Angela's treatments are having some effect. She is reporting enthusiastically that there is more pain and weakness in her arms. She is also more tired. "Well," she says, "at least I know they're shining more than a flashlight on me everyday."
Because we have been told to expect these "worsenings" in the short term, we are claiming them as signs of progress. They certainly have not deterred Angela in her intentions to get out of hospital. She is now an unflinching advocate for her own discharge.
The window sill in Angela's hospital room is lined with flowers that have been sent from near and far. There is a picture tacked to the wall at the foot of her bed drawn in the brightest colours by her young, and most affectionate godson, Marius. We have become very meticulous about the placement of her things in her small space. The aforementioned ipod with Proust is nearby with her lipstick, cream, and a cahier. We've come to refer to her space here as her nest. The hospital, itself, though, is more and more referred to with other terms. In tears last evening she demanded that I understand that she is in a concentration camp. Indeed there are Nazis around us all, at all times, but here, and as time goes by, it is the Nazis that take on a more prominent presence. How horrific, the way that institutional processes and spaces, turn nurses, who are really angels, into police. I have many times, in my own work, a subject of the institution, become monstrous to myself. So our true haven, which is not a concentration camp, is at the same time, quite hard to bare. There is little protection from the cries at night.
So I am right with her, Angela that is, in her present effort to get out. Treatment is now started. Although her symptoms have worsened, unless there is a "dramatic" change, surgery is being postponed. Yes, we need to watch closely, because some drama is not out of the question in the next few days, but even as an outpatient she will be returning daily for treatment. It does not hurt to have a doctor at home and by her side, either. So our plan now is to move Angela's nest to a nearby hotel. As a new member of the "cancer society" her room will be "taken care of." Arrangements may be ready as early as tomorrow.
In the meantime, todays radiation treatment is still to be done. Of course we pray her symptoms don't get worse still. It begins to dawn on me, happily in fact, that we will have yet alot of work to do. I will need to balance our life to sustain us both for the course of her treatment. For this I am well trained, well supported, and strongly willed...and I believe in the value of a good nest! I will thank my father in advance who is on his way to take care of our nest in springbrook. I thank you all as well for your continuing comments and encouragement, whether public or private, as they are a true pleasure to Angela and to me. I'll keep in touch.
Colin, merci. I realize I'm waiting for your messages. I am close in thought.
ReplyDeletebig hug,
adina
“Analog Geiger Counters are useful for detecting radioactivity and performing nuclear experiments. Particularly to be admired is model GCK-02A, which is an assembled and tested kit. These Geiger Counters’ primary indicators are an audio click and a LED blink each time a radioactive particle is detected.”
ReplyDeleteI’ve been exposed to a bunch of radioactive-based tests lately and I wonder what GCK-02A would click and blink ‘bout me. I have never thought about myself as a source of clickability and blinkability at the same time; therefore in that regard I should perhaps get a hold of a GCK-02A unit. More so perhaps you too, Colin, should get a hold of one, given the circumstances with the medical-technologically objectified Angela, but please be careful when you explain to the clerk from renting company the purpose for your rental. After all, south of the border there is this ubiquitous perception that Canada has become a vast bedlam where nuclear terrorists are getting ready to attack what is left of the greatest empire of all times.
Oh, Angela, let’s do the radioactive thing and get it over with! I mean the radiation thing. Most people do not know that we, humans, already are radioactive beings. And as such and after all, the radiation treatment works on the principle of selectivity. The strongest survives. Angela or the tumour? I would bet of my life on Angela, for what my life is worth.
I first realized that the achievability of the greatness of my destiny required the involvement of a high level of radioactivity when I started to have repeated muscular cramps. There are no special tests for cramps. Nevertheless, the diagnosis of muscle cramps is relatively easy. It depends on how one understands the notion of diagnosticizing. Most people know what cramps are and when they have one. That should be sufficient, but if present during a cramp, the doctor or any other bystander, can feel the tense, firm bulge of the cramped muscle, then the pain must not be considered as being imaginary and therefore the bystanders shouldn’t laugh when I jump around as a wicket contortionist.
Given the fact that one of my most obstinate critics of my daily intake of at least 12,000 mg considers me as being before-time and an unnecessary early mortal by way of violent kidney stone attacks and other nefarious manifestations, I have initiated a hair of the dog strategy for combating my Vitamin C hangovers and their supposedly punishable consequences manifested as muscular cramps. As the massive ingurgitation of bananas and the numberlessly consumption of tooth-acidity-provoking apples didn’t seem to help, I went straight to the radioactive remedy: taking 2 tablets of Potassium Citrate with several gulps of club soda that has potassium carbonate instead of sodium carbonate.
Hence no wonder that my latest CT scan was showing things that may be attributed to my alien origin from the planet I don’t quite remember position-wise in the universe. I am pretty sure that it must have been the Earth, and therefore that must have been the only reason I returned here. Oh, well, at least it feels like being back home. Highly radioactive or not. But most certainly I’d rather live the rest of my life clickably and blinkably. Ye figure?
Merci.
Fall is falling in Toronto now and at this moment I overlook Queen's Park from a window one floor below Angela's office. It has been a couple of good days here, mild for November, at times sunny, I'd say even serene in the very rare moments I was paying attention, steeling a breath, having a thought. Serene is the word and this in all the turmoil of the last three weeks, the turmoil of life, the one of the semester and the one of moving houses. I wish I could be there, almost 3 hours away, hold your hand, not say anything... well, maybe growl at the KZ dogs. You are missed, some people are inquiring, want to get in touch with you, colleagues are touched. I miss your smile, your provocative calls to order. Say «bonjour» to Proust, defend your nest, we both know how roots and homes are grounding.
ReplyDeleteWith affection
A.