1. North Dakota.
The Baaken oil boom.
The Fort Berthold Indian Reservation.
Murder.
KC Clarke.
As I started to read Yellow Bird, it suddenly struck me.
Is this story of Lissa Yellow Bird's search for KC Clarke connected to the December 15, 2013 murder of Doug Carlisle on 2505 S. Garfield Rd in Spokane?
I was in Kellogg when the news came out on television and in the Spokesman Review that an intruder waited for Doug Carlisle to arrive home from church and murdered him, but not his wife.
It wasn't long before news came out that this was not a random murder, but that Carlisle had been targeted.
I remembered that the murder of Doug Carlisle was related to his business dealings with oil in North Dakota.
Yellow Bird, the book I was starting to read, unbeknownst to me when I purchased it, was going to tell the story of Lissa Yellow Bird's search for KC Clarke. It didn't take long for me today to discover and remember that the same person, James Henrikson, contracted both Doug Carlisle's and KC Clarke's murders.
I don't know how much Yellow Bird will deal with the murder of Doug Carlisle.
But I do know that Yellow Bird will have me reading yet another dark tale this month that involves Spokane, whether directly or indirectly.
Not only because I can tell already that Sierra Crane Murdoch is a superb writer and not only because the book's early accounting of tribal history and of Lissa Yellow Bird's life and the lives of her family, grounded in, but not not confined to the Fort Berthold Reservation, is fascinating, but also because I vividly recall the shock I felt when the story of Doug Carlisle's murder came out and I want to learn more about what lay behind it, I am ready to absorb myself in this book.
2. Ever since I received a kidney transplant on May 11th, I've longed to return to the Fitness Center in Smelterville.
Two factors have stopped me from going. First, I must be cautious about contagion -- as I've written a million times on this blog. Maybe more importantly, I've had to protect the surgery site while it healed.
Now that it's been over three months since the surgery, the transplant team confirmed that my surgery site is almost surely healed enough for me to exercise again. I simply have to start slowly.
Carol, thank God, has been coming by daily while Debbie is away, to keep Copper's litter box scooped.
Today, as she left, she casually remarked that she and Paul were headed to the Fitness Center.
"When you get there, Carol, would you send me a text telling me how many people are in the gym?"
Carol agreed to do that.
It was early afternoon. When she and Paul arrived, six people were in the gym. When they left, only one person was there.
Great! I thought early afternoons were a slow time at the Fitness Center and Carol's messages confirmed it.
So, today, I was back to huffing and puffing on the Nu-Step machine and a recumbent bicycle. I set both machines at undemanding levels. I exercised on each for fifteen minutes.
I felt great. No pain in the surgery area. I did all right exercising with a mask on. I even thought I could have set the machines at more demanding levels.
I ended my exercise drought.
I'll keep going out there, but if I think too many people are in the gym, I'll leave and return later.
After over three months of not much exercise, it was encouraging and a deep pleasure to be back at it again.
3. To close, a medical note.
Right now, as I continue to move forward in my life with a new kidney, the most prominent challenge the transplant team and I face is getting the dosage of my immuno-suppression drugs just right. The team lowered the dosage of one of these drugs (Myfortic) when I contracted Covid. Every time I have labs done, the team checks to see if the level of the other immune-suppression drug I take, Tacrolimus (aka Tac), is high, low, or just about right. My Tac levels have persisted in being a bit high, so the team has been lowering my dosage of it. My labs from Monday revealed that I have a low level of BK virus in my system. Today, I got word to lower my dosage of Myfortic a bit more so that my immune system is less suppressed and can deal better with this virus.
All of this adjusting of immuno-suppression drugs is normal post-transplant.
I think I'm correct in saying that I need enough of these drugs in my system to keep my immune system from rejecting my new kidney, and, at the same time, we need to keep the immune system capable enough that it can do its work so some degree , say, in relation to the Covid virus and the BK.
I'll go in for labs again next week, most likely on Monday or Tuesday, and the results will help the team see how these dosage adjustments are working out.
I see the team again on Sept. 4, after more blood work that morning.
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