Why Few Posts Lately Here

I used to post more often here.  Mostly about projects, sometimes about world events, sometimes about complaints.  Well, I kind of got inactive for a while.  I simply stopped doing projects for a while...

It's health issues.  I'm not ill, but I've been having increasing physical problems that make it harder to just "do stuff" and it is really annoying .  Let me make it clear that I understand many people my age (72) have far more serious problems and a significant % of the world population would dearly love to have "only" my problems.

So this isn't a competition.  But my issues are MY issues and I'm having some difficulties adjusting to them.  A bit of background and a list:

1.  Back in the early 1960s, my town sent out DDT fogger trucks to kill mosquitoes.  No one thought DDT harmed humans.  We kids rode or bicycles in and out of the fog behind the truck just for fun.  Shortly after, I started to develop slight hand tremors to the point where building plastic models became difficult,  "glue everywhere". The past decade, those have been getting worse.

2.  Two decades ago, my right knee started failing occasionally.  I had to be careful on stairs.  Thge past 2 months, my left knee has been a problem and it has gotten worse.  I even bought a velcro strap knee compression support.  It helps, but I walk kind of stiff-legged lately.  

I'm pretty sure I know what the cause is.  I sit with one ankle up on the opposite knee (either way).  I think it used to be called the "English Sitting Position".  Which is probably OK in itself, but when you have cats on your lap, it puts a torque on the knee (of the ankle on the other knee).  After decades of that, I think I have ruined both of them.

But the result is that I don't exactly run around the house or yard "doing stuff" lately.

3.  I'm getting too many muscle cramps!  At night in bed, I get them in my thigh, calf and ankle on either leg (randomly and never more than one place at the same time.  But they feel like my muscle is about to tear loose from the bone.  I say "bad words" when that happens.  Sometimes no problems for a couple weeks, them every night for days.  Doesn't happen in daytime.  I can't think of a cause for them.  I get enough water.

In daytime, I get rib muscle cramps if I twist around to look behind me or lift something awkwardly.  

I get finger-clenches, too.  Holding anything tightly for even short periods can cause it.  Which means most garden tools can cause it.  Just holding the steering wheel for a while can cause it.  But it doesn't happen immediately.  Usually doing that stuff is OK at the time.  I pay for it in the evening making dinner.  I  prepare a lot of fresh food, which involves a lot of knifework.  All of a sudden, my fingers on the holding hand clench and I can't hold the knife.  Typing for an hour or more also causes problems later the next day.  I don't know what causes the delay, but it is predictable.

I use a lot of Aspercreme and Lidocaine ointments these days!

4.  I've been sleeping badly.  Not that I'm not in bed.  I am sometimes in bed 10-12 hours but getting maybe 6 hours sleep.  Partly, a heated waterbed is addictive and comfy, but I've had heated waterbeds since I was 25 and kept normal sleeping hours most of that time.  I used to be a morning person, but now the idea of getting up at 9 am feels weird.  Sometimes after being up 10 hours, I just want to go to bed again at 9 pm but that means I would be getting up at 6 am and I don't know what to do at 6 am.  I don't know what has changed.  

5.  So I haven't been as active lately as in the past.  And therefore have less to post about here.  But I think I need to take advantage of my medical insurance.  I got a card from them encouraging me to visit a doctor for a "basic exam".  I think I will take them up on that big time.  

My primary Dr (geriatric internist) didn't seem to understand what I was asking for as a "physical" 2 years ago (may have to change Dr).  But I'm thinking of many things to be done.

Full scale physical exam and many tests.  I made a long list based on several websites (I may post it separately in another post).  It may take months to get it all done.  But I've put some things off too long and my New Year Resolution is to get them all done this year.  If there are problems, better to discover them now than later (and it is really already "later").  

Maybe some things that trouble me now can be fixed.  But more importantly, maybe some things that would trouble me more in the future can be fixed or avoided.  

Eating small amounts of meat and lots of fruits&veggies doesn't prevent all problems.  It helps, but isn't a cure-all.  😟

Yardwork And Pains

A couple of weeks ago, I had a tree service remove some dead or troublesome growths and grind the stumps and some roots.  I had them leave the grindings in place so I could add them to my compost bins.

The posts on the back are counterweights to make lifting the tops effortless.  I have since added latches on the front to thwart raccoons and ropes on the sides to pull the tops back down.  The boards on the front are in slots for removal to get at the material more easily.  The backs and sides are framed with 1/4" wire mesh.  It is my own design, and I am insufferably pleased with it.  Mike McGarth (a former editor of Organic Gardening magazine) saw the pictures and declared it "the best compost bins I have ever seen". 

That's not the point of this post, though (I just thought I should explain the picture).  And it was time to move the contents from one bin to the other for aeration and mixing.

Yesterday, I finally got around to shoveling the stump and root grindings into buckets.  Those Tidy Cat 35# litter tubs are sturdy and useful!  I have about 2 dozen of them.  I tried using the shop vac to pick the grinding up, but they clogged the hose.  So, it was rake and shovel work.

I filled most of the buckets.  I dumped the grindings, saved dry grass clippings (from a trash barrel), and kitchen waste (from one bin) to the other in 4" layers.  The one bin of kitchen scraps was filled with roots from the neighbor's "junk" trees.  Wow, I was feeding the very trees that shade my garden!  Really annoying; I'll have to find a sneaky way to kill those things...

The new, better, mix should produce compost faster and I'm happy about that.  

But even that isn't the point of this post.

I took out my small electric tiller and mixed the remaining stump sawdust with the soil.  You can't grow grass in pure wood grindings; they pull all the nitrogen from the soil while decaying.   The tiller is easy to use.  I have to stop every so often to remove wound up roots and grass, but that is easier than dragging out the big gas-powered one for small areas.  

The point is that I spent 4 hours holding tools.  I knew I was going to pay for that later (and I did).  I get finger-clenches from gripping things too long.  It's both painful and awkward.  Try preparing dinner sometime when you can't hold a knife!  Makes typing darn near impossible, too.  And the constant hand tremors (DDT exposure as a teen) don't make things any easier.  It makes my "hunt&peck" typing "huntier&peckier", LOL!  In fact, I tried to post this last night and couldn't.

Mom had finger-clenches too, but from Parkinson's in her 80s.  She acted as if it was more "cosmetic" that painful at the time, but I know better now.  I don't think I have that (yet), but the effect is the same.  Muscle ointments like Aspercreme and gels with ladocaine help but they take a while and cease working after a couple hours.

But at least I did get the grinded stuff removed, the areas tilled and raked level, and ready for grass seed.  Yeah, is is a bit late for seeding, but I have the seeds and they won't last forever (already a year old) so I might as well try.  I'll give them a dusting of slow-release nitorogen fertilizerGrass is tough stuff when it germinates, and the forecast doesn't suggest a frost in the next 2 weeks.  I might cover the spots with clear plastic for protection from cold nights (and birds).

Darn, those finger-clenches are troublesome.  And later come the leg and rib muscle cramps in bed.  Sometimes it feels like the muscles will pull off the bones!  I have to get up (not easy while the legs are cramping) and walk around the house 15-30 minutes until it stops.

I'm not comparing that to more serious medical/bodily problems.  Things could be a lot worse! I am relatively lucky about bodily ills.  But sufficient to the day are the pains of the day and I hate mine.

But I will still keep doing yardwork and other things that cause problems afterward for as long as I am able.  And I suppose that is the point of this post.

Thank you for reading this to the end...  😁

Griping

Hi - Anyone bored enough to trade being 50 or younger for 71?   I'm offerring good rates; I'll hardly charge anything in exchange for 20+ years of life-experience...

I'm beginning to feel like a clone in a sci-fi movie that is wearing out.  Don't worry, this is all just a gripe; not depression.  I'm happy enough with life not to feel depressed.  But things are creeping up on me.

I'm tired of the muscle cramps.  Oh sure, they happen sometimes even when you are younger when you over-exert yourself, and that is normal.  Around 60, they started getting a little more common, but still mostly when I did too much yardwork.  You hold a shovel tightly enough while digging, a cramp a few hours later isn't that odd.  I push myself a lot.

Living alone means having to do "necessary things" that would be better off with 2 people doing it.  

I suppose an equation would be:  Doing 2x times 2y projects times AgeZ = 2 cramps...  OUCH!

It is almost becoming a daily routine.  I go outside and do some yardwork.  I've gotten smart enough to take breaks after 1/2 hour, wear padded gloves, apply some muscle rub...  MOST days are OK.  But more often lately, preparing dinner a few hours later results in hand cramps as I grip knives to cut veggies and meat and hold a wok spatula, etc.  And if I apply a muscle ointment then, the knife handles are hard to hold.

And sometimes the surface muscles on one side of my ribs or the other will cramp.  That's the least ones.  Bending over slightly and waving my arms below me resolves that in a few minutes.  Definitely not heart problems.  Very surface and no dizziness or other discomfort.  

But night-time is getting worse.  There can be any of several kinds of muscle cramps when I lay in bed.  The least is when the ankle muscles "harden".  It doesn't actually hurt, but it is annoying.  Next are the calf muscles.  That hurts some, but I can stretch my foot back and forth and it stops in a minute.

The backside thigh muscles (hamstring?) are the bad ones.  I will suddenly wake up feeling a cramp that feels like the muscle will tear loose from the bone.  I have to walk around for 15-20 minutes before it stops.  Sometimes I'm lucky enough to be awake and feel the first pull and I jump out of bed before it gets worse.

I saw a basketball game once where a player had that cramp and use a rolling stick to press along the muscle like using a rolling pin.  I bought one.  It is hard to use on yourself...  So I walk around until it goes away.

There isn't much connection between yardwork and that cramp.  And it isn't like I sleep all pulled together with my legs pulled up tightly.  My cats sleep against me (which limits my movement sometimes), but it happens without them around me too.

I may get dehydrated.  I'm sometimes very good about drinking a lot of water, but then forget for a while.  But I typically get a lot of water from meals.  My first meal of the day typically is a sandwich with a mug of green tea, a mug of milk, some small amount of Coke, and celery, cucumber, carrot; so that's a fair amount of water.  After I work outside, I often drink a pint of water and-or Gatorade.  

Dinner and dessert involves a fair amount of water.  I eat a lot of fresh veggies and they are mostly water (meat is usually about 3 ozs).  Dessert is always assorted fresh fruit and lots of it.  Aside from keeping me from drinking that 3rd glass of wine, I'll enjoy a peach, a plum, a handful of grapes, some cherries, apple slices, some melon cubes, and  they are mostly water.  

I may be alternating between hard work and sitting too much.  Daytime means outside or inside work;  evening means watching TV or being on the computer.  When I sit in the easy chair to make a lap for the cats, I put an ankle onto the other leg.  And shift legs when one feels stiff.  My right knee is getting worse.  Maybe I am warping my legs indulging The Mews.

Maybe I should start taking a walk down the street after drinking a pint of Gatorade.  And standing more instead of sitting.  I've been a "stander" in the past; sitting is new.  I was a "stander" in my office whenever I had the chance.  Really, I spent a lot of time on the telephone and got a long cord so I could pace back and forth.  Maybe it would be good to get back into that habit.

I feel too young to be old...

Gripe...

2 Months

I'm disappointed!  Depending on how I count the day I fell and today, it has been 2 months since I fell.   It is starting to feel like this may never end, and I have this worry I'm as "good as I'm going to get".  Or next month I may look back on this post and laugh as I do cartwheels on the lawn or carry a big laundry basket down the stairs easily.  But not yet...

I had some problems before I fell.  I was routinely getting leg and rib muscle cramps for a decade.  I had involuntary finger-clench cramps, but usually only after doing hard gripping of tools.  Oddly enough, those went away for weeks.  Well, they are back.  Maybe the muscles were shocked from the fall and are recovering.  

And I'm feeling sorer around my lower back and (coff, coff) butt than earlier this week.  It moves around some though.  Maybe that's a good sign of healing, but I could do without it.  I'm walking a bit stiffer again.  Maybe it is that I stopped taking even Ibuprophen last week.  I may start a daily OTC dosage again.  If it is the same in a week, I'll call my primary care Dr.  

But it is really annoying to get worse after getting better.  Maybe that's normal; 2 steps forward, one back.  As I've said, I don't have much experience with lingering problems.  Maybe I've been walking too much or too little.  Maybe I've been comfortable enough to sit awkwardly lately.

My right arm is weaker than I realized.  I have some simple platforms I use to adjust seedling tray heights under my basement shelf stand lights.  They were originally just glued together and I screwed some in place last year.  I missed a few (probably in use at the time).  Well, one came loose and I decided to check (and screw) all of them.

It was harder than I thought!  I had to use both hands to hold the drill upright and straight.  And pulling the drill bit OUT took some effort (which normally requires no effort at all).  At least pushing DOWN on the screws as I drove them in wasn't a problem.  Drill straight and pull out, bad.  Screw in, good.  Well, at least I got them all reinforced...

So it was time to make dinner.  Pork stew (tastes better than it sounds) and a tossed salad.  But more cutting and chopping.  But more gripping the knife handles.  More finger-clenches...  I had to physically pull some fingers back into place.  

Ever had a basic recipe you've made a 100 times and one time it just doesn't work?  Last night was like that.  The potatoes and carrots in the stew wouldn't soften!  I even put it all in a bowl and M/W it 3 more minutes.  Still not stew-soft.  I ate it anyway while watching TV.  I like good food, but sometimes (so long as it is not spoiled), I'll eat what I end up with.  

2 hours later, I realized I had a pork roast (Boston Butt) and chicken that needed to be marinated for cooking later today before it went bad.  More slicing and knife-gripping!  I slice the big pork chunk into 2" slabs for smoking and cube them later when they cool.  The chicken is boneless/skinless but also gets smoked.  

After slicing, I made a dry rub mix.  It works on both pork and chicken.  More grabbing stuff with the hands...  I don't have a "special recipe" but ask if you want the general mix of stuff.  I just "guesstimate" each time.

I really packed it on this time!  I'm not a spicy-hot type of cook, but brown sugar, salt, cinnamon, etc can  add a lot of flavor.  But by the time I was done and had the meat back in the fridge, my fingers were going all whichway.  

Thank goodness for NSAID muscle rubs.  I had to slather it on my hands and it took 15 minutes to take effect, but it did.  Otherwise, I would not be typing now...

Which leads me to the last thing for today.  Typing causes the finger-clenches the most.  The muscle rub is working for now, but I'm finding it hard to post every day and visit as often as I would wish.  I appreciate the visits from you.  

I will get back into a more regular habit of posting and visiting as soon as I can.  And after smoking an 8 lb pork roast, 12 chicken thighs, and having frozen steaks and shrimp in the freezer, I will not be doing serious "slicing and dicing" for a while).

Each day, I expect "next week" will be a lot better.  And I expect that, one week, that will be true.  I'm so very much looking forward to that week.