Just Life | Steve Tilford

I’ve spent more than my share of time with doctors over my lifetime. I was an accident prone kid. Fell out of trees, hit by cars (a taxi cab actually), ski accidents, bike crashes, you name it, I did it. Lots of broken bones, a couple surgeries, and stitches galore.

I thought I wanted to grow up to be a doctor. I liked the whole feel of an emergency room, the tension, electricity. I prided myself on being brave.

Cycling sort of took over that dream. Now, years and years out, I don’t regret it at all. I think that being a doctor is a very, very difficult occupation. Something that overwhelms your life at least, probably more, than bike racing does.

Anyway, like I said above, I think being a doctor is difficult. Difficult for many reasons. The years of education, the hours, the pressure, stress and responsibility for people’s health.

But the main reason, I believe, that being is a doctor is difficult is because we, as a species/humans, don’t really know much about how we function physiologically. We are really in the dark ages of medicine. Diagnosing obscure diseases is very, very difficult.

I know some of you guys will disagree with me here. I have witnessed doctors do amazing things personally, almost godlike. And I have many good friends that are doctors. But, when you look at the whole occupation and all the knowledge people know about themselves, we really don’t know jack about how humans tick. Or any animals for that matter.

Look at this Shingles diagnosis I have. I’ve never really signed off on it. But, I’ve talked to four doctors and all say that I have Shingles. They all agreed that there wasn’t any other illnesses that all the symptoms point. But then I did a blood test yesterday and the IgM number didn’t indicate that I have the Shingles virus. I know viruses are hard to pinpoint, but I’m just sayin’. I’m still taking the antiviral and antibiotics, but I really don’t think I have Shingles.

The same with my shoulder injury this year. They went in there and screwed anchors into my arm bone and tied the tendons back onto my arm bone with string. Doesn’t that sound kind of primitive? It seems that way to me. You’d think by this point of advancement in medicine, they would have a much better way of attaching muscles to their original positions than tying they back down with string.

When I get hurt or sick, unless it is major or urgent, I tend to just sit and wait it out. Most injuries I will wait weeks until I don’t think I’m healing. That is because a high percentage of the time, the body will take care of itself.

If you’re a doctor, don’t take this as a slam. I realize we’ve come a long way since the Civil War. But, we haven’t progressed enough for me to have confidence in about anything going on with medicine. Sometimes I wish there was a good witch doctor around to go to every once in a while.

There aren’t enough of these guys around when you need them.

My bloodtest results from yesterday.

Thank god it’s Friday. I’ve never really had to think that. Actually, yesterday, I wasn’t sure if it was Wednesday or Thursday. When the weekends don’t keep me on schedule, I tend to lose track of the weekdays. I’ve been losing track of the weekdays a lot this season, which is not a good thing.

The last few days I’ve been repairing a window over at the Walberg’s house. It’s a huge oval window in their bedroom. It was rotted on the sill and was leaking water into their wall, then onto the ceiling to their garage. Catherine couldn’t get anyone to come out to fix it and the replacement cost was astronomical, like 5-7K.

I’ve got lots of different types of epoxy that makes the wood better than new. Better than new for this wood for sure. The whole issue is the sills were made of separate pieces of wood that were glued together and they warped up, thus creating a small lake by the window, eventually rotting the woods. Plus, the windows themselves are junky, allowing water in and rotting too.

Anyway, it was going pretty good, then winter came to Topeka yesterday. A micro ice storm came in after drizzling all day yesterday. The epoxy doesn’t harden good enough to sand if it is cold, so I’m hoping it was warm enough the last couple days to allow me to go over there and sand it today. It is only supposed to be in the lower 30’s for the next couple days.

Keith flew out to Seattle yesterday for a job interview. He is flying back here tomorrow and then driving, Jerry, their dog out to Seattle. He flew with their two cats, Millie and Inky. I raised them as kittens and they are cousins to some of our cats. I guess the plane trip went smoothly and the cats are happily on the ground in Seattle.

I’m not really feeling that bad. I go through waves during the day, but generally don’t feel that bad. I’m going to take it pretty easy, exercise-wise, for a little bit. I figure it is not a bad time to rest a bit while I try to figure out what I’m going to do. I’m not so much in control of that just now, so I’m not going to stress about it.

It is weird that it is almost Thanksgiving. I baked a couple pumpkin pies this week. I was going to cook them on convention in the oven, but chickened out last minute. I like convection ovens. It makes so much sense to cook things more even and faster with the air movement. I just haven’t figured out the right time and temperatures yet. I probably should get a convection oven cookbook. Right now when I use a cookbook, it is a 1950’s Betty Crocker cookbook from my grandma. The recipes are great.

Okay, that is about all from here this morning. I didn’t write a web post yesterday because I slept in and then wanted to get working on the window. It sort of stressed me out for some reason. I’ve never felt this to be an obligation, but might have to rethink that now. It was good to think about, which is always nice when you’re doing manual-type labor. I plan to ride today, unless it is just too wet. I’m not much into riding in wet condition when it is in the 30’s, especially when I don’t really need an excuse to not train.