I play music at Prestige Acute Care and Rehab today. I am carrying all the new music, and we possibly will have 11 people coming. We ended up with more and not enough room for everyone to sit. On our way leaving the house, we found a dead battery in John’s car, so had to get stuff transferred to my car and drive it. Now tomorrow he will take the battery in for a new one. It is the original in the car, a 2009 model, so probably in use since 2008. It is good it did not quit 10 miles back a gravel road at a trail head.

Here’s a thought: If your car’s battery is past its likely to die date (LTDD), consider having it replaced.

We fed the animals and went back to town to Joanie and Ken’s for our joint birthday celebration — mine late and hers coming the end of October, when they will be gone. Ken is the master chef for tuna melts, and we had that with a salad and Joanie’s special recipe of an apple, date, coconut no-bottom pie. So tasty. John and I carried some wine to have with dinner, a Moscato (low alcohol, and goes with fish) and White Heron’s Malbec goes with anything!!!
Color is better in the top photo but my name gets lost. John wore a shirt with colors to match her plates. How did he know? Coincidence. I think not. I still had on my music notes shirt from playing this afternoon.

We left and attended a Geology lecture at the new Science II building on campus. It was a very interesting presentation by Andy Buddington, Spokane Community College, “Unroofing the Ancient Precambrian Basement in the Priest River Complex of Northeast Washington and northern Idaho.”
(Abstract) — The Priest River complex is one of several Inland Northwest metamorphic core complexes that formed during Eocene time by crustal extension and unroofing. Here, metamorphic rocks of the middle crust, including Precambrian basement as old as 2.6 billion years, are exposed. This presentation discusses the geology and development of the complex along with glimpses of the poorly known Precambrian basement history for this part of the North American continent.

These are really old rocks and no one knows where they came from nor how they got here. Andy has a working hypothesis that includes Australia, or Antarctica, or Siberia.

Friday, Oct 7

For Oct 6 CPAP. Reported figures. Time on 6 hrs 38 min with AHI=2.56. Events: 4 CSR, 17 H, 23 RERA. No mask leaks (max= 10 L/min). Oximetry: Fine all night. SpO2 showed 6 blips to the low 88 with avg. 92.6%.

We made our appointment as 11:00 a.m., next Tuesday, with Rose Shriner, from the Kittitas County Conservation District. Rose is my former GIS student at CWU. We’ll meet her at home after our Emeriti Geographers’ meeting.

The purpose is for her to review our fire-wise preparation. We will request being on their list for a chipping crew. Funding is via the WA Dept. of Natural Resources and requires a contribution by the landowner. John’s work will probably suit that requirement. One complication for us is that one of the threads of Naneum Creek runs about 130 feet behind our house. Thus, WA Fish and Wildlife folks have to be involved. Uff da!
Some of the smaller brush piles near the northeast of our property. John started this brushing years ago and the first piles were built with inside open spaces for wildlife hideouts. Quail find them useful. Early clearing was to open up some space, make a trail from one part to another, and clean up rotting trunks and limbs of fallen trees. These were on the southwest (swamp) end of our acreage, and has continued all around now. It provides good quail habitat, but now there is too much and some of the piles need to go. Chipping and removal or spreading is the only safe way. Burning is not good and the county only allows small piles to be burned.
This older picture shows an interesting early morning photo with two large brush piles behind the doe and her baby fawns. Those piles are are of material cut close to the house and moved to a safer spot.

John took the free shelving out of the truck so he could pack it and take to town. The shelving now is at our front entrance, which is a roofed alcove, but still gets wet on the concrete floor. Having this organizer off the concrete and being constructed from water resistant materials is a nice addition. We had a rolling cart there but it was much deeper and less wide. This shelving is a better solution. The stuff on the shelving came from the cart and is there now just to keep it from getting rained on.
This is cluttered now, but it will make a nice addition for sorting as well as using temporarily for unloading at the front door.

John went to town in the truck, taking the old battery, bought another (least expensive but still a 5-year life expectency) for $114 from Les Schwab, took plastic by the transfer station, and went on to Elmview with newspapers and office paper for recycling.

Saturday, October 8

For Oct 7 CPAP. Reported figures. Time on 5 hrs 46 min with AHI=0.00. Events: 0 CSR, 0 H, 12 RERA. No mask leaks (max= 13 L/min). Oximetry: battery died after an hour, so nothing to report. Awoke at 5:00, up until 6:30, and back for 3 hrs without CPAP.

I didn’t get to bed until late again last night, John got up to leave by 6:20 for Cowiche Canyon, but I awoke at 5:00, stayed up until he left, and went back to sleep until 9:30 !!

Guess I needed the rest. I know through the night I awoke several times, the past 2 nights, listening to the rain. Nice though, when I went out to feed the cats, to hear the creek running. That means will get a little more water in the irrigation ditch that flows through the pasture.

Two of the feral cats and the dog were anxious to be fed.
I spent the rest of the day on continuing processes of dishwashing, computer chores, and bill receipt coordination/filing.

John had driven to town to ride down to the WTA work trip with Bill Weir, in Bill’s truck. Bill is in the first photo below but seen walking away in the second – in the orange hard hat.
In the first photo Hannah is raking large rocks into piles and John is following along scooping them out. Tiny rocks and gritty material stay for the walking surface, or tread. This is on the Wildflower Trail and a springtime photo is here:

Wildflowers and clouds

A massive rain shower in May removed the small soil grains and left only rocks in the trail. Hikers moved to the edge and destroyed the vegetation there. This trip was a quick fix. Next year the trail will be widened some (on the right here) but the work is slow. The thin soil is hard and rocky and on top of a lava flow that is millions of years old. Very little rain is the norm here so only if they are very unlucky will this happen again.
They actually finished early and got home earlier than expected.
This is a photo from the end of the day.
Bill is on the far right without his hat. Chris Baldini (orange hat & red shirt) drove over from Spokane.

Sunday, Oct 9

For Oct 8 CPAP. Reported figures. Time on 8 hrs 12 min with AHI=0.61. Events: 4 H, 1 OA, 23 RERA. No mask leaks (max= 20 L/min). Oximetry: Just fine all night. SpO2 showed one blip to low 84 (a spurious one occurring with changing the finger the oximeter is on, and that lowers the avg. to 92.2%. Otherwise the SpO2 readings were higher in my graph I can generate with the data, but I have no ability of omitting the outliers to calculate the avg. percentage.

We decided to move our pizza and apple picking date until Monday, because it is going to be raining today. Good thing – the rain started before 5:00 and is still sending many drops down at 9:30 p.m., as I’m proofing the last of this treatise.

John had been working outside waiting for the rain, but finally came in for a late lunch at almost 2:00 p.m. He fixed scrambled eggs with chipped ham. After that, he went out and cut a few firewood rounds with the chainsaw. Sprinkles started almost as soon as the chainsaw. After about 40 min. the sprinkles got to be heavier and he came in and started some brown rice in the steamer. We’ll eventually have the blog done and supper too.

Hope your week was fine.

Nancy and John
Still on the Naneum Fan

Monday, Sept 26

For Sept 25 CPAP. Reported figures. Time on 6 hrs 6 min with (max= 13 L/min). Oximetry: SpO2 one blip to low 87, all rest above, with avg. 91.9%.

I guess I was tired, awaking at 6:25, removed my equipment, and went back to sleep, comfortably. I slept in for another couple of hours and was happy to awake from an inexplicable dream with geologists, Native Americans, a pianist, and me supposedly going to play the violin with music I had never seen, in a duet. There were two grand pianos in the small room, with only a few people, most of whom I knew.

We drove to Parke Creek Road about 10 miles southeast of us to pick up a set of bookshelves (free).
Above is the after shot of John’s ingenuity in loading the piece of furniture which was unable to be disassembled (shelves were fastened to the metal). It was too wide in both directions to push into the back of the pickup with the canopy attached. Thankfully, we have an unusual canopy that has side windows that can be raised, as seen in the right photo above. That allowed John to push and tug it on an angle and then reach in through the window to prop the shelving on the top of the pallet he brought along.

On the way there, with John driving, we talked to his cousin Ethel (98) in PA about her sister, Helen’s death, this morning from pneumonia. It was a complication from COPD and smoking. Fortunately, we were able to talk on the telephone with her 9/1/16 for a long visit this year (hers and my birthday fall on the same day). We also visited with Peggy, John’s sister, in Ohio, who had written us an email about the death.

We went by Bi-Mart for eardrops to soften gunk in John’s ear before he goes in Friday to have it cleaned out. Ears are supposed to be self-cleaning but his missed that memo. We stopped by the grocery store for salsa and vanilla ice cream. We had the other ingredients for having nachos for supper, and needed ice cream for dessert – just because.

I want to share this link from a gal in Seattle in the computer mapping/GIS industry, Karsten Vennemann, who says, “Here’s the bad map we see every election.”

Bad, bad Map

This brings back memories of my teaching a map reading and interpretation class since 1988 at Central. It was one of the classes I was teaching when I ended my career in 2009, with a heart attack, which cinched my early retirement.

Tuesday, Sept 27

For Sept 26 CPAP. Reported figures. Time on 5 hrs 1 min with AHI=0.20. Events: 1 H, 10 RERA. No mask leaks (max= 9 L/min). Oximetry: Just fine all night. SpO2 showed one blip to low 89 with avg. 91.6%. Awoke at 5:00 and back for 3 hrs without either data recorder.

Went by the second hand store in Kittitas, A Tisket A Tasket, and brought home 2 pair of trousers for John. One fit a bit tight, dark corduroy but light-weight, and he wore that one Thursday evening. The other, blue denim, has a small hole to be repaired with an iron-on patch.

I stopped by Hospice Friends to arrange for medical supplies for friends.

Once home, I continued working on music for the group. I had put into score two songs, (1) “School Days” (1907) was recorded first by Byron G. Harlan. Billy Murray & Ada Jones sang it as a duet. Decades later, Tiny Tim sang both parts, using his famous falsetto voice; (2) “Bicycle Built for Two“. Both have had parodies created for them, so I added them to our songs as the second verse. We have done that previously on Let Me Call you Sweetheart, and had a good response from the folks. If anyone wants to receive these (or any of the music I have made into .pdf files), please ask and I shall send you copies as an attachment to an email. Be sure I have your correct email address.

Wednesday, Sept 28

For Sept 27 CPAP. Reported figures. Time on 8 hrs 4 min with AHI=0.00. Events: 19 RERA. No mask leaks (max= 8 L/min). Oximetry: SpO2 2 blips to low 88, all rest above, with avg.. 91.8%.

I picked up Gloria for our usual mid-week visits. We went to the Food Bank, played and sang music and ate lunch, went by Huber properties to see Meagan and pick-up 18-egg size cartons for my neighbor, and on to the Senior Center for our SAIL exercise class. We went from there to pick up one of my meds (a 3-month supply) for a diuretic taken every other day. I was shocked at the cost: $ 0.92. Goodness, that barely pays for the packaging and paperwork. From there to pick up another wind-up alarm clock to replace one given me that did not work, and this one does not either. Well, it will work once the metal pull-out spindle from the first gets taken off and replaces the broken one of plastic on the second. Oh well, another project in the queue.
I did a little music work, and a few house chores, but didn’t really finish anything. Now I’m taking off my data from CPAP and Oximetry for last night (a great night)!

Thursday, Sept 29

For Sept 28 CPAP. Reported figures. Time on 8 hrs 6 min with AHI=0.74. Events: 6 H, 18 RERA. No mask leaks (max= 8 L/min). Oximetry: SpO2 one blip to low 85, all rest above in nineties with avg. 92.9%.

I began the morning early by finishing loading the dishwasher and running it. We fed all the cats, and started on chores. John changes chores from rocks to dirt to branches (mixing around muscle groups), and today levitated a stump and filled the resulting hole with soil.

This afternoon, we are going with friends to dinner at The Palace for my free birthday dinner, before a meeting at the city library about trail development on the Manastash Ridge (north facing slopes on the opposite side of our Valley). We will report to the WTA field manager, who had a conflict and was unable to attend the meeting.
They displayed this map in two places on the wall that evening, and it was in the presentation as well. “The Book” is a spiral notebook in an ammo can meant for hikers to jot thoughts, whatever those might be. Prater and Westberg (hikers) and others would “train” on these trails and carry a rock or 2 or 3 from Cove Road (to the north) up the hill and deposit the treasure in a pile at the top. Many years ago John carried a chunk of Idaho Quartzite and added to the jumble. Like this:
Ten thousand years from now someone will find this hodgepodge and wonder.

Friday, Sept 30

For Sept 29 CPAP. Reported figures. Time on 1 hr 52 min with AHI=0.00. Events: 3 RERA. No mask leaks (max= 4 L/min). Oximetry: only a short time, SpO2 one blip to low 89, all rest in nineties with avg. 92.7%.

Prior to a lunch and exercise bingo activity for our Adult Activity (senior) Center in Ellensburg, WA, Deputy Chief, Rich Elliott presented this informative discussion. He is the mayor of our town and also is in charge of the Emergency Response Service team for the Kittitas Valley Fire and Rescue (KVFR), Fire District #2, providing EMS, Prevention, and Training for our community. Check them out at: kvfr.org

Here is a link to my videotape of his talk, almost a half hour:

Rich Elliott of Fire and Rescue

Then follows 4 minutes of his answering questions after his educational talk:

Q & A

After that, we enjoyed a variety of items for lunch, some fixed by the AAC staff and volunteers, and other side dishes brought by attendees including things such as peanut butter & jelly sandwiches, Oriental salad, fruit, veggies & dip, scalloped potatoes, zucchini bread, apple cinnamon crisps and low-salt potato chips. For the finale, our dessert, was a large piece of chocolate Heath Bar cake.
What a feast. We were ready for exercise bingo. Prizes given at the end were three movies on DVD.

Let’s start at the beginning, we were to arrive before 11:30 a.m.
Rich Elliott, AmeriCorps gals: Megan & Lauren, and Tina on the left; Rich and Katrina Douglas (AAC Director) visiting with AAC members.

Collage of Nancy with Katrina and she with Gloria Swanson. Gloria and I went as a team, Wednesday to SAIL, and Friday to this presentation, lunch, and bingo exercise.

Above is the card used for bingo. As each exercise is called, each person had to do it, and cover the space. We did a couple of regular bingos (lines in different directions), a T in any direction, and a frame, as above (I won that one). Winners got a couple of raffle tickets.

Next is a collage of the actual exercise bingo games, which lasted until 2:00 p.m.
Top left Lauren is handing a winning ticket to Pat Carney in the blue tee shirt. Bottom right, Gary demos Bicep Curls, and I’m doing some sort of swimming stroke on the far right. Erica took my camera to take a few pictures.

Tonight we went to the Swauk-Teanaway Grange for a presentation titled Living in the Era of Megafires.

Trees grow, then burn

This is an interesting issue and the video part include a segment of our neighbor’s son, Dale Swedberg, speaking about prescribed burning. We didn’t get home until after 10:00 p.m.

Saturday, October 1

For Sept 30 CPAP. Reported figures. Time on 6 hrs 57 min with AHI=0.72. Events: 1 CSR, 5 H, 9 RERA. No mask leaks (max= 10 L/min). Oximetry: none to report. I screwed it up when uploading this afternoon. Too much multi-tasking and I missed hitting the correct button. I hit record instead of upload, and it erased all that was recorded last night before I obtained it.

Many house cleaning projects we both were involved with, and more outside that John managed. Still so very much to do, and the blog was put off another day. It will not be as involved as last week. That needed spelling corrections (Sclerosis had an h) and other tweaks. If you wish to have only the report on my left shoulder problem, you can request it, or go to this link.

Link

This morning I received a notice of a Facebook friend’s picture of her young daughter.
Katrina, Chloe (with her very small violin), Bobbie with the Junior Jammers. Note, Katrina is a lefty fiddler.

Facebook notified me that Katrina Nicolayeff’s daughter, Chloe, (Roberta [Bobbie] Pearce’s granddaughter) was vidoetaped dancing at the Idaho Junior Jammers presentation today. I asked for the video, after seeing the photos. Here’s my collage from the video for an introduction to the video, below the picture captures:

Link – if you Facebook

I am sorry those of you without a Facebook account will miss the action. That is why I tried to grab the images above.
Seeing this, reminds me of our little 3-year-old mascot, Haley, who dances in assisted living homes with our group, Kittitas Valley Fiddlers and Friends.

Before retiring, I set up my computer to transfer a half hour of video from the Friday meeting (you’ve seen the link to above). It took all night to get there.

Sunday, Oct 2

For Oct 1 CPAP. Reported figures. Time on 6 hrs 18 min with AHI=0.48. Events: 3 H, 22 RERA. No mask leaks (max= 19 L/min). Oximetry: SpO2 2 blips to low 88, all rest above, into nineties with avg. 92.8%. I captured a review graph and report.

I slept in, John fed cats and animals, I washed dishes, took pictures, processed some already on my computer, and John went to yard chores, leaving me to work on the blog.

I decided to make a collage of one of his projects he started months ago. The idea is to remove the bushes near the house and improve fire protection. There is also a secondary benefit. It is beside our patio at the back of our house, and will replace the majority of our raspberry bed. Some of those have been moved. There is a slowly lengthening walkway around the house. It will be a wheelchair accessible entry to the house. The front entrance is not conducive to such entry. We don’t plan to use it, but it will increase the value of our house when sold, and gives John a destination for all the rocks that keep growing around our property.
Upper left shows the removal of twice sprayed raspberries (hard to kill); lower left is actually the final shot today with dirt removed into the back of the pickup, and rocks deposited into the path’s base. The right is this morning and shows the gravel sloping access to the patio. The white gravel is repurposed crushed concrete – a bit dusty until rained on a few times. The gravel will eventually cover the rocks, and extend at least 12 feet from the house. We had a small lunch and continued working after taking a few more pictures outside. The original Raspberry plants were put under the drip line but a few are still there to the right of the rocks.

Now John just checked in to get his safety equipment for his chainsaw dismemberment of a large downed Cottonwood at the northeast corner of our property.

Now, he is back, saying he ran out of energy about the same time the saw ran out of gas. Supper will be roasted chicken thighs to be followed with warm:
And now, I have to get this on a jump drive to take to his computer.

Hope your week was fine.

Nancy and John
Still on the Naneum Fan

Monday, Sept 19

For Sept 18 CPAP. Reported figures. Time on 6 hrs 1 min with AHI=0.17. Events: 1 CSR, 1 H, 16 RERA. No mask leaks (max= 13 L/min). Oximetry: SpO2 one blip to low 90, all rest above, into high nineties with avg 93.3%, marred and lowered by a spurious 72, when changing fingers.

John and I made a trip to Dr. Richard Roux, orthopedic surgeon, for an evaluation of my shoulder issues, which we were unable to relieve through physical therapy. Fortunately, he comes up from Yakima on Mondays to Ellensburg, so it saved us a 50-mile round trip.

Regular readers of our blog have gathered over the past year (since the defibrillator surgery last December) that my shoulder’s range of motion (ROM) has increasingly become more bothersome and limited than before. It has been a continuing problem since 2009, but noticeable before then.

This year, the first attempt to resolution was to pursue Physical Therapy to see if I could regain my range of motion of my left shoulder. Readers followed me through that introduction in May, and have listened to and viewed my reports since starting with a referral to Natalie Joyce at Canyon View Physical Therapy, in conjunction with my primary physician, Paul Schmitt. Dr. Schmitt has been my family physician since I arrived in town in 1988. He is retiring at the end of the year, and John and I both will miss his care and personal concern through the years with more than one body part.

My recent physical therapy sessions began May 24, 2016. I tracked that involvement in this blog.

From Dr. Roux, we now know what is wrong. It is not a frozen shoulder (stiff bands of tissue — called adhesions). X-rays taken at the start of my appointment demonstrate that I have severe arthritis, displayed as bone on bone between the socket and the humeral head (now flattened), with no cartilage and no joint space existing, along with cysts, and bone spurs on both bones to prohibit my external rotation (one of several different ranges of motion).

I am not a candidate for surgery, because the only thing that would help this arthritis situation is a complete replacement of the damaged boney parts. I cannot proceed with that operation because of the complications and risks associated with my cardiac involvement. I could . . . die!

Dr. Roux talked with us, examined my range of motion and muscle strength on both arms and shoulders from the back and from the front. He then left us to go examine the X-rays. When he returned to give his evaluation, I asked if I could record his comments and he allowed me to do so.

He started by telling us his observations. Then he sat down with us to go through more discussion, answer questions, and make suggestions about the future. At the end, he invited us to review the X-rays with him, and allowed me to videotape that as well.

I transcribed my recordings and will present his diagnosis below. This took awhile because I had to educate myself on the terminology he used to describe my shoulder’s condition. Thank goodness for the web to search out the words and definitions, watch videos, and examine reports.

The following is rather long, but I include it for my records, and for whoever is interested. I have put Dr. Roux’s comment in italics, in chronological order of our visit description. When John and I interjected something into the conversation, I put our names with an open parenthesis.

To summarize, when I first heard your story, I thought it was probably a frozen shoulder, because a lot of people who have had cardiac procedures do get frozen shoulders. But, when I looked at your X-rays, that’s not your only problem. You almost certainly have an element of a frozen shoulder, because it hasn’t moved normally in 5 or 6 years. But, you also have underlying that, a bigger problem, which is arthritis, where you have worn out that joint, such that your ball and socket joint are now bone on bone.

If you only had a frozen shoulder, we would do a manipulation under anesthesia, where we kind of pop the adhesions loose and then do physical therapy afterwards – and we have a high degree of success of restoring motion with that procedure. That won’t work for you because it doesn’t address the primary problem, your arthritis. So, I think to deal with all of your problems, you’d have to consider surgery, and that surgery would be a complete shoulder replacement. (He asked me to stop recording for a minute, so we changed places and he sat on my stool and I moved over next to John in a chair, and we continued our conversation.)

Continuing: Fortunately, I think your rotator cuff is still functioning, and if you were going to contemplate surgery, the replacement is different, based on whether your rotator cuff is functioning, or if it isn’t. But, it sounds like you are not a candidate for general anesthesia – is that what they told you?
(Nancy, well, that’s what they said when I had my recent oral surgery, and both my defibrillators were done using local anesthesia.
(John: I think her problem is that she – because of her heart and the medications she’s on – any surgery has to be thought through very precisely.

(Dr. Roux: I agree 100%. So understand this, without surgery, you are not likely to get more motion. And, so, it depends on how debilitated you are with this, whether you would ever consider it. You’ve got some motion with it, and you probably function pretty well; it sounds like your main complaint is the fact you don’t have full motion, is that right? (Nancy, yes.
(Dr. Roux: Are you having a lot of pain with that left shoulder?
(Nancy, occasionally, like this weekend, I really did, and painkillers wouldn’t do anything for me.

(Dr. Roux: I’m not surprised by that. So, if you’re thinking of shoulder replacement, I’d suggest either a standard shoulder replacement or something called a Reverse total shoulder, which I don’t think you need.

Shoulder replacement can be quite effective at relieving pain, not always as effective at increasing motion. So for you, it’s really a very serious consideration, considering your heart, and that you could have potential serious, even life-threatening, complications that can occur with that.
(Nancy: How long does it take to recover from shoulder surgery?
(Dr. Roux, from a replacement, about 3 months. It’s not something I’m doing now – I do a lot of arthroscopic surgeries and I do knee replacements, but I don’t do shoulder replacements.
(Nancy: I was hoping for arthroscopic.
(Dr. Roux: Yeah, the arthroscopic procedure wouldn’t help you because you’ve got severe arthritis in there, so again, if you’re going to do surgery, it would be a replacement procedure.
If you wanted to consider that, I have three partners that do shoulder replacement commonly, (and we’ve done that on purpose, you know we want to have people doing it so they are doing enough of them a year, that they stay very current at it.) My three partners include Dr. Wong, Dr. Griffiths, and Dr. Orvald. They all do a fine job, and I’m happy to refer you for a second opinion, but I’m not sure that you want to, considering your cardiac status.

(Nancy: I think I’ll probably not. I’ve learned to compensate, but I guess I would like to know if I should not continue with Physical Therapy, because it isn’t going to help?
(Dr. Roux: It’s not going to help because it’s a mechanical problem with that arthritic joint. I would do what you are doing to maintain what you have, and if you started to lose motion, then I think physical therapy might be appropriate. Right now, I don’t think they are going to get any more motion with it because I think the primary problem with it is arthritis.
(Nancy: yeah, that’s what we were worried about.
(John: When you said you had pain this weekend, was that after playing your fiddle for 2.5 hours. (Nancy, yeah, and through a wind storm – it was crazy. (Dr. Roux, you were playing outside? I was up here covering the Central football game – it was blowing. (Nancy: yeah, it was! Also, I’ve been able to lift my arm up farther to wash my hair, after this physical therapy, but I still compensate. It’s not a big deal.

(Dr. Roux, I think you have compensated very well, and considering everything you’ve told me, I wouldn’t recommend doing a shoulder replacement.
(Nancy: Thank you. We appreciate your evaluation.

(John: One of her problems was when she had a heart blockage in 2009, she was scheduled to have the heart valve replacement in March of 2010, but she had the heart attack the day after Thanksgiving, in 2009…
(Nancy: and they took out the clot, successfully, but then the next evening, all my systems shut down and I was put on life support for 8 days.
(John: She had a reaction to Heparin, and she was in intensive care, flat on her back, and so her muscles… (Nancy: I lost all my muscles, even throat and stomach ones.
(Dr. Roux, “Sorry.” (Nancy, it’s okay, I got out of it.
(Dr. Roux, yeah you look good.
(John, so … this shoulder has bothered her a lot longer than that, but I think that time of total inactivity …
(Dr. Roux, on the shoulder, if you’ve got arthritis in there, and you have all that inactivity, it doesn’t respond well to the shoulder. All joints like to move; it helps nourish the joints, and so I’m sure a lot of your Chondrocytes (cells found in cartilage connective tissue) –> The cells in your cartilage die, and that contributed to your arthritis.
(Dr. Roux, You want me to show you that X-ray?
(Nancy: YES ! can I take pictures ? (Dr. Roux, yes.

Below, Dr. Roux’s evaluation provides diagnosis of my shoulder X-rays, 9-19-16:
(Dr. Roux points out: You don’t have any joint space here anymore, and he continues with this question and comments.

What are the signs of arthritis in a shoulder?

1. Joint space narrowing. You have joint space obliteration.

2. The other: Subchondral sclerosis, that’s where the bone is a little bit whiter on the socket side. You’ve got that.

3. Sometimes, you form Subchondral cysts, and you have them (cysts) on both the socket and the humeral head,

and,

4. Bone spurs (also called osteophytes). So really, you have all the signs of arthritis: Joint space narrowing, subchondral sclerosis, osteophyte formation, and cysts.

John and I have annotated my own photo of my X-ray below. I do not have the original X-ray image to work with, so this is a bit fuzzy, being captured from my video camera “movie” of Dr. Roux’s explanation.

Subchondral sclerosis refers to the whitish line between the femoral head and the socket. Further, subchondral sclerosis is a disease that affects the bones and specifically the joints, of people who have osteoarthritis. Subchondral sclerosis causes joint pain and numbness (I have not experienced) by increased bone density and mass, and that produces a thin layer of bone beneath the cartilage in the joints.

John asked Dr. Roux if he had a normal shoulder X-ray to show us, but he did not have one on that computer. So, here is my attempt to compare:
The left image is a normal shoulder I took from the web (from an Australian doctor’s explanation of shoulder arthritis). The right image is my left shoulder from the 9-19-16 X-ray. The big white spot in the lower left of mine is a metal ball hung around my neck for scale and density measurements. My image shows the obliterated joint space and the flattened head of the humerus bone on the bone of my socket. Note also the bone spurs protruding from the bottom sides of the two bones.

For further clarification of bone spurs (osteophyte formation), see the images below:
The left image is of a pig’s bone spurs (follow the arrows). The right diagram is of a human shoulder with annotations of the symptoms of osteoarthritis disease. (Osteo=bone)

Wrap-up: Physical therapy is not an option, except if needed to maintain the slight range of motion I have gained since May. A complete shoulder replacement is potentially an option, but the surgeon (Dr. Roux) did not recommend because of the complications associated with my cardiac situation, which could be life threatening. I shall continue to do what I can, especially low impact and low aerobic exercising. Pain killers are not very effective, and because of being on Coumadin®, I cannot take the supplements often given for pain relief from joint arthritis (e.g., Glucosamine or NSAIDs [non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs] such as ibuprofen (Motrin®, Advil®) or naproxen (Naprosyn®, Aleve®). In addition, I am not allowed to partake of herbal and green tea solutions.

John quotes somebody: Getting old is not for sissies.

Tuesday, Sept 20

For Sept 19 CPAP. Reported figures. Time on 4 hrs 13 min with AHI=1.43. Events: 1 CSR, 6 H, 13 RERA. No mask leaks (max= 17 L/min). Oximetry: only on for three hours, and okay.

I reported in at 10:30 a.m. this morning to Natalie Joyce, owner of and therapist at Canyon View Physical Therapy. I took my printed transcription of what was said yesterday and carried my computer laptop to show her the videos of Dr. Roux’s analysis of the X-rays of my shoulder. She was grateful for the feedback. Much of it she had suspected from the work we had done on trying to increase my range of motion in several directions. When I left, they gave me a turquoise T-shirt, normally gifted at the end of a person’s time with them. We agreed to keep in touch. As well, if I realize I am backsliding on the gains with my ranges of motion, I will go back through my doctor for another referral to receive stretching sessions from the therapists there. I have worked with all the staff at Canyon View Physical Therapy (Ellensburg), and find them to be excellent, professional, and communicative about a person’s condition. They are pleasant and sincere educators and motivators. I send all of them a huge thank you commendation, along with my admiration, praise, and appreciation.

On my way home, I checked by Jerrol’s and got my $10 birthday present. I bought seven containers of 3-ring dividers to use for separation in the music books for our group. While there, I received instructions in how to make the white-out work that I bought earlier (in a tube). It needed squeezed just the correct way.

Wednesday, Sept 21

For Sept 20 CPAP. Reported figures. Time on 8 hrs 22 min with AHI=0.36. Events: 3 H, 16 RERA. No mask leaks (max= 13 L/min). Oximetry: looks nice entire time, with only one SpO2 blip to low of 88, all rest above, with avg 92.3%.

Today was a usual middle of the week activity. I normally pick up my friend, Gloria, and travel to the Food Bank for our singing with and for the audience, and afterwards we join a table for our lunch. Today was no exception but we grabbed some Starbuck’s day old chocolate chip cookies, and visited with some of the patrons, before the music. We eventually started at noon, and our youngest member, Kyle, brought his cigar box guitar that caused a lot of interest and discussion.

Thursday, Sept 22

For Sept 21 CPAP. Reported figures. Time on 7 hrs 6 min with AHI=0.99. Events: 7 H, 15 RERA. No mask leaks (max= 13 L/min). Oximetry: SpO2 one blip to low 85, a few below 88, with avg 91.6%.

Tried to finish the request for my medical records but did not finish before leaving for town. John drove so he could fill up his car for a long trip to Lake Serene tomorrow. I moved music stuff from my car into his.

We had nine people there today, plus Haley, our little dancer, and we had a good audience as well. My friend Clare returned my glass vase, and we carried a throwaway vase with beautiful gladioli for Jim and Lillian Brooks’ recent 69th anniversary. They carried them back to their apartment. Wheeled-Walkers are useful for such transport (even better for going through buffet lines).

I came home to work on dishes and computer issues and to put heat on my sore shoulder. Usually, I do moist heat before exercise and ice after.

Friday, Sept 23

For Sept 22 CPAP. Reported figures. Time on 5 hrs 11 min with AHI=1.16. Events: 5 H, 11 RERA. No mask leaks (max= 9 L/min). Oximetry: Fine all night.

I went to a CWU/Ruth Harrington scholarship luncheon today, donated my money for the year, had lunch, visited, and gave away a new shirt (still with tags) to a friend in the group. I realized my parking sticker expired 9/15/16, but I have to go across campus to renew it, so that awaits being done. I went directly to an exercise class at the senior center, and afterward, by Anne’s to water plants and pick up her mail. I stopped at a yard sale, where I found two nice plastic bins (with tops to keep the dust out) that have inside edges that hold hanging folders, so I can use them to encourage me to use my time saved from PT to get my monthly paperwork in order. My filing cabinets are filling. Yeah, I need to toss more stuff out of the ones we have in 3 rooms of the house. I already have recycled a lot, but there is a lot more to go. Amazing what >40 years of teaching will accumulate. I also found two containers: one I can use for John to carry his cell phone in, and protect it, and maybe he will not lose it. Another smaller one will work for my other cell phone.

On my way home, I dropped by a front porch to pick up a free gift of four unused lined journals that I can use in our cars to register tax deductible mileage for volunteer work and for medical trips. My Subaru Forester glove compartment is too small for the normally sold journals. John’s Subaru Outback’s is larger (go figure).

John was 130 miles away today working on the Lake Serene Trail near Index, WA. Actually, the trail is a 2-destination hike and the crew worked on the Bridal Veil Falls part. See:

Lake Serene WTA report

They did not take the trail from the designated trailhead. Instead, they opened a nearby fancy gate (electric trigger and security camera monitored) and on a circuitous road through some nice small houses and then past your average meth-encampment – shacks and abandoned cars and trucks. The link above explains the trail and mentions the steps, as in the photo below.

You can get a better view from Google Earth than John had. It rained. Use the following coordinates in Google Earth:
47.789586, -121.569468

Zoom way in and realize you are looking down (and North). The Falls trail is on the west or left. The Lake trail crosses the stream at a lower elevation, then climbs up a slope until above the lake level and then comes back down.
We did get some photos from today’s work party..
Entire volunteer group came from MG2, an architectural firm, with this bunch all in a sector that designs Costco stores.

Below is John with his crew with their stair-filling project. Rain and mist all day explains the whitish background of the left image.

This project was digging and filling to rehabilitate the steps, and to rock-in the sides to hold everything in place. After lunch they moved on.
He called from Leavenworth at 4:35 and got home about 70 minutes later. We had leftovers for dinner.

For me, much time this afternoon was trying to arrange to fill in music tomorrow at lunch for a conference at CWU, but no one was available, and I am not a sole performer. Maybe next year with more notice and not on the first weekend the nearly 12,000 students are back in town, we’ll be able to help. They needed someone to play from noon to 1:00 and payment was a free lunch.

Saturday, Sept 24

For Sept 23 CPAP. Reported figures. Time on 5 hrs 41 min with AHI=0.88. Events: 1 CA, 4 H, 23 RERA. No mask leaks (max= 10 L/min). Oximetry: Stopped from low battery 4.5 hrs in. SpO2 two blips to low of 89, all well above, with avg 92.9%. Total time sleeping was nearly 9 hours.

Nothing on tap today, except to cut John’s hair and work on the blog. I succeeded in cutting his hair.

Not all the dirty dishes got loaded, but the entire washer of clean dishes I unloaded. I spent most of the day on chores, the main one being this blog.

Sunday, Sept 25

For Sept 24 CPAP. Reported figures. Time on 7 hrs 28 min with AHI=0.13. Events: 1 H, 18 RERA. No mask leaks (max= 9 L/min). Oximetry: Good all night, except for several spurious finger changes recording in the 70s. Most were in the mid- to high nineties range (95-98).

John met neighbor Kenny in the morning to load a couple of bales of hay for him. He’s only recently out of the hospital with a 7-way bypass. He has 1 horse he will feed out of the truck for a couple of days and then let us know if he needs help loading again. John cut some brush and loaded it into the pickup, we ate, he napped, and now we have (nearly) completed this blog.

Nancy mixed in a few other chores but primarily worked on this report.

Hope your week was fine.

Nancy and John
Still on the Naneum Fan

Sunday, Sept 11
For Sept 10 CPAP. Reported figures. Time on 4 hrs 15 min with AHI=0.24. Events: 1 H, 7 RERA. No mask leaks (max= 22 L/min). Oximetry: SpO2 one blip to low 89, all rest above, with avg 93.2% and that’s marred by a spurious 80, caused when taking the oximeter off.

I saw John off at 6:00 a.m. and stayed up to do things. Before feeding two kitties who arrived at the front door for their morning food, I saw the two fawns (now without spots) in the front with their mom, so I grabbed my camera.
Mom out front (on the right of both photos) with twin fawns, no longer with spots.

Been finishing chores around the house, washed a huge load of dishes, spent time on the phone with my neighbor, Louaine, time on email, and time on music.

I finally sent all the pictures from Clare’s 90th birthday party to her email. I called Monday morning to alert her and that I would see her tomorrow night at Hearthstone. 🙂
Bridge near the Middle Fork trail head.

We had a late supper, after John made it back safely from his day’s work on the trail, at the Middle Fork of the Snoqualmie River.

Monday, Sept 12

For Sept 11. Reported figures. Time on 8 hrs 24 min with AHI=0.36. Events: 3 H, 10 RERA. No mask leaks (max= 22 L/min). Oximetry: Good night.

I fed the cats their morning vittles. We both were working early on our computers, and John finally just went back out for yard chores. I get to work on house chores. He came in and fixed Nachos for lunch.

Worked up the song, On the Sunny Side of the Street; one of the hardest songs I have ever entered into our repertoire. Ended up putting in different chords for the key of C, and then changing to G, and lowering an octave. I hope this works. It is going to be difficult for some of our chord players, I’m afraid, but at least I think most people know the song.

John is back out moving rocks, this time, from out where the logs came through the fence. He is slowly digging a shallow trench around the house, filling with rocks, and covering with gravel (recycled concrete). This will pack hard and be a wheel-chair route to the den and eating area. He hopes this will be a selling point at some future date. It consumes a lot of rocks too, of which we have many, being situated on an alluvial fan.

I cleaned more dishes, did some bill paperwork, called about subscriptions at a savings through the College Publishing sales, and finished more music corrections.

Tuesday, Sept 13

For Sept 12 CPAP. Reported figures. Time on 6 hrs 16 min with AHI=0.00. Events: 1 CSR, 0 H, 8 RERA. Small acceptable leaks. Off at 5:30, another 2 hrs sleep. Oximetry: SpO2 one blip to low 89, all rest above 90, with avg 92.8% all night.

I had to take my morning pills at 9:15 before leaving for a physical therapy appointment.

I missed the retired geographers’ meeting to get to my morning appointment, earlier than usual in my day. Then on to other Tuesday stops: Jeanne at Rehab with flowers for her 87th birthday (yesterday), Bi-Mart to check number, Hospice Friends to sign paperwork for a friend, by Carole’s for cat food, on up Water to home for a fast lunch, and back on my second trip to town for Jazzercise.

I went back in for music at Hearthstone and took a 3-ring binder to a gal on the Buy Nothing site who requested it, and she met me there. We did not have a lot of people there – just our pianist, me on fiddle, and 3 other singers. I sing and play. The group is The Connections, and the type of music is religious (old church anthems) and the audience has the lyrics. I came home by way of Dominoes and brought home for dinner a large 3-topping (all meat) pizza, and called John to have him cook mushrooms to put on it. He also had grated Cheddar cheese and Parmesan ready, and I added little tomatoes from our garden to my plate with one large piece of pizza. He freezes the leftovers by piece, and takes one for his lunch on his WTA work trips.

Wednesday, Sept 14

For Sept 13 CPAP. Reported figures. Time on 8 hrs 12 min with AHI=0.37. Events: 1 CSR, 3 H, 1 PP, 18 RERA. No mask leaks (max= 18 L/min). Oximetry: SpO2 had 2 blips below 88, all rest above, with 92.1% all night, affected by a spurious 79 from a finger change.

I stopped by to pick up Gloria to go to the Food Bank and to SAIL. I have to set up chairs because Bob will not be there. Thankfully, one of our singers, Richard, helped. We had a good bunch of appreciative audience members, and 6 regular members joined by Roger McCune in his retirement from directing the F.I.S.H. Food Bank for many years. It was nice to have him join our music group.

Gloria and I went to the Senior Center to our SAIL exercise class, and Evelyn (our banjo player) continued there as our leader for exercise. We had several new members and good attendance. After dropping off Gloria, I came home. We did stop at my bank to deposit and to cash some checks I had recently received.
I finally got out the count for tomorrow’s music players, and I will call and report the total chairs needed, in the morning.

I also succeeded in getting my PT appointments scheduled for the month of October. All on Tuesdays and Fridays, at 3:15, with Natalie, the owner.

Thursday, Sept 15

For Sept 14 CPAP. Reported figures. Time on 7 hrs 23 min with AHI=0.54. Events: 1 CSR, 4 H, 2 PP, 15 RERA. Acceptable amt of leakage. Oximetry: I was unable to removed the oximetry with either program. I hope my oximeter is not broken. Update: it is working again, after restarting my computer and uploading the required updates.

Morning brunch was nice.
I picked up Gerald from RV Canopy Country on Dolarway just after 1:00 p.m., where he left his “new” truck to have its canopy installed. Fortunately, his son came and picked him up to take him back, because I had to go directly from music to a PT appointment on my shoulder.

We had only a few of us there: 2 guitars, a baritone mandolin, 2 fiddlers, and a flute (with her dancing little 3-year-old daughter. The room temperature was too warm and I had on a tank top under my blouse (for my PT follow-up), and the outside temperature was 86.

When I got to my appointment, I was too warm.

I made it there just at 3:15 p.m. and was happy to have a circulating fan blowing on me during my “warm-up” exercise. I had taken some pain pills prior to playing fiddle, but they didn’t seem to help either with the playing and certainly not with the 10-minute arm “cycle” workout, where I keep my feet stationary and use dual-moving handlebars for warming up my arm and shoulder muscles. Every movement hurt today, including the stretching sessions by my therapist.

Afterwards, I stopped by to water plants and pick up my friend’s mail.

Friday, Sept 16

For Sept 15 CPAP. Reported figures. Time on 6 hrs 33 min with AHI=0.31. Events: 2 H, 13 RERA. No mask leaks (max= 22 L/min). I slept another 3 hrs w/o CPAP, but with oximeter. Oximetry: Cannot get SpO2 Review to work; via SleepyHead software, I could see the SpO2 dipped to the high 80s but most were above 90. I had no way to calculate avg % all night, without the SpO2 Review Report.

Haircut for me around the rural block at 1:00 p.m. (the round trip is not bad at 4.3 miles). I actually made it twice because as I was leaving, Celia gave me two jars of jelly, one blackberry & and the other mixed fruit. I have to eat blackberry jelly, because the seeds stick in my teeth. We have several cups of berries in the frig. I came home and John and I picked the rest of the ripe berries from our plants, and added those from our fridge. John also cut her some limbs of green cherry tomatoes at her request. She also gave me 3 ripe tomatoes from her sister’s garden, after hearing all we had were green ones.

John’s hair I hoped to do tonight, long overdue, but it will have to wait until another day. He’s out working on yard chores before the expected rain tomorrow after 11:00. The front moved in already, within sight. This will help slow a couple of fires in the mountains.

Checked on Annie’s meds for seizure. Ordered 90 tablets from Rite Aid. I’ll pick up soon.

I had a double pear, plum, peach, Ensure, protein, yogurt shake for lunch. For dinner, John fixed a hamburger with fried cauliflower, yellow squash, mushrooms, with Parmesan cheese and spices, served with 3 types of tomatoes.

Saturday, Sept 17

For Sept 9 CPAP. Reported figures. Time on 5 hrs 29 min with AHI=0.18. Events: 1 CSR, 1 H, 11 RERA. No mask leaks (max= 10 L/min). Oximetry: SpO2 one blip to low 89, all rest fine all night. A move to a different finger caused a spurious low, which affected the avg. % all night.

1:00 start: Big outside music session at Briarwood. Several of our group joined another group, called Heather & Sage. They have a bass fiddler, a banjo/guitar/Irish drum player, and two fiddlers. Our group had two guitars, two fiddlers, a mandolin, and a flute/penny whistle player. We made some pretty music for 2.5 hours with a break for lunch. (I had a half a Polish hotdog), but we missed getting a root beer float.

John and I went to a 90th birthday party for the father of friends, now living west of Yakima. I actually knew the parents before I met the kids through CWU. In the 1990s shortly after arriving in town, I was playing with our music group, Kittitas Valley Fiddlers & Friends, at the Senior Center for a Friday afternoon dance group. These folks were regular dancers there. Tonight was the 90th birthday bash for Grandpa Orcutt. Dinner was slow-roasted & smokey tender Tri-tip roast with side dishes and a big birthday cake with 90 candles, homemade ice cream, served with frozen fruit punch, if desired. Fruit was raspberries & blackberries in orange juice and something else.
Birthday cake celebration.

Connections are through two parts of the family we have been included in for many years, since the 1990s. You might guess there are lots of Orcutt family in the County. He worked on the big dams here in the West and then moved to a farm about 10 miles east of EBRG.
Suzy Orcutt West and Bob West and her dad and mom on the right. They had a large family of 12. Suzy we knew because Bob was my student in the 1990s (graduating from CWU Geography in 1997).

We joined the celebration.
The large party was held in a barn at one of their children’s homes, on the other side of the valley. We enjoyed the Harvest Moon on the way home, but I was unable to capture it on my camera. John said I would find a better rendition on the web. I would have loved to have had what we saw surrounded by clouds.

This is the closest I can come to the moon tonight in clouds. This is from the web from Dennis Doucet, taken in Japan. The only difference is that the clouds we saw our view through were rather spectacularly layered, horizontally. I thought too late I should have taken it with the video part of my camera rather than the still shot, which adjusts for darkness.

Sunday, Sept 18

For Sept 17 CPAP. Reported figures. Time on 7 hrs 44 min with AHI=0.78. Events: 3 CSR, 5 H, 1OA, 2 PP, 11 RERA. No mask leaks (max= 10 L/min). Nothing to report on Oximetry as it was only on a couple hours, and nothing unusual happened.

Sad tale here: Until last fall Jerry and Janis Anderson lived down-ditch from us. She was one of the original “Rodeo Grandmas” of local, state, and even a bit of national fame.

Newspaper story prior to Rodeo

They moved a year ago. After being inducted into the Rodeo’s Hall of Fame this year, and speaking briefly, she was in a car with the one other surviving member of the group, Chloe Weidenbach, whom Nancy knows from her volunteering at the Food Bank. Janis complained of a severe headache and died shortly after at the local hospital from an aneurysm.

Janis Anderson’s celebration of life was today at the Kittitas County Events Center (aka Rodeo/Fairgrounds) with lunch and a beautiful program put together and presented by the family and friends. The large room (Teanaway) was packed. I arrived about 11:40 and left 3 hours later. The family served lunch with Janis’s Rodeo Beans recipe as the main course, along with Coleslaw, and a roll.

I made two more stops in town and came home.

Hope your week was fine.

Nancy and John
Still on the Naneum Fan