welcome to the organic green doctor blog

i am a family physician who was diagnosed with
early mild cognitive impairment(mci) amnestic type on december 21, 2010
this is a precursor to alzheimers disease
because of this diagnosis i have opted to stop practicing medicine
this blog will be about my journey with this disease
please feel free to follow me along this path
i will continue blogging on organic gardening, green living,
solar power, rainwater collection, and healthy living
i will blog on these plus other things noted to be interesting

Tuesday, January 4, 2022

my new years resolutions revisited

MY NEW YEARS RESOLUTIONS REVISITED

that is mr hudson and i walking on the beach near sunset this new years weekend
as i sit here thinking of my new years resolutions i looked at this picture
and
thought
i want more days like that day 

i realize
im almost 72
i have early alzheimers
i have only a set number of years left
only some of them will i be cognitively aware of even being here
so
days like in that picture become even more important 

there is a lot of symbolism in that picture

that sunset in that picture is really in the scheme of things not far away

seize the moment is what im always telling my wife she
lets seize the moment
as
time can be a fleeting thing

i went back and read some of my old new years resolutions
i especially looked at my first new years resolutions after
i was diagnosed
and 
had to retire

this blog is linked here

just two weeks before i wrote that blog i was seeing around 30 patients a day in the office
then
it stopped 
i had about two weeks to let this all sink in before i wrote it

my resolutions then were and really are about the same each year
doing them i think has kept me going strong now ten years later

eat a healthy diet
i now have gravitated to the mind diet which is the dash diet and mediterranean diet meshed together
i mostly follow this
so should all of you

exercise
at that time i started walking 2-3 miles a day
at one point when we were in a deep 100 year drought and the river near us mostly dried up i even hiked back up the river walking where maybe no one has walked for years and years maybe centuries
it was the most memorable 3-4 hour hike i have ever done
i also was doing what i called ranch aerobics to my regimen
ie
fencing building gardening mowing weedeating sawing you name it i did it

today my exercising is mainly walking places and gardening and doing honeydoes

drink wine each night
since i was sick at the beginning of the pandemic i havent been able to drink wine
but 
i do watch my wife drink a glass at night
a glass of wine a day is good for your health 
it may be because it relaxes you or it may be something in the wine that does it

relax relax
i rarely feel anxious about anything
each morning i wake early and have computer time when i read my emails do social media correspond with folks and also frequently just pause and do what i call just think just let my mind float around
some may call that meditation
also in our condo the morning sun bursts over the roofs of the condos across our courtyard
the sun sort of bursts into our dining room and living room like a spotlight
i like to sit in my chair by the windows in the sun with the door slightly ajar to listen to the birds and the early morning sounds
so i meditate or relax twice before my wife she wakes up
then
if i go to the garden i commonly will pause there and look around and listen to the sounds 
yes i meditate again

that year woke us up to get our final paperwork all done
it took though the pandemic in 2020 and me thinking i was going to die twice
once from being sick from what i think was covjd
the second time when my weight tumbled 50 lbs to 148
i even asked my gi doctor 
im going to starve to death arent i
he said no we wont let that happen
i didnt starve to death
i am now back up to 172 where i would like to stay
i feel healthy now

we after this scare had all our will and paperwork updated so its done now
now we can worry about something else
you should add this one to your new years resolutions for sure

get our financial house in order
since i had to stop for medical reasons i eventually was able to get my long term disability for 5 years
so we didn't really have a drop in our income level
i was forced by the disability insurance company to start drawing my social security disability 
which seemed to me to be like a scam by the insurance companies and the lawyers and the courts

thanks to the help of my rainwater brother who was a financial planner we were and are financial secure
well as good as a person can be in these times

spend more time with our family and travel
well here we are 10 years later and we are just a few miles from our kids and their families
our travel has gotten limited the last two years because of the pandemic
hopefully that will change

so my resolutions are really the same as that year
exercise
eat healthy
stay healthy 
relax relax
dink a glass of wine each day
keep your financial house in order
keep your end of life paperwork up to date
and
seize the moment when it appears

the organicgreen doctor


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