173) Feelings

October 2, 2007
Tuesday

El Milagro: Here I am again… and the regimen is the same: Carol the Tech cannulates me and her back is better… Kim the Nurse listens to my back and chest and fistula and asks if I have ever heard of a magazine whose name escapes me 20 seconds after I answer that it sounds like some sort of religious tome. I am particularly conscious of how I am feeling tonight, since having such a miserable session last time. I weighed in at 76.4 and Nurse Kim wanted to ‘take off’ four at first, but I cringed at that! I reported to her about my cramps and we decided to 'take off' three instead. She commented that maybe I am just gaining some weight, which also made me flinch. Let’s see, 76.4 kgs is about 10 pounds over what I envision myself usually weighing. Would I rather change my vision of myself, or avoid cramps? Hmmmm. I guess I choose no cramps and I’ll just ignore the weight thing and eat less food too.

John the newish guy is sitting next to me and seems in a good mood: he is joking with the staff and smiling. That’s good. He responds to my salutation that he is adjusting and doing much better and I think that that is a good attitude to have, since none of us can really change our situations and we might as well find a way to enjoy them. I wonder many times if my often-noted acceptance quote is really about accepting what we cannot change, or is it an existential excuse for relinquishing the control we perceive we might have over any situation. It is somewhat comforting to state that acceptance is a possible strategy in integrating our dis-EASE. But I sometimes think that I should consider the more aggressive approaches. Some talk about "fighting" the dis-ease and to me that sounds like a more nihilistic or dialectical approach. When we fight something we are focusing on differences in order to define that which we are against. I prefer, most of the time, the approach of inclusion: drawing the other into ourselves and incorporating it into our strategy. Somehow, including the strengths and negatives of the other into our own reality and using what we can from this knowledge, makes more sense to me. I am now wandering around in my own brain universe and feel like floating lost in space. Enough already!

I listen to NPR's All Things Considered, watch the ABC News, and then channel surf around to see what’s available for vacant brain viewing… a cops-type channel captures me for awhile, with it’s “extreme car chases” and the inevitable car crashes. Finally this bores me too and I remember that Ken Burns’ War is on PBS and switch over there to finish my session. This is the last episode and of course it finishes with the grossly irreconcilable images of emaciated, sunken eyed Jews being carried out of the death camps against those of gleeful GI’s hugging and kissing the girls on the docks of their return. Powerful show shown at an appropriate time.

Burns finishes as I finish and I have this powerful urge to rush home to Lizzie and Shayna and immerse myself in that comfortable reality. I drive carefully on the way home and as I walk in, my house is just as warm and homey as usual… and I sigh in relief. So it goes.

Notes: In at 76.4 and out at 73.5 kgs.
New Picture: See Post #166 for a picture of me and EJ with Rep. Kevin Brady from Conroe.
New Readers: For A Welcome Post, click August 2006 on the Sidebar.