Thursday, May 15, 2014

The Disambiguation of Pain (produced the Pisan Cantos): A working theory

What follows is a live-action demonstration, from July 2009, of how to control pain using the art of distraction.

To employ this method at home, you will need internet access and some sort of writing platform (a blog, spare bits of tissue, rice paper with ink and paintbrush, etc.).  Also, if you have a legal and appropriate pharmaceutical at hand, you may take it, but take the lowest necessary dosage, decreased by half.

[Your first few times employing my proprietary blend of distraction, though, consider not using any medication at all. It may not be necessary to your relief.  Not while you have a brain!]

Tell yourself, aloud:  "I will feel better in 15 minutes. 20 minutes, tops." For a successful outcome, position yourself, your internet-accessed device, and any external writing paraphernalia (beware the literati cops!) within comfortable reach. Place everything with such care of thought that should you drift off in a cloud of painlessness, nothing will be harmed. That means, for instance:  no hot beverages!

There.  You are all set.  Breathe in, breathe out, slowly.  Engage your creativity and release your inhibitions and prohibitions.

You are about to disambiguate your pain.  Bon voyage!

***********   ***   ***********   ***   ***********   ***  ***********   *** 



Ezra Pound

I had a night full of crazy nearly-nightmarish dreams and woke to the indescribable pain caused by Uncle Kitty Big Balls licking my CRPS-stricken right big toe. [He's obsessed with toes... maybe because we had to have one of his chopped off to save his sorry hide.]

I don't plan to scrape UKBB:-:Pickle Head:-:Little Boy off the wall anytime soon. Yeah, go ahead. Report me! Turn me in! Drag me off to the slammer, the big house, get all touchy-feelly about mistreatment of cross-eyed, streetwise, stinky-pooping cats.

Lately, UKBB:-:Pickle Head:-:Little Boy has accumulated even more monikers, none of which have definitively stuck, alas. Bugsy. Gus. (I was watching, for the umpteenth time, Lonesome Dove. I have an enduring love for Robert Duvall, and had just announced that I really, really wanted a Gus of my very own, when UKBB promptly announced himself with that weird, raspy half-*ack*-*ack*, half-mee-row that also managed to denote a scruffy beard and teeny-tiny cowboy hat.)


Also: Aeolus -- Greek God of the Winds, for reasons that are air-borne and truly, truly unfortunate. Dirty Harry.

Ah, the serendipity of internet searches and plain old, errant, mindless keyboard clicks. As I began to write about UKBB and his assault, it occured to me that I did not know many synonyms for jail, prison.

What?

Is that not normal mental function? Don't you jump from allusion to allusion, gleefully following each verbal twist until your childlike wonder is definitively shown up as your unique form of mental retardation?

The first thing that popped up was "Yahoo! Answers," where someone had posed the same query -- wanting some slang for prison. Pen, pokey, cooler, lockup, clink.

Not terribly familiar with this Yahoo! feature, I decided to look into what pressing questions were on the mind of the world wide web citizenry:

What's wrong with my cat?
In Cats - Asked by Aida-Christine - 11 seconds ago

How is the average speed solved using the ticker tape?
In Physics - Asked by Dulce Amor - 11 seconds ago

What does human context mean in terms of the elements of drama?
In Words & Wordplay - Asked by LittleMiss - 15 seconds ago

HIS and STORY = HISTORY. should it be HER and STORY = HERSTORY?
In Gender & Women's Studies - Asked by Bored Observer - 16 seconds ago

Where can I buy thermal printers for embossed printing on invitation cards?
In Printers - Asked by Mitch - 16 seconds ago

I cant check my email. Some help please?
In Other - Yahoo! Mail - Asked by infantry_wife - 23 seconds ago

Do I need to be in the center of my surround sound?
In Home Theater - Asked by kc17170 - 24 seconds ago

Are muscly calves genetic?
In Diet & Fitness - Asked by єℓιzα©™ - 24 seconds ago

How do you Say this in Japanese?
In Languages - Asked by Areazel - 27 seconds ago

Whats a good acne medication or cream or something !?
In Other - Skin & Body - Asked by Selah - 29 seconds ago

Production of atp in prokaryotes?
In Botany - Asked by yashwanth - 33 seconds ago

What is the best FREE MUSIC MIXING softwware to download?
In Software - Asked by JasonC. - 37 seconds ago

After a tattoo is pretty much healed is it ok to use cocoa butter without fading?
In Tattoos - Asked by Angie - 37 seconds ago

A quetion about herbal essence shampoo?
In Hair - Asked by BoPeep - 43 seconds ago

How much are Alternators for a 1998 dodge 1500?
In Dodge - Asked by iaskquestions - 43 seconds ago

Is male pregnancy possible?
In Other - Pregnancy & Parenting - Asked by Phylisia Y - 43 seconds ago

What album tracks do you always skip when listening to your favourite bands?
In Rock and Pop - Asked by mark j - 45 seconds ago

What will the human race look like in 1,000,000 years time?
In Other - Social Science - Asked by x-jessicalouise-x - 47 seconds ago

Can you guys use the search feature?
In Yahoo! Search - Asked by Artanis186 - 47 seconds ago

Pls help me with my homework?
In Homework Help - Asked by oyoboy - 49 seconds ago


It's enough to put Darwinian theory in doubt.

So, I am almost in danger of losing the train of my thought, the choo! choo! choo! so dear to coherent conversation and logical composition. Ah, but my darling Reader-Friends, after years of living with an ADHD-driven sweetheart, a cartoon diva, and the neurotic feline Sam-I-Am -- not to mention the impact of inhabiting the Tête de Hergé? I got a mind like a steel trap.

Okay, Beloved Students, let's take a moment to assess things.  
Have you noted The Method in the madness of my various circumlocutions? 
Observe:

Feel pain; Immediately invoke the pain management technique of DISTRACTION.

Not quite there yet, FREE ASSOCIATE; Discover a strong stream of consciousness around the concepts of PRISONS, CATS, and ROBERT DUVALL.

Effective pain management requires a more narrow focus, for which I FISH, using the apparently contrarian method of SEEKING THE SYNONYMOUS.

In so doing, the hard-and-fast rule of "when in doubt, Google," returns the oddly appropriate suggestion of SEEKING THE SYNONYMOUS by visiting Yahoo! Answers.

Having achieved considerable pain relief by such perfect use of DISTRACTION, toss in some deep breathing exercises, maybe a coffee and cannoli.

EXTRAPOLATE WITHIN THE CONFINES OF THE SYNONYMOUS.

This almost brought me to the edge of disaster (located near the stream of consciousness), even unto the brink of the aforementioned Darwinism.

Ah! But as Ezra reminds me, daily:


When the mind swings by a grass-blade

an ant's forefoot shall save you

the clover leaf smells and tastes as its flower.

--from LXXXIII

And so it is that I arrive... at pain relief by DISTRACTION, and you, my darling Reader-Friends, once again scratch your heads and roll your eyes, wondering about drug abuse, mental stability, and why I can't just stave off CRPS' impact by sheer force of will.

That's okay, I understand.
But -- the process is not over. There is much more to this pain management technique of DISTRACTION.

My mind now calm, even if my body still occasionally gives in to the odd writhe, and the voice to disembodied moan, I complete things. I "choo" the "choo," as it were! (You are not successfully circumlocuting if the ends never meet.)

Usually? I don't trust you or like you enough to show you the ending, the meeting of the circle ends. You don't know of my love for Euclid, and my secret glee, inasmuch as I am a writer, of the writerly things I find everywhere:

A circle is a special ellipse in which the two foci are coincident. (Wikipedia)

Wikipedia frequently offers its efforts at disambiguation, in which I delight, for I will refuse all efforts at disambiguation of my own text, while hungrily acquiring the nit-and-grit of that dialogue of contrariness. To wit, I usually would not go on to share that an investigation of ellipse necessarily includes a parse of its use as a rhetorical figure:

a rhetorical suppression of words to give an expression more liveliness.

Now, really, friends, isn't that a pure HOOT?! Coming, as it does, from the figurative pen of Retired Prof, Profderien? A freaking SUPPRESSION of words! Mwa-ha-ha-ha!

Okay, to be honest, as this has been composed in actual time during an actual episode of severe pain, I took my breakthrough pain medication (15 mg Endocet) about 40 minutes ago.

DISTRACTION as an effective pain management technique? Maybe for those perfect souls who are into suffering as means of spiritual purification. Maybe for those stellar people whom I truly admire, whose minds' natural ability to focus does indeed allow for it, like Jeisea, down under at her blog crps/rsd: a better life -- though such sites tend to irritate me because of the pride of suffering (no, I won't unpack that -- you know what I mean -- don't be coy). Also, I am jealous.

I used to be one of both of those -- seeing an overarching good in learning to live with severe chronic pain and able to hone my mind's eye to the razor's edge of a laser beam, and so hope to escape that damned pain.

But no more, unless I have to. When did the "I-have-to" Era arrive? I think when the reality of my immunosuppression and the seriousness of this apparently untreatable osteomyelitis finally made me see that the Ketamine Cure (think Keystone Cops) was too dangerous for *me* to try, that I'd never be accepted in a trial, that the SCS and pain pump were no longer available to me as pie-in-the-sky options.

Now? I try to write through it, perform it. But I also take the medication prescribed me, as it is prescribed me. Well, hmmm, that's a lie. I take less pain medication than my doctor knows or suggests. I force myself through monthly "drug holidays." I try to explore adjunct pain medications, so as to narrow the focus and thereby treat the pain more *precisely*. Mostly, that has come to mean use of baclofen to ease spasm and tics, and ibuprofen to attack inflammation.

And so, let's see: through writing this weird blog and the work that goes into it, there is significant distraction from pain, even though it usually means blogging on that very topic. Writing has become a process undertaken while waiting for conventional pain medications to kick in and do their job, or it is a Hail Mary Pass when I have taken all that is allowed. Anger emotionally fuels and informs my pain, once it has started, and so writing, again, is a way to get through that -- a way to bring the circle's ends back in line, and my mind to a measure of quiescence.

Having literally said, and also performed, this real cycle of pain -- allow me to finish. This is usually the secret part.

When last we left our intrepid painkilling thread, we were citing one of the more predictable quotes from Pound, that crazy, dangerous fool. You know, the ant's forefoot, from the last of the Pisan Cantos.

Here is a brief map of Pound's route to Pisa and on to trial and twelve years at St. Elizabeth's:


Pound met the Fascistleader Benito Mussolini, and it was in this man that Pound saw the opportunity for economic and social reform. As a supporter of Fascism, Pound's statements broadcast over radio became infamous, such as his anti-Semitic statements against what he saw was a Jewish control of the economic systems of Europe:

"..if some man had a stroke of genius, and could start a progrom against
Jews... there might be something to say for it."

These World War II broadcasts, made in Rome, were openly Fascist (it was clear that he hated U.S. President Roosevelt and usury banking), so it came as no surprise when EzraPound was arrested in 1945 by U.S. forces on charges of treason - Pound was still a citizen of the United States of America. For twenty-five days, Pound was imprisoned within the 'gorilla cage', an open cage which was situated outdoors, and was moved into a tent at the end of this time for medical reasons. This incarceration at Pisa lasted for six months in total, and during his time here he continued to translate Confucius and work upon his most famous work, the Pisan Cantos, writing it on scraps of papers and typing up his poem in the medical tent, after-hours.

Leaving Pisa to stand trial for treason and broadcasting Fascist propoganda in the United States, Pound arrived, and was examined by a panel of four mental illness experts before the trial began. Their conclusion was as follows:

"He is abnormally grandiose, is expansive andexuberant in manner, exhibiting pressure of speech, discursiveness and distractibility... He is, in other words, insane." - The judgement made by the four examiners.

Following this 1946 judgement that he was "insane and too mentally ill to stand trial" (and consequent acquittal of the charges on thesegrounds), Pound was taken to St. Elizabeth's Hospital in Washington, D.C. where he remained for twelve years until the continual appeals made by his writer friends ensured his 1958 release.

The ten cantos comprising the Pisan Cantos were composed in the weeks immediately following Pound's several week stay in one of the camp's death-row wire cages, where he had been exposed to the elements, and where he was deprived of the comfort of the human voice, as he was considered too dangerous to be engaged in conversation. When it was finally decided that he was not a high risk prisoner, after all, his health -- physical and mental -- was already in decline. They moved him to one of the medical tents, and there he composed LXXIV-LXXXIII (84 was added later, as coda).

Indicted for treason, found incompetent for trial, Pound ended up, as most crossword-puzzlers and American Lit 101 (or some other introductory course on modernism) know, at St. Elizabeth's.

Just a few months back, a very sweet woman -- who turns out to be my aunt -- filled me in on some of the more fascinating tidbits of Our Family History. My great-uncle Otis spent the last third of his life as an inmate at St. E's, the unwitting victim of tertiary syphillis.


See? It's not all coincidence and serendipity. Nor is it self-indulgence. Well, nor is it entirely self-indulgence -- this defeat of pain by DISTRACTION.



And haven't you had a wonderful time?

Wednesday, May 14, 2014

The Villanelle Walks A Labyrinth

Labyrinth, East Hardwick, Vermont





The Waking


I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
I feel my fate in what I cannot fear.
I learn by going where I have to go. 
We think by feeling. What is there to know?
I hear my being dance from ear to ear.
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow. 
Of those so close beside me, which are you?
God bless the Ground!   I shall walk softly there,
And learn by going where I have to go. 
Light takes the Tree; but who can tell us how?
The lowly worm climbs up a winding stair;
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow. 
Great Nature has another thing to do
To you and me; so take the lively air,
And, lovely, learn by going where to go. 
This shaking keeps me steady. I should know.
What falls away is always. And is near.
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
I learn by going where I have to go.

 -- Theodore Roethke, from Collected Poems of Theodore Roethke.



Jorge Luis Borges, 1941












The World-Wide Labyrinth Locator

The Labyrinth Society

Veriditas

American Idyll

Therefore, love your solitude and try to sing out with the pain it causes you. For those who are near you are far away... and this shows that the space around you is beginning to grow vast.... be happy about your growth, in which of course you can't take anyone with you, and be gentle with those who stay behind; be confident and calm in front of them and don't torment them with your doubts and don't frighten them with your faith or joy, which they wouldn't be able to comprehend. Seek out some simple and true feeling of what you have in common with them, which doesn't necessarily have to alter when you yourself change again and again; when you see them, love life in a form that is not your own and be indulgent toward those who are growing old, who are afraid of the aloneness that you trust.... and don't expect any understanding; but believe in a love that is being stored up for you like an inheritance, and have faith that in this love there is a strength and a blessing so large that you can travel as far as you wish without having to step outside it. 
-- Rainer Maria Rilke, from Letters to a Young Poet

news from the front: "this should cheer you up..."

Today is 14 May 2014.  The blog post below was published on 22 November 2011.  A testimony to my infernal eternal pertinence!  It remains as relevant today as it did some 2 years and 6 months ago. Note also that we are smack dab in the middle of graduation ceremony season, that the Belovèd Grader Boob, one of my Brother-Units, is foremost in my thoughts today, and you can see that I am cosmically required to republish the darned piece.  The Universe has Its Ways.




we are gearing up for the aspiration under fluoroscopy early this afternoon.  good times.  i am in a world of pain and haven't slept in "i-don't-know-when."  well, that's not true:  i slept soundly between 1:30 am and 2:15 am, at which time i sang out a joyous "good morning" to various people who were stumbling off to their beds.

a professor of my acquaintance sent me something to lighten the mood.

oh, okay, it was my brother-unit, the grader boob.  it's all starting to get to him, dear readers.  the proof?  he forwarded an actual paper from a current student... to me, of all people.  it kills me not to be able to just publish the darned thing, but that would be... wrong.

so i'll just pick out select phrases.  the odds of this young woman landing on this blog?  astronomical.  but it could happen, and while her presence here would be more than welcome, there might be some initial discomfiture over the fact that her freshman comp paper has been featured for its general awfulness and horribleissitudèdness (for which my google auto-suggestion thingy would prefer "horticulturalist").

grader boob explains the assignment to which this student is responding:


This should cheer you up.


I’m sending along a copy of a student draft for Project X, an assignment nobly called “Rhetoric in Action.” It’s the final major work and it aspires to get the students to see that they can apply ALL that they’ve learned from the two Comp courses and go out and affect the world. (It’s really just a variation on the classical argument proposal—intro, background, proposal, justification, refutation, conclusion—but one can get in trouble for noting that point!)


[...]


(And XXX is nothing if not a social activist haven—our Occupy XXX group went from 100s to 5 to 2 over the course of three clear days/nights.)


In the attached, the student is arguing that students should not be forced to take General Education courses, for they’re coming into college better prepared than any group before them. From the first line, you can just watch the paper fall apart—for her logic, and her grammar, is impeccable. I especially like her refutation section which notes that students should take the courses so as not to deny teachers the opportunity to attain their dream job, teaching Comp classes.

hey, my temp is 101 and it's only 11 am!  oops.  it's 11 am and i am still sitting hunched over in my jammies, my legs probably fused with the wheelchair (i know my butt is... ouch.  ouch.  and -- again -- ouch).  somehow i have been reading in this hunched position, immobile in this god-forsaken mobility device, for over 8 hours.  my limit before the onset of terminal edema and general misery is... well, much, much less than 8 hours.

i am telling you this as a feigned excuse for behavior that i know is inexcusable.

you know you want to read the whole composition.  i know i want you to read the whole thing.  if you have to ask why, then you are a big bad meanie.

why?  well, largely, because the unbelievable must be believed. students can easily exit a public education by means of graduating from high school --where they took advanced placement classes, even -- yet not be able to think coherently, construct a simple argument, or express themselves persuasively using a level of grammar and spelling mastery acceptable to a beginning college student.

why?  (for you rick perry fans, this would be instance number 2)  because it illustrates some of the daily frustrations faced by teachers, especially those teaching students on a collision course with college, whose very placement defies any attempt to remediate, to fix what has been broken and duct-taped together for far too long.

why? because this student  raises some good questions about university education, though not the questions she intended to posit.  clearly, she was feeling feisty and competent, and we all hope that this spirit stays with her as she knuckles down and learns, giving that stance some legs on which to stand.

grader boob also wrote recently that the argument surfacing in his upper level writing courses, wherein the students insist that their chosen field of study and future employment (chuckle::guffaw::snort) does not require them to write well.  he responds with stories from his best friend, who runs an academic medical research laboratory, who hires and fires frequently on that specific basis.  the students, he notes, are unimpressed and think he blowing smoke up their derrières (my google auto-suggester would prefer -- i kid you not -- "derrida" or "derrick"!).

[uh-oh, i think i love it:  to blow smoke up the derrida, the old derri-dada, ha!]

if you should ever find this post, composition draft author, i hope you understand that i wish you well.  there are things that will become much easier over time, things that you mention, like time management and research know-how.  you're intelligent and clearly motivated, so i am betting your future will be a bright and accomplished one.  this composition, though, points to some problems about which my brother and many teachers grow frustrated -- but by which they are not cowed, because -- without fail -- they will continue to show up every monday, wednesday, and friday, hoping to make a difference.

though, as you point out, they are also keen on raking in the dough.

thank you for your work -- and enjoy the heck out of your college experience!


Careers Now


Six years of elementary school, three years in middle school and four years in high school is what an average student spends in school by the time they graduate high school, which comes out to be a total of thirteen years we spend our lives in school. Ever since elementary school students we have always heard our teachers lecture to us about that what they are teaching us right now is going to prepare us for college one day, and ever since then we have heard that same phrase until we received our diploma from our principle. 


Considering that most of our childhood years are spent preparing us for college and helping us get into college, so then there should be no reason to why we are paying money for classes that we already took in our thirteen years of school in our first year of college. As college students we should be able to start on our dream careers right away without having the annoyance of picking out classes that won’t help you in your career.


Many universities in the state of X have the policy of freshman college students taking
prerequisites there first year in college and believe it or not XXX has the same policy. As stated by the article of the XXXXXX Time Newspaper, “Preliminary figures show that enrollment is up 1.5 percent across XXX's four campuses compared with a year ago, topping out at 45,585”. Many of us
XXX students are just starting of at XXX and just graduated out of high school this past June of 2011 and went into either the summer school XXX had to offer or just started in the fall time of 2011 With us just getting out of high school we are wanting to start our new lives and work on our future because we all felt like high school was just a bunch of busy work that didn’t have anything to do with your career, so by the time we graduated from high school we thought we were done with all the busy work the teachers wanted to give us, but then we went to orientation and scheduled our classes for the fall time and found out that we have to take pointless/ busy work classes all over again. Many XXX students have taken AP classes while they were in their high school years, many of us have taken it because we want to get the college credit so we don’t have to waste our time and money on a class that doesn’t even bother with the career I’m going into. These high school AP courses were free, the classes were free and the test that we had to past at the end of the course to see if we get the college credit was free. Since college courses in high school are free, college classes in a student’s freshmen year should be free as well considering they are the same exact subject and topic but just taught by a professor and not a teacher, and it may be filled with a room more than twenty students.


Many of us go to college with money that is either from financial aid or from scholarships that we
have received in high school. Many of us don’t have a full ride or pre-paid plan for college, so the way we spend our college money is very important so that we have enough money left for us to finish college and get out degrees. All of us college students start out as freshmen in college at one point and there are over a thousand of new freshmen coming in every year, just imagine how much money XXX is making each year just from freshmen alone. To me that money is a waste, it’s such a waster that it should be applied to other little or pointless things on campus like the chalk that the student government writes on the sidewalk with, or supply paper to the XXXXXX (XXX’s newspaper), which no one’s seems to read. I believe taking prerequisites are and that they are just a big waste of time and money.


Life is short and money is tough to come by in this economy these days and with that being said we
as college students and young adults should have the chance of proceeding with our life and not being held back by taking high school classes all over again. With us being this young and starting our lives completely over again we are learning different ways of approaching time management skills and being independent. Also with college being so different compared to high school there are a lot of things we need to get adjusted to and get adjusted to it right away so we don’t get held back in our classes because of not knowing the skills we need to know to use our time efficiently and effectively. This was even stated by College Board stating that “Almost all colleges have core requirements to ensure that students explore subjects outside their major. These requirements range from math and history to philosophy and lab sciences. The number of required courses, and subjects, varies from one college to the next. You should fulfill these requirements as soon as possible so that you can spend your later semesters concentrating on courses in your major” (College Board). That’s why we should be given our classes for our major the first year so we know how are classes are ran and what is to be expected of us from the professors.


Even though preqrequites could be a hassle for both us students and suck out a lot of time and
money out of us but we are helping other people that have already been in our shoes and graduated
with a degree in Composition I or II because that’s what they’re interested are in they are interested in writing and teaching other people how to write and use English grammar correctly. By us taking those classes we are helping out a teacher/ person that had put their time and money to their school just so they can get there dream career. We are helping them finical wise and there effort and time wise.


We as students have earned our way to XXX through lots of hard work and time and effort. If we want to stop wasting our money on classes that we don’t need to be taking for our major then I say we protest!! We will all gather up around the Student Center and protest for a week or however long it takes to the admisntration of XXX. We need to save ourselves ad save the next upcoming freshmen’s from wasting their time and money as well. Taking prerequites does help other people get there dream goal and dream career but that’s a lot of money out of the thousands of freshmen each year just for those classes. I say let’s do will out the busy work classes and start doing work for our career!!


Tuesday, May 13, 2014

Jose Ochoa, Famed Medical Turd, Has Doppelgänger in Metro Atlanta

dop·pel·gäng·er
ˈdäpəlˌgaNGər/
noun
  1. an apparition or double of a living person.
    "he has a doppelgänger named Donald, his invented twin brother"


*******************************************************************

I am beyond upset.  As is Heinrich, er, um, I mean, of course, Fred.  Let me start over.

You must be wondering about the title of this post: "Jose Ochoa, Famed Medical Turd, Has Doppelgänger in Metro Atlanta."  Please do not take the opening lines of this already gooberish bit of writing as an insult to your intelligence.  I know you know what or whom a doppelgänger is, and that the example Google chose to offer for correct usage -- that hilarious bit about the invented Donald -- is Gooberism at its most extreme.

First, Jose Ochoa.  If you don't know His High Turdishness, feel free to enter "Ochoa" in the upper left search box on this page.  Actually, I believe there is also search capacity on the right side of this page, as well.  We aim to enable here at elle est belle la seine la seine elle est belle. Here is the short version, in case you're getting so hot under the collar that me asking you to do something so small and [ultimately] time-saving as reading a bunch of old posts about The High Turd Ochoa has caused you to develop a rash on your poor overworked neck:  He's a doctor, or so people believe, who has made a large fortune testifying in workers' compensation hearings, or performing sadistic forensic "independent medical exams" for workers' comp or other large insurance agencies.  He specializes in making sure CRPS patients never receive appropriate medical care or desperately needed funds with which to buy food and pay rent.  His specialty is thus refined because inherent to his qualifications are numerous humorous articles which refute the very EXISTENCE of CRPS.  Unfortunately for His Turdishness, Big Science, Big Workers' Comp, and virtually all Big Insurance Companies, have left him in the dust, especially now that he can only use citations of his own "work" to bolster his baseless and hilarious claims.

Now, I've no desire to be sued by Jose Ochoa, and from the number of "hits" that articles about him receive that originate within 5 miles of his home base, he and his misled associates are constantly checking on his "turd" status here in Marlinspike Hall.  

"Hmm, I wonder if I am still a Turd.  Better check that helpful blog again..." [logs on to elle est belle la seine la seine elle est belle via a well-traveled link to his favorite laudatory post, "Three Months Later: José Ochoa, *Still* A Big, Fat Turd."]

There's an excellent unbiased summation of the non-board certified (in *any* medical specialty) Doctor Ochoa by the Third Circuit Court of Appeals in the State of Louisiana HERE

While I'm ranting, and I'll stick with that verb choice, despite its inaccuracies, I'd like to dispute the ugly rumors that I am just angry at being stuck raising an Ochoa Love Child with no support from my Baby-Daddy.  Doctor Ochoa and I have never had the opportunity to meet, speak, exchange emails or psychically teleport (in terms of matter, as well as thought, including his submicroscopic, sluggish spermatozoa and my plump, beautiful ova).  I know nothing of his personal life, beyond logical deductions of habits groomed by greed, and assume that he's happily married, and probably the head of some dynastic empire. I don't really know.  There is NO LOVE CHILD, so just stop repeating that. And if there were, you can be darned sure that Jose Ochoa would pay support for the poor thing... or my name isn't Retired Educator!  er, Profderien!  um, Channeller/Medium of Bianca Castafiore! oof, Definitely not that "L. Ryan" person!

Okay, so now you have the broad outline of my personal opinion of Jose Ocho, as well as that of the Third Circuit Court of Appeals in the State of Louisiana, that bastion of liberality. 

*** I just dropped by the general web site of the Third Circuit Court of Appeals and was RUDELY escorted out.  Let me share with you what I learned through ignorance, which, when of the law, is no excuse.  They have a freaking DRESS CODE: "All counsel appearing before the court shall be appropriately dressed in business attire. Men shall wear a coat and tie. No denim is allowed." Despite my assurances that my advanced and highly hoity-toity degrees were all related to French, literary criticism, and linguistics (though I might have blubbered "linguini," which would explain a few things) and that, as channeller of the Milanese Nightingale, Bianca Castafiore, my neon yellow beret and 1859 hot pink silk ball gown over red hightop, stiletto-heeled, punk tenny pumps were perfectly appropriate...
The next thing you might be curious about is how Fred and I got to Metro Atlanta from our usual location West of the Lone Alp in the land of Tête de Hergé.  Well, that's easy!  We "borrowed" one of Captain Haddock's miniature submarines and used the wormhole extending from the bottom of Our Algae-Plagued Moat to get to Atlanta's very creepy northern suburbs.  Since that's where my new ACA-provided MarketPlace HMO health insurance wanted me to go for my first neurological appointment for the accursèd CRPS spasms and CRPS-induced hypertension... who was I to complain about the minor inconvenience of hitching a ride through [?] a wormhole in a miniature submarine belonging to my cartoonish boss?

Captain Haddock.  Hey, is YOUR boss on Wikipedia?
Now, having resolved any possible qualms my more habitual readers might entertain about this post -- fear that the Turd Ochoa will breach the defenses of Marlinspike Hall with a warrant for libel or slander or false paternity claims, concern that we had to travel to the center of backward fake conservatism for medical care -- I can finally proceed to an explanation of Dr. Ochoa's doppelgänger.

Because I am Honest-to-God afraid of Dr. Ochoa's doppelgänger, I shall not name him.  Okay, his initials are RJW.  Roald Joseph "Joe Cargo" Wasserman.  Yeah, that'll do.  Dr. Roald Joseph "Joe Cargo" Wasserman, it is!

Roald Dahl (/ˈroʊ.ɑːl ˈdɑːl/;[1] Norwegian: [ˈɾuːɑl dɑl]; 13 September 1916 – 23 November 1990) was a British novelist, short story writer, poet, fighter pilot, and screenwriter.
Joseph Michael "Joe Cargo" Valachi (September 22, 1903 – April 3, 1971), Italian American, also known as "Charles Charbano" and "Anthony Sorge" was the first Mafia member to publicly acknowledge the existence of the Mafia. He is also the person who made Cosa Nostra (meaning "Our Thing") a household name.
The Wassermann test or Wassermann reaction (WR)[1] is an antibody test for syphilis, named after the bacteriologist August Paul von Wassermann, based on complement-fixation.

Because I believe in sharing as many spontaneous "excited utterances" as possible, I will now resort to copying-and-pasting a recent electronic wormhole transmission, because Fred and I are safely back at home in Captain Haddock's ancestral manor.  It may be slightly redacted.  But whose blog is it, anyway?

An Anonymous and Amazing Friend (I have a few!) wrote, having intercepted some rabid but innocent, off-the-cuff, breezy allusion to "NEUROLOGICAL RAPE":

Okay, what's going on with you????
Are you in HIGH pain????

You'd like her.  I sure do.  We are, in fact, sending a drone miniature Haddock Corporation submarine to her secret location as you and I "speak," Beloveds.  Why?  She's bringing PIE, a known curative for all that ails one.

It's a Marlinspike Hall rule, cross-stitched on a pillow even:  "You must answer all Anonymous and Amazing Friends' electronic or cross-dimensional communiqués, no matter how freaking painful it is to type or twitch your nose à la Bewitched."  What is not mentioned on the pillow is our true motivation 
-- "Keep your friends happy and they might bring you pie!"




Actual Official eDocument concerning the Doppelgänger of 
Famed Medical Turd, Jose Ochoa, in Metro Atlanta

Official Seal


hey.  i had made an appt yesterday that i was actually looking forward to, with a neurologist through my new insurance..  this guy does research at emory on movement disorders, and was a perfect match for my spasms and other CRPS weirdness.  

i made sure to send fred an email from the computer turret with the directions, as we have gone to this location once before and GOT LOST. we are sooooooo used to Tête de Hergé, and the miniature submarine trip through the wormhole is sooooooo disorienting! 

i also made sure we left a half-hour earlier than necessary, as we had to transfer from the captain's sub to a rental car and atlanta traffic is infamous. we got in the car, i asked fred if he had the directions, and he said, "don't need 'em, i know exactly where it is." of course, his eyes were spinning like lemons on a slot machine.  bless his bones!

first, there was a wreck on I-285, and I-285 is already a wreck!  look what wikipedia says about it, even:
Interstate 285 (I-285) is an Interstate Highway loop encircling Atlanta, Georgia, for 63.98 miles (102.97 km). I-285 is also un-signed State Route 407, and is colloquially referred to as the Perimeter. Suburban sprawl has made it one of the most heavily traveled roadways in the United States, and portions of the highway slow, sometimes to a crawl, during rush hour. It is also signed as Atlanta Bypass on Interstate 75 and Interstate 85.It is estimated that more than two million people use the highway each day, making it by far the busiest Interstate in the Atlanta metropolitan area.

but that was okay, we allowed for the time!  then we got lost, got confused, started screaming at the rest of the millions of drivers, who all screamed back at us, the nerve of those atlantans! 

we did not get there on time.  i was, they told me, 21 minutes late.  i tried to call them but due to the noise in the lamentable excuse for a car, that was not possible. they called the doctor to see if he would still see me and he said "no." we felt like dorothy and friends during their initial attempt to see the wizard of oz.

"Fred, I don't think we're in Tête de Hergé anymore."

Dang it!  Another secret photograph of me, Fred, and Sven Feingold going about our Daily Labors
 at Marlinspike Hall.  We have an Instagraph stalker.  Yes, I know I CLAIM to be a bedridden,
wheelchair-riding GIMP.  It's all a lie.  Read on!


i burst into tears, having been up all night for 3 nights in a row with spasms.  they get worse when the infection in my left shoulder flares and when i am under STRESS (worrying about brothers, nephews, mother-units, and my little buddies brayden and nolan -- and my big buddy, the outrageously large maine coon with separation anxiety!).  they said they would work me in with another doctor: Dr. Roald Joseph "Joe Cargo" Wasserman. 

"my big buddy, the outrageously large maine coon with separation anxiety"

they don't accept faxes at this neurological clinic (the building is under construction, the wiring hanging through plastic sheeting), so i had been told to bring my records from my former WONDERFUL neurologist. you remember him? the hawaiian-shirted, birkenstocked dude who diagnosed me in 2003, some 19 months out from CRPS onset? he had carefully selected the important parts of my long, well-documented records, studded with studies and exam/treatment results --  and also had written a wonderful summary for whomever the new neurologist turned out to be. 

Dr. Roald Joseph "Joe Cargo" Wasserman is whom it turned out to be.

diana, it felt like i was being RAPED.  (not literally, just neurologically!)  dr. m, my former neuro, NEVER touched me without permission or without warning me to do stuff like pulling up my pant leg or moving my arm.  yes, in the beginning, he HAD to do nerve conduction studies (EMGs) but even then, he was as gentle as humanly possible -- because he understood CRPS, he diagnosed it, he saved my freaking life!

well, no. he did not save my freaking life.  he told me, and this is something one never, ever forgets: "retired educator, you've been dealt a shitty hand."

to which i replied:  "aces over eights?"

at which he snorted coffee up his nose, and did not answer, eyes aglitter.  dr. m has cried in my presence a couple o'times through the years.  when i did clinical drug trials, when i did subanesthetic ketamine treatments for three months, to no avail.  oh, okay -- and when i told one of my patently bad knock-knock jokes...

Dr. Roald Joseph "Joe Cargo" Wasserman did not read the records, or even the summary.  for an hour and a half, he poked pins up and down both legs, my back, both arms, my face.  repeatedly.  then he used the effing reflex hammer, and did not believe that i had no shoulder on the left, and bone infection in both shoulders.  i have to hold up my left arm with my right to have it examined, and he would push my right hand off my left arm, making it fall.  repeatedly. (i just saw my beloved dr. shoulderman last week, the orthopedic surgeon who has seen me since 2005 and operated over 10 times -- and he saw infection in the SOFT TISSUE as well as the bone on the left side... and we decided to just pray for the next 6 weeks!  and i was to "rest that arm" after he injected it with anesthetics and steroids! 
so the bleeping ex-shoulder area HURTS even more than usual... and the CRPS in the lower arm is, consequently, flaring, and twitching.  twitchtwitchtwitch!) 

Dr. Roald Joseph "Joe Cargo" Wasserman kept asking about a damned "rash" and demanding, "why is this so painful?" 

like the fool that i really am, i kept repeating, "i've had CRPS for 12 years, that's why, and avascular necrosis, and infected bones/joints..."  and he would go, "yes, but i am barely touching you!

like the fool that i really am, when it got to the point where i could barely speak, i tried spitting out one-word important bits of information, like "ALLODYNIA" and "fgaweorjaoneonbyvwyqq"!

maybe it would have been more fruitful to save up one last bit of verbal heroics, and spit out an entire sentence, probably something from the Great Physician HimSelf"Sometimes I am quite certain there's a Jertain in the curtain."

excuse me, all this one-handed typing is getting to me... let's take a Great Physician break and watch a short bit of YouTube entertainment.




okay... returning to the neurological assault.

so i stopped talking and basically tried to meditate my way through Dr. Roald Joseph "Joe Cargo" Wasserman's "examination." 

he deliberately ran into my right leg, that was extended over the edge of the exam table.  not once but several times.  he dragged his highly starched long white coat over both legs, again demanding: "how can that hurt so much?  why are you crying?" i asked for tissues, as i'm not fond of my mascara ruining my blotchy foundation, and snot running down to the chin is simply not fine. each time, i would transfer the tissue to my now claw-like left hand (handy for clutching things!), as there was a sneaking suspicion in my mind that i'd need tissue again in thirty seconds.  he would then pry the dirty tissue out of my left claw, throw it away, and then we would replay that little scene when next the snot reached my dimples. 

finally, because i had a bit of a fever (that would be the INFECTION!), high blood pressure (that would be the PAIN!), and his insistence that i see infectious disease specialists, orthopedic surgeons, and have a brain MRI (all of which has been done and done and done, by much better than RJW!), this highly organized Unsub began to insist that i needed to be admitted PRONTO.  
do not pass go, go directly to the hospital.  

and yes, i've been watching too many Criminal Minds ION Television marathons. fred and i can profile unsubs with amazing alacrity.  here, i'll prove it to ya!


UNSUB
  • 27-35 year old white male
  • enucleator (removes eyes) -> Usually enucleators are males with a diagnosed mental disorder, lack social skills, disorganized, sloppy, repeat offenders. They don't usually take the eyes. It's usually not about the eyes, but about what the unsub sees in them (delusional!)
  • This unsub however is quite organized and strategic, and does take the eyes with him. (Possibility: trophy/consumption)
  • Apart from the first victim he's very precise with taking the eyes -> might have some medical training (but will not have made a career out of it)
  • Blitz attack - he lacks the social skills to charm his victims.
  • Very likely to have been institutionalized/ halfway house/ treatment facility.
  • Less than 48 hours between kills (he is escalating) No cooling off period will make it hard to get ahead of him.
  • Area of 22miles between locations (usually the kill area is smaller)
  • Leaves body in somewhat public area where he could have easily hidden it there - he is not afraid to get caught
  • Used a trip wire -> game hunter. He may have applied for a hunting license.
  • He waits until he is alone with his victims -> patient
  • Killers usually get more sloppy when they escalate, this unsub only gets better.
  • Drives a van or pickup that's easy to clean (his dad's)

heh heh.  i ripped that off from a fellow rabid unsub, i mean, FAN... of Criminal Minds. i ain't no freakin' enucleator, and i shore as shit ain't lackin' in any social skills.

there's more to tell about RJW but that's more than enough (i am SORRY to be dumping on you again, again, again, when you've got more than enough troubles of your own).

he did increase the dose of one of my meds.  he printed out my "discharge notes" and told me he wanted to see me again in 3 months (but expected me to end up in the emergency room by evening).  
i said, exiting my meditation silence, "thank you, doctor," revved up my power chair and found my sweet fred in the waiting room, snoring.

we went to the pharmacy on the ground floor.  then we thought to look at my paperwork and... we blew up. like balloons, pretty much.

the guy had diagnosed me with SHINGLES. "postherpetic neuralgia"! that's why Dr. Roald Joseph "Joe Cargo" Wasserman was asking about a rash, and was obsessed with my allodynia symptoms, which are just standard fare with CRPS neuropathic pain, but "present" in a much different way. oh, let's just cut to the freaking chase. shingles very rarely ends up creating gorgeous gams such as these:


this was.labelled "summer legs 2013" -- ha! 

aha, here's a video from 2011! the neuro rapist wouldn't accept that my "condition" was an old one, and not a recent attack of "postherpetic neuralgia."  and oh lordy, please don't think i am underestimating the pain and suffering shingles patients must go through, 'cause i am not!

sweet dobby still sniffs my feet, full of suspicion!  "where did my hooman get these butt-ugly thangs?"





so... we were in the pharmacy, so close to the parking lot and the car that would take us back to the miniature submarine dock, adjacent to the wormhole entrance that would return us to calm domesticity... i told fred to calm down, let it go, let's get the medication, and just GO HOME, where i could climb back into this blessed hospital bed, curl up, and recover.  with sweet dobby probably sniffing RJW's scent from my bed head to my gnarled tippy toes.

"no, we are going back up there, RIGHT NOW." 

the workmen putting up dry wall were all staring at him, but one of them proceeded to help us get on the right elevator!  even held the door as it started closing on the wheelchair! yet another hero to add to my hero collection!

we get to the 4th floor.  to the reception desk.  she says we cannot see the doctor, "he is out to lunch." [i start LAUGHING].  fred demands that she get him on the phone.  she finds a nurse, instead. i end up speaking to her after fred has finished the first detailed and footnoted explanation of the differences between shingles and CRPS.  she claims it was "a computer error." 

yeah, typing out "postherpetic neuralgia" just HAPPENED -- that's how computers operate, they just do whatever they feel like doing, those darned computers. 

surrounded by artificial intelligence.  
like a noose closing around a proffered neck, AI was tightening its grip... mwa ha ha!

there's more. the story continues into today, tuesday. RJW ends up calling my primary care doctor (not dear go-to-guy, but the HMO woman who, at our first meeting, said "our 17 minutes are up!").

her nurses are calling, telling me i MUST go to urgent care, i MUST check into the hospital, i MUST be seen, and yaddayadda. but the last nurse was GREAT.  she listened.  and she let me lie and say i was considerably improved and would come in tomorrow "if i wasn't completely better." 

mwahahahahaaaaaaa!

poor fred had a tooth pulled this afternoon, just got home. but at least he could have it done by one of the Haddock family servants, one of the stable workers who got his DDS in his down time.  so he is completely unable to run through the fruit orchard, vault the rock wall, and retrieve the BP medication that go-to-guy called in to the monastery infirmary.  such is life.

but writing YOU, a true friend, has likely lowered my sky high CRPS-induced hypertension just as well. 

plus, now you are sure to send pie.  cherry, please. deep dish? 

and i dearly want fred to sleep, rest, relax.  he woke me up this morning because he was yelling in his sleep.  gladly, when i asked if he had bad dreams, he could not remember any, just noted that he woke up "already tired." that breaks mine heart. 

i'd turn off the phone, but i want to be available for grader boob in the highly unlikely event that he might call. or that other shifty-eyed brother-unit!  how odd is it that we all detest the telephone so much?  ah, genetics!  no, that's not it.  ah, darwin!

that's about it. did i neatly tie up every loose end?  be sure to put that pie in a sturdy, waterproof box. the wormhole can be squirrely and ends, of course, in our algae-afflicted moat. we will post sven feingold's son, cabana boy, on Moat Pie Watch Duty.

god, i love you!


***** ***** ****** ***** ***** ****** ***** ***** ****** ***** ***** ******

THUS CONCLUDES THE EXPLANATION OF THE TITLE OF THIS LONG AND WINDING POST: "Jose Ochoa, Famed Medical Turd, Has Doppelgänger in Metro Atlanta." 

Any detail is fair game for the Final Exam!

Smile.

Monday, May 12, 2014

The Wheel of Dharma



From the blog Sanctuary Of Random Keystrokes:





Trongsa was the first dzong that I have ever entered so I have a lot to tell. Our description of visits to other dzongs will become less detailed and will state only what is unique to each one. 
It was a sunny but cold morning in Trongsa. We checked out of our guest house and went straight to the Trongsa dzong. As we neared the dzong, our guide took out a long white scarf and wrapped it around himself. The common public must wear one before entering a dzong or face stiff fines. Tourists are fine – even in jeans. 
The dzong was as beautiful as it was imposing. We entered through a large wooden door with the wheel of dharma painted on it. In its center was an ornate door knocker. It is a motif we’d see consistently on most doors across the dzongs.