Monday, July 26, 2010

Blue skies and bike seats

Image of pigeons wheeling, silhouetted, after afternoon prayers, above the Jama Masjid in the old town of New Delhi against an impossibly blue and bright sky.
Dear Gentle Reader,

Blue skies are apparently ahead.

Which would be good, as storm clouds have raged, or, worse, droned for a while.

For anyone who actually ever checks over here, yet another mea culpa.

The past couple of years have been a bit trying, medically, as interesting diagnoses come and go.

Parkinson's disease one day.

Multiple sclerosis, another.

Fortunately, both of those were rejected after extensive testing.

Unfortunately, the underlying conditions were ultimately described as a syndrome; diagnostic shorthand for "we know what symptoms you present, and they are real, but we have no idea what the underlying cause is, or how, ultimately, to treat you".

Great.
Really.

I really didn't want Parkinson's, or MS, true.

And I really didn't want the underlying conditions, either.

Another set of conditions were ultimately resolved in a similar way--by calling them a syndrome, again.

Which was all sort of fine.
Ish.

Until, rather recently, there was another concern.

Doctors thought that I might have pancreatic cancer.

And pancreatic cancer is really not good.

Whilst life is terminal (we ride a sinking boat from birth, to paraphrase some Buddhists), pancreatic cancer tends to accelerate the submersion like a torpedo hitting amidship.

Pancreatic cancer led to an extensive pharmacological diet aimed at whacking me in the belly--amidship my ship.

Now, for your humble scribe, pharmacological diets can be rather interesting, and not just amidship. My upper decks and command centres take hits of their own.

Fermented sugar, alone, has interesting effects while stronger pharmawonders tend to bend the hues of the spectrum and provide organic whammy bars to your humble scribe's sensory interpretation systems...

(Your humble scribe hallucinates, visually and aurally (hypnogogic hallucinations), upon taking Tylenol 3s, which my Southern Cousins would call Tylenol with Codeine... ...most people take Tylenol 3s with much less ado simply for pain relief.)

...But, my big pharma anti-pancreatic cancer diet held new combinatorial side-effects for my pleasure and enjoyment...

...such as autodigestion of my cartilage and tendons...
(...mmm...)

...and total-body tendonitis...
(...woohoo).

And then, just before I took off to India, I was told that pancreatic cancer was not, in fact, a concern.

Presumably a new syndrome diagnosis will be offered to me to replace the diagnosis taken away from me but, again, I am rather fine with this.

I still have a pharma diet, which is a much reduced pharma diet from my 'peak', which is good (ish) though I've only managed two non-pharma meals in the last seven days...

(And yet those love handles still persist!)

(...Do you actually have to want to be an ascetic (rather than being forced into asceticism) to get those sveltish lines of Siddhartha Gautama, post his "Great Departure" (when he left his Father's kingdom, and luxury, to live life as an ascetic)?)

Anyway.

All this is by way of an explanation for my absence, as I had promised a few people that I would write, ages ago.

And then broke those promises.

Now you know why.

Anyway, enough whining.

I've been gone a rather long time; I am trying to get back onto the saddle.

Image of a great, red with huge yellow polka-dotted bicycle saddle found in Bhubaneshwar, Orissa (India).



I hope to write more soon, and maybe even read.

Till then...


Tschuess,
Chris



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6 comments:

Teresa said...

Dear Chris,

So glad to have you back in the blogosphere. And I'm glad to know that you "only" have syndromes. I hope they can figure out how to stop the syndromes.

I can see with a saddle like that, with all those rather LOUD polka dots, that it might be rather difficult to get back on that saddle.

Can't wait to see what kind of haikus you come up with after taking a Tylenol 3!

All the Best,
Teresa

gautami tripathy said...

Hey Chris,

I am very glad to see you posting. As you know, it was a pleasure to meet you in Delhi.

In no time you will forget the medical conditions, pharma diets, Tylenol 3 and the likes.

As Teresa says, we all await your haiku!

Be good,

Gautami

debra said...

Greeting, Chris
I have also been semi-MIA in blogdom. Life has presented me with challenges that have taken my energies elsewhere.
Glad you are back---w/o tough diagnoses. Hoping health moves your way

jjdebenedictis said...

*hugs*

Frick, that's really scary. I'm glad you're off the heavier dosage (and that the torpedo diagnosis was wrong) and I hope bluer skies are sprinting toward you. Take good care of yourself, Chris. You're very dear to El Husbando and me.

Barbara Martin said...

Nice to see you back, though hopefully the doctors will be able to come up with something tangible. Have you considered Reiki treatments? They might help.

Cloudia said...

be well, Dear!