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]

Caveat: POW, emergency

Prince of Wales Island (called by most locals by the initialism simply “P.O.W.”) has exactly one emergency room, as far as I can figure out. It’s in the clinic at Klawock – it’s not really a full blown ER, the staff is on call (meaning they drive there and meet the ambulance or whoever wants to go there, rather than sitting around inside the ER on shifts).

Yesterday Arthur went to the ER. He is experiencing severe, debilitating vertigo, leading to uncontrolled nausea and inability to even walk. My paranoid, hypochondrical side wants to believe that this is related to his brain injury from last year, but medical personnel can’t point to cause-effect, and will only say, “it’s possible.” Meanwhile, it’s simply labelled “benign positional vertigo,” where the word “benign” doesn’t mean what you want it to mean, because really it seems to be medical slang for “we can’t find the cause.” It’s hardly benign. It’s utterly debilitating.

We spent about 4 hours at the ER. He got fluids via IV (replace lost to vomiting). He got some medications. Hours later, it’s not clear they’re that useful to control the underlying vertigo, but at least they seem to prevent the vomiting.

You know you’re in a rural Southeast Alaska ER because the view out the doors (where I spent a lot of time standing and pacing and feeling useless) includes a shipping container and a lot of trees.

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Caveat: Tree #163

Things have taken a bad turn with Arthur’s health.
I don’t want to say more than that – the situation is not clear.
Here is a tree picture from a stockpile of tree pictures.
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[daily log: walking, 1km]

Caveat: Tree #162

I walked along the road, and saw a tree.
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I also saw a piece of rusted scrap metal – maybe the rusted out floorboard of a truck or trailer. I propped the scrap on rock and took a picture – I like the composition, lights and darks.
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[daily log: walking, 4km]

Caveat: Boat Goes to Boat Doctor

Arthur and I took the boat to the boat doctor today. Meaning, it’s at the mechanic. We’ve had some troubling engine symptoms, and so this is what it’s come to. Hopefully the boat shop will make it right.
I experienced a great deal of anxiety over this adventure, prior to it happening. It involved both Arthur and I being competent, which is questionable, for each of us, for our separate reasons. Arthur has experience hauling his boat out of the water, and has done it many times, and is generally competent at such things anyway. But he had his head injury last summer, and he’s often forgetful or absent-minded, in ways that can be quite worrisome. Meanwhile, I haven’t got that forgetfulness problem, but I have never hauled any boat out of any water anywhere, ever. So we had a case of “the blind leading the deaf.”
Arthur took the boat into town, alone. Here is a picture of him departing the dock.
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I drove the truck into town with the boat trailer attached. We arrived at the Craig municipal boat ramp, at the north edge of town, at about the same time, waited our turn (it’s a busy place) and then backed the truck with trailer down to the water, pulled the boat onto the trailer, strapped it down, and drove up off the ramp. Here we are, checking the tie-downs.
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Then we drove into town and parked the trailer with boat at the boat doctor.
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In the end, it was a successful venture. Arthur was very tired, however. He pushed himself at his current limit for longer than he really had it in himself.

Caveat: Tree #161

Here is a tree by the pond – possibly shown here before, but looking very summer-greenish.
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[daily log: walking, 3km]

Caveat: Tree #159

This is a pine tree in a spring-like setting (Mike and Penny’s yard, down the road at 9 mile).
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[daily log: walking, 1km]

Caveat: another about face

I have taken the decision today to uninstall facebook from my phone.
About 11 months ago (at the point in time when I’d decided to move back from Korea to the US.) I had (re-)installed facebook on my phone. Facebook is incredibly useful for staying in touch with family and friends, and for providing a snapshot of my life to those people who are too entrenched in their internet ways to bother checking with my blog. There is no denying that has become a kind of indispensable contact utility.
However, I feel like the facebook app on my phone has changed its behavior, recently. It has become much more aggressive with its ads, with its auto-play videos, with the reams of clickbait to be found on the news feed. So I feel the need to take away the temptation to open it.
To be clear, I am not “quitting” facebook. Instead, I’m scaling back and rationing my participation in facebook, by limiting access to my desktop computer, where I can better control my interaction with the application. I will look for a way to make a daily crosspost from my blog, so people can follow me – I’ll keep up my “daily tree” tradition from there.
It may be that I succumb to temptation, and re-install the app once again on my phone, at some point in the future. Likely the next time I plan to travel, I’ll do so, at the least, because it’s very convenient to have facebook on my phone when traveling. But in the meantime, you’ll be seeing fewer posts on facebook – likely just the blog crossposts.
Thanks for understanding, and love to all.

Caveat: Tree #157

Arthur and I went out in the boat to Noyes Island (just past Siketi Sound). While out there, we passed a point of land and I saw a tree (well, several – the one I had in mind here is the one farthest to the left).
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We actually caught one fish. It was not a desirable salmon, however – rather, a fat lingcod.
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I made fish soup (Chilean style fish chowder) with it, when we got home.
[daily log: walking, 1km; boating, 60km]

Caveat: Tree #156

This is a tree out along the road, on a lot recently cleared by someone perhaps intending to sell or build. Note that the tree is not quite vertical – so by arranging the tree in the picture frame to appear vertical, the rest of the world is tilted.
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[daily log: walking, 4km]

Caveat: Tree #155

Here is a tree. Well, more than one, actually – but one on the left is closer and more salient.
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Earlier, Arthur and I went out in the boat. We caught one (1) fish. A small sea bass type fish. But perhaps it’s a step in the right direction. Here is a bald eagle supervising traffic at the entrance to the Port Saint Nicholas fiord.
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Later we went into town. I saw this car elevated in an unusual way. Alaskans take the availability of heavy machinery for granted.
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[daily log: walking, 1.5km]

Caveat: Tree #153

I’m going to count this as a tree picture, even though the tree is cut off on the left hand side. Really it’s more of a sunset picture.
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[daily log: walking, 1.5km]

Caveat: Tree #152

Arthur and I went out in the boat in the morning. Still no fish. I worry, sometimes, that Arthur is making some major mistake with respect to his fishing technique, which is causing the fish to avoid us. I wouldn’t know if he was – because I have very little experience fishing. On the way back to the house in the boat, we experienced some disconcerting engine behavior with the outboard motor. So we need to deal with that.
In the afternoon, we took a walk down the road. We met a bear. Arthur said, “Looks like it’s time to go the other direction.” I agreed.
Here is a tree past mile 9.
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Here is water looking out at San Juan Island, in the morning.
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Here is the bear (blackish blur, lower center of picture).
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[daily log: walking, 3km]

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