Both my mother and I, tired from the up-and-down discoveries, research and changes of/about/for my father, experience back pain and stiff necks.
That in itself is not scary.
Nothing is scary.
Some forms of ALS are attributed to environmental factors.
Some neuromuscular diseases/syndromes are first diagnosed by treatment of back pain and stiff necks.
That in itself is not scary.
Some things are scary.
Writing this blog entry is scary enough without thinking there’s a local environmental factor or two (and probably not Max Factor but who can be sure that all the ingredients in cosmetics are safely influencing the environment while heating in the sunlight and mixing with methane in landfills?).
Any one who has common sense will remember that the bewilderments of the eye are of two kinds, and arise from two causes, either from coming out of the light or from going into the light, which is true of the mind’s eye, quite as much as of the bodily eye.
You see, humor is a set of scenes folded together like origami, which is, as you know, a combination of the words “original” and “pastrami,” not, as you might think, of the words “O” (as in the exclamation, not the Story of…), “rig” as in to construct something or fix a match (but possibly as in killing off large portions of the Gulf of Mexico), and “ami,” which some interpret as the acronym for the american meat institute but actually stands for the German colloquialism of the indigenous American people of Taiwan who use ambient intelligence to predict world events far in advance of us ever living as a world civilisation to prove their validity.
Therefore, watching the rise and fall of my father’s life in retrospect, with a partially predictive eye on the future, turns intelligent people into the bumbling idiots all of us are on a daily basis.
Because I’m tired, emotionally drained and otherwise able to hold a fork in my left hand while tapping the fingers of my right hand on a tablet…I’m not even sure where that image was going, it was so plain and ordinary.
Well, except to say perhaps my father, whose mental state is such that he knows how to put a shoe on and tie a lace into a knot but he doesn’t know a left shoe from a right shoe or even what type of shoe he put on one foot while picking up a different type of shoe to put on the other (and unfortunately, he isn’t Patch Adams trying to be funny), falling just short of ornery when someone tries to get him to put the correct shoe on his foot, whatever that means…I’m not even sure where that image was going, it so plain and ordinary for someone in his condition.
I took my mother to her first ALS support group session tonight, meeting professionals like Michelle, who has worked in the dental industry for over 30 years and had several useful tips for people with swallowing difficulty and/or advanced stages of ALS to maintain dental health, as well as meeting family members of ALS diagnosees and one ALS diagnosee himself.
Oh, the tangled webs we weave in our social interaction.
I just want to be that hermit living in the woods, digging ditches by day, that my mother reminded me again yesterday I said I wanted to be when I grew up.
Instead, I’m here, at this keyboard my father used for years. Well, no, this keyboard is only a year or so old, belonging to the set of accessories/peripherals that went along with the desktop minitower Dell PC labeled inspiron 531 that uses Windows XP and is probably older than I thought. Anyway, I sit in the chair that has rolled back and forth in front of this old student desk that my father has used for a computer station lo these many years.
Sounds bounce around in my thought set, mixing languages, nonsense sequences and other imagery one can associate with the upbringing of a member of our species, this set of states of energy devoted to getting more Earth-based sets of states of energy off this planet and away/out.
The opposite of the hermit’s dream.
‘Tis easy to be mixed up.
‘Tis easier to apply the mix to practical solutions, rather than figuring out the relationship between Solutia and Monsanto or ALS and FTLD.
Thanks to many, including Marc, Andy, Sagar, Barbara (happy belated birthday), Pal’s #13, Traci, Monica, Patty, Daniel, Christine, Allison, and many more…
This is Manic Rick Hill*, signing off before the caffeine overload (an ode to Pepsi is due except I don’t want to diss my cousin Barry’s employer, Coca Cola) kicks in and assists/facilitates my burst of wordiness that has no meaning in the weoinb2323:”3$^T#NdSLKER.
*you have to guess which Rick Hill am I, having a name that is rather commonly uncommon in these parts:
treetrunkdings 