the great dentist disaster

After cutting a neat incision into my barely healed gums and flipping back a short section of it, the oral sugeon is using a tiny sharp scalpel to scrape back and forth along the now exposed bone surface of my upper right jaw. With neat little pliers he then proceeds to clip off a small bone fragment that has been  protruding into my gums after all of my upper right molars had been surgically removed during the previous eight weeks, slowly, one by one, due to an infection that had spread from a piece of tooth root left behind by sloppy dentist work a few months earlier. Somewhere along the lines, during the three months with a gaping wound inside my mouth, a nerve was irreparably damaged.

All this happened in the first half of 2007. It took several months and very heavy medication to check the pain to a bearable degree. However, the nerve damaged meant that I continued to suffer from waves of neuropathic pain on and off, more or less all the time, and over the next two years with the help of a fabulous pain therapist/anaesthetist I was able to slowly taper off the medication for that. It sounds gruesome but I should remember that during that time I climbed Mount Etna, did several long-distance cycle trips and translated some of my best work - and lived a wonderful life.

For the last two weeks due to a more extensive case of inflammation of my gums - a side effect of the immune supression - a phantom scalpel has been scraping along the bone surface. Most of the time.

I haven't the slightest idea how to fit all this into my present precarious set up. Sometimes I just want to kick my head against the wall or wail like a wounded dog and stuff like that. But I know that's not going to help. Not one bit.

Breath in.

Breath out.

And pin my hopes on medication once again. May all gods and godesses bless my health insurance and doctors - and R, of course, for holding me in the nights.

blame it on tooth ache

Thanks to MTX, my gums are sore and open and hence the tooth ache has been coming and going, spreading to the upper jaw into the phantom pain I experienced four years ago after the great dentist disaster that stopped me from hiking in the Golden Triangle hills with S and instead catapulted me helter skelter into the oral surgery nightmare summer of 2007. It seems that life has dealt me this card again. 

But mercyfully my doctor agreed that this is one shit load too many and so my box of pills has two more additions: one to alleviate the inflamed gums and one to handle the phantom pain. I wish these monsters would act instantly but no, patience is what's called for. And I have run out of this kind of virtue so long ago.

Sleep is a rare and precious gift these nights, a fickle one though and last night I spent much time alternatingly making up dream scenarios in full aching wakefulness or concentrating on the soles of my feet whenever the drilling pain in my gummy upper jaws seemed to spin me out of control. Those dear soles of my feet, with all mental efforts available I made them tingle and glow for most of the night.

During the days I am irritable and cranky. Working was the highlight and I feel dead proud for sticking it out even on days when all I want to do is run and hide. My in-trays are all neatly stacked now and priorities settled and long overdues over and done. Before I lock up for the night, I glance back over my shoulder and, wow, does my desk look good!!

On the home office front, I have started an assigement for a feminist/sociologist crowd translating a long essay on subsistence and autonomy - really good stuff - which is starting to become really frustrating. Frustrating because the two women I deal with are a) computer illiterate whereby anything beyond typing is wonderland, b) scatterbrains, charming but grrr! and c) never on time. They are both older than me, honoured academics, well travelled and well connected in the global feminist ecology network but when I try to teach show them the wonders of editing in word, they smile and clap their hands as if we were in nursery school discovering the miracle of how the red Lego stones fit on top of the white ones - every time anew.

I am probably certainly absolutely unfair now and way off the mark, blame it on tooth ache.

Yes, let's blame it all on tooth ache. All. ALL.

Lá Fhéile Bríde

I am one day late for this.
Don't be afraid of the light that shines within you.

work

There is this feeling of frailty, weakness, exhaustion hovering above my days and I am struggling with it, really hard, while at the same time showing off my professional and accomplished side during my afternoons at work, all smiles and efficiency. After three hours the latest, this frailty catches up with me and pins me down onto my chair with such power and determination that I am left there gagged and shaking. While my mind wants to get on with work and all the new ideas and plans, my body fails me so utterly.
Oh,  how I miss my energetic old self. I have quite some adjusting learning ahead of me. 

...our wounds and flaws are sure signs of our fundamental completeness. If speech is a finger pointing toward the unspoken, our sense of incompleteness, our fragile, tender vulnerability is a sure sign of our strength.

writes Saki Santorelli

quoting Rumi:
"Don't turn your head. Keep looking 
at the bandaged place . That's where
the Light enters you."

And that old grey-haired magician sings: There is a crack in everything, that's how the light gets in...

Connemara tree

Walking along the northern shore of Killary Harbour on an early April morning. The clouds move swiftly inland from the sea, bringing the odd shower. The ground is wet and soft like a sponge, There is no path, just the slope rising steeply to our left, speckled with sheep's droppings. The wind blows relentlessly. We climb along the coastal edge, pass the ruin of a cottage abandoned an eternity ago, silence. Just us and occasionally some very noisy seagulls.

the last stone

At the traffic light I watch a gang of teenage boys wrestling, red faced, sweaty, coats and gloves on the ground, breaths steaming on this frosty day. The power of testosterone.

volcano

Last week, Dr F the ophthalmologist found my eyes in beautiful shape, declared my optic nerve perfectly healed and well again. All smiles until she insisted on reminding me that living with this disease is like living under a volcano, never knowing when and where it will erupt next. Although in theory I am very aware of this, my heart sank and for a moment I badly wanted to shout at her.

In the evening I cried in R's arms while he reminded me in his reassuring calm way that many volcanoes remain silent for thousands and thousands of years.

battery change

A persistent tweeting wakes us in the early hours. Half asleep we wander the house in search of a lost bird or injured pet, slowly waking up to the realisation that the smoke alarm is calling for a new battery.

Surfing on a wave of tooth ache, concentrating on my stance, trying to hold my head upright, hoping desperately for calmer seas.

cál ceannann

a bowl full of kale - picked after a frosty night - chopped

one large onion chopped
garlic, mashed
all fried in oil or butter
mix with a couple of floury potatoes, peeled, boiled and mashed with a cup of milk
serve with fried smoked tofu 

Irish comfort food - thank you R

For days only this grey fog outside. I am running on autopilot. Just a small push to shift the fog and clouds, that's all I am asking for.

Maybe some uplifting music...

grey morning

A blanket of grey fog outside and inside, nursing a tooth ache, too lazy to even make a cup of tea. One more hour of this and I will get ready to go to work. Hard to imagine.

attempting a supportive email to a daughter who is a bit at a loss

My dearest,
while I was pottering around today and cycled along the river I was thinking of your mail and a few bits came up.

This will read a bit like a string of platitudes, sugary calendar wisdom, but here it goes:
Don't feel too driven to do something "useful". If you cannot think of doing something "good" at least don't hurt anybody or anything - and that's quite a task in itself. Striving for happiness is a killer, waiting is the skill.  It's day to day that matters. Living a day being careful and attentive and kind and honest. To yourself and those you encounter.

Write things down, always. And read it eventually.

And remember:
With unfailing kindness, your life always presents what you need to learn. Whether you stay home or work or whatever, the next chapter is going to pop right up.

Eight terracotta pots of budding amaryllis on my window sill. I am expecting fireworks of white, red, pink any day now.

The bruise inside the crook of my right arm is turning green. I place my fingers on the slight swelling. The monthly tap, checking up how I am doing. Hello?

when Vivaldi came to Ireland

Of course, he never went. Or did he?
Hughes de Courson, French composer and musical nomad spins a story, interchanging Baroque instruments with Uillean pipes, flute and fiddle. And this makes for brilliant wake up music.

Like walking through a forest towards a house full of happy childhood memories where friends are waiting with hot chocolate.

After three days of rain and unseasonally mild weather the garden is soft like a sponge. I count the little shoots of snowdrops and crocus. Come on lads, I whisper, don't be shy. I missed you.

in the words of Kurt Vonnegut

Guard yourself at all times. A lot of people believe that beauty is some kind of conspiracy -- along with friendly laughter and peace.


from a letter found on this blog

my colitis tea

 
25g tormentil root
15g sheperd's purse leaf
10g caraway seed
15g fennel seed
25g chamomile blossom
10g rose blossom

I watched the pharmacist mixing this tea, explaining the various medicinal uses of the different ingredients. When she added the rose blossoms, she smiled and said, for beauty.

 

seagull

Driving across the big bridge, a seagull flies dangerously close past my windscreen. Behind the steering wheel I duck.

a talking to

... healing does not always involve a "cure". It happens daily to people with horrendous illnesses. Healing [...] is a balanced state of mental, spiritual and emotional well being that allows for comfort in an uncomfortable body and mind. If we can learn to be with this moment, what ever “this” moment looks like, then the fears that are tangled up with pain, the anxieties that tend to tip us off center, gently reach equilibrium again, at least temporarily.
Then for a breath
...maybe ten breaths,
we can experience relief and peace
...and begin again.

found it here

watching the river rise

Lots of rain, melting snow and now this big fat mighty river has burst its banks. Not the usual little spill-over sloshing along the promenade. 

This time, a fast moving mass of slate grey water pushing its way foreward towards the sea and sideways into fields and gardens, on the tow paths, up the roads and ferry ramps. No barges, no boats, no ferries. Just a handful of confused and giddy ducks swimming on the edges between the tops of trees that normally line the promenade. The cafes and ferry stations and boating clubs are submerged, the odd roof peaking out.

Some benches are bobbing on top, anchored to the ground with their chainlink locks, the odd bin floats by, together with a mixed bag of flotsam: branches, plastic bags, bottles, brown bundles of muck.

All day people are walking down to the edge of the water to take a look. The locals and long term blow-ins, the newbies and the expats, all spellbound by this massive force of water.

Flood tourism, says R and takes a picture.

Night. Listening to the rain. Warm and safe in my floating cocoon of dreams.

blue jay

Brushing my teeth, looking out of the window. A large blue jay lands on the tree opposite, sharpening his beak on a bare branch, whoosh-whoosh, back and forth. He turns his head, we look at each other. He flies off. I rinse my mouth.

listening

It is not easy - in fact, it's pretty fucking difficult - after such a long absence. My in-tray looks like a laundry basket for a football team, I spent the last two days trying to sort out what is what and still not finished.

There is a little voice inside of me that whispers, you are safe, you are well, you are safe, you are well. And I strain to hear it even through the roaring and the shaking. My shoulders ache from all that effort.

At night when my mind wants to continue sorting through the in-tray, I try to concentrate, you are safe, you are well, you are safe, you are well, you are safe...

All that I need to manage is to somehow make it through 3-4 hours, Mo -Fr, AND get some work done.

Listening to David Fray playing Schubert. Thinking, this is thinking without words.

The garden is silent, covered in a loose blanket of wet snow. I am rinsing alfalfa seed. Tiny brown pockets of life, spring in my kitchen.

on a more cheerful note

paid labour

Nervous. From tomorrow on I have to manage at least three hours of regular work until the end of Jan. That means, Mo-Fr including commuting and the lot. What I have been doing for years and years and what I have been unable/not allowed to do for over 12 months now.

From 1st of Feb it's half day or the battle for disability pension.

My employer has built many bridges for me in all these months and more than once has it been suggested to me that there is no need to work "hard", that there are many others who spend half an hour here and there watering office plants and moving the blinds just right and still get paid.

I don't know what scares me more: finding out that I may not be able to work regularly even for a  few hours or the prospect of having to play a charade.

One week at a time. Tonight all I can see is a steep path uphill and I think I have to run it. through thick mud. With leaking boots. Carrying a load of heavy stones on my back. In freezing wind.

I could go on, melodramatics, my pet.

unrealistic resolutions for 2011

• phase out immune suppressive drugs
• visit S on the other side of the planet
• spend at least two weeks in Scopello before the next winter
• cycle from Rhône glacier to Lake Geneva
• do yoga without vertigo
• knitting and quilting (my head is so full of colours and patterns) without vertigo
• join a choir

semi-realistic resolutions for 2011

• spend time with S
• work regularly again, at least part-time
• cycling into town
• gentle hillwalking
• reduce immune suppressive drugs
• stop listening to/reading horror stories about autoimmune vasculitis
• paint the kitchen
• make sourdough bread

realistic resolutions for 2011

• go easy on R 
• rest, rest, rest
• pay attention to the moment
• good food, careful diet to avoid more itisses
• listen first
• accept, accept, accept
  
• remember
• trust
• be grateful without getting soppy
• send S a huge parcel from home
• stop being so negative about yuk I cannot change
• give without getting exploited
• welcome challenges

Scheveningen harbour 31 Dec 2010

Xmas holidays

So it was a bad night and a couple of bad days before that with a lot of nausea and stuff like that and oh such awful weakness like you wish someone would catch you falling and even then you keep on falling. Still, managed the odd short constitutional (on Xmas this is what Jack C would call his stroll) and tried to distract myself with British, nay Swedish crime drama and the usual reruns of Hugh Grant movies on TV.

And this morning we dug the car out of the snow and R dropped me at our GP while he stacked up on whatever. And the GP listened to my murmuring complaining abdomen and squeezed a couple of very sore places and declared me ill with gastritis. But not to worry. I mean, would I? Why ever not. I can worry at the drop of a hat.

The cat chases me around the house and I open the back door for her and then the front door and then the laundry door and everytime it's the same old snow and she gives me this reproachful look as if I put it out there myself. She is bored like a spoilt child locked indoors and nips out to mark her realm and stalks back in record time.

The f key has started to get stuck on this ancient second hand laptop (thank you thank you S) and I started to re-read my scribbling for fear of misspelling the odd f-word which I don't use.

And tomorrow we will drive to the coast to see the snow on the sandy beaches. Or maybe we'll get stuck in a drift or on an icy motorway.

She is 29 years old and in a few months she will receive her PhD in agricultural science. She wants to continue researching crop diseases. She married her boyfriend, a fellow researcher, when they found out that she was pregnant. She wants five sons. This is her first daughter. She will have another daughter and a son within the next four years. She will never set foot in the university again. She will move into a comfortable semi-detached home. She will decorate it stylishly. She will create a lovely garden. She will grow fruit and vegetables, experimenting with different varieties. She will sew matching outfits for her three children. She will have the neighbours round in the evenings for drinks and bridge. She will chat with other mothers at children's parties. She will make jam and bottle the fruit from her garden. She will try out new recipes and solve crossword puzzles. She will drive her kids to horse riding and music lessons. During the summer holidays by the seaside she will read crime novels. She will teach her children how to identify birds and butterflies. She will watch her husband and former colleagues move up in her field of expertise. One day she will take her baby son and climb on the window ledge upstairs and threaten to jump if the daughters don't tidy up the toys.

She will smoke lots and lots of cigarettes and she will have problems sleeping. She will start taking the pills her doctor thinks she should take. She will stop trying out recipes and inviting the neighbours round. She will stop getting up in the mornings to see her children leave for school. She will not watch them perform in school concerts or compete at sports' days. She will start with a martini, maybe a glass of wine, a brandy and so on. She will fight with her husband a lot. She will try to kill herself a couple of times. She will not approve of her daughters' career choices and partners. When her husband eventually moves out she will often forget to eat for days. Some days she will not recognise her children or her grandchildren. She will forcefully reject all offers of help. She will recover from bypass surgery long enough to show affection for her children. Soon after, her lungs will collapse and she will spend six long months on a heart-lung machine unable to speak or move before she will die of pneumonia. She will dedicate her body to medical research. There is no grave.

midwinter

Inundated with snow, like it has apparently never happened before. Certainly not since we moved here. But there are stories of people crossing the frozen river on foot. Today there is a slight thaw and the river is flooding. The roads are slush and the skies are grey.

This morning long before sunrise I heard birdsong. A single voice, but there it was.

Three days at work now after over 12 months of sick leave.

There's a moment after about one hour when I feel the sky is falling and, no, this will not work and then I tell myself, you are stuck here, you have to get through this for a bit longer and whoops, another hour goes by and I have managed.

And after about three hours I drive home, on the radio some debate on whatever and then the forecast (blizzard) and I park the car and struggle with the cover (fucking snow) and pick up the complaining cat and open the front door and sit down on the stairs in the hall and watch my hands shaking and shaking.

And I lean back and listen to the roaring in my banjaxed ear and my bones are so so heavy and I wish someone would help me take off my boots and coat.

And I open the kitchen door and R is cooking and listening to the world service and his face is so tired and he leans over the counter chopping celery and I smile and ask him, how was your day.

it's been a while, rereading Mary Oliver

You do not have to be good.

You do not have to walk on your knees

for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.

You only have to let the soft animal of your body

love what it loves.

Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.

Meanwhile the world goes on.

Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain

are moving across the landscapes,

over the prairies and the deep trees,

the mountains and the rivers.

Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,

are heading home again.

Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,

the world offers itself to your imagination,

calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting 

over and over announcing your place

in the family of things.

(Still this overwhelming sense of something too sweet, too right, but so soothing.)

another attempt

So tired, I feel like I have been walking through heavy snow all day. Aching and stiff. I am back at my office for 2-3 hours now, hiding behind my door, late afternoons. Great sense of achievement despite the spinning head. Difficult to avoid people but it's just too much, all this telling and retelling and explaining and over and over "you're looking great" when I am barely getting through. But at least I'm not getting worse. Amazing.

Really hard to pace myself.

reading Aaron Antonovsky

...throughout our lives, we are all swimming in a river full of potential danger. Or, to change the metaphor to one which may be more appropriate to winter [...], we are all skiing down a long mountain slope, at the end of which is an unavoidable cliff with no bottom. The pathogenic orientation deals primarily with those who have hit a rock, a tree or another skier, or who have fallen into a crevice. Second, it tries to perpetuate the illusion that one should not ski at all. The salutogenic orientation asks, first, how the ski slope can be made less dangerous, and second, how do people learn to ski with a high degree of skill?

Aaron Antonovsky

Becker et. al, Int. E Journal of Health Ed., 2010; 13: 25-32

Pathogenesis	Salutogenesis
Start  = disease or problem	Start  = health potential
Avoiding problems and its causes	Approaching potential and its causes
Eliminate risk factors	Create health (salutary) factors
Reactive - react to signs, symptoms, and indications of disease	Proactive - create conditions of physical, mental, and social well-being
Disease or infirmity is an anomaly	Humans are flawed and subject to entropy
Idealistic perspective - treat disease	Realistic perspective - go get health
Prevent pain or loss	Promote gains or growth
Prepare or help prepare one to live	Enhance capacities/potential for full life
Avoid/prevent from being pushed backward	Help/enhance ability to move forward
Against disease and infirmity	For health
For those who need healing cures	For those who want better health
Prevention of negative health	Promotion of positive health
Health promotion	Prevention of disease and infirmity
Outcome - absence of problem	Outcome - presence of a gain
Keep from making situation worse	Continuous improvement
Minimization of problems	Optimization of potential

the river in winter

what we need is here

Geese appear high over us,
pass, and the sky closes. Abandon,
as in love or sleep, holds
them to their way, clear
in the ancient faith: what we need
is here. And we pray, not
for new earth or heaven, but to be
quiet in heart, and in eye,
clear. What we need is here. 

Wendell Berry

more snow, icy roads

on the wall in my GP's office

• Life has meaning under all circumstances, even the most miserable ones. 

• Our main motivation for living is our will to find meaning in life. 

• We have freedom to find meaning in what we do, and what we experience, or at least in the stand we take when faced with a situation of unchangeable suffering. 

Viktor Frankl

resolution

Most of yesterday it felt like I was losing the ground beneath my feet. Felt so sorry for myself and so ready to go into this long whining misery about how awful it is to be so ill and turning my mind around and around this thought, faster and faster until I am sucked into this so deep that there is no other thought left in my head.

I could really make this into an artform. I could. I could really groom this into a shiny big thing, build and polish a throne for a disease that came uninvited. So why do I treat it like a special guest?

I watch out for its slightest signs, every aspect of it gets VIP treatment. As if I am ill first and myself second.  

Obviously, I cannot ignore it with symptoms like sledge hammers but somewhere in this I am still me. Call it autonomy, spirit, soul or whatever. Right now, it feels very small, impossible even.

In theory, I feel strongly that any health crisis can be understood either as a sign from the body to become aware of certain aspects in life and to find new ways of dealing with them, or, in case of limitations that cannot be changed, as a challenge to discover new ways to accept these limitations and to revalue what is left of my health. Concentrating not on my illhealth and symptoms, my vulnerability, but instead on my personal strengths. Where are they? I do have some left.

I do. 

I do. 

I do. 

I do. 

I do.

In theory, of course. There is a way to go still.

three steps forward two steps back

Well, it was too good to be true. My intentions about going back to work.

Last week after laryngitis & co had departed I managed two pleasant afternoons - and that included doing stuff at home in the mornings, even cycling and some housework.

On Friday tiny little alarm bells rang but there was so much snow and ice that I decided to stay put anyway. On Saturday I barely managed our shopping ritual but when we got home I furiously cleaned the fridge only to collapse onto my sofa for the remaining day.

And yesterday...

Today there is no getting away from it. Whatever it is, my body floors me. Literally.

So back to boring rest and fiddling around with this blog design to keep the mind from freaking out with anger and fear.

the boyscout

We first met when he was a medical student in his final year maybe six, eight years ago. He came to me for help with translating his references for an application to work at an A&E hospital in Israel. A cheerful young man with a long ponytail, freckles and a loud laugh. He showed me snapshots of his first child. 

Over the years I translated several of his reports on disaster medicine and triage for publication in expert journals, he showed me snapshots of more children and one day the ponytail was gone. Still, always the laugh, the jolly voice, so many ideas.

Earlier this year there was a story in the local paper about him working for several months with a medical team in Haiti.

Yesterday he stood there at the back door of the institute, freezing in the snow, smoking.  

How was Haiti?
You have no idea, not even if you try to imagine hell.
(Another cigarette.)
But that was nothing compared to Pakistan.
When did you go there?
Just back. We set up a couple of support networks, tried to anyway.
What next?
Benin, next week. Worst flooding in decades, 600,000 people affected, cholera...
What about your family? Children? Xmas?
I never tell them until 24 hrs beforehand. Otherwise there is too much grief.

(Another cigarette.)
So, what are your plans for the future?
This is the future. I can't stop now. 
Your children? Your wife?
Do you know how many dead and dying children I have seen in the last year? 
But...
It's like a drug. Or worse, maybe.
No laughter this time.