Doctor, Deer, Exercise, & …

… Trail Activities

Sunday, July 24

For July 23 CPAP. Reported figures. Time on 7 hrs 55 min with AHI=0.13. Events: 0 CSR, 1 H, 15 RERA. No major mask leaks (max= 13 L/min). Oximetry: good all night, 2 blips SpO2 below 88.

Spent the day doing the blog and doing dishes.

Monday, July 25

For July 24 CPAP. Reported figures. Time on 7 hrs 39 min with AHI=0.78. Events: 2 CSR, 6 H, 12 RERA. No mask leaks (max= 20 L/min). Oximetry: good all night, 2 blips SpO2 below 88, one awakening with Annie wanting out.

I drove to the doctor appointments in Yakima, leaving about 10:00 a.m. for Dr. Kumar, Dr. Tews, and Costco.

Dr. Kumar’s visit was nice. My stats are good with an average AHI over a year as 1.1. I did not enjoy all of the Dr. Tews appointment to evaluate my implant possibility (they did a 3D CT scan to see if the bone graft had worked and scheduled the surgery for August 29). That was tolerable and interesting to have interpreted by the assistant and then in consultation (John there too) with the dentist/surgeon. While there, a technician made an impression of my upper and lower teeth. I thought the suction was going to pull out the remaining teeth I have.

I had carried my computer along for the time I was in the offices having to wait, but used it only on Whopper WIFI at the Burger King on Nob Hill. We had time to eat in a/c comfort, and about 45 minutes for me to work on my computer. Unfortunately, something affected my computer and I lost the ability to make my Word software work. In addition, I lost my ability to use the Google Chrome search engine. Short story, once home, I did a disk cleanup, rebooted, reloaded and prayed. The next morning I shut down and restarted 3 times before I got access again to my “stuff.” John decided it is time for a new computer. It is back working again but this flakiness is not a good sign.

Tuesday, July 26

For July 25 CPAP. Reported figures. Time on 5 hrs 12 min with AHI=0.00. Events: 0 CSR, 0 H, 7 RERA. No major mask leaks (max= 14 L/min). Oximetry: okay throughout night.

Shower, get haircut at 12:15, back home to eat, go Naneum to Mt View to Hospital for INR (which was 1.9), but it was done with the pinprick rather than blood draw because their coagulation machine was broken. I normally do not prefer that because the instant pinprick machine is very tough to keep calibrated properly. My Coumadin dosage was increased and I have to be rechecked Aug 11. From there I went on to Jazzercise, with five there, the largest number recently. I got there early and was able to pick up a couple of yellow squash someone brought to share from their garden. We have enjoyed it since, because John did not plant any this year. Afterwards, I went to PT and left about 4:15, without an ice application. From there I drove to the Drivers Licensing Bureau to renew my license that expires on my birthday. It did not take long at all, and now it will last 6 years ($9/year). Then off to Bi-Mart to check my number, where I did not win anything.

I am hurting pretty badly, but I tried working on my computer stuff, only to realize my arm/shoulder was not the only thing hurting. So was my head. I decided to set up an ice pack with the new compress thing John bought for me, and lie down. I rested nicely for an hour, and when John came by the front door and saw a buck with a nice set of antlers inside our front gate eating sweet grass or a tall clover, he told me to get up to see him and take a picture. Meanwhile, I told him it would take me awhile to find my camera and for him to get his. He did, and then I got up to see. I decided I would find mine that I had misplaced. Luckily, I found it, and I took some photos and videos too.

John’s captures provide a good intro to mine:
1-CollageJohn'sResidentBuckLeft shows the setting to our front yard, with gate open to the rear of the buck, who is standing in front of the sweet clover he and the fawns like; right shows the proximity to our deck at the front door, and shows him eyeing the Mt. Ash berries. He comes on to the ancient wood deck only a few feet from the door to eat grape leaves. It is a useless grape plant, except to the deer.

My photography follows:
2-CollageNancy'sOfBuck7-26-16Left the buck eats a weed; middle and right, he’s looking.
3-CollageBuckInFavoriteRestingSpotNearShedBuck in his favorite resting spot in front of shed outside our front gate (with the horseshoe). He will lie down there and rest. When we come home sometimes, he is there resting.
4-CollageInquistiveBuck&WoodyThe photos above I took from my video below, as the inquisitive buck checked out our female cat; “here I come” — “ducking my head.” The video shows what happened next.

Below is a very short but sweet 8-second video, of the interaction between our fluffy feral cat, Woody, and the buck.

Woody & Buck Interaction, July 26, ’16 Link

5-BuckGlancingBackAtWoodyOnCable TableAbove is the little buck looking back at Woody, before he moves on out (see video below).

Little Buck’s Departure 7-26-16 Link

Wednesday, July 27

For July 26 CPAP. Reported figures. Time on 7 hrs 43 min with AHI=0.52. Events: 0 CSR, 4 H, 11 RERA. No major mask leaks (max= 21 L/min). Oximetry: great, with all above the 88% line, SpO2

I picked up Gloria and went to the Food Bank. She was tired from hosting her brother and sister for 2 long visits. I was tired from yesterday, so we went by her bank and on home.

I put my PT appointments on the calendar for the month of August, and had to call and change one on the same day as my dental surgery is planned.

Our Internet has been very spotty, so John decided to follow the routine of unplugging it, count to 15, and re-start. That began our stressful computer situation. Seems some units have a code on the bottom to help restart. Not this one. It needs to be connected to a computer with an Ethernet cable. We spent a lot of time on the phone and finally they decided to send a technician to our house. Only problem was the timing. The person wouldn’t come for maybe 72 hours. That won’t work with as much as we depend on the computer (and our printer), which is on WIFI and will not work when the modem is not working. We were very much out of luck.

We needed to be able to log into the Internet on the machine in the back room where the modem/router is connected. That computer has not been turned on in a year, and is an old XP one. Mouse and other things were not connected – ’cause we were scrounging for parts months ago. However, John managed to get it up and going.

We had to get back on the phone for 45 minutes to get to and change the password on line. However, in the process, the name of the in-house WI-FI was changed from the phone name to the router’s name. I was running late, needing to be out of the house by 11:00, and it was after that.

The rest of the afternoon went slowly, trying to catch up on all lost without the computer the day before. John had to re-establish a WI-FI connection to the printer using the new password. The 9 key entry process has to toggle through upper case, then lower case, and then numbers. Special symbols are gotten by repeatedly hitting that key until the one desired appears. Passwords to be meaningful have to be complex. But, hey, he’s got nothing else to do.

Thursday, July 28

For July 27 CPAP. Reported figures. Time on 6 hrs 22 min with AHI=0.31. Events: 0 CSR, 2 H, 14 RERA. No major mask leaks (max= 6 L/min). Oximetry: Fine, extra 2 hours sleep off recording.

Working on music additions for today preparing for the Aug/Sept playlist.

I received a note from a friend in the southwest who has owned Brittanys from our lines, and keeps up on our blog. She asked how Annie was doing and if the ramp was adjusted for her to use. I was able to tell her things had improved dramatically and she had started using the ramp (and did while we were gone so long to Yakima on Monday). The temperatures there were 98 and here almost as much. Annie has had no more episodes and is progressing well.

I was calling around trying to get help for a neighbor. We had to make an unscheduled trip to get to a place before the person left at 2:00. I was going to be tied up playing music at an assisted living home. We hurriedly dressed and drove to town to a place where food is stored for “meals on wheels.” We took a cooler and got frozen dinners for the weekend for our neighbors. Their son (and caregiver) is in Yakima Regional Hospital’s ICU recovering from a 7-way bypass. The parents are in their nineties. Another son has been cooking for them, but he will be gone for 4 days, starting tomorrow. I called a few folks and learned from Hospice Friends of this possible opportunity. They are too far out to have volunteers willing to drive them hot meals for lunches. Amazing that I was able to pull this off so rapidly. There was no way John or I could have been able to take over cooking for them. Much of our time over the weekend is already planned.

Friday, July 29

For July 28 CPAP. Reported figures. Time on 7 hrs 33 min with AHI=0.00. Events: =0 CSR, 0 H, 12 RERA. No major mask leaks (max= 6 L/min). Oximetry: Beautiful.. great all night.

May have to be at a neighbor’s at 9:30 to take her to eye doctor for minor surgery. I’ll take along my computer. Thankfully, I did not have to go. Her daughter-in-law drove her into town. I am glad I didn’t have to squeeze it in this morning with all that was happening and especially needing to get ready for my day away.

I have a Physical Therapy progress report at 2:30. Those are always painful to extend to the maximum range of motion hoping to see an increase in flexibility. One reach has not improved — straight out in front and raising arm on its own (without assistance of the other one or of a therapist). Other ranges of motion are slightly improving. Probably won’t be able to do anything with the first one. Perhaps there is a CT scan possible for diagnosing if something in the shoulder (a tear ?) is preventing progress, from mine and the therapist’s hard work exercising and manipulating. Still would have to find out if surgery were necessary, if I could have anesthesia and not a local only, as was the case with my oral surgery. I need to check on that with my family physician and perhaps my cardiologist as well.

John read an article about someone’s son visiting home and throwing out all the food that had dates prior to that day – including the frozen food. The father is a writer and was working on an article about the amount of food wasted and thrown out because people don’t understand the meaning of the dates on the packages. We had a few things that needed (really) tossed. In the process of looking we found a can of condensed milk purchased in November 2007 (“best by Sept. 2008”). I poured that out and cleaned the can to toss in the garbage. John thinks if that were simmered for a few minutes it would not kill you. A bit brown though. (Nancy here – it smelled rancid – no way I would ever use it). I went back to working on “T for Texas” for the music group.

Stopping to work on blog pix.

Our resident buck was back again this afternoon, and brought along the fawns into the front yard and up on the wooden deck, right at our front door. The buck was primarily interested in the grapevine leaves. The youngsters were interested in the sweet clover and grasses. See the first photo here: White Sweet Clover

I had left the front gate opened when I came home, because recently the buck jumped the 4′ fence to come inside.
6-CollageFawnsOnFrontPorchWithBuckEatingGrapeLeavesOn the left are fawns beneath Mt. Ash tree; and on the right behind buck, while he eats on the grape vine.
7-CollageBuckEating&FawnLeft is the buck eating grape leaves; right, one fawn and him sharing suckers from the Ash tree and/or weeds. We’ve seen him chase the little ones away if they seem about to munch the same piece he wants (moreso on cherry branches).

Saturday, July 30

For July 29 CPAP. Reported figures. Time on 6 hrs 27 min with AHI=0.62. Events: 2 CSR, 4 H, 13 RERA. No major mask leaks (max= 6 L/min). Oximetry: Fine.

I managed to reach my neighbor, Kenny, in the ICU in Yakima Regional. Years ago this would have been a long distance call – assuming the ICU would have had a phone. He had his cell phone and it got charged. Ken had a 7-way bypass (no complications so far) by the same surgeon, Dr. Sharma, as I had 6.5 years ago (wow! hard to believe it has been that long).

I got medications into my container for the week, and I called the pharmacy for two refills.

I packed up all the baby clothes to take to the baby shower party this afternoon/evening at Lundy’s, just south of us on the Naneum Fan. It’s for their son and the wife/soon-mother was a student in the last class of mine at central. The one I didn’t quite finish in 2009. Plan is to smoke meat and grill shish-ka-bobs with lots of other dishes – but I wasn’t asked to take anything. About 4:30, we left for the party – 3 miles down the road, stayed and visited and ate until returning home at 7:00 p.m. It was windy but the temperatures were tolerable. We carried our gifts, and I forgot to take a photo of them. I used a see-through plastic container and loaded it with baby clothes and a teddy bear. We had a car seat, too. I got most of it donated from the Buy Nothing East Ellensburg Kittitas Facebook site. I asked for the storage container back – maybe will do something like this again. Beats wrapping things. They requested no wrapping paper so people could see what was brought.

Sunday, July 31

John will be off to the east side of Mt. Rainier. Evonne will be the Crew Leader and John the assistant. Usually the National Park trail crew has a person work with the crew. They don’t sign up via WTA so John doesn’t know who that will be. For this east section there are 4 people and he has worked with 3 of them. WTA has 14 green-hat volunteers; several have been out previously, and that helps a lot.

Because I will not have any photos yet from today’s WTA day, here are some from last week with the same Crew Leader, at Surprise Lake, over past Stevens Pass.
8-3CollageSurpriseLake-7-23-16-aLots of brushing was needed. Eryn & John worked replacing a broken puncheon. Middle photo shows the two of them cleaning out some “armed to the teeth” Devil’s Club (Oplopanax horridus).

Devil’s Club

9-CollageSurpriseLake-7-23-16-bJohnLeft: ready to drive a spike with a small “double-jack.”
Right: Using a makeshift mallet on a chipping operation: making a large plank fit a smaller space; the space shown on the right-most photo up above.

Hope your week was fine.

Nancy and John
Still on the Naneum Fan