A few days ago, I observed my 73rd birthday, which was also the seventh anniversary of this blog. In my first post on June 21, 2015, I wrote about things for which I am grateful. In that regard, nothing has changed in the last seven years. I continue to be grateful for my wife, friends, children, grandchildren, and helpful neighbors. Indeed, three grandchildren have been added to my tribe since then: Nathan Welsh, Emma Cormany, and Cole Princehorn. There have been losses, too, which are inevitable with the passage of time. In early 2016, I lost my long-time friend Brian Bonner to kidney and liver failure. Last year, his son John Scott succumbed to complications from COVID. Other losses include Becky’s cousins Bob Witherow and Joanne Troy; her aunt, Judy Holmes;  my brother-in-law, Luciano Farina; and my aunt, Jane Zimmerman. Aunt Jane was my last link to my mother and father’s generation.

Since the posting of that first blog, I’ve experienced growth and change from a number of sources.  Travel to Australia in the summer of 2018 to visit the Welsh family brought me into a world I previously knew only through geography books and newspaper articles. Trips to Oregon, Washington, and Montana for weddings proved to be equally enlightening. The publication of my second YA novel, The Bullybuster, occurred in early 2019 but had to be accomplished through Kindle Direct Publishing, after Clean Reads, publisher of Fast-Pitch Love, rejected it. In August 2015, I took part in my second Pelotonia, biking 75 miles from Pickerington to Gambier. Since then, biking has gradually replaced running as my main form of exercise, at least from late March through November. One of the biggest changes happened just a few months ago, when I retired from Columbus State as a tutor and instructor. I had many rewarding experiences there, but the online tutoring format the college put into place in response to COVID disconnected me from students and brought numerous logistical headaches.

The last seven years have brought new physical challenges, the kind that are all but certain to afflict any aging human body. Weakened knees have prompted the transition mentioned earlier from running to biking as my primary cardio exercise. If I run at all, it is likely to be on the indoor track at the Worthington Community Center. The distance will be short (at most, two laps — 1/6 mile) and the speed will be slow in comparison to runs made in years past. Five years ago, a night-time dizzy spell was so severe, I had to crawl to the bathroom to vomit and thereafter slept on the floor. Later dizzy spells, though less severe, coupled with a noticeable loss of hearing in my left ear sent to an ENT doctor, who diagnosed these problems as symptoms of Meniere’s disease. A hearing aid and regular doses of a water pill (medical name: triamterene) have kept this ailment at bay. A more recent physical issue arose suddenly and with devastating impact. After a trip to Philadelphia in May, I returned home with some neck discomfort that seemed nothing more than a pulled muscle. Then came a night of excruciating pain so intense sleep was impossible. At 4:30 am the next morning, my wife took me to the ER at Riverside Hospital where a CT scan disclosed moderate-to-severe arthritis in discs at the upper part of my spine. Prednisone and a muscle relaxant took care of the pain, and since then ibuprofen has kept things under control — at least for the present. I know someday a physical problem may arise that is not so easily managed.

When I wrote the inaugural post for this blog, heavy fighting was going on in the Mideast and a mass murder had recently occurred in a Charleston, South Carolina church with African-Americans as the victims. If anything, todays’ headlines carry news that’s no better and arguably worse. Violence in the Mideast continues, though at a somewhat reduced level compared to June 2015. Overshadowing the Mideast violence is the war in Ukraine, which Russia started several months ago. With U.S. and NATO material support, the Ukrainians have put up a stout defense, and a quick Russian victory did not happen. The new Russian strategy seems to involve a prolonged war of attrition, using artillery and aerial bombing, which is leaving one Ukrainian city after another in rubble. The home front is even more riddled with hostility, contention, and occasionally violence. There have been numerous mass shootings since the one cited in South Carolina, the most-recent of which took place at a Texas elementary school and left 19 children and two teachers dead. Then, even more recently, the Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of a Mississippi law that greatly curtailed a woman’s access to abortion, in effect nullifying Roe v. Wade. That decision sent thousands of people — mostly women — into the streets to protest the ruling. Even before that, police arrested a man planning to kill Justice Kavanaugh, and pregnancy centers with a pro-life focus became targets for sabotage.

The COVID crisis, which I discussed in a series of postings in 2020, and racial relations have also added to the stress and discord in the U.S. The latter reached a boiling point after a Minneapolis police officer arrested an unarmed black man and then killed him by pressing his knee on the back of the man’s neck. A slew of police shootings of unarmed black people, including one in Columbus, added fuel to the fire. In response, the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement emerged to draw attention to alleged police abuses of black people nationwide and to generate reform. Most BLM protests have been peaceful but a few have turned violent.  My wife’s office had some windows broken in one such protest. Then there was the January 6, 2021 assault on the Capitol by a large number of Trump supporters, who believed the former president had been cheated out of a second term by fraudulent voting. Despite a lack of evidence, some continue to believe that. In the meantime, a congressional committee is exploring what measures Trump was prepared to take to keep himself in office and to what extent he and his closest followers promoted the attack on the Capitol. It’s reached a point where the United States of America hardly seems to exist anymore and may be on the road to civil war. (See http://www.claywrites.info/the-capitol-take…ude-to-civil-war/.)

No change in the last seven years has been more significant or had more impact than the birth of Andy’s son Cole Joseph Princehorn on November 30, 2020. Only two months after his birth, Cole had to be rushed to the hospital where it was discovered he was born without bile ducts and a gall bladder. Doctors created bile ducts from Cole’s intestinal lining but the child’s problems didn’t end with that. Fevers, which could be caused by the new bile ducts not working, sent him back to the hospital several times in 2021. The current year started with Cole in the hospital for ____, but thereafter he seemed to improve. Then about three weeks ago, he returned to the hospital once again, this time needing to have fluid around his liver drained. Once that was accomplished. other serious problems arose. He vomited blood and passed it through his rectum; he developed an infection that brought on another fever; and worst of all he experienced septic shock.  Finally, he began to rebound, but it became clear he would need a new liver sooner rather than later. The donor could be Andy or his mother, Lindsay, but more likely will be a deceased person. I can only hope Cole’s beleaguered little body can handle the surgery and the medication afterward, which will weaken his immune system for some time to come.

Speaking of the future, I will — with occasional exceptions — be posting on this blog only once a month from now on. That will be give me more time to work on my third book and my new blog, Write Well Now. When I do another reflective post, I hope there will be more positive events on which to reflect.