Sunday, Nov 9
CPAP report. Reported figures: 6 hrs 2 min with AHI = 1.16.
With event activity including two CSR (Cheyne-Stokes Respiration) events: 1 min 5 sec at 6:33 a.m.& 1 min 27 sec at 6:57; OA (Airway Obstruction), 1 at 3:30 a.m.(first ever); 6 hypopnea events, and 2 vibratory snores. The CSR explanation is in a previous week’s blog.
Rained and winds blew to 40 mph gusts and now sunny and still windy and raining again. John came in to fix some chili for lunch and wants to go back out to take care of some chain-sawing chores but wants it to stop raining first. It never cleared up enough for him, and now it’s getting dark so not worth piling on all the protective gear.
I started taking my blood pressure at the request of my cardiologist (he wants a series for the time preceding my appointment — Friday).
Monday, Nov 10
CPAP report. Reported figures: 7 hrs 31 min with AHI = 1.06.
On my malware Spybot checker this morning. “You know a good horse is expensive; a Trojan horse even more so.” No Internet connection for a couple of hours still this morning. So, will just do other stuff on the computer and around the house. No trips to town today and the weather looks sunny, but cold. John plans on an hour with the chainsaw, some splitting, and loading. Sometime this week he will take a load over to a neighbor on Wilson Ckeek. She is just ¾ mile away but by road it is 2 miles. We have another request for wood from a young couple in Ellensburg who want to heat with wood because they feel the radiant baseboard heaters are unsafe — in their duplex. Yet, if the other residents of the house use it, their electric bill will be the only difference. Fire threat is still with them.
Before we awoke this morning (and while it was raining), there was an Aurora Borealis sighting in Ellensburg. The photo below was sent to me by a retired 3rd grade teacher friend of mine, from Kissimmee, FL with the message, “Did you see this?”
The photo was taken by a professional photographer, Van Adam Davis, and published in the Aurora Borealis Notifications on Facebook. He took this from Ellensburg, WA on 11-10-14 at 3 a.m. with a d3200, Nikkor 28mm, f/2.8, 800iso @8sec. I cannot determine precisely from where this picture was taken, but I see the lights on the wind turbines on the right. There are 2 areas in the Valley (the northwest and the east) with wind towers – this photo is from S or SW of town looking toward the Northeast.
John got out for over an hour with the chainsaw, but one of the plastic connectors on his chaps came off. He went back afterwards with a rake, and amazingly found it (it’s black).
This image is from the web, so a little different. The plastic part above the red is permanently attached but on the right side, where the green arrow points, the strap has to slide so the thing can be snugged-up. John wants to sew a button on the end of the strap (9 of them) to prevent it from pulling through. This, or some other easy-fix should be done by the company, and he is going to tell them so. Look out Husqvarna!
In exchange for a couple hours labor, John got some treated fence posts from a neighbor. They will be used next spring to rebuilding a fence east of our house.
I finished dishes but no clothes. Spent a lot of time dealing with music for Christmas. The four I did today I did not have to put in my computer program, to save time, but I had to use a whole bottle of BIC Wite Out to get rid of the problems with previous copies, changing some of the lyrics that were missing, “erasing” chord letters (too small), and graphic fingerings for guitars, to replace with larger more legible letters for the necessary chords. Songs I redid today included: Blue Christmas, Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer, Deck the Halls, and Hark! The Herald Angels Sing.
On the next time in town, when I was going to buy another bottle of white out for my music rewrites, John said he would show me how to do it digitally on our old computer, using Paintshop-Pro. I did for several songs (with his help), and I’m quite grateful for his time in doing the stuff and teaching me how. This happens with music I have not yet put into my software program, and some that was copied from a music book.
Supposedly, the temperatures are headed downward this week. They are way down (to minus 7 where we have friends in Montana, with a HIGH of 8 tomorrow). Another friend near Lolo, MT had 2″ of snow today, and sent a photo of her birdhouse.
Other friends in upstate Michigan have closer to two FEET of snow (actually they just wrote they had only 18” in Marquette. West of them there was 3 ½ feet. Would have buried the birdhouse. Here is a nice link to a story about lake effect snow.
Tuesday, Nov 11
CPAP report. Reported figures: 6 hrs 34 min with AHI = 0.00
The high winds were blowing 5-gallon buckets all over the front yard. John had emptied them yesterday of the collected rain. With freezing temperature expected he drained and stored garden hoses and a couple of larger containers for the garden. He cleaned the big water trough for the horses and, when filled, plugged the heater in.
We both went to the Emeritus Geog Faculty morning gab-fest at Copper Kettle with choice of coffee, water, hot chocolate, or tea.
Evening I went back to Hearthstone for The Connections group music. The temps were supposed to go to 12°F. tonight, and it was very cold, but the low was only 21 here. That’s when I can see a positive in dyslexic (12 or 21; no, I am not — just playing with number association).
Wednesday, Nov 12
CPAP report. Reported figures: 7 hrs 23 min with AHI = 0.54.
Sunny and no heavy winds. Started with a small warmed apple fritter and caramel covered donut (shared a little with the oldest Brittanys). John had a 1/2 maple bar and 1/2 of something else I thought when I bought it was a Bear Claw, but he says not. He shared 1/2 with Dan. While on my way to music last night, I stopped and bought a dozen donuts from today’s offerings for $3.00 off the regular price. They mark down the price after 5:30, and we are normally not in town late except once a month.
Went to Food Bank and SAIL, today. Probably the worse lunch we’ve ever had there after entertaining over 1/2 hr to an appreciative crowd. A local restaurant provided the main dish (served in a soup bowl) of BBQ beef–unfortunately with only a small amount of meat that was mostly all fat, with black beans, & corn (that part tasted good and I should have poured it over the pile of plain pasta; squash; a salad with such a strange taste such that people were tossing the whole thing into the compost for a farmer’s pigs; and a dessert full of cranberries that I cannot eat. I went to exercise class and came home to eat leftover tuna fish salad from yesterday’s lunch. Was a pleasant surprise awaiting me at the Senior Ctr .. the picture below, that was taken at the Halloween party last Friday. I was with my friend, Myrna, from our SAIL class, who was dressed as a gypsy. I have a black mask on.
Thursday, Nov 13
CPAP report. Reported figures: 8 hrs 35 min with AHI = 0.23
John delivered a pick-up load (about a cord) to a neighbor. Then, with the son, he went and brought back another load from a place about 3 miles away. The man there had big pine logs brought from the forest. He had cut, split, stacked, and covered about 3 cords. Here is what a cord looks like, numbers are feet:
After lunch, I went to town. I first stopped by the Lung Specialist to pick up a borrowed Oximeter for use tonight as I sleep. Tomorrow morning we drive to Yakima, and I will return it to the Yakima Lung Clinic on my way to the Yakima Heart Clinic to see my cardiologist for the results of the recent echocardiogram. From there we will go to Costco for gasoline, lunch, and a few items we need and our neighbors want.
Meanwhile, we had a good turn-out at the Rehab where I spent 7 weeks in physical therapy in 2010 to regain use of all my muscles that had atrophied. It’s sort of nostalgic to go in and see some of the old faces I recognize on their staff, and patients.
Today we had 4 guitars, 1 banjo, 1 fiddle, and 1 clarinet, and one dancer with her walker, from the audience. We had about 3 people singing along on few songs, but we do not give out lyrics to this group. We have one resident (Helen), who cannot keep her feet from moving on several songs, and gets up and sashays around with her walker. She was up at least 6 times yesterday. Our banjo player got up and danced (and played & sang) with her for 2 songs, and then she came back and asked me to dance with her, so I did, while playing my violin and singing. We stopped and sang the chorus of Let me Call you Sweetheart to each other, and the same with Beautiful Brown Eyes. Then after I had 3 dances with her, I sat down, and the banjo player danced two more. It was cool, and the audience was involved and the staff was coming in to watch.
Next week we are at Dry Creek, and this Saturday, we’ll be at Briarwood.
I believe I finished the December Christmas playlist today, for everyone in the normal group, and for our clarinet player in a different key to match with us.
Friday, Nov 14
CPAP report. Reported figures: 8 hrs 2 min with AHI = 0.00.
Wore the Oximeter last night from 11:23 to 7:23.
This morning we did morning chores early so we could leave for medical stops in Yakima, on our way to Costco with an almost empty tank in my car. Before leaving, I analyzed the data on my CPAP machine and printed graphs for last night with the Oximeter in place and compared to a day last week with more events (none last night). I’m anxious to see the results of the Oximetry, and I know I will be wishing to see the results with the same recorder for a night when something happens.
We left at 10:30, without a big breakfast, because we planned to eat a good lunch after my appointment — that we didn’t expect to be too long. WRONG. We dropped off the Oximeter at the Lung & Asthma Center and arrived at the Heart Center prior to my 11:55 appointment. We waited, and I was frustrated because I should have taken my computer so I could at least work on the blog, or access the web. John read every decent magazine in the waiting room. The majority were Sports oriented, but he found a Yakima newspaper and some heart health ones. He was frustrated because he normally takes a Wall Street Journal or a paperback to my appointments. About 12:20, I questioned the only receptionist not off to lunch, asking if she could check to see if my Dr. was behind in his schedule. Last time there, a month ago, he was 45 minutes behind and they notified us to go for lunch first. She checked and found he was running behind 1/2 hr to 45 mins, so we waited. Finally, at 1:05 !! a technician retrieved me for my appointment. After the preliminaries, she told me to get on the table for an EKG (ECG). I questioned it because I just had one a month ago, and I was only coming today for the results from the Echocardiogram done in the meantime (and as it turned out, not evaluated by my doctor until I was there yesterday in the room.) The technicians said the measurement was always done every appt. (I think that’s changed over the past 4 years.) After all that was completed, we waited until 1:20 or so to see the doctor. Then, he spent TWO hours with us, going over all my “numbers.” The results were variable from good increases in some things, lower in others, concerns for medication changes to check out some issues, and some other explanations and interpretations to us both. John and I were getting hungry and concerned about the lateness of the hour, and that we still had to go to Costco and drive home, arriving in the dark, with all the animals left to feed. So, we attempted to rush through Costco. Started by getting over 14 gallons of gasoline at $2.80/gal. In EBRG it is $2.90. We tried making a fast trip through, but that’s tough with all the folks creating traffic jams. By the time we got through and on the road again, it was an hour from when we left the doctor’s office a little over 5 miles from Costco. We skipped eating a late lunch, deciding instead to come home to eat.
I worked some on the blog, and checked my camera to see if there was something to add. I found 2 photos I had taken a few days back. The first is an upside-down Brittany (Annie) on the old loveseat with Rascal the cat. Normally, those two do not share the space. It’s usually Meghan and Rascal. This was very early in the day, Sunday.
Then, Monday evening we saw a lovely sunset from our back patio.
Saturday, Nov 15
CPAP report. Reported figures: 8 hrs 5 min with AHI = x.25.
Slept in after stopping the machine, because I still needed it. Temp when I awoke was 15° outside. Now it’s sunny and on its way up. At 28°, John, who’d been working on the blog finale, took the dogs for their morning run and to feed the horses (I checked the report at the airport, but the posting for last hour has not yet occurred. Our outside temp under the porch overhang was 32.5° when John returned.
Okay.. need to get this to John to finish, and I must print music for one of our guitar players who is having a complete knee replacement surgery this Monday. I’ll see him today at Briarwood. I want to give him the December Christmas music so he can practice and enjoy while healing and with hopes he will be able to join us before the month has passed.
Hope your week was fine.
Nancy and John
Still on the Naneum Fan