Medical Whack-A-Mole

Recently I learned that one of my band mates had died, apparently quite suddenly. None of us knew he was seriously ill. It occurred to me that with all the health issues I’ve been dealing with over the past few years, my demise would hardly come as a surprise. More likely friends would wonder: “Which ailment was it that finally got her?”

 

The more I thought about it, the more I realized that I’ve been playing Medical Whack-A-Mole. When I finally get one illness under control, another one pops up to take its place. Many times, it was the treatment for the first that caused the next one. Let’s start with my lung cancer, which was diagnosed about two and a half years ago. I entered a clinical trial through Yale, in which I received regular infusions of three drugs: two chemo therapy and an immunotherapy, plus study pills that might have been a placebo.

 

The program was to last two years, but one year into it, I developed pneumonitis, a severe inflammation of the lung. My oncologist and my pulmonologist agreed that the likely cause was one of the drugs I was getting. There was no simple way to know which one. Pulling any of them would take me out of the study in any case, so we stopped my cancer therapy completely.

 

Mercifully, it appeared that the year of treatment had halted the cancer before the pneumonitis popped up like a mole. We whacked that sucker back down with a heavy course of Prednisone. For those of you not familiar with it, Prednisone is a steroid. I was on it for weeks, but it cleared up most of the lung inflammation. It’s a go-to treatment for many ailments.  I’ve concluded that it’s one of three things every household needs on hand, along with duct tape and WD-40.

 

But true to my Whack-A-Mole analogy, the Prednisone gave me a major face rash and I blew up like the Pillsbury Doughboy. I also developed edema in my feet and lower legs. An ultrasound made sure the fluid retention wasn’t due to vein leakage and that I had no blood clots. The edema was just another mole that popped up when we used the steroids to whack something else.

 

An online search led me to taking high supplements of magnesium to reduce water retention. Sadly that whack led to a pop up mole of severe diarrhea. Needless to say, I decided to live with the fluid build up. Fortunately, shortly after the course of steroids was completed, that problem disappeared. Unfortunately, it did not mean I was headed for clear sailing with my health.

 

Even with the pneumonitis under control, I was increasingly short of breath. Tests performed by my pulmonologist turned up two new “moles” to whack. Turns out I have a paralyzed right diaphragm muscle, usually caused by an injury. In my case, there’s no clue why and it might never be normal again. A few weeks of physical therapy could help. More on that later.

 

The other “mole” was pleural effusion, a build up of fluid around the lung. That was drained via a thoracentesis procedure. My breathing improved immediately. Nevertheless, my pulmonologist prescribed a steroidal inhaler to keep my airways clear. The mole from that turned out to be a side effect of some hoarseness, but I can live with that. Back to the pulmonary rehab, which I had two afternoons a week.

 

The rehab included education and light stretching, leg and arm exercises, followed by time on a treadmill. At each session, the treadmill speed and time were increased, but never to anything too stressful. The morning after what would be my last session, I woke up with horrific neck and back pain. Plus I also had a partly paralyzed right hand. I assumed I had slept crooked and pinched a nerve, or something like that.

 

When the pain persisted for days, I made several appointments with specialists. The last was with a neurologist, who has ordered several tests. He also prescribed Gabapentin to address the nerve pain. It has serious mole-like side effects. You can get tired and dizzy, so I take it only late at night.

 

I feel like I’m in a fairy tale. If I stopped dying my hair, I’d be Snow White, but I’m already most of the Seven Dwarfs. Allergy season has me Sneezy. Though I’m certainly never Bashful, much of today’s news leaves me feeling Dopey. I ask so many questions of my physicians that I might as well be a Doc. Gabapentin leaves me Snoozy and Dizzy. Despite spending most of my time playing Medical Whack-A-Mole, I’m rarely Grumpy and I’m usually Happy. I won’t ask for more than that.

 

Copyright 2023 Business Theatre Unlimited

The Age of Final Goodbyes

This week we buried my dear friend Charlie Schneider. His death was expected. Given the cocktail of ailments that plagued his final months, it was one of those passings that truly was a blessing.

Charlie’s funeral was the third that I learned of from a friend or colleague in as many days. The burial itself brought home the fact that I was saying my final goodbye to my friend of forty-five years. It occurred to me that when I entered my seventh decade, I also entered the age of final goodbyes. Charlie was the third one of my Colgate MIS colleagues who died within the past year.

That number three again. One often hears that death comes in threes, but of course it comes in much larger numbers, depending on the time span covered. Some consider three to be a mystical or sacred number—The Holy Trinity, for instance. Or a lucky one—three coffee beans in a glass of Sambuca Romana after dinner. Not one, not two; always three, if you want good luck. Third time’s the charm and all that. My mind fixated less on the number than on the finality of the parting.

For me the process of saying goodbye to Charlie included going through old photo albums. I was looking for pictures that I could post in the guestbook for his obituary on legacy.com. So sad to see his smile again, and to remember where the photos were taken. At my parents’ fiftieth anniversary party, for instance. My father and mother have been gone for 32 and 20 years respectively.

A photo of Charlie and me with my mother between us, taken one summer at the home where I grew up in Green Pond, was especially painful. Charlie had his summer tan and we were all smiling and happy. We sold the house after my mother died and it has since been remodeled. Green Pond has changed. Some of my summer friends still gather for lunch now and then, but not at the lake. Not anymore. The intersection of all that loss increased my grief geometrically.

I was forced to look at the faces in those pictures for quite awhile. They needed to be scanned into my computer, shading and resolution adjusted in Photoshop. I decided to crop myself out to focus on Charlie. Then they had to be put on a thumb drive and transferred to the computer with an Internet connection. Then uploaded to legacy.com. It sounds mechanical and robotic, but when I looked at the faces, it was anything but. Many tissues, red nose and puffy eyes later, I was finished.

At the luncheon after Charlie’s funeral, that final goodbye behind us, it was time to share memories of what made Charlie special. Some of those memories were similar, even though they came from different pockets in his life. We all knew about his love for trains, for example, reflected in his extensive model train collection. And most knew that he grew to love trains by watching them on the track behind his grandmother’s house. She took care of him while his mother was at work.

I thought about that on our drive home. A seldom-used freight track runs through the wooded area on the opposite side of the fairway behind our condominium. A train makes one trip some weekday mornings, going in and coming out. The engine rumbles so deeply that I hear it well before it comes into view. I call out: “Here comes the train!” and run to our porch to watch it go by.

My joyful routine makes my husband laugh. Even before Charlie died, I would say to Jagdish: “Now I understand why Charlie loves trains so much.” And so, despite the final goodbye having been said, I will remember my dear friend fondly whenever I hear a train roll by. I will smile and perhaps wipe away a tear. Then I’ll get back to whatever it is those of left behind do with the days we have left.

Retirement Realities—Losing Friends

Several times over the past few days I’ve sat down with the intention of working on this week’s post. Each time my thought process was sidetracked by the reality that one of my most devoted followers will no longer be out there to read my blog. I decided to dedicate this post to him.

I first met H. Peter Olsen, III when I began working as the Executive Director for a nonprofit about five years ago. He was one of about thirty board members and it was clear from the start that we would become friends.

Peter and I had both spent much of our careers working at large companies—he at a prestigious law firm, I at a Fortune 500 corporation. We looked at philanthropy as serious business, but we didn’t take ourselves too seriously. At his funeral service last week, the priest referred to Peter’s sage advice and his wit, qualities that I especially appreciated.

Even after I retired, we stayed in contact, mostly through email. When I decided to publish my first year of RetirementSparks posts, I realized that I would need some extra eyes to proof the pages. Peter was one of a handful of friends that I contacted and he readily agreed to help. He actually seemed honored that I had asked him.

Peter had retired shortly before I did. He was dealing with some serious health issues, but he was doing remarkably well. In an ironic twist of fate, it was an accident—a fall—that led to his untimely passing.

This sad event brought me full circle to what led me to blog in the first place. My dear friend Sheryl died unexpectedly about three years ago. Her death made me realize that we never know when the moving finger of fate will write our name in the sand. I decided to retire as soon as the numbers made sense, which was shortly after I was eligible for Medicare.

My secret ambition had always been to be a writer. The absurdity of the Medicare paperwork and process were the impetus to start blogging. The rest, as they say, is history.

Thank you for allowing me this indulgence of remembering not just one, but two dear friends who have gone on before us. If you’re out there trying to decide if it’s time for you to retire, I offer this advice. If you can do it, you should do it.

None of us knows how long we’ll have to pursue our passions, to chase our dreams. In the movies and on Broadway, there’s always tomorrow, just a day away. In real life, sadly, we can never be sure.