One Year On
Well, it's been 12 months since my last posting in here. My Bipolarity Blog has been reactivated this week, with some hurdles to get over, but it is now operating properly again.
As for this Intransit Blog, I may begin to rant and rave about what erks me. Mugabe continues to violate his own people. Archbishop desmond Tutu has finally lost patience with him and no longer speaks the language of 'peace,' but is calling for 'action.' Mugabe is killing his own people by many despicable means. He is a tyrant in the worst sense of the word. China must stop blocking moves against Mugabe. Tabo Mbeki has been feeble and useless. Surely force is now justified. That force must come from Mugabe's neighbours. Mugabe has equally tyrranical cohorts who savagely treat its own population. Cholera is becoming rampant. Hunger and death is being felt by 5 million citizens. People are dying because they cannot get to medical aid from his failed state. Those who do get to hospitals find that there is virtually no medicine for them. Doctors and nurses have been beaten up by Mugabe's troops and police force. He must be got rid of. His thugs must be got rid of. Mugabe claims to be a devout Catholic. Let the Pope threaten to excommunicate him. This would put Mugabe in a no win situation.
Monday 3rd December 2007
A long time since the last offering. We had a week in Canada and met an old friend. Travelled through the Rockies and were awestruck. Delighted in Vancouver and fell in love with Vancouver Island, especially its little capital, Victoria, which is a beautiful collection of buildings and the sense of timeless ease surrounds the town.
Second session of treatment for the aktinic keratosis began immediately upon our return. I knew what to expect, but it still caused considerable 'discomfort.' I'm waiting until March 2008 before starting the third session of treatment.
I was laid low (horizontal) by severe pain that we believed was kidney stone(s). After a week of unremitting pain I was rushed into hospital and had the surgeons delving everywhere to ascertain the cause. Any hernia, swellings, 'lumps!!' ?
X-Rays, scans, more x-rays and more scans eventually revealed "Nothing sinister." After a week the diagnosis was that the abductor tendon was inflamed with the added problem of an extra spur of bone growing just beneath a part of it. A bit like pushing a needle through a thick piece of stretched elastic. Total bedrest for 3 weeks and a long, slow, period of recovery were prescribed. "Walk slowly, walk straight, walk short distances. Rest often."
The painkillers are just strong enough to take the edge off the pain. I don't want to 'mask' the pain completely, because that fools the patient into thinking that there is no damage being done. I learnt that fact several years ago and paid the price. I'm gradually decreasing the level of the pain killer and finding a 'cold turkey' effect. I expected this to happen. It's like coming off morphine after major surgery. You're glad of the pain relief, in fact, any pain relief at the time, but you have to come down from the high level of dosage, which is not easy.
I haven't written any prose for ages and it worries me. I'm not getting the 'highs' of B.A.D., although it must be said that I'm not getting the really bad 'lows' of B.A.D., either. I want to let the words flood out of my mental gate, but I can't sense any build up of verbage behind the gate.
Pre-cancerous cells
They have returned. I had the ones on my back 'frozen off' with nitrous oxide gas. It hurts! The freezing was done at 10.00am and the singeing pain lasted nearly all day. That was done over a week ago and the eruptions on my back are not pleasant to live with or look at. (If anyone was mad enough to want to look!! ) It is impossible to dry off with a towel after a shower, and I have to wait until my back dries normally.
The 'cells' on my face are more serious. They are being treated with a cream which aggravates the cells and provokes the body into attacking them by its own means. Imagine having your face rubbed down with an orbital sander and that is what it is starting to 'look like.' I have 3 more weeks of this treatment on the lower half of my face, and then I'm to start on the upper half of my face. It hurts.
During the falling of leaves
During the falling of leaves
‘tween dusky Angelus
and the bursting Sun
I think of you
Last prayers to rising
Heavy lids through dreams
Slippers to alarms
I think of you
Sinking to waking
Vixen’s cry to cockerel
Off to switch on
I think of you
‘neath covers to suits
cotton to linen
cocoa to coffee
I think of you
I think of you
16 years ago
My father died 16 years ago
The operation was a success
The post-op care was exemplary
The 10 days of Intensive care, exhausting
The tubes, everywhere
The emotions, likewise
The bed, needed
The options, none
The outcome, bleak
The liver, failing
The kidneys, dying
The blood, pernicious
His arm, warm
The switch, off
The loss, indescribable
Sunday 11 March 2007
Any flexion of my spine is creating more pain than previously. I am avoiding taking more painkillers, but I know that I will have to slip down that road eventually. Stronger painkillers work for a while. However, they too will not continue to mask the pain for ever, which means moving on to even stronger 'zappers.'
I watched with interest, the news story of the lady who takes cannabis to alleviate her pain. She is about 68 and a grandmother. She bakes cakes and adds powdered cannabis to the mixture. It isn't a massive addition, but just a gram. She grows the cannabis at home. She fears the side effects of NHS medicines. She has suffered as a result of being given NHS medication. She was found guilty of growing, and using cannabis for her own use, and ordered to do 200 hours community work ? If she is arrested again, she will probably be sent to prison. In a radio interview in her home on the day she was sentenced, she sat and chatted with the radio interviewer and had a piece of home made 'cake.' Solely for her own personal use. This is an interesting quandary. I'm not supporting her or advocating the use of cannabis, but people with MS are now being offered refined cannabis to help them with their illness.
When people are in constant and overwhelming pain, it is not possible to think clearly and objectively about their situation.
Sunday 21 January 2007
A long time since last I wrote. Serendipity brought me to this blog on Thursday. Strange but true. I've been in a lot of pain for 2 weeks. My right knee has been swollen and inflamed. I'd forgotten about the floaters. My memory is crap. Anyway, despite heat packs and gentle exercise the problem grew worse. But, suddenly on Thursday evening, the pain stopped. I was reminded about the floaters and realised that it was one, two, or all three of them, which had been trapped inside the knee joint. This note is by way of a reminder to myself, if and when it happens again.
The doc called them bones, but I think they are probably a more devilishly designed form of hard 'cartilage with attitude.'
Friday
I saw an orthopaedic surgeon yesterday, or rather, he looked at me. Not all of me, just my right knee. "What happened," he asked. I gave a very brief description of avoiding a large, heavy, swinging, church door, and my emergency stop by using my right leg. Pain and strange movement in the knee rendered me in, "ouch, that hurt a bit," mode. Then a couple of days after the incident, the knee clicked and hurt like hell, but after clicking and hurting, it was swingable again.
"OK," says the doctor, "that matches what I'm going to tell you."
Short version of medical description follows...when I ruptured the right quad 2 years ago, it was x-rayed and showed no fractures. The leg was strapped up and I was sent home and told to return a week later. Upon returning, the strapping was removed and my knee was somewhat larger than it ought to have been. It was full of blood. Ultrasound showed a hole where the quad had to be. "It's shredded," said the nice doctor. A few hours later I was in theatre.
Anyway, some of that blood has been converted by my body into 3 small bones. These bones are now part of my right knee's joint area. They move about. They get trapped, wedged, pushed into nooks and crannies in my knee. This is what happened 2 weeks ago. If they get larger they can be removed, but there is a good chance that the body will replace them with new bones. So they'll be left alone. The 3 bones will cause similar incidents and I'll have to be aware of that fact. When it happens again, the knee will hurt like hell, will swell up and will need ice and raising. It feels like having a sharp stone in the heel part of your shoe. As long as it's not being wedged between shoe and your heel, it's manageable.
One week to go to Sleep Test Results.
J visited this week. That's for the other blog.
