Windfall

We just took our first camping trip of the year, a two-nighter to the Old Cascades. Windfall had the road to our destination—Windy Pass—blocked, so I got out my new Gerber backpacking saw and my old Boy Scout handaxe, and went at it. After clearing a few blockages, we began to suspect that the problem wasn’t so minor as we had hoped. We unfolded our bikes and set out to see how far the windfall continued. After a half-mile, we gave up.

We camped in the road, right at the spot where we had stopped our clearing efforts, and tried another road the next day. It too was blocked, so we tried a third. It had a few blockages, but nothing we couldn’t handle. After finding a congenial campsite on an abandoned logging spur, we set-off up a jeep road on our bikes, but ran into snow at 3,500 feet. We can bike over firm snow, but this was so mushy that we found it hard to even push our bikes through. Soon the snow grew deeper, and the areas with snow became more numerous than the areas without snow, but we persisted for two miles.

The third day, we descended to 2,500 feet, and found a biking route that was idyllic. Warm but not too warm; sunny, but with just the right amount of shade; a singing brook every quarter mile; myriad wildflowers; tender new leaves; and, of course, the company of my young bride. I never had a better day. The only downside was that I drug the blade of my saw across the back of my fingers and hit an artery. I was dreadfully embarrassed, the more so because I had drug the same saw across the same hand the day before but with less effect. The bleeder made me pretty much worthless for purposes other than holding my tightly bound hand in the air, but I had been in the process of cutting the last downed tree that lay between us and home anyway. Peggy will now be doing dishes for a few days.

I often think of living in the woods, not in a house, but in my van. I would camp at the end of abandoned logging roads, and hide their entrances with brush. When I tired of one spot, I would move to another. I know this is a fantasy that probably looks better in my imagination than in reality, but it’s an old fantasy, and one that I might try someday.

Lilies and Car Tags

We are having our first warm days since last fall. I bike amid greenery, my wheels afloat, winter’s gray defeated by color.

I’m selling my car tag collection on Ebay. Between Ebay and Craig’s List, I’ve sold seventy items this year—two air purifiers, some tap dance shoes, a $450 backpack, a Champion Juicer, a climbing helmet; all stuff that weighed on me. But then all that I own weighs on me; it’s just a matter of what I’m ready to let go of. Right now, my father’s potted lily is in the driveway waiting for a passerby to give it a new home. If he had bequeathed me a compact cactus, I would have been okay, but his lily has all the exuberance of a Walt Whitman poem, and I never wanted it. For the fourteen years since he died, it has resided on a table in the den making it impossible for Peggy and me to see one another when we watch TV. A thousand times, I’ve wanted to get rid of it. Now I am. Maybe. My father’s lily defines my relationship with the things I own.

Louisiana car tags from the fifties and sixties bring up to $80. Alabama does well too, but Mississippi tags often fall short of Ebay’s 99¢ minimum. I’ve written a couple of times to a man in my hometown of Brookhaven, a man I met on Ebay. He collects Mississippi tags, and I tell him he’s lucky, because he can get them cheap. It’s better to treasure things that no one else wants. When I was a boy, I collected model horses, and would look through store shelves for any that had broken legs. I wasn’t trying to save money—I didn’t even know I could save money—I just knew that no one else would want them.

I have a molasses jar full of Pacific Ocean beach sand that I bought at an estate sale in Minnesota. The jar was filled on Friday, July 25, 1952 (according to the writing), and I bought it because I knew that it would be thrown out. I verified this by returning to the sale when it was closing.

I once thought that I would be happier if I didn’t own so much. Now, I’m not sure; I just know I feel lighter, because ownership—at least of the nonessentials—represents slavery. Peggy and I spent a summer in Fresno where she worked as a traveling nurse. We only took with us the things that would fit inside our Ford Tempo. One of my fondest memories of that summer is of only owning one kitchen knife (a Buck hunting knife that a brother-in-law had given me). Since it was only one knife, I kept it on the countertop, and, since it was our only knife, I kept it sharp. That was a tough summer in that we had no idea which direction our lives were about to take, us so I can’t say that it was a happy summer overall, but I smile when I remember the joy of owning so little.

Peggy loves to own things, and the only thing that tortures her about them is the fear that someone might steal them. I worry about this too. I even hate to leave on vacation, because I worry about something happening to Peggy’s button collection. I worry about Peggy’s buttons more than Peggy does, because protecting Peggy and her stuff is my responsibility. Also, she uses her button hobby to shield herself somewhat from the evil of the world, and I don’t know how she would fare if that evil stole them. I don’t even know if a thief would want her buttons. I’ve gone back and forth about the matter, and my conclusion is that I can’t say he would want them, but then again I can’t say he wouldn’t.

Dad’s lily is gone. I was happy when I noticed it missing, but then I saw it on the porch next door. I don’t think it will be happy there because of the dry summer winds, so I don’t feel like I have gotten rid of it after all. I might ask for it back.

Coffee at Slocum, The Cooler

I had my surgical follow-up yesterday, and, my other errands having gone smoothly, arrived 45 minutes early. I wanted a cup of coffee, but Slocum Clinic (which, despite its name, doesn’t treat sex disorders) no longer gives away coffee—they sell it. I already resented the change, but after I woke up in post-op, and was told that I couldn’t have a cup of coffee unless I could find someone to go downstairs and buy me one, I really resented it; and resolved that I would never drink another cup before I would buy it from Slocum. So, there I was, riding my bike around the block looking for another place to buy coffee. The only establishment I saw was a bar called The Cooler.

I haven’t been to a bar in maybe twenty years, but, remembering that Eugene bars are smoke free, I decided to take a chance. I intended to buy my coffee and drink it at Slocum (figuring on an act of civil disobedience if challenged), but the atmosphere under The Cooler’s gambrel ceiling suited me. I found a deeply stuffed chair and got out a couple of books (I always take books to appointments). Then it struck me that I frequent bars so seldom that I should take inventory. These are my findings: soft fifties music was playing at a respectable volume; the floor, walls, and ceiling were all natural wood; and there were only four other customers. Two were middle-aged men who were drinking alone, and the other two were a man my age and his companion—a good-looking blond two-thirds my age. I also counted one marlin (stuffed), one moose head (also stuffed), three pool tables, ten mute TVs (on nine channels), a variety of neon liquor signs, and a fair amount of college football regalia.

I enjoyed myself so much that I fantasized becoming a regular, but, right away, I hit upon a problem. The coffee was $1.25, and I tipped the barmaid a quarter. If I went to The Cooler five days a week, fifty weeks a year, that would come to $375. Considerations like this are why I drink my beer and coffee at home. If everyone held my values, a lot of businesses would go out of business.

My doctor’s appointment went well. I’m doing fine he assured me, and I agreed. Then I raised hell about the coffee situation, saying that the nurses hate it too (they can’t even have a coffee pot in their break room) and that one of them told me about the patients who wake up with headaches (having been NPO all day) and mad because they can’t have their coffee. He explained the situation thoroughly to his satisfaction, and concluded by saying that he is on the committee in charge of the coffee cartel, and will see that, “A free cup of coffee comes with every surgery.” We left on good terms.

Sleep Apnea

Obstructive sleep apnea is caused by loose tissue (turbinates, tonsils, uvula, soft palate, etc.) blocking the airway. The problem appears during sleep because that’s when everything relaxes, and it gets worse with age because that’s when everything relaxes more. There are five treatments: tracheostomy, surgery, dental devices, weight loss (if the patient is fat), and a breathing machine called the CPAP. Trachestomies are for when nothing else works. Surgery and dental devices aren’t terribly effective, and surgery also has some curious side effects like making the patient talk like a duck and drop food from his nose. With another surgical method, the patient’s jaw is broken and pulled forward throwing his teeth out of alignment. I’ve already had two sleep-related surgeries. One was for a deviated septum, the other for the same thing plus chiseling bone from my sinuses and tissue from my turbinates. Without the second surgery, I couldn’t have gone as long as I have without a CPAP.

The CPAP (continuous positive airway pressure) does pretty much what it sounds like it does: it pumps air down one’s throat continuously so the airway remains open. How much air varies. Most machines pump a steady amount, but I have a “smart-PAP” that adjusts from a low of ten (cm H2O) to a high of sixteen. Sixteen is one shit-load of air.

The patient wears either a mask or a fat cannula. The first mask I tried created a pressure sore on my nose, and the next three leaked, so I’m using a cannula. The problem with both masks and cannulas—even when they fit—is that they occasionally allow air to escape, especially when the patient turns over. This requires a certain delicacy of movement and considerable adjustment and readjustment throughout the night. Otherwise, the wind that is supposed to go down my throat is blowing loudly across my face or into my eyes, creating the risk of an eye infection.

I try to think of my CPAP affectionately, but that is like thinking of a wheelchair affectionately. On the one hand, I am glad I have it, but on the other, it is noisy, bulky, ugly, bothersome, expensive, requires daily cleaning, and makes it impossible for me to wander from an electrical outlet. This last part is the worst of all because I don’t trust technology to always be there, and because I have a powerful need to escape it occasionally.

I often lie in bed listening to my CPAP, and trying to understand why it behaves as it does. Last night, just as I was getting to sleep, the pressure started going up and down at regular intervals, as if the machine was a large beast breathing on its own. The trouble was that its breath didn’t match mine. It would force me to inhale for too long, but not allow me enough time to exhale, so I felt like I was suffocating. I tried to breath normally in the hope of forcing it to breath with me, but this required that I work really hard, and I soon lost sense of what a normal breath felt like.

I didn’t know what else to do, so I took the same ineffective steps over and over, things like rerouting the six-foot hose, readjusting the cannula, resetting the switch, and even repositioning the machine. I also wondered if I was imagining the problem. After all, it takes some people weeks to work up to using a CPAP for one whole night, yet I’ve used mine all night every night, so maybe the strain was getting to me. I thought and thought about it—which wasn’t easy while struggling to breathe. After awhile, either the machine or I settled down, and the rest of the night passed peacefully.

The main difference I notice with the CPAP is that I dream A LOT. This was even evident in the sleep lab. Without the machine, I dreamed little (and those dreams were often about suffocating). With the machine, I have one colorful and richly detailed dream after another. Maybe I had built up a dream deficit. My theory is that apneas would end whatever dream I was having, and it would take me awhile to settle back into REM sleep, only to be hit by more apneas as soon as I did.

I’ve also noticed that I don’t wake up headachy and exhausted. Instead, I wake up with my nose raw and achy due to the cannula pushing upward against my nostrils. I also wake up with a devilishly itchy throat if I don’t sleep with a harness that keeps my mouth closed. Since I also use a toothguard to prevent me from grinding my teeth to powder, getting ready for bed is tedious, although it’s not the work I mind, but the thought that I will have to do it for the rest of my life.

My father preferred death to pills because—along with his belief that the pharmaceutical industry was ripping him off—he felt that a life that had to be permanently preserved out of a pill bottle was beneath his dignity. I understand his point, and a CPAP strikes me as worse than a whole boatload of pills, but dignity is subjective and death extreme. I don’t know how Dad felt about the indignity of snot, shit, and the bizarre appearance of human genitals, but he survived all of them. This leads me to suspect that—in his mind—the indignity of pills consisted of the dependency he felt upon the despised industry that provided them.

Food for life, he could, and usually did, grow for himself, but pills for life were from an alien source and made of alien materials. They made him feel powerless in a way that congestive heart failure did not, and by choosing death, he regained his power. It was his choice, and I respect it. Most of us never acknowledge that there comes a right time to die. We say we long for heaven, but we will spend any amount of money and put others to any amount of trouble just so our sorry carcasses can breathe for one more day. Like my father, I believe there comes a time when dignity demands that a person say “no more.” I am closer to being there than I was even five years ago, but I hope to tarry a while longer.