[Magdalen] No mail...

[Jay Weigel]

April has also been a tad crazy for me! I'm still struggling with rehabbing
my left hand, and it's a slow progress. In addition to the ulnar nerve
business, I have developed a trigger finger in my left "birdie" (middle
finger) which shows up when I work with wire or do other fine work for a
consistent period of time. I also have a bit of a one in my left index
finger. I had an appointment with my hand surgeon this past week and she
said she didn't thing those were directly connected with the surgery but
existing tendonitis might have been irritated by ulnar nerve irritation.
She said she could give me a steroid shot in the tendon which would likely
relieve the tendonitis and stop the trigger finger, but I really don't want
to do that now as I am getting ready for two shows. I will think about it
if it gets really bothersome though.

As if that weren't enough, my eye problem took a drastic turn and wasn't
helped by the front office staff at my optometrist's office. I drive an
hour each way to see this guy because he's so good, but since his  practice
was bought out by a franchise, I've had problems with those people. The
last time I went in, I went because I thought I had a corneal abrasion and
the urgent care clinic here had recommended that I see him if it didn't get
better...which it didn't. I also wasn't seeing too well out of that eye.
The front staff misinterpreted that and decided it was a routine
appointment for an eye exam, for which I wasn't due until July and told me
I'd have to be self-pay because my insurance wouldn't pay for it. By that
time i was pretty irritated and was like, WHATEVER, I just need to see my
doc, so I said "I don't care, just get me in there." So when I saw the
doctor, he took a good look and said no, it wasn't a corneal abrasion, I
had what he called a "divot" in the cornea and needed to see a cornea
specialist ASAP; he thought there was one in Harrisonburg and would have
the staff make an appointment. and he'd bill Medicare for this visit. He
also wanted me to wear my contacts as much as possible because they acted
like a bandage. Several days went by and I didn't hear from the office so I
called them and they were all. "Oh, I'm sorry, were we supposed to do
something?" Then I got a call back saying that the doctors in H'burg did
not have a corneal specialist on board so they'd have to e-mail my doctor
to see what he wanted them to do. By this time I was absolutely fuming and
about to track my doctor down at one of his other offices. A couple of days
later, what should land in my e-mail but a survey from the company which
owns that office....!!!!!! Well, I filled it out, praising my doctor to the
skies (after all, I do drive an hour each way to see him because he is that
good) but I am afraid I really SCORCHED the front desk staff quite badly,
saying, among other things, that they needed further training on what to do
when a patient has a real problem. And what should happen but the next day,
almost as soon as I got up, the young man from the front desk that I had
been dealing with called me to say that he had called my doctor and there
was a corneal specialist in Fairfax that the doctor recommended. I said no,
that was out of the question, Fairfax was much too far (it takes 2.5 hours
to get there!), and would he please find me one in Charlottesville. He
finally called back and said well, the doctor didn't know any in
Charlottesville, but he found one with great patient reviews and an A+
rating with the Better Business Bureau and would that do, and I said fine.
So in about 15 minutes he called me back with an appointment....at 8 am
Monday morning. By that time I was too tired to deal with it all and just
said okay. SO....at 8 am there I was on the east side of Charlottesville,
blurry as hell, dealing with a bunch of paperwork. Then a very nice young
(aren't they all now?) doctor walked in and asked me all about what had
been going on, and from there on it was easy. Turns out I have, not just a
"divot", but 4 actual HOLES in my cornea, resultant from the shingles
lesion that apparently left a weak spot. They were apparently trying to
heal, but it was very slow. Wearing the contacts had helped, but taking
them out each night had slowed the process. We discussed alternatives and I
opted for the least drastic, which is a "bandage contact", a lens worn
24/7, with antibiotic drops 4 times a day, and a tiny plug in the lower
tear duct to keep the drops from washing away, and wearing glasses all the
time. I go back in 2 weeks at a much more reasonable hour to assess the
progress.

AND...it was my first Orthodox Pascha, at least as a participant. I used to
go with my friend Sheila to the Greek Orthodox Church in Knoxville to their
Pascha Vigil, but then I was an observer. This year I was a real
participant in my tiny parish in the Old Rite Russian Orthodox Church and
it was wonderful, if loooooong! One family had brought all four of their
children, who slept through most of the service until we woke them up with
the singing of the last  psalm and very vigorous repetition of "Christ is
risen from the dead, trampling down death by death..etc" and then of course
they wanted to eat, and there was plenty to eat, including the traditional
kielbasa and Easter breads. Many things are familiar to me of this season
and many are not, but on the whole most are. And for a few days it felt
weird to be eating meat again after that long season of Great Lent! (I did
get two exemptions, once when traveling and once when I was in the
hospital, but on the whole I was pretty good about it.) Father Kyrill and I
are beginning to talk about chrismation.

Christ is risen!
Indeed He is risen!

On Sat, Apr 21, 2018 at 9:58 AM, cady soukup <cadyasoukup at gmail.com> wrote:

> April has been a disorienting month, from the weather to whatever. Too
> much?
>
> The Downers Grove Soukup sibs finally got together to inter our father next
> to our mother in their chosen cemetery in the Chicago area  Fairmount
> cemetery, surrounded by Cook County Forest Preserve, overlooking Long John
> Slough and the Little Red Schoolhouse section of the preserve. It was
> lovely, and blustery.
>
> Anne flew in from Switzerland, where she is now Madame Le President of tpg
> (Transportation Publique de Geneve), the public transport system for the
> Geneva Canton in Switzerland. She loves the job! Tpg is moving to
> sustainable energy public transportation for all sections of the canton.
> Pete transitioned from a substitute teacher in the Cook and Du Page county
> school systems (he is also a professional musician in the Chicago area,
> trombone) back to a tech network sales person (after Dad died and no onger
> needed daily care).  Peg is a retired legal aide. Bill, who lives in
> Georgia, decided to opt out of our family. We respect his desire.
>
> The brand new Culpepr Region of the Diocese of Virginia had its first
> meeting. Yes, I was elected chair. Of the five lay and six clergy members
> present (representing 7 of the 10 chueches in the region), 3 of the lay and
> 3 of the clergy now are officers/reps. Several of the churches do not have
> web sites or official email addresses. Several of the small churches are
> struggling. We have a whole new focus, with new directives from the
> diocese.
>
> The spring executive board of the diocese met with the region presidents.
> The presidents had a working lunch with bishop Shannon Johnston. The top
> Big Diocese Issues have largely been addressed, so it is time to pay
> attention to the next levels of issues. Like finding a suffragan bishop.
> More changes.
>
> As of April 1, the contract on which I work for CMS reorganized, so my job
> description, team, and supervisory structure all changed. With those
> changes are updates to the tools and the procedures by which we get
> permission/approvals to perform updates and solve problems in the online
> product (web pages for the kidney disease section of Medicare initiatives,
> predating the Affordable Care Act by almost 20 years, so it should be more
> “mature” than it is).
>
> The ultimate goal is to move away from Microsoft and Oracle products and
> into open source and cloud products, a multi year goal.
>
> The transition to the new tech company, Perspecta (perspectacle, whose logo
> looks ike a monocle) began on April 1. I now have 4 work related laptos on
> my desk,  3 for HP>HPE>DXC Tech>Perspecta, 2 of which must be returned,
> each of which needs several hours of fiddling to get functiona (for the
> newest Perspecta DELL) or nonfunctional (for the HP>HPE>DXC Tech HP laptops
> that must be sent back). BAH!
>
> Our choir codirector (PhD FAGO organist JanPiet Knijff) has us singing all
> new music each Sunday, some of it breathtaking. But it requires even more
> active brain cells to read, mark, inwardly digest, and sing properly. I am
> now the only tenor in our choir. It is fun, joyful, and nerve wracking, as
> attempting to do music well is.
>
> It is Easter season. This year, I have been gobsmacked by the realization
> of the maassive change that was the first Easter season, when the
> rabbi/leader of the small flock of disciples and families disappeared, and
> his group was left bereft, walking forward into a new world of the missing
> physical presence of their leader, first learning to trust in the mystical
> presence of the risen lord. With another change “yet to come” when their
> leader rose to heaven, leaving them without even that comfort. How could
> mere mortals navigate the shoals of doubt to keep their leader’s message
> alive, even traveling to other countries to do so. Even with the given
> sructure of the church, it is still difficult to navigate the shoals of
> selfinterest, change, indifference, and so many difficult elements of our
> society today.
>
> Moving forward into daily change,
>
> May our loving god find and be with you where you are   +  gentle hugs
> cady
>
>
>
> On Saturday, April 21, 2018, Ginga Wilder <gingawilder at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > Until this one and another, I had not received email from Magdalen's
> since
> > April 18.  I have noticed that just a handful of folks are posting to
> > Magdalen now, dwindling in the last few years.  Don't know what that
> might
> > mean.  Perhaps Facebook is taking the place of email groups???  I am
> online
> > constantly perusing various news and updating when appropriate because I
> > keep the Facebook page for Good Shepherd, Summerville and also our
> webpage.
> >
> > Email is no longer the communication format of choice for my friends.  I
> > don't do twitter or instagram.
> >
> > Love to all my Magdalen buds.
> > Ginga
> >
> > On Fri, Apr 20, 2018 at 11:21 PM, Ann Markle <ann.markle at aya.yale.edu>
> > wrote:
> >
> > > I’ve had a few.
> > >
> > > On Fri, Apr 20, 2018 at 9:13 PM Grace Cangialosi <gracecan at gmail.com>
> > > wrote:
> > >
> > > > ...from Maddie’s since Wednesday. Anybody else?
> > > >
> > > --
> > > Ann
> > >
> > > The Rev. Ann Markle
> > > Buffalo, NY
> > > www.onewildandpreciouslife.typepad.com
> > >
> >
>