Do not read this as an end-game announcement. Nor as s surrender to self-pity. I merely intend to describe what the last couple of months have been like – just so you know, as Ann so often says. I guess the more telling question is why do I want you to know? Well, whatever, I do.
Each cervical vertebrae, yeh, in the neck, has an opening called
a foramen between itself and the next. Through these foramina (isn't that a lovely word?) flow lubricants,
pass the spinal nerves carrying messages to and from elsewhere in the body, activating various muscles, and cushioning the discs that pad the bones.
And when those foramina (I love new words!) get inflamed
and squeezed shut all hell breaks loose. And that’s been my story of the last
two months: severe neck pain and restricted range of rotation of the head
(leading to my having given up the car keys;) sharp pain in the rib cage, fiery
torso, painful hip, a constant cramp in the butt, a tendency to walk haltingly and to stoop. To straighten up
and to walk briskly, even with my cane, are acts of will as Ann regularly reminds me.
And my time (and Ann’s since she must drive) has been dominated
by a parade of appointments: multiple CT-scans, multiple MRI’s, Dr.
consultations, cardiac-watch on anti-coagulant levels and blood density, and on
and on. Tomorrow: a Spect scan. Never heard of it? Neither had I.
Earlier this week I acknowledged to my Hamilton class
President and the college alumni office the troubles I have been having
fulfilling my responsibilities as class secretary. I resigned that role: simplification.
I now will focus on two projects (plus daily journaling,
from which this is derived): seeing Making Music with My Friends through
to publication and Constantine’s Flame to installation, I hope at
Horizon House.
Have I strength to wrestle stone? Have I time to finish the
manuscript? Have I wit to be interesting in both formats? Well, that's my intent
-- to make time, to build strength, and to nourish the wit. Cheer me on. I need your energy.
PS At one place in this piece I place punctuation inside a parenthesis;
in another, outside the parenthesis. The hell with it; just hedge the bet.
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