A rough night where my temperature was up over 100 for a bit and I wondered where it was going to stop. A lot of mouth pain. I did get a lot of sleep however. I could not focus on reading or even listening to the radio. I confirmed with Dr. S this morning that the new IV antibiotics they have me on are going to delay my going home. They have to stabilize me before letting me go. Both Dr. S and Dr. J confirm that I am doing very well in this treatment – touch wood when you write that – so I am obviously encouraged. Handling expectations of success and failure is going to be crucial during this episode.
Mo and I had a long talk with Dr. J yesterday, about my condition and life in general. I like him – I wonder if I talk too much though – I’ve become quite the gossip while laid up here. I am sensitive that my observations about hazards and risks in medicine could be taken the wrong way, to mean that one associates blame with them. I’m not, as most FAA inspectors could tell you. Read James Reason. (By the way, I had heard that he had moved on from aviation safety to medical safety, but I have not seen anything published recently. Can anyone tell me what he’s up to?) The notions of assignment of blame are hard to shake, as is the domino theory of accidents. I see these notions used daily, by politicians, and, of course, in litigation. It seems as if we are pre-wired to the need to assign meaning and cause and responsibility for every adverse event. We hardly ever do this for favorable events. It seems to me that one must allow that some things happen for no reason at all. Saying that does not preclude looking for causes and factors, but some things happen for no reason whatever. Perhaps Burkitt Lymphoma is one such event. It is interesting to study the disease in depth and to understand the mechanisms involved, but at some level surely one must that it happened at random.
As my mother used to say when I would whine “It’s not fair!” “Well, life’s not fair!” It is only recently in the last few years that I have begun to understand this. Not sure where she got it from – perhaps from living through the war and cast off at an early age to live with her grandmother.
The other side of the coin, of course, is gratitude. I think that Thanksgiving is perhaps one of the best of America’s many good ideas. A purely secular holiday that presumably has its origins in the harvest festival. I am prodigiously grateful for the opportunity to take a sabbatical and write this blog. Something I’ve wanted to do for a long time.
Another thing that I’m grateful for is the way that the Stow community has rallied to support Mo and Miranda. Martha has been walking and taking care of Diggory (our wheaten terrier) and this allows Mo to visit me every day. Kathy, Lynn, and Mary, to mention but a few, have been bringing in cooked meals to Bradley Lane. The school has been wonderful supporting Miranda. I have, up on my window, a huge homemade get well card with good wishes from all the children in Miranda’s 6th grade at Hale.