Failures and Shortfalls

My long anticipated colonoscopy did not go well but offered an important insight.  My label of CKD, that I poo-pooed amid a fairly stable top normal creatinine captured more significance by the gastroenterologist who omitted Mg Citrate from my preparation.  My preparation using primarily polyethylene glycol did not fully do the job so she recommended a second procedure in a year.  But since I had a drop in Hemoglobin which banned me from my valuable role as a platelet donor, she concluded that the marginal eGFR over time was responsible for the borderline anemia, as in not really correctable.  She's exceedingly astute which is why I selected her among my physicians.  A more serious post procedure review of CKD 3a, which is what my lab results show, suggests she is right.  The renal function causes no symptoms or proteinuria but has other considerations, from colonoscopy prep to blood donations.

Need to give it a go again next year and need to give platelet donation another try next month.  

Last month saw a return of graduations with distinguished speakers whose remarks reach public media.  They often talk of failure, which is inevitable, and not just for bowel preps and body parts.  There was also my own limited insight to the significance of my lab results.  The colonoscopy screener and wellness screener asked me about falls, which included one.  I failed to control clutter on my own floors.  As much as I wanted to visit my kids this half-year, that won't happen, nor did my anticipated tour of the Everglades as an initiative the previous semi-annual cycle.  I haven't rescheduled either.

I wrote the things I wanted but stumbled on submitting them.  My weight improved with effort but my strength and stamina did not.  My Great Course turned out not as understandable as anticipated.  My social security monthly calculation fell short of what I had expected by enough to keep my travel or donations less.  No shortage of recent shortfalls, though probably no different than any six month cycle or any portion of my life, which had the success of reaching threescore and ten.

Here's where the college speakers, all of whom had their down moments, vary in their advice.  They agree not to wallow or claim victimhood.  So do I.  Opinions divide on whether to dust yourself off and try again, or dust yourself off and move on.  I cannot reverse my eGFR, nor restore my hemoglobin to blood bank acceptability if that creates the anemia.  Platelet donation may be history for me.  Have to move on.  Social Security will provide what its employees calculate but eventually my IRAs will need t distribute making donations and travel more postponed than lost.

I know where my kids live and have the means to get there.  Those visits will happen, just later than I had hoped.  And I have a laptop with Word plus a creative mind so expressing myself will still happen.  I just need a better grasp of desired recipients.

As a Stanford commencement speaker who moved from top of the world to sudden pre-mature widow in an instant noted, not everything that happens to us is because of us.  And while feeling low comes with the package, there are other parts of the package unaffected by these particular personal failures.  And for the most part, you can dust yourself off, whether you opt to try again or try something different.

With that context, I will need to assess the last six month's blend of accomplishments and shortfalls while I choose activities for the next six months which will also have tasks fulfilled and others not completed.