Monthly Archive

I am on day 15 of this hospitalization and received news that late today or more likely tomorrow I will be able to get home. There are a number of items to unravel--administration of my intravenous antibiotics for the next four weeks and then six weeks of oral medications;  the various antibiotics, pain medications, muscle relaxants and other meds, the enormous stress of pain, spasms and infection have really drained me emotionally and so I find my mood mirroring the gray, cold wet  that i see as I look out of my hospital window across the ocean.

Last Monday, June 15, I went to work with a sore lower back . . withing two hours I was in excruciating pain and unable to walk. A friend rushed me to a private hospital where morphine and other meds were administered. Since our national health coverage would not cover care at that hospital, I was taken by ambulance to North Shore Hospital. That began one of the most difficult weeks of my life. The doctors believed that I had an infection in my spine. I was sceptical that an infection could cause such horrible pain.

Goodbye Ordinary

I wonder when we first bought into this
So satisfied with status quo
Have we convinced ourselves that this is all there is
Well all that is within me says we were meant to break free

Live like there's no tomorrow
Love extravagantly
Lead a life to be followed
Goodbye ordinary
Goodbye ordinary

We were never meant to compromise
Settle for mediocrity
This life was never meant to be a waste of time
Well all that is within me says no more just existing

I just finished reading a fascinating book by Swedish author Karin Alvtegen entitled, Shame. The story is about two women who share nothing in common other than determination to destroy their memories. One, Maj-Britt, comes from a fundamentalist Christian upbringing and made to feel horribly dirty because of her sexuality and sexual desires. She ends up pregnant and in a marriage that ultimately fails. She eats her way into extreme obesity and lives isolated in her home. Her "savior" ends up being a childhood friend, Vanja, whom she always considered theologically suspect.