My fight with my body goes on.  Physical therapy helps a lot, but on days between workouts my painful joints and weak legs reassert themselves.  Today Tess drove me to an appointment with my orthopedic surgeon in San Jose to undergo some nerve tests to detect possible neuropathy.  After a grueling drive through traffic, we arrived but the doctor’s computer software failed to operate so the whole trip was a large waste of time.

 I bought a physical therapy table but haven’t had the time or strength to set it up.  There is one more month of the tax season and I will have more time to accomplish what I need to do. 

Three weeks ago I started regular exercise at the gym.  I have a personal trainer who has shown me the exercises I need to strengthen my shoulders, back, legs and core.  I do feel a lot better physically since I started.  I also notice that my chronic depression, which has been very dark and awful for some time now, has diminished noticeably.

My main motivation in starting this regimen is to get stronger so I can better play bass.  Acoustic bass is a very physical instrument, and bass guitar involves heavy amplifiers, i.e. loading and unloading them into and out of my car.

Last week my wife underwent a surgical procedure to correct her repeated bouts of tachycardia, i.e. rapid heart beat.  She first began having this condition in 1988.  The procedure was done at Good Samaritan Hospital in Los Gatos, California.  It was an outpatient procedure, and she was awake without anesthesia during the operation.  The doctors cauterized a second heart node that was causing the problem.

Since the operation, her heartbeat and blood pressure have been normal and she feels great!  She has been happy and cheerful, and I haven't see her like that for some years.

In another 15 minutes, it will be June 5, 2016 -- our 40th wedding anniversary.  This has been a great gift from medical science, and we will be looking for fun and entertainment to celebrate our life together.

On Wednesday morning my wife checked into Good Samaritan Hospital in Los Gatos for a surgical procedure on her heart.  She has long suffered from irregular heartbeat and tachycardia, and this procedure was to see what was going on and what, if anything, could be done about it.

She checked into the Short Stay Cath Lab in the basement, and was awake during the procedure, viewing her own heart on a television screen as the doctor talked to her about what he was seeing.  It seems she had a second heart node that was likely the cause of the rapid heart beat.  They cauterized it, and hopefully that will end the problem.

Before we arrived at the hospital, we went to Oak Hill Cemetery in San Jose to finish preparations for our final expenses, just in case.  More about that in the next post.

On Tuesday, January 13, I had cataract surgery on my right eye.  For the past couple of days following the surgery, I have been resting and recuperating.  I opted to have the right eye done first, as it was my worst eye, almost useless for years.  I could see out of the eye, but my vision was noticeably blurrier and darker than that of my left eye.  I relied on my left eye to get around.

I have been preparing for the surgery for several weeks, putting prescribed drops in my eye, planning which motel to stay in the night before my 6:45 AM appointment at the vision clinic.  When I found myself laying on a hospital bed that was being pushed through halls and rooms, the overhead lights whizzing by, I knew the time had finally arrived.  Then I was pushed under a white machine and suddenly felt some anxiety.  Preparation time is over, this is it!  My eye, my vision, my sight are in the hands of strangers.  Hope they know what the hell they're doing.

The doctor put drops in my eye, then put a gizmo into my eye that prevents me from blinking and closing the eye.  Intense light is then beamed into the eye; tears slide from my eye, but I can't blink or escape the light.  I see a ring of black dots as a laser is lowered onto my eye, and I hear the clack clack clack of it cutting through the cornea.  "Looks great," the doc says and my bed moves again, to a different room and machine.  Now I stare at a red dot with more clack clack clacking.  The doctor is destroying my natural lens, sucking it out somehow.  Next, he floats an artificial lens over my eyeball and somehow pokes it into place.  He closes the cornea flap and tapes gauze and an eye patch over my eye.  I'm done.  It took ten minutes, didn't hurt much at all, and doesn't hurt hardly at all, now that it's over.

The next morning I visit the doctor in his office for a followup.  The nurse takes the eye patch off.  I wait until it is all stripped away before opening my eye.  And there's the world!  I can see.  I check the difference between my right and left eyes by putting my palm over one, and then the other.  It is obvious that my right eye is now far better than my untreated left.  The right has sharper focus and white appears white, not white with a yellowish tinge, as with my left eye.

The doctor tells me the eye will get better over the next few days, as it heals.  I am thrilled!  I have no longer any need of glasses for the right eye, and I opt not to wear my glasses at all.  I can see that well.

I am impatient to have the left eye repaired next.  Due to the tax season starting, it will probably have to wait until after April 15.

Susan Luckey

Susan Luckey, who played Zaneeta, the mayor's daughter in the 1962 musical "The Music Man," has died at age 74. I remember her role as the ditzy teenager who kept saying "Ye gods," which seemed somewhat profane to me. I love that musical, especially Shirley Jones singing "Good Night My Someone."

Also dead is Alex Karras, former football player who played Mongo in "Blazing Saddles." He was 77.

Alex Karras as "Mongo"

This past week I had a blood test and a blood pressure test. Blood was normal in every respect and the nurse described my blood pressure as "excellent." My wife is not so lucky: she has a long list of ailments and I'll probably survive her, but I'd rather not. The world would be a terribly empty place without her.

Jabba the Hut

Paul Mason

A U.K. man (one Paul Mason) got so fat (at 980 pounds) that he made Michael Moore look like a fitness freak.  The man devoured everything in sight, turkeys, hams, pizzas, homeless people, dogs and cats and even small cars.  However, there is no truth to the rumor that he also devoured Cleveland.  Now he's suing the National Health Service for not stopping him.  Someone should have wrestled him to the ground.  They would have, but they were afraid of being either crushed or devoured.

Well I may have exaggerated his actual food intake somewhat, but the guy does have a small point (the only thing about him that is small).  He told the NHS he had an eating disorder but they sent him to a mere dietitian.  This guy needed more than a diet, he needed some serious therapy.  Eating disorders are a serious mental health problem and people die from them.

At his fattest, Paul was 70 stone.  A stone is the equivalent of 14 pounds, so Paul's weight got up to 980 pounds. Paul finally got lap-band surgery and his weight has shrunk dramatically, down to 518 pounds (hopefully, still dropping).  This probably saved his life and prevented a copyright infringement lawsuit from Jabba the Hut.

You go Paul, we're rootin' for ya.

Read all about it (and see some amazing photos) here.

Hat tip to Ann Althouse.

For years now I have been fighting chronic fatigue. Oh I have enough energy to get out of bed in the morning and go to work, to practice bass, blog and smoke cigars -- all of the really important stuff in life. However, I would periodically feel really wasted and often depressed. I created a chart for my mood swings, and the best mood on that chart was "slightly bored." My worst was "in psychic pain." That degree of mental state was, thankfully, rather rare. The worst that I usually reached was number 4 out of 5: morose, depressed with overtones of futility. And no, it wasn't the fortunes of the Republican Party that put me there. I figured I had a brain chemistry problem, not enough serotonin. Lackanookie maybe. I don't know, I'm not a doctor.

A couple of weeks ago I think I figured it out. I drank way too much coffee. Sounds too simple to be valid, but I am sure that was the source of my problem. I would drink a pot of coffee in the morning, and another one before bedtime. I thought I was immune to the effects of caffeine. So when I felt fatigued I sometimes had an energy drink with...more caffeine.

Needless to say I spent a lot of time running to the bathroom. I was literally pissing my life away. Or maybe most of my electrolytes, I don't really know, not being a doctor. In any case, I got tired of being tired and running to the bathroom. The sloshing sound didn't help my image with co-workers, either. So one night I thought: I will forego my evening pot of coffee and just go to bed.

The next day I felt substantially better. I felt positively positive. Cheerful even. The urination was less too. No more sloshing sound. Okay, I just made that part up, but the rest is true.

Encouraged, I reduced my coffee still further and limited myself to 2 cups in the morning, or 3 being my dead max. My good mood has continued unabated for two weeks. I'm still cheerful at work. I had to work today (a Saturday) but even so, I felt good. Cheerful.

Now I think I know why I was always chronically fatigued. I was getting very shallow sleep at night. The caffeine affected me a lot more than I thought. Now I sleep soundly and awaken refreshed. Amazing. No more depression or sad and morose feelings. I just feel normal and normal feels pretty damn good.

My friend Carol at No Sheeples Here tells me not to self-diagnose, but I think self-diagnosis is okay in certain instances. Like if you are hitting yourself repeatedly in the head with a hammer and you figure out that it feels much better when you stop. This is in that category. I will still take my medications, Carol and I will discuss my caffeine eiphany with my doctor the next time I go in.