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.”
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:
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.
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.
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:
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