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8-21-08

Moved dad out of the old family home over the weekend. I hadn't realized just how bad of a packrat he had become. Oh, I knew his laundry room had a 10 year accumulation of pill bottles due to his recycling passion. And there was the collection of 20 years worth of leather garden gloves in a big stack on the counter...so there were clues he was a bad packrat, but just not how bad.

We'd already emptied out the house and most of the garage into either his new apartment at Panorama City, or the garage sale, but Sunday we began hauling stuff out of his basement. We'd assumed there wasn't anything down there worth saving or selling. As I pawed through the boxes, I found they were full of books and papers collected over his lifetime.

He had at least a hundred pounds of discarded books from the State Legislature where he worked. When his boss did housecleaning and tossed out books documenting the day to day activities in the Legislature, dad would bring home a couple leather bound books representing 1876, or 1854. Almost random choices it seemed, but there they were, sitting in a box in his basement with zero value to anyone except his packrat instinct.

When his mothers eyesight went bad, he used a majic marker to create a handmade phone book on sheets of legal sized cardboard, bound up in a three ring binder. I could vaguely remember seeing this in grandmas house back in the 1980's, but why did he save it after she died in 1991? The dang thing weighed 10 pounds and now I had to carry it up the basement stairs, through the house, across the front yard and dump it into the 30 yard dumpster my brother-in-law had rented.

Over and over this cycle repeated itself as we laboriously hauled box after box out to the dumpster. Some of the boxes must have weighed 50 pounds. It was me and Sue, my brother-in-law Brent and Brents son John, working away like coolies as we emptied out his life into the dumpster.

It's not like he didn't live his life to the fullest or anything, and is still living it, it's just that he collected so much STUFF! It was easy for him, as he did it incrementally over many years, but we had to empty it all out in 3 days. It was horrible. My back was hurting before I even started from something I did at home, but by noon Sunday my back was so sore I could barely walk.

He made $560 in the yard sale, with people paying pennies for things that cost him tens of dolllars. I need to go up in my attic and toss a bunch of junk...I don't want my kids to go through that.

8-14-08

Climbed at Exit 38, gunshow wall Sunday with Fletch and Christine. It had rained hard Saturday when they were predicting 40% chance rain on Sunday. I called Chris to bail Sat. night, but she said Fletch wanted to go up anyway and see, so I figured what the hell, at least we could hang out.

Since far side/gunshow faces south, it dries first and that's where we headed. There was a water drip down the start of bliss, but we climbed the nine to the left while it dried enuf to climb. After we'd all sailed up bliss, I decided to try the 10c to the right. It's very short, but hard. I've never cleanly led a 10c outside, and wasn't at all sure I could make it. I sort of stalled out at the sequence through the crux moves, pawing around with nothing to grab.

Finally I found a difficult series of side pulls and stems that allowed me to raise my right foot to a knob and clip the next bolt. After that there were holds again and I finished a clean onsight send to high fives all around. Next Chris led the first pitch of the chossy nine and brought us all up where we took turns cruising up the second pitch. We're all so warmed up by now that a friction nine barely slows us down. I've been terrified on that pitch, so it was ultra cool to cruise it.

On a sadder note, I've been having dizzy problems almost every day. None of them have involved barfing, but that's due to the new homeopathic vitamins I take: vertico heel. I can walk through them, though unsteadily, and probably drive as well, though I stay away from the car during them.

The worst one was Monday afternoon when I was explaining something to one of my best, but most demanding students. She asks questions in stacks of 10: Oh, and one other thing I was wondering about...and now that you've explained that, what about this other problem here...on and on. I like her, and usually enjoy these lab sessions, but right in the middle of a blitz of questions, I felt the hammer blow of dizzyness hit me. She was talking at the time, so I just sat there, feeling the dizzyness escalate into vertigo and had to time to think: here we go...when it tapered off into plain old dizzyness.

I told her I felt a headache coming on, and got out some vertigo heel pills to put under my tongue. That helped, or at least prevented it from getting worse but within about 15 minutes I left and sat in the bathroom for 15 minutes, after which I retreated to my office. It was 3 anyway, so no harm done.

I've had at least some kind of symptom almost everyday for about a week now. If it's not the hot flash ones that come and go quickly, it's the slow onset kind that last hours. Either way, it's a depressing turn of events.

On the bright side, I scheduled an inner ear steroid shot for the end of the month with Dr. Souliere. That's right after the end of finals at the start of vacation, so if it works, it's great timing. In looking at my entries on www.menieres.org, I see I had another bad spell 5 months ago after winter quarter, but I've been fine until a month ago...so this also may pass. Living though it is very challenging. I did bike ride with Sue yesterday and felt great, even my bad knees of the last two weeks are improving, though now I have a very sore back, the second back pain problem in a month. I wonder if it's all related. Maybe I need a witch doctor to burn some healing smoke around this tired old body.

8-4-08

Christine and I climbed in Leavenworth this weekend. This was my first trip since Menieres disease began acting up regularly over the last two weeks. On Tuesday of last week I began taking 9 vitamins everyday that have been said to minimize the effects of the disease. On the way over I had my worst "attack" and it was somewhere on Snoqualmie Pass as Christine drove. I was sitting there talking about the disease, when, almost as if it heard me, I felt a wave of vertigo pass over my body, like someone had turned on a huge electrical magnet and my head was cast iron. I felt the pull of it on my head, and I gripped the door brace tightly, thinking: here we go...when it suddenly passed, like a sudden bout of stomach gas.

It was all over within 8 seconds, and I was fully alert, my vision was fine and I could have easily climbed or driven through it. That was a huge improvement over the early "drop attacks" on Friday and Monday when I was almost violently slammed down onto my elbows on the table I was sitting at.

Saturday we climbed all 4 pitches of R&D with Christine leading Cocaine Connection, and the chimney pitch, me leading the other two. After leading Godzilla clean at Index the previous Saturday (between drop attacks) everything felt really easy. I sat through every belay dreading another Menieres attack, but none came. She has me belaying her with her grigri in case I do get one, since it works even if you let go, but it wasn't necessary.

At the top of R&D we continued up to Bob's wall where Christine led the 5.7 and I led the 5.8+ on the right end. I felt really solid up there. There is a stem hold off to the right that makes placing gear at the roof move much easier. The roof move itself is pretty much an alley oop over the edge on sinker jams. They get better the higher you reach.

Sunday morning I was dreaming in the tent when a wave of vertigo washed over me. I woke up and things were spinning lightly, but not so much that I couldn't take down the tent. I had my calculus compositum vitamins handy and took a couple of those, they really help. Within an hour most of the dizziness was gone and we headed for classic crack for some climbing.

Chris led Classic, but hung on most of the pieces. She was having an off day, the first time I've seen her even slow down on anything. She followed Ed's Jam at Tieton just fine, and that was very similar climbing. We all have bad days. She did a very nice job on the seven plus to the left of classic, even leading it better and with less whining than me. I futzed around for 10 minutes at the crux on that one, but she pulled right through with excellent footwork. I finally figured out that you just have to stick your right foot in the perfectly good jam and stand up, using the pinch hold for balance. Then you can get those sinker red camalot hand jams and you are safe. The pro was two green camalots, and one of those looked bomber so I think a fall should be quite safe.

Next we went to dogleg where she backed off after protecting the crux move. I sailed through that, wondering why I'd ever thought it so hard. I've hung dog that heck out of that crack, but I'm so warmed up now that it's a different climb. I think this homeopathic vitamin regimen makes the disease much more user friendly. When the fluid leaks out of my ear, there isn't very much of it because all the vitamins cause it to be absorbed before it can cause vertigo. Or something...At any rate, I think I've turned a corner on it...I have hope now, whereas before I was thinking it was all over.

Clint got hired as an RN by Tacoma General Hospital where he now works after school as a nurse tech. He still has two weeks of school left, and has to pass the state license exam for Registered Nurse, but he is so good at studying now after 4 years of taking tests that I think he'll be fine.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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