A Couple Of Things

We all continue to grow older and consistently get messages from our body to let us know that we are not nineteen any more. My message comes loud and clear from my left hip. The morning walks by the lake with my daughter are becoming ordeals, and even the renowned "Vicodin" isn't able to do much to make things easier. As the pain from the hip has gotten worse over the past two or three years, I have become resigned to the fact that a new hip is probably somewhere in my near future. Accordingly, today I went to the see the doctor, who is conveniently located, of course, right next to Harlan County Hospital. He sent me over to the hospital for X-Rays (Long live the Curies), which took about half an hour. I then returned to his office for the diagnosis. Lo and behold! My hip does not appear to be damaged or badly arthritic. He suspects the culprit might be sciatica and that my lower back may be the cause of the pain in the hip (That's OK with me just as long as it isn't the dreaded "heartbreak of psoriasis"). In any event, I am scheduled for an MRI scan this Saturday morning. I'll get more news then. Film at eleven.

There is a bush about five feet high right by the back door to my apartment and a dove has built a nest and is doing what doves to do hatch the two little eggs in the nest. I took a picture with my digital camera of the nest, but for some reason the blog software keeps giving me error messages when I try to put it right "here" for all to see. I normally use my back door to come and go because it is closer to my car than the front door, and every time I walked out or returned and walked up to the door, the dove took off in panic. Being a little dense, it took me a while to figure that I should look and see why that dove was always there in the bush. When I saw the nest and the two little eggs, I resolved that I will use the front door (despite the outrageous inconvenience of being ten whole steps farther from my car) until the little ones are hatched, fledged and all three have moved on.

It surprises me that the nest is only about four feet from the ground. I have a window that allows me to look directly at the nest when I am sitting at my kitchen table. Every time I gently pull the curtain aside to look, mama dove stares directly at me and gets ready to take off. She is very skittish. Folks, this nest is less than three feet from the window and I am still curious as to what made her select that spot. Any house cat or raccoon would have no trouble getting to her or the eggs and with all the much, much taller trees around I just can't figure out why she chose that place.

It's tough to get a clear picture through the window since there is a second storm window and screen, both of which are pretty dirty. If I see her take off for any reason, I'm going to quickly step outside and try to clean them a bit so that I can get better pictures. The problem with a dirty window and most digital cameras is that the camera wants to focus on the window pane and its dirt and won't look beyond to the nest. I took a few shots with my good 35mm film camera which allows me to adjust the focus, but I haven't taken the film to Joe Camera to be developed yet. I sort of feel like an expectant father.

Now for a little news involving negativity and perhaps a bit of a rant.

We have lots of veterans in the area who served in the military during WWII, Korea, Vietnam, the first gulf war and now Iraq. Many independent farmers, veterans or not, cannot afford individual or family health insurance policies. Consequently, many, many veterans in rural areas such as this have for decades depended on the Veterans Administration for their medical care.

The problem is that the VA, due to never ending budget cuts, keeps closing hospitals, which creates incredible hardships for the veterans. There is a VA clinic in Holdrege, 24 miles north. There is a VA hospital in Grand Island, Nebraska, which is 100 miles to the east, but it has been downgraded to a convalescent center and clinic. There is a VA hospital in Lincoln, a three hour drive, but it has been downgraded to a clinic, which amazes me since it is a city of 300,000. Even minor surgery for a veteran in this area requires a four hour drive to Omaha or a six hour drive to Denver. Heart surgery may require a nine hour drive to Minneapolis. Local veterans returning from Iraq with major injuries requiring significant follow-up care are in for a world of frustration in the rural areas of America.

When a man or woman goes into the service, he or she gives the government a blank check on life and limb. In my case, I served three years in the army during the Korean conflict but I did not go into combat, and I don't use the VA, thanks to Medicare and Medicare Advantage insurance plans. But I am hearing more and more anger and bitterness from young and old veterans in this area about the sad state of VA medical care availability and the government that now seems to no longer place a priority on the promises that helped to make veterans proud to serve their country.