May 8, 2015

Losing the Red



I struggled a bit with the title of this post, as if it is really anything that matters in the scope of life, but as I try and take time to be witty, or poignant, or meaningful to make someone think, maybe in some small way it does. In this one, it had me on a mind chase into these little rogue red parts of my body that are working against me, seeking to destroy me....clearly a sign of my over-wound imagination at work. In reality, this red.. for me... is my red blood cells and the marrow which seems to want to produced way too many of them anymore. These cells, a very good thing in a normal world, are dead set to populate so many of them selves, that unless I and the people who help me keep them in ranks, do so, they would kill me. Which brings me back to losing them. As terms of my I am told very rare condition , disease or whatever category you would want to place it in, I need to have regular and sometimes not so regular treatments to take these little travelers of my arteries away and let my blood vessels and other bits of my circulatory system rest for a spell. Today was one of those days... blood letting day I call it. These types of days seem to be getting more frequent which causes me concern, but in truth there could be a number of factors involved as to how much liquid I drink, to my exertion levels, to stress to just being that it is about summer time, but even with all of these unknowns involved. I don't like it.

Some people say "be thankful... it could be worse", but as it is me sitting in the comfy chair with the big needle in my arm, not them, I could easily say, "it could be better". It makes me wonder whether they think it is as if happiness is some scale and rich people have no right to be sad, nor the poor to be happy. Like saying to the downtrodden, be sad, it could be better. The truth is things of one sort or the other could always be better or worse on some cosmic scale if we graded life that way, which most people do. When I check in for these little sessions with the nurse, I am always given one of these little scales of pain shown below to fill in. I think it is silly for they do nothing different regardless of what I put down anyway. Any pain to me seems to fall to the far right, so what are we measuring? I have heard some people proudly profess, "I have a high pain tolerance". I guess they assume everyone feels the same pain and they are just tougher, or better than those who might complain. I wonder whether they ever thought of the other, 'maybe you feel it more than I do... maybe my senses are not as acute and aware as yours?' I do. I wonder what is the 'Worst pain possible' stated at the end? How would you know there could never be more? Clearly this is a guide to the physical...could emotional pain surpass this chart?


Anyway, as I lay there, trying to make small talk with the lady in the smock who cares for me, my mind goes to all kinds of places and I try to make it do so. This morning as a mini flood of unseen red donuts drained away from my arm, I thought about my drive on the way to the hospital. As I crossed over the Perkiomen creek near my house, I got my first glimpse this season of the Virginia Bluebells that are for the briefest period.... in bloom. As soon as I saw them. I started a visual search for a spot to get a photo and as I passed through the sleepy town of Salford, I saw an opportunity and took it. Along the edge of the road, was a small bunch and with iphone in hand, I stopped, got out and down on the ground and made a few 'exposures'. I texted one of them to a friend. They immediately remarked how pretty the photo was, not knowing the circumstances around it, so I stepped back to show the whole scene, complete with a worn garden shed, a pile of trash, plastic cup, etc...etc... and sent that. Their remark was surprise in "I would have never seen those flowers at all I think from the road." Exactly I thought.

While laying there with my needle, I was thinking that people look for the obvious, the exposed, the easy.... when looking around at life and it is the small hidden things, the special, the inward heart, that gets ignored, passed over and driven by. I realized that my illness is just that. It is something that to me is now solitary, quiet, unnoticed to anyone but me... but to me... it is still very much alive and ever so slowly working against me. As it has been well over a year since anyone... anyone... has inquired about the state of my body, I once again was reminded how alone I really am. I began to think about this 'small thing' that I was able to find on the way in and wished I had a table to bring a bouquet to. I thought about all the missed little moments in my day and thought to document the elements around me right then on my way back out to the car. The title image of the atrium room and these below are a sampling of what I found. The images of the blooms will be presented in another post.



















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