Spent Saturday at my art club. We are doing layered collage pages to put in altered books. I go mostly to learn new techniques- I just don't relate to altered books. I think what I need to do is use mine for a journal, leaving plenty of room on each page.
I have a problem with owning more things that exist purely for aesthetic reasons. I come from a family of pack rat types, and I have to be vigilant. Of course, if I could truly embrace myself as an artist, I could sell the works, and then it wouldn't be a question of creating more possessions to possess me.
My dad has shingles. There's nothing equivocal about it; this case does not require a doctor's diagnosis. When I had shingles, I had only one lesion. The symptoms before I broke out were hell, but there was nothing about them to indicate shingles. It was far, far too late to do anything about it by the time I developed the "rash" and showed it to a doctor. My dad, however, has a good chance of getting results from antiviral drugs, if he would just be humble enough to go see a doctor. Today is Memorial Day, providing a perfect excuse for him NOT to see a doctor.
He has a paradoxical superior attitude about his relationship with the medical community. If one of his children or grandchildren has a slight fever, he'll want to know why we aren't in the hospital. With himself, however... I can think of 2 reasons he's seen a doctor in my life. One was what we thought was a broken wrist. The other was a hernia.
However, and I hope I've made this clear to him, whatever you go through with the lesions is NOTHING compared to the postherpetic neuralgia. I spent 12 hours in the ER, several years after my breakout, while the doctors ran every single test they knew of trying to find the source of my serious symptoms of heart attack. The pain was so bad it woke me up, and I broke into a cold sweat.
The antiviral meds reduce not just the severity of the attack itself, but the nerve damage that cause such serious complications later.
Shingles is often activated in times of stress. The older you are, the more triggers there are for the virus. My dad suffers very much as his friends and respected elders become ill and die. He doesn't talk about it, of course, far too stoic and manly for that, but according to my mom, they have been tending the deathbed and the pets of a town pioneer for the last couple of weeks. Tomorrow is her funeral.
I told my mom that this just needs to be one of those times when SHE prevails. There is an urgent care center in a neighboring town, and she needs to haul him up there.
2 comments:
So are you down to once a week posting... hmmmm?
gosh, i didn't know you'd had shingles and PHN too.. it sucks doesn't it. i've got shingles again, this time on my back, but the stress and strain that brought it on is flaring up the neuralgia on my side and belly from the last bout. aaaaargh. hence my lack of blog reqding of late. but i was doing a littel catching up just now and you were on my long list of must visits.
i hope your dad went to the doc and got treated in time. My doc wouldn't see me, so once again no treatment. I'm taking homeopathic remedies instead, and lots of St.John's Wort tincture and it's certainly been a less miserable period than previously, though it's taking just as long to pass.
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