Monday, September 30, 2019

As I said...

As I said in the last post, I'm 79 years old now. That means (in my case) that my memory is not all it used to be. Undoubtedly, you will see me repeating myself. Sorry, but that's the way it is. In fact, this disclaimer may be a repeat?

In the last post I described how 'hanging lids' contributed to my spine injuries. I'm certain of it. I also have COPD and was hospitalized twice last fall because of pneumonia. Like most of my generation, I was a smoker until the late 70's, when I had a small portion of my right lung removed because of suspected cancer cells. They were wrong, the suspect cells were pneumonia scars. I had worked right through a bout of pneumonia at one time. The doctor told me that he could see signs of emphysema and encouraged me to stop smoking. That was one reason for my COPD. Another was the conditions of the workplace. I would be working right next to a laborer that was grinding concrete and billowing clouds of cement dust were everywhere. Then there were the tapers that were sanding joint compound on the walls & ceilings. There were times when we would have a 'sanding party'. everyone would have a sanding pole and we would sand everywhere. Soon, the air was thick with the fine dust we had created. We would all be coated with it, white hair, white skin, eyebrows, etc. We could even taste it on our tongues. I would often spray white lacquer on ceilings before I sprayed acoustic material. I sprayed fireproofing material and I sprayed acoustical insulation. When my partner and I were in business, I chose to handle all of the framing, sanding and spraying while he would do framing and hanging drywall. I also did the estimating while he did the bill collections. I never thought twice about the damage I was doing to my lungs in all of those years. And we rarely wore protection for those lungs.    

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