Monday, Feb 6
For Feb 5 CPAP. Reported figures. AHI= 2.02. Events: 2 CSR, 4 H, 15 RERA. Time on 6 hrs 57 min with (max = 19 L/min). Oximetry: SpO2 low 87, 2 events <88% with overall avg., 92.1%. Pulse avg. 55.5, low 51.
Last night late, I sent the photos to AAC from Friday. John sent me a note to Nick Zentner about the fossil bowl in Clarkia that I need to coordinate with Bill Rember, a geologist and friend from Idaho. He now lives near Fernwood, ID and Emerald Creek on a fossil site of his own. He gives educational tours.
We received at least 8″ of snow overnight, and John started shoveling before 8:00 a.m. on the paths front and back. He worked for 2 hours, came back in for breakfast, and went back outside. Our wonderful neighbor, Allen Aronica, arrived to clear our driveway. I am sure we would not have been able to get out (either of the trucks would), but the cars are lower. We were fortunate nothing was planned and calling us out. At a cousin’s, Allen got his tractor bogged in an off-road hole and had to bring a tracked backhoe to get himself out. He then did a few more driveways and packed for a trip to Arizona.
My car was parked out of the shed because of all the melted snow in my parking space. We did not want the ice to freeze on my tires, but that meant with all the snow overnight, John had a big cleaning job.
John early cleaning snow from my rig, about 9:00 a.m.
This below is my rig being moved back at 11:45, and Allen leaving with the second swipe of cleaning the driveway.
GOOD NEWS. I had a robot call from Super 1 pharmacy that my prescription was in. I called the pharmacy and asked if it was the Entresto and it was. So, I asked the co-pay cost – if it was the $40 Group Health was going to charge me. I asked if they had run my co-pay from Novartis and they said they did not have the card, but only the one for the free 30-day supply they had sent in. I had given them all numbers for both the free month and the continuing, over a month ago, but I guess it was not loaded in the system, so I called Boston for the proper numbers needed to obtain it.
The pharmacy assistant was going to call me back either way. She ran it and my co-pay is only $10/month for a very expensive drug. I am so happy I went through all the paperwork to apply, got help from my cardiologist’s office (who had to FAX 17 pages of medical information on me to qualify). It is almost a month since I was put on this new drug (Jan 12) and the paperwork trail started. What an awesome feeling. I am writing my cardiologist’s nurse, Colleen, right now to give her the good news and encourage others who might need the drug to go through the process to save the $400-500 / month cost. The only condition is that a person must have a supplemental “commercial” insurance provider (such as I do, with Group Health). Medicare is my primary, and that will not work, nor will it work for people on Medicaid. The pharmaceutical company making the drug is the one offering the co-pay reduction. Did I say – I am quite happy. The previous drug I was on was a generic and still cost me over $70 in cash through GoodRx. It was more than double the cost by going through my regular pharmacy with the formulary used for the co-pay (that was for Telemisartan/ Micardis). Doctors, nurses, and technology = good. System = nuts.
I worked more on our music and finished a draft copy of Johnny Cash’s “Forty Shades of Green” to send to Evie for review. It’s to add to the playlist of Irish songs for March and April.
John’s got a lot of snow moved but is looking for a snowblower sale at the end of this season. We at leftovers for lunch and put a chunk of beef in the Crockpot.
Medical news: Dr. Paul M. Schmitt has been our doctor since 1988. He’s been wanting to retire but the rural community clinic is not high priority for many doctors. Now a new doctor is coming and Paul hopes to stop seeing patients early in May. John will have one last visit on May 1.
The new guy:
Our new primary care physician, Dr. Norman Wood, D.O. That is a different form of a Medical Doctor, which appears on the web to be similar, but without specialization, rather being concerned with the whole body’s skeleton and relationships to organs, nerves, muscles, the whole picture merged with attitude and activities of the person (my translation). If you search on Doctor of Osteopathy, you can find a lot of information. Here is part of the introduction we received from the Clinic (now a unit of the local hospital).
Dr Wood has an interesting and varied background. He received a bachelor’s degree in criminal justice and worked in law enforcement for over ten years, including six years as a special agent for the U.S. Customs Service. He then returned to school to study Medicine at Virginia School of Osteopathic Medicine, he became the 15th member of his family to become a physician. His oldest son, Matthew, is the 16th.
We are confident that Dr Wood will be a wonderful addition to our team. He has practiced primary care medicine since 1995 and enjoys taking care of entire families. He owned four medical clinics in Maryland and West Virginia before moving to Washington in 2013. Since moving to Washington, he has worked with the Veteran’s Administration and in urgent care.
Outside of his medical career, Dr Wood is an avid bow hunter and enjoys fishing for trout.
In early 2017, Dr Wood will work closely with Dr Schmitt as Dr Schmitt transitions into retirement after 40 years of practicing medicine!
Tuesday, Feb 7
For Feb 6 CPAP. Reported figures. AHI= 1.74. Events: 1 CA, 14 H, 3 PP, 25 RERA. Time on 8 hrs 37 min with (max = 21 L/min). Oximetry: SpO2 low was 89, no events <88% with overall avg., 93.2%. Pulse avg. 53.8.x, low 47.
Jazzercise went well today, with 5 of us there.
I went to my 3:30 appointment for a Shingles shot at 507 Nanum St at the Kittitas County Public Health Dept.
Report on the Shingles Shot, $23 for administrative costs. I was seen by Tim Roth (who will be the speaker next Friday 2/17, at the Ellensburg Adult Activity Center (AAC) at the Health Forum). He has been my friend for a long time, through music at assisted living homes and later when he was a nurse at Royal Vista. It was neat that he was the nurse (the only one to do injections there) to administer my shot. I started with filling in the form asking for my name, location, phone numbers, primary care doctor, and I answered some questions about my medical records. I asked what the $23 administrative costs charge covered. The gals at the front check-in desk said it was for processing the papers with the state, and to cover the time of the medical nurse to interview and administer the shot. He spent 15 minutes with me going over the meaning of the shot, the cause of Shingles, the expectations of the shot, and went through questions of medications I should not be taking to have the shot. He asked my allergies or reactions to any injections, or meds, and a number of other questions about my medical history. He mentioned about its being a Herpes-related virus, about possible reactions to the shot, and what to expect and what not to do and what to do to exercise the arm after the shot. It is not given in the muscle and it is a live vaccine, so that is why the allergy questions are asked. One with a weakened immune system, say from chemo or radiation, should not have the injection. Or, not if a person has been on a prolonged use of steroids, or is allergic to gelatin, or to the antibiotic, Neomycin. The latter two are included in the injection.
Wednesday, Feb 8
For Feb 7 CPAP. Reported figures. AHI= 1.17. Events: 2 CSR, 9 H, 12 RERA. Time on 7 hrs 41 min with (max = 20 L/min). Oximetry: SpO2 low 86, 2 events <88% with overall avg., 92.5%. Pulse avg. 57.8, low 49.
I braved the snow and drove to pick up Gloria, and we went to the Food Bank for music and the SAIL exercise class.
I came home tonight, and decided not to go back for tonight’s Nick Zentner lecture. The weather forecast was for nasty stuff – but wrong in the real world. People were in the ditch on my way home. I traveled 20 mph and was stressed (normally, I am okay driving in snow). This all over town was scary, with ice beneath the snow pack and no visibility. I could not get my defrosters to keep up on the front or back windshields.
We are supposed to get a foot of snow (that changed to 2-3″) tonight, and it is coming down hard at 4:00 p.m. I hope I can get out of my driveway tomorrow.
Tonight before we ate dinner (just about 7:00 p.m.), got a call from our neighbor that she had high-centered her car on the deep snow trying to get into her garage. John worked on it for about an hour, but will wait until morning to see about it. She doesn’t have to be to school until 2:00 p.m. so we have a little bit of time.
Thursday, Feb 9
For Feb 8 CPAP. Reported figures. AHI= 1.27. Events: 8H, 17 RERA. Time on 6 hrs 19 min with (max = 19 L/min). Oximetry: SpO2 low 87, 2 events <88% with overall avg., 92.6%. Pulse avg. 55.0, low 50.
John and another neighbor got the next-door neighbor’s car out. Neighbor Ron brought an old tractor-like thing with a rear blade and got the snow out of the driveway. The car, a newer Honda, has nothing to hook on to for pulling – apparently Hondas are not supposed to be used in snow country. By turning the front tires to the side, they got in behind the tire and found a rod or brace made of steel. The rest of the car seemed to be plastic. As the car moved out of the ice holes (she had spun the tires, all 4, hard) John filled those with gravel. Problem solved.
I’m going to town for music at the Meadows Place. I made it there and cleaned the ice off my wipers. The trip in was still a little sketchy with no pavement showing until I reached the Kittitas Highway. All the roads had been shoveled but the view of the edge was not visible, so one had to slow way down when approaching coming traffic.
On my way out, my trip through the ditches across our driveway hit on the ice in the dead cat space and knocked out a chunk of ice. When I got to town, I kicked out the rest I could. On my return trip, I saw what had come out and veered some to the right, but too much, and did not come far enough forward to miss a pile of snow. Sadly, I stopped and added more work to John’s activities to clean up to allow the car to go forward into the parking shed. I am so sorry after all the shoveling he had done for the neighbor last night and this morning.
Friday, Feb 10
For Feb 9 CPAP. Reported figures. AHI= 0.93. Events: 2 CSR, 7 H, 17 RERA. Time on 7 hrs 31 min with (max = 19 L/min). Oximetry: SpO2 low 85 10 events <88% with overall avg., 91.1%. Pulse avg. 55.1, low 50.
I left this morning about 9:15 to drive to the Early Childhood Learning Center, on the CWU campus (in Brooklane Village) to meet two others (Evelyn and Bob, friends from the Food Bank group) to present for 15 minutes to the preschool class of her 5-year old granddaughter. There were 8 children there, a teacher and two assistants. Classes are limited to 15, throughout the day, and they have 50 total students. I got there ahead of the others and asked the receptionist a bunch of questions.
Once we were in the classroom, we each described our musical instruments. Evelyn plays a banjo, I the violin, and Bob had his traveling (smaller) guitar and his harmonica. We visited and met each of the kids and learned their first name. We sang two songs at the start. The first one, several of the kids knew and sang along with us, “You are My Sunshine.” The second one they didn’t know, but we played it, as Bob likes to play the harmonica for it. He starts off and we only play our instruments until the second time through, when we sing the words. Then we did the “Alphabet Song” with all the letters to the tune of “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star” and then we did the actual song (Twinkle, Twinkle). The kids knew that one. After that, Evelyn handed a bag of “shakers” to the teacher, who distributed them to the children. We wanted them to keep time to the music, and they did a good job.
The first song we did sang with them (and they did the gestures as well), was
If you’re happy and you know it
Clap your hands. Clap, Clap.
If you’re happy and you know it
Clap your hands. Clap, Clap.
If you’re happy and you know it
and you really want to show it
If you’re happy and you know it
Clap your hands. Clap, Clap.
Other verses include stomp your feet and shout Hooray! Finally, the last verse has all included. They had much fun with that one.
Finally, we sang, “Old McDonald Had a Farm” and had them keep time to the music again. They did well. We tried to have all the kids pick an animal, and managed to get a few different ones, Cow, Horse, Chicken, Kitty, Pig, Sheep, even a Fox for one little girl named Audrey. I asked her what sound a Fox made, and she sniffed – so that’s what we all did. We had 3 wanting Pig, but we only did it twice. Finally, we ended with Dog.
They all stood up to say thank you and goodbye, and we went on our way. We all had a good time.
Ocean’s dad was there and took a video, but had my old camera in his hand and snapped a few pictures. I forgot to set the focus for him, so they are not in good focus, but you can get the idea.
Evelyn and I listening to the children introducing themselves.
Bob, Evelyn, and I playing Oh! Susanna. I was wearing my Washington Old Time fiddlers hat.
It was sleeting when we came out, but the fog had cleared. When I left home the skies were blue, sun was shining, and everything was melting. I drove a little over 4 miles and ran into thick fog, so much that I had to turn on my headlights. I was in thick fog for the rest of my trip.
After we left the school, I needed gasoline and stopped. It was still sleeting. I remembered to use my Discover card, which is giving a 5% rebate on gasoline purchases for Jan-Mar. Our CITI Visa card gives 4% year-round. So my per gallon reduction was $.12/gal, making my cost $2.30/gal. We had only paid $2.29 I think the last time at Costco, where we get 4% off.
I left there for the feed store, where I got 50# of Critter 14 for the deer. They seem to be in need of food with all the ice and snow covering everything. We have given them two deer blocks they are also working on, when they are not checking the horse hay for seed heads.
From there I went to the Food Bank. Neither of the other two musicians could go, but I have friends from the horse club we were members of for 20 years, who always cook on Fridays there, so I went alone. I saw the director, Brooke, on my way in, and she was so appreciative I had come by. I set myself up and played for 20 minutes, until one of the regulars (Michael) came in for his meal, said to me, but it is not Wednesday, and I said I know, but I was in town with my fiddle, so I thought I would come by. He came over and stood behind me and sang with me the last song, “Your Cheating Heart.” We had fun. I put my violin away and went to be served. It was a great casserole with sausage, noodles, toasted breadcrumbs, all in a neat cream sauce, a serving of buttery corn niblets, a nice mixed green salad with red & yellow peppers, a sugarcoated cherry-filled piece of cake, and milk for a drink.
While there, I got a couple of donuts for us and some cake. Starbucks donates their day old stuff. The Food Bank encourages people to come in any time during the day for coffee and treats.
I came home to work on music for our group for the next two months. It has to be ready to go in 2 weeks.
Saturday, Feb 11
For Feb 10 CPAP. Reported figures. AHI= 3.17. Events: 5 CSR, 28 H, 1 OA, 17 RERA. Time on 9 hrs 9 min with (max = 19 L/min). Oximetry: SpO2 low 87, 1 event <88% with overall avg., 92.7%. Pulse avg. 54.4, low 50.
For music lovers:
From my friend and flute player, Amy Davison, in our music group, if you have access to Facebook, check this out. The Devil Went down to Georgia, a guy, a guitar, and a washing machine.
For dog lovers: one more video of from my friend and dog lover, Rich Kim, of a blind dog whose “seeing eyes” companion is another dog. This will cheer you up, if you have access to Facebook.
I worked more on meds and bills, and music. John started the trucks, let them warm and charge some, and worked more in the yard with snow and ice and icicle removal. This is the first year in about 5 that we’ve had big icicles. Like Goldilock’s porridge, the weather cannot be too hot nor too cold.
He had to feed the horses and cats before we left for the Grange for a Scholarship Fundraiser dinner. Every cent for the ticket entry ($15 each) and any extra donations once there, go to fund the student scholarships. One faithful long-time Grange member covers the cost of all the food. Three students received awards last year, and they sent greetings by video from their respective universities.
We were supposed to be at the Swauk Teanaway Grange, (on Ballard Road, Cle Elum) for the doors to open at 5:30. We got there at 5:15, and the parking lot was already filled, so we had to park on the Ballard Hill Road below. It was an uphill walking trip, but John was kind enough to go get the car and come up to pick me up at the end. I was extremely grateful. While I had on my boots, I did not want to risk falling on the ice.
The meal — a big effort by Jim & Patti Gylling — offered colored pasta, hot veggies (Carrots, Broccoli, and Cauliflower), ravioli, spaghetti sauce, sausage purchased at the local Owens Meats, a quality shop in Cle Elum, garlic bread with cheese, a salad with greens (spinach & beet greens, olives, tomatoes, carrots), and pie for dessert w/ whipped cream. The moon was full and bright on the drive home. We had good roads for much of the trip, except the last 5 miles or so off Hwy 97. John drove us up and back. It is about a 45-minute trip and a little over 25 miles one-way.
All people connected with education in any way were asked to fill out a pink index card with the years, location, and what they did (taught, assisted, drove bus). After dinner each was asked to stand to be honored for their service to education, and the descriptions on the pink cards were read by Claire Lucke, the leader of our Grange. I was the one with the longest record of teaching, 41 years: 22 at CWU, 15 at U of Idaho, 2 at U Iowa, 2 at Georgia State U. I left out my teaching at the Univ. of Cincinnati, where I taught computer programming. I also taught math and English in a downtown Atlanta Business School in my first year of college, where I was taking Gregg shorthand. The courses I mostly taught in 4 states were geography and GIS. John was recognized for his teaching as well in PA, ID, GA, and WA. He started teaching high school math and earth science in 1964/65.
Claire’s introduction (pink cards in her hand for later). Part of the crowd being served. John and I are at the far end of the middle table. After dinner, we watched a very nice presentation on the big screen, made by Jim Gylling – including videos of and by each of the three specifically to be shown at the fundraiser dinner. He and his wife, Patti, had put on the dinner and program again this year. Last year, their son was one of three recipients of a $1,000 scholarship. 
Travis reported about his studies in the Department of Aviation at the Univ. of North Dakota, even taking us up in a Cessna and a Piper (I think). Going through all his books and equipment was instructive. They reported via video from their respective universities – Holly at the Univ. of Idaho studying civil engineering (and enjoying mathematics classes, such as Differential Equations), and Kimberly at Creighton University, a private school in Omaha, NB, majoring in English and related topics (philosophy, ethics, ?). They all did a fantastic job of thanking the Grange members.
Here we are after dinner:
Many people had left and we were visiting and waiting for the parking lot to clear so John could retrieve the car and pick me up. We visited with Joy Rucker and her mom, Babs Ballard.
This was the scene at 5:15 p.m. when we arrived from the east on Ballard Hill. People were coming out of the parking lot to park on the road. We stopped uphill from the driveway. I got out and John parked the car close to the edge. Then we walked down the snow-covered road, up the driveway, and to the front door (right of the steeple, back ~ 3/4 of the building. There is a parking lot in front and behind the building, with a smaller one at the entrance (left above).
Below you can see the setting in good weather.
Note the car on the far right – that is about where we parked in the snow and walked.
Sunday, Feb 12
For Feb 11 CPAP. Reported figures. AHI=2.83. Events: 2 CSR, 1 CA, 1 OA, 16 H, 16 RERA. Time on 6 hrs 57 min with (max = 19 L/min). Ended 5:00 a.m., back without anything (Oximeter either) until 9:00. Oximetry: SpO2 low 88, 0 events <88% with overall avg., 92.7%. Pulse avg. 52.4, low 47.
John has done the morning feedings and is cooking brunch now.
Ham, fried potatoes, and a cheese/mushroom omelet. 
I need to fix the card to send to Dr. Sharma. I am going to put Charlie’s picture playing guitar in our group, mine with violin at Veteran’s Day by flag at AAC, and mine with Ted Leber and Santa Claus at the AAC, with a thank you for performing our open-heart surgeries and wish him well on his recovery (from open-heart surgery). I have been alternating with blog work and washing dishes. John’s been outside some today, feeding animals and moving (not much) snow.
The grape vine pruners are e-mailing back and forth about that, but the nasty weather is not giving up. John thinks it will be another week before he starts. Others may try to get a few hours in, but even that seems unlikely.
Hope your week was fine.
Nancy and John
Still on the Naneum Fan