Return of the Prodigal Blogger

Greetings, my friends and readers! I'm lucky you can still find my blog. I've had a long blank spell. My last entry was nearly seven months ago. During the past couple of years I've endured serious family issues and  worrisome health problems. I let go of extraneous activities to manage day-by-day responsibilities. I couldn't focus on things that took mental effort, like composing blog posts. Instead I became a viewer. I watched television a lot. I Web-surfed and read other peoples' blogs. I read books, although sometimes reading novels took more effort than I could muster.

Time heals or it kills. Months have passed, situations have changed. The family issues have partly resolved, which relieves a lot of my anxiety. I'm coping with the health problems. I want to return to life as I once knew it. I've adopted that corny-but-true old saw from the 1960s:

I'm back in the blogosphere and I hope to post on a regular basis.

Not Quite Back from Hiatus

Well, I'm back, sort of...not having to blog from the afterlife, at least. I'm ten days post-surgery, minus tumor, also minus a kidney. (Fortunately, I have another kidney.) Will be recovering for a few more weeks, but am doing okay. Thanks to those of you who commented on my last post. Whew.

I've been contemplating how I might use this experience in my blog, and thought of recounting various details of the hospitalization/surgery/medication/recovery experience on the theory it might be useful research for someone...then I realized that idea was really just a thinly-disguised version of the recovering invalid's compulsion to talk ad infinitum about her surgery. Which is, of course, excruciatingly boring to everyone except someone else who's experienced the same thing! So I'll spare the details.

All I can say is, having gone through this with laparascopic surgery and found it difficult that way, I can only imagine how much worse it must have been in days prior to this modern method. I have a number of interesting small scars developing across my abdomen, from where various surgical instruments were inserted and removed, and a bit larger scar through which they pulled out the kidney. If not for the laparascope, however, apparently I'd have a scar about nine inches long throbbing across my side and abdomen.

Anyway, thanks to all of you (my vast crowd of readers, heh heh) for your good wishes and good thoughts. I believe they helped me get through it safely.

My Appendix Says Farewell

I've been pretty healthy person most of my life, with just a glitch here and there. Much to my surprise, I now speak to you as survivor of an emergency appendectomy. Yes, that scary situation, where you rush to the ER in excruciating pain, hoping against hope they won't have to cut on you, hoping it's only gas pains...only to discover that yep, the pain in the right lower quadrant of your abdomen, which has grown increasingly worse over the last 12 hours, is indeed an inflamed and already perforating appendix.

Fortunately, nowadays there is surgery by laparascope, in which you get only two or three little incisions instead of a big one; the surgeon goes in by remote control, snips away the offending vermiform remnant, suctions out the nasty pus and fluid, glues rather than sews closed any openings that shouldn't be there, then neatly withdraws and seals the tiny incisions with butterfly bandages. Tah-dah! Except for a few hours of agonizing gas pains on the day after surgery, recovery is amazingly fast and you're ready to go back to work within a couple of weeks.

Whew! I'd like to leave it all behind as among my less-favorite memories...but alas, during the presurgery testing, they discovered a problem with one of my kidneys, so I'll have to undergo another surgery in a few weeks. Sigh.

I am comforted to realize that if I'd been born fifty years earlier, I probably would have died of the appendicitis. I'm profoundly grateful to live in the world of modern medicine, with CT scans, laparoscopies, and -- last but hardly least -- really effective pain medication. Heh heh heh.

Ave atque Vale, Annus MMVII

"We will open the book. Its pages are blank. We are going to put words on them ourselves. The book is called Opportunity and its first chapter is New Year's Day." -- Edith Lovejoy Pierce (b. 1904), poet

I thank my friend Shauna Roberts for the quotation, which is perfect to start off the New Year.

I believe in new beginnings, and I like them. I always make New Year's resolutions, although I rarely stick to them for long. I am an optimist. I always try again.

2007 was not a good year for me. I suffered through a variety of worries: extreme anxiety for a beloved family member dealing with addiction, as well as my own health problems, financial worries, caretaking responsibilities, job issues, and free-floating anxiety.

Today marks the end of 2007, however, and tomorrow is a new year. I mentally erase the blackboard of 2007, washing it clean for the new self-history I will write in 2008.

Things for which I was especially thankful in 2007:

• My Family: I love them and they love me, even when we are in conflict.
• My Friends--especially Brenda, Carolyn, Cheryl and Joanne: their love and support have rescued me from despair.
• My Writer's Group, Wordsmiths (Laura, Candice, Charles, Steve, and Emily): They are not only professional colleagues, but also good friends; their opinions, tastes and judgment in literary and other matters are significant to me; their concern during my dark times over the past year has helped enormously.
• My Pets--the dogs (Dozia, Galadriel, Squeaky) and the cats (Katy, Harmony, Precious): their unconditional love and eagerness to please have comforted me through dark times.
• My Job: Even when there is chaos at home, at the office things are orderly, logical, peaceful and predictable.
• My Books: Reading them lets me escape into other minds, other lives, and other worlds; possessing them makes me feel rich, replete, rapturous and reverent. When I am anxious I sort out piles of books and I am calmed.

I will post my New Year's Resolutions for 2008 tomorrow.

Happy New Year to all my blog-friends. I'm grateful to have "met" you over the past year, through our exchanges of posts and comments.

Affinity

No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main; ... any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind, and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.

--John Donne, Meditation XVII, Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions

Last night I had dinner with two friends whom I hadn't seen in a long time. The reunion was great. We've been through many changes over the last two years--not least the aftereffects of Hurricane Katrina--yet on meeting again, it was as if we had never been parted. We picked up on our old rhythms and patterns, and fell into the same easy rapport as we had before. As in the past, the evening simply wasn't long enough for everything we had to say to one another.

After five hours of nonstop talking, we had to part ways. We agreed to get together once a month to keep the buzz going. I hope we'll do it. I've discovered that having friends who are boon companions is more important than nearly everything else. I am a loner--I need and enjoy time alone--yet I've learned I must make time for friends. Even when I feel grouchy, irritable, and mad at the world, I've discovered that if I make the effort to go out and be around people with whom I have rapport, I'll be glad later--I'll return home feeling refreshed, renewed, relaxed, and connected.

I've Been Caned...

As punishment for my sins against physical health throughout my life, the Universe has caned me.

Yes, I've had to start using a cane recently. I twisted my knee a couple of weeks ago and have been suffering with it since then. I limped and teetered around for a couple of days, hoping the pain would disappear, then decided a cane would help me get around. It's a humbling experience in some ways, but I have found a cane is useful for more than just walking.

First, I noticed that my pets were all afraid of it -- apparently dogs and cats instinctively fear sticks. Of course I wouldn't strike any of them with it, but I've found that by holding it in front on me and swishing it around a bit, I can keep them from jumping up on me (which is important now that I'm unsteady on my feet). Subsequently I discovered I can use it to press elevator buttons, or to hold open elevator doors without risking my hand or arm in the process. I can use it to push/pull items on the floor closer to me. I can shake it in the air at naughty children who are riding their bikes on my lawn. And it does help a bit in public places--there are a few people who will hold open doors for me, or offer me other courtesies, as a result of my using the cane.

It's a real ego-killer to occasionally catch sight of myself, reflected in a plate-glass window, stumping along with the cane and lurching from side-to-side. On the other hand, now I really empathize with people who live in constant pain. I understand better how people can become addicted to pain medication. And I feel even greater respect for those who go through life with serious disabilities.

On the lighter side, I discovered when Googling for a picture to accompany this blog entry, there are THOUSANDS of websites that in one way or another focus on walking canes! Who'd-a-thunk-it?

And I guess I really will have to see a doctor about this bum knee after all, since it's not getting any better. Darn.