11 April 2019

Last night after dinner we packed a small overnight bag, got in the car and drove for a couple of hours to one of those empty cities further north. A city with ancient history and which after  complete destruction during WWII was hastily rebuild as a faceless, featureless assemblage of buildings and streets and a couple of parks here and there.
We arrived at the worst hotel because I had left it too late to find a room anywhere else. It took me a while to locate the off switch for the empty minibar fridge - once I had figured out where the loud rumbling noise was coming from. That was at 3 am. R was snoring. I discovered that the towels were unwashed after I had a shower at daybreak, and so on.
Right on schedule at 8 am, I presented myself at the university clinics of this city to be seen by a renowned expert in witchcraft and vertigo - an appointment I had been waiting for since last September. She asked all the questions I wanted her to ask and answered all of mine, sent me through four hours of diagnostics and waiting and now we are starting plan B also known as me being guinea pig and let's see what happens if we go down this route. In short, keeping fingers crossed - albeit with drugs.
Back home, I wrote a scathing online review of the hotel because, seriously. (It's a first for me.) Then I read in the London Review of Books Colm Tóibín's memoir of his recent cancer treatment  and with my head swirling with fears of death and loss and feeling foolish and very small, I started to cry for a long while.
 
"It all started with my balls. I was in Southern California and my right ball was slightly sore. At the beginning I thought the pain might be caused by the heavy keys in the right hand pocket of my trousers banging against my testicle as I walked along the street. So I moved the keys into my jacket pocket. The pain stayed for a while and then it went away and then it came back. I was doing readings every day, selling my melancholy stories to the people of Orange County and places south. I wondered, some days, if there might be a doctor in the audience who, if I made a suitable announcement at the end of the reading, could make this pain in my right testicle go away. But I didn’t want to make a fuss."








14 comments:

  1. We never do want to make a fuss, do we?
    I'm going to have great hope for this guinea pig treatment. At least someone is asking the right questions!
    Now- the next time you stay in a hotel which pleases you, write a review of that. Balance it out. Or is that just silly?

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  2. After reading what Colm went through in order to live again, Jesus' crucifixion sounds preferable. Just one Good Friday afternoon would be enough. And I'm not religious. There has to be a better way. My hope is that you have found it. There is a measure of relief in a good long cry. Sending love to you, Sabine.

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  3. From bones to skin, with all that's in between, my body is amazing and scary each day. I hope yours continues to serve you, as best it can. I hope you have comfortable places to stay, and receive medical treatments that help your condition. Of course crying is helpful. Of course writing letters is needed. Of course writing your blog lets all of us know you are feeling just this way. Thank you.

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  4. Our bodies are such fragile things. And yet they endure. WE endure. I hope all goes well with this new treatment.

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  5. "Hope is the thing with feathers..."

    I hope it works, hope it helps, hope you feel better.

    I had a good long cry this morning too.

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  6. a doctor that asks all the questions you want and answers all yours is a reason to hope and so I will be hopeful for you. and that the long cry was also in a way an expression of hope. I don't cry, not anymore. I spent too many consecutive years of my life crying to the point that if I never do it again I'll be happy. as for Jesus on the cross, re am's comment, his suffering was nothing compared to what many people live with or die from.

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  7. Thank you for being willing to put this stuff out there, for sharing your strength and the times you waiver or dread. It is all a part of being human but not everyone is brave enough to lay it out for others to see.

    Colm story is so incredibly real and present that one would have to be missing a heart not react with empathy.

    I am holding out hope for this doctor of "witchcraft and vertigo". A unique combination♥

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  8. I am holding you close to my heart. So glad you are exploring, thinking, writing.

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  9. But it's the writing that got to you, just as much as his illness. Isn't it? He writes for a living and everything - however horrible or disturbing - goes into the meat-grinder and emerges as a wonderfully flavoury sausage. How about those first six words and the deliberate choice of noun?

    Understand, I'm not trying to minimise your problems or the resonances this passage creates. Ironically, had Toibìn been a lesser writer the passage might well have left you cold. It's hardly desirable that you should be moved to tears but then what's a good writer to do...? What you mustn't feel is foolish - your inner responses were on the button.

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  10. Hope it all goes well, Sabine.

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  11. I'm thinking about you, hoping that it all goes well. Your writing knocks me out --

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  12. I just finished that memoir piece -- stunning.

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  13. Love and good wishes from Seattle. Loved 'witchcraft and vertigo'. May you find ease with this treatment.

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  14. I certainly know from that...the not making a fuss thing realizing that other people have it hard too. And then I get a wee bit pissed off, if you know what I mean.

    I hate going somewhere, well, pretty much anywhere over night. And then to have it be so disappointing, ugh. I'm sure you took a long hot shower when you got home.

    Hope the witchcraft works, fingers crossed. A little superstition seems appropriate here.

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