Author: alohawild

I slept all night and was up at 7ish to start my day. I dreamed all night, and my sleep was strange, but I did rest. After that, I did the usual coffee, email, breakfast and wrote the blog.

Evan wanted to stop by, and then we would head out together in Air Volvo to see Susie. This delayed me until later in the morning. We got to the Forest Grove Rehab and Care Center about 10:30, and Susie was awake and dressed in her shared room, 44A.

Susie was more animated and tried to talk more than yesterday. She seemed to be better. She did understand me.

I did FaceTime with Susie’s mother and sister so they could both chat with Susie. Susie managed to get a few words out to Leta (her mother) and smiled when she saw Barb.

I arranged for the nurses to put on ice skating on NBC for Susie in the afternoon.

We, Evan and I, stayed for about an hour with Susie. Then, I started to get tired, so we left about noon. I drove Air Volvo to the house and then picked up a game, Concordia, and drove the very short distance to The 649.

Evan was fighting with the phone company about transferring his old number to a new phone. So I went into The 649 with the game and ordered some soup, Hungarian Mushroom, and chips while Evan talked more to the phone company. I had a tiny smoky-tasting beer too.

Evan continued with his adventures while I ate and waited. I was just resting; the 649 is not very busy in the afternoons and is strict on compliance to masking and distancing. There is even a note on the entrance that if you can’t follow the rules, then head to the bar across the street. They mean it!

Evan got a drink and ate most of the chips. The salsa was too fresh made for my 1950s styled no-fresh-anything diet. He had to use my phone and, after 90 mins still did not get his phone fixed, but did learn that the newly purchased SIM card was not usable and he needed a new one. Apparently, the phone people improperly activated it. I am not sure how that is possible by I stay away from telcom!

Evan was distracted as we played the board game favorite, Concordia, just the base game. I received from Kickstarter the new meeples painted with images on them for the colonists, and this was their first use. The new meeples looked great, and I found I could spot them now with ease. I was much more aware of where Evan placed his colonists. It was exciting for me to play with my new look Concordia.

A short description of the play for those who know the game: this was a simple two-person game on the Mediterranean map using the basic rules. As usually happens in a two-person game, I ended the game by building all my trading houses. Evan had acquired the top cards of Weaver and Vintner, while I had the lesser Mason and Farmer cards. I remember Wills’s admonishment to get the Mars cards and got out my colonists. The Farmer card and my focus on farming got me the game as I spread out building farming trade houses, and the food was part of what I needed to get more cards and more colonists. I have been crushed by a Farmer focused Kathleen in games at Richard’s house. So I remembered, and Evan was surprised when the game ended so fast. I won with over a fifty-point advantage as Evan was having trouble remembering all the game’s tricks to get efficient turns. Evan had not yet built up his wine and cloth cites and did not have his extra colonists out. He was just about to break out. I lost to Jason and Natash in New York City in my last game of Concordia when the game went on long enough for them to build out their wine and metal empires at the end of the game. Instead, I went with a hurried finish by using my Mason and Farmer card to supply resources for building more and more farm outposts.

Concordia is the game I played the most in 2021, and I recommend it, but there is a learning curve to know how to win. The rules are easy, but the interactions and scoring are complex. Therefore, I won’t repeat my game description from past blogs, but the link above will cover it.

I headed home and took a nap. Evan borrowed our landline to try to get his phone issues resolved while I slept.

I got going again in the evening but just sat in my chair with a heating blanket. Marianna from Nike offered me a fine dinner from The Thirsty Lion, and I decided that Fish and Chips must be on my diet. And it was delivered within 30 minutes and was still hot!

I watched the first X-Man movie with Evan, still trying to resolve his phone issue, and Corwin, who ordered extra Chinese for dinner. Unfortunately, I had the volume down and could not hear the movie well (my hearing is not what it once was), and I did not like the movie that much–it seemed dated to me (2001). Evan and Corwin were scandalized that I did not love the film. I may have to try it again. Evan and Corwin enjoyed their dinner while watching.

I went to bed after that and read. I was trying to keep everything slow.

I did not sleep most of the night with a cough and asthma issues. I got up early, wrote the blog, and got caught up on email. I took my pills at 10AM and then headed back to bed. I napped for a few hours. The coughing slowed when I had something to eat and get some rest.

I recognize the cough; I am tired and reacting to pollen and have a runny nose. My usual for overdoing it. This is not often caused for just living, but I did not rest much the day before. I will be more careful in the future!

I finally managed to get going in the early afternoon and dressed and showered.

The doc at the Forest Grove Rehab and Care Center called. Adam is the nurse practitioner that works with the doc, and he told me that Susie has a thrush infection in her mouth, and they will treat it. We also chatted about keeping Susie out of the ER and no needles for her. Adam believes my plan to get Susie into hospice and/or at-home care is an “excellent” plan. So I will start that plan on Monday. Again, this is running on the schedule I had worked out in December.

Changing subjects, the plan included three weeks of care for Susie and then paying for the room until we get her home. Thus I also wrote a check for over $4500 for two weeks for Susie to remain there. I will also be billed for therapy. Yes, it is expensive, but this is what it costs in the USA. I do not believe Americans should pay this, but that is our present way of caring for people. Pay over 10,000 a month for primary care.

I manage to get to the nursing home about 2ish, and Susie is sleepy and in bed. She was dressed and had some food and water before I got there. I water the plants and sit with Susie for about an hour. The fatigue returns. I do manage to get Susie to chat with her mother on FaceTime.

I tried to get Susie to smile wide.

The nurses were happy to see me; they were worried as I was late and rehashed the changes in Susie’s care. We are all happy to see each other, and they know about my surgery and that we are going on private pay, but care is not to change.

The staff at home love Susie and are happy to have someone in their care where the family and friends visit. It makes a difference for them too. They worry about me and my recovery. It is nice to see so many caring people.

The facility is challenged right now. Seven of the staff are down with Covid-19 and are out for at least five days (according to CDC guidelines). I am seeing right-wing memes about the mandating of vaccines as the cause of the staffing issues, but no, it is the spread of the variant caused mainly by the unvaccinated (20% in our county) that are causing the problem. I have evidence in front of my eyes.

I wish Susie goodbye, no kiss as I am coughing (I clean my hands often), and she falls asleep again. She can only get out a few clear words now. The thrush infection is one of the speech issues.

I manage to get home without issue. I had clam chowder from a can for lunch before I headed out to see Susie. I rest some more.

I watch videos on my Apple. I am newly fascinated by one channel that is a first-time build of a wooden ship from a very skilled plastic model builder, AlexModels. Again, another Patreon-supported person. I watched all six videos released in Nov-Dec 2021. I have four unfinished wood models and have already learned some important details.

I ask a question as I see he uses super glue differently than I have done. He answers in a few hours! I also order his coffee cup to support his work. I ordered the same item on Amazon and also ordered from MicroMark an OcCre workbench for this tiny scale work. He even has a video on putting it together.

I was going to head to the Smiths and play a board game, but it was unwise to risk exposure with the cough and Kat flying home to New York City. Not to mention David and Michelle did not need a cough either. So instead, David stops by, and we exchange a few late Christmas gifts.

I get a book on the incredible miniature work done for the holidays at the gardens in NYC. I send Kat a glass ornament of the Eiffel Tower. Kat’s animation project at college was set in Paris with a singing and dancing suitcase, which seemed perfect. Kay is a 3D animation artist.

We watch Thor 2 together using the groups on Disney+ after some fiddling to get it to work. It is late when we all say good night.

I manage to sleep almost immediately, but 7AM comes too soon.

I managed to get a bit more sleep but still was busy in the early morning, reading email, news, and having breakfast. I also wrote the blog and then rushed on my way.

I had a morning doc appointment at Knight Cancer Center in Portland on Legacy campus across from Legacy Good Samaritan Hospital off of 22nd. The doctor explained the numbers to me and that it would be his plan for six months of chemotherapy. I was hoping for an easier answer, but the numbers are clear, and the chemo must be done soon. Thus, I will begin my cycles at the end of January.

The process will be on infusion and an oral drug–plus drugs to help with the side effects. Oxaliplatin is a few generations from one of Susie’s experimental drugs, but Susie was part of the trial to bring this metal salt type of drug into use. Thank you Susie for risking the original drug! Capecitabine is an oral drug and the other drug I will be taking. All of this in four cycles over three months.

The only concerning side-effect, for me, is loss of feeling in the hands and feet. I would like to keep my skills of figure painting and miniature work intact and will work with the doc and nurses to identify issues and make adjustments.

Of course, all of this was difficult to process, still is, but I left Portland and made the 45 minutes to an hour trip to Forest Grove from Portland. Susie was awake, and a bit damp from spilling something on herself. Nevertheless, she was happy to see me. I managed to call Susie’s sister Barb and Leta for Susie. A bit of FaceTime cheered Susie, but I was fatigued and had new pain from my incisions and had to make it a short visit.

I also stopped by the biz office; Susie comes off of insurance on this Friday and I arranged to pay for two weeks for Susie to be at the Forest Grove Rehab and Care Center room 44A; the cost being over $4700. While it is expensive, I was happy that insurance covered until this Friday–three weeks! So, I will bring a check for them on Friday. I had set aside money for this kind of stuff in New York City in the fall when Nike stock hit $172, again. I knew we would have some large bills.

Next week, as I explained a few days ago, I will start the process with our primary doctor for home care or hospice care for Susie. I am still tired, so I plan to start that after the weekend. I want to bring Susie home.

While things sound a bit crazy, this is running to the plan I imagined without any nasty surprises. The extension of insurance coverage until Friday is a nicety not in the plan. The short disability at 70% pay will require careful attention, but the 125 medical reimbursement cost coverage started over in 2022, so I have the max to pay new medical bills. I think I can make all this work.

I left Susie with a kiss and headed back to Beaverton. I then drove to the German place in Beaverton, Bargarten. There, feeling tired and unhappy, I read my chemo manual supplied to me by the Knight Cancer Center. I had a small German beer and Fondue. I overdid it now, and when I got home, the pain in my incisions was headed out of control. I managed to drive home safely and even got the mail. A toast to all my Nike and SAP friends and German friends!

I went to bed for a while and tried to relax. Then, a cough started, and the pain was shocking in one place. Yup, really overdid it.

I recieved a Kickstarter today to update some board games. Meeple Source sent me my cool looking painted wooden meeples to replace the plain pieces for Concordia’s colonists and the archeologists in The Lost Ruins of Arnak. I have a few extras I may give away and might update another game. The new parts do not change the games, but they do improve the immersive experience.

I reheated the tortilla soup from Mrs. Jackson and tried to move less. I watched some BBC-based news on PBS and then went to bed again. Next, I read Scottish Church history–I have a reprint of an old history of the saints and church in Scotland. It is hard going as it is racist and an anti-catholic work, but it contains original sources and some context for the sources. I have this copy as this antiquated work is often quoted in newer sources–I like to see the original sometimes.

I could not sleep and was up most of the night. The coughing and wheezing kept me up. I will try to go slow on Friday and the weekend.

The day started out without me being able to sleep in the morning. I was up at 5AM and started my day early (Today, I slept late!). I wrote the blog and did all the morning things.

Breakfast is low-fat cottage cheese and canned peaches. This is a perfect match to all my restrictions, and I like it too.

We received a package at our door from DHL that was an address a mile away. Once in a while, we get packages that we have to redeliver on the street. So I thought it was that at first, I drove to the other side of Clarion Street and discovered the address did not exist. So I read the whole address and put it in Air Volvo navigation, drove the mile to the location, and delivered the package.

There was nobody home, and the doorbell was the type that records video. I hope that the recipient does not turn me in for stealing a package as the video shows me, a stranger, handling a package!

I drove out from there to Susie in Forest Grove. The drive to Forest Grove Rehab and Care Center was without events. After that little event, I was even more tired and was a few minutes late at 10ish. Susie was in a dark room, warm and very much asleep.

I was tired already, and my incisions were sore from the drive. Susie can barely speak and falls asleep but is happy to see me. I do a short FaceTime call with Leta and Sarah, one of the nurses, get a bit of FaceTime with Leta. Leta had spoken to Sarah a few times, and they were both happy to see each other.

I am there for 90 minutes. Then, finally, I am getting fatigued and have to leave before I am too tired to drive. So I kiss Susie goodbye. Physical Therapy shows up and is apparently still working with Susie as I go. So that is good news, but I still leave as I do not want to take a nap in the car and then drive home!

Lunch is reheated spaghetti and meat sauce from the previous delivery. It is again better reheated the next day. I am tired, not quite stumbling tired, but I am careful. More Pirate Movies this afternoon. My fav is number 3, and I am halfway through it. I watch it and fall asleep after it.

As usual, I watch some YouTube while eating. Today, I watched part 7 of building a wooden ship model, the USS Albatross. I have subscribed to a perfectly executed channel where he just works and records each build step with a narration of why he does something. This is one of my secrets to painting figures and building models; I look up how others did the work and pick and choose what I will do. It is also why I do not buy more models–I see the amount of time to finish a model and will not pre-invest now.

Aside: The famous (and sunken) U.S. WW2 Lexington CV-2 is one of the pre-investments. It is impossible to find a plastic model in a 1/350 scale (that makes it over two feet long!). The story was told to me, a person with hoarding passed away, and the local hobby store bought the unopened models from the family. Thus, a copy of the long out of print model was there to buy in the Hillsboro hobby store at a reasonable price. I watched a video of the build of the model, it is a flawed kit, and I have not been ready to start it. Someday!

Note: One of my investment book purchases is the story of the USS Lexington CV-2 told by a reporter on the ship for its very short life in WW2. It is a signed copy from 1946. One of the best WW2 naval stories I have read: Queen of the Flattops. The author spent the war selling the book and bonds for the war after surviving the sinking of the Lexington. In secret, Stanley Johnston, the author, was tried for printing that the Imperial Japanese codes were broken in his war dispatches in the Chicago Tribune. Apparently, the Imperial Japanese Navy did not read the Chicago Tribune and never learned that their codes were broken during the war. The Chicago Tribune was shuttered (it was an anti-FDR paper) for part of the war. Mr. Johnston was found not guilty on a technicality. The book has no mention of code-breaking.

Charlette Jackson, from church, calls, and she delivers a beautiful chicken tortilla soup for my dinner. I have two bowls!

I watch some of the news on PBS until the rehash of 6Jan2021 starts. I remember the events, and having lived in Washington, D.C. area; I was very sad as I loved the U.S. Capital and the kind police force. I turned off the T.V.

I went and read the rest of Death on the Nile. Barb, Susie’s sister, reminded me that it is coming out in a new movie soon. I think it is a dark story and one of Agatha Christie’s best. She writes all you know to solve it, but it is in her detective’s words, “impossible.” All with tourists in the 1930s on the Nile. Excellent!

I talk to Subha from Nike, she calls between her meetings. I give her my sympathy; she lost her father when all my chaos started for me. So it was good to talk to her; I am so glad she called.

I talk to folks on the phone but stay in bed reading and napping. I finally take my last pills and fall asleep near 11ish.

Starting with the most essential item, Susie was better this Tuesday morning. I managed to get to Forest Grove Rehab and Care Center about 9:30 and was in Susie room, 44A, a bit later after the staff got her dressed. The lead nurse for Susie, Pre, told me and some of the nursing aids too that Susie is not going to a sleep study today. Pre informed me the doc had ordered it, but she delayed it. We both agreed more needles and tests were not what we needed.

Returning to Susie’s room, I spent the morning opening Christmas cards; I saved them for now and read them to Susie. I told Susie about the last few days. She could only get a few words out. I got some thickened water, Susie must have only thick liquids now, and the water helped her speech. It was still hard to understand her, but she was more clear.

I called Susie’s mother Leta and Dr. Peter Koper and we did FaceTime. Later, Susie had some food when Zoriada also stopped by. A busy day for Susie. A better day.

Another important detail is that my doctor meeting with the cancer folks is tomorrow in Portland at the Knight Cancer Center branch. There we will decide the next steps for me. Chemo, type of drugs to be used, and all that is Thursday morning at 10:30. I am considering delaying any chemo for a few months to get my strength back and to get hospice started for Susie. I will work with the docs at Knight Cancer Center for all of this.

Lastly, on important items, the Mac I am using totally crashed last night. I had to reload the OS! I am now using Monterey, 12.1, and the computer is currently working (except for the mic). I was up to 11:30 reloading it. I thought I would have to reload all my data from my backup; I have Apple’s Time Machine running using a super-fast solid-state external drive with the MacBook Pro (13″ M1) connected by USB-C to a landing dock from OWC. The OWC landing dock was expensive but supplies seamless access to the backup drive with more USB-C plugs, supplies high watts for the power for the Mac, legacy USB ports, and even a network port. The M1-based new Mac does not support anything except WiFi connections for the network! Returning to the crash, I was surprised that everything recovered, and there was no need to rebuild my Mac. I was able to sleep after running Word and seeing that my documents were still available.

The only scary thing was that the Mac needed to do a complete backup to recover into Monterrey, but that was completed without issue last night. Please note, with the OWC landing doc, I never miss a backup. I just plug in the MacBook Pro into the power from the landing dock and that connects my Time Machine drive and the next backup happens in a few minutes. I do have to manually eject the drive when I unplug the Mac, but I have now developed that habit. Failing to eject the drive gets me a nasty message and can corrupt the backup if in progress and require clearing the Time Machine–had that happen once, not a good thing. Thusly, I eject the backup drive when I grab my Mac.

Starting back, I was up at 6:30ish. I made coffee, had breakfast of low-fat cottage cheese and canned fruit (sticking to my post-surgery diet), and read and cleared my email. I wrote the blog, a bit sad this time with Susie fading, and then showered and cleaned up.

I was fatigued a bit after doing all of that. However, I managed to safely drive to the nursing home. I would need to rest after the trip.

I managed 90 minutes and was relieved when Anne Weld-Martin came in after 11. I also spoke to Pre and will begin hospice for Susie next week. This would likely bring Susie home with lots of reasonable care, Pre suggested. They are happy to care for her in Forest Grove, but hospice seems the next logical step. I agreed with Pre. Pre and I also decided next week would be the soonest to do this; I still am weak from the surgery.

I got home and stripped the bed, and started the wash. I opened a can of clam chowder for lunch, got it hot on the stove, and watched a few videos on YouTube. Finally, I got some blankets, sat in Susie’s favorite chair in the living room, and fell asleep.

I awoke and decided to try a bit more driving and drove to the hobby store and back. I was tired and did not buy anything at Tammy’s Hobby store. The magazine I like, Fine Modeller, was still in the current issue I had already read.

Back to the chair and the sheets now in the dryer. I decided to continue through the pirate movies. So I put on the second Pirates of the Caribbean movie. This one, as I remembered from my first viewing it (we used to have a tradition that the Smiths, the Wilds, and Michael Giessner would watch the newest Pirate movie together), was a bit forced with weak transitions, but still fun. I watched the whole film and then fell asleep again.

Dinner was a repeat from Pastaghetti delivered by GrubHub. The chicken breast parmesan is breaded and covered with sauce and cheese and seems to work for me. I also ordered a portion of spaghetti in meat sauce (my diet is beef only ground and broken up). I had only a bit of the spaghetti, saving most for lunch on Wednesday. I also ordered a meal for Corwin as he was in this evening.

I started the third Pirate movie, my fav, in which I think the actors and directors find their footing and introduce more mythology and more pirates. Even the Disney ride’s first drop is sort of explained in the movie; I only manage 1/2 of the film.

I remade the bed; my incisions are now sorer these days, and the stretching required to make the bed was, while not difficult, more painful than usual. I picked up the Agatha Christie book, Murder on the Nile, and almost slept. I then got up, took my last pills, and discovered the Mac was dying.

I remembered rolling over a few times once in bed near 11:30ish, reading more, and then a deep sleep came (until 5:00ish).