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Wednesday, January 23, 2013

Wildfire

Wildfire, 36 x 36", acrylics, in progress once again.
I got out my acrylics for the first time in months, maybe a year?  This painting was the perfect painting to jump into the day before surgery, ( Mark upon mark, color upon color, I could do no wrong. With a painting like this, you just let your self go and respond to  the reference photo--which is actually a rather sedate landscape  with normal landscape colors--sap green, olive--I don't need to tell you. It's a continuous drawing experience. Though it looks done, it isn't.  All the intensity I feel towards the Fall season, (which I do not welcome; it precedes winter) is not there yet. I haven't found the cohesive gray yet. This will be like Summer Shade, a painting that builds over time till I say, yes, that's it.  Landscapes, more about feelings than depicting a scene, provide  perfect balance to the more demanding genre, portraiture. 

UPDATE: it's the day after surgery. My knee is great. The rest of me is hung over. The saline solution they mix the anesthetics in nearly killed me. Saline is salt. Salt in such large quantities sets off my chronic vertigo. Ellis and I didn't talk about this with the anesthesia doctor and he didn't catch it when we were talking about the drugs I take to control the vertigo. The overdose led to a horrible day. Lots of nausea, dizziness and headache.

Today I' m on the mend. Still dizzy, but not nauseous. No energy for drawing, though;I'm hoping later. That will be a sign that I'm on the mend.Meanwhile, my knee is incidental. I'm hardly noticing it. Ellis is one fantastic guy. In spite of my sometimes very annoying personality, he cares enough to stick around and learn how to make my oatmeal. Now he can make bagel, lox and cream cheese sandwiches, old fashioned oatmeal and add noodles to chicken/ matzoh ball soup.His culinary skills are expanding. Next: scrambled eggs. He's my honey. I'm his baby. I'm never going to let him go.

15 comments:

  1. Dear Linda, the worst is over! When you are ready to take the brushes and start again to paint what
      you want, you soon forget these unpleasant moments.
    Quickly forget the unpleasant moments for gather the best out of life in any case, it's an another great art you have.
    Warm hug,Rita.

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    1. It'll take me sometime to forget this--like never. What I learned was that I have to fill these doctors in very thoroughly on what to look out for with regards to the drugs and their effect on my vertigo. The anesthesiologist should have picked up on it and I should have pointed out the connection between the amount of saline solution (salt) in the mix and the water retention that it causes which triggers the vertigo. I'm kicking myself. All of this has me so involved, I haven't had time to notice how the knee is. It feels fine by comparison. A fine state of being! I'm upset.

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  2. Linda!
    So very, very glad you are on the mend!
    Hang in there. We in "Blog Land" are routing for you!
    Great wild acrylic painting and love the last portrait!
    Hope you are 100% real soon!
    Oatmeal rocks! Love it on cold days!
    Your "Glad You Are On The Mend!" art buddy,
    Michael

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    1. Wildfire needs some cooling down and paling out. In time. Portraiture is my focus. Woodscapes are my relief.
      The woods to me are a metaphor for the nature of life--an interplay of obstacles, barriers, and then wide open spaces. Thanks Michael for your good wishes. This is turning out to be an ordeal given how the anesthetic stirred up trouble with my vertigo. If I can get past this, I'll be out of the woods. :-))

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  3. Thank goodness its all over and you can soon get back to painting and drawing. Ellis does sound like a keeper!

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    1. Not quite. He's fantastic, I hope so. Right now, drawing and painting are out of the question.

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  4. Glad to hear you're on the mend, Linda. I thought of you on Thursday, but this is the first chance I've had to get on here. Take it easy.

    Going back to bed now, feeling ghastly

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    1. Oh no. The plague didn't get you too! So many people have been struck by that flu or the gastric virus or the hacking cough cold this year. I hope it was just the cold that got you? Having this knee done, I stayed away from public places. I didn't want to risk missing the procedure, but I should have. This has been the pits. Not from the knee, but from the anesthetic. Being shot up with too much saline solution used in the mix upset my balance mechanism. Vertigo attacks resulted. I'm headed back to bed too. The room is spinning. On the good side: my knee seems fine. I haven't had time to notice it.

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  5. I'm so glad to hear the surgery went well. The vertigo - not so much! I had a patient with that on Thursday, and unfortunately ended up cleaning more than just teeth. I had no idea it could be so severe!

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    1. We learned more than we wanted to know about the affliction. Who knew we had to have an in depth conversation with the anesthesiologist over the amount of saline in the drip bag? We never even thought of it. I figured just telling him I had vertigo, he would make the necessary adjustments. Wrong. Now I have to be overly careful choosing what I'm eating--the salt content. Today went better than yesterday, but I'm still not myself; I'm still lightheaded and unsteady. THE KNEE IS FINE--INCIDENTAL.

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  6. I'm glad you are doing well. Very good to know all of this about saline for the future - my wife has the same condition. In the long run I am sure that it will be worth it - I watched my father-in-law suffer for years because he chose not to have the knee operation.

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    1. The arthroscopy went very well, no pain, no discomfort. But I'd like to get my hands on the anesthesiologist. I am still hung over from the drug--sleeping most of the time. Then there was the bouts of vertigo that had me vomiting and the water retention and the constipation for this, the forth day. Now the vertigo seems under control. I am drinking 8 oz. of liquids continuously to get the water flowing. My head is still cloudy, but at least I can hold it up right and don't need a wastebasket nearby. I must of had enough drugs to knock out an elephant. It's a good thing I wasn't having knee replacement. I think I would have died. All this coming from a person who has a high pain threshold and walked away from the table after a double mastectomy. I can't wait till the post op appointment. I have a few things to say. -- So I guess you could say I'm doing well, but not really.

      If your wife has any surgery that requires apathetic s, do have a talk about decreasing the saline solution in the mix. They did it for me in chemo, they could have been able to do it for me for this op--also, I had no trouble with the anesthetic for my mastectomy, also a serious procedure--maybe more so? More talk is needed before going under the knife. Definitely. I am pissed. Lucky you Dan to happen along when I've about had it. Sorry.

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    2. Your "Wildfire" painting is lovely. So sorry to hear about your sodium overdose, hope you will feel better soon. That anesthesiologist needs to know how much suffering his oversight has caused you. Take care.

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  7. great looking painting...and that last paragraph brought a tear to my eye! Everyone should have a honey who cares about them when they are recovering (and I am lucky, I have one!) You are every bit as good a writer as a painter. Glad you had the surgery and that it is in your past and you will be all the better for it! Hooray!

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  8. Who would think a bit of salt could cause such trouble. Poor you, it saddens me that you have suffered unnecessarily. Glad you are on the mend though and the op went well. Love 'Wildfire' although it does hurt my eyes. So full of energy

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