11/28/23

Tuesday, November 28, 2023

In bed at 9:30, awake at 4ish, up at 4:30 & took my antibiotic. 14°, windy, high of 24, sunny morning, cloudy afternoon, wind WNW at 16 mph, 10-16/30, WC is -2°😮!  Sunrise at 7:00, sunset at 4:18, 9+18.  "High noon" at 11:39 a.m. at an altitude of 26°   

Treadmill; pain.  I woke up with some modest spasms.  I talked with Melinda in Whole Health by video at 10.  Talked with nurse Julie at the Urology Clinic at noon.  Discouraging news.   22:16 & 0.50 + seated yoga stretches.    

I'm grateful today for my father.  I am more indebted to my mother for all that she did during the years of WWII and thereafter to nurture my sister and me when my father was so emotionally distant from all of us, but today I want to recognize him, remember him, and credit him for the good in him.  I also need to acknowledge that he loved me, though for most of my life I didn't believe that.  He was a man for whom showing affection did not come easily, especially to his children.  Both my sister and I wondered throughout much of our lives why he didn't love us.  When I was a child, I actually wondered whether he was my father.  In his final years, Geri became his best friend and he even had a 'girlfriend' of sorts, our friend Rita Burns.  When he knew Rita was coming to visit, he drove from Saukville over to West Bend to a specialty candy shop to get them each an expensive chocolate truffle.  At the reception following Andy and Anh's wedding, Geri went over to the table where my Dad and sister were seated.  While they chatted, my Dad held Geri's hand.  Afterward, Kitty told me that he had never done that with her, never held her hand.  I could hear the disappointment in her voice.  It's no exaggeration to say that both Kitty and I grew up feeling we were unwelcome in his life and we wondered late in life whether he was jealous of our mother's attention to us.  During our childhoods, each of us wished our mother would divorce him and get him out of our lives.  So why am I grateful for him?  First, for those few occasions when he did break out of his hardshell and reach out to me.  He sent me a (as in one) letter when I went off to college.  He sent me a letter when I told the family I had decided to leave the Navy and join the Marines; his message - don't!  He drove by himself from Chicago to Doylestown, Pennsylvania to visit me after I got back from service overseas.  As it happened, I was in bad shape during his visit because of 'culture shock' and difficulty adjusting to my new life in what passed for 'civilization.  I still feel real regret and shame about my appreciativeness during that visit.  Second, for the friendship we shared late in his life.  He was 75 and I was 55 when we first became close.  Before that, we hadn't spoken of each other for 13 years.  After we broke the ice, I flew down to Florida to visit him 4 times each year and, after his second wife Grace died,  he eventually agreed to come up to Milwaukee and live with Geri and me.  I took him to all his doctor and hospital appointments and shared many rides in the country with him.  All those experiences are now warm memories for me.  Third, for the goodness that was in him.  Our mother knew of that goodness as did his good friends, his parents, his sister, and her children.  For some reason, he found it hard to share his good qualities with his own children.  This was a mystery to me and my sister when we were children and remained a mystery into our old age.  He was wounded by his experiences in the Marine Corps, especially by Iwo Jima.  From his suffering, I learned second hand of the suffering experienced by veterans with war-caused PTSD and first hand of the suffering experienced by the families of those veterans.  From him, I learned to understand that the statistics I read about KIAs, WIAs, MIAs never tell the true story of the costs of warfare to veterans and their families.  I learned that most of those mutilated by war don't even qualify for a Purple Heart ribbon.  I'm grateful to him for that though it's a gratitude I wish I didn't have.

I let Lilly out at 5:30 a.m.  She was sleeping on the TV room floor, next to her mattress, when I came out at 4:30.  She didn't wake up until I was only a foot or so away from her.  She's at an age at which I wondered whether she was sick or dying.  We are so conscious of her age and health.  When she came in from outdoors, she didn't wait at the dining room door for a treat as she usually does, but rather turned left and went back to Geri's room.  

UTI or 'IC flare'?  I received a call from Urology Clinic nurse Julie at noon,  Dr. Kassem advised to continue taking the antibiotic until they were all gone.  Bacteria level from urine culture was less than 10,000 CFU/ml, cluster forming units/milliliter.  It sounds like the IC did flare and caused (?) a slight infection and the combo led to the severe pain on Saturday.  I'm not much clearer about this now than I was before but this is basically bad news.  The ultimate culprit is the IC, not the bacteria and the severe pain could recur at any time.  Text to Andy, who asked how Geri and I are doing:

I was just going to text you.  Geri is still affected by the Covid- coughing and some congestion and continuing fatigue.  I heard from the nurse in the Urology Clinic.  The cause of the pain was my interstitial cystitis, not a UTI, though the urologist tells me to continue taking the antibiotic until they’re gone.  The urine culture produced less than 10,000 units of bacteria (CFU= cluster forming units) so the “abnormal “ urinalysis was caused by the IC.  Bad news, could repeat.  Thanks for asking and thanks again for your Guardian Angel help on Saturday.❤️❤️❤️

Library business.  I took Geri's card up to North Shore and had it renewed.  I also picked up a CD on "Mindfulness for Pain Relief" and "Killing a King" about the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin by a 25-year-old settler.  Also "Writers and Missionaries:  Essays on the Radical Imagination", including a study of Edward Said and his involvement in the Israel-Palestinian conflict.