January 24, 2024
A day with a bite to it
Neither of us slept well last night, and we both woke up with concerns about our own health conditions. I started out in bed again, but after an hour or two I headed to the couch. Partway through the night I decided that I should probably go to a clinic - partly to discuss my bruised ribs, but mostly because of my cough, which feels like I’ve had it for a month now.
When morning comes I make an appointment online at a CVS MinuteClinic out on Oracle Road, the same one Rachael went to when she needed a prescription filled. An hour later though I change my mind because my ribs feel better the longer I’m upright so I’m less worried about them, and after reading back through this journal I see that it’s only been ten days since my cough started - the day we biked out to the mission with Susan. It only feels like this cough has been with me forever, but ten days isn’t long enough to be concerned yet. I’ve about decided to cancel the appointment when Rachael tells me I’m too late - for some reason the clinic just canceled it themselves without explanation.
So that’s my issue. Rachael’s is her tooth, which she started mentioning only three or four days ago. It’s been gradually growing more painful, and so yesterday she called up her dentist in Portland to schedule an appointment for as soon as we arrive. It’s painful enough that it hurts to lie on her right side, which is a problem because if she sleeps on her left she’s facing me and my intermittent coughing. She slept much better after I got up and left the room.
This morning though, she’s convinced that her face is swelling and her gums are feeling inflamed. Obviously not good, and the sooner she can see a dentist the better. She makes an appointment with one for this afternoon out on Oracle Road, and I help her map out a walking route so she can get her miles in on her way there.
I’m feeling well enough that I’m going for a ride, a more ambitious one than yesterday’s. I decide I’ll head out to Sweetwater and then cycle the northwest corner of the loop around to Rillito Wash. I’ll plan on being home in time to drive out to pick up Rachael after her appointment.
It’s a mostly overcast day, in spite of the looks of the sky in the photo below that I capture biking down the west side of the Santa Cruz. I’m on the west side at first because the east one is pretty sketchy around the Speedway and Grant underpasses, which are often obstructed by folks taking shelter there or in the wash below. After I get to Grant I cross back over to the right bank and ride the rest of the way to Sweetwater.
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I don’t really expect to see anything new today, unless I’m finally lucky and spot the night heron that’s regularly reported from here. I spend about an hour there checking out the usual spots, and even though it doesn’t feel like a particularly good outing I’m surprised later to see that I’ve seen over 30 species again. And, big surprise, there is a new bird on the list - a rufous-winged sparrow, another lifetime first. It’s a species that mostly lives south of the border and which I didn’t even know existed until I started seeing it on the lists here. And I wouldn’t have known I’d seen this one either until I used the Merlin photo matching function to identify it from my one poor shot I came home with. Between eBird and Merlin, I credit them for at least a half dozen new birds on the list this year - ones I wouldn’t have known to look for or would probably have misidentified.
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https://www.inaturalist.org/taxa/68138-Sympetrum-corruptum/browse_photos?place_id=95816
3 months ago
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After leaving Sweetwater I just bike through the rest of the miles, wanting to be home in time to pick up Rachael. Its a pleasant ride, I’m feeling fine and ready to take on a little more tomorrow.
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I’m back by 2:30, the time Rachael’s appointment starts. It’s only fifteen minutes away and there’s no telling how long she’ll be there, so I just hang out at home, looking through the day’s photos and waiting for the call. Two hours later though I still haven’t heard from her so I start driving over assuming she must be about to come home by now anyway. And I’m right - I’m about five or six blocks away from the dentist when the phone rings and I pull over to take the call. When I arrive a few minutes later she’s just finishing up at the counter so my timing was perfect.
There’s no sugar-coating it, the news is bad. She’s losing the tooth, as soon as possible. She has an appointment to have it extracted here next Tuesday, three days after we were planning to leave Tucson. As part of the extraction they’ll fill it with bone graft, and then it will be a half year before she can start the process of getting an implant - which she’ll probably want to do since it’s her first premolar, the tooth immediately behind the canine - close enough that the gap will likely be visible when she smiles.
Well actually, the news isn’t all bad. Rachael reports that her seven mile walk wasn’t most exciting - the neighborhoods northwest of town aren’t the most comfortable to walk through - but she had the foresight to treat herself to lunch on the way to the appointment, stopping at a chain restaurant for a good salad and a pistachio ice cream cone that she slurped down over the last mile to the dentist.
The other good aspect is that this happened now, in country and with time to have the extraction before we leave for Spain. It does present us with some complicated planning issues to sort out though, starting with the fact that it throws our plans for what to do after Tucson out the window. We’ll want to stay in Tucson until the extraction and then probably for a few days later in case there are complications, which means we need to find lodging here and all of the places we’ve booked for the way north - Borrego Springs, Solvang, and Morro Bay - need to be scrapped or rebooked. Something’s got to give to make up for those five days, and Rachael’s probably not going to be up for much activity for at least a few days after the procedure anyway. And, there’s the longer term question about when and where to have the implant done.
More to come.
Today's ride: 24 miles (39 km)
Total: 1,367 miles (2,200 km)
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3 months ago
3 months ago
3 months ago
3 months ago
You have my sympathy on that, and also all the schedule re-boot! At least you are in a good metro area to get things done and to ponder the on yonder as well as being in a great place this time of year.
3 months ago
3 months ago
My Ornithology prof. said when he was doing a bird survey as a student, he noted the various songs one living nearby would sing so he could be on the lookout for them. He could not make out what one particularly screechy one was until he passed a sign swinging in the wind! :-)
3 months ago