*Columbus Day: An Extraordinary Day 10-9-23

As young children we did not celebrate Columbus Day which is now a Federal Holiday.I celebrated yesterday with an extraordinary day which was filled with both on and off the board activities. Two days ago I had gone to the St Lukes Emergency Room with high blood pressure with a systolic of 220.Tests did not show persistent blood pressure problems but my doctor wanted to see me today. On awakening I called his office at 8:10 and his secretary said he had an opening at 8:40. I was dressed but I had to take my pills and do myriad other things and then drove the 'back' way to the office. The parking lot was filled so there was a long walk but I got to the office at 8:39.

After the nurse got my vitals we walked to an open room. My chart weighs about 2 pounds and is very thick. Dr John walked in and said, "You had quite a weekend." The nurse got my blood pressure at 123/80 but when John took it it was 145/90. When he took it in my other arm it was over 200/95. He waited for a

few minutes and the BP was 140/85. "Its dynamic," he said. He discussed the basic issues of high blood pressure: it is easily treated but most all the drugs have some bad side effects. The nifedipine I have been taking for years works by pushing fluid out of my vessels after which it collects in my lower legs. Over the years this has caused not only calf swelling but lately loss of sensation which seems to be affecting proprioception and balance. I have had three falls in the past 6 months. So last week we changed my medicine to apresoline. It controlled the BP OK but each day I got more fatigued until the symptoms were just like those when I had Covid last year. I switched back to the nifedipine, did a Covid test at home which was negative, but the high blood pressure and fatigue led to the ER visit. I cannot take  BP meds that can affect the kidney as I have had borderline abnormal renal function for years. Dr John has had similar high blood pressure problems for years and finally said wisely to me, "under these circumstances sometimes it is no longer possible to be asymptomatic." After consideration 'we' decided to stay on the nifedipine and increase the dose slightly with a bedtime dose.

I was feeling pretty good and resigned to the leg swelling as I drove home. On the way home there is a little travelled road which parallels  highway 40. As I came down the long hill towards the right turn to parallel Highway 270
I saw a red pickup truck in the left lane with its left turn signal on.  I was going slightly under the speed limit and so gave  little attention to the signaling pickup until I was about 15 yards away and the red truck started to turn directly into my path. I slammed on my brakes and veered to the right as he (apparently) saw me and veered to his right barely missing me and disappeared down the side road. I was slightly off the road to the right but he gassed it and left. In my mind's eyeI can still see how close he was to sideswiping me. I thought in the moment we were going to have a head-on collision.  It happened instantaneously and I did not have the energy or inclination to go after him. And then I was on my way home again. Thoughts formed about my lack of invinciblity and how quickly one can be gone. It did not help my blood pressure.

When I got home Jan told me that the new furnace which had been put in this May (and had not ever been used yet) was not heating.  I called our furnace company which was not open because it was Columbus Day. Their answering service was able to set up an appointment for the next day. The operator could not have been nicer.

I made a lot of necessary phone calls. I called my pension representative in Denver to change the withholding tax rate for my November Required Minimum Distribution. He will call me back tomorrow. I called Barnes West County Hospital Radiology to cancel a renal ultrasound as it is not needed for another 6 months. I called Vanguard  to continue to try to access our new account. We are still having authenticity issues so I e-mailed them copies of our MO drivers licenses. I scheduled a furnace clean and check next week with Survant Heating and Cooling in Wright City for our lake house. Our technician Chris can do it without my having to go out.

As it was almost time to schedule my Uber ride for my scheduled eye shot (for macular degeneration) in South County.
To my consternation the app would not come up on my iPhone. Ughhh! Jan cannot drive me and I cannot drive myself because when they inject the Eyelea into my good eye I cannot see for several hours. Jan got our son Chris (in Lafayette Colorado) on the line. Following Chris' instructions Jan removed the Uber  app from the phone and put in a new one from the app store. It worked. I scheduled a driver despite it being a little early. James, the Uber driver, was terrific. He said those app problems happen all the time and also described some near accidents he had been in.

Despite being a little early the Retina Institute Staff got me into a room almost immediately. Now some good news:
my good eye tested 20/20 corrected. Hoorah!! Even the worse eye tested better than usual. The injection procedure went well and I had a brief conversation with Dr E. about his hiking adventures on the Appachian Trail in North Carolina.
I was able to schedule an Uber driver for the trip home.

The new Uber driver, Lee Ann, was terrific. Originally from Montana,  she lives with her husband at Scott Air Force Base. She was excited that I was an Air Force guy. Her husband heads the Honor Guard and directs  the service related funerals over a large are. She told how proud and passionate  he was in doing his job for the families of the deceased service people. They have two years to go before he has his 'twenty years' and retirement. The not so good news: the  light that allows us to turn left out of the parking lot onto Tesson Ferry stopped working. The red light never turned green. So  we turned right and came home another way as a U turn was difficult.  Despite not being able to see very well because of the eye shot I was able to show her another way to our house. It was fun  driving home with someone who had enthusiasm even though it took much longer than usual.

After an eye shot I usually take a brief nap. After my nap I went up to the computer room for a Zoom class. I am in a class that is verbally reading the book, 'Speaking Being', led by one of the authors. Our teacher describes our reading
as horizontal reading for content with vertical reading for increased understanding and context. Todays class was about the difficulty we have saying, "I love you", to people. The idea was that when said in context the I love you can occur at a different level  than the level of  sexual, physical , or psychological love. The voicing of the 'I love you' could be a higher more all encompassing 'love' more at a level of authentic contact or prescencing with another.

After the class I went downstairs and Jan had shown another type of love- that of fixing a wonderful dinner. I told her about the class. I told her I loved her. She had had a tough day and was exhausted and didn't respond. I am not sure if she 'got' my love. But it didn't matter as my love for her  was not predicated on her response. It just was.

After dinner I read a little in an adventure fiction book but was both tired and sleepy. I went to bed at 8:00 and woke up at midnight. I don't do well when I retire too early. I slept on and off, mostly off, the rest of the  night.

So that was my extraordinary Columbus Day with its Ups and Downs - a trip to the doctor, a near fatal crash, common phone calls, an iPhone breakdown, 2 Uber rides, an eye shot, an ontological  Zoom class, a great dinner with the love of my life, followed by total exhaustion and a bit of deep sleep. And that is just scratching the surface.