Keeping track

… Still not 100% but heading there
… Fall has come
… the rain won’t stop
… fill in your own feels like

Monday, Oct 24

For Oct 23 CPAP. Reported figures. AHI= 0.68. Events: 3 CSR, 6H, 10 RERA. Time on 8 hrs 47 min with (max= 19 L/min). Oximetry: SpO2 one blip to low 86, only 10 below 88 with avg., 90.9% (lower than should be because Oximeter recorded a spurious low of 61 that doesn’t show on the graphs. Must have been when moving off the system. No clue.

Yesterday, we posted our weekly blog late afternoon.

Today, I’m staying home one more day before I hit the ground running.

I am still working on reviewing the thesis.

Got a call in for Brad & Burke to service our Trane Heat Pump. (they will schedule us in, in the next few days). Kelly will call today. She called about noon and we set up 10:00 a.m. next Wed. Now we have to clean a path to the air-handler in our den. It’s the first room after the entryway, and where we drop everything that gets carried in, or the resting place for things that need carried out.

John fixed a nice breakfast (sausage, hash browns, egg, and toast).
I spent too much time on too many projects the rest of the afternoon and until 11:30 tonight. We took time to have lunch leftovers from yesterday.

Tuesday, Oct 25

For Oct 24 CPAP. Reported figures. AHI= 1.27. Events: 1 CSR, 7 H, 4 RERA. Time on 5 hrs 31 min with (max= 16 L/min). Oximetry: SpO2 blip to low 82, with avg., 90.5%. Lowering on CPAP, but more so off CPAP.

Wow..it’s been 10 days since I left the house and drove to town.

We left today at 12:30 and didn’t get home until 4:00 p.m. Too long a day for not feeling well, even though I’m better than I have been. First stop was to a CWU acquaintance for 3 boxes of his red delicious apples. We had a longer visit than originally intended, but we enjoyed it. Barney’s solution to exercise cramps is a teaspoon of baking soda in a glass of cold water, as soon as the pain happens. John sometimes gets cramps after being in the car for 2 hours after being on a day-long work trip in the mountains. I’ll have to be ready when John drives in the driveway, and he’ll need to warn me from down the road he’s nearing. [John says: This, and other suggestions, has very little credibility from medical, chemical, or mental research and may unbalance one’s electrolytes. There are many such suggestions and sometimes the explanation for the effect varies. What’s yours?]

From there we went to the hospital just two blocks from his house for my blood draw. I had to wait longer than normal for them to locate the standing order in the paper filing system (for my INR to check my blood for planning the dosage)… ??? why the delay ??? It’s been there for the entire year, is renewed annually, and I have gone there now for six years. Personally, John and I think it should be in the medical records on their computer able to be brought up immediately. What a horrid way to do medical business, in a hospital, no less.

Trip included Bi-Mart for Fisherman’s Friend and Ricola cough drops, Anne’s for mail pickup plus taking sorted mail to her sofa, and watering plants. Someone else is doing the cat chores this year.

They did finally take my blood draw, and we left for the Adult Activity Center. It was just to deliver two boxes of apples: one of Galas and Honeycrisp and one of Red Delicious we’d just gotten. We’ll keep the rest for our use, likely for making applesauce (nice red colored). I did not stay for Jazzercise at the recommendation of my teacher. We did ask if they could use a large pumpkin with cutting and decoration materials packet, and they would love it. We returned to Anne’s house to take an offering off her front porch to donate to the AAC for their Halloween Party on Friday. It had been put on her porch by a local realtor, Coldwell Banker, as a Happy Halloween gift and request for considering using or recommending their realtor business help in the future. I should have photographed it. It was probably at least a 20# pumpkin. I first contacted the two lady donators (the Clerfs) and asked them to come retrieve it for someone else, but when they said they might not have time, I asked if I could donate it to the senior center.

We stopped at Hospice Friends to pick up pads for a friend (I get them every other month for 2 people) and a few Ensure drinks for me to mix with yogurt, when I’m not up to eating a meal. It’s a nice community offering and well worth my occasional monetary donations (not required). If anyone needs a medical equipment, they can borrow it or have it. For example, when I had a large-wheeled walker, I donated it back to them for them to loan out. They also provide transportation as far as Yakima for people in need of doctor visits.

We stopped by Safeway for my Telemisartan med, where I can pay cash, not use my insurance, and get it for 1/3 the cost it would be from my own pharmacy (after insurance). However, I was supposed to get 90, but for some reason they were only sent one bottle (30). They reordered and said I could get them tomorrow at 1:00. Wrong. They weren’t in until the weekend!

Have I mentioned my displeasure with the medical care system and costs? We just found out our monthly cost for Group Health (supplemental to Medicare) is going up in 2017 by $90/month.

We had a nice encounter at Grocery outlet on our way home, meeting an EMT teacher at CWU in the waiting line (J E Pierce). He and John visited and exchanged information about John’s wish for better medical training than one gets in the Red Cross First Aid class. We need to follow-up on that opportunity. Found out he knows and worked with our friend, Jeff Sandman, in the Fire Department on the west side.

On our way home, we stopped for a free donation of a bag of English-type walnuts from an acquaintance. John has dried them (a large cookie sheet full) and we will have some to add to our cooking with the ones we got from our own trees this year.

Came home to a report from the Coumadin Clinic Nurse in Cle Elum that my INR was exceptionally high, 4.6. That’s the highest I have had in 6 years. We went through all sorts of questions. I knew that alcohol would increase it, and I have not had a drop. We later found out that diarrhea increases an INR reading, and that has been associated with the bug that invaded my system. So anytime the reading is high or low there is an adjustment in dosage needed and then another test. If the INR is in the correct range, then the tests are less frequent and my arm/vein has time to heal.

Wednesday, Oct 26

For Oct 25 CPAP. Reported figures. AHI= 0.35. Events: 1 CSR, 2 H, 2 RERA. Time on 5 hrs 46 min with (max= 8 L/min). Oximetry: SpO2 only 2 blips below 88, but removing oximeter caused a spurious low of 62 that messed up the avg., 91.3%.

John roasted a pork tenderloin to take to a 5:00 p.m. Kittitas potluck/practice session of our music group. He also cooked a pan full of red delicious apples halved with brown sugar, butter, and cinnamon in the middle along with two pecan halves. Boy, they were scrumptious with the pork roast. Others brought food, and it was all good.

I finished the notes about the upcoming Thursday night meeting on the Manastash Trails and sent to Alan (WTA) and Bill (a WTA volunteer, here in EBRG). Alan and John went to the meeting, but Bill had a conflict. John and I have a conflict with the next meeting, planned for December 1.

We enjoyed the Wednesday night at Evie’s house in Kittitas. John and I took separate cars so I could stay for 2 hours for the music practice session. We made good progress on fixing timing problems, some notes, and I actually was able to change the key on one problematic song with tough chords for the guitars.

Amy brought a bunch of cut up Nanaimo Bars she made. Oh how rich and wonderful.

Nanaimo_bar

Nanaimo, a city on Vancouver Island in British Columbia, claims this treat originated in Nanaimo. Where else? However, the cocoa, almonds, and coconut in the list of ingredients could lead one to think the residents are too full of themselves.
I only had one small piece but I could/should have eaten more. I halved one of John’s already halved apples to share with John, had a slight bit of Crockpot ham & beans, slaw, passed on the melon, had some rice and chicken casserole, and a fantastic Artichoke dip with long chips.

Tonight, we learned of a cougar sighting on Thomas Rd ½-mile from us (closer through the woods). It was posted on Facebook, and someone who knows where I live tagged me. I called or notified as many as I knew, including Frank Bacon (whose family, parents, and brother Andy live by the Leather/saddle Shop). They had not been notified.

This was the message: “Angela saw a cougar on Thomas Rd near Don’s Leather this evening. Share if you know people in the area.” The person writing (her husband) and she live at the west end of the road, which is near Wilson Cr. road. At the luncheon I attended this Friday, someone told me about another sighting on Wilson Cr. Road. All know, or should know, that the Cougars are in this area. Reported sightings are not common. They see more of us than we of them.

Thursday, Oct 27

For Oct 26 CPAP. Reported figures. AHI= 0.43. Events: 1 CSR, 2 H, 1 PP, 1 RERA. Time on 4 hrs 38 min with (max= 9 L/min). Continued resting for 4 more hours without recorders. Oximetry for: SpO2 to low 87, 5 times, avg., 91.9%.

Today, I ran off copies of the new key for “In My Merry Oldsmobile” music and took with me to the five people who were able to be there today. We had a nice time with the folks there. I’m sorry I didn’t have my camera. Our little mascot, 3.5 yr old Haley, was there all dressed up as an evil witch, but she handed out candy from a black bucket. They love her. Amy was kind enough to send me a photo of her in her costume near their house. I cropped it to share here.
Haley with her pot of goodies. Looks like a sweet witch, not an evil queen.

Friday, Oct 28

For Oct 27 CPAP. Reported figures. AHI= 0.00. Events: 2 RERA. Time on 2 hrs 32 min with (max= 10 L/min). Oximetry: SpO2 blip to low 83 (spurious at end), several below 88 even on CPAP with avg., 90.2%.

I went first for an INR, following up on the very high one recorded on Tuesday. Today it was back down, to 2.1, but I have to return next Thursday for a retest. Then I was off for a scholarship luncheon – chili, cornbread, salad, and apple pie. From there I went in my pumpkin garb to an Oktoberfest Spooktacular party at the AAC. I missed the lunch there, but heard mine at school was better. I got there late for games, but I managed to win enough play $$s to be able to bid for gifts donated by the community businesses. I succeeded in getting a couple of things we really don’t need.

Here are some photos from the afternoon.
I guess I should have held the sign on my other side, and higher!
Left, my first win of the day, camouflage gloves in a Knudson Lumber coffee mug. Right, the last win of the day at 2:00 p.m., a matching coffee mug with candy. I’m sitting in front of Frank, who back in 2010 had a stroke, and we were together in physical therapy at the local Rehabilitation Center (acute care home).

Saturday, October 29

For Oct 28 CPAP. Reported figures. AHI= 2.17. Events: 9 H, 5 RERA. Time on 4 hrs 9 min with (max=13 L/min). I was miserable and the machine was causing me to cough. I removed it and slept for 4 more hrs. Oximetry: SpO2 spurious blip to 62 throwing off avgs., with overall avg., 92.1%, and overall looks good with only 2 below 88, low of 87.

I went to Ada Perry’s 90th birthday celebration at Briarwood, taking Gloria Swanson along with me. We also ran errands.
Both out of focus because people don’t push the button half way down to focus before taking, and I did not have the flash turned on, which really helps in low light. Left photo: Ada, Nancy, and Gloria (Gloria will be 91 on Veterans’ Day). Right: Michael Buchanan, Ada’s son, who was my student in two classes in 1993. He invited me to the party, and is always complimentary about my being the best teacher he had. He went on to be a successful urban planner and now is a software developer / engineer. Gloria and I knew Ada from our SAIL exercise class at the AAC. He and Norma came over to Briarwood to visit a year or so ago on a 3rd Saturday of the month, when our music group goes there to entertain. Imagine my surprise, when I saw him in the audience. I said something such as, “I know you!” I never knew until then that Ada was his mom. Small world.

Michael’s wife, Norma, made a huge frosted carrot cake (the yummiest I have ever had), and brought it over from Moses Lake to the Open House at Briarwood (went from 1:00 to 4:00), with all the large family coming in for the celebration from as far away as Texas.
Here is the cake & raspberry punchbowl. On the right is Norma. I guess I should have used a flash, because I took these photos and cannot blame anyone else for their being out of focus.

Finally, while there, I sat and visited with Katie Patterson, one of the Briarwood residents, who always is at our music Saturday there. She was admiring my shirt, and went out to her car and brought me back a ceramic pumpkin for my neck and gave it to me. It was meant to be part of a wind chime. She teaches ceramics at Briarwood. Here is a collage of the gift. I will enjoy it next year when I get all dolled up for my Halloween gigs.
On the bar stool seat, left, it lacks scale. On a standard sized paper napkin, right, its size is better shown.

Sunday, Oct 30

For Oct 29 CPAP. Reported figures. AHI= 0.16. Events: 1 H, 11 RERA. Time on 6 hrs 12 min with (max= 20 L/min). Oximetry: SpO2 spurious report low 54, but I don’t see it on the graph produced. Low avg. < 88% is 86.5%, but I see only 2 blips to 85, with avg., 91.3%. I have no clue about the report. I took off both machines at 6:00 a.m. and slept another couple hours.

John has been winterizing and trying to complete a few lingering projects, but came in for a snack for lunch. It was probably not the most nutritious, but it hit the spot. We each had two oatmeal/chocolate chip granola bars. We both agreed we like Snickers bars better. One cat got fed early, and Sue just appeared for a late breakfast. We haven’t seen Woody yet. Now we’ve had Woody come back and Sue is here too at 4:20 p.m.

I have continued with dishes and working on the blog, and will switch to reviewing the last chapter of the thesis soon; well, I may file first and thereby clean up a mess or two before the heat pump repairman on Wednesday.

Today, after 2 weeks of cold symptoms not including a runny nose, it started today, early morning and has bothered me all day, with sneezing.

Finally, some 2016 Halloween Humor for tomorrow’s special day.

Left comes to me from my cousin who lives on Sullivan’s Island, SC of a lawn display there this year. Right comes from our friend, Tanya Myers, on the other side of our valley, of Zombie Fingers she made for son Michael to eat. Recipe is from the food.com network, but she added red coloring to the almond fingernails and fingers. She says they are quite tasty.

Supper was good: chicken, coconut shrimp, and baked apples. Last night we had butternut squash as a side.

Hope your week was fine.

Nancy and John
Still on the Naneum Fan

Monday, Oct 17

For Oct 16 CPAP. Reported figures. AHI= 0.86. Events: 0 CSR, 7 H, 16 PP, 2 RERA. Time on 8 hrs 3 min with (max= 12 L/min). Oximetry: SpO2 several blips to low 84, with avg. 90.1%.

Yesterday, we posted our weekly blog.

Today, I am staying home to try getting well.
I canceled going to the Rehab tomorrow night for music.

Today John was outside digging holes, moving rocks, hay, and short sections of recently cut Poplars. Frequent job changes help to not overuse a single muscle group – or he has a short attention span. He came in for lunch and to respond to a few emails.

I spent the day resting, but also scanning a copy of an exercise book so I can return it tomorrow. I also washed dishes and worked on bills, email, and scheduling.

We received a medication compound preparation via FedEx from Trinity, TX early morning. Late afternoon in the mail, our new horse water tank heater and stainless steel cleaning pads arrived via USPS. The box was too large for the mailbox, so the carrier drove it in. Glad we were home and John was outside.

I worked on reviewing the thesis.

I’m sorry to report I’m not feeling well tonight.

But, there was a beautiful sunset to cheer me up, visible out our back patio door.
When the leaves are all gone and the sky is clear the top of Mt Rainier can be seen in the low-center of that view. Mornings work best because the Sun is to the East and shining on the snow covered top.

Tuesday, Oct 18

For Oct 17 CPAP. Reported figures. AHI= 0.17. Events: 0 CSR, 1 H, 1 PP, 1 RERA. Time on 6 hrs 1 min with (max= 8 L/min). Oximetry: SpO2 one blip to low 86, with avg. 90.2%

Staying home today to recuperate. I was certainly not wishing to go to Jazzercise, and the other person likely to be there was also sickly feeling. Katrina was happy to have us keep our germs away from sharing. A couple of people there at the Senior Center on Tuesdays have comprised immune systems, so it is a good idea to stay away. I have been busy with all sorts of things inside.

I received an email from my friend Elise in NJ and followed it to a big surprise about two characters we knew in our past from Troy, Idaho. We left that house in 1989.

I know bones in the Smithsonian

This morning, I commented on line to the article. Here is the content of my message:

My husband and I knew Grover and his Irish Wolfhound well. We lived in Troy, ID from 1974-1989 and ran a Dog Boarding Kennel out of our house. I can assure you Clyde preceded him in death, and being the research Anthropologist he was, Grover would have been able to preserve the remains of Clyde’s bones properly. In fact, he had the bones of all three of his dogs, Clyde, Icky, and Yahoo. Icky was the one we got to know best at our home. I don’t think we boarded Clyde before he died, but Icky’s name we remember for sure.

I think this Smithsonian presentation is awesome and while I understand space is a problem in museums, I hope they will put it on display again in the future, perhaps with the bones of a Sasquatch (Bigfoot). We also followed his research with interest.

Look him up at
Link wiki Grover Krantz
I suspect they will put the human bones and the dog’s in storage, after all the work of merging them into one. The only other possibility would be they will be returned to WSU for Forensic studies and education.

Thanks to the commenter, Angela, who provided the link to the story in the Washington post, 2009, when Grover’s wife went back for a visit, and they told more of the entire rebuilding story.
To my post on the life-with-dogs site, I added my last comment because of another’s comment on line wondering what they did with the human remains after no longer displaying at the Smithsonian.

Link to that:
WoPo article
Be sure to follow the NEXT on the photo in the Washington Post article to see other photographs.

I managed to get an announcement out to our music group for receiving a count of how many are attending, so I can call in for the number of armless chairs. We are limited to 12. A few people can play in a chair with arms.

I also washed a load of clothes. Dishes are a more common occurrence. Gosh, we dirty a lot, and add to those daily 2 large saucer dishes x 4 for the cats.

John broke from outside chores and came in with the mail (which was useless), and fixed a casserole for dinner (chicken, peas, cashews, celery soup, with crispy dried onions on top). The chicken is a neat ingredient we buy at Costco, cut off the bone, of their roasted whole chickens they roast and sell there. I don’t know what they do with the dark meat, as all we ever see is packed white meat. John says they package thighs and legs separately. This is deboned, so makes it a bit pricy but convenient because we don’t have to deal with any other part of the carcass. We gather stuff over weeks/months and then run all the garbage to the transfer-station (aka dump).

I also am not in good enough shape to go to tomorrow’s activities, so I canceled those as well, and canceled picking my 90 year-old friend (almost 91) whom I usually take with me on Wednesdays to the Food Bank (music – she sings with us – and they feed us). From there, we go on to SAIL exercise and run other errands before I take her home.

Wednesday, Oct 19

For Oct 18 CPAP. Reported figures. AHI= 0.00. Events: 0 H, 0 RERA. Time on 4 hrs 24 min with (max= 11 L/min). Oximetry: SpO2 blips to low 86 with avg. 90.0%. Definitely shows the impact of having a CPAP machine on to keep the SpO2 higher through the night, although it still went to 87 even on the CPAP.

Stayed home to recuperate and am canceling going tomorrow too.

I wrote an email to our neighbor Allen. Called him this afternoon, to tell him we had apples and no Internet, so if he contacted me I wouldn’t see it. He was in town and hadn’t seen the email, so he dropped by on his way home. John had dropped a box of smallish ones off at the senior center, with any ones with “issues” taken out. Our Grocery Outlet store uses an out of the way space to place wine boxes. We always get one or two at each visit, especially if we get anything frozen. They hold about 20 pounds of apples.

Called Sandy Morris (new Activities Director at the newly named Pacifica Senior Living at Ellensburg, and talked to Laura who left her my phone number and she will give it to her again to have her call me today. It worked this time.

I was working on things this morning, and both of us were standing away from our computers, when we had a 3 second power outage and then the back-on power surge. Sadly, it zapped our modem. John could not get it working. So: We called tech support. Then John had to start our old WinXP system. That’s always a pain because it is only on 2 or 3 times a year now and services that can, want to update, and those that are no longer supported send warnings. So after a bit of fuss, the computer could deal with the DSL line via an Ethernet Cable. We spent an hour on the phone with a guy in South Carolina, only to find out we could not reset the password connection on the modem, and someone would have to come to our house to troubleshoot it. They put a high priority ranking, but the maintenance person did not call until 4:07. John had gone out to the barn, but I got his attention because the person asked if we could bring the unit to town. So, off he went with only the modem and the power cord. I surely hope that is the problem and they will just replace it, nicely at no cost, but I think they are now charging for modem replacements.

He had gone an hour ago for 3 stops for me because I couldn’t go today or tomorrow. At one stop, he dropped off music at a guitarist’s house who shares with another guitarist in our group, and also left him a box of apples. I usually carry it along with me for them, but I’m not playing tomorrow. Also, John took him and his wife a box of Honeycrisp and Gala apples. On to Bi-Mart to get me some Ricola cough drops. Always reminds John and me of the old singing commercial in the Alps.

Link

That link points to the 2011-2013 version, but we don’t remember the dancing with the stars version as this is, but see at the very end the footage of the fellow in the Alps. Looks as if we are in Leavenworth, WA.

John left there for the Adult Activity Center to return the exercise book I borrowed to scan and to leave another box of apples for the center folks. They love the apples.

It’s a good thing the maintenance person did not call during the 50 minutes he was in town. He did call (as mentioned above), and John drove the modem in, and the fellow (Jake) was able to fix it.

We were thrilled to have our Internet back after being off (about Noon until 6). Maybe the power surge was what we needed to prompt fixing it. I wonder if that modem has been the cause all along of our spotty Internet connection availability. In a month or two of good connection, we’ll celebrate.

Thursday, Oct 20

For Oct 19 CPAP. Reported figures. AHI= 0.55. Events: 1 CSR, 5 H, 4 RERA. Time on 9 hrs 3 min with (max= x L/min). Oximetry: SpO2 blip to low 86, ~12 at 88 or below, with avg. 90.9%.

I stayed home today to recuperate, and missed the music gig. I was told seven members of the group provided music to an appreciative crowd.

We received an email early from John’s sister in Ohio. At 11:15 last night, she had gone with a friend (Chris) to the airport to welcome the Cleveland Indians back from Toronto, where her team won the American League Championship Series (ALCS). Growing up, she and John rooted for the Pirates when, in 1960, the team won one of the most storied World Series ever.

Roster: 1960 Pittsburgh Pirates

John remembers many of those names and can’t name a current player on any team.

Peggy sent us detailed instructions of how to get to the photos to see her and a photo of Ryan Merritt.

“The plane landed at midnight. Not a big crowd. But fun. Crowd cheered plane when it landed near the International Exposition (I-X) Center, adjacent to Cleveland Hopkins International Airport. Then it drove right into a big hanger and all the players came out, got in their cars, and drove off.

They really went so fast and it was dark so was hard to identify them, but we did recognize several.
Someone called for the players to come over so we could take their pictures. Finally, the rookie pitcher who started the game, Ryan Merritt, came over and everyone was taking pictures and selfies with him. I couldn’t get too close and the TV camera light was shining at me so my pictures were not very good. I was behind the man in glasses and suit at left top (of the second picture) so didn’t get a good picture.

If you can go to Fox8.com and see the pictures of the players coming off the plane, there are a few others. In the one of the crowd, I am right in front of the pole with blue jeans and a yellow blouse. My neighbor Chris is beside me wearing an Indians’ t-shirt.”
————————
Nancy back:
I tried but could not find them until Peggy sent us (at my request), explicit directions, which John used to find and download the two best. Peggy also sent the one with her and Chris in it by the telephone pole (left below).
Left-Peggy Hultquist, in yellow blouse and jeans by the light pole, and on the right photo, she is standing behind the guy in a suit on the left – close to the action. She couldn’t get a good picture, but this shows Ryan Merritt well.

Friday, Oct 21

For Oct 20 CPAP. Reported figures. AHI= 0.19. Events: 1 H, 0 RERA. Time on 5 hrs 8 min with (max= 15 L/min). Oximetry: SpO2 one blip to low 80 (off CPAP), with avg. 90.3%.

I talked with my doctor’s nurse and decided to wait until next Tuesday to get my INR, and we discussed my progress on getting better. It’s looking good.

John has been looking for some time for his “lost” cell phone. This morning he found it under the driver’s seat of my car. Last time he drove that was when we found his car battery dead and had to take mine for him to let me off for music. He previously had looked in my car, but under the passenger’s seat, where he normally sits. What a relief. He found it in time to have it with him on the road to a WTA work party near North Bend, WA tomorrow. Now he has just tied a hunter’s orange-colored tape to the side of the container. Maybe he will be able to keep better track of it.

Well, I went to take my pills, and realized I need to refill for the whole week my little weekly box, starting today. That took awhile and I had to call in refills for two major costly ones.

I worked mostly today proofing Chapter III of the Master’s thesis I’m reviewing. I did one chapter, but sadly, it was only 30 pages, but lots of detailed reading, and critiquing. Unfortunately, too late to take a nap I started feeling worse, with eye and aches, and even my upper teeth left side (above the surgery place) were hurting. John says it’s probably ’cause I’m getting better. That’s after a recent morning comment, “I wonder if you have pneumonia.” Well, I guess I didn’t have a clue, but no fever is a good thing, and not gasping for breath. Tonight it is too early to go to bed, so I’ll keep at it. BP is ok. Took my last pill of 14 today. I’m sure you all do not need a play by play of my sickness, but part of this blog is to answer the questions I’m asked in the future by my doctors. I have an annual physical coming up, and I have been in contact over this recent “cold symptoms” route with my family physician’s nurse, who also is one of the leaders of the Coumadin advice team for INR (regarding dosage and frequency required).

I was ready to go to bed quite early for me, but I stayed up and actually got a little better. I convinced myself I did not have the signs and symptoms of pneumonia that the Mayo Clinic reports may include the following:

Chest pain when you breathe or cough
Confusion or changes in mental awareness (in adults age 65 and older)
Cough, which may produce phlegm
Fatigue
Fever, sweating and shaking chills
Lower than normal body temperature (in adults older than age 65 and people with weak immune systems)
Nausea, vomiting or diarrhea
Shortness of breath

I had the cough that started my episode, but the production of phlegm was from the Musinex DM tablets I started 10/14 every 12 hours.

Saturday, October 22

For Oct 20 CPAP. Reported figures. AHI= 0.90. Events: 4 H, 1 RERA. Time on 4 hrs 26 min with (max= 10 L/min). Oximetry: SpO2 one blip to low 79 (off CPAP), several below 88 (85s on CPAP), with avg. 89.9%. The oximeter I kept on after awaking in the middle of the night, so it recorded the lower sessions of SpO2 during two 20-minute segments.

John pulled out of here at 6:00 a.m. with temperature 37° to be at the trailhead by 8:00 a.m. They are supposed to have a break in the weather and have a nice workday. I surely hope so. It is a crosscut saw training day – all are sawyers with various amounts of experience, training, and certifications. Except John hasn’t been able to get to a “certification” day and his is expired. On I-90, he passed by an accident (lots of flashing lights) but could not see what was going on – still dark and dozens of red, blue, and white lights.

I stayed in bed and slept until 9:30 a.m.! I am sure I needed it.

Worked on thesis critiquing, feeding cats, and cleaning the kitchen. Thankfully, I’m feeling better than last night.

For lunch, I felt like making a tuna fish salad with cheddar and hard-boiled eggs. Now, that should give me energy to work on the blog before John returns home from the Pratt River Trail work. Also, will continue with other chores, wishing the two female cats would appear for a late lunch.

Here’s a follow-up to the Lori Rome’s contribution last week. After looking at this link below, I commented on her send:
NICE – thanks, Lori Rome, again very much for sharing. I just followed this link, and it makes me want to see what they did for the Mississippi River also applied to all the rivers that empty into the Columbia. I like the flow orientation maps as well. I’ll add this link to my blog this week as a follow-up to the story on you last week.

Flow to this Link

Finally, near the end of my day, is one of our resident deer enjoying apples with bad spots. Later the two little ones (twin fawns) appeared, too late for a photo. Mama has a dark patch on the left side of her face. That’s her in the picture below.
John made it at dusk, in time to feed the horses with available light.

Supposedly, he has some good photos forthcoming from a person on the trip, so we await morning in hope they will make it to us. It is a video of how cutting an uprooted tree can allow it to return to standing, on the base of the old root ball. You WILL get to see that below, along with comments of John’s day on the trail.

Let’s start with Joe Hofbeck’s note to the crew that came this morning (actually at 12:45 a.m.). Joe was the blue hat (crew leader) today:
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
“So… is single bucking the way that God intended logs to be bucked? I suppose we still don’t have a consensus on that one. But ya gotta admit, single bucking sure gives you feed back on your sawing technique.

It was a great day and I think everybody learned something. I was reflecting on the huge root wad that JB’s crew cut. A few years ago, we would have never attempted something like that. Surprising how far training and practice has raised our skill levels.

So now, you my acolytes can go forward and stamp out butt sitting / arm sawing.

Thanks for being out there and being safe. Joe”
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Go here for pics and JB Robinson’s video of the grand root wad tip up:

Joe’s Dropbox page

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If you go to the link above, you will find many trips Joe Hofbeck has been to in recent years. (I don’t know the timing, but today’s trip is listed under PrattC.) You can get to JB’s video below, or via Joe. The second photo is from the past, not taken today. The next to the last is a beautiful shot of the Middle Fork Snoqualmie River on their hike out on the Pratt River Connector trail. This is about 30 miles east of Seattle.

Please follow the link to the video (or check below for an update to one under my control). You will not be disappointed. It is very much worth a watch for 43 seconds of educational entertainment few people get to experience.

Since I wrote this, JB Robinson sent me the video with permission to publish it here, and there is a link below you don’t have to go through all the dropbox things…but that is the public version (above in dropbox) to see many wonderful photos of work in the woods:

Saw Sings -Hemlock Stands up

Now I can share the photo before and after of the videoed tree:
Steve, the cross-cut sawyer, before left, & after the fall returns the stump up to standing with the root ball below.

I’m going to let John react to a few photos below, starting with the first clearing shot of the day and ending with a photo of the entire crew.
Two trees and 2 teams of 3 each. At the start, the crews had to clear brush to get access to the trees and to make the work site safe. They remove limbs so afterward the cut pieces can be rolled, and there won’t be anything to snag an arm or leg. Two other teams are not seen here.

Next is just a cool picture I wanted to include:
John is on the tree, Rick beside him and their leader is Claire, 2nd from right. The other three are the crew in the background of the first photo. When the sawing is done, the handle(s) are removed and a protective guard is put over the sharp parts.

Finally, a parting shot of the entire crosscut sawyer team (+1) who worked the trail today:
On the left with the red shirt is the +1, next to Claire. That is Bud Silliman, our saw sharpener and handles guy. The weather was nice so he came out to see if the teams were handling the saws with proper respect. If he doesn’t do his sharpening well, the sawyers struggle, and the saws don’t sing.

Sunday, Oct 23

For Oct 22 CPAP. Reported figures. AHI= 0.13. Events: 1 H, 1 PP, 2 RERA. Time on 7 hrs 46 min with (max= 13 L/min). Oximetry: SpO2 one blip to low 84, a few below 88 with avg. 90.5 %, all night on CPAP.

This morning marks the arrival of the photos of John’s trip yesterday to complete this week’s blog.

Neat for lunch John made a tuna melt sandwich for each of us with the remainder of the salad I made yesterday.

Hope your week was fine.

Nancy and John
Still on the Naneum Fan

Monday, Oct 10

For Oct 9 CPAP. Reported figures. AHI= 1.28. Events: 1 CSR, 1 CA, 8 H, 16 RERA. Time on 7 hrs 2 min with (max= 22L/min). Oximetry: SpO2 one blip to low 84, probably moving from finger, with avg. 91.7%.

We got ready go for toenails trimming, arriving at 10:45, but we were not seen until 11:00 a.m. We checked by Safeway for drinks and the dark meat chicken Monday special, and on to deliver something to a friend in Rosewood.

I sent a message about the count for Meadows Thursday, and have heard back from 7 people, fewer than needed. I have to arrange in advance how many armless chairs they will put out for us.

I wrote some needed emails, but I need to read more on a master’s thesis (my last one to serve on the committee) – been retired for 6 years! This defense is Nov 14. My annual physical is the next day; hope this defense does not raise my blood pressure.

Home for lunch and a few things, and back over through Kittitas to pick apples – apples and a nice pizza dinner with Tanya, Andrew, Jessica, Michael, and a friend.
This was early on with John picking and then I joined in awhile.

Here you see Honeycrisp very close to the ground and with white powder on them to protect against sunburn, which makes a dark orange skin injury. I should have taken a photo of that phenomenon.

These were taken on my walk back to the house with Michael, age 5. The western clouds were rather foreboding, but John and the others picking from part of the orchard I had been, moved to where the Galas were, and picked a few boxes of them (probably John will use for making nice red applesauce). They did not get rained on. We had been scheduled to pick yesterday, but the rains came instead and kept us away.

After taking pictures and changing to picking lower apples, my shoulder and back started bothering me, so I went back to the house to play checkers with 5-year old, Michael. I have not played checkers in over 58 years, I suspect, but it all came back. I had fun trying to advise him how to look ahead and anticipate what a move might cause to happen in subsequent moves. I would not let him make a move that would result in a “jump,” if a safe move still existed on the board. I would explain what his proposed move would set up, but I would not tell him where to move. He had to find that. If he said, can you jump me if I move here, I would say, no. Or yes, possibly later, if that was the case, and see if he could tell me why.

On our way to pick apples, we had stopped in Kittitas to pick up ASL stuff for a friend who lives 2 miles from me, and while there, we got some tomatoes for us.

By the time we returned, it was dark, and we found two cats waiting to be fed. Two were missing; however, now both Rascal and Sue returned, so all are fed and accounted for.

Tuesday, Oct 11

For Oct 10 CPAP. Reported figures. AHI: 0.53 Events: 4 H, 24 RERA. Time on 7 hrs 34 min with (max= 9 L/min). Oximetry: SpO2 one blip to low 86 with avg. 91.9%.

We left at 9:00 to go to the Retired Geographers’ meeting at Hearthstone. We left at 10:30 to get back for our 11:00 meeting with Rose Shriner from the Kittitas County Conservation District (KCCD) about fire-wise issues. While at the meeting, we discussed having Rose (a former CWU Geography student), come speak to the group at our December 13th meeting. I could invite her then, with their permission.

When Rose arrived at our house for our fire-wise discussion, she brought along a colleague, Lance, and the two of them walked around the parts of our property to assess the thinning and brushing John has been up to for several years. They have to assess if we are eligible for a chipping crew to come into our property to chip the huge piles of brush that have accumulated. We qualify, but it won’t likely happen until next year.
We began on a walk through the woods behind our house (northwest side of our property). The prior owner had a big “pond” bulldozed behind the house and next to the creek. When the water is high in the creek, the pond has water; otherwise it is dry and we call it Jay’s folly. It grows a lot of brush and trees (fuel) close to the house. We talked about that.
These are behind our house. She discussed the spacing desired between the trees. John has been working on that, because we have attended a fire-wise workshop, have the literature, and know the recommendations.
Rose talking with me and John about the rules of the clearing for fire-wise protection around our house and creek, and the possible need to ask for an amendment to the floodplain map. This is called submitting a Letter of Map Amendment (LOMA).
The left shows a dead tree next to the creek but not close enough to hit the house if it falls, and the right photo shows Tamaracks too close to our house that need to be removed. We planted them for shade and because we like them. Behind them but a little farther away from the house are Carpathian walnut trees (see below). We planted many trees (spruce, pines [Austrian and Pondersosa]) lining our driveway that we obtained from the tree and plant sale at the KCCD, where John once volunteered. John, via KCCD, also obtained the Carpathian walnut trees that are not native to here, and so not part of the plant sale. The nursery, in Plains, Montana, does not usually sell to retail customers.

Lawyer Nursery

Our Carpathian Walnut trees. On their tour Rose and Lance were happy to see all the results of the Roy Bach Plant sale through the years; now suspended, maybe temporarily.
As we walked around, our Brittany, Annie, was with us, and she went over, picked up a fully in-husk walnut, and proceeded to crack and eat the nut.
These brush piles are on the NE part of our property. The left photo one shows our neighbors’ barns in the background, so this is near the end of our driveway. The right photo shows our driveway in the foreground and 3 brush piles behind; in addition, the entrance to our pasture and the back of our house, shows a new access drive we put in for firefighting reasons to give ingress and exit for a Mini-Pumper or Quick Attack Units.

See Quick Attack and others

The original driveway does not have enough room to turn around. In case of a fire, properties/houses are flagged (not to be protected) if safety of the fire crew is questionable. We need a couple of truck loads of rock/gravel to make the roads look like roads – but the space is there. Next year we hope to finish a complete loop around the buildings.

After our visit, I was due in town for exercise, and I stopped by Bi-Mart to check our number; won nothing.

I carried a wine box of Galas and Honeycrisp to the AAC for Jazzercise and for others there using the senior center. Returned a printed copy of something I already had for SAIL, and borrowed a booklet with a discussion of the specific exercises from them that I do not have access to, never taking the instruction class for teaching SAIL (Stay Active and Independent for Life). I will copy it to share with my physical therapist. Two of us went through the Jazzercise class today at 2:00. Then I left for Goodwill (10% off for Seniors on Tuesdays). I found a nice pair of rubber-soled bedroom shoes to use to replace the ones I wore a hole in. They are a little tight so I willl have to wear smaller socks. They are lined, but I don’t think I want to use them barefooted.

Checked by the Food Bank bread room – good sweets found that we had for dessert. Tuesday is a good day, because it is open all day, and when I’m there to play music on Wednesday, it is already closed. We have been encouraged to take up to 5 items because once delivered there, it has already reached the sale by date, and if it molds, they have to trash it. Now that cooler weather is back, it is better and lasts longer.

Wednesday, Oct 12

For Oct 11 CPAP. Reported figures. AHI=0.00 Events: 1 CSR, 0 H, 14 RERA. Time on 6 hrs 31 min with (max= 10 L/min). Oximetry: SpO2 one blip to low 86, with avg. 91.1%.

I picked up Gloria for our trip to the Food Bank and to SAIL class, and while there picked up food for my neighbor.

Once home, I worked on critiquing a master’s thesis.

I washed dishes and went to bed. I have an irritating cough.

Thursday, Oct 13

For Oct 12 CPAP. Reported figures. AHI= 0.16 Events: 1 H, 12 RERA. Time on 6 hrs 8 min with (max= 13 L/min). Oximetry: SpO2 one blip to low 87, spurious to 80, with avg. 92.1%.

Play at 2:00 p.m. at Meadows Place.

I had to spend time AGAIN (third time is a charm), straightening out the delivery of the WSJ. I cannot believe they have screwed it up so royally.

John drove me to the Thursday music, carried some apples for two guys living alone, went to Bi-Mart and the grocery store, and came back to pick me up. We had 12 members there today, including our 3-year old dancer. Good appreciative audience.

Friday, Oct 14

For Oct 13 CPAP. Reported figures. AHI= 0.15. Events: 1 H, 1 PP, 6 RERA. Time on 6 hrs 44 min with (max= 14 L/min). Oximetry: SpO2 one blip to low 85, with avg. 90.5%.

I called my doctor and his nurse returned my phone call after I had checked with my pharmacist about her recommendation for something over the counter to use that would not conflict with my heart medications. They both agreed the Musinex DM, one every 12 hrs. is safe for me and would help my condition. I surely hope so.
On my way to town, I drove to Kittitas to check out the new clothing/food pantry, because I heard they had some bedroom slippers there. I found two pair to carry away, and also donated some winter boots I had that I don’t use much. They were too light, suede, and high with a zipper in the back. While there I found a western shirt for John, mostly greenish. It has a small hole (dog chew, or something) on the tail that will get tucked in. Still, we’ll iron on a patch to keep it from enlarging.

I drove to my pharmacy (at Super 1 grocery store), and realized too late I did not remember my wallet. I went in anyway, and the pharmacist (my friend a long time previous to her job there), said she would loan me the money for the OTC med. Then she helped me find it, when I returned to ask if there wasn’t a Western Family brand that was cheaper. John had told me to look for that. She couldn’t find it either, but this was on a special $5.00 off, so I bought it. I will pay her back when I’m in town tomorrow.

On my way home, I carried slippers for a woman’s grandson. John bought 2 pairs from a catalogue but different patterns. That wasn’t all that was different – this pair did not fit – too small.
I tried them but they were too big, even with bulky socks. That’s why we gave them away.

Interestingly, the recipients live in the house of friends from our past. They had 4 apple trees but didn’t know names except the yellow delicious. I wrote my friends an email and found out they planted the trees, and there are Red Delicious, Golden Delicious, Jonathan, and Jonagold apples. So I was able to find out what the apples are in their backyard to tell them. The former owners even offered to come by and tag the trees, if I would give the original owner their email. I had to find out and then did. I only had a phone contact.

Now I have to get to work on my critiquing a master’s thesis.

Saturday, October 15

For Oct 14 CPAP. Reported figures. AHI= 0.00. Events: 0 CSR, 0 H, 0 RERA. Time on 7 hrs 53 min with (max= 9 L/min). Oximetry: Was only on from 1:00 (didn’t turn it on correctly), and spurious 49 low from a finger change lowered the avg. SpO2 to 89.6%. I will ignore last night’s Oximetry and go with the perfect CPAP reading of AHI=0.00.

Heading to town for music at Briarwood. My cough is better but I’m still rather hoarse, so I probably won’t be singing along. I stopped by and paid back my pharmacist for covering my charges yesterday, when I forgot my wallet.

We had a nice time at Briarwood, today, with a large audience, and players: Manord (Joy in the audience singing), Gerald, Charlie (those three on guitar), Evie and me on fiddles and Amy playing the first violin part, and Haley dancing. Maury was expected, but a bull Elk got gored by another and picked Maury’s yard to die in. He had to stay to talk with the game warden. Unfortunately, it took him long to get there and so the meat was tainted by the time they opened him and gutted him. Otherwise, Maury would have been happy to fill his freezer.

I was not in good shape with my no voice and cough. I have taken 3 of the new medication and will have another before bedtime tonight. It seems to have lessened my coughing, but I still need the lozenges. It also has the product of increasing my phlegm expectorant. I guess that’s good before it goes to my lungs.

We were treated afterwards to nice meal: ham & bean soup, an apple cake with ice cream (I passed); three types of sandwiches: deviled ham, egg salad, and chicken salad, grapes, chocolate, cookies, cucumbers, and hot cider. Today was Gerald and Jeanne’s 67 wedding anniversary and five in the audience had October birthdays, so we sang Happy Birthday and congratulated Gerald, our guitarist.

I came home to this Facebook message and link from a former undergraduate geography student at Central before 1997, Lori Rome, who worked at several US National parks, including a long stint at the Grand Canyon, then went (with her husband) to Paris for a job for a couple years, toured all over France and several more countries, and now has returned to Arlington, VA, where she works for the American Battle Monuments Commission. Interesting gal.

Here’s the link to follow if you have a Facebook account, to see the animation of the Mississippi River watershed unfold in front of you with illustrative graphics.

Mississippi River watershed

Lori Rome and the video she sent (ending). Lori is famous for this:

Or watch her here:

The Adventures of Salt and Soap

I am honored that she sent me a copy of her book, signed.
How special !!

Speaking of great animations, here is another site you can reach without being on Facebook.
Blow ye wind, blow
Last night when we visited this view, at 10:20 p.m., Oct 15, 2016, here’s what we saw. Check it out today. It’s still rather active, but here is from last night. Move the image eastward in the animated version to see the outline and orient yourself.
Still view of the winds off the coast and inland to the western U.S.

Sunday, Oct 16

For Oct 15 CPAP. Reported figures. AHI= 0.00. Events: x CSR, x H, x RERA. Insufficient time on 3 hrs 43 min with (max= 1 L/min). I awoke with congestion at 3:30 a.m., and removed the CPAP mask. I left on my oximeter, however. Oximetry: SpO2 several blips to lows between 80-82, in a 13 minute period after 6:13 a.m. with avg. 88.1%. The rest of the night it hovered around 88%.

40% chance of showers today, but we have blue skies now. At noon, it is clouding over.

Waiting for John to return for lunch and to put in time on the blog, if/when it starts raining. I have filing, scanning, dishes, and clothes to do, and then to get back to thesis critiquing. May have to push off some of all that to tomorrow. At least the blog is done for another week.

Hope your week was fine.

Nancy and John
Still on the Naneum Fan

This blog will start with autumn colors, which around our house are not as beautiful as back in Pennsylvania, where John’s hometown, Clarion, has an Autumn Leaf festival. Some places in our valley have red-leafed trees, but our only leaf colors are yellow on the walnut trees and eventually the tamaracks (Larch).
Fruit trees are mostly still green. A few more colors below.
Yellow Carpathian walnut, Red Mountain Ash, and bottom right – a few different gladioli in colorful bloom.

Monday, Oct 3

For Oct 2 CPAP. Reported figures. Events: 2 CSR, 10 H, 20 RERA. Time on 6 hrs 3 min with (max= 15 L/min). Oximetry: SpO2 one blip to low 87, all rest above 88, with avg. 92.9%.

I sent off the photos to AAC for possible use on Facebook from the 9-30-16 Fall Prevention and Exercise Bingo party. They posted a few, and you already saw a selection from me in last week’s blog.

Now need to finish music for this week: Cotton Fields (I never finished) but changed to Anytime, along with Faded Love. We have a total of 20 tunes with lyrics, and backup instrumentals at the end, if needed.

Tuesday, Oct 4

For Oct 3 CPAP. Reported figures. Events: 1 CSR, 4 H, 19 RERA. Time on 7 hrs 46 min with (max= 17 L/min). Oximetry: SpO2 had 2 spurious blips to low 80 caused by finger change, all the rest high, with avg. 92.7% lowered by the changes.

Off to get an INR at the KVH hospital lab, and report back in the afternoon it was low, 1.8. Probably because I took my pill late, missing it during the normal night period. So, that gave me a chance to have a glass of wine with dinner (alcohol raises it).

On to pick up mail at Anne’s, talk to her neighbor, and water plants. I was involved in a huge rainfall downpour there and on my way to Jazzercise, where we only had two participants. For a change, I did not have to leave for a PT session. I have been in that mode for the past 5 months.

I left the AAC to copy our group’s new music for October / November. Once home I had to sort and clip packets for the players to deliver to them this Thursday. It is a lot of work, but someone has to do it and I know it is appreciated.

Wednesday, Oct 5

For Oct 4 CPAP. Reported figures. Time on 6 hrs 9 min with AHI=1.79. Events: 1 CSR, 1 CA 10 H, 29 RERA. Oximetry: Just fine all night. On the SpO2 review chart, SpO2 showed 2 blips to low 88% with avg. 93%. Awoke at 6:40 and back for 2 hrs without either recorder.

This Wall St. Journal delivery is turning into a pain. Now two days without anything and we have paid for two subscriptions. The merge attempted 9/29 failed. I tried again today, and we will see what happens. We will miss two days until they get it straightened out, and so I asked to be credited for that. Then John wrote a note to our deliverer, who responded saying she usually has an extra and will leave it for us the next 2 days.

I went to town, picked up Gloria, and we made it to the Food Bank, just as it started sprinkling. That was all we saw the rest of the afternoon, but the weather alternated between overcast with occasional sunny times. We had a good crowd singing along with us on a number of old songs, with a few religious, such as, Shall We Gather at the River, Count Your Blessings, and Just a Closer Walk with Thee. I carried cooked beef to put on my plate today for my main course instead of the garlicky pasta, had some salad, and a nice chocolate frosted brownie for dessert.

After we left, we stopped for me to fill up my gasoline tank, which was running quite low. From there on to SAIL, where we arrived a couple minutes late and found a full house. Katrina squeezed two chairs in for us to max at 15!

When I returned, I took some more yard photos.
Left is the Black Walnut tree with an old unsplit Cottonwood round that allows a table for the Douglas squirrel to feast on the walnuts. I picked up one off the ground and added to his plate. In the middle is Lemon, one of our feral cats, looking toward his own flower “bed.” John planted a 4X4 ft. pallet sided box with daisy seeds, and there is a wire fence with an opening. Lemon climbs in the opening and uses the surface to roll and rest on. One plant survived, started with one bloom, and now has several.

Thursday, Oct 6

For Oct 5 CPAP. Reported figures. Time on 7 hrs 21 min with AHI=0.27. Events: 2 H, 20 RERA. No mask leaks (max= 6 L/min). Oximetry: Just fine all night. SpO2 showed one blip to low 87 with avg. 92.4%.

Going to town in John’s car today for gasoline and his trips to the grocery while I play music at Prestige Acute Care and Rehab today. I am carrying all the new music, and we possibly will have 11 people coming. We ended up with more and not enough room for everyone to sit. On our way leaving the house, we found a dead battery in John’s car, so had to get stuff transferred to my car and drive it. Now tomorrow he will take the battery in for a new one. It is the original in the car, a 2009 model, so probably in use since 2008. It is good it did not quit 10 miles back a gravel road at a trail head.

Here’s a thought: If your car’s battery is past its likely to die date (LTDD), consider having it replaced.

We fed the animals and went back to town to Joanie and Ken’s for our joint birthday celebration — mine late and hers coming the end of October, when they will be gone. Ken is the master chef for tuna melts, and we had that with a salad and Joanie’s special recipe of an apple, date, coconut no-bottom pie. So tasty. John and I carried some wine to have with dinner, a Moscato (low alcohol, and goes with fish) and White Heron’s Malbec goes with anything!!!
Color is better in the top photo but my name gets lost. John wore a shirt with colors to match her plates. How did he know? Coincidence. I think not. I still had on my music notes shirt from playing this afternoon.

We left and attended a Geology lecture at the new Science II building on campus. It was a very interesting presentation by Andy Buddington, Spokane Community College, “Unroofing the Ancient Precambrian Basement in the Priest River Complex of Northeast Washington and northern Idaho.”
(Abstract) — The Priest River complex is one of several Inland Northwest metamorphic core complexes that formed during Eocene time by crustal extension and unroofing. Here, metamorphic rocks of the middle crust, including Precambrian basement as old as 2.6 billion years, are exposed. This presentation discusses the geology and development of the complex along with glimpses of the poorly known Precambrian basement history for this part of the North American continent.

These are really old rocks and no one knows where they came from nor how they got here. Andy has a working hypothesis that includes Australia, or Antarctica, or Siberia.

Friday, Oct 7

For Oct 6 CPAP. Reported figures. Time on 6 hrs 38 min with AHI=2.56. Events: 4 CSR, 17 H, 23 RERA. No mask leaks (max= 10 L/min). Oximetry: Fine all night. SpO2 showed 6 blips to the low 88 with avg. 92.6%.

We made our appointment as 11:00 a.m., next Tuesday, with Rose Shriner, from the Kittitas County Conservation District. Rose is my former GIS student at CWU. We’ll meet her at home after our Emeriti Geographers’ meeting.

The purpose is for her to review our fire-wise preparation. We will request being on their list for a chipping crew. Funding is via the WA Dept. of Natural Resources and requires a contribution by the landowner. John’s work will probably suit that requirement. One complication for us is that one of the threads of Naneum Creek runs about 130 feet behind our house. Thus, WA Fish and Wildlife folks have to be involved. Uff da!
Some of the smaller brush piles near the northeast of our property. John started this brushing years ago and the first piles were built with inside open spaces for wildlife hideouts. Quail find them useful. Early clearing was to open up some space, make a trail from one part to another, and clean up rotting trunks and limbs of fallen trees. These were on the southwest (swamp) end of our acreage, and has continued all around now. It provides good quail habitat, but now there is too much and some of the piles need to go. Chipping and removal or spreading is the only safe way. Burning is not good and the county only allows small piles to be burned.
This older picture shows an interesting early morning photo with two large brush piles behind the doe and her baby fawns. Those piles are are of material cut close to the house and moved to a safer spot.

John took the free shelving out of the truck so he could pack it and take to town. The shelving now is at our front entrance, which is a roofed alcove, but still gets wet on the concrete floor. Having this organizer off the concrete and being constructed from water resistant materials is a nice addition. We had a rolling cart there but it was much deeper and less wide. This shelving is a better solution. The stuff on the shelving came from the cart and is there now just to keep it from getting rained on.
This is cluttered now, but it will make a nice addition for sorting as well as using temporarily for unloading at the front door.

John went to town in the truck, taking the old battery, bought another (least expensive but still a 5-year life expectency) for $114 from Les Schwab, took plastic by the transfer station, and went on to Elmview with newspapers and office paper for recycling.

Saturday, October 8

For Oct 7 CPAP. Reported figures. Time on 5 hrs 46 min with AHI=0.00. Events: 0 CSR, 0 H, 12 RERA. No mask leaks (max= 13 L/min). Oximetry: battery died after an hour, so nothing to report. Awoke at 5:00, up until 6:30, and back for 3 hrs without CPAP.

I didn’t get to bed until late again last night, John got up to leave by 6:20 for Cowiche Canyon, but I awoke at 5:00, stayed up until he left, and went back to sleep until 9:30 !!

Guess I needed the rest. I know through the night I awoke several times, the past 2 nights, listening to the rain. Nice though, when I went out to feed the cats, to hear the creek running. That means will get a little more water in the irrigation ditch that flows through the pasture.

Two of the feral cats and the dog were anxious to be fed.
I spent the rest of the day on continuing processes of dishwashing, computer chores, and bill receipt coordination/filing.

John had driven to town to ride down to the WTA work trip with Bill Weir, in Bill’s truck. Bill is in the first photo below but seen walking away in the second – in the orange hard hat.
In the first photo Hannah is raking large rocks into piles and John is following along scooping them out. Tiny rocks and gritty material stay for the walking surface, or tread. This is on the Wildflower Trail and a springtime photo is here:

Wildflowers and clouds

A massive rain shower in May removed the small soil grains and left only rocks in the trail. Hikers moved to the edge and destroyed the vegetation there. This trip was a quick fix. Next year the trail will be widened some (on the right here) but the work is slow. The thin soil is hard and rocky and on top of a lava flow that is millions of years old. Very little rain is the norm here so only if they are very unlucky will this happen again.
They actually finished early and got home earlier than expected.
This is a photo from the end of the day.
Bill is on the far right without his hat. Chris Baldini (orange hat & red shirt) drove over from Spokane.

Sunday, Oct 9

For Oct 8 CPAP. Reported figures. Time on 8 hrs 12 min with AHI=0.61. Events: 4 H, 1 OA, 23 RERA. No mask leaks (max= 20 L/min). Oximetry: Just fine all night. SpO2 showed one blip to low 84 (a spurious one occurring with changing the finger the oximeter is on, and that lowers the avg. to 92.2%. Otherwise the SpO2 readings were higher in my graph I can generate with the data, but I have no ability of omitting the outliers to calculate the avg. percentage.

We decided to move our pizza and apple picking date until Monday, because it is going to be raining today. Good thing – the rain started before 5:00 and is still sending many drops down at 9:30 p.m., as I’m proofing the last of this treatise.

John had been working outside waiting for the rain, but finally came in for a late lunch at almost 2:00 p.m. He fixed scrambled eggs with chipped ham. After that, he went out and cut a few firewood rounds with the chainsaw. Sprinkles started almost as soon as the chainsaw. After about 40 min. the sprinkles got to be heavier and he came in and started some brown rice in the steamer. We’ll eventually have the blog done and supper too.

Hope your week was fine.

Nancy and John
Still on the Naneum Fan

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.”

Bad, bad Map

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:

Q & A

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.

Trees grow, then burn

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.

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:

Link – if you Facebook

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

Monday, Sept 19

For Sept 18 CPAP. Reported figures. Time on 6 hrs 1 min with AHI=0.17. Events: 1 CSR, 1 H, 16 RERA. No mask leaks (max= 13 L/min). Oximetry: SpO2 one blip to low 90, all rest above, into high nineties with avg 93.3%, marred and lowered by a spurious 72, when changing fingers.

John and I made a trip to Dr. Richard Roux, orthopedic surgeon, for an evaluation of my shoulder issues, which we were unable to relieve through physical therapy. Fortunately, he comes up from Yakima on Mondays to Ellensburg, so it saved us a 50-mile round trip.

Regular readers of our blog have gathered over the past year (since the defibrillator surgery last December) that my shoulder’s range of motion (ROM) has increasingly become more bothersome and limited than before. It has been a continuing problem since 2009, but noticeable before then.

This year, the first attempt to resolution was to pursue Physical Therapy to see if I could regain my range of motion of my left shoulder. Readers followed me through that introduction in May, and have listened to and viewed my reports since starting with a referral to Natalie Joyce at Canyon View Physical Therapy, in conjunction with my primary physician, Paul Schmitt. Dr. Schmitt has been my family physician since I arrived in town in 1988. He is retiring at the end of the year, and John and I both will miss his care and personal concern through the years with more than one body part.

My recent physical therapy sessions began May 24, 2016. I tracked that involvement in this blog.

From Dr. Roux, we now know what is wrong. It is not a frozen shoulder (stiff bands of tissue — called adhesions). X-rays taken at the start of my appointment demonstrate that I have severe arthritis, displayed as bone on bone between the socket and the humeral head (now flattened), with no cartilage and no joint space existing, along with cysts, and bone spurs on both bones to prohibit my external rotation (one of several different ranges of motion).

I am not a candidate for surgery, because the only thing that would help this arthritis situation is a complete replacement of the damaged boney parts. I cannot proceed with that operation because of the complications and risks associated with my cardiac involvement. I could . . . die!

Dr. Roux talked with us, examined my range of motion and muscle strength on both arms and shoulders from the back and from the front. He then left us to go examine the X-rays. When he returned to give his evaluation, I asked if I could record his comments and he allowed me to do so.

He started by telling us his observations. Then he sat down with us to go through more discussion, answer questions, and make suggestions about the future. At the end, he invited us to review the X-rays with him, and allowed me to videotape that as well.

I transcribed my recordings and will present his diagnosis below. This took awhile because I had to educate myself on the terminology he used to describe my shoulder’s condition. Thank goodness for the web to search out the words and definitions, watch videos, and examine reports.

The following is rather long, but I include it for my records, and for whoever is interested. I have put Dr. Roux’s comment in italics, in chronological order of our visit description. When John and I interjected something into the conversation, I put our names with an open parenthesis.

To summarize, when I first heard your story, I thought it was probably a frozen shoulder, because a lot of people who have had cardiac procedures do get frozen shoulders. But, when I looked at your X-rays, that’s not your only problem. You almost certainly have an element of a frozen shoulder, because it hasn’t moved normally in 5 or 6 years. But, you also have underlying that, a bigger problem, which is arthritis, where you have worn out that joint, such that your ball and socket joint are now bone on bone.

If you only had a frozen shoulder, we would do a manipulation under anesthesia, where we kind of pop the adhesions loose and then do physical therapy afterwards – and we have a high degree of success of restoring motion with that procedure. That won’t work for you because it doesn’t address the primary problem, your arthritis. So, I think to deal with all of your problems, you’d have to consider surgery, and that surgery would be a complete shoulder replacement. (He asked me to stop recording for a minute, so we changed places and he sat on my stool and I moved over next to John in a chair, and we continued our conversation.)

Continuing: Fortunately, I think your rotator cuff is still functioning, and if you were going to contemplate surgery, the replacement is different, based on whether your rotator cuff is functioning, or if it isn’t. But, it sounds like you are not a candidate for general anesthesia – is that what they told you?
(Nancy, well, that’s what they said when I had my recent oral surgery, and both my defibrillators were done using local anesthesia.
(John: I think her problem is that she – because of her heart and the medications she’s on – any surgery has to be thought through very precisely.

(Dr. Roux: I agree 100%. So understand this, without surgery, you are not likely to get more motion. And, so, it depends on how debilitated you are with this, whether you would ever consider it. You’ve got some motion with it, and you probably function pretty well; it sounds like your main complaint is the fact you don’t have full motion, is that right? (Nancy, yes.
(Dr. Roux: Are you having a lot of pain with that left shoulder?
(Nancy, occasionally, like this weekend, I really did, and painkillers wouldn’t do anything for me.

(Dr. Roux: I’m not surprised by that. So, if you’re thinking of shoulder replacement, I’d suggest either a standard shoulder replacement or something called a Reverse total shoulder, which I don’t think you need.

Shoulder replacement can be quite effective at relieving pain, not always as effective at increasing motion. So for you, it’s really a very serious consideration, considering your heart, and that you could have potential serious, even life-threatening, complications that can occur with that.
(Nancy: How long does it take to recover from shoulder surgery?
(Dr. Roux, from a replacement, about 3 months. It’s not something I’m doing now – I do a lot of arthroscopic surgeries and I do knee replacements, but I don’t do shoulder replacements.
(Nancy: I was hoping for arthroscopic.
(Dr. Roux: Yeah, the arthroscopic procedure wouldn’t help you because you’ve got severe arthritis in there, so again, if you’re going to do surgery, it would be a replacement procedure.
If you wanted to consider that, I have three partners that do shoulder replacement commonly, (and we’ve done that on purpose, you know we want to have people doing it so they are doing enough of them a year, that they stay very current at it.) My three partners include Dr. Wong, Dr. Griffiths, and Dr. Orvald. They all do a fine job, and I’m happy to refer you for a second opinion, but I’m not sure that you want to, considering your cardiac status.

(Nancy: I think I’ll probably not. I’ve learned to compensate, but I guess I would like to know if I should not continue with Physical Therapy, because it isn’t going to help?
(Dr. Roux: It’s not going to help because it’s a mechanical problem with that arthritic joint. I would do what you are doing to maintain what you have, and if you started to lose motion, then I think physical therapy might be appropriate. Right now, I don’t think they are going to get any more motion with it because I think the primary problem with it is arthritis.
(Nancy: yeah, that’s what we were worried about.
(John: When you said you had pain this weekend, was that after playing your fiddle for 2.5 hours. (Nancy, yeah, and through a wind storm – it was crazy. (Dr. Roux, you were playing outside? I was up here covering the Central football game – it was blowing. (Nancy: yeah, it was! Also, I’ve been able to lift my arm up farther to wash my hair, after this physical therapy, but I still compensate. It’s not a big deal.

(Dr. Roux, I think you have compensated very well, and considering everything you’ve told me, I wouldn’t recommend doing a shoulder replacement.
(Nancy: Thank you. We appreciate your evaluation.

(John: One of her problems was when she had a heart blockage in 2009, she was scheduled to have the heart valve replacement in March of 2010, but she had the heart attack the day after Thanksgiving, in 2009…
(Nancy: and they took out the clot, successfully, but then the next evening, all my systems shut down and I was put on life support for 8 days.
(John: She had a reaction to Heparin, and she was in intensive care, flat on her back, and so her muscles… (Nancy: I lost all my muscles, even throat and stomach ones.
(Dr. Roux, “Sorry.” (Nancy, it’s okay, I got out of it.
(Dr. Roux, yeah you look good.
(John, so … this shoulder has bothered her a lot longer than that, but I think that time of total inactivity …
(Dr. Roux, on the shoulder, if you’ve got arthritis in there, and you have all that inactivity, it doesn’t respond well to the shoulder. All joints like to move; it helps nourish the joints, and so I’m sure a lot of your Chondrocytes (cells found in cartilage connective tissue) –> The cells in your cartilage die, and that contributed to your arthritis.
(Dr. Roux, You want me to show you that X-ray?
(Nancy: YES ! can I take pictures ? (Dr. Roux, yes.

Below, Dr. Roux’s evaluation provides diagnosis of my shoulder X-rays, 9-19-16:
(Dr. Roux points out: You don’t have any joint space here anymore, and he continues with this question and comments.

What are the signs of arthritis in a shoulder?

1. Joint space narrowing. You have joint space obliteration.

2. The other: Subchondral sclerosis, that’s where the bone is a little bit whiter on the socket side. You’ve got that.

3. Sometimes, you form Subchondral cysts, and you have them (cysts) on both the socket and the humeral head,

and,

4. Bone spurs (also called osteophytes). So really, you have all the signs of arthritis: Joint space narrowing, subchondral sclerosis, osteophyte formation, and cysts.

John and I have annotated my own photo of my X-ray below. I do not have the original X-ray image to work with, so this is a bit fuzzy, being captured from my video camera “movie” of Dr. Roux’s explanation.

Subchondral sclerosis refers to the whitish line between the femoral head and the socket. Further, subchondral sclerosis is a disease that affects the bones and specifically the joints, of people who have osteoarthritis. Subchondral sclerosis causes joint pain and numbness (I have not experienced) by increased bone density and mass, and that produces a thin layer of bone beneath the cartilage in the joints.

John asked Dr. Roux if he had a normal shoulder X-ray to show us, but he did not have one on that computer. So, here is my attempt to compare:
The left image is a normal shoulder I took from the web (from an Australian doctor’s explanation of shoulder arthritis). The right image is my left shoulder from the 9-19-16 X-ray. The big white spot in the lower left of mine is a metal ball hung around my neck for scale and density measurements. My image shows the obliterated joint space and the flattened head of the humerus bone on the bone of my socket. Note also the bone spurs protruding from the bottom sides of the two bones.

For further clarification of bone spurs (osteophyte formation), see the images below:
The left image is of a pig’s bone spurs (follow the arrows). The right diagram is of a human shoulder with annotations of the symptoms of osteoarthritis disease. (Osteo=bone)

Wrap-up: Physical therapy is not an option, except if needed to maintain the slight range of motion I have gained since May. A complete shoulder replacement is potentially an option, but the surgeon (Dr. Roux) did not recommend because of the complications associated with my cardiac situation, which could be life threatening. I shall continue to do what I can, especially low impact and low aerobic exercising. Pain killers are not very effective, and because of being on Coumadin®, I cannot take the supplements often given for pain relief from joint arthritis (e.g., Glucosamine or NSAIDs [non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs] such as ibuprofen (Motrin®, Advil®) or naproxen (Naprosyn®, Aleve®). In addition, I am not allowed to partake of herbal and green tea solutions.

John quotes somebody: Getting old is not for sissies.

Tuesday, Sept 20

For Sept 19 CPAP. Reported figures. Time on 4 hrs 13 min with AHI=1.43. Events: 1 CSR, 6 H, 13 RERA. No mask leaks (max= 17 L/min). Oximetry: only on for three hours, and okay.

I reported in at 10:30 a.m. this morning to Natalie Joyce, owner of and therapist at Canyon View Physical Therapy. I took my printed transcription of what was said yesterday and carried my computer laptop to show her the videos of Dr. Roux’s analysis of the X-rays of my shoulder. She was grateful for the feedback. Much of it she had suspected from the work we had done on trying to increase my range of motion in several directions. When I left, they gave me a turquoise T-shirt, normally gifted at the end of a person’s time with them. We agreed to keep in touch. As well, if I realize I am backsliding on the gains with my ranges of motion, I will go back through my doctor for another referral to receive stretching sessions from the therapists there. I have worked with all the staff at Canyon View Physical Therapy (Ellensburg), and find them to be excellent, professional, and communicative about a person’s condition. They are pleasant and sincere educators and motivators. I send all of them a huge thank you commendation, along with my admiration, praise, and appreciation.

On my way home, I checked by Jerrol’s and got my $10 birthday present. I bought seven containers of 3-ring dividers to use for separation in the music books for our group. While there, I received instructions in how to make the white-out work that I bought earlier (in a tube). It needed squeezed just the correct way.

Wednesday, Sept 21

For Sept 20 CPAP. Reported figures. Time on 8 hrs 22 min with AHI=0.36. Events: 3 H, 16 RERA. No mask leaks (max= 13 L/min). Oximetry: looks nice entire time, with only one SpO2 blip to low of 88, all rest above, with avg 92.3%.

Today was a usual middle of the week activity. I normally pick up my friend, Gloria, and travel to the Food Bank for our singing with and for the audience, and afterwards we join a table for our lunch. Today was no exception but we grabbed some Starbuck’s day old chocolate chip cookies, and visited with some of the patrons, before the music. We eventually started at noon, and our youngest member, Kyle, brought his cigar box guitar that caused a lot of interest and discussion.

Thursday, Sept 22

For Sept 21 CPAP. Reported figures. Time on 7 hrs 6 min with AHI=0.99. Events: 7 H, 15 RERA. No mask leaks (max= 13 L/min). Oximetry: SpO2 one blip to low 85, a few below 88, with avg 91.6%.

Tried to finish the request for my medical records but did not finish before leaving for town. John drove so he could fill up his car for a long trip to Lake Serene tomorrow. I moved music stuff from my car into his.

We had nine people there today, plus Haley, our little dancer, and we had a good audience as well. My friend Clare returned my glass vase, and we carried a throwaway vase with beautiful gladioli for Jim and Lillian Brooks’ recent 69th anniversary. They carried them back to their apartment. Wheeled-Walkers are useful for such transport (even better for going through buffet lines).

I came home to work on dishes and computer issues and to put heat on my sore shoulder. Usually, I do moist heat before exercise and ice after.

Friday, Sept 23

For Sept 22 CPAP. Reported figures. Time on 5 hrs 11 min with AHI=1.16. Events: 5 H, 11 RERA. No mask leaks (max= 9 L/min). Oximetry: Fine all night.

I went to a CWU/Ruth Harrington scholarship luncheon today, donated my money for the year, had lunch, visited, and gave away a new shirt (still with tags) to a friend in the group. I realized my parking sticker expired 9/15/16, but I have to go across campus to renew it, so that awaits being done. I went directly to an exercise class at the senior center, and afterward, by Anne’s to water plants and pick up her mail. I stopped at a yard sale, where I found two nice plastic bins (with tops to keep the dust out) that have inside edges that hold hanging folders, so I can use them to encourage me to use my time saved from PT to get my monthly paperwork in order. My filing cabinets are filling. Yeah, I need to toss more stuff out of the ones we have in 3 rooms of the house. I already have recycled a lot, but there is a lot more to go. Amazing what >40 years of teaching will accumulate. I also found two containers: one I can use for John to carry his cell phone in, and protect it, and maybe he will not lose it. Another smaller one will work for my other cell phone.

On my way home, I dropped by a front porch to pick up a free gift of four unused lined journals that I can use in our cars to register tax deductible mileage for volunteer work and for medical trips. My Subaru Forester glove compartment is too small for the normally sold journals. John’s Subaru Outback’s is larger (go figure).

John was 130 miles away today working on the Lake Serene Trail near Index, WA. Actually, the trail is a 2-destination hike and the crew worked on the Bridal Veil Falls part. See:

Lake Serene WTA report

They did not take the trail from the designated trailhead. Instead, they opened a nearby fancy gate (electric trigger and security camera monitored) and on a circuitous road through some nice small houses and then past your average meth-encampment – shacks and abandoned cars and trucks. The link above explains the trail and mentions the steps, as in the photo below.

You can get a better view from Google Earth than John had. It rained. Use the following coordinates in Google Earth:
47.789586, -121.569468

Zoom way in and realize you are looking down (and North). The Falls trail is on the west or left. The Lake trail crosses the stream at a lower elevation, then climbs up a slope until above the lake level and then comes back down.
We did get some photos from today’s work party..
Entire volunteer group came from MG2, an architectural firm, with this bunch all in a sector that designs Costco stores.

Below is John with his crew with their stair-filling project. Rain and mist all day explains the whitish background of the left image.

This project was digging and filling to rehabilitate the steps, and to rock-in the sides to hold everything in place. After lunch they moved on.
He called from Leavenworth at 4:35 and got home about 70 minutes later. We had leftovers for dinner.

For me, much time this afternoon was trying to arrange to fill in music tomorrow at lunch for a conference at CWU, but no one was available, and I am not a sole performer. Maybe next year with more notice and not on the first weekend the nearly 12,000 students are back in town, we’ll be able to help. They needed someone to play from noon to 1:00 and payment was a free lunch.

Saturday, Sept 24

For Sept 23 CPAP. Reported figures. Time on 5 hrs 41 min with AHI=0.88. Events: 1 CA, 4 H, 23 RERA. No mask leaks (max= 10 L/min). Oximetry: Stopped from low battery 4.5 hrs in. SpO2 two blips to low of 89, all well above, with avg 92.9%. Total time sleeping was nearly 9 hours.

Nothing on tap today, except to cut John’s hair and work on the blog. I succeeded in cutting his hair.

Not all the dirty dishes got loaded, but the entire washer of clean dishes I unloaded. I spent most of the day on chores, the main one being this blog.

Sunday, Sept 25

For Sept 24 CPAP. Reported figures. Time on 7 hrs 28 min with AHI=0.13. Events: 1 H, 18 RERA. No mask leaks (max= 9 L/min). Oximetry: Good all night, except for several spurious finger changes recording in the 70s. Most were in the mid- to high nineties range (95-98).

John met neighbor Kenny in the morning to load a couple of bales of hay for him. He’s only recently out of the hospital with a 7-way bypass. He has 1 horse he will feed out of the truck for a couple of days and then let us know if he needs help loading again. John cut some brush and loaded it into the pickup, we ate, he napped, and now we have (nearly) completed this blog.

Nancy mixed in a few other chores but primarily worked on this report.

Hope your week was fine.

Nancy and John
Still on the Naneum Fan

Sunday, Sept 11
For Sept 10 CPAP. Reported figures. Time on 4 hrs 15 min with AHI=0.24. Events: 1 H, 7 RERA. No mask leaks (max= 22 L/min). Oximetry: SpO2 one blip to low 89, all rest above, with avg 93.2% and that’s marred by a spurious 80, caused when taking the oximeter off.

I saw John off at 6:00 a.m. and stayed up to do things. Before feeding two kitties who arrived at the front door for their morning food, I saw the two fawns (now without spots) in the front with their mom, so I grabbed my camera.
Mom out front (on the right of both photos) with twin fawns, no longer with spots.

Been finishing chores around the house, washed a huge load of dishes, spent time on the phone with my neighbor, Louaine, time on email, and time on music.

I finally sent all the pictures from Clare’s 90th birthday party to her email. I called Monday morning to alert her and that I would see her tomorrow night at Hearthstone. 🙂
Bridge near the Middle Fork trail head.

We had a late supper, after John made it back safely from his day’s work on the trail, at the Middle Fork of the Snoqualmie River.

Monday, Sept 12

For Sept 11. Reported figures. Time on 8 hrs 24 min with AHI=0.36. Events: 3 H, 10 RERA. No mask leaks (max= 22 L/min). Oximetry: Good night.

I fed the cats their morning vittles. We both were working early on our computers, and John finally just went back out for yard chores. I get to work on house chores. He came in and fixed Nachos for lunch.

Worked up the song, On the Sunny Side of the Street; one of the hardest songs I have ever entered into our repertoire. Ended up putting in different chords for the key of C, and then changing to G, and lowering an octave. I hope this works. It is going to be difficult for some of our chord players, I’m afraid, but at least I think most people know the song.

John is back out moving rocks, this time, from out where the logs came through the fence. He is slowly digging a shallow trench around the house, filling with rocks, and covering with gravel (recycled concrete). This will pack hard and be a wheel-chair route to the den and eating area. He hopes this will be a selling point at some future date. It consumes a lot of rocks too, of which we have many, being situated on an alluvial fan.

I cleaned more dishes, did some bill paperwork, called about subscriptions at a savings through the College Publishing sales, and finished more music corrections.

Tuesday, Sept 13

For Sept 12 CPAP. Reported figures. Time on 6 hrs 16 min with AHI=0.00. Events: 1 CSR, 0 H, 8 RERA. Small acceptable leaks. Off at 5:30, another 2 hrs sleep. Oximetry: SpO2 one blip to low 89, all rest above 90, with avg 92.8% all night.

I had to take my morning pills at 9:15 before leaving for a physical therapy appointment.

I missed the retired geographers’ meeting to get to my morning appointment, earlier than usual in my day. Then on to other Tuesday stops: Jeanne at Rehab with flowers for her 87th birthday (yesterday), Bi-Mart to check number, Hospice Friends to sign paperwork for a friend, by Carole’s for cat food, on up Water to home for a fast lunch, and back on my second trip to town for Jazzercise.

I went back in for music at Hearthstone and took a 3-ring binder to a gal on the Buy Nothing site who requested it, and she met me there. We did not have a lot of people there – just our pianist, me on fiddle, and 3 other singers. I sing and play. The group is The Connections, and the type of music is religious (old church anthems) and the audience has the lyrics. I came home by way of Dominoes and brought home for dinner a large 3-topping (all meat) pizza, and called John to have him cook mushrooms to put on it. He also had grated Cheddar cheese and Parmesan ready, and I added little tomatoes from our garden to my plate with one large piece of pizza. He freezes the leftovers by piece, and takes one for his lunch on his WTA work trips.

Wednesday, Sept 14

For Sept 13 CPAP. Reported figures. Time on 8 hrs 12 min with AHI=0.37. Events: 1 CSR, 3 H, 1 PP, 18 RERA. No mask leaks (max= 18 L/min). Oximetry: SpO2 had 2 blips below 88, all rest above, with 92.1% all night, affected by a spurious 79 from a finger change.

I stopped by to pick up Gloria to go to the Food Bank and to SAIL. I have to set up chairs because Bob will not be there. Thankfully, one of our singers, Richard, helped. We had a good bunch of appreciative audience members, and 6 regular members joined by Roger McCune in his retirement from directing the F.I.S.H. Food Bank for many years. It was nice to have him join our music group.

Gloria and I went to the Senior Center to our SAIL exercise class, and Evelyn (our banjo player) continued there as our leader for exercise. We had several new members and good attendance. After dropping off Gloria, I came home. We did stop at my bank to deposit and to cash some checks I had recently received.
I finally got out the count for tomorrow’s music players, and I will call and report the total chairs needed, in the morning.

I also succeeded in getting my PT appointments scheduled for the month of October. All on Tuesdays and Fridays, at 3:15, with Natalie, the owner.

Thursday, Sept 15

For Sept 14 CPAP. Reported figures. Time on 7 hrs 23 min with AHI=0.54. Events: 1 CSR, 4 H, 2 PP, 15 RERA. Acceptable amt of leakage. Oximetry: I was unable to removed the oximetry with either program. I hope my oximeter is not broken. Update: it is working again, after restarting my computer and uploading the required updates.

Morning brunch was nice.
I picked up Gerald from RV Canopy Country on Dolarway just after 1:00 p.m., where he left his “new” truck to have its canopy installed. Fortunately, his son came and picked him up to take him back, because I had to go directly from music to a PT appointment on my shoulder.

We had only a few of us there: 2 guitars, a baritone mandolin, 2 fiddlers, and a flute (with her dancing little 3-year-old daughter. The room temperature was too warm and I had on a tank top under my blouse (for my PT follow-up), and the outside temperature was 86.

When I got to my appointment, I was too warm.

I made it there just at 3:15 p.m. and was happy to have a circulating fan blowing on me during my “warm-up” exercise. I had taken some pain pills prior to playing fiddle, but they didn’t seem to help either with the playing and certainly not with the 10-minute arm “cycle” workout, where I keep my feet stationary and use dual-moving handlebars for warming up my arm and shoulder muscles. Every movement hurt today, including the stretching sessions by my therapist.

Afterwards, I stopped by to water plants and pick up my friend’s mail.

Friday, Sept 16

For Sept 15 CPAP. Reported figures. Time on 6 hrs 33 min with AHI=0.31. Events: 2 H, 13 RERA. No mask leaks (max= 22 L/min). I slept another 3 hrs w/o CPAP, but with oximeter. Oximetry: Cannot get SpO2 Review to work; via SleepyHead software, I could see the SpO2 dipped to the high 80s but most were above 90. I had no way to calculate avg % all night, without the SpO2 Review Report.

Haircut for me around the rural block at 1:00 p.m. (the round trip is not bad at 4.3 miles). I actually made it twice because as I was leaving, Celia gave me two jars of jelly, one blackberry & and the other mixed fruit. I have to eat blackberry jelly, because the seeds stick in my teeth. We have several cups of berries in the frig. I came home and John and I picked the rest of the ripe berries from our plants, and added those from our fridge. John also cut her some limbs of green cherry tomatoes at her request. She also gave me 3 ripe tomatoes from her sister’s garden, after hearing all we had were green ones.

John’s hair I hoped to do tonight, long overdue, but it will have to wait until another day. He’s out working on yard chores before the expected rain tomorrow after 11:00. The front moved in already, within sight. This will help slow a couple of fires in the mountains.

Checked on Annie’s meds for seizure. Ordered 90 tablets from Rite Aid. I’ll pick up soon.

I had a double pear, plum, peach, Ensure, protein, yogurt shake for lunch. For dinner, John fixed a hamburger with fried cauliflower, yellow squash, mushrooms, with Parmesan cheese and spices, served with 3 types of tomatoes.

Saturday, Sept 17

For Sept 9 CPAP. Reported figures. Time on 5 hrs 29 min with AHI=0.18. Events: 1 CSR, 1 H, 11 RERA. No mask leaks (max= 10 L/min). Oximetry: SpO2 one blip to low 89, all rest fine all night. A move to a different finger caused a spurious low, which affected the avg. % all night.

1:00 start: Big outside music session at Briarwood. Several of our group joined another group, called Heather & Sage. They have a bass fiddler, a banjo/guitar/Irish drum player, and two fiddlers. Our group had two guitars, two fiddlers, a mandolin, and a flute/penny whistle player. We made some pretty music for 2.5 hours with a break for lunch. (I had a half a Polish hotdog), but we missed getting a root beer float.

John and I went to a 90th birthday party for the father of friends, now living west of Yakima. I actually knew the parents before I met the kids through CWU. In the 1990s shortly after arriving in town, I was playing with our music group, Kittitas Valley Fiddlers & Friends, at the Senior Center for a Friday afternoon dance group. These folks were regular dancers there. Tonight was the 90th birthday bash for Grandpa Orcutt. Dinner was slow-roasted & smokey tender Tri-tip roast with side dishes and a big birthday cake with 90 candles, homemade ice cream, served with frozen fruit punch, if desired. Fruit was raspberries & blackberries in orange juice and something else.
Birthday cake celebration.

Connections are through two parts of the family we have been included in for many years, since the 1990s. You might guess there are lots of Orcutt family in the County. He worked on the big dams here in the West and then moved to a farm about 10 miles east of EBRG.
Suzy Orcutt West and Bob West and her dad and mom on the right. They had a large family of 12. Suzy we knew because Bob was my student in the 1990s (graduating from CWU Geography in 1997).

We joined the celebration.
The large party was held in a barn at one of their children’s homes, on the other side of the valley. We enjoyed the Harvest Moon on the way home, but I was unable to capture it on my camera. John said I would find a better rendition on the web. I would have loved to have had what we saw surrounded by clouds.

This is the closest I can come to the moon tonight in clouds. This is from the web from Dennis Doucet, taken in Japan. The only difference is that the clouds we saw our view through were rather spectacularly layered, horizontally. I thought too late I should have taken it with the video part of my camera rather than the still shot, which adjusts for darkness.

Sunday, Sept 18

For Sept 17 CPAP. Reported figures. Time on 7 hrs 44 min with AHI=0.78. Events: 3 CSR, 5 H, 1OA, 2 PP, 11 RERA. No mask leaks (max= 10 L/min). Nothing to report on Oximetry as it was only on a couple hours, and nothing unusual happened.

Sad tale here: Until last fall Jerry and Janis Anderson lived down-ditch from us. She was one of the original “Rodeo Grandmas” of local, state, and even a bit of national fame.

Newspaper story prior to Rodeo

They moved a year ago. After being inducted into the Rodeo’s Hall of Fame this year, and speaking briefly, she was in a car with the one other surviving member of the group, Chloe Weidenbach, whom Nancy knows from her volunteering at the Food Bank. Janis complained of a severe headache and died shortly after at the local hospital from an aneurysm.

Janis Anderson’s celebration of life was today at the Kittitas County Events Center (aka Rodeo/Fairgrounds) with lunch and a beautiful program put together and presented by the family and friends. The large room (Teanaway) was packed. I arrived about 11:40 and left 3 hours later. The family served lunch with Janis’s Rodeo Beans recipe as the main course, along with Coleslaw, and a roll.

I made two more stops in town and came home.

Hope your week was fine.

Nancy and John
Still on the Naneum Fan

Sunday, Sept 4

For Sept 3 CPAP. Reported figures. Time on 4 hrs 49 min with AHI=3.74. Events: 3 OA, 2 CSR, 15 H, 1 RERA. No mask leaks (max= 19 L/min). Comments: Something was going crazy between 1:45 a.m. and 2:30 a.m. with 3 OAs (I never have), 2 CSR, & 13 H, with 6 vibratory snores (I never have). Maybe caused my first time back on CPAP in 10 days and maybe I didn’t have my mask properly fit, or positioned wrongly. I did awake at 3:30 sneezing and with a runny nose, continued the rest of the night. Maybe the sneezes caused the vibratory snores I never have. Oximetry: SpO2 one blip to low 86, all rest above 88, with avg 93% all night.

I published this last night after John had retired, and the Internet connection lasted only long enough to send me a message to show me it made it to the web. I took another half hour to make it to bed after setting up my CPAP with new filters for its first run in over a week. The Internet connection was still off when I bedded down, so I waited until this morning.

The connection opened briefly, and went off again, but John got to check for last minute changes at Rainier or travel alerts on the roads. The WA-DOT is good about posting these.
John left at 5:15 a.m. for Mt. Rainier. I went back to bed, and slept until almost 9:00 a.m. The sun is shining but the temperatures are cold. Low last night of 46° (when John left), our heater, set at 69°, come on during the night, and the front porch temperature was up to 54° when I went out to feed all 3 cats. Now the Internet connection is off still at 9:30.

Once it returned, 20 minutes later, I started watching the livestream of the Grand Master Fiddler championship. I know two families back there in Nashville, supporting their fiddlers competing: Noemi Turner from Spokane (Trinity’s sister) and Katrina Nicolayeff, Meridian, ID, daughter of our WOTFA fiddle teacher, Bobbie Pearce, Nampa, ID. Katrina is there with her hubby. Katrina won third place overall (later today), but I was gone in town and missed seeing her.

On tap today are trips to several places in town. At 2:00, I pick up Gloria Swanson to go to Clare Panattoni’s 90th birthday celebration early, officially not until 9/8, but her family is in town for the Labor Day Fair & Rodeo activities, so they are honoring her. While in town, I have several stops to make at Bi-Mart for pate’ for the cats, at Super 1 for five # ground beef on sale for John to freeze (also bought some red grapes). I tried to drive by to pick up mail for Anne, but the key would not work. I plan to process pictures I took at the party and send to Clare. Meanwhile, here is one.A gladiolus that matches her outfit and Tiara is not showing in the left picture of the vase. It’s behind the orange one. Look at the right photo, and see it. The Tiara was my gift from Kathryn Carlson last year on my birthday during our Buy Nothing Clothing Share. This seemed like an appropriate gift to Clare Panattoni today. The glads are in a vase given to me by Renee Moore (on the buy nothing site), just last week. I’m behind Clare. Thanks to Valerie a professional photographer at the party for taking our picture on my camera. It was a nice party her family put on for her. Gloria and I had a nice visit with a number of mutual friends there. The party was from 2:00 to 4:00, and we got there a little after it started and were near last leaving.

The family served cake, cookies, rainbow sherbet punch, coffee, and sugar mints. I did not participate, but they gave out glasses of champagne for a toast to Clare. Gloria and I had met Clare in our exercise class at the senior center, and we have known each other for at least 6 years.

Monday, Sept 5 Happy Labor Day !

For Sept 4. Reported figures. Time on 8 hrs 11 min with AHI=0.49. Events: 2 CSR, 4 H, 12 RERA. No mask leaks (max= 20 L/min). A much better night than last. Oximetry: Excellent all night, avg. 93.2, with one blip low of 89. The low represented in the average calculation was a spurious reading from switching fingers on the oximeter.

I have been working on computerized (Jacquie Lawson) greeting cards this morning; I got behind with all stuff going on. This month has many birthdays and anniversaries. I need to make time to move to the kitchen and load dirty dishes to be cleaned, as we are out of saucers for kitty food. We use 4/day twice a day. We treat them to canned food, but they have hard food available 24/7.

Today we received pictures from John’s trail work last week. Here is a cool collage of his time at Talapus Lake trail on 9/2.
John, with a small rock in his left hand and a large rock-net (multi-person carrier) in his right, middle picture is lunch, and right photo is him with a colleague discussing the project.

We had visits from Merriam turkeys. Eight of them were on the most recent visit but I never captured all in one photo. They have been in the neighborhood for over a week.
Tonight, I decided to put blackberries on John’s piece of pie (he picked them today), and I don’t like the seeds, so I put all the juice on mine and cut up one of our purple plums for my topping. This was on a piece of key lime pie.

Tuesday, Sept 6

For Sept 5 CPAP. Reported figures. Time on 6 hrs 9 min with AHI=1.30. Actually, CPAP off from 2:20 a.m. until right before 4:45. During that time was the low SpO2. Events: 1 CSR, 8 H, 3 RERA. No mask leaks (max= 15x L/min). Oximetry: 92.3% avg SpO2, low 85, okay all night; 3 blips below 88%.

Goodness… what a full day this was.

I awoke, had coffee and a piece of toast, fed the cats, and took a shower. At 9:35, I took my large premed dose (2000 mg) of Amoxicillin to protect my heart for the removal of the stitches, and possible exposure to bacteria getting into my blood. Shortly thereafter, we left for Yakima (I was driving).

We got there with 2 minutes to spare for my 10:45 appt, and they took me right in. Less than 6 minutes later, I returned without my stitches to the waiting room, and off we went for an early lunch. We stayed longer than we should, probably, but got to Costco, filled with gasoline, ($2.459/gal), found a space to park, and went around the store shopping for us, and for 3 other people. We spent $299.01. (The clerk tossed in a penny.) One nice thing about that is by putting it on our Costco credit card, we will receive 2% in $ rewards next year in February. This trip will pay for 2 gallons of gasoline to get there. We got 2 jars of CoQ10 (300 mg) and some prunes for a friend, we got some yogurt, Glucerna, and cereal for another friend, and a package of candy for yet another.

We made it home but not until almost 1:30, when I had planned to leave for Ellensburg for an exercise class, for a blood draw at the hospital to check my INR (it was 2.0), and for another stop or two. Luckily, I checked the telephone and found a message that came in at 9:56 a.m. that our exercise class was cancelled because a plumbing problem had closed the Senior Center. What a nice gesture for them to notify people! That gave me time to help John unload the car and we were able to deliver a large amount of food to our neighbors. I dropped John off at the house and returned to Ellensburg to have my blood draw. From there to Bi-Mart to check my number, and I won a metal package of cough drops, Fisherman’s Friend (Menthol Cough Suppressant Lozenges), that sell for $2.50, for matching the last number in my membership #, 1.

Then I went by my friend Anne’s house to pick up extra copies of her mailbox keys to get her mail. I have a working key now. Then I came home by way of another friend’s to drop off what I picked up Costco and didn’t make it home until 4:30.

We were planning to leave for a wedding just 1.5 miles from our house, and John had washed 20 pounds of smallish Gala apples he picked a week ago. We took them in two boxes and put on the table near the beverages, not many were eaten but some went home with new friends. The wedding was outside and the tents were tied down well enough to withstand the wind. After the wedding, they served a taco bar in the house. It was very good, and I was hungry, having not eaten since 11:15. We stayed and visited until almost dark, but we got home in time for John to feed the horses and for me to feed all 4 cats.

Wedding: Pattie & Steve McDaniel

John and I were among about 35 guests.
This was a selfie of the two of us, and John is talking to the lady in front of us who lives on the west side and he has visited her (to pick Blueberries) house with the groom’s mom.

Wednesday, Sept 7

For Sept 6 CPAP. Reported figures. Time on 5 hrs 3 min with AHI=0.72. Events: 0 CSR, 4 H, 9 RERA. No mask leaks (max= 19 L/min). Oximetry: Avg 92.8% .. no blips. W/o CPAP, all 90s.

I took our other group’s music to the Food Bank today, and we only had 4 people there. Bob (voice and small travel guitar), me (fiddle and voice), Reta & Yvonne (voices). Evelyn was not with us because of jury duty. Kyle rode the bus to get there but arrived after we were already eating and done playing. I gave him a ride back to a place in town he wanted to go (Boogie Man, a music store). Our mandolin player, Joanie, was hurting badly from hip pain. From there I went to my PT appointment, by way of a stop at Petsen$e (new pet supply store in EBRG) to sign up for a one time chance at a raffle for a new Jeep Cherokee, no purchase necessary, but you have to sign up in the store.

Once in Physical Therapy, I checked on my status for my appointment with an orthopedic surgeon 9/19 at the adjacent NW Orthopedics office. Everything was in order except they needed to see my original health insurance cards. I no longer have my Medicare, but I have a color scan of it from 7 years ago. She took that and my Group Health card, and my driver’s license for a picture ID.

I went through my PT session with Natalie with amazing movement, considering I had not been able to do my home exercises since last there a couple weeks ago.

Thursday, Sept 8

For Sept 7 CPAP. Reported figures. Time on 4 hrs 10 min with AHI=2.88. Events: 1 CA, 0 CSR, 9 H, 2 OA, 5 PP, 6 RERA. No mask leaks (max= 16 L/min). Bad night of sneezing** and turned off CPAP after the last episode. Nose running badly. Maybe I’m allergic to the ragweed or rabbit brush pollen, perhaps coming in on the cat. Oximetry: Avg. 92.5%, one blip low 84 off CPAP. Good all night.
[** Might be Rabbit Bush – Ericameria nauseosa or a close relative; now looking like the – from Web – picture below.]
There are a few wild purple Asters blooming and some non-blooming Ragweed. The Rabbit bushes are abundant and the bees are all over them. Thus, that’s our vote.

Go to Meadows, take Anne’s keys on my red bag, do her plants, and freeze the cookies on the counter. John will drive to get gasoline in his car and go by Super 1. We had a lot of people there (12), so had to use a piano bench for seating one person.

Once we were home, we packed up and went to our neighbor’s for a visit. John picked apples (old trees, small unknown apples; to feed to deer), and I visited inside the house with the folks. While there I was able to lift a heavy box of supplies that arrived from Amazon.com via the post office and was put on their front porch. The two of them in their nineties were too frail to be able to lift the box. I got it, brought it to their backroom, opened it, and now it is usable. I also shared some information about physical therapy and read a letter to them that came in the mail and was a little difficult to see. These folks have health issues, but still live at their long-time home.

Friday, Sept 9 my late birthday celebration

For Sept 8 CPAP. Reported figures. Time on 7 hrs 27 min with AHI=10.16. Events: 1 CSR, 9 H, 18 RERA. No mask leaks (max= 22 L/min). Oximetry: Avg 92.1, avg low SpO2 91.2, low blip, 88%, and really good all night.

I have been working this morning on arrangements for next Saturday’s jam session planned at Briarwood. We have decided to start early and join others that were invited. Only about 3 of our people are in town and able to play.

I worked this morning on a few SongWriter songs with needed lyric changes. I need to print them and put into the master copies. I wrote revised in the title and comments so I will be sure to send the right form out for future play times at assisted living homes, and other places we play.

Friday, September 9, 2016, Chef Extravaganza, at 6 PM. Thomas Didra of Dueling Irons restaurant in Post Falls, ID, and a Quincy High School alumnus will be coming to display his prowess with the local produce and meats that we collect from all over the Quincy Basin this week (the fridge is already starting to fill up). This event is held in conjunction with Quincy’s Farmer Consumer Awareness Day and is designed to demonstrate the bounty of the Quincy Basin. Farmer Consumer Day itself is held on Saturday with a parade and all kinds of family activities,
Schedule for Quincy’s FCAD.

As for Friday evening, we will also have Mugsy’s Groove joining us with their very funky Cascade Mountain Funk
Mugsy’s Groove.
$25 at the door for all you can eat and for enjoying the musicians.

Every year, John and I enjoy this celebration of my birthday, a week late.

This year, we attended with Kathy Allen and Todd Schaefer.
Todd is the chair of Political Science at CWU there for 20 years and wife Kathy I got to know independently through my SAIL activity class, in which she was a participant, being the caregiver for one of the older active community women of Ellensburg, Helen Wise. Small world continues in our lives. They are kayakers and learned about this event from an email I sent to my music group, which she likes to attend. They have kayaked at the Columbia and stopped by White Heron several times. They had a great time and want to join us next year as well.

Saturday, Sept 10

For Sept 9 CPAP. Reported figures. Time on 5 hrs 10 min with AHI=0.97. Events: 0 CSR, 5 H, 3 PP, 4 RERA. No mask leaks (max= 21 L/min). Oximetry: Great with CPAP, and without, a blip to 84 low, and a few below 88. Overall avg. 92.6%.

I have spent the morning creating a collection of photos I took last night to share with White Heron Cellars owners, friends there, and to send to Sunshine at the Quincy Valley Post-Register newspaper, maybe for their Facebook page. Stay tuned, but check their page if you are on Facebook. The newspaper began in 1949, and “proudly serves Quincy, George, Crescent Bar, Sunland, Trinidad, and Winchester.”
[Sunland Estates is hard to find, but about 10 miles south of the vineyard, look here: 47.079136, -120.029217 ] John and I have driven through there, long ago.

John picked strawberries and small tomatoes. We just finished cleaning the berries and he is putting 2 pounds of them in the freezer. We will have some after supper on our lemon meringue pie. He has done just a little outside work all day, and finally the wind began blowing and has cooled things down a lot. High was 86 today, and now at 6:00 p.m., it is 77. Highest wind gusts today were 38 mph, but did not start until 2:25, and we have experienced wind all afternoon.

Another limb came down yesterday while we were away, where one came down last week. Both fell where John and Annie frequently go (not in strong winds, though), so he used the truck to pull them to an out-of-way place. They will make a few day’s firewood for next year.

Sunday, Sept 11

John leaves this morning at 6:00 a.m. for another WTA trail maintenance trip, this one to the Middle Fork of the Snoqualmie River. I’m staying home and have no trips planned. He’ll close our front gate fence, in case the horses get out again, as they did yesterday.

Hope your week was fine.

Nancy and John
Still on the Naneum Fan

Sunday, Aug 28

For Aug 27. CPAP not on until this coming Saturday because of potential-conflict with healing implant abutments protruding through gum, and my desire not to break the clots. I am continuing my Oximetry separately all week. It was good all night, with only one blip to 89%. All the rest of 8 hours displayed the majority above 90% in the mid 90s. I am capturing the graphs and reports to show my doctors. Again, the sole reason I use a CPAP machine is to elevate my SpO2 while I sleep. (Blood oxygen % saturation level to keep it flowing to my vital organs, in the 90s. My average overnight without CPAP has been averaging 92%.

Had my first non-liquid lunch, a piece of Key Lime pie completely covered with strawberries.

I cut and froze into ~> 1/2# packages all the rest of the nectarines. John made it home a little before 6:00 p.m. We are still eating peaches and they need attention.

I spent time on the computer on records this morning, after it finally came on and stayed. With our sporadic Internet connection, it is not wise to contact me wanting an answer soon on email or Facebook. Call our landline home number. If no answer, you can try my cell phone, but realize it gets NO reception at our house; however, it will accept Voicemail messages and ring a bell to alert me.

Yesterday afternoon I ordered John a replacement cell phone for his lost one. Turns out it is a nicer phone than he lost. The cost was $10.80 (originally $30) because it was returned. Not bad, with free shipping to arrive on my birthday. Nice present for me because he has driven all over the state since he lost the last one, and I am not in touch after he leaves at 6:00 or 7:00 a.m. until he returns. When Mt. Rainier is the destination it is ~ 6-to-6. This will decrease my stress level considerably.

John made it home just before 5:00.

Here is a photo of John at Talapus Lake trail work today.
John has an iron bar (aka the rock bar) behind a rock that needs moved. This is a re-route of an old trail that followed a logging road from years ago. It took about 4 years of planning, layout, environmental review, paper work, and meetings to get the “go ahead” for this project. WTA volunteers will do about 15 days of work on this before fall, then continue next summer after the snow melts and the tread dries out. (3,000 ft. elevation)

Monday, Aug 29

For Aug 28. CPAP not turned on. Oximetry continued separately, however: SpO2 mostly ~92% all night, with a few blips below 88, and a low of 86.

Wrote check for David Hazlett for trimming Myst, and he completed her feet about noon. Our long-time farrier is slowing down, age, and they just paid off their 30 year mortgage. He is only doing about half the number of horses as 5 years ago. He doesn’t schedule anything after 1 P.M. anymore. He is just 65 but he, and most people that work on large animals, get various physical aliments (and injuries). John claims that those in Washington, D. C. (District of Criminals) who advocate that folks work until 70 or 72, have never actually worked.

I am pulling out of activities in order to recuperate better and had e-mails and calls to make that happen. Wednesday Noon at the Food Bank was one such thing that got cut. I plan to make it Thursday to play with the music group, and we will have an additional fiddler from my past, joining us.
I worked on a sympathy note to Amanda and Alex Taub for the loss of their dad, Jack. Amanda is a student of many years ago with a job based in Wenatchee, though they live in the pseudo-Bavarian village of Leavenworth.
Late afternoon I received several X-rays and photographs of my procedure planning and culmination of the two dental implants for teeth #19 & 18 in my mouth. The photos must be sent in an encrypted computer file (medical record security), and it took me until the next day to figure out how to obtain them.

Because of people reading this blog who do not like to see blood, I shall not include the ones taken during the surgery, but I am happy to have them to see what I was hearing, watching, and feeling. Instead, here I will show a collage below of the results of an earlier 3D scan of my entire mouth so they would have all the details to make the correct mouth mold and take the measurements needed for doing the surgery 8/26 that I already described for you in last week’s blog.
Left to right: (1) the ceramic mold of my teeth, with the plastic guide on the bottom teeth. (2) another view to the bottom jaw with placement. The two metal spots are holes for access of the drill to the correct spot, and they had to line up the correct angle and size of drill bit to make the hole in my bone. (3) the plastic guide out of the mouth mold showing the marks for the insertion of both places for an implant “screw.” (4) the final X-ray, shows when two implants had been screwed into the bone and the abutments for the future crown had been attached.

In the same mail, I received more photos of 3-D scans that were completed and shared with John and me before the surgery occurred. Now that it is over, I am happy I went through the process. Stitches come out this coming Tuesday. I have to wait at least 12 weeks to be sure the bone has surrounded the screw implant properly. During this implant insertion procedure, they put more of my blood platelets into the bone structure surrounding the implants to assist in the grafting process that began 5 months ago in the first surgery when they removed my old infected root canal tooth. I cannot chew on that side until the crowns are installed and that might be Jan or Feb, 2017. It’s fine; I have lots of practice.

This evening I had another large shake tonight for dinner made of Ensure, half a peach, and a heaping tablespoon of New Zealand Whey protein powder, made in Canada. Later in the week, I learned I could add 4 ounces of yogurt and make it even larger and thicker.

Tuesday, Aug 30

For Aug 29. CPAP not planning to turn on until this coming Saturday-conflict with healing implant abutments protruding through gum, and desire not to break the clots. Oximetry continued separately, however. Last night was smooth sailing all night, with only one low of 85%, Avg. low, 88%, and overall average ~ 92%

From a give on the Buy Nothing Ellensburg site, I picked up vases from Renee Moore and took her tomatoes to the parking lot behind her place of work at Argonaut Peak Physical Therapy. I found out she is Peggy Coble’s daughter, whom I know from the Food Bank. I will be using one of the vases later this week to take flowers to a friend’s 90th birthday party.

From there, I went down the street to the KVH lab, for checking my INR, post surgery. Found when I got home it was only 1.6, but I will have it checked again next Tuesday, after I go have my stitches removed. The low value was actually expected because I had been off Coumadin for 2.5 days, and only back for 2.5 tabs.

From there, I went to Hospice Friends to pick up some supplies for another 90 yr old friend. While there, I wrote a check for a donation. They provide such a wonderful service to those in need of medical supplies, without any questions of income or insurance. I borrowed a walker there when I was needing one, and donated it back when Medicare paid for a new one for me at the end of my rehabilitation stay. I borrowed a high toilet seat with handles, until I could get up on my own. I borrowed a seat for the bathtub when I could not get up and down from the tub. I recently borrowed a wooden cane for use of my physical therapy exercises for my shoulder. The organization also provides free trips for those who cannot drive, to places such as Yakima. I have never needed that service, but I have recommended several people to call there about it. Back to today. I carried in a pie plate full of cherry tomatoes with a few Early Girls included. The gal in charge lives in town but her cherry tomatoes are still all green.
We have started to get some of the small Yellow Pear type:
From there, I went to the senior center. I had no intention to go through Jazzercise, so close to my surgery, but I carried 3 large gladioli stems with different colored blooms: orange, red, and a beautiful variegated red & white. I should have taken a picture because I can’t find one on the web that is the same. No one had ever seen such a nifty arrangement.
The Senior Center is closing to have a place at the fair for people to rest, have snacks, and coffee, manned by volunteers from the pc-named Adult Activity Center. While there, I also picked up the instructions for helping another friend, Anne, who will be gone with her son for 2 months back east and south. I am in charge of the mail and watering the plants. A young gal, friend of their family, will be coming every other day to take care of the cat that I took care of last year.

I went by Bi-Mart to check my number and the price on Ensure, forgot to buy potato chips on sale for John that he likes, but will be able to get them Thursday (actually, any time before 9/11, and will need to go back for the sale on cat food by that date as well).

While in town, I dropped by Grocery Outlet for more pies. In addition, I came home by way of my friend’s to drop off her supplies I picked up at Hospice Friends. We had a nice little visit, and I made it home later than planned.

Once home, I ate a piece of key lime cream pie covered with half a fresh peach, peeled, and cut. Late afternoon, I had a spiked blueberry yogurt with protein powder whey filled with the other half of the peach from earlier. Protein is supposed to help me heal but is lacking in the soft food diet.

I helped fix the food for outside cats, waiting for darkness to send away the bees. I also made two calls to catch up on neighbors and my older (music) friend with whom I check every night.

John fixed his own dinner and I started working on the strawberries he picked this morning. After they were washed and drained, he came over to help me cut them. We probably had at least a quart of berries, maybe more, kept some for later, and John froze the rest. We will expand this patch of day-neutral plants next year.

Wednesday, Aug 31

For Aug 30. CPAP not turned on. Oximetry continued separately, however: Avg SpO2 was 92.1%, 3 jumps below 88%, but low was 85%, with avg low of 89.2%.

I am staying home today to recuperate. So, no food bank soup kitchen music or food (could not eat it today, anyway).

I called Clare Panattoni to see when her 90th birthday party is on Sunday. She had invited me last Thursday when we were playing music at Hearthstone. It will be 2:00 to 4:00, drop in for cake and punch. I will take Gloria (also 90), who knows Clare from our SAIL exercise class at the senior center. I will take John’s gladioli and a little tiara for her that was given to me on my birthday in 2015.

Boy, today was filled with medical issues. I am sorry I missed going to the Food Bank, but happy I stayed home to try to sort out some of this still unfinished business.

John’s phone arrived this afternoon at 3:25 in our mailbox, after starting in Portland, and going through Spokane to get to us.
Now to open, and activate, and add some phone numbers to his address book. At least he will have it for his late (near end of season) volunteer trips. He has 3 scheduled, but might add another.

Thursday, Sept 1 (My birthday!)

For Aug 31. CPAP not turned on. Oximetry continued separately, however: Several blips of SpO2 below 88, but nothing serious, and only one minimum of 82.

Awoke to many birthday wishes on email and Facebook. Actually an amazing number. They are still coming in late afternoon. My first one of the morning was an email from John:

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

And this link: The Science of Color in Autumn Leaves

I received emails all day and cards came in the postal mail through Saturday.

We called and talked to Helen Burgoon in PA, John’s 91 yr old cousin who shares my birthday. She is as amazing as her 97-year old sister, Ethel, also in PA. Helen, and lots of other family, live near Bradford, PA. John says it is the coldest place in all the World. He says they couldn’t have Seals in the local zoo ’cause the seals would attract Polar Bears – if they had a zoo.

Now to eat breakfast and work on getting John’s replacement cell phone initiated for this weekend’s use.

I will go to the Rehab where I was for 7 weeks in the beginning of 2010, to play music. We should have at least eight players there.

Not doing anything for my birthday until next week, when we go to our annual fun event (harvest festival) over at the winery and vineyard where John helps prune. It will be held Friday, Sept 9, and you’ll hear more about that in next week’s blog.

On the way home, we stopped off at Joanie and Ken’s to pick up my birthday present she knitted. They are called “muffatees” and they are an authentic revolutionary war pattern, “allowing you to shoot and poop without taking your mitts off.” – Joanie further said there was a lady selling homespun wool and things she had knitted and crocheted – (hers were all real wool, to be period appropriate – yours are acrylic and machine washable). She knitted them for me last June, while attending the Pacific Primitive Rendezvous in Seneca, OR (they have a website). Last year she and her hubby, Ken, treated me on my birthday to a tuna melt and will later this year, with John, after I am back totally on a solid food diet. Here is a photo of her gift:
She used Seattle Seahawk colors, so I placed them in the photo with my special cap. It was a challenge taking left-handed with a flash that pops up on the left holding side and needing to focus and shoot while leaving my mittened right hand in the picture with my vintage Seattle Seahawks hat. I will be right in style at next year’s Sportzpalooza at the senior center. (Last year’s blog showed John and me there on Jan 29, 2015, with my hat and colors on. John wore a red/white/blue Phillies jacket, yard sale edition. Next year I’ll have him add his Bronco T shirt (free with a beer purchase, or something) and wear my Chicago Cubs baseball hat. We’ll be all decked out. [John says, explain that: “adorn” (as in deck the halls), c.1500, from M.Du. dekken “to cover,” from the same P.Gmc. root as deck (n.).]

We got home in time before the downpour to take my photo in my western attire I wore to play music. This was the first day of the Fair and everyone was in the mood. We began with the western cowboy songs we had done at the Rodeo/Fair kick off breakfast on Aug 20. Today, we had a good turnout and a lot of fun. At the end of the playtime, I started Happy Birthday in G, and the audience and players played and sang to me.

Before the photo below are some of my memories I shared with my music group after we played today:

Thanks everyone who made my birthday celebration complete yesterday, 9/1. Our afternoon at the Rehab was the best memory in my experience at that place. A few of you know the previous best time was sitting in that room in my wheelchair, barely playing and singing with the group (Kittitas Valley Fiddlers & Friends) in 2010, and watching Charlie smile at having me back with the group. I spent 7 weeks there Jan-Feb that year learning to use ALL my muscles after they atrophied being in the ICU for 55 days leading up to, including the heart valve replacement surgery, and getting out for physical therapy and care at Rehab. Mae Opperman (now a resident there) was in the room today. She was my roommate in the room next door, when I arrived. I always called her my sunshine and inspiration for encouraging me by letting me know I would be back on my feet and able to walk again, as she was. Now, it hurts me to see her health declining.

We all (and the audience) were really on a roll and had a blast. Thanks, Minerva, Maury, Sharon, Manord, Charlie, Evie, and Trinity for making my 73rd birthday memorable. Having our fan club there was special too. Trinity, we appreciated your joining us, and hope you’ll have another chance in the future. Safe travels on your trip back from Spokane and the best wishes to your mom, Muriel (whom I have known almost 25 years from Bobbie Pearce’s Intermediate Fiddling class in Kittitas, WA at the WA Old Time Fiddler’s summer workshop).

Here I am in front of one of our Carpathian walnut trees, check the photo to the left of my hat brim for 3 walnuts (English type) still encased on the tree.
Nancy, Sept 1, 2016, on 73rd birthday

John made me a nice moist birthday cake tonight – lemon, filled with fresh peaches cut into small pieces. I frosted it with cream cheese frosting.
Cake (Lemon/Peach) with frosting added (cream cheese)

It started raining after we got home and we hope it is over sooner than expected, before John leaves in the morning for Talapus Lake for trail work. He does not want to work all day in the rain.

Friday, Sept 2

For Sept 1. CPAP still not turned on, oximetry only: Avg SpO2 was 92.1%, 3 jumps below 88%, but low was 85%, with avg low of 89.2%

John fed two of the cats before leaving and the sun is shining. The main precipitation activity is still over near the Juan de Fuca Strait and Victoria. He has along his new backpack cover to protect from rain if it happens. He wore his new waterproof camouflage (Mossy Oak!) boots. He drops me off, goes and buys stuff, and comes back to pick me up. He’s heard the music and says he’s too young for that stuff. He and the crew were fortunate with only some sprinkles and the rain didn’t start until they were leaving the trail. About the time he got to I-90 it was raining hard and the first afternoon of a holiday weekend. The traffic was crazy slow because all the folks heading east out of Puget Sound area on 3 to 4 lanes have to choke down to 2 lanes just east of Snoqualmie Pass.

He also has his new phone, and called me from the trailhead in the morning, about 9. Today, my work is cut out for me – thanking people for my birthday greetings yesterday, and trying to get the blog ready for John to help edit tomorrow while he is back home.

I spent this morning communicating on email with Colleen (my cardiologist’s nurse at the Yakima Heart Center) about some of the protein powder supplement I have been using with the Ensure and yogurt. I was concerned about raising my potassium level because of being on a medication (Spironolact), which provides enough potassium to override the diuretic that I have to take every other day. I had been taken off potassium tablets. She assured me I was within the range in May, and didn’t really need to supplement further.

John was caught in horrible traffic on I-90 at the pass that had delayed people for an hour most of the afternoon. Get out of the lane, off, and back on I-90 seemed foolish – so he didn’t, and didn’t call. I was watching on the web cams and reading the travel alerts. Finally he called from the gas station in Ellensburg. He stopped by for ice cream and salsa so we could have nachos for supper tonight. I’m looking forward to that after getting very tired of the liquid diet.

I never got to my thank you notes for my birthday, and the messages keep arriving all day, including more cards in the mail. John’s sister Peggy called for a nice long phone conversation this morning. My Facebook account continues to have birthday wishes expressed in many ways – homemade illustrations (here’s a collage of Dave Covert’s photographs he sends one every year – with the one on the left he sent this year, but with others taken the same day (Aug 27, ’16), my mom’s birthday.
The flower on the left he sent to my Facebook account. It is a dinnerplate Hibiscus. The middle tub of birds is neat, and the one on the right is Crocus.

Others sent cute stories and memories. I think that is the best part of Facebook. I try to acknowledge all my FB friends and relatives on their birthdays too (we are notified the day of their birthday to write a note on their timeline, which means all our contacts are reminded each time someone writes). As of Saturday morning, I was up to 158 messages from all over the country and around the world (Cuzco, Peru, Australia, New Zealand, Canada (two in Nova Scotia, one a high school buddy) British Columbia, and Alberta). Gifts in different forms – for example, from my friend in Brittanys, for over 20 years, Karen Barrows, a message that her 3 yr old Brittany (lines go back to ours) won an Open Limited Gun Dog stake (19 starters) at the Oregon Brittany Club field trial in Madras, Oregon. For many years from the late 1970s, we traveled to those grounds and that trial. That win for “Cinder,” a tri-colored Brittany finished her field championship.

The first greeting of the morning on Facebook came from Anna & Paul Friesen in Wisconsin, who have two Brittanys from us, Tobie & Molly, who she reminded me would be 10 years old today, 9/2/16, a day after my birthday. I drove to Spokane to meet Paul who took them home inside the airplane with him, in 2006. They actually have had more Brittanys in their family from us, and they have passed across the rainbow bridge to happy hunting grounds there. Paul is an avid bird hunter and they are his buddies.

For memory’s sake:
Tobie & Molly (left – 2006) to adult members of the Friesen family

Saturday, Sept 3

For Sept 2 CPAP still not on. Oximetry: SpO2 avg was 91.8%. Low was 85%.

Today will be working on this blog to finish before John takes off tomorrow for Mt. Rainier.

This morning was the rodeo parade but we did not go. I watched some videos and photos of the parade on Facebook.

I hope the battery holds out on John’s new phone for the day. Yesterday, it was exhausted from being on all day and making two calls. That is one disadvantage of the phone reported by users. I’ll discourage him from taking any videos which I know are rapid eaters of battery life, and he will only turn it on when making a call, or taking a photo.

John just arrived for lunch after much work in the yard, moving a large downed cottonwood branch (no doubt from the recent high winds), cleaning up weeds around his planned loading platform (while waiting for a doe to move from her bed near the old pickup). He reported that we have very many little red and yellow tomatoes needing picked. Then he cut and buried some Burdock, Arctium minus.

Click on the little photos (if you go there) to see the larger images. Or, you can click on the pdf link. The other link to a weed management handbook did not open for me. Note this: “Marble sized burs are covered with many slender, hooked spines that gave rise to the idea for ‘Velcro’.”

I’m still working on the blog but getting ready to have my lunch of leftovers from nachos last night and tuna/egg salad from lunch yesterday. I finished with a piece of key lime pie covered with 1/2 a fresh peach.

Night found me going back to my combo of Ensure, yogurt, protein whey, and four of our yellow plums cut up for dinner, and John had a ham & cheese sandwich.

Hope your week was fine.

Nancy and John
Still on the Naneum Fan

Monday, August 22

For Aug 21 CPAP. Reported figures. Time on 4 hrs 58 min with AHI=1.01. Events: 0 CSR, 5 H, 4 RERA. No mask leaks (max= 21 L/min). Oximetry: Two blips below 88% on the CPAP & off, but fine all night. Actually, the down was lower on CPAP than off.

I have taken care of a bunch of medical planning issues all day, answered emails (not finished), done dishes, and put medications for the week into my little case.

John went to town in the truck to pick up our new tires for the RV trailer that had been installed on their powder metalized-coated rims to rejuvenate the old pitted/weathered ones (34 years old) that were causing one of the 15-year-old tires not to stay inflated.
Several colors are possible but because the trailer has “earth” colors, John picked orange. It is Kobota-orange and brighter than the trailer’s colors (somewhat faded). Hubcaps cover most of the rim, so only a little orange shows. The technology is new to us, but not new.

The tires are not top-of-the-line, but good enough for a trailer that doesn’t go anywhere. Well, it did go up on wood blocks, likely until a fire causes us to evacuate – or we decide to become vagabonds.

Note the brand: Venezia! Sounds sort of Italian. Not so. Not even from The Rubber Capital of the World – Akron. They are produced in Thailand. Oh, the tragedy!

While out to photograph the tires, I stepped over to John’s number one garden where he was watering his little hen & chicks. They are within a 6′ fence because the deer love these tasty treats. We gave away 12 pots the beginning of summer, a couple last week, and more need to be separated and potted anew.

I talked to Janel at Hospice Friends and will stop by tomorrow before 2:30 to see her and pick up some stuff for my neighbor and me. She suggested giving me a light hospital blanket to fold and put into a pillowcase to use in the dental chair this Friday to protect my back. Great idea (and it worked perfectly).

Tuesday, Aug 23

For Aug 22 CPAP. Reported figures. Time on 4 hrs 45 min with AHI=0.42. Events: 0 CSR, 2 H, 8 RERA. No mask leaks (max= 14 L/min). Oximetry: SpO2 up all night on & off CPAP except right before I stopped the oximeter and might be from moving to a different finger.

Today starts my Amoxicillin three times a day (8 hr intervals) for 10 days.

I went for my INR at KVH, and found out late afternoon that it was high, at 3.2. From there on to Hospice Friends, on my way to the 2:00 Jazzercise (taking $3 to Katrina, although I will not likely be there next week, but I also owed some from last month). We meet once a week, and pay 50¢/day for the class.

I carried a container of Early Girl and cherry tomatoes. Everyone was happy. While there, I picked up keys from Anne so I can get her mail and water her plants for the 2 months she and her son are gone back east and south. This year a friend’s younger girl will take care of the cat I took care of last year.

After today’s vigorous aerobic exercise, I went to Physical Therapy for my Progress Report. I did not do as well today as I have done in the past, on most all the measurements.

I stopped by Safeway to pick up my Telmisartan (Micardis) at the reduced price (still a lot for 90 tablets), $67.89, through GoodRx. I take cash for the purchase, as I cannot qualify for a co-pay through insurance at my regular pharmacy because the price for the same amount is triple this cash price (for some reason).

The temperatures were quite hot today. I came home tired.

Wednesday, Aug 24

For Aug 23 CPAP. Reported figures. Time on 5 hrs 42 min with AHI=0.00. Events: 0 CSR, 0 H, 11 RERA. No mask leaks (max= 8 L/min). Oximetry: Good all night, with one blip to 88.

I shall begin midweek today with a Facebook photo posting and note from Tony Bynum, professional photographer extraordinaire, from Montana, and my friend from long ago, since he was our geography student at CWU and in resource management.

Tony’s comments to his Facebook friends are below, marked with a left column.

Once in awhile you get lucky. 🙂 Just another day at the office – yeah, right! Sat at this location for the past 10 years or more waiting for a shot like this. You can imagine how I felt … All those days waiting, hoping. Everything has to be right, the light, the wind, the sun, and the animals. At the end of the day, I would have never have been able to bring shots like this to reality, if not for our public lands keeping it wild. See: www.tonybynum.com for more photography in the wilderness.

Early 5:00 a.m. Amoxicillin. I went to food bank for music, and ate a little, but I left without going to SAIL exercise to come home to work on medical records, in consultation with my family physician’s records keeper. I did not take my friend, Gloria, with me because she had other appointments.

The rest of the afternoon I worked on 7 pages of Medical history (in a form they emailed me as a .pdf file so I could print out, fill in by hand, and also then scan into a .pdf of all the pages plus a paged of my medication dosages, and ship back with my signatures and all the information. Again, this was necessary to share all details to be considered for an evaluation of my left shoulder by Dr. Richard Roux, an orthopedic surgeon. Before I can even schedule an appointment, I have to do all this paperwork, after the referral from my family physician (that I received Monday, this week). I had to consult with the record keeper at my primary care doctor’s office to coordinate dates on procedures connected to medical ailments over my past. In addition, I had to get the full name of a drug I was allergic to in the past and what my reaction was. That is the second allergy on my list. I know Heparin as the important first “allergy,” of which a H.I.T. would be fatal. I wear a medic alert bracelet for that and for the various artificial parts associated with my heart.

Now to send the count for tomorrow’s music to the people who will set up the chairs. Done. We will need 10; ended up needing 11.

This evening we went to the neighbors to carry in the stuff from my car I got from Hospice Friends and take them a few each of peaches, plums, nectarines, and cherry & pear tomatoes. After lugging the stuff in, John walked home to feed horses, deer, cats, and do a few other things, and I stayed to visit.

Thursday, August 25

For Aug 24 CPAP. Reported figures. Time on 4 hrs 21 min with AHI=0.69. Events: 2 CSR, 3 H, 10 RERA. No mask leaks (max= 21 L/min). Oximetry: Good all night, only 2 blips to 88%, SpO2.

Early morning call (7:56 a.m.) about scheduling an appointment for my shoulder evaluation with the orthopedic surgeon. I was dead asleep, having been up at 5:00 a.m. to take an antibiotic first dose for the day. Laid back down with a heating pad on my shoulder and neck.

I had cancelled my teeth cleaning for this morning, because I was afraid the extra Amoxicillin was going to raise my INR, which cannot be above 2.5 for Friday’s surgery. Therefore, I will just go play music at Hearthstone, afterwards, go for an INR late afternoon (at the hospital lab, a block north), to see if it is below 2.5 (required for surgery), and call my Coumadin counselor to report the number. Ended up having a vein draw rather than a pinprick and called before 5:00 to get the reading. Happily, it was 2.0, so I am good to go for the surgery.

We had a lot of music folks today. Pretty cool. At one point we had 4 fiddlers.

Finally changed my nose piece and tubing on the CPAP; I need to do the filters.

Friday, August 26

For Aug 25 CPAP. Reported figures. Time on 6hrs 37min with AHI=0.00. Events: 0 CSR, 0 H, 10 RERA. No mask leaks (max= 10 L/min). Oximetry: Great all night.

Introduction: Dental Implant Surgery, definition by the Mayo Clinic staff:

Dental implant surgery is a procedure that replaces tooth roots with metal, screw-like posts and replaces damaged or missing teeth with artificial teeth that look and function much like real ones. Dental implant surgery can offer a welcome alternative to dentures or bridgework that doesn’t fit well.
How dental implant surgery is performed depends on the type of implant and the condition of your jawbone. But all dental implant surgery occurs in stages and may involve several procedures. The major benefit of implants is solid support for your new teeth — a process that requires the bone to heal tightly around the implant. Because this healing requires time, the process can take many months.

My surgery was a follow-up from 5 months ago when I had a tooth pulled (a root canal that became infected and was realized when the gold crown came off and could not be reseated. The surgeon had to take my blood platelets and insert bone graft materials to regenerate the bone in which to connect the implants. That requires a minimum of 4 months.
Because of my heart issues, and valve replacement, I have been on Amoxicillin 3 times a day since Tuesday, and my premed (4 500 mg tablets) occurs an hour before surgery, so I took it on the way down to Yakima; John driving. I was at the dental surgeon’s office for check in at 11:00 a.m., and surgery prep began at 11:15. Surgery lasted 1.5 hrs. I went through the surgery, and am providing some description below. We left the office at 1:00 and came home via my Ellensburg pharmacy for Oral Rinse (a pint and I’m only supposed to dab a Q-tip in two places twice a day). Insurance doesn’t cover it, and so we had to fork out $15.48. My pain killer (not working) was only $3.49. Saddest is that my blood doesn’t want to clot either. The 30 minutes of biting on gauze pads (they gave me) has not stopped it. I continued for a couple hours and finally stopped, and the bleeding slowed. I continued with cold compresses to my cheek on and off for 20 minutes. (That’s primarily for swelling.)

During the prepping, I was able to have help with setting up my three “pillows” I brought for the chair. I had folded a light hospital blanket and put into a pillow case wrapped to half size, to place between my back and the back of the chair, which had pressed uncomfortably (and painfully) 5 months ago in the beginning surgery setup. The second pillow I sat on – a pillow case around an egg-carton type foam pad. The third pillow was my normal smallest sleeping pillow, which we put under my left shoulder/arm.

Surgery went for 1.5 hours, I was awake the entire time, and knew everything going on, what was said, and when my anesthetic quit working. The pressure of stretching all of my mouth’s facial skin and lips was painful and I had no numbing for that. Pressure under my chin was also required. The doctor had two immediate assistants, (1) running the suction, pulling out my cheek, advising on positioning of the drill and screwing in the implants eventually, and this person also took X-rays of the jaw as we progressed; (2) handing drill bits, controlling the direction and speed, changing implements/tools/inserts, accepting measurement directions from the surgeon, and acting as another set of eyes to position from her side (right) of my mouth. I was able to see (and hear all the tools used and the directions given). I also received explanations of the process and what was happening along the way. The doctor asked in advance if I wanted such information, because many patients do not want any explanation while the surgery proceeds. I assured him I wanted to know everything he had time to slip in between instructions to his assistants. A fourth person was also helping with various tasks, and with setting the X-rays that proceeded throughout. I had a heavy lead cover protection over me the entire time.

I had had a 3D CT scan at a previous visit, and the surgeon, Dr. Tew, created a plastic form with the emplacement locations he used (with it placed in my mouth) for setting up the hole drilling into the bone to house the implant “screw” (metal post). During surgery to place the dental implant, the oral surgeon makes a cut to open the gum and expose the bone. Holes are drilled into the bone where the dental implant metal post will be placed.
Because the post will serve as the tooth root, it is implanted deeply into the bone, but not so deep as to reach the nerve. Also occurring during the surgery was attaching the abutment to the top of the metal post that will be the base attached to the crown. That work will be put off for early next year.

I will not wear the CPAP machine for a week after oral surgery. I learned that by myself 5 months ago. It was not a pleasant experience to start the blood flowing again, after two days. I was told not to drink from a straw, but nothing about the CPAP’s interference. I rewrote their post-operative procedures and questions. Not everyone is the same, but I am to stay off a week, sleep doctor’s orders. I do not have sleep apnea problems, but am on it solely to increase my SpO2 (blood saturated oxygen percentage level for my organ health, particularly my heart).

My afternoon recovery was painful, and I alternated doing all the things suggested, and took another pain killer, but I guess the Yogurt and the Ensure was not enough to counteract the “empty” stomach, and I suffered from a little nausea. Thankfully, John had picked up some generic-Sprite for me when he got the pain meds… and oral rinse.

While resting, John went through and explained some of the photos that arrived from a trail worker during the Jack Creek work in Icicle Canyon this past weekend. We just received these photos today.

Here are a three of collages John can review what he described to me and I tried to share below each.
Starts with Jack Creek a mile away from the trail work; sign entrance to two Alpine Wilderness Trails, Paula working on root removal, and John working on the top of a large root. The tree is already dead but removing the entire root might destabilize the tree, causing it to fall, and ripping up the newly refurbished trail. He took about 6 inches off the top, using saw and ax.This is the rock and pole story at the end of a lot of hard digging by Paula and Carol to expose the rock. The previous day, thinking they were done with the heavy lifting, they had carried a continuous rope puller out to the truck …

Maasdam Rope Puller

… and some other gear. John got his rock moving stick, Alan has a shovel, and the iron bar is in the hands of the lady.
Alan with a large removed root, Bradley dumping rocks John broke up from a nearby granitic, and well weathered, boulder. Alan watched from the end of turnpike, and on the right look past the turnpike and see John creating the buckets of small rocks with a one handed sledge hammer (aka, single Jack).

Tonight we also had some nice views more to the northwest from our back patio.

Saturday, August 27

For Aug 26 CPAP. Not using; however, I recorded the oximetry all night: Without the machine, the SpO2 jumped below 88 a few times, below 80, twice.

This morning I was up early to take my antibiotic and acetaminophen, but I did not take any pain pill. I managed to sleep until 9:00 a.m.

John fed the 3 outside cats, picked some cherry tomatoes, and left for the Eberhart orchards to pick a few boxes of Gala apples, early ripeners. Honeycrisp won’t be ready until later. We have two neighbor things going on and want to provide a box of apples to each. He got about 90-100 pounds of good apples and another box of windfalls to give to the fawns and their mom.

He went by way of Ellensburg to buy gasoline, a bucket of ice cream, and 2 frozen pies.

About 11:30 a.m. a car drove in (not John), so Annie announced it. I walked out and received a beautiful flower arrangement sent by my dentists. Here’s a photo.

The photo is outside (overcast today then). On the right is the florist and the card from the sender attached. I appreciated receiving the pretty flowers from my dentist and my surgeon for yesterday’s activity in my mouth.

Inside the house I added a picture of the flower delivery vase beside a vase with the gladioli John brought to me when he got home. Both are in my kitchen window to cheer me when I fix my liquids mixed with filtered water and mix in a heaping tablespoon of New Zealand Whey (protein powder manufactured in Canada). I received a container of it from Tanya Myers, that John brought back to me with several boxes of apples picked this morning.

Temps went to 82 high today, but so did the wind gusts (to 43 mph twice).

John and I had a piece of Key Lime pie this afternoon and for supper, I had a yogurt with another whopping tablespoon of whey protein powder. Then before bedtime, we’ll have another piece of Key Lime Pie with our strawberries on top. I should be able to slither those down my throat and chew a little on the right side, if needed. The crust is crushed graham cracker so not as hard as a flour-based cooked pie shell.

Hope your week was fine.

Nancy and John
Still on the Naneum Fan