Ambulances and Libraries

 It’s been a bit of a rough go, this last few days. On Sunday we were planning to celebrate my eighty-second birthday with a family steak dinner, followed by cheesecake by special demand. On Sunday afternoon I was hit by breathlessness, nausea and sheer terror and ended up in an ambulance being transported to the emergency room. A lot of holes in my arms later it was determined that I had not had a heart attack and I could go home. The cheesecake and gifts were transferred from my daughter’s car (she had zoomed out here from Ottawa) to ours, I was wrapped in a flannel sheet and we trundled home. I watched JG have some cake.

The next couple of days were pretty strictly recovery. And cake. I recovered quite well in that respect. But it is disconcerting in truth to find out that beside what you fondly consider to be your adult self is a frightened three-year-old whose reaction to stress is to sit down on the stairs and cry her eyes out. However. I am now back to the breathing and the treadmill (advanced to a .5 slope today, whoopee) and can get around the kitchen, get a meal and even try to get  my head organized a bit. I have things to do for the hall party in June that have to be started soon, and everywhere I look I see something that needs doing. Including a large cobweb in the front hall corner above the door. It got swiped, by golly.

On June 3rd, we are opening the hall for a celebration, the main piece of which is that the Dalhousie Library books will again be visible. And visitable. It has taken the library crew months to get things cleared and cleaned and ready to go. What library?  It’s a story. Probably the simplest thing for me to do is add the rough draft of our advertising writeup to this post. And so, I shall do that. Note: rough draft. It will be better, shorter and clearer when I get the edits done.

But it would be nice to know what in [censored] caused me to get weirdly ill last Sunday. Nice, but I am pretty sure it will not be explained.

So, here is something that is its own explanation.   

History in your Backyard Draft 2

“Did you know that the oldest rural library in Ontario is only a short drive away? It’s not easy to spot but the historic Dalhousie Library is inside the Watson’s Corners Community Hall at 1132 Concession 3 Dalhousie in Lanark. If you drive on County Road Six, you drive right by it. On June 2nd, don’t drive by. Stop in and find out about the library and the history of the hall.

We plan to celebrate both the fascinating history of this old and well-loved library and of this wonderful rural gathering place.  On June 2nd, from 12:00 - 4:00 p.m., you will find the Watson’s Corners Community Hall Open House and the Grand Reopening of the Dalhousie Library. There will be music, light refreshments and tours of the historic library. The original Scottish settlers will be evoked by a piper to open the event, highland dancers, and fiddlers. When the hall addition was opened in 1947, there was piping and dancing too. Inside there will be photos and information about the many years that the hall has been in use. Come and find out what you remember and what your neighbourhood has provided.

The Dalhousie Library has been in existence since 1828 when it was established by the early Scottish settlers, who arrived from Scotland starting in 1821 and settled this area. Books and learning were valued commodities, so valued that, along with surviving in their new rugged home, building a library/ meeting place was a priority for these determined people.  Members of the local St. Andrew’s Philanthropic Society petitioned The Earl of Dalhousie, Governor-in-Chief of Canada, for help to start a library. Dalhousie sent 100 pounds sterling and 120 volumes stamped with his coat of arms. Along with the books from some of the settlers’ private collections, by 1843 there were 800 books housed in the log meeting place called St. Andrew’s Hall. 

The pioneers made long journeys through the woods to attend “Issue Day”, held six times a year. Library Issue Day was a social occasion as well, when friends and neighbours caught up on one another’s news. And they looked after their books. Amazingly, the current historical library collection contains a number of the original books that are stored on the shelves of the original 1827 pine cupboards in their section of the Watson’s Corners Hall. 

Although the original hall housing the books did not survive, in the early 1940’s there was community interest in having a new St. Andrew’s Hall built for community gatherings and to preserve the library books. In 1947, after years of community donations of cash, material and labour, the new St. Andrew’s Hall was built and became the Watson’s Corners Community Hall. 

Since that time there has been a very useful addition built to add kitchen facilities and indoor plumbing, also involving fundraising and volunteer labour. During the 1990 ice storm, the hall was a hub and a refuge. There may even have been a kangaroo at one time; certainly it has been fun for the hall to celebrate its possible existence. We want to talk about this history and hear your stories. Seventy-seven years later the hall continues to be a community hub, providing space,  variously, for exercising, dances, card games, birthday and baby showers, formal meetings and celebrations of life. The Dalhousie Library also lives on in the hall 196 years later!  

Come see the history and share some memories. See you there on June 2nd.”

Watch It

 Small things amuse small minds. I was reviewing the post that I wrote about the Drivers’ Test for eighty-year-olds, plus, and thinking that anyone who was wearing an analog watch would have no difficulty with the clock face that we were asked to draw. Although a great many people these days use digital timepieces. And teaching the little ones about clock faces is a harder task for that reason. As I was ruminating about this, I looked at my watch face. And laughed. A lot. 

Below is a drawing of what my watch face looks like. 

And, just for further amusement, I drew it again with all of the numbers that SHOULD be shown, where there are silver dots on my watch*. Grade ten Latin, anyone my age?

*The silver dots on my watch, and the silver outside round, are shown in light grey in the drawing.

And here it is.

Wheels and things

  

I am sure that you will all be pleased to know that according to the MOT, I am sane and certifiable as a driver. I went to their renewal meeting, drew the clock, read the letters on the screen and got my licence renewed. The only thing different from JG’s description of his renewal (those of you who are 80+ will not need an explanation) was that we were told to put the clock hands at 11:10, not 10:10. There was one guy there who could not figure it out. The person running the exam very gently told him that further paperwork would be required and that he would be contacted. I do not know if this gentleman drove himself to and from the meeting location or was picked up, as I was last in line to be tested.

When I arrived, lugging my ‘portable’ oxygen generator, the room had about twenty people sitting in it. “You must be Mary Gilmour,” said the examiner. Last in. Last out. After the close, those of us waiting for a pickup compared knee surgery outside, sitting in a row on a concrete wall.  I have now finished the online renewal and paid my fee. All I need is to get off the oxygen.

Or get smarter with the tubing. I just ran over it twice with my desk chair while trying to plug my phone into the charger. However, the people who supply the oxygen are very accommodating. I just got by mail a supply of clean canula rolls and a tubing length that JG had asked for. I also got a call from the respirologist to explain about recharging the portable machine, a call that ended with her decision to send us a recharge cord for the car and to visit us as soon as her schedule permits to help me with things. Her schedule puts this meeting into May, but that is a lot better than July.

JG is out picking up debris off the lawn in preparation for his summer occupation of mowing a great deal of grass in the area around the house.

As of today, a day later than the meeting described above, my General Practitioner phoned me with the news that I can drive while using the portable oxygen generator, as long as the oxygen level in my blood is 90% or close.  I have my wheels back. Unfortunately, my GP had no better advice about getting my blood level up to 90%+ without the boost than had the doctor at the General Hospital. Nor did she seem to know about the Lung Health program purportedly run out of our CHC. I guess I will follow that up myself once I get calmed down. This whole thing is Getting To Me, frankly.

And. I addition.  As I was doing some typing following writing this draft, I had, as I too often do, a series of sneezes triggered by nothing identifiable. And the last sneeze sort of hung there and would not happen. I only know of one thing more immediately and overwhelmingly frustrating than that. 

Yes. Of course.

Credit, Deviant Art

Books and Stuff

 

Photo Credit - KBIA | By Naomi M. Klein, Hana Yun

Still on my leash, but I am learning to work with it, as least a bit. I can make a meal and clean up after it, do laundry and have enough energy to get a bit of the work for the Hall done. But yesterday was, to say the least, annoying. Jim and I had dark glasses out and Jim cleaned up both of his welding helmets and we were all set to admire about 98% of the eclipse. We had a forecast of light cloud, and that is what was up there. So we could see the crescents and check on the progress. But just as we got as close to totality as we would get, one thick strand of cloud blocked off the view entirely. By the time the cloud had moved on, so had the moon. Well, at least it did not rain. We were a bit surprised that we did not lose the light. The almost total eclipse that we recall from 1967 lives in our memory as producing quite a dark period; we did not see that yesterday.

This afternoon the couple that is in charge of the hall at present came by and I gave them a lot of photos of past events and people that worked regularly in the kitchen. Some of them still do; they were younger then. And so, indeed, was I. We are gearing up to do an open house, in conjunction with the reopening of the Dalhousie Library, featuring some of the hall's history. The library is fascinating. Here is a link if it interests you,but the gist is that the first settlers here wanted books and a group of them set up a library, hitting people like Lord Dalhousie, a ‘landlord’ of sorts, to provide books. Some of those books are still there, almost two hundred years later. Since the paperbacks that I love and have read over and over are falling apart and yellowing as well, the sturdy nature of these old books is amazing to me.

I should, I suppose, get organized (We Must Get Organized is a mantra of sorts among some of my friends and me) and find out if some of the most fragile of my loved tomes are still in print. And if I can afford to buy them if they are. I have some newer paperbacks that I would like to replace in hardcover, but the thought of shelling out three figures plus change to get them is not a good one. Well, some morning when I am feeling strong, I will look.

Tomorrow I go and do my update to keep my driver’s licence current. When I get off here, I am going to clean my glasses. I also have to renew the licence, and since my birthday is a week away, I guess I had better get onto that as well. I am not driving until I get rid of the oxy – that agreement with my surgeon has left me with the licence. I guess he could have pulled it. I guess I am lucky, things taken overall. But I am tired of stepping on my oxygen tube, unwinding it, stretching it out and stepping on it again.

I just found and corrected a major grammar break. Before the bot did. Hah. 

Hooked, line and sinker.

 

We got in to the city, had my follow-up with the surgeon, and got home late Wednesday just as the rain turned to sleet. As those of you who live anywhere in my area know, we got a snow dump that lasted all of Thursday. As I write this, it is Friday afternoon, the power has just been restored and I am trying to catch up on the laundry and the blogs I follow all at once. My comments are, in great part, very short as the list of things I just had to read was very long. And, cheerfully, I report that the wretched snow is melting. The trees are out from under and we have not only got power, we have also been plowed.  A Good Thing, as JG had to go and get more fuel for the generator.

Normally we are pretty calm about snow dumps. We have a really good generator and we generate just enough to get meals and get through the evening. We normally shut down overnight. At present, however, I require supplemental oxygen and so we have an oxygen pump that needs to be kept running. There is a small battery operated auxiliary pump that I have to use in the car, etc., but it makes a ‘thump, swish, thump, swish’ sound that I was sure would keep JG from sleeping. So, I took myself to bed with it in the living room on a reclining chair. In the very early hours JG could not hear me and so he got up and restarted the generator and main pump, hooking me to a canister in the interim, and I crawled into my nice warm bed for a few hours. We are both exhausted today; this is not a snow dump that I was primed to admire in any case as the heavy wet spring snow falls often bring trees down onto the power lines and cut off our electricity, but no power to run the oxy system was not something that was easy to work through.

As to the medical follow-up. I was prepared for several results but not, unfortunately, for being sent home on oxygen. I asked during the interview to be referred to someone who could teach me how to wean myself off it quickly. And so, I have been referred to respirology and have had an appointment to see them … on July 3^rd. When I called the surgeon’s office to see if this could be moved closer, at a bit after 3:00 pm today, the office was closed. I did find, however, that my local Community Health Centre can refer me to a local program for COPD, emphysema etc. I see my GP next week and can only hope that this program will be available for me. In the meantime, I have agreed not to drive and so my licence, I guess, has not been formally lifted. There is more than one form of leash that this puppy is tangled in.

I am trailing yards and yards of tubing everywhere. I did manage to cook dinner last night, kicking the [censored] line ahead of and behind me as I went. I can just reach the treadmill at the end of my line if I hold onto it in one hand as I tread. The stairs are a menace, as the tubing manages to hook itself around the railing, do what I will, on every passage. This aspect of post-surgery recovery that I did not expect really has me on the ropes.

In summary I can only comment that if you are faced with a major medical event, think all of the possible outcomes as much as you can ahead of time. 

Ears at the Ready

I haven’t reported in for a while; I haven’t, in truth, had much of anything positive to report. I staggered into the hospital last Tuesday, coffeeless. Although my anesthetist had allowed that I could have a black coffee, none was available since my check-in time was six in the morning. Nothing in the hospital was open and we were in a motel next to the hospital with no coffee-making apparatus in the room. If I ever have to do something similar again, I am going to remember my thermos. The operation was, as they say, a success. I came out with four small holes and a drain, in good time. And minus the tumour and some lymph nodes. Then the fun started.

To recover from surgery that removes part of a lung, the patient is required to cough up the residue of the surgery remaining in the lung. This is, I am sure, more than you want to know. It is certainly more than I wanted to know, as I have a poor cough reflex. Accordingly, a large and muscular respiratory therapist pummelled, jerked and exhorted. It was a grim couple of days, especially since the hospital food service supplies tea and coffee on alternate days. Luckily for me, my ward mate hates coffee as much as I hate tea and so we were able to exchange cups, quietly.

I recovered quickly, as I do, and have been home for a week or so. What is a bummer is that I have been adjudged to be getting insufficient oxygen into my system and so I was sent home ‘on oxygen’. This means that there is a pump in the basement thumping away condensing the air that is supplied to me via a plastic hose and a nose-piece. You know how we tether dogs to a running leash so they can get around the yard? Well, Mary is on a leash. If I walk around the house, I trail tubing behind me for the family to trip on. If I leave home, I do so accompanied by a small pump that I can carry that hisses and thumps extra oxy into me. Next week we go back for the post-op assessment, and I am really, really hoping to be unleashed.

The tough bit is no cigarettes. I hope that no one reading this has an addiction and will therefore not understand that statement, will shake their head and think that no cigarettes is A Good Thing. Maybe. But it, like the coughing, is not fun. And unlike the coughing, it does not improve.

However, the snow has disappeared, all but a few lumps where the plow left it. And my YD is home for two whole weeks, has been here looking after her decrepit mom and cooking, laundering and amusing her parents. She is taking this opportunity to plan some renovations to her house before resuming living there; a new kitchen and a bathroom re-do, in fact. The choice of countertop materials is, as far as I can tell, endless. As I recall, when choosing finishes for our kitchen, I went to one location and held down the budget. The YD has a large budget and a lot of places to go and graphite to see. As well as graphing out where she wants the cupboards. All this has been most interesting, as those of you who have done renos will know.

The ED is also in renovation mode. In fact, their home is undergoing upgrades to all three of the bathrooms. In series, I am assured, so that there is one working shower and toilet somewhere in the house. All is not going smoothly, however. The construction crew has a truck with a trailer. Yesterday the ED and partner were informed that a film crew is in the neighbourhood and all on-street parking is banned for the next, I think, three weeks. This means that the ED will probably have to take their car to work and park, expensively. How partner will be able to get around I did not enquire.

I did get the chocolate bunnies purchased at Village Treats before I got tethered, so Easter is allowed to arrive. There is something about biting the ears off a chocolate bunny that is like no other treat.

Wind from the West

The weather changed a few days ago, on the last, leap day of February in fact. We had been having unseasonably warm temperatures for days and the clouds, as I watched them, were streaming from southeast to northwest. Then the wind, and with it the weather, changed overnight and on that Thursday was howling a bitter, vicious blow. The temperature dropped like a stone into the minus numbers. The sky cleared to a bright, pale blue. And walking into that wind brought tears to the eyes. “Blowing in the Wind,” said my weirdly echoing brain.

Bob Dylan’s lyrics are very apt today. “Yes, and how many times can a man turn his head
And pretend that he just doesn't see?”  I have heard those questions most of my adult life and I cannot answer any of them.

Our generation has not done well by future generations. I have been reading a book about the influence of the very aptly named Quiet Generation on culture, behaviour and beliefs. The thesis is that a small number of influencers led the way into the rebellious days of the Baby Boomers, the Vietnam War protesters, the so-called ‘Beat Generation’. Personally, I was not part of that. I was at home working part time and raising two children to school age. I paid little attention to what seemed to me an American problem, not ours. And I happily adopted any and all of the petroleum-based solutions to housekeeping chores that were then available. Plastic pants over the cloth diapers – excellent. Plastic sippy cups, Melamine plates, nylon snowsuits – all very useful.  Plastic wrap – a fine replacement for waxed paper and elastic bands. Smog was something that happened in London, England. Climate just was. It varied, but so what.

“Westron wynde when wyll thow blow. The smalle rayne downe can Rayne” is the medieval original of another popular song of the sixties. “Oh western wind …” It is the sad cry of someone far from family and familiarity, from safety.  Cryst yf my love were in my Armys And I yn my bed Agayne.  The words tie in my mind to a Mansfield poem that I think most of us learned in school.

“It’s a warm wind, the west wind, full of birds’ cries. …” the verses start and go on to describe the spring as 'merry'.  “The young corn is green, brother, where the rabbits run. It's blue sky, and white clouds, and warm rain and sun.”

 This year there may not be a merry spring. There may never be a merry spring again.

The warm and loving western wind may never blow again and a small rain hearten the crops. Instead we have unseasonable warmth, weather ‘events’, fire and flood.  The birds are not coming to our feeders as they used to do. Our native trees are not thriving. We are not thriving. In the words of the old Anglican prayer, ‘there is no health in us’.

 Perhaps if, instead of ‘flower power’ and all of that, we had put our minds to preserving our world, we might have avoided the worst that now will come. And to say, now, that I am sorry or that I was unaware is completely useless.  I am afraid that there are no answers, that too many people will die. When I look up, I see no blue in the sky.

 I have been writing and editing this post for almost a week now. It is one of the group I write with my granddaughter in mind as an audience. I started doing this when she was a baby blowing purple bubbles and now she is almost twenty-one, the age of majority everywhere. I am sorry for and unhappy about the world she will inherit and how she will find her way in it. But if I don’t post this now, I will lose the courage to do so.

 It is what it is. Sad.