So, it's now almost 3 in the morning, and I STILL can't sleep! I took a couple of aspirins awhile ago hoping to alleviate a headache as well as a crik in my neck, but that upset my stomach so I got back out of bed and ate no less than THREE 99cent tv dinners, then went outside and had a smoke and stared at the big dipper for a long time, and thought about how cool it would be if we could turn this whole situation around in our heads, and accept with gladness this very brief interlude of living in purgatory against the knowledge of an eternity of silent bliss waiting for us right around the corner, and that got me to thinking about Ikkyu and how he went about with skulls hanging from his belt to remind himself of the true nature of reality, and that made me feel a whole lot better, on top of which there's been a cricket loose in my room for the last 2 nights whose chirping is a delight beyond measure, and remembered this poem-
Only One Koan Matters...You (for Ikkyu and Mori)
Sad, boisterous, lecherous, drunk, suicidal-
Ikkyu embodied the flux of human existence.
He found transcendence in the dung of his master, Keno,
and spiritual release in the mouth of a 19 year old blind girl.
What wisdom coats your dead tongue, Mori?
Does he carry your skull on his belt, as he walks the fields beyond the moon?
Give us a kiss, sweetheart, and then another round
on me.
I'm also thinking about you, Plague Doctor, and hoping your condition is cutting you some slack. Get some rest for the both of us.
3 comments:
Much appreciated, Jim.
This month is exactly the three-year anniversary of my illness and I basically have not spoken to anyone in three goddamned years except for my mother and a whole bunch of doctors, so the Internet keeps me diverted.
I have already tried all sorts of supplements, with substantial partial improvement, and as a last resort, I am now trying high-dose antioxidant supplements against oxidative stress in my parietal cells.
If it helps, I should finally be completely (?) better digestion-wise in about a month or two (fingers crossed). Of course, I will still have all sorts of problems, as I appear to have damaged my body and ruined my finances.
If it doesn't help, I'm royally fucked.
For sleep, I finally got a prescription (low-dose mirtazepine 15mg), but it only partially works, as stinging pains in my colon wake me up at night. I literally have had rotting half-digested food festering in my gut for three years, and a bloated belly like a pregnant women (yes, even antinatalists can sport the pregnant look! I even got the stretch marks to show for it!) pushing into my diaphragm like a fist 24 hours a day.
If Dr. Jonathan Wright is correct in his book, there are literally dozens of supposedly uncurable diseases that are easily curable by treating hypochlorhydria, something the medical prefession does not even test for, let alone treat. I got rid of two of these in this way: Sjögren's Syndrome, which was causing intense motherfucking PAIN in my eyes, salivary glands, finger joints and elbow joints; and lichen planus pigmentosus, which was causing huge PAINFUL itchy red bublous eruptions all over my skin (that Job fellow has got nothing on me). I should probably stop here before the desciptions get too graphic.
Anyway, like life, the health care system is a scam. I've basically learned more about my conditions that my own doctors with an internet connection and an Amazon.com account, and had to pay tens of thousands out of my own pocket even though we have a nominally socialized health care system over here. If I get better I would like to write a book, as there is a huge untapped market, and I appear to be the first person to have discovered the root cause of hypochlorhydria.
End of rant.
Plague Doctor:
I know it's meagre comfort, but I hope you get well soon, not only of your digestive trouble, but of every symptom that is afflicting you. In the meanwhile, if you can keep writing so well despite your terrible ordeal (I can't write a line, even when I have a mere cold)
I think not all is lost yet...
Sorry. J stands for Josep...
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