Day 3341

What happened to our nice weather? One day it's 70. The next day it's 30. I wonder if the entire Winter is going to be this way? Since I like consistency, these extreme fluctuations are driving me nuts. It was cold and nasty outside this morning, but Dash still wanted his walk. I would rather have slept in a little longer, but off we went. Dash continues to do better than expected. I don't know where he got his second wind, but it's nice to see him with a little enthusiasm again.

After breakfast, I filled the car with gas and did my weekend grocery shopping. The list was small this week and that was fine with me. This seemed like a day for staying home and keeping warm. Dash seemed to agree. We took a long nap together this afternoon. It certainly beat cleaning the house.

As a consumer of healthcare, I've been following the debate about how to reform the system. I have a feeling that this is going to be the next battleground that divides us even further. I was listening to a proponent of Medicare for all explain that one of the most effective ways to pay for universal healthcare would be to stop approving all these elaborate procedures for really old people. "They're all going to die soon anyway," the guy said. You can imagine how well this idea went over. It's certainly true that most of your medical expenditures are going to occur during your last ten years of life, but if you need a new knee on your eightieth birthday, are you really going to say "never mind, I'll just keep using this cane?" I wonder how this will end? When the women are all fighting the men and the young are all fighting the old, today's political skirmishes will seem like child's play.

I'd be the first to admit that the earth's population is already too large to sustain life indefinitely. I'd still like to live as long as I can though. That is the dilemma. We desperately need to slow down population growth but we all want to live. Humanity has become the ultimate Kudzu vine. Since we are at the top of the food chain, there is absolutely nothing to stop us from consuming everything in our path. There really needs to be some fire breathing dragons or evil alien invaders to keep us in our place.

I don't see how you can be a student of history and still believe that you can change human nature. We have a pretty dismal track record. This is why I'm such a fan of exploring space. We're pretty clever. Maybe we can learn to tame wormholes and conquer the speed of light before we destroy our planet and become extinct. If we thought our destiny was to expand into the universe and destroy an infinite number of other planets one by one, it would provide a tremendous source of hope.

I saw us plant a flag on the moon, but I'd have to stay pretty healthy to see the same thing happen on Mars. Population explosion or not, I'll take advantage of every medical miracle that comes my way. I'd love to see Elon Musk succeed. It would be the first step in what could become a very long journey.

Joshua is today's Dalmatian of the Day

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Day 3087

I'm very disappointed. The blood clot in Dash's heart has returned. Actually, the doctors think that this is a brand new clot and aren't entirely sure why it has appeared. The current theory is that Dash has a heart valve problem that causes a vortex around the valve that lets clots start to form. We've known that Dash has had a heart murmur for a long time. It's possible that he has had periodic clots for a long time as well. There's not really much we can do. Since one clot actually did dissolve over time, we're hoping that this new one will as well. I was expecting a more favorable outcome after the good news we heard on our last visit. It wasn't meant to be.

Dash's early morning vet appointment caused the day to get off to a slow start. By the time we were ready for our morning walk, the sun was already high in the sky and Dash quickly got overheated. He just can't take the heat anymore. I cut our walk short and returned home. This was fine with Dash. I think the vet visit was all the activity he wanted to deal with today anyway.

The grass I thought was dead yesterday looks even worse today. I'll give it a little time, but I think I'm going to have to complain. I hear thunder in the distance, so maybe a good soaking rain will help. It won't help the roof, but it just might help to revive this pitiful looking St. Augustine grass.

I photographed some more art work for the auction house today. I'm still not quite sure what they're looking for. Some items they get excited about and others not so much. I still think that this is a good time to begin to simplify my life. I just wish it wasn't so complicated to simplify.

My pharmacy has been bugging me to pick up some prescriptions. An automated message calls me every day to remind me to pick these things up. I finally did go to the pharmacy today and the pharmacist told me that it was too early to get the pills. WTF? "Medicare won't pay for these renewals until June 30," he said. "Well, why to you keep asking me to pick them up," I asked? The pharmacist had no answer. We both knew that this was just one more example of a healthcare system out of control. I'm not out of pills anyway. I'll just go back and pick these up at the end of the month.

Dash currently is shivering under my desk again. There isn't a lot of rain, but there sure is a lot of wind and thunder. I don't know what Dash is worried about, but I'm worried about losing power. We definitely have had a lot of rain in the past several weeks. Every time I get ready to tell the roofer that there's going to be a long enough stretch of dry weather to finish the repairs, another storm pops up.

I forgot to record the new episode of The Expanse last night. It just goes to show that I can't even remember things that I want to remember. No great loss. I'm sure I can find this episode online anyway. If I had a little more patience, I could just buy the entire season on iTunes and avoid all the commercials.

The new syndication service that replaces NetworkedBlogs actually works. Yay. Truthfully, I wasn't expecting this. I'm always pleasantly surprised when something works.

Dalmatian of the Day

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Day 2846 - Columbus Day

I was thinking about seeing Blade Runner 2049 and was surprised to discover that there wasn't a matinée. The film was showing at multiple theaters but all the showtimes were at night. Some theaters only showed the movie late at night. Maybe this is why some folks have been disappointed with the box office returns for this movie, even though the reviews have been great. The audience for this film is me. You have to be old enough to have seen the original Blade Runner before you're going to be looking forward to the sequel. What were they thinking by not having a matinée? Let the Millennials watch movies whenever they like, but remember that old science fiction fans sometimes prefer a matinée.

When I was growing up, I never would have dreamed that Columbus Day would become controversial. For most of my life, this has been a bland, largely uneventful day. I don't understand the desire to rewrite history. Columbus was no saint, but he is still revered in many countries. There wouldn't be a Latino culture today without Columbus and the Spaniards that followed him. Sure, the Native Americans were here first, but it wasn't like indigenous people were leading peaceful, bucolic lives before the Europeans arrived. They'd been fighting with each other for centuries. You could make a pretty strong case that the Aztec's were even more brutal than the Europeans.

Every culture throughout history has done horrible things. Some of the horrible things have turned out to be significant. If we try to erase history, how can we possibly learn from it? I wouldn't make Christopher Columbus a role model, but I wouldn't throw red paint at his statue either. Many of the people we admire today will be reviled by future generations. That's just the way life is. Truthfully, I'm amazed that there is still life on this planet at all. Even the animals are mean and nasty. Cute and cuddly dolphins are actually stone cold killers who routinely murder their own babies. We prefer to think that all dolphins are like Flipper though. It's just easier that way.

I love dogs, even though I've been bitten five times. I've learned that you can't just divide the dog population into good dogs and bad dogs. Given the right circumstances, any dog could bite you. I think people are the same way.

We learned today that Dot was going to be the cover of the 2018 Dalmatian Rescue Calendar. She's a beautiful cover girl. When I saw the proof of the calendar, it made me want to cry. Such a wonderful tribute. I have a feeling that there are going to be a lot of these calendars around our house next year.

I called Janet's doctors this afternoon and asked how to become a patient. It's taken me a long time to make this switch, but I probably should have done it a long time ago. I'm not getting any younger and staying healthy is increasingly becoming my top priority. I feel a bit disloyal abandoning my primary care physician, but I've gotten to the point where I'd be nervous depending on him if something serious happened. There are no perfect doctors, but I hope that a year from now, I will still think I made the right decision.

Dash did pretty well today. I'm getting better at putting on his protective gear by myself in the morning and he seems to be walking more naturally using the knee brace. He never did throw up last night and ate a pretty good breakfast. I'm really hoping that his next echocardiogram will show some improvement.

Maverick is today's Dalmatian of the Day

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Day 2738

Janet's home nurse didn't show up this morning. We thought we could just change the bandages ourselves, but quickly realized we were out of our depth. I couldn't even figure out how to open the bottle of sterile saline solution. The instructions the hospital left us with made such a huge deal out of germs and cleanliness that it left me wondering if my hands were still clean if I turned off the faucet after washing them. And what about cutting a bandage in half with a pair of scissors? Where do you draw the line?

It wasn't surprising to learn that the problem with the home nurse involved paperwork. Someone had failed to send the proper authorization forms to the right person. Basically very little happens in healthcare unless the provider knows they are going to get paid. The doctors and nurses are excellent. It's insurance that always screws things up. Janet called her regular doctor to see if they could help arrange something and by the end of the day we were back in business. I used to think the whole concept of concierge doctors was a waste of money, but Janet's doctor has made me a believer. You basically pay more to get treated decently, but if you need help, don't want to wait forever to get an appointment, and are having trouble navigating the insurance maze, the cost is well worth it. I've been going to the same doctor for a long time, but I'm thinking of switching to Janet's doctor. These guys have been amazing.

It was so hot today that Dash didn't want to walk at all. On the theory that dogs know more about the weather than I do, I didn't try to make him go outside. You hear so many stories about dogs getting heatstroke in the Summer that I've become very cautious about taking walks during a heat wave. You've got to remember that dogs can't sweat and can become overheated quite quickly.

I did get out and about myself, but I've got a good air conditioner in my car. I went out for breakfast, even though it was almost lunch time by the time all the home nurse confusion got straightened out. Today's errands included picking up more medical supplies at CVS and getting some tasty things for dinner that didn't require cooking.

I wonder how nurses deal with the stress. There are so many things that can go wrong. Patients often don't follow directions, and what works for one person sometimes doesn't work for the next. This isn't something I'd like to do for a living. I have a tremendous respect for doctors and nurses, but I don't think modern medicine would work at all if the body didn't have an amazing ability to heal itself. A healthy diet and a strong immune system are probably more important than any pill.

I had to update some more mobile websites today and grew increasingly frustrated at the need to use both my laptop and desktop computers to make the updates. What would have been a thirty minute job before my design application stopped supporting my desktop computer ended up taking two hours. I hate to spend a ton of money updating software on my desktop just so I can continue to use this application, but I may have to. It is taking way too much time to go back and forth between the two computers.

I guess tomorrow is Saturday although all days seem the same now. There are lots of errands to run and I can tell it's going to be a busy day already. I always forget how much Janet does to keep the house running smoothly until I try doing it myself for a while. Hopefully this new routine will become easier for both of us with a little practice.

Boo is today's Dalmatian of the Day

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