Fairly Well ~ quadrille

/ Ken Gierke / rivrvlogr

Fairly Well

Fallen leaves and sunshine
hike with me, up hills and down,
along bluffs with a broad view
of a narrow river, past turkeys
with no interest in fair weather
or health, mine, much improved
over last year’s near collapse
on this very same trail.

This poem is my response to Quadrille #140: Let’s Go to the Fair!, the prompt from Linda Lee Lyberg at dVerse ~ Poets Pub, which is to use a form of the word fair in a 44-word poem (excluding title), with no required meter or rhyme.

Contrary to my thoughts last year, stamina is no longer an issue for me. In October 2020, I hiked a 6.1 mile trail in The Mark Twain National Forest. The hike should have taken 3 hours or less, but took 5 hours for me to complete. I was so winded that I needed to stop every 100 feet or so each time I climbed a hill – and there are a lot of hills and inclines on this trail. It turned out I had iron deficiency anemia. Two iron infusions in March of this year corrected that. I hiked the same trail this afternoon – in fact I hiked nearly 9 miles in 3 ½ hours — with no difficulty. It was a beautiful day for a hike, but most of the leaves have already fallen. Here’s a link to a blog about last years hike, with some colorful fall photos.

Image: Smith Creek in the Mark Twain National Forest, Missouri
~~ click image for larger view in new tab ~~

43 thoughts on “Fairly Well ~ quadrille”

  4. I laughed at the part about the turkeys. Such a wonderful improvement, Ken. I remember you talking about the infusions, but I didn’t remember how winded you had been on the previous hike. I’m so glad you’re feeling better! Will you need to get more infusions?

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    • Thanks.
      I saw my doctor shortly after that “killer” hiked, and he ordered a blood test right away. Even though my anemia was detected then, it took another three months of exams and multiple colonoscopies & endoscopies to determine the source of my blood loss (very minor bleeding in my small intestine over the years) – I even swallowed a capsule camera – before it was decided an iron infusion (2, actually) was the answer. I noticed a difference within 2 weeks, and after a month or so I was back to normal. It definitely was scary.

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