Posted by
William D. Dannenmaier on Saturday, October 23, 2010 10:18:06 AM
To date – October 21 – October has been a horrible month. For one thing we have all been ill with some form of chest cold. Megaera began it, but got well. However, she passed it to Stephen, me, Sheila and Andrew. We have passed it back and forth ever since.
During this series, coughing all the way, Sheila and Stephen drove to Springfield to seek job opportunities (for Stephen, not Sheila) and the following week we spent packing up Stephen and getting the Honda Civic and its 300,000 + miles (now his) ready for his move. This took time and finally Stephen, accompanied by several packs of cough drops left.
Sheila, in between her trip with Stephen and assisting him in preparation for moving, simply got worse. She had an appointment with her knee doctor and we made an appointment on the same day for her with Dr. Smith. To accomplish both, she left at ten in the morning and didn’t return until after six that evening. I had feared she was moving into pneumonia, a fear shared by Gary Smith but he decided that was not the problem and she went on to the Dr. Knapp about her knee. He told her that the shape she was in it was not time to discuss the knee, but refused to permit her to leave his office until she had a chest X-Ray. She passed that, belatedly returning home. She had, incidentally, failed to provide a lunch for me.
On the good side of all this, it was a great day for my weight loss program. By the time she finally arrived home my stomach had shrunk too much to eat more than half of the meal she had brought me from our favorite Chinese restaurant.
Incidentally, her visit represents one of Gary’s failures. Normally when I am sick, I get well as he walks in the office and he spends my visit discussing my sins with Sheila. This time, despite medication, not only after seeing Gary, but when Sheila woke up the following morning she was not cured. She sent a note to Gary complaining about this. He was not sympathetic. He replied that even the resurrection took three days.
Incidentally, I’ve quit going to the Cardiac Club. The only exercise I was permitted to do there was the walking, and I can, and have been doing that at home three days a week instead of two at the Cardiac Club. I’m still on reasonable strike against the heart medication and feel considerably better. I’m not, however, looking forward to my visit with my heart doctor, Dr. Blazer, this coming Tuesday.
I miss the friendships we developed at the Cardiac Club, but driving to and from the hospital, weighing in, spending thirty minutes walking and taking required blood pressure tests always destroyed our mornings completely and frequently I was too tired to do much the rest of the day. Now, I walk out of the house, through the valley and for enough up the next ridge and back home, to complete a trip of two miles. This takes about thirty-six minutes and leaves me in good condition for the remainder of the day.
To end on a positive note, I had a stuffed green pepper for lunch the other day. I love stuffed green peppers. It was my first, and still the only, stuffed green pepper I have had this year. I purchased six green pepper plants in the spring. They all died. I discovered the larvae that were killing them and purchased a pound of that, mixing and spraying. I purchased and planted six more green pepper plants. One was killed immediately. I sprayed more. The remaining five grew, but one of the grown plants was killed. Finally, I harvested one full grown green pepper. It was probably the most expensive stuffed green pepper I have ever eaten.
Sorry, but a bad month has turned into a tragic one for me. Sheila received a telephone call last night – October 23 – that my sister, Ethel, was dying. Ethel has been lost to me for several years, as a victim of Alzheimer’s disease, but even though I was discouraged from visiting, because she wouldn’t know me, she was always there. Ethel was always there for me: in childhood, young adulthood and maturity. Through all my mistakes and problems I always had her support. There is a terrible gap between death and living. Even if that living includes mental deterioration, there is always hope. Now there is none. No man ever had a better, more loving, more supportive, sister. Goodbye Teetee.