Warning: Major, Prolonged Whine.

 [images: my dining room, after Tom cleaned up some of the paperwork pertaining to his parents' finances.  And that's not even what I'm complaining about.]

Today air quality is "moderate," which translates to bad for people like me (elderly, and on immuno-suppressants).  Worse, weed pollen (ragweed, for example) is high and forecast to be VERY high the next two days, because it is not going to rain and tamp it down.  Mold activity outdoors is low, that's good, but it will soar if it rains.

What this means is that I can't go outside.  I can't sit on a porch or patio with a friend for half an hour.  I can't walk through the rose garden taking pictures, or go out in my own yard and mess around cleaning stuff up.  If I am outside in this weather, I get so much congestion that I develop the kind of ear ache that makes babies scream with pain.  Then I can't wear my right hearing aid, and have to use hot and cold compresses to get it to drain.  In case you're wondering, I hate that.  All of it.

I haven't meditated yet today - and I hate that.  But I got up late, and I hate that, but I hate waking up to alarm clocks, and I haven't been able to sleep until 2:00 a.m. for several days, despite the best pharmaceutical interventions.  And it's 3:00 pm now.  So I am going to stop this and, as we say in Zen, sit down and shut up.  I don't feel like doing that.   It takes discipline.

But before I go, I want to mention that I'm pushing water right now, meaning drinking down whole glasses, because I have to drink 4 liters a day to prevent bladder infections.  If you think that's nothing to whine about, do it for one day.  Go ahead.  And BTW, mine has to be room temperature water, not ice water, not water without ice from the ice water tap in the restaurant, which puts me into painful esophogeal spasms, just because I am old.  Go ahead, try to get simple room-temperature water in a restaurant.  You will learn, like me, that you just have to carry your own water.

However.  Water is one more thing to carry.  I have a torn rotator cuff on my right shoulder; the one on my left shoulder is relatively healed because I had to use it heavily when I broke my arm last fall in weather like this.  No, it does not have a good chance of being repaired, and PT was just making it too painful.

So if I am bringing in groceries and I carry a five-pound bag with each hand, and my purse with water in it, pain shoots down my right arm and up my neck on that side.  This is not my fault.  I have to carry stuff sometimes.  Tom is always willing to help, but he is handicapped.  He has to use a crutch to walk; that occupies his one good arm (he had polio).  He is not in a position to carry things.  So I carry what I think I can, or use my wheeled walker (from when I had bone edema in the left ankle, which still hurts every single moment of my life).

Before you offer me a solution, like get a neighbor to help carry groceries in, I want you to try it yourself.  Go ahead.  See what it takes to round up a neighbor, see how much time it takes.

If there's a point I'm making, it's that nobody knows the trouble I've seen, and therefore nobody should attempt to tell me how to solve the insoluble problems of old age.  Because, you know what?  I also have diminished capacity, because I'm old, and process slowly, and get tired, and can't figure things out.  And I'm in a bad mood right now because it's August, and this time of year I have depressed days that alternate with pissed-off days, because I am bipolar with SAD.  That's just my bad luck.  My good luck is that today I managed to shop and get in and out of Kroger's parking lot, which was all torn up, and not get in an accident. 

Contemplating chin lift while relaxing with a facial

Old age is one damn thing after another.  You are putting patches on a vehicle whose drive train is outmoded and whose transmission clanks and balks.  The tires are bald and can't be replaced, the hood is tied down with string, and at least one window doesn't work anymore.

In old age, a new problem doesn't mean an old problem got solved and went away.  It's just one more part going bad.  Oh, and yes:  Monday night I had what I am pretty sure was a gallbladder attack, characterized by intense pain and nausea.  I had one of these last year, and I've known a couple of people with gallbladder problems, so I recognize it.

You want me to go to the doctor about it, don't you?  You would.  But then, you might not be sick and tired of doctors who have nothing to suggest but one more surgery.  I hope you live long enough to have this tremendous growth opportunity.  If you do, all I can recommend is, cultivate your sense of humor.

Okay.  Now I'll meditate.
p.s.  I did, and it helped.

The Best Thing You Can Do For Your Health

Common snapdragon

And I just did it - I acted as my own doctor.

I don't mean the kinds of odd things we come up with that stand outside Western medicine, which is, generally speaking, based on science, on studies and lab results and radiology and chemistry.  I do plenty of things for my health outside that province, like oil of rosemary to perk up and eucalyptus to sleep, yogurt, apple cider vinegar and garlic and d-Mannose, and lately, wearing cotton on the advice of yoga teachers.  Four liters of water a day and various spiritual practices, including a church. And more that Western science is just catching on to, like singing, laughing, getting enough sleep, and making art.  And I have several doctors and take many prescribed pills on schedule and get blood draws.......you know.  Almost 70 here, basically you work on staying alive.

But what I'm rejoicing today about is a triumph of Western medicine.  Basically, getting established with a doctor I  can get in to see, and who will listen to me and, sometimes, go along with what I want.  Yes!

What I wanted from my kidney doctor was that he reassess the immunosuppressants I take to keep my body from rejecting the kidney Laura Brown gave me 20 months ago.  Why?  Because I can't spend five minutes outside without my allergies getting even worse than they are when I stay home in filtered air.  I figured that having my whole immune system suppressed might be behind this, though it's true that here in midwestern America we have had so much in bloom all the time this year that everyone's allergies are worse.  (What, you don't believe in climate change?)

I actually have two kidney docs, one at the research hospital that did the transplant and a private doctor.  They usually alternate, each one seeing me once a year.  But I thought the right one to talk to was my private-practice doctor, Dr. D.  He is that unusual thing, an extrovert who enjoys talking to patients and telling us what he knows.  He's just about the only guy left who does the hospital - there is a vogue now for something called a hospitalier who works there and never saw you before in his life.  So I waited a month to get in with Dr. D, and saw him this morning.

I do my best to look respectable when I visit a doctor, and to seem reasonable, though I do have orange shoelaces. And Tom goes with me.  Whether you like reality or not, they respect men a little bit more.  Tom testifies to my truth and helps me remember things.  I gave my pitch, and Dr. D quizzed me about other symptoms.  I hadn't complained about the GERD which has been constant since the transplant.  He knew about the multiple UTIs.  And I reminded him I am almost 70.  Said that before, didn't I?  "I'm an old lady," I said, without even blushing.  Because I know that, generally, it is good to lower doses as you age. 

He looked over his printouts on my labs, and talked a while about how there are some newer drugs than Rapamune, which a lot of people don't tolerate; and how stable I've been since the transplant.  He thought maybe my dose could be lowered.  He takes pains to work closely with the research docs, worked there once himself.  So he called that doctor and then called me.  Yes, the doctor called me himself, they can dial the phone it turns out, rather than having the message filter through a nurse or two.

I actually couldn't have implemented the changes they are prescribing without a new prescription.  And I wouldn't have done it on my own - kidney rejection could kill me.  They want a new blood draw after a week, and I would have wanted that if I'd thought to ask. The fact is, I need professional help to be my own doctor sometimes.  But this wouldn't have happened at all if I didn't pay attention to my body and act on its behalf; that's what being your own doctor means.
 
It turned out that Research Dr. agreed.  Lower the Rapamune and lower the Neoral a little, too.  He told Dr. D, "I didn't realize how old she was."  Of course I am way too cool to be grinning as I write that.