26 January 2017

Every morning I get up charged with another load of enthusiasm, or rather, I carefully turn from my back to one side and lift my body en-bloc to crawl out of the bed that R has raised (using four small concrete blocks) to the level recommended by the trauma surgeon.

I am half way through the six weeks of life as a stranded beetle and well, let's be patient. The stitches are out, the wound is healing. I am shaky and shattered. Of course I wonder if there is something else going on, after all that's my strength, waiting for signs of the volcano to erupt and yes, there are some signs.  But generally, I am fed up to my teeth of having to lie flat on my back - for another 21 nights, after which I should be better equipped to handle another autoimmune flare.

Sometimes I do dramatic things like standing upright for a much too short while with my laptop resting on a pile of books so that I can edit a paper on chronic liver disease management, or I slowly walk downstairs and make coffee and microwave-cheat chocolate brownies, followed by a brief walk through the winter silence of the garden.

There are tiny moments of amazing rest and clarity, when I see it all before me, recovery and so on. But mostly and despite my careful attempts of regular patterns (shower, relaxation, reading, tea and hours and hours of online tv)  I am swirling through chaos. Well, at least there's a certain because surely we all know that there is no way to order chaos. Nothing can be charted, ordered and predicted.

I sent the man out to show me that the world is still waiting for me and he came back with fresh fruit and this reassuring picture.


11 comments:

Ms. Moon said...

Sounds like a quiet and specific type of torture. Hang on. Hang in. You are healing.

Zhoen said...

Do you have an audible.com account?

Snowbrush said...

I'm not happy hearing about your forced rest, your health issues, and your general vulnerability. I just wish I could do something.

For what it's worth, the font-size of your posts are a challenge to me. If you could make it a little bigger without making it ridiculously big, it would be a help to me.

Well, since you can't do much of anything else, you could start on your autobiography, which, of course, you would share with your blog readers.

Anonymous said...

Yes, the world is still waiting for you. With all its beauty and wackiness, it's still here. I love the photo R took for you. That's it, waiting.

am said...

So good to know that you can walk in the garden now at times. Love the way R shows his love for you. Love the river.

molly said...

I know it's easy for me to say, but this sounds like progress. Hang onto the serenity of that photo, you'll get there. And yes, get moving on that autobiography!

Roderick Robinson said...

As you must have found out, there's some retrospective comfort in recording the minutiae of life, even if it's life that's temporarily curtailed. Proof you're getting the better of your condition. Also, recalling, shaping and presenting detail are processes that combine in the act of writing, confirming you're taking your talent for a short exercise trot.

Being restricted to a single position in bed is, as you say, hell. One of my grandchildren was a bad sleeper when young; the solution was a plug-in toy which projected a pattern of stars on the bedroom ceiling, gradually moving as if she were viewing the nighttime sky. I believe there was also an option which played Wiegenlied. It worked but like all powerful cures it became addictive, and she was only weaned off it a year or two later.

Steve Reed said...

I'm sure it's frustrating to be stranded as you are. At least you can kind of get out and about -- into the garden and that sort of thing.

Thanks for the links to the videos, BTW. I haven't watched them yet but I will!

Sabine said...

Sory about the font size. I will try and see what I can do. In the meantime, if you are reading at a laptop/macbook, you can change the way you view this by increasing your zoom on the browser (somewhere under 'view' or similar).

Sabine said...

I have gazillion downloaded episodes of tze world's best podcasts and whatnots but I am a poor listener, my mind's eye searches for drama elsewhere. Instead I watch episodes of tv crime. Very relaxing, esp. the latest Iceland one.

Sabine said...

I actually think we have one of those in the attic. But I fear it will bring back the frustrating memory of the seemingly endless times watching it while my daughter would not fall asleep.
But thank you for pointing out that my condition is temporary. I need to hear that over and over and over again.