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Working out the pain is its own pain

Today is “Hump Day” and like Caleb the Camel, one of GEICO’s most recent animated animal spokespersons, I am enthused the week is over the hump. My reason for enthusiasm though is that I now have only 10 of 12 physical therapy sessions left. By this time tomorrow the number will hit a reduction to nine.

A visit to my orthopedic specialist yesterday found me halfway hobbling into the examining room. I had arthroscopic work completed on my medial and lateral meniscus of the knee more than a month ago. I guess getting the fed workman’s compensation folks to deal with helped slow the process down to a crawl.

I have been restricted by my physician to standing for no more than two hours per day each day now for two months. That is something I am sure my work supervisor has tired of as much as me. Maybe not. I am most assuredly sick of it. And now I must complete physical therapy before I can return to full duty at a part-time job that seems as if it is full time. Ah, but thou dost complain too much!

Not really. The people at physical therapy are all nice, or at least so far. And they are patient, or at least so far.

I have not yet been asked to do anything that would make me cuss out anyone or throw up on them.

Maybe though, the one concern I have is my continuing bothersome pain in my operated-upon knee. I didn’t think it would be perfect right off the bat. Although, the doctor did shoot my knee up with some kind of pain killing substances when he did the arthroscopic surgery and I was pain free in that knee for a few days. But continual pain in the knee is no good. The reason could be arthritis, or it could be overwork of these body parts. It might be something else.

Hell’s bells.

I suppose I have a lot to be thankful for. But a wholly healed knee is not one of them. So I bitch and moan. And I tick off the time until physical therapy is finished in 10 days spread out through the next three weeks.

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Another week another month. Here there and everywhere.

A month of medical appointments and physical therapy face me in this following month. Physical therapy is scheduled for 3 times per week for four weeks. I have the first appointment in an hour. I am so enthused.  Several clinics at the VA hospital in Houston each day during the next three weeks are also on my list although these clinics are ones I have mostly waited on for quite a few months. I also see my neurologist who has become like a second primary physician, if you will.

The last few weeks have been stressful, and ultimately sad. My older brother Robert, died last week at a young 66 years old. It was unexpected, I guess one could say. He had been sick but was on the liver transplant list. During the past couple of weeks in hospitals, his body just shut down on him and he suffered a couple of heart attacks. Physicians tried to save him with emergency heart surgery, but it didn’t work. His wife and children had a nice memorial service for him on Sunday at his Methodist church as he had been cremated.

It is difficult dealing with his loss and I don’t know if the fact that he is gone has set in just yet. Time will tell, I suppose. It’s been some 25 years since my parents passed away. My Dad died in June and Mother in the following April. I don’t suppose one ever gets over the death of a relative or close friend.

Right now, I am a bit sleepy. I haven’t slept well recently but I got a fairly nice rest yesterday and overnight. I am ready for my knee to heal. I’ve been ready. For now, I must get ready for physical therapy. Joy.

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Melody: Lost in translation

Once, I remember going through a couple of cassettes my co-worker — technically he was a subordinate in the Navy — in the ship’s office on the destroyer which I sailed. I think he may have been down in his rack. Walt was a black guy with fairly far ranging musical tastes though his favorites tended to range in jazz. That’s just like me, I have pretty far-reaching tastes with rock along with classic, and what we called back then, progressive country as favorites.

Back then I had never heard of the Crusaders or as they were sometimes known, the Jazz Crusaders. This lack of knowledge about them was despite the band’s Houston roots. This was no surprise though, my hearing so-called black music back then was limited to mostly Top 40 pop or soul. What was surprising, to me at least, was seeing a song on this cassette, Luckenbach, Texas.

Sure, I had heard the song before. In fact, the song came out about the time I prepared to head from my previous base in Mississippi for sea duty in California. It was sort of an anthem of Texas during those years, “maybe it’s time we got back, to the basics of love,” sang Waylon Jennings. The song peaked on the charts as No. 1 in Billboard’s Hot Country Singles and No. 16 in Hot Adult Contemporary Singles. It reached 25th on the Pop Charts. Obviously, the song had struck a nerve with the inner feelings of some Americans. It would be almost 30 years before I went to Luckenbach, Texas, and that was just for an afternoon with a few longneck beers.

I found myself both doubtful and curious as to what a group of mostly, perhaps all at the time, black jazz musicians would do with the song. Later, I found out the Crusaders were a very prolific group that incorporated all types of music into their jazz instrumentals. And I thought they did hit the song out of the park.

Sometimes one gets so caught up with the literal nuances of a vocal that you have a difficult time in really appreciating just how well a melody can be. For some reason, I started with this idea earlier in the afternoon listening to Willie Nelson’s “Funny How Time Slips Away.” I mean, I understand why I played it — the song being meaningful as I mourn an older brother’s passing two days ago.

If you are able to still hear the You Tube video of the Crusaders on the link, maybe you will understand my point of view. If you aren’t able to understand by listening to the great instrumental version, then perhaps you should just move on to the next topic. And I thank you for that.

 

 

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What one has to do to breathe these days

Probably an hour of my time was taken this afternoon learning how to use a humidifier on my CPAP machine. For those of you raised by wolves, a CPAP is a continuous positive airway pressure machine used for sleep apnea, which I have. If you want to know about sleep apnea, then I suggest you look for its meaning. Especially so if you snore so loud you wake yourself or others up in the night.

I received a new full face mask for my machine yesterday from the VA since mine has leaked air for awhile. Since the objective is continuous positive airway pressure then it would make sense you don’t want that air to leak. If you have sleep apnea like me, and you have insomnia like me, then a leaky mask is a worthless accessory to your nocturnal breathing. If you don’t know what nocturnal is, get a freaking dictionary. The new mask came with a couple of little manuals. A Velcro snap on a strap that runs across the crown of your head is meant for positioning the air hose over the back of your head, down your forehead and to the mask. I didn’t want that so it took me about another hour, manual included, to figure out how the mask fit on my head.

Last night I had the mask now set to easily pull it over my head and on to my face. I had to do a little adjusting because I wear a bandana around my head that I use for a sleep mask. It has become a habit,the nighttime bandana.

In a very short period of time it seemed as if I was getting more air than usual, plus my mouth and throat were drier than the Texas sand, to paraphrase the great songster Gary P. Nunn. Finally, I had to take the mask off. I just couldn’t keep getting up every hour and getting a drink of water. So, I decided upon finally using the humidifier.

Because  water is poured into the humidifier and failure to properly clean it can get one mold in their machine I had tried to avoid the accessory. The humidifier is about the size of the CPAP machine so the breathing apparatus expands in size by approximately two. It takes up more space, in other words, which I don’t have. I also fly somewhere once or twice a year so I don’t enjoy having one more object for the TSA to examine through security check.

Finally, the machine is hooked up and it seems to be working with the humidifier, so far. The test comes tonight. We shall see if the blogmeister has mastered the operation of a fairly simple CPAP machine in this day and age. How the new generations will learn all the stuff they need to operate in their lifetime, I don’t know. I suspect they’ll have an easier time than this old dog learning new technology. Let them worry about it. Hell, they are more technologically-adroit by the time they reach middle school these days, the kids probably know 10 times as much as I know. So let them have at.

 

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What’s up with Russia and Ukraine? A bit more than a whit.

When I first began hearing about the moves resulting in the Russian annexation of Crimea — let’s call a spade a spade — I thought it was a fairly innocuous move. My speaking of innocuous just now is one  in very relative terms, or so it turns out.

In a very short period the “pro-Russian rebels,” some of whom may or may not be Russian mercenaries or even Russian soldiers, escalated the situation to a seemingly much higher plain. All kinds of questions must be asked with regards to the intentions of Macho Man Vladimir Putin and whether he had this all mapped out before the festivities even began at the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi. The Crimean troubles began shortly after the end of the winter games in that Black Sea Russian city.

But bigger questions remain: Does Putin want to incorporate Ukraine as he did Georgia? Does he want to foment unrest so that he may slowly creep across the former USSR and take whatever pieces that are available for entry into the Russian fold?

A talking head on the tube this morning gave me a point to ponder as to why those are not particular aims of Putin. I don’t remember who this analyst was, not that it really matters. That is because that person’s ideas are on an equal footing with others who just sit around guestimating.

This person talked about military aims of the Soviets Russians but as well spoke of the geopolitical ones. Or, rather, as to the geopolitical aims, perhaps a more correct interpretation of Mr. Talking Head was what was not a goal of Putin nor Russia. Head said, Fred? No Mr. Head said that Russia lacked the resources to govern Ukraine.

Well, I really had not thought about that. But then I wondered whether Mr. Putin had thought about the consequences of an all-out civil war in Ukraine? I’m sure he has, or his flunkies. But let’s just ponder for a moment. If Putin doesn’t want to destabilize or ultimately conquer Ukraine, then what is it that he really wants?

Hell if I know.

Maybe oil and gas, or rather, control of the means for its transit? I was already wrong about Crimea and the Rooskies. But whether I am right or wrong really matters not one whit. What is a whit anyway? It is defined as a very small amount. That is a definition that leaves a very large hole for clarity. Which, in turn, is like attempting a determination as to just what Russia has ultimately in mind. And for an answer for that, see the previous paragraph.