Caveat: Less Uncivilized Than You’d Think

Arthur’s recovery continues. He is still struggling with ongoing vertigo.

After getting things sorted out with the VA (since what we are doing is “out of network” with respect to the VA), we made and went to a follow-up appointment at the Alicia Roberts Clinic in Klawock, where we’d gone for the emergency room visit on Saturday.

We saw an actual doctor. It turns out that the clinic has a brand new CT Scanner, recently arrived on the island. That’s significant – it changed what would have been a med-evac to Ketchikan into a 20 minute jaunt down the hallway. I was impressed with the level of medical technology present at this small clinic out in the woods on an isolated island. Of course it’s often said, there is nothing technically wrong with healthcare in the US – the problems lie in the administration and distribution of it.

So the doctor got to look at Art’s brain. No evidence of bleeding (i.e. stroke). But it doesn’t completely rule things out, either. Anyway, it’s something in the arsenal of diagnostic materials available.

This is Art’s brain.
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We got a renewal on prescriptions. There are anti-nausea meds (critically necessary and evidently working well) and anti-vertigo meds (maybe not even actually working).

Arthur is eating well enough, and is definitely improving in terms of balance, compared to Friday/Saturday, even though he complains he’s not. There are ZERO cognitive deficits with this incident, in contrast to the situation last summer. He did quite well on the doctor’s little cognitive tests – including short-term memory, processing, etc. I was impressed, because I’d seen him doing similar things last summer, too. Even after this recent issue, he’s much sharper than he was last summer.

So now we are in R&R mode, for a while, hopefully.
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Caveat: Tree #165

Arthur seems to be recovering apace. He ate oatmeal for breakfast, tomato soup for lunch, and a bit of a grilled cheese sandwich for dinner. Considering he hadn’t eaten for a day and a half before this, that’s a very good sign.
I wish he could find a way to be optimistic – or at the least. pretend to be optimistic. In fact, even just pretending to be optimistic has positive psychological effects – almost as many positive effects as actual optimism. I speak from experience.
Here is a tree, with a largish stump next door.
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[daily log: walking, 2.5km]

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