Sunday, Apr 10
For Apr 9 CPAP. Reported figures. Time on 6 hrs 38 min with AHI=2.41. Events: 12 CSR, 16 H, 12 RERA. No major mask leaks (max= 8 L/min). Oximeter not accepting charge; not used. Still cannot explain high AHI.
This will be the day we publish last week’s tome. Just posted after 11:00 a.m. and John is out back working next to our raging creek, but he is on the hill above. For more excitement, see Thursday below.
My goodness, I love it when a plan comes together. Wedding clothing for the mother and father of the groom is about to happen this week. Well, the mom’s dress happened, but not the groom’s slacks. His size required is smaller than what was offered.
I tackled filing planned for today, mixed in with putting together clothing to share with the woman planning to set the couple up with what they need. We both ended up taking a bunch of clothes to her shop.
John has been out working in back and side yards, and now is arranging for water set up for our southern neighbors, after the rise in water on the control gate yesterday to the “stream diversion through our pasture.” Spring snow melt is happening at the 3,000 to 5,000′ level in the Cascades.
He came in the front and looked out the back (I was doing dishes) and saw a Merriam turkey walking across the area west of the house John is clearing of brush and low limbs, as a fire preventative. I tried to get a picture and only got a couple of glimpses after he left the hill and return via the path (you will see this path from the creek on Thursday).
Then John came back in and went to his original garden to pick asparagus for the neighbors. Now, he’s headed up to pick rocks, where he can deliver the asparagus to our friend as he drives by. Never ending chore on the Naneum Alluvial Fan, where rocks “grow” – coming to the surface.
We had leftovers for dinner, but John added a nice bunch of fresh steamed asparagus from that he picked today. It was nice, and I enjoyed a little, even though it is quite high in Vitamin K and not much is suggested for my intake. Later this week we have had pieces in our omelets (or in quiche one night).
The County has has water over the road in many places south of us. I didn’t get any pictures when the surge was at its highest. This year nothing spectacular is happening – it is an every year occurrence. The county road crews get out and put up warning signs, saying, WATER OVER ROAD, anchoring them with sandbags.
Monday, Apr 11
For Apr 10 CPAP. Reported figures. Time on 5 hrs 47 min with AHI=1.90 Events: 7 CSR, 11 H, 11 RERA. No major mask leaks (max= 8 L/min). Oximeter not accepting charge; not used. Figured it out for tomorrow night, and will be returning with data on my SpO2.
The solution came when I decided to try my cable for my Motorola phone, plugged it in to charge the Oximeter, and it worked!!! So happy.
We prepared for our meetings of the day. The first was with the foot doctor to trim toenails on both our feet, and hear the results of the DNA analysis. The name of the toenail fungus I have on nails of my right foot starts with the letter “T” and I didn’t write it down. The cure is to apply topically a cream daily to the toenail and 1/4″ above the cuticle, for 3 months. That will be a troublesome application, but if it gets rid of it, I shall be glad. At least I no longer have to go through laser surgery in Yakima every month or so. THAT treatment was painful and unavailable in Ellensburg, requiring another trip to Yakima. For 10 minutes, the time involved was a couple hours, because of front-end waits in the office once there. The only advantage was a trip to Costco or other, Yakima only, thing to do.
We drove by the pharmacy and got one of my meds that lasts for 90 days, and then by the USPS to send my check to the IRS in a certified manner. We were near Safeway, so we went there for John’s 2-liter colas (best price in town at $ .89) and to take advantage of their Monday special of 8 pieces of chicken for $4.49. On to fill John’s car with gasoline and come home a different way. The Gas Buddy website says the Love’s station west of town is cheaper, $2.09/gal, but in town the lowest price is $2.12/gal. Now at the end of this week, when I need gas in my car, the price is much higher. Many roads had shallow water at intersections and other places where culverts are not large enough to handle the flow. Things do float out onto the road and remain after the water, so until the road crew sweeps (?), or the stuff is otherwise gone, road hazards need to be watched for.
We were buffeted by the wind while driving to town. Turns out the winds were high all day, above 30, but when we were out they were 38 mph, and once at 6:00 a.m. (maybe what woke me) were 39 mph gusts. For 11 hours, the gusts starting at 4:00 a.m. averaged 34.2 mph.
We got a lovely thank you card for B.D. cards sent to Ethel Reynolds in PA for her 98th birthday party. She enclosed a photo with at least 9 or 10 balloons and her, and mentioned her sister said she told Pat, her daughter, to buy her 98 balloons. I think they’d have burned down the house if they had made a cake with 98 candles.
Ethel Reynolds, John’s cousin in PA, at her 98th birthday party.
Tuesday, Apr 12
For Apr 11 CPAP. Reported figures. Time on 5 hrs 38 min with AHI=6.22. Events: 13 CSR, 35 H, 7 RERA. No major mask leaks (max= 11 L/min). Oximeter working again. SpO2 on CPAP reached to 85-88% a couple times.
This morning I left early to set up for the Emeriti geography meeting, because I took Costco’s Apple Strudel pieces again for all. We had 12 attending, and there were 4 pieces left which I could take to my planned lunch in Kittitas. I introduced Jennifer Hackett, our guest speaker. She had been my student in the past and took over teaching my Intermediate GIS (Winter Quarter, 2010) class when I was ill. I was back at the Rehab the beginning of January for learning to walk again and use all my muscles that had atrophied. She came, visited, and consulted with me about the course, and then when I was out toward the end of the quarter, using a walker, she invited me to come hear the final presentations and be a co-evaluator with her. I thought that was special, and she continued doing it for her subsequent offering of the course for several years. I had been the only geography professor previously teaching it, since 1988. My other graduate GIS seminar sadly was removed from the schedule when I retired. It was REM 515: GIS in Resource Management. It was a good class that natural and cultural resource management students took as well as students from biology masters programs.
Roads south of us still have water over the road. One is the runoff from Naneum (we are on one of the distributaries of the main Naneum, after it separates from Wilson Creek). Our creek is running high as well, as you will see below.
I made and took a lunch for our Kittitas, WA meeting at 11:00. A woman (Fran Rairdan) who is a member of the BNE site saw my plea for friends needing a mother of the groom dress for the wedding and a pair of black slacks for her hubby. Fran owns a shop called, A Tisket A Tasket, and she knew she had some dresses that might work, and hoped one of the suits or a pair of slacks would. A dress did, but the suits were too large. These were outright gifts (as no money is exchanged on the BNE site). I was very happy to be able to help set up the meeting.
After the retired geographers’ meeting was over, I drove to Kittitas with the lunch I had prepared for four people, with plastic plates, stainless steel forks, chips, tuna fish salad with lots of egg, sharp cheddar cheese sticks, and the leftover dessert from the morning meeting – enough for all of us.
It was still before 1:00 when I left Kittitas, so I drove home and decided to rest rather than go back in for Jazzercise. I was rather tired anyway from a restless night and all the morning activity.
John managed to fix the clogged buried pipe problem on our neighbor’s property, getting it unplugged and watering a small field with an apple tree near the center. The tree is pretty when it blooms and wild things get the apples. The fields here have to be watered at least once every 5 years to hold the water rights. (We think that’s correct.)
I worked on a few things and rested until 5:00 when John left for his 6:30 meeting in Quincy. I called Gloria to be sure she still wanted me to come by and take her to the music venue for the night. It is religious music by The Connections, at Hearthstone, same place I was earlier in the day. It was fun, as she knew almost all of the hymns without even looking at the music book, and was able to visit with several people from our SAIL exercise class we have known over the past 6 years, including Earl, Rudy, and Clare. Her husband, Paul, mentioned below was one of the few guys in our class, with the two there now at Hearthstone.
Wednesday, Apr 13
For Apr 12 CPAP. Reported figures. Time on 6 hrs 55 min with AHI=0.72. Events: 2 CSR, 5 H, 13 RERA. No major mask leaks (max= 14 L/min). Oximetry shows a much nicer night than recently, however my SpO2 dropped 57 times, and pulse changed 56 times. I am on increased meds that will lower my heart rate, so I guess that’s to be expected.
I picked up Gloria and went to the Food Bank and on to SAIL exercise at the Senior Center.
Afterwards, we picked up two cherry pies at the Daily Bread & Mercantile (run by German Baptists in our valley) for her to take to Paul to share celebration of their 66th wedding anniversary with the people living in the assisted living home, Belair House, in Cle Elum, where he is a resident. I apologize for the run-on sentence.
Thursday, Apr 14
For Apr 13 CPAP. Reported figures. Time on 8 hrs 48 min with AHI=1.90. Events: 2 CSR, 9 H, 18 RERA. No major mask leaks (max= 21 L/min). Oximetry on and even all night.
We started the morning with a walk out the back door of our house down to see the creek. It is higher than usual. I will have to take a picture in a few weeks when the flow has subsided. It’s already going down, but right now I don’t have any comparison to these videos below.
Our Flooding Creek April 14, 36 seconds
The Adventure Location for Brittany Annie April 14, 20 seconds of the route Annie took — starting at the beginning, and being pulled out at the location about 13 seconds into the video.
In normal conditions our Brittanys have easily crossed the creek to the other side, and we once had a large wooden plank that served as a bridge for us to cross to the other part of our property west on the opposite side of the creek.
However, this day was not a good day for Annie to get into the creek.
In the collage above of 5 pictures, I’ll try to explain the sequence. The left one was taken in 2015 during the construction of our driveway access across a culvert over the irrigation diversion through our pasture. This photo of Annie shows the height of the water in various places, and the only place it is deeper is behind a small dam John set up in the pasture. The middle photos above were taken today “behind” our house. The top one has the main stream in the back and the flooding toward the front. The middle bottom one shows the entrance where Annie walked into the normally easy flowing stream and was swooped out by the current. I saw what was happening, and yelled at her to come back. She managed to grab onto the roots on the bank John and I were standing on, and he reached over the fence to grab her collar and pull her out (top right photo above). I’m afraid to think what might have happened if she’d gone on downstream. The bottom right photo is the path leading up from the creek to our house (the same one the Turkey was walking on, earlier in the week). 
This is the closest photo I have of our “creek” in normal flow, taken Nov. 7, 2014. The land across the creek is part of our property we seldom use.
Friday, Apr 15
For Apr 14 CPAP. Reported figures. Time on 5 hrs 26 min with AHI=0.55. Events: 0 CSR, 3 H, 4 RERA. No major mask leaks (max= 18 L/min). Oximetry on and even all night.
Much of the day I spent messing with my new external drive disk, but finally now, it is working. The very first “backup” took half the day and all night. Now it only has to do files that are changed between backups.
I also finalized my giveaway of plastic pots of hen & chicks to distribute tomorrow. Who knew they would be so in demand!
I was able to get my data off my CPAP and Oximeter, and now I’m recharging the Oximeter with my cell phone charger so it doesn’t run down. Even with Tylenol, I’m having a lot of pain with my left shoulder, when I move it up certain ways.
Saturday, Apr 16
For Apr 15 CPAP. Reported figures. Time on 6 hrs 22 min with AHI=0.63. Events: 1 CSR, 4 H, 6 RERA. No major mask leaks (max= 16 L/min). Oximetry good all night.
Started the morning marking tags for the pots of hen & chicks for dispersal today at Briarwood. One person has already had a family emergency and won’t be able to be there today, and won’t be back in town until next week. Another cannot meet at the time needed, so I just dropped hers off on my way home.
Sirens at 10:30 a.m. alerted us to an EMT vehicle and a pumper truck going to a neighbor’s on Charlton Road. They probably took someone to the hospital, because John saw the returning vehicles and heard them turn on their sirens once down a mile or so on Naneum. They slowly navigated the two northern curves. No details. Later found out our neighbor was having chest pains, but we haven’t gotten an update yet. Now right before publishing time Sunday, we heard they had to shock his heart back into rhythm, because the medication for atrial fibrillation did not work.
My back-up external drive just finally finished 10 hours after I started it last night. I need to see how to change it to do a backup continuously, rather than weekly. I have 300 gigabytes backed up there. Luckily, that happened before I left for town.
I received a phone call from one of the music players that she cannot make it today, as she is in an emergency with her little doggy at the vet. We had five players there and a large audience. They presented us at the end with a lot of good food, rolled meat (turkey/ham), cheese, rolls, various salads, and some very large luscious strawberries. They treat us well.
On my way home, I came by the bridge over “our” creek, 1.5 miles downstream. It has gone down considerably over the past couple of days. It had covered the road with water, and brought up large limbs, and in addition, was splashing on the side of the bridge and causing a waterspout. Today, only the spray was visible, but the water is still moving fast beneath.
View from the bridge. The center curb is wet but in recent days, the water was up flowing over the curb, filling the road with water and debris. The right two are just more pictures of the bridge on Bar 14 Road, down from us.
Sunday, Apr 17
For Apr 16 CPAP. Reported figures. Time on 6 hrs 39 min with AHI=0.60. Events: 2 CSR, 4 H, 10 RERA. No major mask leaks (max= 18 L/min). Oximetry good all night.
Blog being published today.
Hope your week was fine.
Nancy and John
Still on the Naneum Fan