Alzheimer's Disease, walk

A Lady In The Evening

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Tonight as I was heading off for my walk, I ran into a lady I haven’t seen for a while. I went to school with her son and was a patient of her husband in my long ago school years. So I said hi and she said hi and we continued on with our lives.

But … as I walked, I found myself thinking how unfair life has been of late to her. Several years ago she waged an epic battle against cancer, a battle that most had given up on her winning. It was a close thing, but she survived, although as a fragile shell of her previous self.

After that harrowing experience, you would hope that she and her husband of more than 50 years might be able to enjoy a few of their sunset years. Just kick back and be able to watch life pass by together. It just isn’t to be. Her husband has developed progressively worse Alzheimer’s Disease. So she is now devoted to taking care of (and zealously protecting) him.

Even two years ago, he was outside and taking care of the lawn, washing the car, visiting. He drove his wife to her treatments, etc. Now he is confined to the house or he wonders off. Every day there is less of the man, father, and husband that he used to be still present. Every day is closer and closer to the horizon where he will not be able to remain at home. How unfair is that?

It brought forth memories of L’s dad journeying through the throes of Alzheimer’s Disease. I remember finding him standing in our back yard, puzzled and frustrated by his inability to open the gate. A gate secured by a simple lift latch. And him having owned and operated hardware stores for much of the time I knew him. I remember thinking then how unfair it was to him and his family, even as there was less and less of the man I knew present every day.

And so I felt great sympathy for the lady and her family.

diabetes, printer, work

Excuses, Excuses, …

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Time for me to continue being the bad summer blogger that I have become. If I were the type for confession, I’d have to begin with “Forgive me father for I have sinned. It has been one week since my last blog post…” I actually have been busy for the last week and the blog took the back seat to real life. In the words of that famous aphorism, “Shit happens!”

What have I been doing? Well … on the work side I am trying to keep everything on track for our upcoming 5K Run and Pet Walk. So I have been doing everything from artwork procurement to tee shirt manufacture. And of course still working on all the contracts to get our new facility constructed. And trying to get all the staff through FEMA certification and then CART certified so we can proceed with the plans for our expanding role in emergency preparation (with some of the staff definitely exhibiting a bit of resistance to getting trained). (I would never have believed the number of youngsters that have deep seated fears of web based learning.)

On the personal side, my annual medical tests a few weeks ago indicated that the beta cells in my pancreas finally gave up the ghost. Now, after decades of all sorts of drugs and hormones to trick my liver, pancreas, and muscle cells to make up for the ever decreasing number of beta cells (and thus less insulin production) to keep my blood glucose under control, I am a fully insulin dependent diabetic. The last week has been consumed with the process of adjusting dosages and timings for the daily injections of insulin, working with the fact that walking 6 miles can drop the blood glucose levels radically. Now my walks require a bit of forethought and preparation that was absent before.

The process has been interesting. Modern diabetic injection equipment uses such fine needles that the shots are painless.

It’s hard to convince yourself that it isn’t going to hurt to stick a needle in yourself, but after a few times with no pain, the mind begins to accept it. There are definite advantages to the insulin treatment compared to the oral drugs and hormones. The biggest plus from my point of view is that the chronic muscle pain has faded – which is great. The biggest drawback thus far is the number of finger sticks to test glucose level as we (my internist and I) try to get the base levels of insulin right. I’ll try to put together a post on the whole experience later on if anyone is interested.

I have been so busy that I haven’t had time to even open the box with the new printer that arrived via FedEx. I’ll wait to disclose more until I can do my thank you up right. I’ll leave you with the teaser that I won it on another blog. (Yeah, shocked me too.)

Molly, odd question of the day, walk, weather

The Heat is On

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So much for the summer cold front. It was truly glorious while it lasted, but the reminder of fall and the coming of winter was brief. As I write, the temperature is hovering between 105 and 108 depending on which of my two shade thermometers you believe. Needless to say, tonight’s walk is going to be late in the evening and warm.

Speaking of which, I have upped my daily walking to 6 miles a day from 5. It is just enough extra that Molly gives hints that we should turn towards home every time we pass a possible turn off in that last mile. But when I say “Not yet, we still have further to go.” she takes it in stride. It hasn’t dampened her eagerness when I put on the ear buds and pick up the leash, signaling it is time to head on out.

Which segues naturally into my question of the day: which one or two out of three would you choose? Now that you are bewildered, the question comes from listening to Meatloaf’s “Two Out of Three Ain’t Bad” last night as I walked. In the ballad, the three refers to the infamous triad of “I want you. I need you. I love you.”

Aw heck, just take a quick listen, I’ll wait:

In any case, it led my mind to ponder the question(s):

  • If you only get one of the three in a relationship, which one?
  • If you only get two of the three in a relationship, which two?

I assume we all want all three in our ideal relationship, so the question is moot for the case of three. My own answers for the one and two cases are predictable to those who know me. If I only get one, make it love. If I only get two, make it love and want. But I know people who would answer differently, so what are your answers?

rockies, weather

Summer Cold Front

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The thunder and lightning and rain of last night foretold the arrival of something rare out here on the high plains: a summer cold front. After weeks of daytime highs in the upper 90’s and lower 100’s, today it barely made it to the mid 60’s. Sleeping weather as I like to say.

It was cool enough that when Molly and I took our walk tonight, I actually wore a jacket. Of course I had to shed it a few miles into the walk because it wasn’t that cool. {*grin*}

I’m off to enjoy the sleeping weather while it lasts, but I cannot resist … How about them Rockies? Bottom of the ninth homers to win two nights in a row!

(Picture courtesy School For Champions.)
error, google, google maps, lchs, stupidity

Don’t Believe Everything …

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Don’t believe everything you see on Google. I tell people that all the time. Now I have a perfect example of why you shouldn’t believe Google.

This weekend and today, my front door was besieged by people knocking and asking if this was indeed the humane society. (OK, 5 or so people which counts a siege out here. {*grin*}) I’d tell them no and then give them the right number to call. But I also was very curious as to why people suddenly thought my house was the humane society. All of them said that this was the address the internet told them. I put 2 and 2 together and figured it was something odd on Google.

Sure enough, if you search for Logan County Humane Society, right there in the first page of results sits this little gem:

Note that it does indeed have one of the LCHS (Logan County Humane Society) numbers listed, but every other detail is wrong. Who knew Google could be so completely off the wall?

Unable to leave it at that, I clicked through – lo and behold the idiocy continues:

There are so many wrongs here it is painful. The picture in the lower right is indeed 510 Glenora via the Google cam car and is indeed my house. But Google has it labeled internally as 514. The map is correct. But ….

The Logan County Humane Society is not a county agency, it is a 501(c)3 corporation with no association to the county. 510 Glenora is my house, nothing to do with the humane society. The nearby places in Yuma, CO – are close to 60 miles down the road, etc.

I filed the forms to get this removed and corrected, but Google is noted for being slow to fix egregious errors like this. So keep your eye out to see how long it takes them to fix it. Click here to see the Google maps page in real time.

In the mean time I sent the county commissioners an email chiding them for their aggressive take over of private property for new secret offices. Wonder if they’ll catch the humor?

Time to go answer the door again. Only another 20,000 door knocks to go and I will have explained that this is not the humane society no matter what Google says to everyone in the county.

(Given the severe thunderstorm warning and thunder booming happening at the moment, Molly is busy laying on my feet and begging for reassurance, not answering the door. Probably a good thing. A dog answering the door might encourage people to believe this really is the humane society.)

Things Done Right