Monday, February 26, 2024
In bed at 10 and up at 4:24. I spent the whole night on the bed except for about 1/2 hour on LZB, sleeping on my back and right side. 34°, high of 50°, sunny morning, then cloudy/partly cloudy. The wind is NE at 7 mph, 3-14/27. Sunrise at 6:33 at 102°, sunset at 5:36, 11+3.
Treadmill; pain. I made it through the night mostly on the bed without pain keeping me awake. The worrisome thing is what feels like the beginning of rotator cuff syndrome in my right shoulder. I took 2 caplets of Tylenol 8 Hours and will try to take another 2 around 1 p.m. when I should be back from the VA and again at 9 p.m. I get a shot of cortisone in the shoulder tomorrow at noon. Hopefully, I'll be able to get back on the treadmill again but maybe not till after next week's surgery.
I'm grateful for getting an almost decent night's sleep.
I have VA pre-op appointments today. at 11 a.m., signing the consent form. 11:15 a.m., blood work, EKG, urinalysis. 12 p.m., chest x-ray. 12:30 p.m., meeting re: anesthesia. I need to ask the surgical nurse whether to stop applying topical diclofenac today or if the instruction only applies to oral diclofenac.
P.M. All my tests turned out OK.
A good start to a day. Andy asked me whether I could drive Peter to school today. He had to be at Nicolet by 9:15 so I could drop him off and get to the VA for my pre-op requirements by 11 with time to spare, which is what I did. I decided to have breakfast at the IHOP near the VA. On the way in, a lady who turned out to be a waitress there saw me struggling a bit to get out of the Volvo and made a point of holding the door into IHOP for me. My waitress was a cheery Latina who was friendly with me and her other customers. When I left the place, a fellow who looked a bit derelict-y but wasn't wished me a great day and asked if he could get the door of the Volvo for me and we had a nice chat. When I entered the VA parking garage, the young woman at the entry kiosk gave me (and probably every other patient coming in) a big smile, as she always does. When I checked in, I had a nice chat with the young fellow who checked me in and asked me if I needed a wheelchair, as did the other staff member standing nearby. The nurse practitioner who went over the necessary consent form with me was warm and friendly, as was the x-ray technician who took my chest x-ray, and the med tech who drew blood, dealt with the urine sample, and administered the EKG. Finally, the resident anesthesiologist, Dr. Rivera, who asked all the necessary pre-surgery questions for about 15 minutes, also spent about 45 minutes chatting with me about Dostoevski, Crime and Punishment, The Brothers Karamazov, Thomas Merton, Zen, his family in Connecticut, his physician wife and her advanced directive, the Catholic Church, Thomas Carroll's Constantine's Sword, Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren and several other topics. It was the most interesting talk I've ever had with a physician. Before I had even started my first appointment at the VA, I had been blessed by half a dozen acts of kindness and fellowship from people I did not know, people of probably vastly different backgrounds, different races, different economic and family circumstances, different prospects and probably different political persuasions. But they were all kind and helpful to me. I am reminded of Blanche DuBois in Streetcar Named Desire and her iconic line "I have always relied on the kindness of strangers." I am also reminded of the strangers who helped lift me off the pavement when I fell on the street and couldn't get up by myself. And the thought comes to me that there is in at least most of us a goodness that lives 'deep down in us', reminding me of Gerard Manley Hopkins' poem God's Grandeur and its lines
Generations have trod, have trod, have trod;
And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil;
And wears man's smudge and shares man's smell: the soil
Is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod.
And for all this, nature is never spent;
There lives the dearest freshness deep down things;
Hopkins was speaking of "Nature" and seemed to be almost disparaging of Man's place in it, but I suspect, and hope, that what he wrote of Nature is true also of people, that there lives the dearest freshness deep down people. [But only at the individual, interpersonal level, not at the intergroup level. Reinhold Niebuhr, Moral Man and Inmoral Society]
Our Town. I wonder what Thornton Wilder and the Stage Manager would say if the setting had been early 21st-century Milwaukee rather than early 20th-century Grover's Corner.
A quadruple shooting left two people dead and two others with injuries Sunday afternoon on the 2600 block of N. 51st St. The shootings, Milwaukee Police said, are believed to be domestic violence-related, according to a news release.
Shortly after noon, a 21-year-old and a 28-year old sustained fatal gunshot wounds, a 23-year-old sustained non-fatal gunshot injuries, and a male, age unknown, sustained life-threatening gunshot injuries. All four of the victims are thought to have exchanged gunfire with unknown suspects. All three of the injured were taken into custody as well as a 25-year-old who was not injured, according to the news release. The 28-year-old died Sunday night in the hospital.
The Milwaukee Police Department is still looking for additional unknown suspects and charges are pending review by the Milwaukee County District Attorney's Office.
A Burnt Offering. "Then Jethro, Moses' father-in-law, brought a burnt offering and other sacrifices to God." Exodus 18:12a.
A man is in critical condition after setting himself on fire while wearing military fatigues midday Sunday outside the Israeli Embassy in D.C., authorities said. . . A video shared online that multiple officials said appeared to be posted by the man shows him referring to his service in the U.S. armed forces and shouting “Free Palestine” as he burned. A spokeswoman for the Air Force, Rose M. Riley, confirmed in an email that “an active duty airman was involved in today’s incident.”
Memories of Vietnam.
No comments:
Post a Comment