Thursday, March 10, 2011

Seeking God Himself - Reprise

Green Flames


"Religion often gets credit for curing rascals when old age is the real medicine."

"The hardest fact in the world to accept is the inevitable mixture of evil with good in all things." - both attributed to Austin O'Malley, b. 1858 - d. 1932

This poem was written over two years ago, written in the winter before my first heart event. In those days they found two clogged veins and fixed one, using a stent to hold it open. In those days I had no atrial fibrillation, no ventricular hesitations, no apparent thickened heart muscles creating stiffened diastolic response, a heart failure that won't kill me of itself but is very good at making me feel awful quite often and very likely to help me stroke out.

I have to deal with turkeys. I am schmoozing my Warfarin clinic nurse to get her to see things my way. She is far too conservative and as a result my warfarin number is way too high. That can lead to really bad bleeds if I should pop something somehow. But I don't want to piss her off. She is an essential team player. The phlebotomy team at the local lab is terrible at finding my veins. But the lab over by my work is batting one thousand. Local turkeys revealed by distant competence. I have to give blood samples twice a week at this point.

This is the heaviness of living with my own death. That is close and present even if I still have twenty years. My mother had something like ten years past her first heart event, but it was much bigger than mine. I am living with lung trouble daily right now but it is not really lungs, it is the backup of blood at my lungs because my heart doesn't move the blood well.

I am not saying these things to get sympathy, which they say you can find between shit and syphilis in the dictionary. I am pointing out that any spirit filled life that is true does not hesitate on this threshold. There is somewhere in me that is just fine right now even as I cough so hard I faint sometimes and have to sleep sitting up in a chair.

Note. Sitting up in a chair is one recommended posture for people in overt heart trouble...they say do not lie down while waiting for the medics. They say remain standing or sitting upright as best you can. I tie that recommendation to this sleeping posture I must take. I really can't lie down right now and may never be able to again. That's not good for the edema in my legs, also part of this trouble of course.

Seeking God Himself

I carry this weight
Doing my part as you do
Accepting the chill.
At the edge of me
Is the bud waiting for spring,
Then to swell, intense,
Ready to burst with
Green flames, to look for lifemates,
To seek God Himself.

January 5, 2009 9:00 AM

To burst with green flames...a solution to heart pain. <== Look at that! :D That sentence was written in the original post.

First posted May 23, 2009

7 comments:

  1. Will pray

    ForFood

    Uh sorry not sure where that, came from.
    My really sicko humor sense I guess.
    Awesome green flames.
    I was looking for some a couple months ago, ty for finding some I can grab.
    You can't possibly work in that condition.
    Jesus God, can't they give you a new heart or something????? Part of one?
    Glad you have your writing.
    Love you by.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Actually, I am working. I can work. It's just on the really bad days I have to let myself take time off. Also I have to lose some time to all the lab and doctor visits and whatnot. I just learned one of the guys on the job has it worse than me in some ways. He has cellulitis and has to dose himself with hospital level antibiotic fluids every night and morning. He has a pick line for intravenous use that he wears on his right arm. He does this himself at home.

    These are things that are usually hidden from us unless we work in the field.

    ReplyDelete
  3. to burst with green flames is beautiful, death becoming a new life instead of ceasing. think green takes on a whole new meaning.

    these bodies we live inside of and around.

    xo
    erin

    ReplyDelete
  4. sometimes that pain, the stiffness caused by diastolic pressure that feels like a sore muscle, you just have to use your hand to rub it out.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Yes indeed, I shall reach in past my ribs and touch my own heart directly.

    ReplyDelete
  6. You can join several phlebotomy certification training programs, courses, institutes and schools to learn the basic information about phlebotomy which is essential to clear your phlebotomy certification examination.

    ReplyDelete

The chicken crossed the road. That's poultry in motion.


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