I used to write about deeply personal matters in a protected LiveJournal. I haven’t been doing that in awhile. I had become addicted to the notion that at least few people were reading it and cared, and gradually I realized that these few people either didn’t care or cared in a way I was uncomfortable with. That leaves me with this blog. I go out of my way regularly to mention the purposeful lack of focus and probable lack of relevancy to it. It’s my way of trying to insulate myself from the inevitable, “Why do you think anyone cares?” comment or unposted thought. My hope is that most readers simply skip uninteresting posts and stop looking all together if the ratio of interesting to uninteresting gets too low.
So this is a post for purely egotistical reasons. I’d rather not know what anyone thinks. No comments allowed for this entry, and I’d prefer no comments on unrelated posts or emails.
I had enjoyed a nice break last weekend, a (queue Barry Manilow) Weekend in New England. Travel is always tiring, but I felt fine upon returning home on Sunday. I woke in the middle of the night between Sunday and Monday with some horrible kidney pains. There is the chronic discomfort I’ve been trying to cope with, but then there is, once or twice a year, an episode of far worse pain. The likely cause is an infection, a cyst rupture, or both. Treatment is a regimen of painkillers and antibiotics. No relief yet four days into this. The doctor said, half-seriously, that one option would be to remove the kidney causing the pain, which probably looks something like the kidney on the right (with a healthy kidney on the left).
Of course, removal of one kidney when overall kidney function is at 22% would result in a need for immediate dialysis. I’m not planning on having to do dialysis for awhile.
The far worse discomfort this week has been the passing of my grandmother. Her health had been in decline for a couple of years and acutely for the past few months. She knew her time was short, and I was able to say goodbye in person a few weeks ago. Her last couple of days were spent in hospice care, and she did die in her sleep. But prior to that, she was in terrible pain. Truly, the last few months of her life were terribly unpleasant.
I am off to New Jersey and New York shortly for the funeral and to be with family.
Above all else, my grandmother wanted her family to take care of themselves. She worried that we weren’t, and she was right. So I’m trying.
bullcitydave 