6/25/24

 Tuesday, June 25, 2024

1867 1st barbed wire patented by Lucien B. Smith of Ohio

1876 Battle of the Little Bighorn

1950 North Korea invades South Korea, starting the Korean War

In bed at 9:30, and awake at 11:25.  It took me more than 15 minutes to roll over from my right side to enough of my left side to be able a foot on the floor, sit upright, and stand up, using my walker for support.  It was the "beached walrus" problem again, indeed every night, though worse last night.  I have to start sleeping on the power recliner again rather than run the same risk I had with PMR and the extremely painful shoulders, hips, wrists, and hands, i.e., not being able to get out of bed and/or the risk of falling out of bed and not being able to get up from the floor.  I need to contact Dr. Cheng at the PM&R Clinic, or perhaps the on-call Triage Nurse at the VA.  At 12:40 a.m., I'm wondering whether I should take another Cyclobenzaprine pill or perhaps half of one.  I don't like the side effects of meds that affect the central nervous system, including this one (dizziness, drowsiness, dry mouth, etc.)  At 2:45, I made a bowl of Irish oatmeal mixed with Icelandic yogurt and lots of berries, hoping that a full stomach would help me fall asleep on the recliner.  We'll see. . . I tried sleeping between 3:30 and 4:30 - no go.  Let Lilly out at 4:30, hearing only the robins' first and only bird songs, lit a Kitty candle, and tried sleeping again. At some point, I nodded off but Lilly woke me up, purposefully, at 6:08 with heavy breathing/panting right next to me.  I opened the front door to let her see we were in the middle of a loud, severe thunderstorm, a downpour, but she went out anyway for about 60-90 seconds, got thoroughly wet, turned around, and came back in to be toweled off, and to get a treat.  I finally fell as and woke up around 7:30.

Prednisone, day 44, 15 mg., day 8.  I 'went nuts' yesterday and had 3 little McDonald's cheeseburgers and a small order of fries.  My CGM glucose spiked at about 300 and it is still at almost 200 approaching 1 a.m.  And I am hungry again.  Rats!  I took my pills around 3:30 after eating my oatmeal, not the best way to take prednisone, but I'm hoping to fall asleep and I want to 'get it over with.'  GCM count at 6:23 = 226.  Cheeseburgers, french fries, recklessness!

Re: Ed's passing,  I've been in touch with Anne, Cam, Tom Devitt, both Bill and Paula Hendricks, and finally Jerry Nugent, whose current email address I received from Tom Devitt.  It's 'that ol' gang o' mine', but without Ed.  "Gee, but I'd give the world to see / That old gang of mine / I can't forget that old quartette that sang "Sweet Adeline. / Goodbye forever, old fellows and gals / Goodbye forever, old sweethearts and pals / (God bless them) . . .   '

One year ago today:  "In bed around 10, awake at 5:27, and up at 5:39 with back pain.  65℉, high of 77, partly/mostly cloudy day, about 1/2 inch of rain fell overnight, more expected today,. . . Bad news from the patio.  Overnight we lost another major branch on the ornamental pear tree.  I sat on the patio for 5 to 10 minutes before noticing the significant upper branch on the far side of the tree was hanging down vertically.  How could I spend that much time looking at all the dead small branches and twigs that need to be pruned without seeing that major damage?  Can't see the forest for the trees?  I can't see the tree for the twigs.  Amazing,"  June is a mighty stormy month here.

Anniversaries.  First, Barbed wire: I think of the two little boys in Danang, holding on to the barbed wire that separated "us" from "them" in more ways than one,  and wonder whether they survived the war, where their loyalty lay when I took their photo, and where it lay as the war progressed and ended. whether they were affected by years of living next to the air base with all of its Agent Orange and other pollutants. 

"Before I built a wall I’d ask to know / What I was walling in or walling out, / And to whom I was like to give offense. / Something there is that doesn't love a wall, / That wants it down.’  Robert Frost, Mending Wall.

Second, Custer's 7th Cavalry was wiped out by Sioux and Cheyenne warriors led by Chiefs Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull.  I've visited the battlefield twice, each time struck by its layout, its history, and mostly by the individual markers where soldiers' usually naked and mutilated bodies lay when the relief forces arrived.

Third, the start of the Korean War.   I was born before the entry of the U.S. into the Second World War, service which so badly affected my father, my mother, my sister, and me.  The Korean War was the first of our many wars of which I was aware, starting before my 9th birthday and ending, in a way, on July 27, 1953, when an armistice agreement was signed.  South Korea's president refused to sign the agreement and no peace treaty has ever been signed.  How many other wars has our country fought since Korea?