The Miracle of Pain Relief

Real estate billboard, San Francisco 

As I carry on the hard and not always satisfying work of pushing sixty, I sense a diminishing recall of my first twenty years - those years of high energy, limitless interest, gigantic enthusiasm ... all constrained by fifteen years of going to school.

I'm forgetting, for example, the names and faces of the children who shared my confinement. Teachers are a blurred mass of half recalled features over a fading soundtrack of expressions of dismay. I don't recall if I ever learned any math. 

But I still remember Howie MacDonald who taught me history in Grade 11 at Trenton High School.  

Howie was physically slight, mordantly sardonic and adept with blackboard diagrams. He always had a dot of chalk dust on his lower lip. His suit jackets were too big for him. 

Howie laced his own opinions among the lessons.

More than once he told us of the three things that scared him. Plague rats. The deforestation of the Amazon. And antibiotics. Howie was afraid of these things in 1973. Pretty prescient. Except for the plague rats.

Howie shared with us too the very short list of human achievements that he admired. He was not impressed with space flight, computers or microwave ovens.

But pain relief. Howie saw that as the single best use of thousands of years of accumulated human ingenuity.

I was sixteen years old then. I had no idea what Howie was talking about.

I do now.

I have, in the unsettling argot of medical diagnosis, "moderately severe" arthritis in my right hip. Having read these words, my GP set me on the path to an appointment with an orthopaedic specialist; the goal is a new hip.

We estimated six months to a year to post-operation; my GP agreed I'd need some pain relief as a stop gap measure.

I have written about pain before. For example, there's this from November 2009:

I have an abscessed tooth. It hurts.

My dentist explained the pain this way: “When the tooth starts to die, the nerve loses its ability to reset after a shock.”

In other words, instead of just going “ohmigod!” and then settling down after experiencing heat or cold, the nerve gets stimulated and goes “ohmigod! ohmigod! ohmigod! ohmigod! ohmigod! ohmigod! ohmigod! ohmigod! ohmigod! ohmigod! ohmigod! ohmigod! ohmigod! ohmigod! ohmigod! ohmigod! ohmigod! ohmigod! ohmigod! ohmigod! ohmigod! ohmigod! ohmigod! ohmigod! ohmigod! ohmigod! ohmigod! ohmigod! ohmigod!” forever.

It is like a blow from a sledgehammer combined with a blast from a blowtorch. Except there’s no sledgehammer or blowtorch. Externally, there’s nothing. Internally, there’s this demanding presence, ineffable, ineluctable and relentless.

For sufferers of dental pain at least, there are the multiple miracles (and mixed blessings, I know) of pain killers and antibiotics. And root canals. 

Pain from arthritis of the hip is much less localized, much more variable than the agony of a dying tooth. A lot of the time the pain isn't even in the hip. It's down the leg or in the groin. Sometimes it's a shooting pain. Sometimes it's a throbbing pain. Other times it's a general ache combined with a feeling of pure incapacity. 

I won't walk. Don't ask me.

Untempered by humanity's single greatest achievement, the pain of arthritis instills in this sufferer a sense of loss, despair, anxiety and futility. It is mean and dreadful.

But, add a few grains of aspirin, or acetaminophen or ibuprofen, or whatever, and, hey, the pain's as forgotten as whatsisname who taught me social studies when I was in grade 7.

Thanks for reading!

Have a great week!

Karen

Nor Any Sparrow Fall

There's not a lot of biodiversity in the city, but, what few animals live here do so in great numbers. Sparrows, for instance. They find lots of food and multiply accordingly. In the afternoon on just about any day of the year but especially when it's warm, they surge in and around shrubs and bushes, chirping like a church chorus in full throat. There are thousands of them.

Photo credit: Shutterstock

Last year about this time, I heard one morning particularly loud chirping coming from right outside our front door. I took a look. There on the step, cowering in the corner of the brick half wall that shields the steps from the street, was a baby sparrow. It wasn't fully fledged, but could make the short flight from our step to our neighbour's step and back. It obviously did not have enough lift to get itself back into the nest it had fallen out of.

The baby sparrow seemed scared and utterly helpless. I closed the door.

I Googled "sparrow fallen from nest" and read many stories about people finding baby birds. The best thing to do, if you can find it, is put the baby bird back in the nest. The worst thing to do is to take the baby bird inside, feed and water it and turn it into a pet. Peering up the sheer face of the townhouse's east-facing facade, I couldn't see a nest. There wasn't much I could do.

That little bird preyed on my mind. I worried it would starve, or would be eaten by a cat or a raccoon. I worried about the anxiety its loss was causing its parents. I put out a shallow dish with water in it so it would at least not suffer from thirst - if, that is, it knew how to drink from a dish.

Every morning for three days, it chirped outside our door. We would carefully step past it, slowly so as not to startle it, when we entered and left the house. 

Then it was gone.

That experience sensitized me to the noise of birds on my step. More than once this spring, I've pulled the front door open, fearful there would be another baby bird to consume my thoughts and make me feel like a bad person.

But it was a false alarm each time. 

Until this past week. I heard loud chirping. I opened the door to reassure myself that there would not be a baby bird there - and, goddam it, there was a baby bird!

This one was bigger and had more feathers than last year's fallen sparrow. It could fly to the top of the half wall surrounding the step. 

This time Bruce put the dish of water out.

It was gone after one day.

Thanks for reading!

Have a great week!

Karen

Cats and Birds

Downy woodpecker on my neighbour's Honey Locust tree.
Proof that I need a better camera. 

In a March of the Penguins-like elaboration on something that could have been a lot simpler, I was in Guelph this past week to make a presentation about climate change.

Subscribers are all aware of the fact that I neither own a car nor drive, so every trip greater than walking distance requires me to find a vehicle of some sort plus someone else to operate it (excepting bicycles, of course; I can get around on a bike all on my own). 

So why was I in Guelph? A number of my colleagues and I were asked a while back to attend a meeting of representatives from the agricultural sector. The resulting game of hot potato ended with my boss being declared the unlucky winner. The rest of us all made other plans for that day. Then my boss could no longer make the meeting. So it fell to me or one other person to go. Knowing the other person had a schedule both full and inflexible, I volunteered myself and one of my team. 

I notified all the folks in Guelph that I would be attending.

Then my colleague e-mailed and said, no, given the likely topic of discussion, she wanted to go.

I notified all the folks in Guelph that my colleague would be attending instead.

At 5:10 p.m. on the day before the meeting, the same colleague who had fought to attend the meeting came to me and said, "I can't go to this meeting; I'm triple booked. But I can get one of my staff to take you to Guelph."

This is how I got there: I caught the 11:43 Lakeshore West GO Train to Burlington (elapsed time from office to Burlington: one hour and thirty minutes). At Burlington, I rendezvoused with staff and we drove from Burlington to Guelph (elapsed time 45 minutes). 

I was on the agenda for 2:15, and, when we finally found a parking space close to 1 Stone Road, it was just coming up on 1:30, so we weren't busting our humps.

Caught up in pleasant conversation walking slowly in the fine weather, we didn't initially notice the woman standing by the doors to 1 Stone Road, yelling at us. The agenda had been changed. We were up.

So, we hurried into the meeting room, I dropped into my seat, introduced myself and my colleague, made my presentation, answered a few pro forma questions with a few scripted answers and then bade everyone farewell. I'd paid for two hours on the parking metre. We were back on the road in less than twenty minutes. 

We beguiled the journey back to the GO station with the tale of Karma, the little rescued Siamese cat. 

Karma came to her new home both starved and terrified. Fate intervened when my colleague Googled "siamese rescue Hamilton". Karma's case was the first to pop up on the list.

She was just a scrawny little kitten, with separation anxiety issues that have never left her. She will eat only in the presence of her rescuer and only a few bits of kibble at a time. Then she has to sniff and rub against her rescuer before returning to her dish for another few kibbles.

"Man," I said, "that's pretty high maintenance."

"Yes," Karma's mom agreed, "it takes a lot of time."

"She also waits for me outside the bathroom when I'm having a shower - she won't come in, and I don't know why - and she follows me around the house like a dog. She fetches, too."

No doubt but Karma's a cat, though ...

"She won't sleep anywhere but with one of our other two cats, the fat male. And she torments him. He'll be sleeping and she come up to him and snuggle, and lick his face and ears, and then bite him. Then she wants to chase him, or for him to chase her..."

The two other household cats were feral kittens when they were brought in. Karma, a long-lived Siamese, will likely outlast them. More separation.

Chester AKA Pester in Extreme Close Up

It was later that same day that Bruce shared the news that Chester, the rescued cat from across the courtyard who would hang out with Bruce, extracting scratches and belly rubs while Bruce smoked, was not well.

"He has some kind of tumour," said Bruce. "They've decided they won't try any heroics. They are going to give him the needle."

Chester had belonged to our neighbour's daughter, but he'd been badly behaved at home. The thinking was if he had a yard in which to prowl and poo, he might be a happier cat and nicer to have around the house. 

Chester did take well to the open spaces of our courtyard, and mapped out the places where he could go to get attention. On any given morning unless it was too cold or too wet, Chester would sit outside our glass patio doors and bellyache. I could hear his meow all the way up on the third floor. We would almost always relent and open the door - keep him from coming in - and scratch his head, back, belly. He would even let me pick him up and give him a squeeze. 

No doubt Chester was a cat, though...

Sometimes when our neighbours are away, we go over and feed the cats and keep their litter fresh. Inside our neighbours' home, Chester did not share the same privileges as he did out of doors. 

I would put my hand down to scratch his head and he would pull away. I could not touch him when he was in the house.

Rest in peace, Chester.

Thanks for reading!

Have a great week!

Karen

Face Your Fears

Outside my hotel room window
Montreal, May 7, 2015 

When I tell the story about my encounter with a scorpion on my last trip to Mexico, I say "I'm over fifty, I'm always in pain." 

I use this detail to illustrate my uncertainty when I felt a stabbing/numbing pain run down my back just as I was putting on my yoga top.

Further into the story I usually get a big laugh when I pantomime my shock and surprise when I find the scorpion... in my yoga top.

I get a mix of reactions toward the end of the story when I reenact the moment when I asked myself, "I've just been stung by a scorpion; there are no resort staff on the premises at this time of the morning; I'm in the middle of nowhere and at least forty minutes from any kind of medical attention... am I going to die?"

People are not always comfortable facing questions of mortality in the midst of an amusing travel anecdote.

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Because I'm not sure of the audience's tolerance for scary details in this blog, I've been holding out on you. 

Since returning from our trip to San Francisco I've had a lot of pain in my right hip, even for someone over fifty. One Monday about three weeks ago, I was so afflicted I wasn't sure I could make the 20 minute walk to work. 

I didn't want to bring something as scary as chronic pain into the full light of day. Also, I didn't know which fear I was dealing with. My executive assistant assured me that his brother-in-law's tragic and sudden death from cancer at the age of 38 started with exactly the same symptoms as mine.

The appointment I mentioned in my last blog post was with my physician. I've been x-rayed and diagnosed. 

After a decade of a dedicated yoga practice that I was sure would fend off the worst effects of growing old, I have arthritis, and yoga really sets it off. 

I'm afraid of spiders, too.

Thanks for reading!

Have a great week!

Karen

All Pot Roast All The time

I had some time to kill before an appointment on Tuesday afternoon, so I took some peanuts (salt washed off) and walnuts to the Allan Gardens. My intention was to lure and photograph some squirrels.

The day was lovely; the park was full of people and dogs. In a quieter spot east of the greenhouse, I saw a couple of squirrels foraging on the grass.

I made that noise that everyone uses (because it always works) to attract a squirrel's attention - tch-tch-tch. As one of them approached, I spilled the peanuts and walnuts on the ground in front of me. The idea was to back away from the pile and snap photos as the squirrels enjoyed their feast.

Instead, there was the sound of wings. The pigeons arrived at speed and in vast numbers from out of nowhere. The pile of nuts was lost from view under their seething mass. In about the time it takes to record four photos on a digital camera, every scrap was gone. The squirrels never even got close.

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As for pot roast. 

I prepare food for the week on the weekend. It's one of the ways I manage the unpredictable nature of my work and find a balance between it and the life I have. 

For most of the winter, on Saturdays, I would roast a chicken in a braising pan, strip the meat off the bones and set that aside for sandwiches and one supper. I would boil the bones and use the stock and pan juices to make soup. One three-to-four pound chicken costing between twelve and fifteen dollars would give us lunch and supper for a week.

After a long, cold winter of this, we were a bit tired of chicken. 

On the way to the butcher's last weekend, Bruce and I discussed the option of pot roast. We don't eat a lot of beef. I find it heavy and I worry about the greenhouse gas footprint. But, once in a while, why not.

When we got to the butcher's, there was no chuck roast in the display case, so I asked if they had any in the back. The young man serving us emerged with a length of chuck roast that weighed in about five pounds - and about fifty bucks. 

The roast - once cut into three pieces, browned on all sides and softly simmered for three hours -- provided sandwiches for the week for both of us and ten servings of beef barley soup. There's also a sizeable slab in the freezer that I'll take out, thaw, and turn into a meal when I no longer feel like I couldn't eat another mouthful of pot roast.

Thanks for reading!

Have a great week!

Karen