Wednesday, March 6, 2024
In bed around 8:30, up at 3:00, 36°, high of 43, another cold, windy day, wind NNE at 14 mph, 0-15, 25. 0.1" of precipitation in the last 24 hours. Sunrise at 6:18, sunset at 5:47, 11+29.
Pain. Yesterday, last night, and this morning = another bad fulguration experience with what feels like bladder spasms + accompanying incontinence. I've needed to launder the clothes I wore home from the hospital, towels I've sat on, and a nightshirt, and I don't think I'm finished as of 3:45 a.m. There is nothing in the Discharge Instructions about this condition. I will call the Urology Clinic when it opens at 8 a.m. As expected, I have a painful urethra and a burning sensation when voiding. The incontinence complicates what I thought was only a minor concern: dehydration from abstaining from water after midnight before the surgery. Because I take Jardiance for diabetes, I need to drink plenty of water to avoid kidney damage. If the spasms and gushing incontinence continue, do I avoid water and other fluids? I'm thinking of Rosanna Rosannadanna's grandmother, Nana Roannadanna: "It's always somethin'." . . . But at 6:30 this morning I had a near-normal voiding. Hallelujah? And by 8 a.m., another.
I'm grateful for my dear wife who took me to and from the hospital and stayed there throughout the procedure and stayed with me in the recovery room where I had a painful nostril from whatever it was the surgical team put in it or through it and also a painful, uncomfortable bladder and urethra and 'the shakes' or a lot of quivering from the anesthesia. I know that, if I were to see her in that condition, it would be painful not only for her but for me too. She got me some donuts and Irish soda bread to comfort my recovery at home and helped me with the necessary laundering of what I had peed on. She saw me through and helped me through my year's-long ordeal with Hunner's ulcer and the three fulgurations with Dr. Silbar, with all the intense debilitating pain and suicidal ideation that accompanied that long period, and now this past year plus, the debilitating pain and discomfort from the recurrence of Hunner's lesions plus the painful left shoulder, right wrist and hand, and back pains. I haven't been a great companion (Freudian slip: I originally typed 'compainion') for much of the past year. For all she has done and still does for me, I am most grateful. The painting on the left is one I did early in our marriage.
Why keep a journal? I ask myself this question fairly often and I've come up with some answers over the last 19 months during which I have been doing it. I wonder about it again this morning, recovering from yesterday's bladder surgery, having survived (of course) the post-anesthesia shakes, the catheter pains, and the indignities of peeing in my pants, then in a nightshirt, and then in a towel. Now I have successfully managed to pee twice without pre-leaking, or more accurately, pre-gushing, and with less burning and stinging, so I'm feeling temporarily at least on top of the world, almost a bit euphoric.. But why write about it? My usual answers have been either (1) birds gotta fly, fish gotta swim, writers gotta write, or (2) this journal is just a poor substitute for my daily exchange of texts with my sister. I became interested again in the question while reading a feature story in the NYTimes about Tom Meschery, a former Golden State Warrior All-Star basketball player and, later in life, an accomplished poet and mystery novelist. He is 85 years old and has done most of his writing after he reached age 60. I knew it was odd but I kept on writing my morning texts to Kitty even after she died, not pretending that she was still alive, but rather because of the daily habit I had developed of writing down some of the things on my mind. I sent my last text to her on March 21, 2022, almost 3 weeks after she had died. I wrote my first journal/blog entry on Saturday, July 30, 2022, 4 months later. Kitty effect? Writer's gotta write? Or Flannery O'Connor's "I don't have my novel outlined, and I have to write to discover what I am doing. Like the old lady, I don't know so well what I think until I see what I say; then I have to say it over again." Some of the stuff I write in this journal is pretty incoherent, even inconsistent. Seeing it in black and white on a page drives the point home, whereas if those thoughts just stay bouncing around in my head, I'm apt to forget how confused or incoherent I am about so many things.
I receive benefits from journaling. For one thing, I've followed the recommendations of others to remind myself at least once each day of what I am grateful for and who I am grateful to, even when I'm feeling crappy or blah, everything and everyone from my wife, my mother, my sister to the feeling of wearing shoes on pavement instead of boots on sand and dirt, from my liberal arts education to the Veterans Administration. Also, I get to blow off steam, which I suspect relieves some stress when I am so often disgusted by what happens (and doesn't happen) in our capitalist, imperialist, intrinsically corrupt government, in our economy, and in our culture. It provides occasions to recall and reflect on my personal history. events, people, and conditions that influenced the course of my life and the shaping of my character. It probably helps me to understand myself better than I would without journaling, to process negative thoughts and emotions, like sadness and anger. It helps me to keep an eye on my cognitive and physical declines, and my 'executive functioning.' Am I still able to type on my laptop's keyboard? With the fingers of both hands or hunting and pecking? Am I misplacing things? Forgetting stuff? It is not as if this journal is a complete record of everything that happens in my life, quite the opposite. But it provides a place to record whether there is anything troubling that is bothering me, or making me wonder. Additionally, just doing the typing, choosing the words and composing the sentences provides some evidence that I am still compos mentis to some significant extent.
Journaling also provides a benefit of which I too seldom take advantage: trying to understand things from the point of view of 'the other guy,' to 'walk a mile in his shoes.' I do some of this mentally but too seldom try to write it up. I'll try to do this more often.
Lastly (for now at least), journaling provides a record of how bad my memory is. So often I describe a movie we have watched or something that I have read and when I look at it months later, I have no memory of it whatsoever. Maybe it's more a record of how little attention I pay to what's on the TV or what I'm reading. In any case, my long-term memory is often pretty good while the short and medium-term memory leaves a lot to be desired.😰
Nineteen months of daily journaling, 66 entries in 2024, 365 in 2023, 165 in 2022 = 596 days
A reminder about all presidential wannabes. From a printed discussion among Frank Bruni, Olivia Nuzzi, and Joe Klein in this morning's NY Times:
Bruni: Biden is indeed tough and stubborn, in ways good and bad. He’s also, like almost all people who run for and become president, vain. I feel that we sometimes talk about Biden and Trump both being old as if age is the story when I think as much of the story is vanity. People who have a shot at the presidency or a taste of the presidency want the glory of the presidency. It’s a problem baked into the altitude of the office, no?
Nuzzi: Any person who wants to govern a group of people larger than a dinner party probably has a personality disorder.
Last week Joe Biden told the world there would be a ceasefire by Monday of this week. And guess what. Why does he do these things? Why does he act like a guy who finished 76th in a class of 85 at Syracuse Law School while telling the world he graduated in the top half? That he went to law school "on a full scholarship" when he had a partial, needs-based scholarship? That “I exaggerate when I’m angry, but I’ve never gone around telling people things that aren’t true about me.”
And crown thy good with brotherhood, from sea to shining sea. From this morning's NYTimes:
Donald Trump, who is urgently seeking a cash infusion to aid his presidential campaign, met on Sunday in Palm Beach, Fla., with Elon Musk, one of the world’s richest men, and a few wealthy Republican donors, according to three people briefed on the meeting who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe a private discussion.
Mr. Trump and his team are working to find additional major donors to shore up his finances as he heads into an expected general election against President Biden. Mr. Trump has praised Mr. Musk to allies and hopes to have a one-on-one meeting with the billionaire soon, according to a person who has discussed the matter with Mr. Trump.
It’s not yet clear whether Mr. Musk plans to spend any of his fortune on Mr. Trump’s behalf. But his recent social media posts suggest he thinks it’s essential that Mr. Biden be defeated in November — and people who have spoken to Mr. Musk privately confirmed that is indeed his view.
Aides to Mr. Trump did not respond to a request for comment. Mr. Musk did not respond to requests for comment.
The blood speaks to the blood. Pares cum paribus congregantur. American's Golden Rule: He who has the gold makes the rules. The best government money can buy. What passes for "democracy" in America. Pass me the basin, Jeeves.
The Second Coming
Timely in 1919 when it was written and more timely today.
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