1/11/23

 Wednesday, January 11, 2023

In bed @ 10:15, awoke and up at 5:05, from a dream in which our old firm had been acquired by a larger firm, notified new firm filing bankruptcy, Bill Guis, Bill Rausch & I washing soot and dirt off windows of a mansion with filthy water, filthy rags, grist for the mills of Freud or Jung,  33 degrees, rain/snow for the next hour, high of 41, gentle SW winds today, 2 to 7 mph  Winter Weather Advisory till 0 a.m., meaning slippery roads. leaving for VA @ 9:30. Sunrise 7:22, sunset 4:37, 9+15.

Visit to the VA Medical Center.  I was at the VAMC Eye Clinic for only an hour this morning, examined by a young, skinny, pretty resident, Dr. Bruce, who has me returning Friday for a second opinion on cataract surgery.  When she asked if I was willing to consider the surgery, I didn't hesitate to say yes.  I've had so much trouble reading for such a long time now and difficulty driving at night, I was actually pretty thrilled when she mentioned it.  On the other hand, she advised me that the surgery might lead to swelling in the retina and require the use of eye drops and/or eye injections again, something that is to say the lease unpleasant.  I endured those Avastin injections over many months for retinal bleeding and macular degeneration.  Tolerable, but not pleasant.  

Waiting to see Dr. Bruce, I chatted for 5 or 7 minutes with a 98 year old WWII vet, both of us hard of hearing. He served in the Army in Europe.  He shook my hand before he moved to sit next to his daughter who had accompanied him to his appointment and I told him it was an honor to meet and talk with him.  While I was there, there were 3 separate emergency calls, at least one of which I hear on every visit.  "May I have your attention please.  Medical emergency, medical response team needed (Location given)"  Then the message is repeated. We all know it means some veteran being treated in in serious distress, maybe in extremis.  Then  Today the hospital was packed, judging from the almost full parking lot and the line of cars waiting for valet parking assistance.  

De mortuis nil nisi bonum.  Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, now better known at Pope [Emeritus] Benedict XVI was the last of the Dr. NO papal trifecta.  Paul VI said NO to the morality of Catholics using birth control pills.  John Paul II said NO to women in the priesthood.  and Benedict XVI said NO to Liberation Theology, NO to married priests, and NO to women even as deacons.  He also said no to any kind of sexual activity, including masturbation by men or women, except in the case of a man and a woman in a valid Christian marriage intending to produce a child.  Homosexual relations were to him a perversion and of course immoral, against God's will.  He was not only a "Catholicism First" guy, but rather a Catholicism Only kind of guy, not a fan of ecumenism or open to non-Christian religions.  He was kind of Teutonic in religious orientation, unlike the Italian John XXIII who convened Vatican II and the Argentinian Francis I ('Who am I to judge?')  Cosseted away in his Vatican Garden convent, he was always a threatening cloud over Francis' inclination to liberalize and modernize the Catholic Church, a subverter.  Conservative Catholics, the Latin Mass crowd, rabid anti-abortion crowd, the Vatican II rejectionists, really liked Benedict.  Not me.

Oh, no! Gas stoves!?!?  Is Sarah's asthma due to the gas stove on Newberry?  The Consumer Product Safety Commission is considering a ban on gas stoves because they contribute to childhood asthma and climate change.  Los Angeles, Seattle, and NYC have already banned gas hookups in new construction.  When a gas stove is on, it releases not only fine pieces of particulate matter that can invade the lungs, but also nitrogen dioxide, carbon monoxide and formaldehyde — all of which have been linked to various health risks.Scientists have identified nitrogen dioxide, for example, as contributing to childhood onset of asthma and worsening asthma symptoms. According to one study, children living in a household with gas stoves have a 42 percent increased likelihood of already having asthma and a 24 percent increased risk of developing asthma at some point in their lifetime.  More ignorance (who knew?), more guilt.😧😥😫

Danger! Poison!😱

Geri and her friend  Geri informed me yesterday that she was going to visit her friend with advanced Parkinson's Disease this morning, with me thinking how good of her to be doing this since I know it's not an easy visit for her. Mt. 25.  I was hungry and you fed me, sick and you cared for me,  imprisoned and you visited me.  With each visit the friend's Parkinson's appears to worsen.  Before the holidays, she was trying to learn or relearn how to knit.  Today there was no mention of knitting.  Her friend is a professional woman of some accomplishment, and I am struck by how many of her good friends are professional women, women of achievement, gumption, intelligence, and drive.  It reminds me that Geri is too.  I need to start working on my "what I love about her" essay.  I have a long list of characteristics I started putting in the "Notes" app on my iPhone, starting simply enough with "her laugh" which is, to me, absolutely lovely, a delight to my ears.  The list contains a lot of more intrinsic qualities of character like courage, self-respect, resourcefulnesss, care-giving, patience, curiosity,  etc., etc., . . .

Amitriptyline arrived in the mail today.  Deciding whether to take it or not.  Sent secure message to Jill Hansen re relationship to taking empagliflozin, kidneys, etc.