Wednesday, March 21, 2012

' The Quantity V/S The Quality Of LIfe '




  The Quantity  V/S  The Quality Of Life ‘



03/21/12



To my very, dearest friends, and ever-constant, loyal readers,

I find that—more and more often—I consider how my Grandparents, and my mother and father died; how they died, and what they died from.





While all of them what one might say were ‘full lives’, living, working, and loving, and, living out their days in rather commonplace routine, which only the occasional illness that might even have been called major, yet, they lived a certain span, and in the course of time, they died.





By then, their minds—while seemingly intake—were overcome by failing bodies: organs, and their corresponding systems seemed to tire, and wear out.







And this ‘breakdown’ seemed in my mind to have followed a longish life, and then suddenly, catch up to them with a vigor, and a relentless force that simply overcame them, and killed them.







Why do I think of them so often, as I both miss them, and valued them, while letting the machineries of their deaths now bother me? I think that they enjoyed the life that was given to them.  I truly find that—so often—how I feel affects the way I feel, and the lost consequences imposed upon me my varied diagnoses, which, in truth, none of them ever had.







No one knew Lupus, or Fibromyalgia, or Chronic Pain, or Chronic Fatigue.  These diagnoses have become my own, in addition to whatever they had, until my list is long, and frequently too much to bear.  When—for example—I have had a ruining migraine since Friday; my pain levels have risen above that which I am supposed to endure.  When the thought of food sickens me; when I awake soaked in sweat, or in incontinence; when sleep comes not easily, nor long in length; when stomach ache drives me into the bathroom seven times or more a day; or when I feel my skin on fire; or when the limits of my ‘safe zone’ extend no further that the house; and I am lost in some despair and agony of pain and depression….what kind of life is this?







Could it—in part—be attributed to several psychiatric causes, such as panic, and agoraphobia; or simple lack of resolve, and inner fight?  Cowardice or accumulated character flaws that at times make of my days an endless hell, and I am too tired to get out of bed?







Days in which no one telephones to inquire how I am, full knowing that my answers will be boringly the same, always the same, until they just get tired of asking; I cannot say I blame them, for if they—by little chance—hope to find in me a difference, a cure, or an epiphany, how much more do they realize that I beg, and pray for that for myself?







And how I hope, one morning, to arise to rub the grateful sleep from my eyes, and feel myself a new man, full of energy and purpose; all pains forgot, fully able to breathe without oxygen, and  to walk without assistance, or my cane.







This past week has been an assortment of tortures: it is the new medicines that were prescribed?  Is it the lack of physical therapy to strengthen my legs so that I do not stumble, or want to fall; or is it some ruction of my assembled conditions that cause the jerking tremors in my hands, elbows, and shoulders, so that—at any second—I drop lit cigarettes upon me to the floor, or splash myself with hot coffee, or manage quite well to miss my mouth with my fork, and flinging food to the counter?







Am I whining, complaining, in raising weakened fist to Heaven, to wonder ‘why’?  Most certainly I am, for I well remember some years before, when none of these issues existed.  For, then I knew health by leaps and bounds; I could—then—eat almost anything I wanted to, and, when I retired for the night—tired, but with a natural fatigue, I slept on and on, to wake refreshed and restored. 







Now, I am NO use to anyone; how can I offer a stretched-out arm to help, when I can’t hold safely, a coffee mug?  How can I offer words of encouragement, when I lack the courage to so?  Twenty-five years ago, when I worked nights in a dreary nursing home, because I had no one to help me, I could lift patients weighing 300+ pounds with some little difficulty, I but I could do it.  Now, I cannot lift a box that weighs—perhaps—thirty pounds, without my back seizing up, and crying out in agony, to leave me hunched-over like an old man, having to find a comfortable place to sit down, hoping that those sharp, and stabbing pains will go away.









I have come to truly hate this life…my life, and can hardly imagine how—over time—my health will worsen. For I think that undeniably the ‘quality’ is gone; I take no pleasure in it.  One day just flows into the next.







Frankly, it is the ‘quantity’ that scares me most.  To imagine—at 58—another twenty years of this, or worse?







Forty years ago, I believe it was in my High School Yearbook, I was asked what it was I most wanted out of life.  Funny, but the answer—then—remains the answer now: that of good food, kind, adult conversation, lowered lamps, and soft music, before a roaring fire.   And maybe, having my writings, my poetry, my piano compositions, and my art readily sought out, to be listened to, or viewed with relish by all attending.  While I knew I did not have the raw talent that would ever produce the story, painting, or music piece strong-enough to define the decades, yet, in my own small world of dear acquaintances, I felt that I had talent enough for that, certainly.





But that long-ago dreamed of lifestyle was never to be; it was simply smothered out of existence by reality; of having to support myself at slave’s work for slave’s wages.  And, always the bills came in, never ceasing to come in; my ‘art’ was something that did not, could not last. Being in itself uncertain, irregular, and frail.









I cannot near in full express to you my admiration for being as equally infirm, and in loath pain who yet manage to hold-down employment;  run a household, caring for your spouses and children; or to those who still have a dream, and can pursue  it, even as your pains pass mine into oblivion.  You have my most profound respect; for the strength that you must summon to meet the needs of your realities.  Frankly, I do not see how you can do it.  I guess that you might in reply just say, “ Because it HAS to be done.” I still find you to be amazing, and inspiring.  Please always know that.



And, please also know, I love you dearly,



‘Zahc’/Charles

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