12/28/23

 Thursday, December 28, 2023

In bed at 9:30, awake on onto lzb at 2, up at 2:52.  Let Lilly out.  36°, drizzle, high of 39.  Wind N at 14 mph, 11018/30, 0.2" of rain expected, Sunrise at 7:22, sunset at 4:23, 9+0.

Treadmill; pain.  30:35 & 0.65 while watching Leonard Berstein's Harvard Lecture on Mahler's 9th, especially the last movement & watching and listening to him conducting it.  He is obviously ecstatic with it; I'm left cold.  

MAID and the Dobbs decision.  Is this next?  I read an op-ed in this morning's NYT entitled "I Promised My Sister I Would Write About How She Chose to Die."  It was written by Stephen Petrow about his beloved sister's medical assistance in dying.  New Jersey is one of only 10 states permitting MAID, an option chosen by his 61-year old sister  Julie who suffered with terminal cancer, suffered with intense pain largely unrelieved by fentanyl and morphine.  I was struck by his description of her death and how her family members dealt with it, but also by the fact that the author and his sister Julie and their 2 siblings texted each other 'good night' each evening.  It remined me of course of my daily early morning conversations by text message with my own sister, of how important they were to each of us, and of what a hole has been left in my life by her passing.  I also thought, OMG, medically assisted dying must surely be on the target list for the Right-to-Life crowd.  

I'm grateful for medicines, especially when they work as advertised, which sometimes they do and sometimes they don't.  I used to wonder if all the meds I take each day are doing me any good, or whether, on the other hand, maybe they're doing me in.   Or perhaps working against one another.  I take literally a fistful each morning and another fistful in the afternoon or evening.  I have an entire bureau drawer devoted solely to various meds, creams, and ointments that I get from the VA.  I've often wondered how much these meds would cost us if it were not for my disability rating entitling me to VA meds at no cost to me.  The Trulicity and empagliflozin and probably rosuvastatin are, I think, pretty costly.  In any case, I no longer wonder whether the meds are killing me or doing no good.  I've come to believe that they have probably made it possible for me to live into my 80s, especially the blood pressure and diabetes medications.  Perhaps I should add the daily full-strength aspirin to that list, prescribed to help me avoid a stroke after my probable diagnosis of a mini-stroke a few years ago (11/24/2020).  And then there are all the vaccinations I have received, 7 for covid alone, plus annual flu shots and now RSV.  My mother died at 51, but my father lived to age 86 and stayed in pretty good shape - no sign of dementia or any suggestion of a need for assisted living or nursing-home-level care.  I still don't know his real cause of death but I am sure (as was Kitty) that it wasn't what was listed on the death certificate from Thunderbird Hospital in Phonix - a bowel obstruction.  His father died of a stroke at age 69 but his mother lived to age 95, though beset with dementia for her last year and confined to a nursing home.  There is no telling the age when my maternal grandfather died since the date of his birth in County Kerry is a mystery.  I uncovered 3 different birth years for him when I did my genealogical research for my memoir, 1880 OR 1883 OR 1887.  On the other hand, my maternal grandmother died of pernicious anemia at age 41, when my mother was 6 years old.  So of the men in my familty, my father was the longest-lived and I am coming in second.  I'm reasonably sure that both of us have had our lives extended by controlling our blood pressure by medications.  As DuPont Chemicals used to boast; "Better Living through Chemistry."  If not necessarily 'better,' it's at least longer.   A mixed blessing in light of the toll taken by various chronic illnesses but, in any event, I'm grateful for medications.

My maternal grandmother, Catherine O'Shea Healy, who died at age 41 of pernicious anemia in 1928, when my mother was 6 years old.  Vitamin B12 would have saved her life, but it wasn't easily available until shortly after her death.

Geri's still sick with a bad cough, seemingly worse than yesterday.  She's discouraged by its persistence.