11/27/23

 Monday, November 27, 2023

In bed at 9, up at 4:06, let Lilly out with Venue visible in the SE sky, 21°, windy, high 28°, wind WNW at 16 mph, 15-18/29, WC is 8°😨!  Sunrise at 6:59, sunset at 4:19, 9+20.  Winter is here!

Treadmill; pain.  Got up with some CPP tightness on the usual left side.  I drank only water and chamomile tea (Sleepytime) tea yesterday.  I've been drinking only decaffeinated coffee lately, or occasionally halfcaf, and happily I haven't had any caffeine withdrawal headaches.  I've had some CPP spasms all morning but not disabling.

I'm grateful for Lilly.  I let Lilly out again at 4:40.  Call of nature or just her normal nervousness?  Let the dog out, let the dog in, let the dog out . . .   I wait at the door for her return with the temperature and wind chill so low.  She has her regular early morning route consisting of first walking north and then reversing course and checking out the southeast quadrant of her 'estate.'  On each of her two early morning outings she morning, she came in without her normal patrol of the southeast quad and seems a bit out of sorts about it, unsettled.  She's doing a lot of "ants in her pants" walking around this morning.  She is into her 15th year now and we are always a bit anxious about her wellbeing, including concerns about 'doggy dementia.'  She spends much of her time alone during the day, often in the sunroom, sometimes in my bedroom or the front room.  At night she normally plops down between us on the carpet in the tv room. . .   I let her out again at 7:40, not knowing whether she had any particular purpose in going out into the now 5℉ wind chill.  As so often happens though, when I let her out for a pit stop, I need to take one myself.  Geri got up at about 7:45 and again Lilly asked to be let out at 8:00.  Is this just a learned behavior to be provided a treat, a beef stick, slab of jerky, or chicken apple sausage? 

"The Golden Bachelor is a Fantasy.  Aging in America Isn't" is an audio feature by Michelle Cotter in this morning's NYT.  I have never watched this 'reality show' and never will but sound snips in Cottle's piece make it clear that the show is about Americans in the '60s and '70s pursuing romantic relationships, sex, and joie de vivre with lots of energy and vigor and gusto.  As the headline says, it's a fantasy.  The 'reality' that this fantasy show elides is the mental and physical decline and loss of energy that besets most of us as we slip and slide into old age.  Decline, decay, debility, decrepitude, deficiencies, distress, dementia, and of course disease and death - the reality part of 'the golden years' ignored in this silly program starring these silly people.

Why Some Seniors Are Choosing Pot Over Pills is a story in this morning's NYT.  Excerpts:

In 2007, only about 0.4 percent of people age 65 and older in the United States had reported using cannabis in the past year, according to the National Survey on Drug Use and Health. That number rose to almost 3 percent by 2016. As of 2022, it was at more than 8 percent.

“People are just desperate,” said Dr. Aaron Greenstein, a geriatric psychiatrist in Denver. “They’re willing to try anything.”

As more states legalize cannabis — it is now permitted for recreational use in more than 20 states and Washington, D.C., and for medical use in 38 states and D.C. — the number of seniors who turn to marijuana will only continue to grow, experts said. An October Gallup poll found that about two-thirds of adults 55 and older think the use of marijuana should be legal.

Because cannabis is not federally legal, doctors don’t have enough research to guide them on what conditions it is helpful for, who might be at higher risk for potential harms, how to dose it properly or which strains to recommend, said Dr. Benjamin Han, an addiction medicine specialist at the University of California, San Diego, and one of the few geriatricians in the United States who studies older adults and substance use.

“What makes it even more complicated is cannabis is a very complex plant,” he added, and there are more than 100 cannabinoids — the biologically active components in the cannabis plant — as well as products with different ratios of THC to cannabidiol, or CBD. 

One study, led by Dr. Han, found that emergency department visits associated with cannabis use among older adults rose more than 1,800 percent in California — from 366 in 2005 to 12,167 in 2019.

Older users may lean on their prior experience with the drug, but “the cannabis today is very different,” he said. “It is stronger. And then on top of that, there are all these physiological changes with aging that make you more sensitive than you would have been 40 years ago.”

I have long wondered whether cannabis might help with my CPP, either by reducing the painful spasms or lessening the stress they cause.  I can't get advice from my doctors at the VA because they are forbidden to prescribe or recommend cannabis because of its criminal illegality under federal law and the laws of some states, including Wisconsin.  ("Cannabis is a Schedule I substance according to federal law, which means that, by definition, it has no currently accepted medical use and a high potential for abuse. Other examples of Schedule I substances include heroin and LSD. Because of this classification, cannabis remains difficult to study, and there is no definitive resource to inform a doctor’s clinical approach to its use.")  An elderly friend who was plagued by insomnia for years started using 'weed' obtained in a neighboring state where it is legal and his insomnia disappeared.  Others we know use it regularly for stress relief and relaxation.  Cannabis is now permitted for recreational use in more than 20 states and Washington, D.C., and for medical use in 38 states and D.C.   Not in Wisconsin.😧

Thinking of Thomas Merton today.  living in a hermitage, 'far from the madding crowd.'  If he weren't a member of a religious community, Merton would be considered mentally ill

ICE!😱  The one inch of snow we received the other day melted on concrete and has turned to ice, including on our stoop.  An old person's nemesis.

Shirley brought Geri a care package.   Chicken noodle soup from Costco.  G is still decidedly not well.  I tried unsuccessfully to open the plastic container and finally gave up.

Budiac Plumbing in Cedarburg (Matt) took care of the clogged shower drain with his power auger for $235.  Well worth it.  He also adjusted the drain and removed the hair catcher in my bathroom sink.

LTMW at noon, I see a gorgeous red-bellied woodpecker peck off a big chunk of suet and fly away with it.  Typing this reminds me of a funeral I attended while I worked at the House of Peace, the funeral of the brother of the woman our caretaker Perry lived with.  Specifically, I'm recalling the end of the service when the congregation filed past the casket wherein lay the remains of the deceased, wearing his porkpie hat, with the assembly singing

Some glad morning when this life is o'er,  / I'll fly away; 
To a home on God's celestial shore,  / I'll fly away (I'll fly away). 

Chorus 
I'll fly away, Oh Glory  / I'll fly away; (in the morning) 
When I die, Hallelujah, by and by,  / I'll fly away (I'll fly away). 

When the shadows of this life have gone,  / I'll fly away; 
Like a bird from prison bars has flown,  / I'll fly away (I'll fly away) 

Chorus 
 
Just a few more weary days and then,  / I'll fly away; 
To a land where joy shall never end,  / I'll fly away (I'll fly away)

I was reminded once again, though I needed no reminder, of how insipid the Catholic religious music of my youth was, how White.  O Salutaris Hostia and Tantum Ergo (makes your hair grow) and Holy God, We Praise Thy Name, (To Jesus Heart All Burning with fervent love for men, my heart with fondest yearning, shall raise the joyful strain,. . . .) and (Come, Holy Ghost, Creator blest, and in our hearts take up thy rest . . . )   Could the Church have made it any harder to believe in God?  How much more moving, more inspirational is African-American gospel music, the spirituals.  Blake's The Garden of Love:

I went to the Garden of Love, / And saw what I never had seen:

A Chapel was built in the midst, / Where I used to play on the green.

And the gates of this Chapel were shut, /And Thou shalt not. writ over the door;

So I turned to the Garden of Love, / That so many sweet flowers bore.

And I saw it was filled with graves, /And tomb-stones where flowers should be:

And Priests in black gowns were walking their rounds, /And binding with briars, my joys & desires.