‘Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house, not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse;

The stockings were hung by the chimney with care, in hopes that St. Dogolas soon would be there; the animals were nestled all snug in their beds… 

Well, it looks like some of us may be stirring.

I see you two.

No peeking. Santa won’t come if you peek.

Yes, Zoe, you’re in your bed, but not asleep.

That’s better, Sam and Zoe, but I think you’re still awake.

Zoe, come on back to bed.

That’s better. I almost believe you’re asleep.

Mollie’s asleep.

I hope she’s not planning to try to snag Santa with those claws.

Now, finally, everyone is in bed and asleep. It’s easier these days with so few of them left with us.

Now, we wait for St. Dogolas.

He’s chubby and plump, a right jolly old elf. I’m sure we’ll see him, if I say so myself.

Will he come to our house before we sleep? Let’s be careful and quiet, not making a peep.

Out on the lawn there arose such a clatter,
I sprang from the bed to see what was the matter.
Away to the window I flew like a flash,
Tore open the shutters and threw up the sash.
What to my wondering eyes should appear,

A little old furkid, so lively and quick,
I knew in a moment it must be St. Dog.

He was dressed all in fur, from his head to his foot,
And his leash was all tarnished with ashes and soot;
A bundle of Dog Toys he had flung on his back,
And he looked like a pedler just opening his pack.
His eyes—how they twinkled! his dimples how merry!

He spoke not a word, but went straight to his work,
And filled all the stockings; then turned with a jerk,

… laying his paw aside of his nose,
And giving a nod, up the chimney he rose;
He sprang to his sleigh, to his team gave a whistle,
And away they all flew like the down of a thistle,
But I heard him exclaim, ere he drove out of sight,

“ … and to all a good night!”

We here on top of the mountain wish everyone a holiday filled with happiness, rainbows, sun dogs, pink clouds, friends, family, and good cheer.

We have had a run of luck lately. Unfortunately, it has not been good luck.

I have mentioned that Leah has had a long-term problem with back pain, even after her spinal fusion back in July of last year. So, there’s that.

And then on a rainy evening in early February, I dropped her off at the entrance to the Walmart where we get our groceries, and went to park. That was not the bad luck. What happened after she went into the store was the bad luck. When I came in, she was sitting on the floor next to the shopping carts, holding her left arm and crying. She had slipped on the wet floor. So, she took an ambulance ride to the emergency room. The ER didn’t seem busy from the front entrance, but apparently appearances can be deceiving. There was no room in the ER; she spent the next several hours in a bed in a hall. That’s Covid for you. Plus vaccination hesitancy.

An x-ray showed a fracture in the upper left humerus, close to the attachment points for the rotator cuff. A later CT scan confirmed that. We saw an orthopedist two days later. He recommended against surgery because, he said, he couldn’t get a better result than letting her arm heal on its own. So Leah has been wearing a sling on her left arm 24 hours a day since February 2. Even worse, Leah is left handed.

Now, my turn. I have been seeing a cardiologist for the last eight years. Back in 2014 my heart got kind of irresponsible and decided to take a vacation. I had an irregular heartbeat and a low ejection fraction. The ejection fraction is a measure of how efficiently the heart pumps blood. I was right at the edge of needing an implantable defibrillator. I decided not to let my heart get lazy, so I started exercising on a stationary bike. When I went back for a follow up a few months later, a second exam showed that the irregular heartbeat had disappeared and my ejection fraction had recovered. The doctor had no idea why. He suggested that I might have had a viral infection, which, as it turns out, can attack the heart. But anyway, I have been seeing the cardiologist once a year ever since. At one point he said he didn’t really know why he was seeing me any more. That’s what I told everyone.

I went in for my routine, pointless follow up last Wednesday. They did an ECG as usual. And the ECG showed an inverted t wave. As you might guess, nothing good can come from an inverted t wave.

My inverted t wave is not as deep as in this image, which might or might not mean anything. As my luck would have it, this appointment was the first in all this time that I saw a PA instead of an actual physician. The PA didn’t offer much information on the implications of inverted t waves, so, of course, I looked it up online when I got home. That’s where I learned that nothing good can come from an inverted t wave. I won’t bother listing all the bad things it can indicate.

I did find one study that found no increased deaths from heart-related problems associated with inverted t waves in leads V1, V2, and V3. But I didn’t know to ask which leads had inverted t waves when I had the chance.

I am scheduled for an echocardiogram on Wednesday. That’s the test that shows the ejection fraction. It compares the volume of the heart chamber before and after it contracts to pump the blood, and the ratio of those two measurements is the ejection fraction. A friend who has had his own heart problems said that the echocardiogram machine itself calculates the ejection fraction. It might actually show it on the screen in real time. I’m going to ask to see the screen as the test is done, so maybe I won’t have to wait for another appointment with the cardiologist to get the results.

I suppose the one possible hint of a ray of hope is that the PA made my next appointment for next March. I assume I will get one sooner if the news is bad.

Based on my online research, and possibly on my own experience, exercise can improve heart function for someone with a low ejection fraction. Unfortunately, I wore out my stationary bike, and the elliptical stepper I got to replace it makes me knees hurt, so finding the right cardio exercise routine is going to be harder than the last time.

I’m not sure whether we have had enough bad luck that we can expect a run of good luck next. Maybe it’s time to buy some lottery tickets.

Probably not.

Two species of birds decided to build nests on our house this spring. One built a nest on top of an electrical box under the porch. The other built on a pair of floodlights on the garage. They were both good sites, because they were sheltered from weather. Neither was a good site, because we have outdoor cats, and one in particular (that would be Sylvester) is a little killing machine.

They were probably the same birds that nested, or tried to nest, on the house last year. Last year I was able to keep one from nesting on the floodlights by climbing a ladder and destroying the nest before it could be completed. Unfortunately, with a bad knee and a bad shoulder, I couldn’t do that this year. So we had a successful nest construction on the floodlights, and a successful egg laying.

I don’t know what happened to the birds under the porch. If it was like last year, the baby birds were killed on the ground. But I think the birds that came from the nest on the floodlights might have made it.

I’m not sure what kind of birds they were. I tentatively identified them as swifts, but I never got a close enough look at the adults. Here they were a few days ago.

There are three birds big enough that they barely fit into the nest. From what I can tell, swifts fly directly out of the nest when they fledge. One day they were chirping away in the nest, and the next day they were gone. I looked for feathers on the ground, a sure sign that a cat had found them on the driveway, but there was nothing below the nest but bird droppings. So I am hopeful that they made it safely away.

I don’t mind the mess they make on the floodlights, or on the driveway, but I worry about them too much to let them nest there again. Once I’m sure enough of my physical condition to climb a ladder, I plan to tear the nest down and put up some kind of screen to keep them from nesting there again. Same with the nest under the porch.

And, speaking of my condition, my shoulder has improved greatly. I don’t have the full range of motion that I used to have, but the physical therapist thinks I will eventually reach that point. My knee is slowly getting better, but it’s not there yet. The therapist thinks my knee will get back to normal, or very close to it. Apparently the two most difficult recoveries for injuries to the knee at a broken kneecap and torn quadriceps tendons. Fortunately, I didn’t break my kneecap, but I did a good job tearing the tendons. The limiting factor for me may be arthritis in my knee.

As for Leah, she is now scheduled for L4-L5 spinal fusion on July 19. She is ambiguous about the whole thing; she dreads the surgery, but she wants to get it over with. Several people who have had similar surgeries have told her that their surgeries significantly reduced their pain. It’s surprising how many people we run into who have had spinal surgery.