Monday, November 3, 2025
1964 Lyndon B. Johnson was elected President in a landslide, defeating Barry Goldwater
1970 Marxist Salvador Allende was inaugurated as President of Chile
1970 US President Richard Nixon promised a gradual troop removal of Vietnam
1992 Bill Clinton was elected President, defeating incumbent President George H. W. Bush
In bed at 9:30, up at 5 when Sarah texted me.
Meds, etc. Morning meds at 1 p.m.
Text exchange with Sarah.
+49 *** Good morning! Can you please send me information on our family history with colon cancer/polyps/etc? I need to provide this to get a colonoscopy scheduled. Thanks!
Charles Clausen: Good morning, Sweetie. The only history that I am aware of is my father’s case. He had a case when he about 60 (I think) and had a bowel resection rather than a colonoscopy bag. I have had multiple colonoscopies, the last (literally) occurring two or three years ago which I think revealed no polyps, but I have had polyps removed earlier in my life. Is that enough information? I am going into the VA today for an EMG on my arm/ulnar nerve. I’ve developed‘trigger fingers” in both hands. It’s always somethin’❤️ Coloscopy bag, that is
+49 ***: Thanks 🙏 Do you know how long ago you had polyps removed?
Charles Clausen: I’m afraid I don’t except that it was many years ago whet I was middle aged, ‘pre-old’, and that they were benign. I can contact my former gastroenterologist and ask if they still have records of that if you want me to.
+49 *** 50-ish then? It likely doesn’t matter exactly how old you were.
Charles Clausen: I think 50ish is a pretty good estimate, but as I recall polyps were removed at least twice. I was pretty disciplined about getting regular colonoscopies.
+49 ***: Thanks. How you doing?
Charles Clausen: Not looking forward to today’s EMG. I understand they’re not pleasant. Thursday I atback at the VA to see an Infectious Disease specialist cuz the cellulitus hasn’t cleared up yet after 38 days and 3 rounds of antibiotics. Thursday I also see the lymphedema specialist in the Physical Therapy clinic. Tomorrow I’m supposed to see my primary care provider who is now a nurse practitioner rather than a physician. How are you and all the Kovacs doing?
+49 ***: We are good. Christian has had a cold since last week but that should be clearing up soon.
Charles Clausen: Great news. Stay well and safe. I take it you are home from your holiday adventure.
+49 ***: Yes, since Friday.
Charles Clausen: Janine Geske and her husband Mike Hogan are coming to visit us next week on the 11th. We haven’t seen them in a few years though we go back many a moon. Janine and I were pretty close friends from the time she was in law school, having graduated in 1975. I was her confidante when she was struggling over resigning from the Wisconsin supreme court many years ago. A wise decision on her part; her life blossomed once she left the court. Mike and I spent a week in Rome many years ago. He’s a former Jesuit and his ties to the order got us access to the Vatican Gardens and the ‘scavi’ beneath St. Peter’s basilica to see the catacombs and St. Peter’s supposed burial spot. It’ll be good to see both of them.
+49 *** That sounds wonderful!
Charles Clausen: I have to get dressed now and head off the VA. Luvya always, always have, always will.❤️
+49 *** Love you too!
Charles Clausen: It’s always somethin’. The EMG was nastier than “not pleasant” but it revealed a pinched nerve in my neck. Otherwise, I’m OK.
+49 *** Ok - can they do something about the nerve?
Charles Clausen: No need yet and even if there were, probably not. Dangerous area.
+49 ***: 👍
Donald Hall, Essays After Eighty
Physical Malfitness: Exercise hurts, as well it might, since by choice and for my pleasure, I didn't do it for eighty years. (Once in my 50s I walked four miles.) . . . Exercise is boring. Everything is boring that does not happen in a chair or bed. Sculptors and painters and musicians live longer than writers, who exercise only their fingers with a pen or on a keyboard. Sculptors chisel or weld or mold clay. Painters work standing up. They drink tons of cognac every night but return to physical activity the next morning. A tuba player holds a weighty object and breaths deeply. Even a harmonica requires more fitness than writing.
People have tried to encourage my mobility. . . . I sit on my ass all day writing in longhand, which my helper types up. Sometimes in a car I would pass Pancake Road, two miles away, and see a man walking his collie, the dog stepping out on his forepaws, two wheels harnessed to his backside. These days I no longer drive past Pancake Road or anywhere. I push two wheels ahead of me instead of pulling two wheels behind me like the dog. With my forepaws holding the handles of my four-wheeled roller, my
buckling hindquarters slowly shove my carcass forward. I drool as I walk, and now and then I sniff a tree.
As I entered my mid-seventies, my legs weakened, and it became treacherous to walk on uneven ground. [I hired a trainer.] Twice a week we walked together around a wooden track for cardio. We talked. Then for another 15 minutes, I attempted fitness and balance. Balance was a major problem. [The trainer] showed me how to get up when I fall down.
Resilience, n., 1. the capacity to recover quickly from difficulties; toughness: 2. the ability of a substance or object to spring back into shape; elasticity. I don't seem to have much anymore. Did I have a lot when I was younger? I'm not sure. I'm inclined to think that I never "bounced back" from the trauma of growing up with all the double-barreled PTSD in our little semi-subterranean apartment at 7303 S. Emerald, nor did my sister. It took me at least two years of serious depression to recover from my homecoming surprise from Charlene Wegge after my summer active duty on the USS Coney in 1960, and I still wonder whether I''ve ever honestly recovered from it. And my return from Asian duty in 1966 also brought its own pain, which I soldiered through at the time, only to lead to heartache years later. Maybe I'm just a wimp, or stupid, or a fool, though I've led what I suppose most folks would call a reasonably successful life. In any event, for the past three months, I've felt decidedly unresilient, brittle, fragile, and weak. The first knock-down blow was the flooding of the basement in August. The damage turned out to be worse than we had thought, the cost of remediation more than we had thought, and almost three months after the event, the space remains unusable, while we wait for our contractor, Chris, to provide us with more information. I called it "my sanctuary," my man-cave, the place where I had my painting space (it seems presumptuous to call it a 'studio'), my office, my printed journals and sketchbooks, etc., and much family and personal memorabilia. The loss of the 'sanctuary' was followed in September and October by my bout with cellulitis and 7 days of hospitalization, and still continuing pain and skin problems more than a month after onset. Those two events - the flooding and the hospitalization - seem to have knocked me for a bit of a loop, taken me down more than a peg or two.
I got to thinking about resilience today after my electromyography and nerve conduction tests this morning. The first part was no problem, but the second part -with needles inserted - was both painful and sickening, especially when they inserted the needles in my neck. I became very dizzy and nauseous, actually fearing that I would vomit. It wasn't until I was home for a few hours that I felt 'normal.' I was worried about walking from the hospital to my car and about driving home on the freeway, though I managed to do both. It turned out that I have a pinched nerve in my neck that isn't producing any noticeable symptoms (so far), but the test procedure itself knocked me for another temporary loop. I'm feeling old and a bit low, a wimp with little resilience.
Carry-out dinners tonight from Highland House, chicken Caesar salad, and Chinese tootsie rolls.
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