as i crawl beneath the rug, and retune my piano...

I've been avoiding you, Dear Reader.  That's something of a compliment, as the avoidance is based on my assessment of your acumen.

It is no secret, my modus operandi in writing most blog posts.  There are a few topics whose past treatment requires continued treatment:

• CRPS breakthroughs
• CRPS in daily life (including humorous leitmotifs about do-it-yourself amputation and the joy of suicide) 
• Any findings in the case of lost child Lindsey Baum 
• The reliable turdification of José Ochoa (lately, I've investigated the immense amount of money wasted on him by government grants, but gastrointestinal responses have precluded publication of this research) 
• The scam CRPS / neuropathy treatment CALMARE / ScramblerTherapy (again, I've a half-written post on the hilarious background of its inventor and his woo-science, dedicated to the creation of a machine that spews electricity like a Fountain of Youth -- never mind the obvious idiocy of mixing water and electricity) 
• Oh, and should my nausea subside, I am overdue in checking in on where the good Dr. Scott Reuben is malpracticing, and in what way

For a bit, I would regularly rag on Phil McGraw and some of his weirder acolytes, and while that was a gratifying release for simmering undercurrents of sadism, I'm trying to stop feeding that easy-peasy awful part of myself.  Now I just follow their shenanigans when late night efforts at mindfulness and distraction via YouTube cat videos fail.  Besides, one day my vision cleared, and I discovered my gratitude for the Unweird friends made while cavorting with McGraw's Chronic Pain Support Group.

By the way, Dear Reader, you've no need to feign shock at my admission of sadism.  On a good day, it makes me something of a Juvenalian satirist.  On a bad day, okay, I get a slight titillation from asshats getting their due... but not to the extent of paraphilia, or a personality disorder. Ignorance drives me batty and I am daily thankful for my innate, unfailing superiority.

It's also no secret that my navel-gazing can get in the way of what might be decently mediocre pseudo-journalism.  I write more about suffering due to CRPS, osteomyelitis, lupus, and osteonecrosis -- all hilariously related -- than I do my ardent political leanings, or other areas of ardor.  Do I wish my knees were worn from kneeling at some other altar than that of the personal?  Oh, yes!

Referring to your acumen, again, Dear Reader, it's clear that this blog is an attempt at therapy, written in as lively a way as I can pull off so that no one will wander the side halls of detritus.  I am writing my way through the remains of a life, deeply sorry for having wasted it so, and therefore frequently embarrassed by my strung together words, the over-estimation of serendipitous thought caressing circumstance.

There are circumstantial caresses that became blessings -- some fleeting benedictions, some amazingly enduring beatific guffaws. People I've met online, mostly.  Writings I'd never thought to have read had not some virtual friend made of them succulent, enticing fare.

One of those blessings is my friend "Peaches," an actual author, a man of the world, familiar enough with life to inflict suggestions as if it were his prerogative (by virtue of being so old, I tell him.. or dream of telling him, one day... one sadistic, wonderrful day!).

Yes, that's right.  I want to meet Peaches.  As much as I want to meet TW, Carol, Diana, Joyce, Benita, Tom, Betty, Fresca, T, and even some who have wished me ill, but in an inspirational way.

Peaches calls me Irene.  I call him "Peaches" because of a phrase that someone stuck into mine head years ago, in a late afternoon patio conversation at a Telegraph Avenue trattoria.  My memory is muddled, but I believe we trampled over Shakespeare and T. S. Eliot before someone declared someone else, glass raised, "a prince, a peach, a pear."

Since that chilly afternoon, spent over perfect antipasto and ignored obligations, I've found no higher praise to offer other beings than that they were "a prince, a peach, a pear." Roasted peppers and marinated artichoke hearts, spiced meats and bursting tomatoes, there was neither peach nor pear in the offing on our rickety cast iron table, rocking the red wine.  So the phrase is of even more value, its provenance being so wondrously lost.  Sadly, it casts its own restrictions -- I never use it to praise, or shower with abundant love, women deserving such approbation.  It has become a sort of obscure pillow talk, the pillow partners more in tune with its vast smooch galore than with its elusive ancestry or culinary provenance.  The role of the house red, delivered in a series of carafes, probably merits further investigation.

I remember the walk home, to a brand new private apartment on one of Oakland's first streets to cross Telegraph, leaving behind Sather Gate, crossing Bancroft and the cafés, book stores, tables of dangling earrings, poseurs, beggars, travelling to home, paper trash swirling, our awareness of danger waking, coffee our first plan before grading.  Funny, but the guy walking with me never was candidate for prince, or peach, or pear.  A good writer and sometimes great poet, he was a fraud, and the essence of the laudatory phrase lies in the genuine.

So.
Right.
Ahem.

Peaches lives in New York City, the old fart.  He is a faithful friend, but that means, of course, frustration at my "here today, gone tomorrow" nature, a nature unaltered even by friendship or blood relation.  I've been under the radar, or, believe it or not, quite concise, these past few weeks.  Still, Peaches fires off an email every few days.

Like today:

Irene...........
Hi.............

In the dark here.... How're you doing?

P.

Bless his heart, Peaches reached out at a moment when I was navel-gazing, seriously lost, seeing no way out from neurological jokes and jerks, pain bad enough to create tears in a body seriously dehydrated from constant fever.  He just wanted an answer.  I wanted a rescue buoy, garrish orange against the cresting teal.

beware, peaches, i've been avoiding writing anyone.  why?  the proof is in my outdated packets of yeast, my bread that will not rise.  i am in a baguette phase.  i'm also heavily medicated at the moment, which means you should stop reading NOW, content to know that i remain irene. i've been promoted from 100 mcg of fentanyl to 150 mcg patches. the joke is that the pain is stronger but there's just no point in making that known.

but, to answer your concision explicitly:

hey, i am DOIN'.  i am DOIN' (that's southern) the best i can.  

very briefly, last week, fred and i concluded that it was up to each of us whether our respective day would be good or bad.  we crowed and strutted, convinced that no circumstance has the power to inflict a "bad" day.  harrumph -- we don't even know what a bad day IS. complain?  whimper?  moan or groan?  ha!  not us!

that lasted three days and then we took a break.

i'm fine, peaches.  frustrated, sad, guilty, tired -- all of which i shall put aside once the fredster rises from his eight layers of covers to take on the day.  yes, fred is a layer fanatic, something he said he learned about in both brooklyn winters and in the huge temperature variations of the ethiopian desert.

well, there is one thing that sucks.  my eyes are going bad again!  and not in any polite subtle way, either.  i had a brief period of being able to read again and was enjoying the literary send off into sleep, no matter how tedious the novel. we are both working our way through minette walters, a very hit and miss affair. i find her interesting when she lets her inner sociologist sing. when she aims at popular success, she's tedious.

                  

being able to read also meant a complementary tub of plain lowfat yogurt with frozen strawberries. it's become impossible for me to read well without the creamy tang of yogurt and the icy comfort of frozen fruit.

when reading goes, it's a musical bedtime, the lullaby a string of rolling stones' songs -- or, these days, the decemberists and early, easy-breezy, very cheesy brett dennen.  

last night was kind of wonderful, drifting off to phil ochs' "the party," which actually made me think of you... and a few other upper crust sorts, and the cocktail parties you must have both enjoyed and endured.

there's a funny aspect to last night's nocturne, the evocation of monastic hours --  in a completely messed up, annoying way -- beyond the cheapo-cheapo piano, designed to set the teeth on edge.  and then there's phil's voice.  hmm, best i move on, eh? 

some time ago, in asking around about phil ochs' "the party," one of my american lit professors recommended i read... tom wolfe's radical chic & mau-mauing the flak catchers.  

unlike my literati betters -- and that means everyone around me -- i suffered mental origami, a conflation of tom and thomas.  flashes of "golden moments," and so, i have to ask, have you read much tom wolfe?  i realize that the scales tip in favor of look-homeward-ish-ness than anything by the journalist author, who saw himself as a brutally honest zola.  and how many occasions have you had to smile politely at some idjit such as myself, mixing wolfe & wolfe, a heathen playing at americana?

so much happens so quickly in the brain, even a brain seeking sleep.

see? i'm DOIN'.  and while i admire concision, i live for word play... 

"And my shoulders had to shrug

As I crawled beneath the rug and retuned my piano..."

all my best to you and yours, and apologies for ruminating all over your email. it should blot up easily with a paper towel. my last sentence ought to be the first:  how are YOU (and yours), sweet peaches?  

irene

(One hint to how the piano was made even more schmaltzy?  it was a series of plastic toy pianos...)

The Party

The fire-breathing rebels arrive at the party early
Their khaki coats are hung in the closet near the fur
Asking handouts from the ladies, while they criticize the Lords
Boasting of the murder of the very hands that pour
And the victims learn to giggle, for at least they are not bored

And my shoulders had to shrug
As I crawled beneath the rug and retuned my piano

The hostess is enormous, she fills the room with perfume
She meets the guests and smothers them with greetings.
And she asks, "How are you" and she offers them a drink
The countess of the social grace, who never seems to blink
And she promises to talk to you if you promise not to think

And my shoulders had to shrug
As I crawled beneath the rug and retuned my piano

The beauty of the hour is blazing in the present
She surrounds herself with those who would surrender
Floating in her flattery, she's a trophy-prize, caressed
Protected by a pretty face, sometimes cursed, sometimes blessed
And she's staring down their desires
While they're staring down her dress

And my shoulders had to shrug
As I crawled beneath the rug and retuned my piano

The egos shine like light bulbs, so bright you cannot see them
Blind each other blinder than a sandbox
All the fury of an argument, holding back their yawns
A challenge shakes the chandeliers, the selfish swords are drawn
To the loser go the hangups, to the victor go the hangers on

And my shoulders had to shrug
As I crawled beneath the rug and retuned my piano

They travel to the table, the host is served for supper
And they pass each other down for salt and pepper
And the conversation sparkles as their wits are dipped in wine
Dinosaurs on a diet, on each other they will dine
Then they pick their teeth and they squelch a belch saying
"Darling, you tasted divine"

And my shoulders had to shrug
As I crawled beneath the rug and retuned my piano

The wallflower is waiting, she hides behind composure, composure
She'd love to dance and prays that no one asks her
Then she steals a glance at lovers while her fingers tease her hair
And she marvels at the confidence of those who hide their fears
Then her eyes are closed as she rides away with a foreign legionnaire

And my shoulders had to shrug
As I crawled beneath the rug and retuned my piano

Romeo is reeling, counting notches on his thighbone
Searching for one hundred and eleven
And he's charming as a child as he leads you to his web
Seducing queens and gypsy girls in the boudoir of his head
Then he wraps himself with a tablecloth and pretends he is a bed

And my shoulders had to shrug
As I crawled beneath the rug and retuned my piano

Oh, the party must be over, even the losers are leaving
But just one doubt is nagging at my caustic mind
So I snuck up close behind me and I gave myself a kiss
And I led myself to the mirror to expose what I had missed
There I saw a laughing maniac who was writing songs like this

And my shoulders had to shrug
As I crawled beneath the rug and retuned my piano

-- Phil Ochs




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I left my shoulder in San Francisco [repost]

this is a repost from the summer of 2008, and i had just had the nuts-and-bolts of the upcoming surgeries explained to me -- you know, spacers and stuff!  well, apparently, i took temporary leave of my senses, in a very lingual way...

La Belle Bianca Castafiore, ici --

Zee Retired Educator? She is, comment le dire? She is settled up, I think you say. She will be tossing the Pity Party soon, yes, yes.

Il se peut que... Er, it will be necessary that she will lose the faux shoulder for a period of the time. This? This she can not arrive at wrapping around her little mentation.

But I am knowing her since long time, long distances, and she? She will wrap around her little mentation, bien sûr. Elle va accepter les changements que son état de santé a rendus nécessaires. And she tosses the good Pity Party also as well, too, yes, yes.

It is not impossible that this will not happen, eh? Moi, La Belle Bianca Castafiore,

je reste confiante et optimiste. La prof retraitée va avoir besoin de mon aide considérable (et très bien connu, le monde entier, il faut ajouter.). Je suis prête à aider. Mieux que d'être "prête-à-porter!" Oh, les jeux de mots, que j'en suis la maitresse!

Encore un verre, les mecs! (Oooo, I am not saying that out of loud, am I not?)

Still, where is the Captain? La la la... "Ah my beauty past compare, these jewels bright I wear!...Was I ever Margarita? Is it I? Come reply...Mirror mirror tell me truly!” Oh, scruffy little schoolboy, mon cher Captain Hoddack, où est-il? If there exists anyone who can fix a broken shoulder, it is he! We will simplement build a replacement while the replacement is out, if you arrive at following my route! Ah, oui, on a toujours tellement besoin de moi, de ma sagesse.

Hmmm! Ah, je ris de me voir si belle dans ce miroir!

Is that right? Well, "fête" this, mon ami!

There's nothing like a little Placido Domingo to set the mood. OomPaPa, OomPaPa.

I've been somewhat lost these past few days. Part of the problem has been being overmedicated -- but that is now resolved.

I always wish for a stunning story to tell, something that'd knock your pretty little socks off. Unfortunately, my realities are about as dull as can be. OomPaPa, OomPaPa.

I increased my "base" dose of methadone -- and still was taking less than my pain management dude wants -- because I fractured my right hip.

How?

Well, my legs were hurting awfully, and the circumference of the right one was at an all time high, so I decided to elevate it on a few pillows.

That's it.
That's the whole story. OomPaPa, OomPaPa.
While lying in bed, with my right leg elevated, I fractured my right hip.

It's called a periprosthetic femoral fracture and I didn't know it was even a possibility -- to further fracture the femur *after* a hip replacement. As my bones and joints have steadily gone to shit, my bionic right hip was the star of the show -- it rarely hurt, it was rock steady, it was my one reliable major joint.

But the prosthesis must have been loose, right on the cusp of causing problems, for the humongous stress of elevating the leg to have cracked that bone.

The ortho explained that there were lots of predisposing and complicating factors in play -- osteolysis, osteoporosis, avascular necrosis, CRPS, and... osteomyelitis. Basically, the body kicks bone resorption into high gear in an attempt to get rid of the particles caused by wear-and-tear. My THR was back in September 2001. In fact, I went home via ambulance on September 11, 2001.

That was truly a strange morning. At the time, I lived in a major urban area served by one of the largest airports in the world -- yet the sky, framed by the boxy window at the rear of the ambulance, was a pristine, uninterrupted blue. You don't realize how accustomed you are to the sight and sound of airplanes until there is no air traffic.

Anyway, 9 years does not seem long enough time to wear out-- OomPaPa, OomPaPa -- titanium.

So I hurt quite a bit, and in response, raised my dose of methadone to within 10 milligrams of the prescribed amount! It's a strange drug, in that it could be considered a timed-release medication due to its very long half life -- 15 to 60 hours, in rare cases up to 190 hours.

In other words, it can sneak up on you. Oom... Pa... Pa... Oom... Pa... Pa...

I have a healthy fear of it, but even so fell prey to overmedication. After two days of returning to my pittance approach to pain management, my mind is clear and I have stopped drooling.

It was the wrong response, anyway. The best drug in my world for bone pain? Ibuprofen. [Actually, Toradol [ketorolac], but I can only get that in the hospital, and then for only three days at a time. As if my stomach lining could get any worse!]

So... much less methadone, much more ibuprofen, and the usual amount of break-through Percocet. Oom! Pa! Pa! OomPaPa!

If you follow this odd blog, you know that I'm without insurance, having been priced out of my coverage by BCBS of Tête de Hergé. They helpfully hiked my monthly premium to an unmanageable $1513, with another $5000 in deductibles. I am in the process of applying for coverage available thanks to the new health care laws -- as one of the few changes implemented *now* is access to coverage for people like myself: The Uninsurable. It is not great coverage; It is not perfect coverage; But it is coverage!

I feel like abusing semi-colons. (You may want to get out of the way.)

There are a few hoops through which I must jump, and there is the surprising issue of emotional upheaval causing mental and physical stasis. As in -- I am depressed, and stuck. I mean stuck in the technical sense of the word, of course.

I am afraid.

The infection in my bones began, it is theorized, thanks to one of the many orthopedic surgeries I've had to undergo because of rampant avascular necrosis, helped along by my suppressed immune status. Orthopedic hardware served as a petri dish. Despite the presence of evident abscesses, despite pus accumulating to such an extent that the head of my left humerus literally burst when the shoulder prosthesis was removed... the offending organism(s) will not grow in lab cultures. I had bilateral replacements, then several antibiotic-laced spacers on each side, then new TSRs -- even though we knew that infection remained -- despite course after course of intravenous antibiotics that should have killed any microbe within a square mile of moi. My infectious disease doctor almost begged me to fire him, saying -- and it was a real confidence-boosting moment: "I don't have a clue what to do next."

ew-w-w-w-oom pa pa, oom pa pa-a-a-ahhh...

The latest plan is to leave me without shoulders. No prosthesis, no spacers. No hardware, period.

I suspect, without any proof whatsoever, that whatever morphing of bugs has gone on is due to the nefarious influence of CRPS. It's the standard move when we don't know what's going on -- blame CRPS, because no one anywhere can figure that stupid disease out. Got a wart? CRPS! Is that a freaking stye in your eye? CRPS!

Given the reluctance of any sane orthopedic surgeon to operate on a limb with CRPS, my orthopod is a real hero. In total, he has performed seven major surgeries on my shoulders. Yes, my CRPS "spread" to take in both arms, fully -- but I am not convinced it was due to the surgeries. Pre-op regional blocks were done each time, and, true to form, I never kept either arm immobilized (as instructed!). For the longest time, I did not even care about upper body involvement. Now, as my hands become testy -- clumsy and burning -- now I pay attention.

En tout cas. So when OrthoMan came up with the plan to totally disable my upper body be eliminating these pesky shoulders? It wasn't a cop out. It was him saying what had to be said.

oomph pah-pah oooooomphh pahhh-pahhh.

Add to this picture a newly fractured hip, and for total complication, make it a periprosthetic fracture in a person with advanced CRPS, AVN, and an unresolved osteomyelitis, and you've the punchline to a bad joke!

When I sat down to write this morning, honoring my ongoing attempt to do so everyday, whether anything worthy is produced or not, I had the fête nationale française in mind as a topic.

Also percolating around up there in the grey matter were some words of wisdom about getting along with others, and a killer tricolore pasta salad recipe. Other people surely don't have to contend with so much crap when they try to write a sentence.

Fear won out, obviously.

How long can I continue with daily fever spikes, pain that gets worse instead of better, clothes and skin drenched in sticky salty sweat? I have been given an answer, you know. This is it: "Until you can't." And then, in response to my smartass query as to how I would recognize that state of "I cannot go on", came this equally smartass pronouncement: "You will know."

It's like my doctors have decided to become annoying incarnations of Yoda.

Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering.

Grave danger you are in. Impatient you are.

Do or do not... there is no try.

OomPaPa, OomPaPa.

Maybe it is not fear I am feeling. Maybe it is grief. Each episode, long or short, now leaves me in more pain, and more disabled. And my level of pain and disability now actively impacts how the doctors come to various decisions.

As in, it is okay to leave her without shoulders, with one fractured hip, and one collapsed hip, because she is already in a wheelchair and already has limited function of her limbs.

I'm sorry, but last year's celebration of the Jour de la Bastille will just have to be recycled. It's not as if the words to the Marseillaise have changed in the intervening 365 days; It's not as if freedom is on the march.

The Retired Educator Does Australian Folk Songs and Is Sad

"Curses, foiled again!"

Snidely Whiplash just won't be deterred, even though Dudley Do-Right almost always emerges triumphant in the more cartoonish arenas of my life.

Why, yes, I am Nell Finwick!

Yes, this is The Rocky and Bullwinkle Show!

I am pretty sure that I did not blog about The Smell.

You'd likely not even miss a beat, as often as I bemoan the fartings and stinky poops of our caterie here at Marlinspike Hall, deep, deep in the Tête de Hergé.

Perhaps it is worth taking a moment to assure you that I keep a clean and pleasant Manor. Honest!

No, The Smell to which I refer now came from my suture line -- the incision from last Monday, July 6.

It would have made an entertaining video clip: I kept smelling something cloyingly sweet. Not bad, exactly, just not familiar. Funny thing was that I never smelled it when I went investigating to my *right* -- and when I took off after it by going left, well, I ended up going in circles.

Yes, I am an idiot.

When I realized the source of the odor, this Brainiac also realized that the site had been itching, as well. In terms of pain? I was guarding the shoulder but trying to cut back on post op pain meds. To be frank (echos of "Mr. Pus? Mr. Frank Pus? White courtesy telephone!"), I don't trust my own pain evaluations anymore. Sometime in the past year or so, I became a wimp.

Finally, I decided to remove the dressing, clean the area, and rebandage it. My surgeon prefers that I leave undisturbed the bandage he puts on the morning of discharge from the hospital until I come in for my first post op appointment. (Tuesday, July 21)

Okie-dokie, then!

Imagine the speed with which I threw body and soul into Denial when I saw what amounted to fresh yellowish and bloody drainage... Fresh, having absorbed into the ABD bandage as a shape slightly larger than a dollar bill.

I carefully tended to it, and used good technique in getting it redressed.

I whistled while I worked.

In a bid for sympathy, I showed The Fredster the painterly evidence, and recounted my tale of stinky woe. Perhaps I failed to mention the continuing fever and sweats, the inability to sleep due to pain. Whatever I said, he encouraged me to call the surgeon first thing in the morning.

Well... the next morning, the drainage was only the size of a quarter (What *is* this compulsion to size the Rorschach blots on bandages by comparing them with monetary currency?).

To me, that clearly indicated that -- in lieu of a phone call -- the situation merited a downgrade to email communication. I may have mentioned my aversion to telephones in times of stress? No?

So I shot off this email to my ortho's main squeeze:

Hi Suzie Q --

I have a small problem.

Surgery was 7.6.2009 and I've been doing well -- the post op pain has been a problem only when I use the arm too much, and even though I still am having low grade fevers and sweats, I am also on Zyvox which ought to kill anything.

No problems with the dressing until yesterday, when the wound started to smell a bit (kind of a sweet smell), and itch. I decided to change the dressing and clean the area. Most everything on the bandage was dry and old, except for an area at the bottom of the incision that was draining serosanguinous (pink, some yellow?) stuff.

There was a fair amount that had absorbed into the ABD pad -- a little more than the size of a dollar. I just checked it -- after about 12 hours now, the bandage has about a silver-dollar size circle of the... stuff. There is no pus or anything like that and the incision looks perfectly normal to me except for the area at the bottom where the seepage is being produced -- and, still, that slight smell.

If you think I should come in to be seen at the clinic before my scheduled appt with Bob next week, then I'll certainly come. However, I have an appointment Thursday afternoon with one of Dr. Infectious DiseaseDood's PAs. I am comfortable waiting until then, unless this gets worse, in the hopes that they'll culture it and give me an informed opinion about what to do.

What do you think?

Thanks very much,
Retired Educator

Four hours later, I sent her this, effectively refusing to take responsibility for myself, and backing out of any further investigation:

Hi again --

After all of that, I think the drainage has stopped!

I put a new ABD pad on at about 7 am this morning and now, at 11:30, it is completely clean and dry.

Sorry to have bothered you --
RE
I am perturbed with myself, since the issue was hardly resolved just because I went four hours without a dime or 1913 buffalo nickel's worth of serosanguinous drainage.

There should have been no drainage at all, and certainly not with onset a week after the surgery! Then, of course, there's the issue of nearly two years spent chasing pathogens and other deleterious tiny things. Fever, sweats, pain, drainage. There's no need to page Gregory House.

Today, I went 12 hours without drainage. So I took the damn thing off -- it's hot and sticky, and I just couldn't be bothered, HARRUMPH.

A few minutes ago, I went in to take my sponge bath, a task that feels so good once completed, but seems like it just might kill you while you're in the middle of it -- and what did I see but evidence that there had been another attempted breakout from Axilla Prison.

Whether from the sudden whammy of depression or from the fever I was spiking, I don't know, but I began to shake. I was all a-wobbolly.

Never needing much of an excuse, a break from sanity seemed in order (La Bonne et Belle Bianca was out, having resumed rehearsals with her opera company; Fred was at a Church Supper, hopefully to quash and tear assunder the slutty overtures of The Church Lady ) -- and I paused for a rousing rendition of Waltzing Mathilda. Follow the bouncing ball and sing along with Mitch!

Once a jolly swagman camped by a billabong
Under the shade of a coolibah tree,
And he sang as he watched and waited 'til his billy boiled
"You'll come a-Waltzing Matilda, with me"

Waltzing Matilda, Waltzing Matilda
"You'll come a-Waltzing Matilda, with me"
And he sang as he watched and waited 'til his billy boiled,
"You'll come a-Waltzing Matilda, with me".

Down came a jumbuck to drink at that billabong,
Up jumped the swagman and grabbed him with glee,
And he sang as he shoved that jumbuck in his tucker bag,
"You'll come a-Waltzing Matilda, with me".

Waltzing Matilda, Waltzing Matilda
"You'll come a-Waltzing Matilda, with me"
And he sang as he shoved that jumbuck in his tucker bag,
"You'll come a-Waltzing Matilda, with me".

Up rode the squatter, mounted on his thoroughbred,
Down came the troopers, one, two, three,
"Where's that jolly jumbuck you've got in your tucker bag?"
"You'll come a-Waltzing Matilda, with me".

Waltzing Matilda, Waltzing Matilda
"You'll come a-Waltzing Matilda, with me"
"Where's that jolly jumbuck you've got in your tucker bag?",
"You'll come a-Waltzing Matilda, with me".

Up jumped the swagman and sprang into the billabong,
"You'll never catch me alive", said he,
And his ghost may be heard as you pass by that billabong,
"You'll come a-Waltzing Matilda, with me".

Waltzing Matilda, Waltzing Matilda
"You'll come a-Waltzing Matilda, with me"
And his ghost may be heard as you pass by that billabong,
"You'll come a-Waltzing Matilda, with me."
"Oh, You'll come a-Waltzing Matilda, with me."

And so, tomorrow at the InfectiousDiseaseDood's Place, I will come clean, do a show-and-tell with a little shoulder, a little leg, a little shoulder, a little leg...

Because, dear friends, the game is [again] afoot with these doggone titanium implants: My new prosthesis is infected, Zyvox be damned.

And I am so sad.

Therefore, brethren, let us bring this Pity Party to a timely close with a rousing rendition of Along the Road to Gundagai.


There's a track winding back
to an old-fashioned shack,
Along the road to Gundagai.
Where the gum trees are growin'
and the Murrumbidgee's flowin'
beneath the starry sky.
Oh my mother and daddy are waitin' for me
And the pals of my childhood once more I will see
And no more will I roam 'cos I'm headin' right for home
Along the road to Gundagai.*


*"Along The Road To Gundagai is a song written by Jack O'Hagan in 1922. It is well-known among Australians, and one of a small number of pieces which could be considered an Australian folk tune. The town of Gundagai is a rural town of New South Wales, Australia. In May 2001 the Australasian Performing Right Association (APRA), as part of its 75th Anniversary celebrations, named "Along the Road to Gundagai" as one of the Top 30 Australian songs of all time." -- Wikiwikiwikiwikipeeeeeedeeeeeeyahhhh!
**************************************************************************************************
UPDATE -- Thursday, 16 July 2009
Jesus H. Christ, do I hate the InfectiousDiseaseDood's office. Ah, but that is neither here nor there, and certainly is not news.
ID-Dood made the bacteriologist -- who identified a gram positive bacteria in the stain (but not culture) from the "deep tissue" sample taken during last week's surgery -- take another look.
I can hear him saying, in his very precise way: "Check your work! Please and Thank You!"
The guy changed his freaking little, tiny mind and now says he sees no pesky pathogens after all. For most people, that'd be great news, cause for a celebration, even. For me and my medicos? It's yet another sucker punch.
ID-Dood's PA talked over me, and over me, and over me. She's ask a question, I'd start to answer, she'd start talking, I'd stop. Again and again, until I finally stopped even trying. She cultured the fluid still drip-drip-dripping out of the suture line. She ordered blood cultures and the usual labs. (I was febrile and tachy -- yawn.)
Their phlebotomist is a sweetheart of a man. He had to stick me four times and was upset with himself -- but really he did well, given what he had to work with. He even managed to get an extra tube, "just in case." Mostly, he's a pleasure because he's... normal. Nice to talk with, very professional but with a great sense of humor. Talks to the blood vessels, encourages the blood to flow. (Maybe he needs to break out of the lab for some fresh air.)
So... here I am, left hanging. Fred is oh-so-frustrated. The PA kept making blithe comments like: "Well, you should be used to this by now!" and "You should write a book, telling people how to deal with stuff like this." Good thing she cannot read minds.
I reiterated, just to have something of note to say, that I will NOT give up this implant. I told her that I needed them to get "creative." She took umbrage. [Was saying that rude? I didn't mean to insult anyone, just wanted it clear: I WILL NOT GIVE UP THIS IMPLANT, I don't care how infected is the bone.]
Fred thought of something that has me laughing out loud. I got the hospital bill today -- $40,800, with the prosthesis constituting $13,000 of that charge for a 3-day stay. He pointed out that they've removed two -- in August and then December 2008 -- and suggested that I should ask for them back! To my incredulous, "but what do I want with titanium shoulder implants that aren't... implanted?" -- he answers, "You bought 'em, they're yours!"
Cracked me up!
So. We wait. On cultures and labs. On next weeks' assessment by the surgical crowd. Once again, no one wants to be in charge.
For your inner crooner's pleasure, today we turn to the Music Outback Foundation and some fresh young Bush Bards:

Bush Bus
Written by: Students & teachers from Apungalindum & Aniltji HLC
with Matt Hill, Music Outback Education
(C)(P) 2006 Music Outback Foundation

Verse 1
The bus goes through sand and water,
The bus is old and slow.
The bus goes through hot and cold,
It's full of kids we know.

Verse 2
Josilyn sitting in the front,
Randall's happy anywhere,
Riding along the bus is old,
Laughing along without a care

Chorus
Bush bus, bush bus
Take us to school
Bush bus, bush bus
You're so cool.

Verse 3
Little kids, big kids say thank you,
We will miss you goodbye bus,
Bouncing like a Kangaroo,
Thank you for being so good to us.

Anacoluthe!

"Billions of bilious blue blistering barnacles in a thundering typhoon! Subtropical sea-louse! " I stared, enthralled, at her pink sweaty face while La Belle et Bonne Bianca Castafiore paused to take a breath.

"Swine! "


That apparently exhausted her reserve of beloved Captain Haddock exhortations in English, for the next thing I knew, she was belting them out in French:


"Perroquet bavard! Sale menteur!
Anacoluthe!
Analphabète!"

Clearly, she enjoys the alliteration in English, and the vagaries of a lost insult in French.

Vagaries? Maybe to us... mais pour le capitaine Haddock? No, he was schooled by Tête de Hergé himself! "Anacoluthe"? Nothing but a blurt-out? Not hardly, as the kids say.

The Blessed Wikipedia explains:

An anacoluthon is a rhetorical device that can be loosely defined as a change of syntax within a sentence. More specifically, anacoluthons (or "anacolutha") are created when a sentence abruptly changes from one structure to another. Grammatically, anacoluthon is an error; however, in rhetoric it is a figure that shows excitement, confusion, or laziness. In poetics it is sometimes used in dramatic monologues and in verse drama. In prose, anacoluthon is often used in stream of consciousness writing, such as that of James Joyce, because it is characteristic of informal human thought.

In its most restrictive meaning, anacoluthon requires that the introductory elements of a sentence lack a proper object or complement. For example, if the beginning of a sentence sets up a subject and verb, but then the sentence changes its structure so that no direct object is given, the result is anacoluthon. Essentially, it requires a change of subject or verb from the stated to an implied term. The sentence must be "without completion" (literally what "anacoluthon" means). A sentence that lacks a head, that supplies instead the complement or object without subject, is anapodoton.

And "analphabète"? Well, that's just pee-in-your-pants funny. Ah, but the poor dear was not in a joshing mood, all pink and sweaty, her violet-besotten frock-and-sash a muddled mess. Still, even at such a moment, Bianca is one of the few women whose strong calf muscles will always nicely set off a red pointy-toed stiletto pump. Such natural gifts, in fact, are divine appointments of grace in this anxiety-driven, pain-filled world of ours.

You see, la Belle et Bonne Bianca Castafiore had just been pulled over by the cops --a mere kilomètre from Marlinspike Hall, the warm hearth of home -- and given two tickets and a summons to appear on August 12. Before I could express both my wrath that she was driving my darling Ruby to begin with, and my pleasure that, whatever the circumstances, both she and Ruby were apparently unharmed, the Dastardly Diva exclaimed:

"Et c'est tout à fait de ta faute, toi! And it is all your fault!"

My eyes narrowed in suspicion. "Comment ça?"

It turns out that she would never have forgotten to renew her driver's license if I had not been such a distraction, with all my drama, fever, infection and such. When I pointed out that she had been absent for a good period of the "drama," and was not overly concerned when she actually had been at The Manor, she looked me square in the eye, and... sniffed.

There was a brief lull during which either one of us might have chosen the higher way and opted to be the better person.

"The only reason le flic nabbed me for speeding was that I was practicing getting you from zee Manor to zee 'opital in whatisityoucall? Ah, yes! Zee no time flat! Comme je t'ai dit, tout, tout, tout -- c'est tout à fait de ta faute!"

This may have been when I felt compelled to make a few observations relating to personal and communal responsibilities, perhaps even a remark or two on hygiene -- I don't sniffin' remember.

Even though I had promised the more levelheaded Fredster not to make mention of it, I found myself, in my best scary voice, relating how, on a frigid, late-spring, early afternoon during one of her lighthearted jaunts around Europe, icicles were glinting on the Marlinspike's eaves -- and the alluring scent of two putrid cans of half-eaten Libby's Vienna Sausage* stuffed in the serpentine bottom drawer of a 16th century French armoire -- beautifully restored as a well-stocked wet bar -- led Fred and me, on behalf of our spry-tongued seafaring benefactor (and hers) -- the good Captain Haddock -- to jimmy the lock of her appartement. {don't touch my paragraph}

Slowly she turned... her BB-gun pupils a steely grey -- "Yes? Ah. Oui?"

"Yes," I continued, "we have been inside. We have seen it with our own eyes, and we are shocked, Castafiore, shocked! Whatever could you have been thinking? What will our spry-tongued seafaring benefactor conclude when he hears about this abomination, this perversion of his family's ancestral home?"

La Belle et Bonne Bianca hung her head. Without looking up, in a steady voice, sounding well-practiced, she recounted the story of Her Fall, beginning with the unthinkable -- how the Faust of Gounod had finally, and for the first time, had a closing night -- and how all those arty Anglophiles were rubbing it in with glee: The Mousetrap wins; It has never stopped running since its premier at London's Ambassador’s Theatre in 1952.

There would be no more "je ris de me voir si belle dans ce miroir" until the financial wizards of the world managed to staunch the bleeding that was hemorrhaging the bottom lines of the operatic universe.

The Castafiore, out of work and desperate to continue to earn a living, fell back on her early training as itinerant seamstress to the Wandering Renaissance Reenactors of Belgium, and, unexpectedly, Wales. All that time we assumed that she was touring Faust -- and okay, yes, I was a tad bit self-absorbed with the cartography of my own navel.

Still. Still! "Bianca... How? Where did you get the money?"

"I borrowed it, it was easy. I borrow, then I borrow again, at a better rate, and swap-switch the debt. You know -- take from Peter and give to Paul and, above all, keep washing the Messiah's feet -- no one ever takes a close look at the beautiful chica whose long hair and boobies are all hanging out..." said my friend, her bitterness spilling over. "I just wanted to be able to send money back to my familia rustica, trapped down on the farms outside Roma. Is that so wrong?"

"You really have a flair, you know. If I did not know quite a bit about Chenonceau, I might have fallen for it. I mean, really, Castafiore! How much were you going to charge?"

"That is the trick, mon amie. I would ask 'only for what you can spare, to defray the costs of upkeep.' The tourists? They would squirm in guilt, they would take out their portefeuilles and fill the coffers with their monies. After all, Francois Ier is the epitome of the Renaissance... and toss about the story of Leonardo da Vinci having died in his arms, cared for during his final days in the King's own bed chamber." Her eyes were glowing; She was far away.

She and her unemployed theatre cohorts got it in their minds to gut the Captain's appartement and build a replica of Francois Ier's bedroom at Chenonceau. Never mind how confused her explanations could get in an attempt to distinguish his digs at Chenonceau from the official residence at Château de Blois, and how they managed to confuse the one with the other in her imaginary trip down the Loire Valley.

And how was she going to get people in and out of the place without stirring, umm, lots of suspicion? Easy... cut a door through the three feet of stone leading to that nice shady spot at the northern end of the moat.

We never would have seen or heard a thing.

Hard times... they surely do bring something out of people. We sat and stared at one another -- me, determined to never complain again, because that risks causing people to be carted off to jail, so abstracted are they by my constant grief, and The Castafiore? Sorry mostly at having been caught, but also regretting the end to subterfuge, she was thinking of all those nice doublets waiting to be sown and beaded at 600 Euros a pop.

*"Vienna sausages are life’s 'fuck you' waiting in the cabinet when you’re hung over and depressed..."

"Always the setting forth was the same..."

What a beautiful morning. We had a rosy-fingered dawn that followed on the heels of a refreshing shower. Never mind that in a few hours, oppressive humid heat will descend on all of Tête de Hergé, and will force the inhabitants of Marlinspike Hall to seek the cool darkness of our various cellars.

The Odyssey is home to "the rosy-fingered dawn," when Nector "left his couch," and Menelaus "bound his sandals to his comely feet."

When the child of morning, rosy-fingered Dawn, looses its tight fist, it is time to light the fire, milk the goats and ewes. It is precious reading; It is Homer's trope:

"[T]he child of morning, rosy-fingered Dawn..."

I would prefer to sleep than to witness every sunrise, with its finely tapered digits and gleaming buffed nails that pinch and grab, coerce.

Yes, I would like to rest right through the cusp, there where "the child of morning, rosy-fingered Dawn made love to Orion..."

When all is said and done, and Ulysses is home, and Penelope's patience rewarded, Minerva both holds back the night and hinders the morning; She plunges Dawn deep down in Oceanus until the couple has had time to trace the outlines of their stories and prepare to part again.

[Do you know W. S. Merwin's poem Odysseus? Lovely.]

It's been hours now. The bones hurt, various appendages swell. The headache won't quit. No fever yet, though, and there is ice cream for breakfast -- sugar and fat free.

Uncle Kitty Big Balls rules the roost, as I predicted he would. He's a gentle tyrant but easily the most obstinate creature I've ever encountered. His world view is fairly simple: he wants what he wants when he wants it.

He has a propensity for Left Shoulder Flops with Triple Twists O'er the Mouth -- getting high points for Degree of Difficulty. That is, he won't stay off of my left wing -- and he loves to cover one's face with a big old mouthful of ragged sheared fur.

We are hoping he will start to gain weight now that his acute ills have mended. He is happy and strong, but still so thin and bony that he is at risk for falling over with a simple butt tap. Roughhousing is however he defines it...

But what a gentle soul! We continue to marvel at his good nature after all this time on the street.

There was a brief and ineffective uprising against him two days ago -- hissing and scratching. The result? Tufts of hair all over the living room and one weeping eye on Marmy.

And world peace.

[Stan Fields: What is the one most important thing our society needs?

Gracie Hart: That would be... harsher punishment for parole violators, Stan.

Gracie Hart: And world peace!]

Ach. I have to give in to the discomfort for a bit. Maybe grab a few minutes of sleep. Rest.

"Alas," he cried to himself in his dismay, "what ever will become of
me, and how is it all to end? If I stay here upon the river bed through
the long watches of the night, I am so exhausted that the bitter cold
and damp may make an end of me- for towards sunrise there will be
a keen wind blowing from off the river. If, on the other hand, I climb
the hill side, find shelter in the woods, and sleep in some thicket, I
may escape the cold and have a good night's rest, but some savage
beast may take advantage of me and devour me."

In the end he deemed it best to take to the woods, and he found one
upon some high ground not far from the water. There he crept beneath
two shoots of olive that grew from a single stock- the one an
ungrafted sucker, while the other had been grafted. No wind, however
squally, could break through the cover they afforded, nor could
the sun's rays pierce them, nor the rain get through them, so closely
did they grow into one another. Ulysses crept under these and began
to make himself a bed to lie on, for there was a great litter of dead
leaves lying about- enough to make a covering for two or three men
even in hard winter weather. He was glad enough to see this, so he
laid himself down and heaped the leaves all round him. Then, as one
who lives alone in the country, far from any neighbor, hides a brand
as fire-seed in the ashes to save himself from having to get a light
elsewhere, even so did Ulysses cover himself up with leaves; and
Minerva shed a sweet sleep upon his eyes, closed his eyelids, and
made him lose all memories of his sorrows.

The Great Gate of Theleme

The fever is in my eyes this evening -- fecund burning, staring, staring. The felines are fed, Fred is in deep communion with his Important Work, tucked safely away in his office, in the big black chair. When I am not looking, he spins round and round in that big black chair, and goes woooooooo!

You can't fool me.

When febrile, I do the darnedest things. I put dirty clothes in the dryer, thereby cutting my workload in half. I sometimes throw away our flatware. That kind of thing. Oh, and I cry, but the tears are meaningless. Really!

The life of a feverish brain is fascinating. For example, look at what I put by the bed to read this afternoon: Thurber! Rabelais! It is my habit to read several works at once. The principle that guides my choices is the simple requirement that there be dialogue, a measure of synthesis that I hope results in something new (small nod -- and a wink -- to crazy Pound) between my delicate pink ears.

Rabelais' bawdy Gargantua and Pantagruel amuse me at a good quivering belly level, much as James Thurber can send me into ladylike throes of snorting, hooting, and general hilarity.

I am that rare scholar who juxtaposes at will, at whim, for whimsy! Indeed, I am Treasurer of the Local Chapter of Academics for Whimsy. Through me are channeled the elegant guffaws of an early humanist benedictine monk and physician, delicately intertwined with the comic doodles of a comedian of the Common Man, subset urbane (Polite, yes. Polished? Not so much.).

A footnoted Wikipedia entry tells us that:

Thurber had two brothers, William and Robert. Once, while playing a game of William Tell, his brother William shot James in the eye with an arrow.[1]

Now *that* is a factoid begging for a desperate graduate student from the Midwest.

(Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit! Anyone! Do you not shake your head in wonder? I know I do! Why, I begin to believe we *can* do anything.)

Aw, crap, my head is still shaking.

Anyway, I defy you to make it through The Night the Bed Fell without mirth, merriment, and milk up the nose or to refrain from intoning "choo choo" to Bolenciecwcz, as he struggles with his modes of transportation. It's a universe of self-effacing gentle men chez Thurber. We all know a Walter Mitty. Cough. Sniff. (Okay, so I am sometimes myself a vaguely heroic, altogether inscrutable, brandy-downing, suicidal puppy-biscuit buyer.)

What inspired me to place the sketch, the flip of a wrist short stories alongside something so... well, gargantuan as Gargantua and Pantagruel?

Brow furrowed, I carry my finger down the chapter listings, see How Gargantua, in combing his head, made the great cannon-balls fall out of his hair, laugh out loud, and go on, sick hot brain, sick hot eyes, trying to remember, hoping that dandruff humor is not going to be my answer. How Panurge had a flea in his ear, and forbore to wear any longer his magnificent codpiece. Ar! Still, no...

Ahhh. Here it is, Chapter 54. That little bit of nothing that I'd like at the virtual entrance to this blog, on the tombstone I will have, on a refrigerator magnet, as something slightly oily in the water.

The inscription set upon the great gate of Theleme [Abbey]:

Here enter not vile bigots, hypocrites,

Externally devoted apes, base snites,

Puffed-up, wry-necked beasts, worse than the Huns,

Or Ostrogoths, forerunners of baboons:

Cursed snakes, dissembled varlets, seeming sancts,

Slipshod caffards, beggars pretending wants,

Fat chuffcats, smell-feast knockers, doltish gulls,

Out-strouting cluster-fists, contentious bulls,

Fomenters of divisions and debates,

Elsewhere, not here, make sale of your deceits.

Your filthy trumperies

Stuffed with pernicious lies

(Not worth a bubble),

Would do but trouble

Our earthly paradise,

Your filthy trumperies.

Here enter not attorneys, barristers,

Nor bridle-champing law-practitioners:

Clerks, commissaries, scribes, nor pharisees,

Wilful disturbers of the people’s ease:

Judges, destroyers, with an unjust breath,

Of honest men, like dogs, even unto death.

Your salary is at the gibbet-foot:

Go drink there! for we do not here fly out

On those excessive courses, which may draw

A waiting on your courts by suits in law.

Lawsuits, debates, and wrangling

Hence are exiled, and jangling.

Here we are veryFrolic and merry,

And free from all entangling,

Lawsuits, debates, and wrangling.

Here enter not base pinching usurers,

Pelf-lickers, everlasting gatherers,

Gold-graspers, coin-gripers, gulpers of mists,

Niggish deformed sots, who, though your chests

Vast sums of money should to you afford,

Would ne’ertheless add more unto that hoard,

And yet not be content,—you clunchfist dastards,

Insatiable fiends, and Pluto’s bastards,

Greedy devourers, chichy sneakbill rogues,

Hell-mastiffs gnaw your bones, you ravenous dogs.

You beastly-looking fellows,

Reason doth plainly tell us

That we should not

To you allot

Room here, but at the gallows,

You beastly-looking fellows.

Here enter not fond makers of demurs

In love adventures, peevish, jealous curs,

Sad pensive dotards, raisers of garboils,

Hags, goblins, ghosts, firebrands of household broils,

Nor drunkards, liars, cowards, cheaters, clowns,

Thieves, cannibals, faces o’ercast with frowns,

Nor lazy slugs, envious, covetous,

Nor blockish, cruel, nor too credulous,

—Here mangy, pocky folks shall have no place,

No ugly lusks, nor persons of disgrace.

Grace, honour, praise, delight,

Here sojourn day and night.

Sound bodies lined

With a good mind,

Do here pursue with might

Grace, honour, praise, delight.

Here enter you, and welcome from our hearts,

All noble sparks, endowed with gallant parts.

This is the glorious place, which bravely shall

Afford wherewith to entertain you all.

Were you a thousand, here you shall not want

For anything; for what you’ll ask we’ll grant.

Stay here, you lively, jovial, handsome, brisk,

Gay, witty, frolic, cheerful, merry, frisk,

Spruce, jocund, courteous, furtherers of trades,

And, in a word, all worthy gentle blades.

Blades of heroic breasts

Shall taste here of the feasts,

Both privily

And civilly

Of the celestial guests,

Blades of heroic breasts.

Here enter you, pure, honest, faithful, true

Expounders of the Scriptures old and new.

Whose glosses do not blind our reason, but

Make it to see the clearer, and who shut

Its passages from hatred, avarice,

Pride, factions, covenants, and all sort of vice.

Come, settle here a charitable faith,

Which neighbourly affection nourisheth.

And whose light chaseth all corrupters hence,

Of the blest word, from the aforesaid sense.

The holy sacred Word,

May it always afford

T’ us all in common,

Both man and woman,

A spiritual shield and sword,

The holy sacred Word.

Here enter you all ladies of high birth,

Delicious, stately, charming, full of mirth,

Ingenious, lovely, miniard, proper, fair,

Magnetic, graceful, splendid, pleasant, rare,

Obliging, sprightly, virtuous, young, solacious,

Kind, neat, quick, feat, bright, compt, ripe, choice, dear, precious.

Alluring, courtly, comely, fine, complete,

Wise, personable, ravishing, and sweet,

Come joys enjoy.

The Lord celestial

Hath given enough wherewith to please us all.

Gold give us,

God forgive us,

And from all woes relieve us;

That we the treasure

May reap of pleasure,

And shun whate’er is grievous,

Gold give us,

God forgive us.

Over on Amazon.com, I come across Nelson Richardson's Listmania! List, entitled "A Shelf from Theleme Abbey." Guess what Nelson Richardson says of his Listmania! List? He says:

"Books have lineages. I like to read ancestors and descendants, slowly and repeatedly, going up and down the chain through time."

There's always already someone wonderful out there, ready to save my butt.

Thurber and Rabelais: Separated at Birth?

Carry me back to old Valhalla...

Osteomyelitis: The Crabby Disease

This ought to make you laugh.

I read that osteomyelitis can cause irritability. "Yes," thought my ill-behaved, Nazi-quoting self, eager to be let off all applicable hooks, "Why, that explains *everything*!"

Unfortunately, further inquiry determined this to be the case in...

neonates.

Poor babies!

I cry like this

I am feeling blue. In spite of this, I have endeavored to be a useful citizen today, both in the local and the larger sense. And so I hope to reach the end of day in peace.



As if good citizenry informed the process!



Tomorrow marks day 25 of vancomycin. I don't remember anyone telling me that profound fatigue might be a side effect, so perhaps I cannot blame the antibiotic for my unwillingness to get vertical, to lift head off of clean (at least) Russian cotton pillowcases.



I love the pillowcases and the sheets -- where I bought them, I don't know. Maybe Overstock.com. Years ago. When I could justify an over 1000 thread count. It matters -- don't let anyone dissuade you.



When I am febrile, my head suffers, quite literally. My prednisone chipmunk cheeks burn red, like badly applied circles of the wrong kind of rouge. Sweat runs through my hair. Things spin. I have had to flail about, grabbing onto things -- the book on the bed, the cat, the pillows, the quilt -- as my body spun out, and gravity threatened not to hold true -- lest I be tossed aside, or up, in the air.



Cool cotton, soft; It matters. It calms. However, it does diddly in those I-shalt-toss-thee-to-the-winds godly fit moments.



It was one of those days where you don't even dream of asking for help. If help were to show up on the doorstep, I'd not even know what to do. Offer a beverage, I suppose. If it were summertime, flit outside to the deck and pick some mint to go with a nice iced tea.



Except that we have no ice. A real oddity, that. None of us appreciate the rapid cool.



The cats seemed to rediscover me today. Maybe as I degenerated, they took pity. Maybe I became more of an animal. Maybe they could play me like a fiddle in hopes of getting extra food.



Okay, so I gave Sammy a bit of my lunch. And offered some to Dobby, though he declined. Marmy doesn't play the Food Game. She just loves you or not. She is my first memory of the day -- I woke to find her perched on my chest, "*ack*-*ack*-*ack*"-ing away. She does not meow. She *acks* and seems to love best the people who will *ack* right back at her. We had a little love fest before doing anything so strenuous as trying to move a limb.


Dobby is changing. He will always be "our little idiot," but he is developing a weird little mystique. He stares. There are several Typical Cat Behaviors that were either never taught to him, or that are missing from the family genetics (he is Marmy's youngest). Like the staring thing. Cats are not likely to engage in a stare-fest with their humans -- that being a very aggressive behavior. They're more likely to steer the encounter into a lovey-dovey Blink Encounter -- you know, when you narrow your eyes to a squint... That's affection or, at least, non-aggression.

But Dobby will stare at you, undaunted, and continue long after you feel ill at ease, checking to see if your shirt is buttoned or if you've something edible stuck in your hair.

Anyway. I am pretty weak and definitely tired beyond belief. The shoulder pain seems to have plateaued at "awful, but not unbearable." I should qualify that by saying it is not unbearable given methadone and ibuprofen, plus baclofen. And I will confess to you that I took a dilaudid.

God, I sound pitiful. Disgusting, even.

But I am not. So up yours, you!

Tomorrow is infectious disease day, part one. Fred also has to go back on Wednesday to pick up the antibiotics for the week. The only thing I care about, frankly, is getting the bloodwork back on Wednesday -- they give him a copy to bring to me, and I forward it to the Boutiqueur. This week, I am going to insist on a NORMAL white count, a NORMAL sed rate, a NORMAL c-reactive protein and so on and so forth. No fever -- and a NORMAL blood pressure. Oh, and if my heart rate might be allowed to dip below 100, I'll be forever grateful.

But it ain't gonna happen. Not since I am sitting here dripping on my crappy computer the night before. Not since the pain is significant and even growing on the right side. Not since... oh, fill in the damned old boring blank.

My aunt is coming by on Wednesday afternoon.

This is an Event.

She is my father's sister. Older or younger, I don't even know. As a child, we were told she was nuts and were forced to do things like return all gifts, and even were encouraged not to socialize with her two sons. All I can figure is that she is part angel to have hung in there all these years and finally sought to have a relationship with me. Who does that but an angel?

They are old, you know. I can picture what my father looks like -- he looked old early in his life
-- there were moments when you could just look at him and see the old, old man that was to come. The ancient man that was just biding time until he could take over. Skinny. Bald. Trying too hard at everything. A lucky son of a bitch. I've not seen him since I don't know when. 1989?

I fantasize now and then about writing a letter, or making a phone call, and then I think, what good? What good?

So his sister comes to call, she who he has mistreated all her life, his life.

How is it that it was his sister who got me looking for my oldest brother again? Out of the blue, she called and left a message. Before she died, she said, she wanted to do this one thing. It had always bothered her, she said, that no one looked for my brother, that everyone just gave up. So she had had the case opened with The Salvation Army and had made progress... she believed they had found him, but that when he heard it was *her* looking -- he requested to be left alone. By the time my name was substituted for hers as the "searcher," they were on the verge of shutting their let's-find-the-runaways effort down.

Who does something like that but an angel?

I know she wants to talk about my father. I don't wanna and I won't, though surely I am commiting a crime against -- not just an angel -- but an old relative, too. She's likely to smother me in old relative skin folds.

What I want to understand? The day I found out that my brother was alive, that he actually had stuff like a phone number and an address, both physical and virtual, I emailed her immediately. She took a clear stance, a strange stance, one of "enjoy each other, dears... but I don't want to be involved." Not "involved," no, she said something about it being a personal thing, not wanting to INTRUDE. Yes, that's it. It was "intrude," not "involved." BIG WHOOP! Same difference, no?

And there is a line that the brother-unit delivers with regularity... in fact, let me source its first appearance. [There will be a delay in composition as I go to search emails.] Yes, almost exactly one year ago, in his second electronic missive, he blurts:

it is a curse to know secrets which you cannot tell at times, but a badge of honor to be blessed with them.

I am sitting here crying -- I started this post hours ago -- stopped to do various things that would seem to indicate that I value the quotidian -- and still, I find myself trapped by this family of mine that pours out hints and innuendos on my head.

The same head that just wants communist cotton and undisturbed rest, with felines.

What is the secret? Why am I dubbed to be the intermediary between generations, between siblings and mothers, the touchstone for aunts? None of these people do I know. Will they come to my funeral? What will they say to one another? "Hello, I knew you when..."?

There ought to be a statute of limitations.

I have a rash -- several, actually. And a host of lotions and ointments from which to choose. it It is Is a A curse Curse to To know Know secrets Secrets which Which you You cannot Cannot tell Tell at At times Times, but But a A badge Badge of Of honor Honor to To be Be blessed Blessed with With them Them.

I am feeling blue.

In one of his first letters, the eldest brother was feeling blue, too. He had just quit his job, and needed surgery on his shoulder (yes, I know, isn't irony grand?):

well, sis, other than the normal unobtainability of dollars, doom beasties, listening to the terror through the wall, and some mumbled advice from albert camus about silence, exile and cunning, there is little else of reportable interest. round up the usual platitudes. it's another day in paradise.

His subject line?

All mimsy were the borogroves.

Shoot. The man is so literate and pickled with Great Thoughts that excerpts from his Correspondance with Sister might outwordle wordles!

Everything. I mean EVERYTHING, seems to have settled on the darling boy tonight. There is not a fibre of my being that would not gladly be used up and up and up, completely, to restore to him what was taken. That would never have had him go to sleep alone, cold, and hungry. There is nothing I would not do.

In my all out effort to save the past!

He wrote to me, this:

i am having trouble finding words.
thank you for making it through where i got lost.
thank you for trying to find me in the fog.

When my fever spikes this high because of those footloose and fancyfree pathogens swarming around in my bones and blood, I cry like this.

Pastiche or Another Pot, Pourri

So it turns out that hydrogen peroxide is not all that mysterious, also not all that great for disinfection. My personal wound care maven -- I like to call her Brandi, because that's her name -- made big Os with her mouth and little tiny gasps when I told her that I had been cleaning my nasty foot ulcer (sorry) with a half hydrogen peroxide, half water concoction. I felt like it was working hard, bubbling, bubbling, bubbling!

Were Brandi French, she might well have said, "Non, non, non, et non!"
But she was not. Far from it!

She explained the secret workings of peroxide, most importantly: The Fizz, the incredible foaming action that puts Scrubbing Bubbles to profound shame. We have the super abundant enzyme catalase to thank for the decomposition of the stuff into water and oxygen gas.
That's 2H2O2 --> 2H2O + O2 to you!

So who knew that I would then become fascinated with catalase itself?
Catalase is extremely efficient and nearly ubiquitous. I'm going out on a limb, crazed woman that I am, to posit that there is a common etymology to catalase and catalysis:

Greek katalusis, κατάλυσις dissolution, from katalein, to dissolve, loosen down, disintegrate, to demolish, specially to halt for the night: kata-, intensive pref.; see cata- + lein, λύω to loosen; derived from the Proto-Indo-European root *leu- (English: forlorn, loosen, lose, loss, losel, lost; Greek: luein; Latin: lues, solvere; Norse: ljosta, lauss

Isn't it fantastic fodder? "[T]o demolish, specially to halt for the night"? What the hell does that mean? Seriously, I plan to meditate upon this distinction; Given catalase, alone, Vonnegut could write a short novel.

(I miss Vonnegut. Very briefly, in the 1970s, I was a planetary citizen*. What happened? Well, I had to renew my passport, and the dream died. So it goes.)

Umm. Has anyone seen my train of thought? Choo. Choo?



Ah, yes. What a wonder that the scrubbing bubbles of hydrogen peroxide are of pure oxygen, that a single molecule of catalase can breakdown millions of hydrogen peroxide molecules! So efficient! Yes, those *are* exclamation points!


No matter what I plan to write about, my topic almost always becomes words.



To that end, I have decided to challenge myself, to exercise the little grey cells that shiver with orgasmic delight over verbiage -- be it grandiloquent**, be it essential to knowing how to put on a sweater, be it formulaic, like "I'm sorry for your loss." I am spiffing up the languages that hang out in my head -- a daily review of Latin, French, and Spanish. In order to have an honest chance at establishing this as routine, my goals are unusually modest: perhaps an hour and a half per day, or -- more likely -- 20 minutes per language. I know that I ought to work on Turkish but that would be too... hard. There are six noun cases. Shoot, I probably ought to give up on the Latin, as well. Do you see how quickly I decerebrate? (Language and Communication, Learning and Memory -- bye-bye!)

Oh, the pot is definitely pourri.



Current bedtime reading material? In Cold Blood, Capote. It's been sitting on the bookshelf for so long that I took pity. Nothing like mass murder in the middle of the night. A tour de force of narration and research, it achieves something considerably more (and other) than true crime designation. I have another nonfiction book going and feel the need to crack open a third tome, something wonderfully imaginative and easy.

No Wound Care Center visit this week! Why? Because I refuse to go! Yes, I called and cancelled. However, the next trip is scheduled for Monday, not the usual Wednesday, so the time between visits won't be too long. Most importantly, I would not have done this were my foot not suddenly healing so well. Seriously -- in the last four days, even I can see that it is healing at a phenomenal rate. There is not so much slough***, not so much drainage, and, as Brandi says, as only Brandi can: "We like red!"



Brandi and I have been thrown together now a good half dozen times. Bless her everloving sterile fields. I have gone off on her several times, and -- just like the inappropriate dressing down that I delivered the other day to an Unsuspecting Innocent online -- I've given up on the notion of apology. She, and the doctor overseeing her work, an Infectious Disease specialist, have both attempted to reinvent the wheel and I just have no patience for it. So when I was six, I stubbed my left big toe... how, why, dear mental midgets, does that come to matter? I am not sure why an ID doctor is involved, anyway -- we are dealing with an ulcer that is the result of injury (someone dropped a laptop on it). Granted, the fact that this particular foot has been highly compromised by CRPS/RSD and avascular necrosis lends it a certain cachet... (This is my stock photo of the right foot -- the ulcer is smack dab in the middle of the top of it. You *really* don't want to see it...)

Anyway, there are now distinct patches of sexy red and bright perky pink -- versus the weeks of depressing white and tan. Beige? Eggshell. We are using an enzyme on it -- Santyl -- that is supposed to chow down on "the bad cells" and invigorate the rest. What seems to have helped is the elimination of zinc oxide on the surrounding skin, in favor of AllKare, a skin barrier. Or it is just a huge coincidence!

Note: I cannot, for the life of me, remember why I have tape on my foot -- around the toes. That is an area that has been repeatedly injured but I don't see a bandage of any sort. Hmm. Oh, and the intense *purpleness* of my feet is not done justice. This must have been a warm weather photo, because winter mode for my limbs is shrunken, way-way-way purple, and unbelievably cold (well, to be honest, they are always unbelievably cold, just more adverbally unbelievable in the winter months). Warm weather mode involves more red than purple and correlates to HUGEness. All weather involves severe pain. Hélas. {inverted palm to forehead, deep soulfull sigh}

Yesterday was important to me. I had an appointment with my internist, my primary care doctor. He is terrific and performs the crucial task of keeping me oriented to what is happening with my health, and getting all the specialists coordinated and relatively on task. That makes me sound rather stupid, but I wouldn't argue the fact these days.

Why? Because I simply cannot wrap my mind around the various things that may soon be happening.

Should there be an interested reader who has somehow managed to elude these details, this is, in short, my situation: Due to avascular necrosis, I have had a number of orthopedic surgeries that have left me close to bionic. Late last year, I began having daily fevers with sweats, fatigue, and a rotten attitude -- for garnish. Because I take a fair amount of steroids (therapy for Addison's, SLE, and some of the weirdness of CRPS/RSD), my bloodwork wasn't taken at face value. That is, even if my white count was high, that was attributed to the effect of steroids. However, as I became more and more snappish, and more and more febrile, the presence of infection couldn't be denied. Thus began the search for answers. A gallium scan pointed the way to my right shoulder prosthesis -- and that seemed appropriate since pain in that area was steadily increasing. Finally, this August, my orthopedic surgeon went in and found four big pockets of pus (sorry!). He had to remove the prosthesis -- things must have been kind of iffy at that point, because they took me to the ICU and then back to surgery a few days later to finish up. I was trying to be positive, forward-thinking, optimistic before this surgeon who always couches his statements this way: "If and when I operate to give you another prosthesis..." I completed six weeks of i.v. antibiotics at home -- four infusions a day.

The reason my mood shifted toward the blue horizon? Severe pain has steadily established itself in my LEFT shoulder. For weeks, I have been kidding myself that it was just Overuse Syndrome, since my right arm is useless and the left has been doing double duty. However, it has become clear that the infection either was never eradicated to begin with, or has recurred.

That boggles the mind, at least mine; My mind is, indeed, well boggled.

How can it be that six weeks of antibiotics did not eradicate The Beasties? They tell me that it only takes one stubborn microbe, and that since an abscess is the likely form The Beasties have taken, the antibiotics may not have been able to access the Little Boogers.

I have fevers again -- but at least the debilitating sweat attacks are much fewer this go 'round. The hike in my white count was, once again, pooh-poohed as being steroid-induced. My left shoulder hurts like hell, in that familiar way, and I finally confessed yesterday that the right shoulder is back in its deep-down, throes-of-throbbing pain ways.

Next week, I revisit the Infectious Disease Dude and his PA Dudette, with whom I have the better relationship (of trust). And a few hours later, I revisit the Orthopedic Surgeon. A red letter day, if ever there was one.

And so, I will hear then all the things that I was told yesterday, yet cannot comprehend.

Like losing my remaining shoulder, and never being given another prosthesis for either side.

Like the possibility that these Beasties have seeded other areas, created other abscesses. Both hips have hardware, as does my right elbow and right foot.

Just a few days before the first surgery this past August, I had an echo done to see if my aortic valve was in good shape -- at one time, I had quite a few battles with heart failure, then cardiomyopathy, and since I have a congenital bicuspid aortic valve with insufficiency, to boot, I condescend to see a cardiologist every few years. Cough. Okay, so I am supposed to have a yearly echo but have failed to do so for a good while -- 6 years. Anyway, here is the kicker: There where the aorta attaches to the heart, the aortic arch, the vessel has dilated. Gotten kinda large. Approaching the benchmark size of 5 cm. Holding steady at 4.76 cm. (Hmmm. Maybe it was 4.86? I cannot remember. Go brain!)

My attitude has been imminently logical. I have enough nonsense going on, and don't need to have any more trouble. Hence, no annual echos, no cardiology appointments.

I asked yesterday whether I should be worried about getting the aortic aneurysm addressed, and my doctor said, "Not now. You have too much other stuff on your plate." Okie-dokie then!

Is that how I am going to die? From a ruptured aneurysm? What will that be like, I wonder. Sudden. No time to -- what? Say something? Do something? Weep? Laugh? Stand on my head? What are the odds that will I live to share the experience of a ruptured aneurysm, just another war story? I want time for dying.

Ah, terrific. Panic is setting in. Time to return to the Putrid Pots, the Pots Pourris, this Pastiche.

This; Here.



*"Vonnegut's father once complained that there were no bad guys in his books, and Vonnegut attributed his largely blame-free world view to having studied 1940s anthropology, with its total relativism and deliberate lack of value judgments, as well as its sense of human cultures and religions as arbitrary artifacts and 'Rube Goldberg inventions.' He received a less friendly complaint while speaking at the Library of Congress in the early 1970s, when a man stood up during his speech and asked 'What right have you, as a leader of America's young people, to make those people so cynical and pessimistic?' Vonnegut had no ready reply, so left the stage. He later commented: 'The beliefs I have to defend are so soft and complicated, actually, and, when vivisected, turn into bowls of undifferentiated mush. I am a pacifist, I am an anarchist, I am a planetary citizen, and so on.'"

**Allow me to shamelessly plug the Grandiloquent Dictionary! What a lovely idea.



***"The term for the viscous yellow layer which often covers the wound and is strongly adherent to it. Its presence can be related to the end of the inflammatory stage of healing when dead cells have accumulated in the exudate."

Take My Support Group, Please!

October 2008: Spotlight On Merlene!

She comes with "goodies," homemade and delicious. Unfortunately, she also comes bearing the stories of what she went through, forever selfless, ever giving, giving, giving. Merlene doesn't bake just for us, her Chronic Pain Support Group, but also for the local fire and rescue, a non-denominational hospice, her five doctors, and the select staff whose favor she curries.

One particularly rich afternoon, she managed to both whip up a few dozen chocolate chip cookies and arrange for the EMTs to pick them up by a timely attack of sudden overall weakness and a terrifying confusion that necessitated a ride to the local Emergency Department, then an overnight stay for observation.

Mother of four, parent of none, Merlene enjoys watching Muay Thai kick-boxing on Spike TV and supports our troops by writing one letter every night before she goes to bed, as she has ever since joining Pen Pals for Soldiers, Inc. -- whose mission is "to ensure No Soldier is Forgotten at Mail Call."

Next month: Spotlight on Chuck!