8/1/24

 Thursday, August 1, 2024

1959 Pope John XXIII publishes encyclical Sacerdotii nostri primordia

In bed at 9:40, awake around 4 but lay in bed till near 5, unable to sleep.  Burning pain in right hip and knee, persevering on Salve, salve, salve, Regina and Come Holy Ghost, Creator blest, and in our har-arts take up thy rest, remembering a book I used to own Why Catholics Can't Sing about our dirge-like hymns.   One of the reasons I became a member of St. Francis of Assisi parish, where Whites were a decided minority, was the enjoyable and moving gospel music at the Sunday masses, mostly good Protestant songs that had some real emotional impact, songs in the Lead Me, Guide Me hymnals.  Many were classical 'White Songs', like How Great Thou Art, but others were Black spirituals, gospel songs, like Wade in the Water.  How I loved the and still do.  So here I am approaching age 83 perseverating on Come Holy Ghost.  Egad! 

Come, Holy Ghost, Creator blest,

And in our hearts take up thy rest;

Come with thy grace and heav’nly aid

To fill the hearts which thou hast made,

To fill the hearts which thou hast made.

I have memories of myself in 4th, 5th, and 6th grade, kneeling with my classmates in St. Leo Church, wearing my school uniform navy blue trousers and navy blue tie and tan shirt, singing that song that meant next to nothing to me.  Chances are I was thinking of my sinfulness, my spiritual unworthiness, my lack of holiness.  I took the Catholic religion seriously as a child, very seriously.  Maybe I still do if I'm focused on Come Holy Ghost on a morning as I approach my 83rd birthday.😰😇😱

Note to PM&R.  Sent at 7 a.m., this morning.  

"Please direct this to Dr. England and Dr. Cheng. Thank you

I have an appointment on August 6th with Dr. England for persistent right hip pain that keeps me off my feet. The pain has been with me every day since July 12th and I reported it to Dr. Cheng. Since July 12th, the pain has worked its way down my right thigh to my knee and the knee pain has become as disabling as the hip pain. I also have pain in the thigh between the hip and knee. I don't know whether this extension of the significant pain from my hip to my knee should be reported to you before my appointment or not, so I report it 'just in case.' The pain is such that I can't stand for more than a couple minutes before needing to sit and take the weight off my right leg. I can't engage in any activity that involves standing or walking. Thank you."

Larry Anderson called today and we agreed to meet next Wednesday when he's in town.

Prednisone, day 81, 15 mg., day 3/14.  I took my 15 mg. at 5:10 a.m.  Breakfast of cottage cheese and raspberries around 6:15.  1300 mg. of Tylenol around 6:30.  The hip-leg-knee pain is very bad this morning, a 7? 8?  It's impossible to quantify pain this way though the docs haven't come up with a better one.  If 10 = ER level, there have been times over the last 21 days since 7/12 when I would readily have gone to the ER hoping for some pain relief, but when I did go to the ER on 7/14, I was told after x-rays and a CT scan that there was nothing they could do for me, other than the 5 mg. of oxycodone they gave me which was ineffectual.  So it goes.  Mid-day meal of 2 slices of high fiber bread, one with butter, the other with peanut butter, plus one apple at 10:45.  1300 mg. of Tylenol at 2 p.m., with 2 cold chicken thighs.

Snap out of it!  Yesterday afternoon, after I had finished my journal entries for the day, and as I sat in my recliner reading the last epitaphs in Spoon River Anthology, I thought how foolish I am, mumbling and grumbling and feeling sour and nasty over the pain and limitations I've been experiencing.  "Mickey the Mope", my mother would say.  "Snap out of it! my sister would say.  I've outlived both of them and had more undeserved good fortune than either of them, yet they refused to get down on life, despite the challenges and misfortunes they encountered.  I never entirely forget the deep wisdom of the "Why me, Lord?", "why not you?" story, but I lose sight of it too often.  Why not me?  I know I will die one of these days.  I know I will have a last illness or an accident or some occurrence that makes me just a memory, and that it may be painful or not.  Nonetheless, I have discrete pains but only in my right hip, right thigh, and right knee.  I can move between rooms in our comfortable home with the help of my rollator Judy, and I'm able to read and write and watch television and lectures and documentaries on YouTube.  I did a big load of laundry this afternoon, carrying the dirty clothes hamper on Judy's seat from the bedroom to the kitchen laundry space.  I took a shower shaved and put on clean clothes after a nasty accident.  I'm looking forward to eating crispy air-fried chicken tonight that Geri will cook for me and serve me.  She will clean up the kitchen, the dishes, silverware, and cooking utensils that I heretofore cleaned up and she won't complain.  She helped me deal with my laundry's big load of compression socks that needed to be air-dried.  As I sit here reading poetry and writing my thoughts, she stands at the kitchen counter making dinner for the two of us as she does day after day, year after year for more than 40 years.   If I die in my sleep tonight, or from some cause tomorrow, I mustn't let my last day be owned by Mickey the Mope, spent on throwing a pity party for myself.  I need to focus on my extraordinary good fortune in having been loved and supported by a mother like mine, by a sister like mine, and by a wife like mine.  SHAPE UP, Buster!  Count your blessings!

Anniversaries thoughts.  I included the anniversary of Pope John XXIII's encyclical only because he was my favorite pope.  He succeeded the dour Pius XII whose picture was found on most Catholic classroom walls and in many Catholic homes.  John XXIII liked a cigarette and some wine to relax, which I thought was a mark in his favor.  He was supposed to be a transitional pope because he was already 76 when he was elected and wasn't expected to have a long tenure, and indeed he didn't but he convened the Second Vatican Council that led to big changes in the Church.  It was a gutsy move by the old guy, one that is still causing big disagreements, if not schisms, within the Church.  Much of the good that came from Vatican II is being undone by the actions of John Paul II, Benedict XVI, and the reactionary hierarchs and priests who have taken over the Church in the years following the Council.  More's the pity.  Come Holy Ghost!   And, BTW, the encyclical John XXIII issued was about St. John Vianney, the Curé of Ars,  the priestly life and the relevance of  "the Evangelical Counsels of poverty, chastity, and obedience."  I read most of it online and note that it is mostly "happy horseshit" like we used to be fed in Vietnam.  

I'm not writing much today because I'm not thinking much today, too distracted by hip-leg-knee pain, body all achin' and racked wid' pain, but brain dead.