1. Today I hiked up the hospital trail from the beginning to the viewpoint overlooking Kellogg without sitting to rest on either bench. I did stop to rest a couple of times, but I stayed on my feet and took about thirty seconds to let my breathing and heartbeat return to normal. The trail seemed shorter today and I didn't stay long at the picnic table at the viewpoint before heading back down the hill.
A couple of hours later, I had an appointment at the clinic. I drove to the city park and walked on the Trail of the CdAs to the point where there's a trail that goes uphill to the mining museum, walked up it and on to the clinic. I racked up over 5000 steps and about two and a half miles.
2. My appointment was with nephrologist Dr. Kristie Jones. I had read my blood test results about five days in advance of my appointment and knew that my kidney function had dropped back down to 14%. My function has been fluctuating between 14-16% over the last year or so. These numbers are lousy, but stable. Even with these lousy numbers, I'm feeling very good. I'm not showing any symptoms of kidney failure (no metallic taste, no water retention, no loss of energy, no skin discoloration, etc). My blood work results were strong in many other areas, continuing that pattern. Strictly speaking, a kidney function below 15% marks Stage V kidney disease, and is often regarded as a sign that it it time to begin dialysis. But, because the rest of my system is doing well -- I'm not diabetic, my heart is strong, and so on --, I am doing pretty well with such a low kidney function and, for now, no dialysis.
When I read the results of my blood work, I was concerned that my glucose level registered barely outside the normal range on the high end. It's elevated glucose that signifies the onset of diabetes. Dr. Jones' response was calm. She put my low level of anxiety at ease. She wants me to have more blood work done toward the end of August to monitor both my glucose and my kidney function. I've done some reading about lowering glucose in the blood and I'm definitely doing the right thing by exercising regularly. I got the electronic scales working again today, so I'm going to monitor my weight more closely. I'll see if I can shed a few pounds. This will help lower my glucose, too. One other change: I will be increasing my daily dosage of sodium bicarbonate pills because the bicarbonate levels in my blood are a little low. My potassium levels are within range, but how my kidneys filter potassium is always a concern and raising my bicarbonate levels will help.
We'll see how things look at the end of August. I will then also have blood work done in late September/early October and see Dr. Jones in mid-October.
3. I enjoyed a miscellany of things over the rest of the day.
* I have been texting with longtime friend Colette Marie while she is currently participating in the Summer Fishtrap Gathering of Writers at Wallowa Lake, Oregon. From her Facebook page, I knew Gerri Sayler (Kenton Bird's wife) is also at Fishtrap this week, so I urged Colette to track down Gerri and introduce herself. Colette texted me that she'd heard Gerri read three poems at Wednesday's open mic. They met. Colette told me Gerri is a delight, that she's a powerful poet, and that her poems knocked Colette's socks off. That they are acquainted now thrills me.
* I didn't mention on Monday that I had, as promised, turned the brisket stroganoff I made for family dinner into a beef stroganoff soup. I thawed two quarts of the beef/pork soup stock I made a week ago and combined the leftover stroganoff, brisket, cauliflower, and onions and celery with the stock and added in some leftover tofu (it didn't do much for the soup!) and a handful of baby carrots. I let this soup simmer so the carrots could cook. This is one of the tastiest soups I've ever made. The soup stock I made is superb. The combination of the carrots' sweetness with the tanginess of the sour cream/stroganoff and the savory substance of the brisket sent the flavor of this soup over the top.
* One of the reasons I'm glad that I have lived to sixty-five is that I continue to come to a new or even a first-time appreciation of music all the time. One example is Pink Floyd. Pink Floyd just never registered with me until August of 2008 when Jeff invited me to join him for a Floydian Slips show at the Cuthbert and suddenly I was hooked and now I listen to and love Pink Floyd all the time. Similarly, when Jeff and I went to the Neil Young concert in Eugene in May, the world of Neil Young's music opened up to me in new and invigorating ways and now I'm putting Neil Young albums on the Echo Dot and enjoying the plunge more deeply into his music.
This all brings to mind an evening back in fall of 1997 when I invited Ken Zimmerman and Jeff Harrison over to my house. I fixed us dinner and asked them to please help me understand what sets Bob Dylan apart as an artist. We didn't get very far with that discussion, and, for the next twenty-two years I have continued to seek having a great time listening to Bob Dylan.
I can't really explain it in this blog post at this time, but in the last several days I have experienced the Bob Dylan breakthrough I have been seeking all these years. This week, I have been listening to recordings of Dylan playing with The Band; I have also listened to Blood on the Tracks, Infidels, Desire, Empire Burlesque, and Oh Mercy. I will listen to more, continuing my random, non-systematic approach. Soon I will return to the movie Rolling Thunder Revue: A Bob Dylan Story. I think I will start it over again and watch it all the way through. (I ran out of energy half way through when I watched it in the evening because it ran past by bedtime!) I also plan on returning to the movie, I'm Not There, a movie I watched back in December 2007.
At some point, I'm going to want to account for this breakthrough and write about it on my own terms. That's a difficult task because there is so much already written about Dylan's genius and I don't want to write from any of these points of views, but from my own.
* Having been immersing myself in Bob Dylan, I decided this evening to go to Amazon Prime and watch a superb episode of Classic Albums. It spends an hour looking at the making of The Band's first album, entitled The Band. I had watched this episode several years ago and returning to it tonight augmented my already deep love for The Band and deepened my understanding of their place in the world of popular music. It was a superb way to bring the day to a close -- and, to continue to appreciate that the older I get, the more all of this music (like so many good things in my life) means to me.
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