ed_lemon

Yes, I managed to get through all of 2010 without a single entry. I suppose that's what happens as you get older - the years all start to blend together and there are no big events, or at least none that you want to share with the world. Still and all, here's what happened in 2010:

Some friends and a dear cousin died.

Pat had a bilateral mastectomy but seems to be recovering nicely. You can see her cancer diary here.

Our son and his wife are permanent residents in nearby Brattleboro, VT. They visit often, which is a good thing.

We both continue to be involved in our town, Pat on the selectboard and I with the Historical Society and Commission. I curate the Historical Society Museum, publish its web page and the town's web page as well.

I'd better hurry if I'm going to post another comment before 2010!

The eye surgery in March went well, and I have since been enjoying binocular vision again. It's hard to remember that I don't need glasses anymore (except to read). I'm constantly reaching towards my nose to adjust the non-existent pair I think should be there. My daughter was bothered by my lack of glasses to the extent of threatening to draw a pair on my face with a Sharpie.

By September I had finally gotten back to walking a full three miles every day, although that last mile was a tough slog. My doctor suggested that I reduce one of the heart medications I had been taking, and that perked me up considerably.

I had hoped to avoid medical topics and to post something positive in September, but at the end of August my wife was diagnosed with breast cancer, so we're back into the multiple hospital visits again, only this time she gets to go. She's almost finished with her chemotherapy and seems to be holding up well. Next step: radiation.

I wish all my readers (yes, both of you) the best of Season's Greetings!

Not long after the previous post here last October I had a mild heart attack while on my daily walk. I made it back to the house (I was about half a mile away when it began to be really painful) and eventually wound up in the hospital in Keene, NH. They sent me up to the Dartmouth-Hitchcock Clinic in Lebanon, where I had a heart catheterization, which showed a serious blockage in three of my coronary arteries. A bypass operation was scheduled for the following day. Unfortunately I didn't make it to the next day, suffering a massive coronary that night.* A bit of advice: if you're going to have a near-fatal heart attack, do it in the cardiac ward of one of the best hospitals on the East Coast. According to my surgeon, by the time they got me onto the operating table in the early hours of the morning, I had no blood pressure at all. Somehow they managed to pull me through during many hours on the heart-lung machine (the doctors called it "our big save") and after a couple of days in intensive care, I was allowed out into intermediate care, and not too long after that, was allowed to go home and start a long and painful recovery period.

The moral is this: chest pain is not to be ignored. Had I just ignored the pain (it went away after half an hour or so) I would have died last October during that second heart attack. Sobering thought!



So now, four months later, I'm having my cataracts done. After open heart surgery, what's to fear about someone coming at your eyeballs with a scalpel? I had the right eye done last Tuesday and they're doing the left one day after tomorrow. The procedure is simple: they make an incision in your eyeball, remove the cloudy lens, and replace it with a plastic one that turns you from a near-sighted person into a far-sighted person. I can now see clearly from about six feet to infinity with my unaided right eye. Having one far-sighted and one near-sighted eye does not make for a pleasant time, however. The left, untreated, eye is my dominant eye (yes, I'm a leftie) and it keeps trying to take over, making things sharp - blurry - sharp - blurry ad nauseam. Literally. But the difference between the two is amazing. It's as though they had removed a dirty, brown film from my right eye. Everything is bright, colors sparkle, and I can see things clearly without glasses for the first time in 60 years!



*As I lapsed into unconsciousness, aware that this was the big one, I could hear the nurses saying all kinds of ER chatter like "get him intubated", and "stay with us, Ed", etc. But all I could think of was that I should say some last words, something for my loved ones to remember me by. Couldn't think of any. Later, when I was back among the living and surrounded by loving family members, I lamented my inability to think up some meaningful and concise final words. Daughter-in-law Andrea suggested "the murderer was....arrgh". Someone else came up with "the money is hidden in the....arrgh." I felt they were not really getting into the spirit of the thing.

Rather than leave a scowling image as the first thing you see in my LJ page, I'll post this one, taken today while hiking in Warwick.

1. Take a picture of yourself right now.
2. Don't change your clothes, don't fix your hair... just take a picture.
3. Post that picture with NO editing.
4. Post these instructions with your picture.

September 12, 1958
We got married in Claremore, OK



September 12, 2008
We celebrated our 50th wedding anniversary in Warwick, MA



Funny thing, time...

I'm posting an image in order to test Xjournal, an open-source LJ editing program. Looks like it works quite well!
This is Richards Reservoir in Warwick, MA in February of this year.

Our holiday celebration was very warm and nice, although our son Ted slipped on the icy front steps, fell, and broke his wrist. He's OK and now the proud possessor of a titanium plate and some miscellaneous screws.

So Ted and Andrea were there, as well as Signe and Paul. Bonus guests were Paul's sister Karen and his brother Mark.



Pat challenged everybody in sight to Scrabble games, and a panoply of weird words was brought to light. Some, perhaps, for the first time.

Many marvelous meals were prepared by Mel and much massive cleanup was done by Ed and company. We gave Ted a bye this time, because of his arm.

Happy Holiday Greetings to One and All!

We send out the traditional end-of-year-summation-of-what-we-have-done letter every year, but usually don't get it out by December 25th. In fact, we probably should call it our 'New Year's letter.'



For those who'd like to see it before we get the pile to the post office, here it is.

I haven't done much with the blog lately. I wanted to keep it from being a monotonous recitation of my medical history, yet that, unfortunately, is what it's becoming. Not that there's a never-ending parade of hospital and doctor visits. Far from it. And we've had some wonderful times this summer, with visits from both children and their spouses, and a visit from my cousin Brian, who came all the way from his home town of Regina, Saskatchewan, to spend a week with us, alas without his spouse. Next time, he promises, she'll come too!

Pat had foot surgery this month to fuse her toes so that it's less painful for her to walk on the leg affected by her stroke. The surgery was successful, but the recuperation and rehabilitation phase has been less pleasant, as Pat had to spend three weeks in a rehab institution. Fortunately that's about over and the pins in her toes will be removed this Wednesday, so she can come home.

I've volunteered to set up and maintain a web page for the town of Warwick. It's given me a chance to bring my HTML up to date and learn some CSS. Though I'm far from being a professional web developer, the page doesn't look too bad, I think. You can see for yourself here.

One more medical note: I do a three mile walk every day, rain or shine, as part of my plan to keep my diabetes under control. Over a year and a half ago I had a bad fall, which you can read about in an earlier entry on this blog. I've been careful ever since, but the neuropathy in my feet betrayed me Saturday, as I tripped and fell downhill, breaking the fall with my face. They say you have to eat a peck of dirt before you die, but I didn't want to have it all at once! Here's the face in question:



It's not as bad as it looks!