Medical stuff: amputations, cataracts, and monkey(pox) business. Eddie's business.

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I haven't written for a couple of days. This is been a time of doctors.

Grandpa Sasha's amputation was last week.  Night before last I took the kids out, three of us on bicycles. We went a mile to the drugstore to buy some crutches for him.  They are available from every drugstore. We bought good ones for about $15.

The guy who did the amputation said that they were going to implant the stents shortly after the amputation.   Grandma Nadia went to a government office where the stents would be available for free.  That's better than the $1000 apiece we were quoted.  I'm glad she's careful with my money.

The doctor there told her that if Sasha had another operation within a month, there would be a good chance he would die on the operating table. Doctors have different points of view. So it looks like we wait a month, and maybe get free stents in the bargain.

Yesterday Nadia brought the crutches to grandpa and he hobbled around a little bit. There had been a question of whether he needed a walker. I think that we have the answer. The crutches will do the trick, at least on level ground. I doubt that he will live again in their fourth floor walk-up apartment, but that's an issue nobody has discussed so far.

I had my cataract surgery on Thursday. Everything went well. At my Friday checkup everything was okay. However, that afternoon things started to go a little bit blurry and the eye started to hurt. I wrote to the doctor an email. 

He said, come in first thing in the morning. They gave me a thorough eye check and injected some sort of antibiotic just below the eye.  On Sunday it was a similar drill with a different doctor, with more injections.  Monday a somewhat different sequence of tests, including a scan of the retina. The mild inflammation is toward the back of the eye. I was a bit surprised that it's not up by the lens, and also that in inflammation back there affects the focus. However, the diagnosis seems accurate because the eye keeps getting better.

I went in again this morning, Tuesday.  The tests were briefer and they showed improvement. My next appointment is Friday.

I don't know exactly how to assess this treatment. My guess is that this inflammation is just one of those things that happens. By the professionalism, the bedside manner and the treatment that I received, I have developed a real confidence in this team. If they made a mistake there doing a good job of hiding that fact and correcting it.

This outfit is much more conscientious about not wasting my time than the clinic who did my left eye a year ago. All in all, I would say that despite this little misadventure, or perhaps somewhat on account of it, I'm impressed. But in areas beyond one’s own sphere of competence it is tough. There are people who have had the Covid jabs and two boosters who wind up thanking the pharmaceutical industry that when they got Covid it wasn't any worse. You can never know for sure what the story is.

There's a bit of good in everything. Every day I take a different route getting to the doctor’s. I'm getting to know the public transportation to the Troeschena section of town quite well.

Also on the medical front,  Alex Berenson yesterday was the first blogger I read who noted that monkeypox is pretty much a disease of gay men. In rapid succession the Epoch Times and another had the same story. It is as narrow as the AIDS, and the syphilis and gonorrhea epidemics.

As we have been awash in monkeypox stories for the last month, it is a surprise to me that this significant fact didn't come out earlier. My Spidey sense was tingling – I suspected some sort of monkey business. This is only part of it.

Several sources, most significantly the Daily Expose, point to the fact that a couple of very small vaccine manufacturers have booked tremendous orders from the government for monkeypox vaccine. 13 million doses.

Why is the government buying it? Why so many? Monkeypox is not highly contagious. If it is confined to the same subpopulation as AIDS, it is more a question of private behavior than public health. It would seem that individual health insurance should cover it.

Though there was some suggestion that monkeypox vaccine might be made mandatory, I agree with Berenson that people would simply not put up with a ridiculous mandate like that.

The Expose article draws other connections. One of the small vaccine manufacturers is owned by Ronald Perlman, a billionaire close friend of Bill Clinton who happens to be in deep financial trouble and needs a bailout.

The war in particular and the world situation in general are driving inflation here in Ukraine. The dollar exchange rate stands at 36 Hryvnia, an all-time high. Vegetables are about 50% more expensive than before the war; meat is up about 30%.

It could be worse.  One of the things I loved about this time of year in Germany was Spargel and Bauernschenken.  Asparagus and ham. I got an invitation to a Zoom session from the Reed College European alumni group with this picture of asparagus at $10 a pound. Could be worse.

Others here, in fact, do have it much worse. Gasoline and diesel have spiked in price and I understand are being rationed.  Bus fare just jumped from 33¢ to 50¢ this week. Still an incredible bargain – I pay it and count my blessings.

After a cold week, highs next week are scheduled to be right around 70°. This is the time of year I like to start swimming, but I could not in any case on account of the eye. Hope we have beach weather in a couple of weeks when I'll be up for it.

Eddie has formed a friendship with Artem, the 10-year-old member of the family living in Vadim's house while they remain in exile in Poland. Yesterday Eddie coaxed a swarm of bees down out of the neighbor's tree into a hive. He tells me his glove picked up about 30 stingers in the process. I am pleased at his initiative and the businesslike way in which is going about this.  Artem's father helped a little bit, but I think Eddie is the main man.

More and more kids are visible in the neighborhood. Not only are they returning from exile, but the good weather is bringing them out. Oksana has invited three families, including Artem’s, over tomorrow for a kids and toddlers play session.

Oksana is a woman of surprising resource. Through the neighborhood Viber group she located a woman who specifically advertised that she fixes the fabric seats of lawn swings. Who would've imagined? So for about $20 we got a new one with the proper kind of heavy fabric. I put it back on the swing yesterday, and the family sat and enjoy the sunset last night after dinner.

That's the news from Lake WeBeGone, where the strong man is almost back in business, the promising lad has other business prospects I'll write about later, and the girls are totally feminine. It's a dangerous topic to write about, but there are vast differences between little girls and little boys, and these two are definitely on the feminine side.

Graham