I am pro energy

Folks who are not into the Luddites position that we should all be forced to huddle together in great  halls to keep from freezing in the winter and otherwise forgo all the activities that cheap energy gives us freedom to do so need to hammer this home.   "I am not anti-environmental, but I am pro-energy because ALL people should have the choices that energy provides"  

 Now the luddites are attacking hydro electric as too hard on the fishies.   Well maybe it is and we should be embracing nuclear and natural gas but they really really hate those .   Every day there is more evidence that they are not scared of a CAWG scenario, or a mega nuclear accident scenario they are just flat scared that giving subsistence farmers in Africa access to power will somehow ruin their last illusions of being superior.   In fact they would like to return us pesky "Fly over people"  to subsistence farming too.    We should not be able to peruse the same great works of literature as our superiors, let alone be able to travel to the see the wonders of the world and so on.

  I am beyond fed up with the smugness that only the 'right people' should be able to experience things and the masses of common folks would be happier if they were not distracted from their natural destiny of being simple laborers.   I guess I feel this damn strongly because my grandfather was a direct immigrant, leaving Europe and taking advantage of cheap property although he was not in the homestead act period and on the rest of my ancestry it was great grandparents who immigrated and they mostly did so because they were not the landed class back in Europe. 

Boots is home :)

The bad news is he hurt his left hind leg.    He is getting around pretty good w/o putting weight on it and does not seem as sensitive this morning so I'm not going to try to squeeze in a vet visit for him.   I gave him food and water upstairs and shut the door so the dogs can't go up and eat his food since I don't think he should be jumping up on the pet food cabinet counter in the entry to eat with a bum leg.  

I hope Boots comes home

Got home last night to find the door from house to garage wide open, and I had not shut the big garage door when I left for work, or else dad ran the dogs in the eveningand left it open.    And the cat was out.  Fairly sure he was in the neighbor's yard, I heard him and their cat talking trash to each other, ran over there w/o grabbing a flashlight and only saw 2 grey tabby cats and Boots was not ready to end his adventure yet or just possibly neither gray tabby was him.    I was reassured that he was hanging there, not out in the CRP where the coyotes would get him and dead tired and I slept like a rock.   Was hoping he would be around this morning but he was not.

 Oh well, even if its the worst he did have 30 months with us and he was a middle aged cat to start so I don't feel as bad as the young cats that I was letting be indoor/outdoor and they all disappeared over time.   That was what led me to decide when I got Boots from the shelter that he would remain a strictly indoor cat.

Gave Shade her Adequan shot today.   I was debating taking an extra one to booster after the AERC event but its only 3 more days and will be light riding so I think I'll not bother.  The stuff is supposed to be kept between 66 and 77 degrees F and that is hard to do on the road in summer and she shouldn't need the booster less than a week from this shot.   I should call the AERC office and get Sadie an AERC # and ask if I get a reassurance letter that the drug test from Aug 11 was clear.   It should be,  I'd be surprised if my normal not huge volume MSM supplementing with 'only' 3 days withdrawal was a problem although I usually prefer to stop giving it 4 days ahead of time,  but had forgotten.   But again I am wanting to have Sadie's AHA papers so I get the AERC office all the correct details and of course I don't have her papers at the office where I think about the fact I need to get her an AERC #  I'm such an airhead.

 Mom is pretty sure the side effects of the anti-viral are not the cause of her lung issues  and that the anti-viral keeps her from getting painful cold/canker sores.    I just don't know if any of the docs/hospitals have gotten a complete list of what she takes and run it by a pharmacist that is really good and would know if it was bad to take some of those things especially in combinations.

  But since she wants to take prednisone to keep the lungs clear and hope she can taper off that and keep taking whatever all else she is taking I don't feel qualified to say that the drugs are making her sick and try to argue her out of taking them.  I feel like she is taking too many drugs,  some to counter symptoms caused by others but that is just my personal beliefs, I don't have pharmacy training.

Plus I take plenty of stuff too,  I added Claritin to my Sudafed, not replaced the sudafed with Claritin for overnight stuffiness and I take a NSAID most nights and fairly often the full dose rather than just 1 pill and very rarely do I feel like "I'm pretty good tonight I can just skip the NSAID" and hardly ever do I feel like I want to skip my decongestants.   +  I do the nasal spray and take extra Mg + now a herbal blend that is supposed to balance hormones and does seem to be keeping me on a much more even keel.

 I feel more comfortable taking the herbs that Asian women have taken for centuries than asking my doc to test and put me on a modern HRT or a mood drug, but I do like my OTC modern drugs for my chronic allergies/stuff sinuses.    L is terribly reluctant to take any drug, even a Claritin and she is not convincing me to live drug free.   L has been sick a lot this year and is worrying that she is going to get WNV every time she gets an insect bite or is going to get sick from the Camel back, or we are going to have heat stroke just riding...

I'm just trying to maintain moderation myself and maybe I should get in mom's face a bit, because she isn't as sharp as when she got her degrees but neither one of us is ready to have me lecturing her about how to manage her health.  I'll try to put in a subtle nudge or hint more often and hope that if I'm right she gets the message and thinks it was her idea to decide she needs an expert to look everything she is taking.  If nothing else I doubt if it makes sense for her to be on cholesterol meds right now when she is having more pressing issues after the docs and hospitals have pronounced her heart health to be fine. 

Ummm?

Mom wanted me to see how high Acylovir can be dosed.  She thinks she needs more to control mouth sores from the jaw infection issue.   Her  GP had her try it and she thought it was doing well to prevent new sores in her mouth.  

Geez a lot of these side effects mach up with her lung issues she has been having lately and I can't help but wonder if her GP tends to hand her prescriptions as an easy way to satisfy her.    Well if the drug is not what is making her sick the one thing said HIV/AIDS patients have taken it for up to 6 years.   Of course HIV/AIDS.  Docs are less worried about long term organ damage.   Seriously I need that instruction manual.

What side effects can this medication cause?

Acyclovir may cause side effects. Tell your doctor if any of these symptoms are severe or do not go away:

• upset stomach
• vomiting
• diarrhea
• dizziness
• tiredness
• agitation
• pain, especially in the joints
• hair loss
• changes in vision

Some side effects can be serious. If you experience any of the following symptoms, call your doctor immediately:

• hives
• rash or blisters
• itching
• difficulty breathing or swallowing
• swelling of the face, throat, tongue, lips, eyes, hands, feet, ankles, or lower legs
• hoarseness
• fast heartbeat
• weakness
• pale skin
• difficulty sleeping
• fever, sore throat, chills, cough, and other signs of infection
• unusual bruising or bleeding
• blood in the urine
• stomach pain or cramps
• bloody diarrhea
• decreased urination
• headache
• hallucinations (seeing things or hearing voices that do not exist)
• confusion
• aggressive behavior
• difficulty speaking
• numbness, burning, or tingling in the arms or legs
• temporary inability to move parts of your body
• shaking of a part of your body that you cannot control
• seizures
• loss of consciousness

Where is the instruction manual?

I desperately need to look up a few things and get instructions with diagrams and things :P

Mom is in hospital under care of a Dr. from Jewish Respiratory center.   I thought the hospital with the ER admission released her Thursday so she wasn't too sick but they told her she would be better off keeping her appointment with the lung specialist so they released her and that Dr. checked her into the hospital Jewish works with.   

Saturday dad and I visited and it started off pretty good, mom seems like "this Dr wants to get to the bottom of things and find out what is making me ill so they can try to cure rather than just alleviate symptoms.   BUT Dr. wants to do a biopsy to look for interstitial lung disease and mom doesn't want to have the surgery and is back on the "I'm sure I still have infection in my jaw (bone?)"  She told her Dr that and Dr agreed surgery would be bad if there is an infection.    ARGGHH,  maybe there is a lingering jaw infection but multiple Dr.s have looked and not found any signs.  Of course you can't prove a negative so there is no proof for mom that she does not have an infection.   I should try to find some articles on nerve and other damage from an infection, perhaps mom could be swayed that that is what is plaguing her now. 

I also need to call the Dr. and ask some questions like "Can you do a culture to look for pneumonia and find the antibiotic that will kill it?"     What are the consequences if you rule out other things, don't biopsy,  treat for the interstitial disease and it was something else?   

Shade was kind of sneezing some when I rode yesterday and has white snot this morning.   Argghhh I should have kept her on the Pam's hay until after my 50 attempt coming saturday.    Hopefully switching her back will be good.   I may give her the horse decongestant today.   That should be plenty of withdrawal time.

I think Frosty is allergic to brome grass hay after the moldly brome exposure.   He is looking pretty much hive free after tried giving them the straight brome and he got worse so I went "hmmm, maybe he needs hay w/o any brome in it."   That would be good if he needs the straight crested wheat.  Leaves more wheat free bales to feed to Sadie.  But Frosty won't eat soaked alfalfa pellets anymore so I have to get something else to give him his *benedryl capsules and he has seemed generally a bit off his feed.  I hope that is mainly just hormones and excitement from moving Sadie and CJ closer to the mini's but its a bit of worry right now.  

  I put Sadie and CJ together so they can be fed straight brome.   This is stressing Sadie and Lady out but they'll have to cope at least until I get back from WY.   With CJ in with her Sadie can be given her Platinum supps in the pen rather than having to catch her and take her out to eat  them.   Just have to dump CJ some grain first.  He doesn't go exploring if he's got yummy food in his pan and he won't let Sadie share his and then go share hers or anything.    Plus CJ was a bit thin so having him getting the richer brome hay with Sadie makes sense.  

Rode at Mt Falcon Sunday with L.   It was kind of a disappointing ride for me.  The trails were more rocky than I had recalled so didn't get much faster work to give Shade a final bit of conditioning for her 50 and in fact I started worrying that she might get some sole bruising as I didn't have boots on her, just her iron shoes.   And L was kind of a PITA worry wort that she might be getting heat stressed or something.   It was not THAT hot up there just to ride.  Riding is some exercise but its not exertion that generates a lot of body heat.   I still think I want to do the 15 mile fun ride with L and Lady as support for Sadie in Oct if Shade completes in WY and gets her 50 to keep the decade horse goal alive but I don't think L is a candidate to get very serious about the distance riding.  

So very sleepy today

Mom had dad run her to an ER last night.   I suppose it was a good precaution as her legs were swelling but she sure has weird timing.   Perhaps I put the idea in her head;  I asked her how she was doing when I got home at 11:30 pm.  Well I don't have a time machine so I can't test whether not saying anything would have had a different outcome, but I helped her and dad get things together to go and crawled into bed at 10 till 1am.   Then tossed and turned all night instead of sleeping.

I don't have a play by play.  They did admit her but that may just be what works best to get some reimbursement from medicare.  Dad got home at 6am  and fell asleep.  They released mom this morning and she called dad to fetch her to ferry her so I guess she made it to her appointment at the Jewish National Respiratory health center that had been scheduled.

   I'm going to have to get at least a little involved and push for at least a recommendation for an oxygen meter and HRM since dad is quite deaf and with my sinus issues I can't hear anything through a stethoscope.  If we could get some vital signs we'd have a better feeling for whether mom is having 'congestive heart failure' again or not.   She gets fluid in or around her lungs I guess.   I don't know whether to try to get her into an assisted living place for 1-2 weeks or what.   I guess she and dad had figured she could be home by herself and dad could come to WY and trail-ride before last night.   I am encouraged that she had told him he could probably go earlier this week when they discussed it; but now?   Sigh,  I volunteered to pay to have someone come in before I went to my ride on the 12th but its awfully short notice now.    Perhaps I'll just go to the ride and come straight back and try to arrange a trail riding trip with sis and dad for a few weeks later.  Darn this sucks.

Luddites masquerading as environmentalists

This makes me so mad because everyone wants to be a good steward of the environment so its really easy to sell folks on the luddite nonsense.    Folks would never agree to go back a century to unreliable windmills if the concept was presented directly.   But stir up fears of 'NUCLEAR EXPLOSION will cause MASS DEATHS and then give everyone for hundreds of miles around CANCER'  with nuclear power to take it off the table.  Done.

Oops those darned pesky petroleum and mining engineers are providing enough coal, oil and gas to make energy cheap anyway, now what can we do -- oh hey lets stir up fears of CAGW.    As an engineer/scientist the C and A are important to me.   No one with real knowledge and sense denies there is global warming.   There is plenty of  question about the percentage of warming caused by human activity and there is very good reason to be very skeptical indeed that there will be catastrophic runaway warming.   If the earth's system tipped into runaway warming so easily we should have had runaway warming when the medieval warm period happened and more water vapor evaporated from the oceans a 1000 years ago, except we should have had the catastrophe 2000 odd years ago during the Roman warm period and never even made it to the medieval warm period.  

But the Luddites simply don't like everyday folks having access to cheap power and all the liberties and yes also complications that brings.   Now I will grant those Luddites that the complications can become overwhelming for some folks at some times.    But they know darn well the public is not going to buy into any arguments based on "look it is not good for you to be able to have a plasma TV,  AC,  microwave, computer/web access etc etc"  so they have to resort to stirring up fears of the good power sources to try to convince people to switch to "safer --  HA"  power sources that just happen to be a lot more costly and a lot less reliable.

Knowing what I know now I would wager my life savings that if someone suddenly invented a really good way to store power from wind and solar 90% of the "environmentalists" would all of a sudden *realize* that "Oh dear these big wind turbines sure do kill a lot of birds and the mining for materials and the manufacturing of those solar cells and wind towers sure is hard on the environment so we have GOT to cut way down on these harmful things"   Effing scumbags.

UGH, just UGH

I lived through losing a Senate election here in 2010 because the guy I supported and who won the primary was pretty socially conservative.  I supported and voted for him because I thought he'd be much better fiscally and while I'm rather liberal socially  *I* knew that there was no danger of congress passing any socially restrictive new laws.

   Now I wonder if  the GOP would have won that race if the more moderate woman had won the primary.  And Buck never gave an interview and said "a women's body can fight off pregnancy in the case of a 'real' rape"  or said anything anywhere close to that kind of idiotic statement.  The Dems spun up a whole lot of crap out of very little substance and managed to scare enough folks in CO to defeat him.  

Buck had signed the stupid "Personhood" amendment petition and in a rally (not interview)  after the squishy had accused him of not being a man about something he said ".... My opponent has accused me of not being a man ..... so why should you support me .. I don't wear high heels I wear cowboy boots...."      So the squish  cut the quote to  "support me because I don't wear high heels" and attached him as 'anti-wimmen'  and of course the Dem borrowed her out of context attack ad + hit with attack ads with women saying he would outlaw Birth Control pills and fertility treatments because the "personhood" amendment with its "life begins at conception" language.

So for the blooming IDIOT in MO to say in an interview that he thinks abortion should be outlawed in all circumstances, because women hardly ever get pregnant from rape and using some stupid wording of "real" rape?   OMG,  bow out of the race now you stupid effing idiot!

 MO is probably quite a bit more conservative than CO but that is effing shooting a big caliber bullet in your foot right before the starting gun goes off.   And I gather in this case the Dem who had no challenger and MO not having protection from crossover voters in the primary's encouraged her supporters to vote for Akin because she knew he'd be so dumb in some way or other vs the other TWO GOP candidates.

WTH is wrong with MO GOP anyway letting three people vie in the primary anyway?   That is why states have caucuses and conventions, to reduce the field to two candidates so that its harder for mobys to win when the two better candidates are splitting votes from the folks that want their side to win in November.  

UGH UGH UGH UGH UGH UGH.    

need a title

Can't think of a good title right now.  

I feel off today.   It was a reasonably productive weekend.   Better than many this long hot summer.  I put an ad on CL on Saturday and got rid of all but 3-4 bales of the moldy, dusty problem hay.   Frosty's hives are not gone but I think they are marching along towards the shrinking up just to scabby bits of skin state that Sadie's did.   I rode Shade on Saturday and mixed in extra repetitions of the little hills on my quick route I ride from home.   L was out on Sunday and I rode Sadie.   We went about 6 miles and Sadie went on some new to her ditch roads and past the "ooh scary" junk that folks had dumped beside the road.   Lady had to lead the way past the junk but Sadie was good then and Sadie led the way some herself and was a pretty nice ride.    I did some flat work on Shade Sunday evening.   I put out some more fly bait containers on Sunday because we are getting the usual August uptick in the fly population and I have low tolerance for flies this year. 

I was on call at work and also got a site collecting data that has had a long outage and the local contact just noticed and started working with us to get it functional again. 

This morning L called to cancel coming out to have me show her how to long line Lady; so I wormed the horses.  I had meant to do it this weekend but had not gotten it done so it worked out good to have that last minute cancellation.   Filled the horse water tanks this morning.   Got most of the garden and mom's flower beds watered over the weekend.   Caught up the dishes again.   I've been adding bleach to the last few loads to boost the cleaning on the old thing.  I always soak or pre-wash enough that the dishes get clean, but the plates get an icky film on the bottoms over time w/o the bleach.   Some day I'll have to take the bull by the horns and arrange to get that crappy old thing replaced myself.  We keep putting off doing anything about it because of angst that it will be a big mess trying to get a replacement in that space under the counter top.   It would not be the end of the world to have to redo some of the counter top though.  

So not a bad weekend.   Got some things done,  had some fun time riding.   But I feel like I've just been drifting in a current or something.   I didn't get my cell phone activated.  I will have to call them again .... blah, but could not find the ph quick this morning and wanted to get going to work.  Breaks my heart to have to wait a day or 2 to deal with it ---NOT.  

 I guess mainly I'm just in limbo about mom's health.    I thought she was getting better early last week (course I was gone at work a lot.)   She was pretty lethargic this weekend though, even dozed off rather than watching football and she loves her football.    I have to call sis and see if she has talked to dad,  and if she wants to come and ride in WY over Labor day anyway.  (might be OK,  I rode with dad in July,  sis will come down and hunt with him early in Nov.  but I feel bad that he was looking forward to going on this little trip and most likely can't now). 

I'm pretty sure he is at least as behind as me in wrapping head around the fact that mom now has a pretty serious chronic condition.    But then he has been coughing some and I'm not so sure a high altitude trip in 1.5 weeks would be great for his health anyway.  Argghhh.  I really didn't think I'd have to think about parental health issues for at least another few years, but I guess -- a fair # of people are healthy into their 80's now, but its still not terribly unusual to have health issues in late 60's and early 70's. 

Friday already

Seems like I'm still trying to catch up at work.  Well I did take 2 days off last week and have been having to work around a CPU failure that happened on Monday.  I'm just starting to feel some pressure to get some things going that I've had on the back burner.    Oh well, having projects I have to tackle is good, otherwise they wouldn't miss me much if they decided they needed to trim the program budget.

I did ride Sadie Monday, Wednesay and today.   I still have not got in gear to call the instructor I want to try out.  Its ridiculous how bad I am about making calls to set things up.  There is also an element of laziness and not really wanting to commit to driving to a lesson on weekend mornings but I do want to get the training on the horse so I need to just 'GitRdone'.

Shade got the week off, she should be good to go this weekend and its supposed to be much nicer temps.  I'm 'on call' at work so will plan to stay home but I should be able to get in a decent conditioning ride on the sandy field roads. 

 I'm feeling like there is hope for continued 'Tea Party' common sense correction to congress and that Romney and Ryan 'can' win (I don't expect that I'll have confidence that they 'will' win before the voting is over) and I'm pretty encouraged by Ryan as the VP pick.   Seems to set the stage that Romney is serious about fiscal conservatism and he won't just continue the unsustainable spending path if elected which was my big fear.   If they can overcome the MarxSpewMedia and Dem vote fraud this year we might have 16 years of good presidential leadership.

 Not sure what I'll do if the country chooses national suicide instead.  I'll feel like I should emigrate and perhaps I will try to go to Canada.  They are less free than the U.S. today but they might be more free than the U.S. after 4 more years of Barry, + there would be a bit of 'going Galt' and withdrawing any support I am giving to the U.S. system and hoping plenty of conservatives would do the same and leave the socialist leeches sucking on a corpse sooner rather than later. 

So I guess I need to make a CL ad for moldy hay

And I need to be very specific with instructions for dad when I'm gone.   I stuck some hay from a bale that had just a little bit of mold on it in a basket, wanting it fed to Grey while I was gone because Grey is not super sensitive so if the hay is not really bad he'd be fine.  But dad must of figured I was leaving hay to soak for Shade when I got back vs me thinking he would think the hay in the basket was what I wanted fed right away.

And I think Frosty mini is allergic to hay mold too --I am however NOT going to spend $400 for tests for this ungelded, untrained for any darned thing, and unlikely to ever BE trained or used since I don't mess with the mini's and the parents would rather sit and watch re-runs of crap they've seen before than mess with the horses.   I'll try and figure it out for Frosty via trial and error and give him the cheap benedryl capsules.   No testing and no high dollar supplement for him. 

   Last week I 'thought' I told dad to feed only the new hay we just got and stacked in there and added an explanation with "I HOPE Frosty is not allergic to that hay since we just stacked it in there"    He heard it as "I think Frosty must be allergic to the crested wheat hay so feed the mini's brome hay (only brome hay in their area is stuff with some mold on it that I did not want fed to my allergic big horses)     Well Frosty still has definite hives this morning so I think it is a good bet that he is allergic to the hay mold.  We must have gotten some special mold that stirs up the skin vs just being a fine dust that sets up coughing, or both Frosty and Sadie are special and react via skin to the mold allergens.

I'm so frustrated trying to juggle what to feed to whom and trying to always get the hay next to the horses for feeding cuz I don't trust dad to set a bad bale or bad flake from a mainly good bale aside vs trying to feed it.   I don't want to feel quite this needed.  I want to feel like he would muddle along and his horses and dogs would be just fine if I jump ship.  

Finally found a great reason to procrastinate my ride travel

I had a bad tire on my trailer that I noticed only after I had backed it out and was about to catch horses.  I'm probably going to have to get my back axle aligned or something as both tires were wearing on the insides.  I replaced one that I say exposed wires on the inside and replaced the other one for it to become my spare as the spare was quite worn and had cracks visible.   When we took off that tire it was also wearing way heavily on the inside of the tire.     So since I was not sure I wanted to ride the 25  both days anyway I postponed driving to the ride until today.

 Getting to the point I need to get moving now or I won't have daylight to take Sadie for a trail ride today and that has been the plan; perhaps I'm a bit nervous and procrastinating because of that.  But going out by myself, while not quite as good as going out with a good babysitter is better than going out with a non-babysitter and feeling pressured not to cut their ride short.  If I go out by myself I can just turn around if I don't think I 100% safely get past an obstacle.

Ugh, need to pack up for my weekend ride

Mom is back in hospital.  Her lungs were filling with fluid wednesday morning, she called paramedics, felt like she might not make it having dad drive her in.    Hospital did tell her it was good she didn't wait so probably was a good thing to call the paramedics as that mobilizes the hospital folks too.   I am a lousy 'doc' substitute.  She was having some issues tuesday but her doc that it might be hyperventilating from the O2 being too high.   Possibly it was a bit,  her color looked OK to me tuesday and she seemed to feel better after I turned the O2 flow rate down.

My fridge in my weekender trailer is not working at all.  I forgot to ask dad if he could check on it.  Might have a blown fuse,  I can use a cooler, not like its a long trip and I don't even bring serious perishables anyway but its a bummer,  but with us both dealing with mom suddenly being seriously ill, the fridge was not on the radar.  

I'm wavering a bit on bringing Sadie, almost tempted to just take Shade rather than have to deal with a 2nd horse but I do want to get exposure for the kiddo.    Don't know what is going to happen wrt to going to WY in 3 weeks.  Probably dad will have to stay home,  I think he wants to wait and see if mom is even released to home but I don't think they will say she needs #weeks in a nursing home so if we don't line up an aide to stay in the house; or see if there are any assisted living places that will do a short term stay then someone will have to stay home and if we wait there probably won't be time to get arrangements made.   I almost feel like I should not even go, but I really feel like its a great ride to get a 50 done, and will give me time for plan B if we would get pulled.    I suppose I could just encourage dad to cancel, but I just don't want to put off him doing stuff he enjoys.   He doesn't seem to have any major health issues but he does seem to need a lot of sleep, which keeps whispering to me that his healthy years might not extend very long.  

on plus side I rode 5 of 7 days ...

On the negative side I did not trailer Shade out for a longer ride on some hilly trails this weekend.   Only went about 6 miles on sunday from home.   Oh well,  I think I was partly making myself an excuse to not ride the 50 this weekend because that ride has been a long day a lot of times and was a long hot day last year and I think the forecast is hot, but I should have taken a moderate rather than short length weekend ride to prep for the 25 mile distance.  And I must look up the ride info and email that I'm coming, hope they have open registration on friday, most rides do, but they like to have an aprox. head count.  I keep forgetting to contact the new manager.   Old RM used to send out emails to all former entrants.


I rode Sadie 3 times and Shade 3 times in 8 or 9 days and Sadie  was pretty good all those rides but I fell off her riding with L on saturday.  We were only maybe 200 yds  from home and I was relaxed and apparently off center a bit.  Maybe Sadie got an insect sting, anyway she suddenly started jumping and I fell right off,  soft landing fall but I was holding the rein and she was still wound up and while not rearing was raising both front legs 18" or so off the ground and doing little pivots on her hinds.  I was a bit nervous she was going to step on me before I quickly got to my feet.   Got on and rode her the last little bit home.   L was "you're getting back on her?, oh I guess that is what you are supposed to do"  LOL.   Darn right and it was not like I had to shake off a jarring fall to do it. 

Poor mom.  She has been feeling pretty sick and miserable from the after effects of them scoping her lungs.   She also feels like dad and I are not adequately concerned or sympathetic.   I suppose we are not. Because mom has developed a habit of groaning about all her aches and pains etc and has been chronically sick at least 90% of the time for 4-5 years now,  we tend to just tune it out, especially when she seems to be just groaning and grumbling mostly to herself.

  Sounds cold, and I suppose it is; but dad takes her to the Dr when she request and so forth and I catch up her neglected housework and gardening and am available if she needs something.    Now dad and I should recalibrate our sympathy meters because mom is more sick than she was, but that 'boy who cried wolf' parable is applicable for more than just telling whoppers for attention.   With virtually no periods of her keeping a stiff upper lip and just coping silently I got mulish and developed attitude of  sod you for trying to force me to utter sympathies -- we are taking care of your horses and the house and farm and that should be enough without having to mouth sympathetic platitudes.  I can't seem to just flip a switch and turn on sympathy now.  Besides I tend to loathe people who are oh so sympathetic, 'you poor thing, that's just awful ....',  but disappear when you need something done vs appreciating the folks that might not voice a lot of support or sympathy but they show up when you need tangible help.

So mom is home and tethered to a tank

Apparently the standard oxygen set-up is to just give you a tank and yards of tubing to allow some mobility.   I don't blame mom for not liking all that tubing.   I guess we'll have to see how it goes.  If she only needs to be on O2 for a week or so its probably not worth bothering with a concentrator, but if its a month or more I think we should see if they rent them or even buy one if they are not crazy expensive and then re-sell on CL or donate when she no longer needs it.  

 She was 'diagnosed' with COPD or something and just given a prescription for nasal spray or inhaler a few years ago so she has had some long term issues and that has probably contributed to the general sickliness that I had attributed to too much antibiotics from an overly helpful doc when she was doing the pre-school teaching for a few years and catching colds from the little germ bags hat 'became bronchitis' and then the damm jaw infection from the implants.  I'll be proactive to try to keep my teeth but if I do lose them and have discomfort with dentures I'll be a toothless hag and subsist on soup and malts  --like it would be a hardship to have to suck down malts to get calories LOL.  

  Mom has had some issues with chronic cramping/spasms in her hip for months now so  maybe getting full oxygen will allow that to finally heal.  Its all depressing,  in January she seemed to be much better, sis and her SO were down for the Stock show and we went and did a fair amount of walking around and so on and mom was excited because she had not felt well enough to go in ages.  I thought laser treatments from the chiro for the chronic jaw pain and the hip had finally licked the problems and she would have normal health to enjoy a bit of golden years, join dad doing a few site-seeing trips and stuff.    

At least they did go to Europe several years ago, thank goodness they didn't try to wait until dad was retired.  Another reminder that life is short and unpredictable and it is important to carve out time and/or money from the general 'rat race' to do fun stuff periodically as we go along.   Can't just expect to be able to complete a 'bucket list' starting after you retire.  

Mom has scarring in her lungs

I thought she was not getting a whole lot better from the antibiotics for the diagnosed pneumonia.   Dr.s scheduled to do a bronchoscopy and may take a biopsy depending what the camera shows I guess.  I hope they don't find cancer.    But perhaps I did have a sense that her poor health lately had a physical root cause and thats why I should not be working on moving away.   OTOH I am a huge wimp about personal change.   They will also do some kind of heart test but my gut feeling is that any heart issue was from working too hard due to the low oxygen from the lungs and being so overweight.   I think lungs can heal, although at her age maybe not so much.   She is not wanting to be on home oxygen.   I don't know why, she must have negative mental images, but with the concentrators and stuff they have now you aren't just tethered to a nasty tank and the O2 should help metabolism and the weight + give a lot more energy so I believe I'd be "sign me up NOW"  if it was me.

Little by little going Galt

Not packing up and leaving society or only taking a no-brainer job but I am slowly heading that way.  Mostly just slowing changing my mindset from "I HAVE to help and support xyz,  they are family", and not jumping in at work outside of my core areas.    Also jumping in and expressing my opinion vs just 'being diplomatic'  (really being a wussy trying to avoid any sort of contention)  at least online,  I think I've scared them off at work, well mostly I just am not joining hardly any social stuff there.  

  I keep thinking I'd like to get out of this crazy metro area or perhaps out of the state entirely, but I get icy cold feet and stop all activity that might lead to that at the slightest hint that something might develop.   Why is it so hard to figure out what I actually want?  Can't tell if I'm just being an uber scaredy cat about change or if there is something else hiding in my subconscious with this weird behavior pattern.  

Sigh, I used to think horse folk were mostly libertarian/conservative

I suppose plenty are, but there sure are a lot of liberals and pot-stirrers on the internet horse boards.   I suppose I should expect chat boards to attract those folks.   Self reliant folks probably are less inclined to haunt chat boards of any kind.  In a perfect world there would be an active board to share horse tales on w/o having to hold one's nose at the headers for the drama llama stuff and having to practice self discipline not to go gawk at the virtual car wrecks.