Over, and out

Wow. My surgery is done, and I'm resting at home!

The date changed several times before locking down on 10/12. The procedure name changed a few times too. And late in the game, the overnight stay became a 4-day stay! My wife needed to pack many items to stick with her diet plan, and her mom came down to keep her company.

In the end it did some real-time adjusting!

• The 1:30 schedule slid to 4:00 or so
• The time required was a bit less, and
• They threw me out at 9:30!!

Night one of our..one-night stay

Since we had 3 nights scheduled at an on-site room, my wife had done plenty of unpacking. And I couldn't help her to repack! Thankfully her mom helped to get everything crammed into her car, and we left OHSU around 10pm - meaning arrival at home around 11:40pm. I stumbled toward the bed (and past the cats who wondered why they had a 4-day supply of food!) and marveled at how much had changed in 12 hours.

Pain was strong but manageable, though my shoulder ached terribly - which I learned today is a common side effect of laparoscopic surgery. I am more mobile and less miserable now (5pm Saturday) - but that trip was completely impossible to plan!

Results did go according to plan though: no more gallstone factory, and no more liver with a pint-size cyst crowding my belly. And the laparoscopic punctures were entirely predictable. 

It was the clock that never could meet expectations. Ah well, 'tis done.

Hasty workouts

The wet weather forecast got me in gear for a week's good work!

My 2023 health issues have been documented in this blog (see the health tag). The result has been plenty of downtime and deferred projects.

When the forecast turned damp for the last week of September I finally got busy, or at least gave my best effort with my low stamina.

First up: the woodpile!

I had plenty of brush from last winter, but also several thick lengths of wood from the previous winter. I hacked the logs into wood stove lengths, then split them with the long axe and stuffed them under cover while the weather was good. 

Evenings were spent relaxing on a heating pad.

Thankfully, a few more dry days were left to me, allowing for another speed task: knocking last year's moss growth off the roof.

Part two: roof prep 

The temperature was dropping fast and shade had taken over much of the yard and house, so these last two days began in fleece and long pants. I brought up a rough brush and the cordless leaf blower and got to work. The roof will need replacing next year so a gentle scrub wasn't important this time. I got about 2/3 finished the first day before again relaxing with the heating pad.

Day two found me blasting out one set of gutters with the leaf blower and a fresh battery before attacking the greener north facing roof. By late afternoon I was done up top, but plenty of moss tribbles were strewn across the north-side deck and south-side driveway. I was able to clean up the deck before dark, leaving a few dry hours on day three to blow the driveway from massive clutter to two thick clumps of green. 

One more task remained for the last dry day, so I opened the large lawn-nourishment bag I had hoped to use six months ago and spread it across as much lawn as it could reasonably cover. It had clumped and congealed a bit but not too badly.

With firewood and roof ready for the wet season, I considered things to be as good as could be managed. The storms were less soaking than was expected, so I soaked the lawn where trees had blocked the rainfall.

Now to await the coming dry spell late this week, to see how the grass and weeds respond to water and chemistry!

Six weeks later -

 and I'm back in the hospital, fighting another pancreatitis event. This time I'm at OHSU in Portland, where hepato-biliary folks are hopefully available to chip in with insights. A sleepless night full of new tests and an early chat with four MDs in my room.. yes I'm a bit punchy.

They gave me a room with a nice view, though mostly of clouds and campus.

nice

 This is a fine summer, indeed.

One can get things done in weather like this - assuming one isn't suffering from Covid, or an extended edition thereof. Sadly we're in that second position as of mid month. The sticker bushes continue to flourish while we labor with our minimal energy to keep the interior of the house clean. With better health, a few days should be found to hammer down the blackberries before they claim a second acre of our property.. of which we have but two!

Monday might even be a bit damp! Many plants would sigh audibly at such an event, I'd expect.

Covid inaction

We are into week #2 of our new COVID-19 lifestyle. It has been unpleasantly symptomatic so far: 101° fever, loss of taste, aches aplenty and energy shortages.

I was diagnosed at the doctor's office on June 27th, and home tests yesterday (3 Jul) show we both remain actively infected. So we await negative tests +5 days before rejoining the world at large.

We'll never know where we encountered it. Food shopping, drive up coffee shack? We've done so little public stuff that it is a real surprise that Covid found us.

Update - Friday tests (6 Jul) showed my spouse negative but me still positive. Another lost weekend coming up!

Diverted!

 For the first time since I was born I spent a few nights in the hospital. That's 24,071 days, more or less! (Time to start a new streak..)

I went from feeling fine at 8pm on Christmas Eve to an ambulance ride at 3am. My intestines had seceded from my body, closing both paths in and out and filling up all passageways with pointy, fist-sized rocks. My tests were good, but my inability to take my prescription meds left me with high BP, a bit of discomfort - and lousy sleep without my CPAP.

My body finally responded to softening agents and the barriers were lowered. More tests will likely be ordered next week.

10Jan update: it took several days to stop retching, which checked my 2023 box about losing weight. I'm up a pound today but down 15# since Christmas - exhausting, disgusting and highly effective. 

covid inflation and chaos, o my

First the Classic version, then Alpha, Delta, Omicron. And now the O-variants.

Many news stories about BA.4 and BA.5 taking over caseloads - and now stories of a throwback, BA.2.75 with massive mutations from an earlier variant! 

No more coordinated national mandates, no more direct reports of home-test results unlike tests made within the health-care system (fragmented as even that is) - so increases are mere blips on the Omicron-peak-scaled charts and unreported cases are a mere guess. Hospital visits are no longer at crisis levels at least, as so many are on 3rd and 4th injections. I just received my fourth before a gathering that caught my best buddy and his wife with three weeks of Covid lousiness (variant: unknown).

The upper graphic from ourworldindata.org shows the USA percentage of the original COVID virus and its variants over time. It does not deal with the variants within each variant, so Omicron still rules whether BA.4, BA.5 or BA.2.75

Once upon a time I had a daily record of cases and deaths for the US, and my state and county. Then small governments stopped giving daily reports so I moved to 5-day points; my chart and a 4-period moving average are at the bottom of the graphic. No doubt the 5-day spacing includes weekends now and then, leading to a pronounced zigzag; I put a 4-period average on the data (darkest line) to make trends clearer. Our current cases are around Delta-outbreak levels (fall 2021), which were frightening until Omicron 1.0 came on the scene. 

After nearly three years we've all been desensitized by the relentlessness and the scale of this pandemic, and the political spins that have made science just another variable in our rhetoric. No wonder fatigue is a symptom of the pandemic - even not catching the virus in this environment is exhausting!

In the meantime, the President and Congress have been stymied by the parity in the Senate and the bitterness of 21st-century partisanship. Add in big-time inflation that is rather independent of economics (supply issues still rule), a war in Ukraine and the impact of sanctions on Russia, various amounts of chaos elsewhere (e.g. the UK now choosing another prime minister) and the result is a bitter brew. It's a no-win situation for anyone, but blame is an irresistible sport in today's chaotic climate.

We'll deal with the topic of climate another time..

 

 

 

oh dear: omicron

 

What can words add to this chart? Not much.

My mom left us 2 weeks short of 99 years old, and today Betty White followed just 18 days short of 100. A large TV special was planned for her 17.Jan birthday celebration; presumably the jokes will be muted and tributes will be plentiful.

So many deaths from many sources - but so much suffering worldwide from the Covid Reborn /omicron variant. 

It isn't 'reckless hate' doing the killing like Theoden's orc-quote from Tolkien, just reckless indifference to public safety  - and a claiming of 'rights' and 'freedoms' that echo from his great friend CS Lewis in The Great Divorce.

Enough. Please.

the Delta effect

 Times are not ideal in the world as the Delta COVID19 variant fills in the gaps between formerly safe spaces. Even here in western Washington state: Cowlitz county shows a steep rise in mid-age and younger cases. The worst cases for over-65 came just after Christmas 2020, after which the vaccines were introduced. The most recent week of reports were the highest counts for under 35 and for 35-65 age groups (and the 65+ cases are rising too). Bad news all around, and time to continue keeping masks handy.

weekly case reports for Cowlitz county, March 2020-late July 2021

At last report Pfizer vaccines are still about 80% effective, Moderna closer to 90%. Considering that early vaccine estimates were hoped to approach 70% effectiveness, that's still a tidy margin. We'll see how long they protect as time goes on, and the virus sadly uses the unvaccinated as mutation factories in every corner of the USA and the world. 

The game isn't up yet, not by a distressingly large margin.

cnn community-transmission graphic

on to 2021

 Weather in December was a very average rainfall month, and zero actual snow fell. I did have some interesting patterns splattering on my windshield once, but that was it. We ended 2020 with a bit over 80 inches of rainfall, so no rain-forest designation again. Pretty close though!

In the viral battles.. we're still losing. So many travelers for Thanksgiving and then Christmas caused levels to spike as parties spread new, more virulent mutations all over the world. LA county is straining mightily and ambulances wait to offload for hours as ICU beds are pretty much filled. So very sad and frustrating. Two vaccines were approved and many batches shipped, but optimistic targets were missed all over the world. The USA goal of 20-million arms was closer to 2 than 3 mil. Hopefully another vaccine variant or two will be approved, and more people trained to inject them so the healthcare system doesn't shatter. Given the priority customers (health care workers, aged folk, essential workers of all sorts¹) it could be several months before we can all gather and hug - gently though, due to our sore arms.

 Politics have been difficult to watch as well. Other than to mention today's atrocities, I'll go no further. Yes, today the Capital was invaded and congressional spaces occupied. Ugly and decidedly undemocratic responses to mere political fortune. It's more than that - though it shouldn't be.

 Christmas was a pleasant respite from the mad times. We both got some nice gifts and relaxed at home, sad not to see family but nice to be unencumbered with obligations. Plenty of holiday movies, Nutcracker listening and cozy times on the hill-top. And pumpkin pie!

 The camera kit has now been slimmed down to about what it was four months ago. Actually it's become what I intended four months ago², but stranger things have happened during my ten years of perpetual change. Now to find a way to lock down that kit so nothing moves... wish me luck. ³

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 

¹ I'm no longer on that list; I departed the Home Depot freight team at the end of  '20. A few tighter months will ensue, living off holiday checks, a bit of economic stimulus and new spending habits. Also from a few photo-gear offloads to finalize the kit reconstruction.

² my September big-camera choice was an EM1.ii or EM5.iii - but they were both out of my $reach. I decided to switch my big-little brands and hit some rather better deals. Two months later the price on used EM1.ii bodies had fallen by over $200, and I stumbled into a bargain GX85 to boot. Winner!

³ too late. Even 24 hours was too much to ask! After assisting a GX1 user on a forum site and praising the camera, I recognized that it has everything I need in a small backup. While I like the tip screen, internal charging and other GX85 features, .. the GX1 is just a great fit for me. So I found a deal at KEH and will send off several non-µ43 lenses and the '85 for a silver GX1. Now to find that key and throw it away, so the system truly locks!

goodbye November

So we move on to December. 

Farewell November, we won't miss you much - a contentious election filled with mob-inciting rhetoric and false claims, and gruesome tallies worldwide as Covid-19 tightens its grip. Promising vaccines and a more open government hold promise for the future, but the present realities are harsh. A lot of people traveled for the Thanksgiving holiday, and we'll pay for that soon - especially with many regions reaching nearing hospital capacity for cases of any sort. Many speak of field hospitals to ease overcrowding, but that does not magically produce healthcare workers to staff those tents.

The chart here shows the Washington state Dept. of Health weekly numbers for our county; circles show the under-40 case count and the green dash is for age 40+. Yes the trend is down today, but next week could easily rebound since the most recent numbers likely are partly due to holiday recordkeeping. My mom is back in the protective cocoon of assisted-living lockdown, yet they had an active Covid case last week even so. Our holiday gathering was brought to us by internet conference, nice to have but a poor alternative to the typical Thanksgiving.

As to weather, we nearly had a normal November. It's the wettest month using our 30-year average but the last two were quite dry, and needed large doses later in the season to catch up. This time we received over 10 inches and hit 94% of average, so the half-inch deficit is nearly painless. December begins with a dry week though, and as our second-wettest month that could hurt. The la Nina conditions in the Pacific often show up closer to mid-winter with cool and wet conditions, so no alarm bells just yet. Hard to ring 'jingle bells' either this year though.

At least two vaccines may begin distribution in December, signaling a change in circumstance. Fingers crossed, and foreheads too, as we seek to pull out from these darkest days of Covid as well as approach the solstice. Hang in there, everyone.

too early to call..

No, not the election - seasonal snowpack!

Looks good so far, but that's what cool air and an inch of snow can do. A few thousand percent of normal cannot last long in the Sawtooth mountains, nor can the snow-barrier between the Yakima and Cowlitz basins.

No snow yet, but we just had our first frost this morning - with a low reading of 31.8° it hardly counts but the car and outside fabrics show it's true. We're over seven inches & counting on October rain, two inches above normal. That means October keeps up with Sep as two months that have had no subnormal precipitation in the six-ish years we've lived here. 

On the Coronavirus front, no good news is news. Over 100k cases in Washington and it's doing well, and Cowlitz county is at 800 cases though only seven have died. Things could be far worse - and sadly they will be in a month or so; cases will likely reach 100k daily in the USA before election time. The "blue wave" shown in snowpack won't be reflected in eastern WA or Idaho, but the rest of the country? We shall see!

covid update

Here's the bottom of an interesting table. I sorted this by cases/100000 population and removed territories from the bottom of the list. It appears that the 'cold corners' are relatively good places to hang out, with the three uppermost New England states lowest and most of the PacNW nearly as low (except Idaho, which is having a surge right now). Conditions change quickly (just ask Idaho) but it's an interesting snapshot. 

One could add Alaska and Hawaii, but being adjacent only to Canada or water is a rather different case.

The two right-most columns are for deaths, total and per 100k. Those numbers are pretty low as well.

By the way - the 'warm corners' are suffering greatly. California tops the total-case list and suffers still from wildfires and smoke. Florida is in the top-five for cases as well, plus rising sea levels make things a misery in other ways at high tides.

yeah that's not good

from NBC news website