Projects

Old habits die hard. My whole career was built around projects – things that has a plan, with milestones, and culminated in something. Now I find myself organizing some aspects of retirement that same way – into clumps of activities that are very focused on an objective.

Virtually all of our vacations are projects – with a definite plan, some pre-vacation study or activities, and then the vacation itself. Afterward I almost always write some blog posts about it so that wraps up the project. You’ve probably noticed the series of posts about Hawaii and Tucson most recently.

Another type of project is the Winter Tree Hike at Belmont guide I developed as part of my project to become a Master Naturalist in Maryland. That’s one I have finished recently. Now I need to create the Spring/Summer version.

I’m starting a group of photography projects around themes like model trains, seed pods, stumps or reflections. They are not as cleanly projects since the ‘end’ will be determined by the accumulation of enough images to warrant a blog post on the topic!

It always feels good to put the last flourish on a project; it is the biggest appeal for thinking about collections of activities as a project rather than just activities that merge with all the continuing activities of day to day life.

The Participatory Patient

I am past the stage in my life that I accept everything a doctor tells me without question. I’ve come to realize that they are specialized and trying to meet patient expectations that can vary considerably. There may be some patients that always want a medical procedure or drug to solve a perceived problem since that is what my doctor seems to expect of patients. My expectation is just opposite; I want to avoid drugs and medical procedures unless absolutely necessary - where it is very clear that the benefit to me is greater than the risk (both short and long term).

I like the standards of care but expect that they are tweaked with data from my particular test results. And I expect the doctor to be current on the recommendations from analysis of similar situations (i.e. the big data of medicine) and be able to clearly explain their rationale for me.

But it is hard to be a participatory patient…and hard on doctors to with new studies coming out all the time and not necessarily in their area of specialty.

The situation that started my thinking about this was a recommendation that I get an ultrasound guided needle biopsy on a thyroid nodule. I did a search and discovered that my nodule was the minimal size for this recommendation. When I met with the surgeon, I brought this up and he admitted that it was ‘low risk, low value’ but recommended that I go ahead and have the biopsy before the nodule got bigger. I acquiesced – but it was marginal.

The procedure was done and then the results came back via the surgeon’s office a few days later: the nodule is benign and I was told to have another thyroid ultrasound in 6 months. In checking the literature, I discovered that new guidelines re thyroid nodules came out from the American Thyroid Association in January of this year…and their recommendation after a ‘benign’ cytology from a biopsy is 12 months for a thyroid ultrasound.

The net of all this is - if I don’t challenge the doctor’s recommendation the ultrasounds will be done more frequently than the guideline and that increases the cost to me (both in $ and time) and to my insurance company.

Now I’m beginning to wonder about the timing of a lot of diagnostics and checks. It is hard being a participatory patient!

Different in 2016

Now that we are more than a month in to 2016 – I am getting serious about what habits I want to tweak this year. They are a little different than a ‘resolution’ or a goal because of the way I am thinking about them as habits. Habits are the things I do almost without thinking and there are strategies for changing them that apply.

The most significant one I am changing (not the optimism) is to stop drinking soft drinks entirely. Late last year I stopped using artificial sweeteners (and didn’t start using sugars) except for those in the Diet Pepsi. It’s time to stop the soft drink habit both because there is no nutritional benefit (and may harm), they are some of the heaviest items in my grocery bags, and the plastic bottles are a significant contributor to the recycle ‘trash’ bulk. I tried the strategy of just stopping suddenly and that didn’t work very well. I fell off the wagon after a few weeks. Now I am color coding the days on my calendar: red if I have a soft drink, green if I don’t. We’ll see if that works. Concurrently – I am developing drinks (water with a little black cherry juice is my current favorite) that I can have in lieu of a soft drink. So I am applying habit changing strategies:

• Make is conscious rather than automatic by calling attention to it (color coding my calendar)
• Develop a substitute habit (another drink choice)

Another habit that I am changing is when I wear my glasses. I have worn glasses or contact lenses virtually all my waking hours since I was in third grade. In the past few years, I have noticed that I am very comfortable reading on my tablet without my glasses. Just recently, I’ve discovered that quite a lot of what I do on my computer can be done without my classes. I tried it because I noticed that I was holding my head at an angle (to look through the part of the lenses for the best computer distance vision) that lead to quiet an ache in my neck and shoulders by the end of the day. The neck and shoulder problem is totally resolved by not wearing my glasses as much when I am at my computer so – we’ll see if I continue to like using the computer without glasses…. or whether I get some glasses specifically made for use at the computer.

Giving up soft drinks and not wearing my glasses as often are going to be challenging…just as breaking any long duration habit always is. I don’t think I could tackle 10 things like this…but 2 – I should be able to focus enough to change these habits.

Tucson Souvenirs

Earrings! They are my favorite souvenirs – not too expensive and small enough to be easily packed for the trek home.

The most unusual earrings I purchased this time were the ones that used cholla cactus stems as a large ‘bead’ (upper left). I noticed the cholla cactus around Tucson because they seemed to be more colorful than just about anything else.

I bought the hummingbird earrings since we did see quite a few hummingbirds during our walks…. again, the earrings are a good reminder of one of our trip highlights.

The bear earrings were a serendipity. I bought them as a reminder of the excellent black bear lecture I attended just before our trip….and I liked the symbolic representation. When I saw the arrow inside the bear symbol I thought of the 20,000 calories a day the bear needs to eat in the fall (does the arrow represent the digestive tract?)!

A Sad Journey

Traveling for a funeral is difficult. There is a preoccupation with what has happened – sometimes denial, sometimes anger, eventually acceptance. For me the stages of grief sometimes jumble all together. I can be savoring memories of the person and in the next second noticing something that I want to share with them….jerking myself back to the reality that they are not going to be there.

My journey a little over a week ago started at the airport on a very foggy and wet morning. I appreciated the busy-ness of the airport and the bustling of the many other passengers. Everything went smoothly and I realized that handling a lost bag or a flight delay would have been difficult. I was already very close to being overwhelmed.

The next day was sunny and that helped my mood too. Bits of greenery in the garden around collections of stones

And birdhouses and toy construction equipment helped too.

The next morning we were up early for a 4 hour drive to the funeral. When we started out before sunrise the clouds looked thick – almost ominous – in the direction we were going. By sunrise they were clearing although I was still as blurry as the picture and was glad someone else was driving on the first leg.

I felt better after the sun was up…stressed then calm during the funeral itself…the remembered another funeral in the same cemetery at the graveside. My grandmother was buried there almost 30 years ago. On that day is sleeting and the ground was icy. For this funeral, it was sunny, cold and the ground was muddy. The shoes I worn for this funeral were flats – much better than the heels I’d worn at that funeral long ago. I noticed that there was lichen growing on the top of my grandmother’s headstone….another indicator that time has passed.

Afterwards – the family ate a meal together. We all felt better for the sharing of stories. Some of us that live further away don’t see each other as often as we did in our growing up years.

And then is as another 4 hour drive and a flight back home. The flight home provided some quiet contemplation time (being alone in a crown of people) from the Texas landscape in the security line to the waiting area at Love Field ... and then a wonderful conversation with a woman sitting next to me on the plane. It was just what I needed emotionally – even though I didn’t realize it before it happened.

In the end – it was a sad journey…but the lowest points were brief with memories of so many happy times to savor and help me move on.

Zentangle® – December 2015

It’s now been a full year of Zentangle®-a-day. It’s become an easy habit to maintain. Did I draw more spirals and fiddleheads in December with Hawaiian vegetation as my inspiration – maybe. I also continued to name my Zentangles. Can you find the one I titled ‘female cyclops’?

--

The Zentangle® Method is an easy-to-learn, relaxing, and fun way to create beautiful images by drawing structured patterns. It was created by Rick Roberts and Maria Thomas. "Zentangle" is a registered trademark of Zentangle, Inc. Learn more at zentangle.com.

Learning Log – January 2016

December was full of learning opportunities - surprising with no Coursera classes!

Udemy. I discovered a new-to-me source of free or inexpensive short courses. The first one was referenced in the Ancient Egypt course I’d completed via Coursera in November. The courses I finished in December were:

Blue: a symposium exploring aspects of life in Ancient Egypt

Napoleon in Egypt

I have already started two more in January:

Unearthing the Trojan War: The Life of Heinrich Schliemann

Photography Masterclass: Your complete Guide to Photography (I got it when it was on sale for $10)

The Udemy courses tend to be chart sets with a lecturer…not as many references or extended reading that usually accompanies the Coursera course. Still – I enjoyed the topics and will explore more of the courses they offer.

Travel to Hawaii. The biggest source of learning experience in December was traveling to Hawaii. I had never been to anyplace like it and the length/complexity of the travel was more too. There were all kinds of tangential topics too – like learning about Dengue Fever (they were having an outbreak while we were there).

Looking forward into January – I am set for more courses because there is not so much going on otherwise. Along with the two Udemy couses, I’m starting one from Coursera as well: Soul Beliefs: Causes and Consequences – Historical Foundations.