Coronado Island, California, where Izzy, Laura & Rob stayed — it is gorgeous, the hotel luxurious, though the beach was not for swimming/bathing
Dear friends and readers,
I’ve not blogged here for four weeks because I’m not sure what the road ahead of me looks like. The primary reason for this is I’m not sure I will be able to re-obtain my right to use my drivers’ license once again from the DMV, and at the core of this uncertainty is I’m not sure the DMV people ought to pass me. I did get into my car with Laura by my side a week ago Monday, found I could sit in the driver’s seat without contorting my body, and have the control of my right side and bodily strength to do it. But for the 20 minutes I was driving Laura continually subjected me to shouts demanding I drive faster, not hesitate, not drive with my foot on the brake. If she won’t be patient, I won’t make it. With patience and let alone to follow my own driving style, after some practicing, if I can do this steadily, I’ll find out what I have to do at Kaiser to get doctors’ signatures, and at the DMV to pass a driving test. This time I do have to pass a test. It’s a problem because I am aware that I should not drive if I’m not doing it safely.
Without driving, I have to teach and go to classes by remote. There is no public transportation to OLLI at Mason ($40 each way by cab), and the trips to OLLI at AU, Politics & Prose Bookshop on Conn Ave are arduous treks by Metro and bus (nearly 2 hours each way) with many sets of steps & possible crowds along the way. I can go to theater by cab since I would go only once in a while, but visiting friends, casual lunches out with others are out.
I want to stress how at peace I was during the week I stayed home almost alone — with, Ian, my cat, now showing his age, 16, physically (I paid $1203.00 for a mobile vets’ visit, complete w/3 injections, half an hour of IV treatments), and how remarkably content and immensely cheered by zoom company (it may be I enjoy them more than in person because I am less uncomfortable, more restrained, everyone less obvious to one another even with cameras on) and email communication; over these 3 weeks 3 friends’ visits, reading very enjoyable books, getting 3 reviews done (none left!), and returning and/or refusing 3 others, not to omit putting nearly final touches on ordering my books. All 3s.
Outside windows
I also paid to have the honest electrcian (Ricardo) fix the air conditioning system, install an attic fan, my new gardener (Antwon) twice perform miracles with his family and friends as crew in my garden-yard. I learned not all was in reality happy-comfortable between my older daughter & her husband, and did well to keep away, and spared myself the expense of yet a few more thousand $ I may need if I should live into my 80s.
Over the course of the summer I was fulfilled by this remote social life enough. OTOH, I need friends and company, be part of the world actively somehow in order to have a meaningful life and worry about tenuous dependence on computers and connectivity, dependence on Laura for things like doctors’ appts. I do become restless; I probably don’t get enough exercise. I have registered for a number of courses that look very good & clubs & chat friends’ support groups in 4 places (OLLIS at AU, Mason, York, P&P & WWW), will teach Making Barsetshire at 2 OLLIs, participate in 2 online reading groups, attend National Theater from London at Home.
That a kind of turning point in this road will not be happening was decided yesterday. After a complicated drive into NW DC, Laura and I came to Washington Hospital Center yesterday to see neurosurgeon. Dr Armonda, for consultation on possible procedure to seal the AVM (entangled arteries & veins where stroke hit & bled) in my brain where I’m susceptible to 2nd & more strokes.
News ambiguous and a relief. Surgeon did not think me a good candidate for procedure, which is invasive even if no cutting involved. He said 77 very old for this, MRI showed the Avm near my brain stem so he could hurt me. Puzzling it’s on left side since it was and is my left side which is weak, not properly controlled by brain. He didn’t like that. My history of hemorrhage irrelevant as brain different from other areas but of course not reassuring. If I were directly threatened, we’d do it but it seemed to him I am safer as more than 4 months have passsed; the time frame in which most second strokes happen. Not that I am safe but procedure more risky than “watchful waiting.” At first he wanted to do angiogram, apparently had intended to, but then said this invasive. I told him my lifestyle changes: I am teaching much easier way (no more new areas, begin some repetition), stopping academic papers except when have really free time, taking Zoloft and faucet of spiralling anxiety in my brain seems turned off. He said keep avoiding stress where I can. He liked idea of adopting new kittens (Laura has now “put in for 2). Don’t overdo exercise, said he, and yes while I am “doing very well” (all say this, plus “how great you’re looking”) I must expect longer time for recovery.
So that’s it. He was a gentleman and asked me about my scholarly area. I showed him my new Oxford copy of Trollope’s Duke’s Children.
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Among projects I’m looking forward to this late or Indian summer/early fall:
while not keen after all on mystery/crime/detectve/spy genre (bored by puzzles & clues), I find Sayers fascinating and will try other not so contemporary women writers (Allingham, Susan Hill) and women’s studies (e.g. Alison Light), going to stick with Cornwall and Scotland (so Poldark, DuMaurier, Outlander, landscape travel), of course Austen, Trollope, though first up is Thackeray. All the reading in American protest lit will not go for nought: I can lop off a few and call it a course with name of group protested for or rational. The OLLI at York reading for pleasure I chose is 1930s British women North, a specific pick, Winifred Holtby’s South Riding.
Can you think of a better title than Howard’s End is on the Landing?
Laura and I have reserved 2 kittens, siblings, a patches girl, named Star which name Izy wants to keep, ans a sturdy grey boy — how about something like Misty? litter-trained, neutered/spayed. An animal fried/companion/baby is a project? No photos as yet
Ellen