Arnold Zwicky's Blog

☹️ 🎶 Once again 11/22 brings us both an immensely sad anniversary (of JFK’s assassination, in 1963) and a day of joyous celebration (St. Cecilia’s Day, honoring the patron saint of music and musicians; see my 11/21/11 posting “Saint Cecilia”) — a maximally discordant moment that comes around every year. Meanwhile, I’m four days into a fresh, and crippling, bodily affliction, in the midst of an array of medical indicators of splendid good health, and plenty of gauges of happiness and emotional stability — another oddly discordant moment

(Oh yes, tomorrow, 11/23. is Fibonacci Day: 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8. 13, 21, 35, …)

The affliction. I’ve been reluctant to post about this, because it will seem like yet more of my endless pissing and moaning about the afflictions of my aged body. But it’s consumed a lot of my day, by making almost everything I do tremendously painful and time-consuming. I can sit comfortably in two of the chairs in my house, but standing up, sitting down, and walking are painful, and bending down for any purpose is excruciating (I pick things up off the floor using a grabber device).

It’s intense pain in the joints and muscles of my legs, especially my right leg. Plus lesser pain in my fingers (which are swollen) and arms — like my everyday pain there, but a bit worse. In any case, not at all like the pain from the gout that I’m taking medication for. If this had come on two months ago, rather than five days ago, I would have put it down to prednisone withdrawal (even though the reduction was quite small), but that seems far-fetched. So it’s a mystery.

Especially in light of …

The signs of health and happiness. I check my vital signs every morning, not long after I get up — several times, if a reading is out of line (waiting at least 10 minutes between readings). And then my twice-a-week caregiver checks during the day, for his reports on me. During the period of my mystery affliction, these readings — blood pressure, pulse rate, temperature, 02 absorption — have been completely in line, and my blood pressure has been low, but not low enough to make me light-headed: not just in line but splendid.

Meanwhile, my complexion is good (I tend to turn alarmingly pale when I’m unwell), I’m animated in conversation, fully engaged in things. My caregivers and doctors comment on all of this, and are mightily pleased. My sex drive rolls on like a well-oiled machine (a lapse in my sex drive is a big red health flag). I sleep surprisingly well despite the pain, 8 or more hours a night, without the persecution dreams that so often attend emotionally difficult times — in fact with the occasional astonishing affirmation dream, of great happiness, relationships, and accomplishments.

I did emotional exercises to get through the awfulness of the election and its sequels, and to get back into the world, managing to post regularly all the while.

I’ve been working on ways of living with constant deaths, in my generation essentially every week, but now reaching people one generation younger and some from two generations younger. (My first university students were from 60 years ago, so of course, many of them have died.) Learning to grieve by memorializing at least some who have died (most recently, one of my college roommates, Jim Martin) and by counterposing activities that give me joy and provide opportunities for playfulness (one of these is my Midsummer Night’s Video Dream project, which I’ll soon report on).

Now the tough project: learning to live so much in isolation, with very little face-to-face interaction, touching, physical presence. A hard task for someone as sociable as I am. Several of my doctors have been much impressed by the on-line social world I’ve built up around me and have suggested relying on that world, treating it as enough for my needs. I resisted that idea for a long time, reluctant to give up physical closeness and the pleasure of conversation. But the fact is that visitors who aren’t caregivers are going to come by only, like, every two months, and that interval is increasing. So now I’m working on accepting that virtual relationships have satisfactions of their own and I should seek them out. Which is why I’ve written this posting for you.

This entry was posted on November 22, 2024 at 2:47 pm and is filed under Holidays, Language and medicine, My life. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.