Would That It Was All Due To A Wood Tick

If only all my troubles could be ascribed to one of these beasts...

First off, I have to say that I don't find whiny blog posts particularly engaging, so I will try to keep this on the up and up...stiff upper lip and all.

For nigh on a year now I have had to deal with my vague, undiagnosed, chronic "poly arthralgia." After the involved me of SIX different physicians from various specialties, I still have no real answer as to where this is coming from.

I continue to have stiffness and pain in my hands and feet. The pain in my ankles, knees, hips, elbows and shoulders has backed off - more on that in a bit.

The pain is a very low grade burning, arthritic pain. However, early on the blood work did not indicate inflammation and the x-ray panel (head to toe) was unremarkable. I did, however, experience a minor Easter miracle (albeit short lived). On Easter Monday my neighbor Heidi and I took the dogs for a walk. We have been regularly (2-3 times a week) walking the dogs (and my sorry fat a$$) up to two miles at a time now that the weather is nice.

On this particular Monday, we lit the sauna and then went for our walk. We followed up with a fairly typical sauna - I have since learned that my thermometer is not reliable and previous claims of really hot saunas were probably not correct. After this particular sauna I felt funny (that's a medical term). I went over to some friends' house though and by bed time felt very good.

During the next two nights I experienced night sweats. My flannel sheets were cold and damp when I would awaken to use the facilities. Finally on Easter Wednesday morning I realized that the arthritis was GONE! Overnight it was gone - BAM - like that. I could lay my hands flat on the table and fully extend my fingers. No lingering achiness in my joints. It felt like a true miracle.

This is where the picture of our friend up there comes into play. I called up Maria and she reiterated her belief that all of this has been due to the bite of a tick. Apparently before the advent of antibiotics, spirochete infections were treated with heat. She saw a connection between my regular saunas and the sudden departure of the symptoms.

Alas after but a week and a half I began to feel the sudden flashes of pain in my knuckle joints. This was followed by a gradual return of stiffness in my finger joints. I am now also having some pains in my toes and feet. I am not back where I was a month ago even though, so for now I will still take this as an improvement.

The recurrent pain motivated me to have the Infectious Disease doc run some blood work in the hopes that I would find titers for a tick borne illness. Unfortunately, the three labs we had done, including Lymes, have all come back negative.

And so I carry on...stiff upper lip don't you know? Oh, and that is a nice picture of a wood tick. "Mr. DeMille, I'm ready for my close up..."

Ozymandias, Pastel Mints and Robert Penn Warren...

Ozymandias by Percy Bysshe Shelley

I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed;
And on the pedestal these words appear:
"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away.

Well, I am back after a long hiatus. (Much thanks to the gentle prodding of Jack AKA Doorman Priest and the poetry inspiration from P.J.) Spring is springing and I have much to tell, but decided to start with some thoughts that have been forming over the past few days.

Yesterday I was in the grocery store and as I passed along the candy aisle I had an unexpected flash of nostalgia. Mind you, I have reverted back to shopping at the big supermarket from the co-op and have passed through this aisle many, many times. Without realizing consciously that yesterday would have been my grandfather's 97th birthday, I saw the pastel mints and had a grandparent flash back. This was one of the candies that always seemed to be sitting in a candy dish at their house. The candy triggered an emotional memory. I grabbed a box and tossed it into the cart. Only later did I realize the connection to the birthday.

So what has this to do with the poem? Well, not too long ago I had a conversation with my mom. She was in a sad mood looking around her home and seeing items that carry significant emotional memory for her. In particular, a watercolor painting of my other grandfather (who's birthday would have been next month) and his baby sister. They are maybe five and three in the portrait, the frame of which is darkened from the house fire ten years ago. In fact, my aunt and her mom (the little girl in the portrait) were very afraid to call after the fire had occurred for fear that the painting had been destroyed.

This painting among other items were very much on my mom's mind. She was projecting into the future to a time when these items would no longer have meaning to anyone living and that thought made her intensely sad. I assured her that I would treasure them if no one else. However, I am childless and who would I pass them on to when I was frail and old?

So the topic today is mortality. On Ash Wednesday we are reminded that we are dust and to dust we shall return. Does that thought frighten you or comfort you? There are those who desperately want to believe that we gather in the after life, a continuation of who we are in this life - the individual. However, rational thought often interferes with this idea, and the result is a fear of nothingness. This nothingness is what the atheists are determined to believe, if you can even use that word appropriately in that context. Perhaps rather it would be better to say that atheists understand that this is it, a limited existence followed by nothing. I do find that thought frightening.

That fear is pervasive. It is what drives humanity towards "lasting achievement" as if there really was such a thing. Nothing cured my rather juvenile desire for celebrity quicker than the VH1 "Where Are They Now?" shows. All is transient for even the great ones among us. You don't believe me? ...then let's start with our own families.

How far back are you able to go in your family tree and have some genuine knowledge of the individuals you are descended from beyond being able to simply name them? How far back can you name them? Alex Haley and Kunta Kinte are an extreme example and even that was only like 6 generations back. I think that anyone of us who can tell stories about someone further back than a great-grandparent is exceptional.

Well, what about famous people you might say? Surely artists achieve a sense of immortality? Of course, who can forget Maude Adams, famous actress of the early 20th century? Or Edward Taylor, the poet, famous enough to be anthologized? Or King Ethelred, remember him? No, all is dust in the end.

But surely books and art endure which in turn keep those individuals alive in the collective memory? Have you ever been to a book sale when the library is making room for new titles? What movies have not yet made it to DVD, let alone Blu-Ray? As we move to digital, which books will disappear?

And there is the oblivion created by volume and multitude. My blog may exist in digital form for close to eternity. However, given the millions of similar blogs all existing out there in digital tombs, what does that really mean? We are dust and to dust we shall return. All of us.

During Holy Week the thought that kept creeping into my daily thoughts was, "Whatsoever you do for the least of my brothers, that you do unto me." In particular this thought would occur as I sat before my new 55 gallon aquarium, meditating on the tiny little fish and the world I had created.

For me the secret is that we are all integral parts of something bigger. This individual life is an illusion and it passes very quickly, yet the energy that is God that is us that is love endures. It is life itself.

There's a Grandfather's Clock in the Hall by Robert Penn Warren

There's a grandfather's clock in the hall, watch it closely. The minute
hand stands still, then it jumps, and in between jumps there is
no-Time,
And you are a child again watching the reflection of early morning
sunlight on the ceiling above your bed,

Or perhaps you are fifteen feet under water and holding your breath as
you struggle with a rock-snagged anchor, or holding your breath
just long enough for one more long, slow thrust to make the orgasm
really intolerable,
Or you are wondering why you really do not give a damn, as they trundle
you off to the operating room,

Or your mother is standing up to get married and is very pretty, and
excited and is a virgin, and your heart overflows, and you watch her
with tears in your eyes, or
She is the one in the hospital room and she is really dying.

They have taken out her false teeth, which are now in a tumbler on the
bedside table, and you know that only the undertaker will ever put
them back in.
You stand there and wonder if you will ever have to wear false teeth.

She is lying on her back, and God, is she ugly, and
With gum-flabby lips and each word a special problem, she is asking if it is
a new suit that you are wearing.

You say yes and hate her uremic guts, for she has no right to make you
hurt the way that question hurts.
You do not know why that question makes your heart hurt like a kick in
the scrotum,

For you do not yet know that the question, in its murderous triviality, is
the last thing she will ever say to you.
Nor know what baptism is occurring in a sod-roofed hut or hole on the
night-swept steppes of Asia, and a million mouths, like ruined stars in
darkness, makes a rejoicing that howls like wind, or wolves,

Nor do you know the truth, which is: Seize the nettle of innocence in
both your hands, for this is the only way, and every
Ulcer in love's lazaret may, like a dawn-stung gem, sing--or even burst
into whoops of, perhaps, holiness.

But, in any case, watch the clock closely. Hold your breath and wait.
Nothing happens, nothing happens, then suddenly, quick as a wink, and
slick as a mink's prick, Time thrusts through the time of no-Time.