Dr. G just called me with the results of the radiography. He said I have moderate to severe deterioration damage to the entire thoraxic region of the spine with a compression fracture at T9. He will be going out of town for two weeks but is having his office get approval for and schedule an MRI so the results will be available when he returns.
I went back to the X-ray place today. They had a much smaller job to do, just three shots of my middle back -- and I still came out of it hurting. There was nowhere as much twisting and maneuvering involved as on my previous visit, but my back still hurt like hell when it was done.
Okay, I was still moving and being manipulated on a long, narrow metal table. There was one shot flat on my back and two on my left side. None of that should have been enough to strain anything. My problem is simply getting worse.
I notice it when getting dressed, too. It gets harder and harder to bend my right knee, the one that also has signs of arthritis. As a result, it gets harder to put on my right sock and tie my right shoe. I work up a sweat, now, doing it.
I probably qualify for a handicapped tag now. The criteria are that I have difficulty or pain when walking 200 feet due to a physical condition, one qualifying condition being arthritis. If I walk slowly enough, or just stand still, it will start to hurt within their definition distance. If I walk faster, though, I can beat their range -- unless I lean forward and start my back spasming.
I had to take a pill to quell the pain when I got home. It did its job. I may not have to take another in order to get to sleep.
If you found this Weblog entry through my Am0 Web site, you may have ignored a list of links at the left side of the page. The last link in the list leads to another of my Weblogs, one that almost nobody ever visits.
rAMbles is based on the Blogger Weblog engine. It is one of the older free engines around but it's still undergoing active development and has recently been upgraded with some new improvements. One that I particularly appreciate is that the engine now sends me email copies of each entry I post.
Unlike a Weblog service, Blogger produces a package that can be installed into any computer capable of providing hosting services. Entries can be posted by entering them through the Blogger system's editor or by submitting them as email messages. Posting can be done as one page per topic or as one continuous scroll from newest to oldest. In this respect, in is more like CityNews, which I tested and gave up on a long time ago.
LiveJournal offers an option to allow access to their Weblog from your Web site if you pay their fee. I tried it and it didn't work too well. Blogger, on the other hand, worked perfectly in this respect. They will also host your scriblings for you, free, if you have no Web site from which to display it. If you want to liven your Web site with its own Weblog, Blogger is a reasonable way to do so.
When I went in for my regular quarterly appointment, I told Dr. G about my back problems of several weeks back. He was concerned that a bulging disk might cause a pinched nerve and later nerve damage, so he sent me to X-ray after doing a quick exam of his own. His exam involved moving my legs to a lot of unusual positions to see what made my back hurt.
If I just stood there and leaned forward slightly, he said he could see the muscles in all of my lower back go into spasms. It must have been a fascinating sight. He did it a couple of times.
I can't use NSAIDs (Non-Steroid Anti-Inflamitory Drugs) because of my tendency to bleed internally, so Dr. G provided me with a prescription for some heavier stuff, Darvocet. I hoped I wasn't going to need it.
Down at X-ray, they put me through a series of contortions in order to shoot my hips and lumbar spine. They used to ask my weight before starting, but this time they didn't ... so I asked why. The technician explained that they weren't supposed to use their machines on anybody over 300 pounds (I am close to 320) because it tends to burn out the primary tube in the machine, which is very old.
Anyway, when we finished I knew I was going to need the pain killer.
I walked back down the hill to my car, which I had parked in the Grossmont Center Mall parking structure rather than in the medical center parking structure. About four months ago, the owners of the medical center had installed a gate on their parking structure and were charging $2 per average visit to park there. Some doctors were validating tickets, others weren't, and it was costing over $1,000 per month per doctor to validate tickets for their patients. Nobody was happy. I chose to park free a quarter mile away and get some healthy exercise walking up the hill to visit my doctors.
By the time I filled the prescription at Costco and got home, my back was killing me. I had to take a pain killer right away, then another before retiring to sleep. I felt like taking a third one at 3:45 but decided to tough it out. Unfortunately, this decision meant I woke up much earlier than I had intended, at 7:45 instead of at 9:00.
There were several times during the day that I was tempted to take a pill, but I refrained. I'll probably need at least one to sleep.
Dr. G called me about 90 minutes ago, after getting the results from the X-rays. He says my arthritis has spread. The lumbar region is all fully involved now and it has spread into the thoraxic region. He wants me to get X-rays of the thoraxic region and is asking my insurance to approve an MRI of my entire back and hips.
I went to my eye doctor today for my regular retinal exam. While he was going through the preliminaries, I mentioned that I had a pimple on the inside of my left upper eyelid. It wasn't really bothering me, but it had been there for a couple of months and it didn't seem as if it would disappear by itself. He confirmed that it would probably remain unless treated surgically and asked if I wanted to have it removed. I consented.
There was no preliminary sterilization. He took a sterile needle and poked it into the cyst. Then, with a series of cotton swabs, he squeezed out the gummy white material from inside the cyst. That's when I did the worst possible thing I could do.
I started laughing.
This brought the operation to a halt. I had to explain that, surrounded by technology as we were, the treatment still came down to poking the offending growth with a needle and squeezing. He shared my amusement at the situation, informing me that he could have gotten out his laser and zapped the growth to ash, which he would have scraped away, for just about $6,000 -- assuming I had wanted to use high technology on the problem.
No, I told him, I was satisfied that I was receiving the treatment appropriate to the problem. I just have a sick sense of humor that sometimes erupts at the wrong time.
I've been bathing my eyelids with warm water once daily, on his previous recommendation. He said I should increase that to twice or thrice daily for a week, until the cyst has completely drained and scarred over.
Having treated my cyst, he went on to examine my retinas. As soon as he shined that bright light into my eyes, my nose started to run, causing me to call another halt to the procedings to clear the new problem.
The verdict from today's exam is that my retinas are slightly improved from the last visit. I'm scheduled to return in December.
Delia has a friend named Melva whose husband is named Gorden. Even though I'm not particularly fond of them, Delia has remained close.
Just under two weeks ago, I had back problems. I was diagnosed with arthritis of the lower right spine early this year and it has been causing me pain for several years, pain I feared was due to a damaged kidney. The pain got bad this time, with my right leg having the burning and tingling sensations associated with nerve damage, bad enough pain that I was unable to sleep without taking a prescription pain pill I keep for such cases.
The same night I had my problem, Gorden had similar symptoms. But his were much more extreme. The pain was sufficiently severe that he was unable to walk, even to go to the bathroom. He had to be taken to the hospital.
After about five days I reached the point that I could sleep without my pills. I've had four days now with the pain at a low enough level that I am annoyed but I can still get to sleep.
Gorden just learned that his problem is the result of terminal cancer. He has tumors in his neck, his back and elsewhere.
In the "Good Old Days" of our Western civilization there were two sexes, dominant males and subservient females. There were actually two additional groups, both neutral in gender, both totally subservient and expendible: children and true neuters. Neuters weren't considered for marriage or for much of anything else, their roles being highly specialized. Children were given in marriage in the roles they were expected to grow into, as either male or female. Pseudo-neuters, such as members of the clergy, were required to be male who acted as if they were sexless; their frequent failure to keep up the act was usually either punished or overlooked, more often the latter than the former.
Marriage was a bond between a man and a woman, a form of property ownership, to the ancient Jews, Pagan Romans and Christians. The Roman Pater Familias or head of the household had the power of life and death over his wife, their children, all of their slaves and those who swore fealty to the household. Then, in the time of the Caesars, Rome invented a super-alpha male, an individual whose power extended over the households of males subservient to him. These extended families were established and maintained by a combination of tradition, wealth, posturing, threats, treachery and brute force, the latter four functions in combination being dignified under the new name of diplomacy. As the current super-alpha male could easily be reduced to lower status, including demise, by the use of diplomacy, being the head of an extended household was often fluid and of short duration.
Nobody worried a lot about exactly what a male was or what a female was. The few hermaphrodites who appeared were considered to be freaks and were often terminated in their youth. They were not considered natural. As unnatural creatures, abominations, they were called works of the devil, vile and evil things, and couldn't live like normal people. A male who preferred to have sex with other males, with children or with animals was considered to be almost as evil as the physically deformed hermaphrodite. That a woman might prefer not to have sexual relations or want to have sexual relations with another woman seemed fantastic: a woman's preferences were given no consideration at all. Even more fantastic was the idea that a man might want to live as a woman, even to the point of undergoing surgery to do the transformation. The science of those halcyon days knew nothing of XXY, XXYY or other genetic super-sex anomalies, nor even that, genetically, every man is half woman (XY) while all women are all woman (XX).
Genetic sex determination has been muddied with super-sex combinations such as XXY and XXYY. Physical sex may not match genetic sex. Gender may not match physical sex. Legal gender may not match gender preference.
It is often difficult to determine, at any given moment and circumstance, what a particular person's gender is, particularly if that person is in the process of trying to legally and physically change gender. This is a new problem, one that did not exist before.
It didn't exist when the Constitution was written, for example.
So if, for some people, you can't figure out their gender, should you keep them from marrying?
If you prohibit marriage because of doubt, you get a whole new problem, that of after-marriage transgendering. For example, John marries Mary, then John goes through the transgender process and comes out of surgery as Joan, but Joan and Mary want to continue the marriage. Do you force them to part because of some silly, arbitrary decision about marriage being between two different genders?
The doubt always exists.
In my humble opinion, if you are going to permit marriage at all, you are, in all fairness, going to have to permit it between any two individuals who desire to share their lives, regardless of gender. Gender is too nebulous to be a determining factor.
When I finally decided to get up this morning, I walked over to the light switch and clicked it on. Nothing happened. I turned it off and then on again. Still nothing.
I walked into the next room, where my computer stuff is on another circuit. A status light was glowing on my monitor, showing that it was in standby mode. I tried to turn it on and the light went out. It was dead.
The whole house was without power. I walked outside and discovered why.
The whole street was blocked off. There were cops there and trucks from SDG&E (the power company), Cox (cable and telephone), SBC (telephone) and a heavy equipment rental. There was also a telephone pole shattered in three parts with splinters thrown fifty feet in all directions and there were lots of broken telephone lines littering the ground.
The heavy equipment rental truck was a tractor trailer rig with two cherry pickers on the trailer, positioned so their buckets overlapped, with the bucket of the larger cherry picker extending upwards over the cab of the tractor. It was large enough that, even when fully retracted, it caught the stainless steel support cable between the power poles on the south side of the street and a line of telephone poles running down a side street from the opposite side of the street. The support cable held but the pole was pulled out of the ground and snapped in two places.
The power lines run at the top of the power poles, with the communication services lines running below them. The jerk on the cable was enough to vibrate the power lines and blow their fuses. Replacing the fuses was a simple job and we had power back quickly.
We have our telephone service with Cox. They did not lose service.
When I checked a few minutes ago, SBC had brought in a new telephone pole, which they have not yet installed. They are stringing new phone lines first, to restore service to their customers. The police are gone, the people running around with cameras are gone, and the heavy equipment truck is gone. The road is open again, although traffic is restricted to a single controlled lane.
Things are almost back to normal.
UPDATE: SBC installed a taller telephone pole than had been there previously and they strung a new support cable higher than the old one had been, with the telephone lines strung above the support cable. They added a new anchor cable to the power pole on the south side of the street to support the additional strain of the higher connection and to prevent the power pole from leaning any farther across the street than the jolt caused it to do.
The trucks are all gone. There are no obstructions to traffic. Everything appears normal again.
Cathy wanted to take me to dinner on Father's Day. For a variety of reasons that dinner was postponed until tonight.
I grew up in San Diego. The Pekin Cafe was there before I was born and my parents started going there soon after it opened. I've been going there most of my life. That was where I wanted to have dinner. I haven't been there for years. The last time I tried to go, they were closed for remodelling.
Little has changed about the restaurant itself. The exterior is much the same as it has always been. The inside hasn't changed much, either, from my last visit, though the enclosed booths of decades past disappeared many years ago. So much was the same, in fact, that it was hard to see what remodelling had accomplished besides freshening the paint on walls and ceiling.
Chinese restaurants all used to serve Cantonese food, or what passed for Cantonese -- bland, starchy, the chop suey types served with rice and the chow mein types served with noodles. While the menu remains much the same as it has always been, some distinctly non-Cantonese items have crept onto the menu.
One of the little touches I used to appreciate was still in force: a pot of tea was placed on the table before we were presented the menu. It may seem like a small thing, but few places bother with such a courtesy any more.
The foods we chose to order were, at least in my case, driven more by memory of happy times than by hunger or a desire to eat. We had celebrated many times within those walls, and I chose dishes we had chosen on festive occasions rather than those I particularly desired for their merits. Then I let Cathy overrule my selections. Her changes were minor.
We wound up with egg drop soup, fried shrimp, beef with black mushrooms, special chicken chow mein and pea pod shrimp.
Their fried shrimp look like doughnuts. They are cut so that the head and tail remain together but the rest of the body is separated and formed into a circle, then the whole thing is lightly battered and fried. It is served with ketchup and hot mustard. I have frequently had better tasting shrimp but rarely do they bring back such memories.
Cathy and I had an interesting conversation during the meal. That, doubtless, was part of the reason for her invitation -- so that we could talk alone, without interruption. She revealed part of what she has been up to lately, including recent investments made and possible plans for the future. I think she was expecting me to laugh at her and was relieved when I was supportive instead.
As we were leaving, I pointed out the front of the building next to the restaurant, which was boarded over and blackened with age and neglect. Cathy was surprised to learn that the large blackened storefront area, taking up almost half the block, had once been a thriving and respected movie theater. Almost everything on the block was part of one big building. Other, smaller parts had found new uses. But the theater wasn't worth fixing up or converting to another use and they couldn't tear down the whole building. Not with so many thriving businesses operating there. So they did a half-assed job of sealing up the old theater and tried to pretend it wasn't there.
There was lots of food left over, to take home for a later meal. Lunch, perhaps. Something to refresh my bright memories.
A couple of weeks ago, I went into one of our local markets -- not a
giant chain, but a member of a family-operated group of markets with a
variety of identities, this one called Henry's. Cathy was with me and
had just found her Smart Water, her preferred liquid when not drinking
wine. I turned away from the display of an amazing variety of different
kinds of waters and saw a shelf full of little brown bottles with
yellow tops and labels. Although I had never seen the product before, I
knew immediately what it must be, even without reading the label.
I have heard about Vegemite from a variety of Brits and Aussies for
several years now. Many extoll the virtues of this product. Many more
voices join in the opposite side of the fray, claiming the stuff to be
garbage or worse. Few seem to adopt a neutral stance.
The population of Australia didn't all migrate there of their own
volition. Whether willing or not, those who tamed that new land were
thirsty. They particularly wanted to be able to duplicate the whiskeys
of Scotland. Failing that, they became masters at producing beers, ales
and wines. This gave them lots and lots of yeast to play with. In 1923,
mixing salt and minerals with a batch of yeast they cooked to the point
of caramelization, they invented Vegemite. Some liked it and some hated
it, so they continued making it.
Vegemite has finally reached rural Southern California in quantities
sufficient to fill one small shelf in one small store. Not only that --
as I discovered today, when I returned to that same store -- the
quantity on display diminishes with time. Somebody here must actually
be buying the stuff, even at $3 for a four ounce bottle. There were
perhaps ten bottles left out of six or seven dozen bottles that had
initially been on display.
It was time for me to try Vegemite. Even at that ridiculous price.
After all, I only pay $2 for a bottle of wine and, although the Two
Buck Chuck didn't bring in the gold in that big contest in New York, it
was a finalist.
The label says there are 23 servings of one teaspoon each in the
bottle. From the smell, I didn't think I'd be serving myself that much
at any time. I dipped my thumbnail into the thick, dark brown paste and
licked it off.
I survived.
If you take warm Guinness stout, jell it and add salt, then concentrate
it just a tad, you would get something close to Vegemite. If you like
heavy tasting beers -- stouts, porters and their ilk -- you are well on
your way to enjoying Vegemite.
Vegemite is probably good for you. Yeast brings lots of B-complex
vitamins to the mix. It contains almost nothing beyond the salt that
would cause any harm.
Other than dipping a little bit right out of the bottle, I have no idea
how to use the stuff. Do you make peanut butter and Vegemite
sandwiches? Where do I find Vegemite recipes? Why should I bother?
I can't see why people are so fond of it. I also can't see why their
opposite numbers hate it so vehemently. I guess I'm in the middle.
I know a little more about Vegemite.
I just don't know what it's good for.
Delia's mother, Carmela Villarreal de Tudisco, gave up the ghost just before midnight on Saturday. She had reached the age of 94 years before her body gave out.
Like her sister, Delia 'Chellita' Villarreal, Carmela had been an elementary school teacher in David, Chiriqui Provence, Republic of Panama. Both had received retired pay as a result, but it wasn't enough to live on. They had both lived with their daughter, Fatima Stella Tudisco V., until their deaths.
Literacy was a problem in Panama for many years because only a small number of children attended school. The commonest reason for their not being able to attend was lack of supplies, especially shoes.
When General Omar Torrillos took over the government of Panama, he changed that by creating what was called the "Thirteenth Month". Under his new law, all employers were required to pay employees an additional month's wages each year ... but in a very special manner. Half of that amount was to be paid at the beginning of December, to provide food and clothing for the holiday season (but not for toys or liquor). The other half was paid in spring, at the beginning of Panama's school year, in the form of shoes and other equipment for the children that would permit them to attend classes.
School attendance soared, with a resulting increase in literacy throughout the country.
The Thirteenth Month became an institution so popular that even Noriega couldn't try to cancel it without risking riots and loss of power.
If Torrillos was a leader in the battle against illiteracy in Panama, Carmela and Chellita were soldiers in that same battle.
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