5 July 2015 Hike with Mike finale

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The months from March to July have been heavily weighted toward the hope of acquiring a new neurologist to help me manage Parkinson's. The contract neurologist at moutain home quit providing consultant services and the VA's back up (hiring outside physicians and paying for vets to be see) kicked in. Highly unsatisfactory. I arrived at the appropriate office, already a month behind schedule and needing new scripts for my meds. What I got for VA's money was a referral to a university clinic 5 hours distant that would not see me until next January. I tried to tell him that I could not schedule the appointment – VA has to approve that expense. He told me to come see him after I was seen in the Vanderbilt clinic.

I wasted no time in contacting my primary care doc. I am not about to let some LMD throw me into a university clinic that would take a year to repeat a diagnosis and then lose my records in their system. I hope I've opened a shit storm over this. If not, I fully intend to. VA has its own movement disorder consortium and I can telemed that clinic. We'll see what happens.

Tremendous fatigue has set in, paire with sleep ditsturbance. Makes it hard to anything some days and difficult on many others

My daily hikes with my down stream neighbor, Mike, have ended. We set out as usual about 0900 last wednesday, 8 july. 0.3 miles down the road he simply fell over backwards, no pulse, no respirations, no motion, no words. I was about 3 steps in front of him when I eard the noise his head made when it hit the pavement. Complicating the scene, it was at a sharp curve in the road and the side we were on was overgrown with weeds so that remaining where he fell would have put us both under the wheels of the first vehicle coming our way.

I managed to flag a car, get the driver to drive to a point with cell service and call 911. The she flagged traffic. I did the first response things, airway, pre-cordial thump. Nothing worked. He was dead when he fell over. EMS arrive in about 10-14 minutes and lined and shocked him before tranporting him 28 miles to Johnson City. He was pronounced there. I had one contact number for his business partner. Called that number and intiated the cascade. Memorial service Saturday

Rather a bummer of a week.

24 March 2015 Rich sound

The latest iteration of hearing aids is now in. The part of the case inside the ear canal is gold plated. This is in hope that I will be able to wear them without the plastic case will not irritate my ears.

Of course, the technicians who clean and tepair audiology aids immediately dubbed me “gold ear.” Can't blame them for the nickname. I'd have hung something similar on someone else if they met the criteria. Have to admit that this is a great opening for creating a new “James Bond” film title &/or villain for said movie.

Have at it friends.

21 March 2015 67 and still kicking

I've received quite a few messages wishing me a happy birthday. In an effort to thank everyone, I'm taking this route and posting this note.

To family members, thanks for all the support. It's nice to have you in my world.

Further, to all my FB friends, fishing friends, and those who flesh out surprisngly diverse intersecting groups of people who I share opinions or disagreements with, thank you each. There is room to fish with friends on our stretch of Cassi Creek.

To my Compendium friends, I cherish the longevity of this group and look forward to keeping on truckin' down the road with you. This has been one of the longest associations of people in my existance. Truly an amazing group of friends and compatriots. I may be markedly slowed by Parkinson's, but the music makes a major difference in my desire to keep listening.

I find that I need more time to read various posts, articles, etc. now. The time it takes to respond is also lengthened. I'm not ignoring or avoiding the world beyond my computer, just requiring longer to compose and proof every thing I write.

Discovered this past week that the claim for VA benefits I filed via the local TN veteran's service agency was improperly filed and somehow vanished into thin air. So Monday will begin a new claim process based upon the increasing severity of my particular brand of Parkinson's. It seems that the consultant who contracted with VA for neurology services did not document the progression of my symptoms, leaving that to a progression of residents, none of whom ever saw me more than once as they rotated through the neurology service. The contract consultant has left VA and I must now begin again with another physcian who practices in Kingsport. This is going to involve arguing with VA about mileage compensation.

That's all the outgoing traffic for today. Thanks, stay well, keep dancing!

22 December 2014 Norma Jean Baty RN

          Following a 14 year battle against follicular cell non-Hodgkins lymphoma, she succumbed this morning to a malignancy that has no cure.  She’s already written her own obituary,  I can’t top that and won’t try. 

          Her nursing career stretched 50 years, beginning during WWII.  She completed over 10,000 hours as a hospital volunteer after retiring from nursing. 

         

          We’ll miss her.  

11 November 2014 And the guns fell silent; if only for a brief moment

          There’s always supposed to be a formal time and date to cease hostilities between opposing forces.  There’s always supposed to be a treat or formalized agreement signed by dignitaries who know that the life span of that document will be somewhat less than the time required for all signers to travel home. 

          There are always changes in borders defining which combatants now control which bits of terrain, unless one combatant happens to be Israel.  Of course, many of the problems in today’s middle eastern wars stem from the final actions of the allies as WWI ended and the old empires were carved up and handed around as bonuses to the  Allies who defeated the Central Powers.

          WWI ended with the loss of millions of soldiers as the methods of slaughter were improved by industrial design.  The battle field became more lethal than anyone could have imagined but the use of maneuver units remained based upon methods dating back to the earliest recorded conflicts. 

          WWII followed on quickly as the technology of mass murder evolved into methods of killing that were truly apocalyptic in efficiency and hellish in nature.  As always, WWII ended with the declaration that future wars would now be impossible, as no people or nation wished to bring about so much death and horror into the world. 

          We rapidly discovered that such hopes had no foundation in reality.  We’ve failed to enjoy a decade that was not marked by wars in some manner. 

          There’s no reason to believe that the future will be any less brutal.  We’re ramping up to recycle the war in Iraq. 

          There have always been the thin red line, the long gray line, historic combat units tracing their histories back to some war, some land seizure, some national insult, religious intolerance, or any other event that one can imagine. 

          I’ve played my part in this eternal game.  I’m among the luckier participants.  I left the game with all the moving parts intact.  The injuries I received were less visible and less audible. 

          Today, Veteran’s day, remembrance day, what ever name you know it by, once again honors the fallen and advances that slight hope that the next time we hear the guns fall silent, they will truly remain silent.

7 November 2014 Though it isn’t really war, we’re sending 1500 more

The news today is infuriating.  We are now committing another 1500 of our men and women in uniform to the false hope and unreachable goal of building an Iraqi army that won’t desert of turncoat on the field of battle. 

          We’ve spent billions on this task during the Bush/Cheney invasion of Iraq.  We’re no planning to spend 5 billions more as the Obama gang tries to prop up a tottering façade of a nation and its armed forces.  With the GOP slated to take over Congress, we’ll spend the  dollars to continue our role in sucking petro bucks out of Iraq and into the offshore accounts of the energy barons of the 1%.  Those are the dollars that were supposed to pay for the Bush/Cheney invasion of Iraq.  Remember?  Those are the same bucks that vanished by the shrink wrapped pallet every time another smoke screen obscured vision and a neo-con bag of bull shit filled the fans of Fox News.

“Though it isn’t really war, we’re sending 50,000 more to help save VietNam from Vietnames.”  Tom Paxton. 

Only a short effort to update Paxton’s lyric -  “Thoug h it isn’t really war we’re sending 1500 more to try to save  Iran from Iraqis.}

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qTyqoV1d2Ys

          Today is the anniversary 97^th of the Great October Revolution.  Fittingly, it is also the birthday of Lev Davidovitch Bronstein (later Leon Trotsky – father of the Red Army.)  Where is he now that we really need him?

17 October 2014 Congress demands Ebola action

          We now know of three cases of Ebola that were diagnosed in thes Unites States.  One was a visitor from Africa.  The other two are nurses who worked with th primary patient.  300, 000,000 Americans are now panicking about a disease that they will most likely never acquire. 

          Congress, guardians of the people, so they say, has been stumbling all over itself to make it appear that they are doing something to provide for the health and well being of Americans.  They held a high profile, televise conference yesterday whit each member asking essentially the same questions that they failed to listen to as the various agency doctors tried to answer.  It was apparent that the elected, exalted members had no ghost of an idea about virology, epidemiology, logistics as related to delivering health care, or a host of other things that determine whether or not we can properly diagnose and treat a virulent hemorrhagic fever caused by a virus that has a very high mortality rate. 

          Over the last decade, Congress has refused to adequately fund CDC, NIH, and other research treatment facilities and program.  They spent much time insisting that we should have a single medical person overseeing and guiding the various effots to handle a potential Ebola outbreak similar in nature to the Spanish influenza that followed WWI and killed millions.  However, Congress still continues to block the appointment of  very highly qualified candidate for Surgeon General because he made an anti-gun comment. 

          Yesterday, some of the GOP insisted that Obama should use the National guard to contain and control ebola patients and ebola quarantined citizens in some sort of isolation camp.  Sound like black helicopter? 

          The various hospitals are more or less prepared but the corporate nature of most of our hospitals will result in inadequate and dangerous work safety for health care workers when the MBA goons start buying cheaper, inadequate personal protective gear for employees to use. 

          Then, of course, the  rumors are bound to emerge.  After all, we’ve already seen countless claims that Obama is a Kenyan socialist determined to destroy America and hand it over to Islamic fundamentalists.  Is it, then, so difficult to believe that he might secretly bring in Islamic terror babies infected with ebola at birth so that Sharia law can replace our existing laws?  After all, Ebola is an African virus.