How could I have never seen this before????!!!!

This could have been written for me with my anxiety, and it's in a library.

I had a scare Tuesday before last

I woke up confused and unable to walk down the hallway without going into the walls. My speech was slurred. My roommate tried to get me to sit down on the bed and I went about three directions and I had no control over my body. He got me up on the bed and we called 911. I went to the emergency room in an ambulance, and the upshot was I may have had a TIA (transient ischemic attack) or at the very least stroke-like symptoms. Two CTs and an MRI ruled out a full-blown stroke, at least. People suffering from TIAs have a 1 in 3 chance of having a stroke within one year, so it's definitely a wakeup call. They put me on a low-dose enteric-coated aspirin and upped my Lipitor. Hopefully that will help prevent further issue. I was off for a couple of days from work. My neuroloist, when I saw him, was of the opinion that it was brought-on by stress and I should find another job. That's easier said than done.

Owww....

I'm trying not to whine. I woke up to so much pain today that I could barely move or think. I have fibromyalgia and major osteoarthritis. I got up to go to the bathroom, and my right knee was so painful that it made me yell and nearly went out from under me. Ibuprofen is relieving minutely. I only have one other dose of that. My friend has arthritis-strength acetaminophen. I have to be careful taking either, due to my liver issues and diabetes (the need to protect the kidneys). I need to see if I can get some dual-action pain reliever, that has a smaller amount of both. Does anyone have suggestions for other pain relievers? Naproxen does nothing for me. Diclofenac used to, but it got to the point where I couldn't be on it long-term and it wasn't doing as well. Anyway, I called into work, it was bad enough, and I've only ever called in once for fibromyalgia before, and I was diagnosed back when I was in college. I've taken my meds and tried to basically sleep and distract myself, on and off. Right now I have the dogs, though, because my roommate is having a new appliance delivered. They are going wild with other people and other smells in the house. They're just losing their minds, so no rest for Lisa at the moment. I can't get in the bed with the three 60-lb. dogs on a full-sized day bed, not with being so tender. My roommate touched me lightly on a point earlier and it hurt.

Sigh. I thought I'd done reasonably well all of these years with pain, but now I'm really having a lot more trouble. The water would help with the fibromyalgia, but I did cancel my YMCA membership, so after this month it's gone. though today may be a possibility. (I wasn't going enough, because of the issues I had with finding a good time to go to the pool, and couldn't really use the machines, so I wasn't getting much in the way of value.) Yoga was good for it, and of course I don't move well anymore, and I can't get on the floor anymore and back up, but I've got videos to watch for chair yoga. I think I'll try some of that But I've got to do something. But now I can let the dogs out, so I'm going to go find the manual online for the appliance and then lie down a bit.

My favourite song by Simon & Garfunkel, to be played at my memorial

--and the full thing, including both 'Scarborough Fair' and 'Canticle'.

Lyrics:

... Are you going to Scarborough Fair?

Parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme

Remember me to one who lives there

She once was a true love of mine

… Tell her to make me a cambric shirt
(On the side of a hill, in the deep forest green)
Parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme
(Tracing of sparrow on snow-crested ground)
Without no seams nor needle work
(Blankets and bedclothes the child of the mountain)
Then she'll be a true love of mine
(Sleeps unaware of the clarion call)

… Tell her to find me an acre of land
(On the side of a hill, a sprinkling of leaves)
Parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme
(Washes the grave with silvery tears)
Between the salt water and the sea strands
(A soldier cleans and polishes a gun)
Then she'll be a true love of mine

… Tell her to reap it with a sickle of leather
(War bellows blazing in scarlet battalions)
Parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme
(Generals order their soldiers to kill)
And gather it all in a bunch of heather
(And to fight for a cause they've long ago forgotten)
Then she'll be a true love of mine

… Are you going to Scarborough Fair?
Parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme
Remember me to one who lives there
She once was a true love of mine

Source: LyricFind

Songwriters: Arthur Garfunkel / Dp / Frank Peterson / Paul Simon

Scarborough Fair / Canticle lyrics © BMG Rights Management, Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC, TuneCore Inc., Universal Music Publishing Group, Warner Chappell Music, Inc

Connexions

Yesterday before I left work I had a nice conversation (since all the patients had left and we might have been two of the few in the building on a Friday at almost 5 pm) with a nice young man who I would never see again because he was moving out of state. I'd seen him a only few times but had never gotten to exchange more than five words with him. In the 10 minutes we chatted, we talked about several things, including comics (I used to work at a comic book store back in the day), especially Marvel vs. Marvel movies (a sore point for both of us) and I told him my favourite comic book was Neil Gaiman's Sandman, despite recent accusations of sexual harassment towards the writer that have come out. He assured me that he himself had no toxic masculinity despite the testosterone he injects each day. The fact that he was comfortable and disclosed his trans status made me happy. That we could talk about it in an off-hand way meant things have progressed.

Don't get me wrong, I sometimes wonder if gender re-assignment is for everyone who seeks it, because trans and the many other forms of gender and sexual orientation are sort of trendy right now, and I say that as someone who is technically part of the community but tends to see herself as an ally because she hasn't dated since 1994 and it's not really all that important to her identity. But the fact of the matter is that it doesn't matter if I approve or not, that is a personal choice, and it was obviously part of his identity, I'm glad we had that talk because people need to be able to live their lives accepted for who they are.

We never know what aspirations, thoughts, dreams, or feelings people really have when we interact with them each day. We aren't all mind-readers or true empaths. But we can be empathetic to them when they tell us (or show us) how they feel about themselves, and what they strive for (so long as it's not something like serial killing or world genocide, but I try not to interact with the true monsters in the world, at least if I can recognise them).

I'm sure there are plenty of people who would have reacted badly and called him a monster, which simply is not true. I don't understand why people focus so much on hate when they can be kind. We all have dark parts in our personalities and our souls, [I certainly can be a complete and utter terrible person on bad days], but we should be kind to each other, listen to each other, and try to make things better for other people and the world in general, and for ten minutes out of my week I felt a connexion because someone felt comfortable enough to share a bit of their life with me.

The last time I felt that way was when a young man excitedly told me he had just found out was autistic. He was so happy about his diagnosis, and I understand now, though I didn't really then, though I was happy he was happy. I'm sure it made things make more sense, and that is a very special feeling.

Both of those situations were cases of people who shared something about themselves that sometimes receive quite a bit of stigma. And we need to be open to, even if it's only a momentary glimpse into another person's life, of how important that is, and we can bond over that sort of thing as easily as we bond over comic books.

Hope I can do this

Just 26 more pounds and I can have my knee surgery. If I can lose that in three months (by my next appointment) I might be able to do it at the end of the year. I'm at what I think is called Stage 4 (the worst) end-stage osteoarthritis of the knee, meaning it's bone-on-bone without much of any cartilage. The gel shots helped for a while but haven't held the last year or so and we've needed to do cortisone at the three-month mark to supplement it (insurance only pays for the gel every 6 months and 2 days). I have been in so much pain that even with ibuprofen, I've been at my desk with pain throbbing enough that I can't hardly think. If I could have the first surgery late in the year, I wouldn't pay anything out-of-pocket. So I have a lot of incentive to lose the weight soon and make it a 100-lb. loss. It's doable. Until the last couple of weeks I was losing about 2 lbs. a week, and it hasn't gone up or anything. But for the surgery, my BMI has to be under 40. If I lose 26 lbs. it'll be at 39.9. Wish me luck!

Images for dramatic effect. Hey, it's not a HIPAA violation if I share my own knee images. 🙂 Besides, many of you are either medical folks or have gone through similar stuff yourselves.

If you saw this episode of 'The Orville', you probably cried

and this song, a cover of Simon & Garfunkel's 'Flowers Never Bend with the Rainfall' (which I've loved since I was a little kid) by Gordon and Charly, is so poignant. I think 'The Orville' is what modern 'Star Trek' should be.

From my fellow Kentuckian, Wendell Berry

So beautiful: "Shemà" by Primo Levi

Came across this poem while going through a book I have out from the library [100 Poems to Break Your Heart by Edward Hirsch, ISBN: 978-0-544-93188]. The Shemà is a Jewish prayer recited first thing when getting out of bed in the morning after waking and before retiring to bed before sleep. He took the name of that prayer as the title for his poem. The word Shemà means 'Listen' or 'Hear'. Primo Levi, an Italian Jew, wrote this in 1946 after surviving the hardships of Auschwitz. In my Holocaust Studies class, we read his book, If Not Now, When? This is translated from the original Italian. Here it is in the original language, as taken from WeSchool:

Testo di Shemà
Voi che vivete sicuri
nelle vostre tiepide case,
voi che trovate tornando a sera
il cibo caldo e visi amici:
considerate se questo è un uomo
che lavora nel fango
che non conosce pace
che lotta per mezzo pane
che muore per un sì o per un no.
Considerate se questa è una donna,
senza capelli e senza nome
senza più forza di ricordare
vuoti gli occhi e freddo il grembo
come una rana d'inverno.

Meditate che questo è stato:
vi comando queste parole.
Scolpitele nel vostro cuore
stando in casa e andando per via,
coricandovi alzandovi;
ripetetele ai vostri figli
O vi si sfaccia la casa,
la malattia vi impedisca,
i vostri nati torcano il viso da voi.

Eighteen

Citation: Georgiana Wilson-Powell.  365 Ways to Save the Planet. London: Penguin Random House DK, 2023. 193 pp. ISBN: 978-0744077513