Home > Uncategorized > Not blogging feels like uncomfortable silence

Not blogging feels like uncomfortable silence

July 17, 2011

Les Jenkins has been Reflecting before carrying on, and anyone who writes, and in particular writes a blog, can relate.  He’s asking great questions that every thinking person struggles with: Am I doing what I should be?  Did I miss something?  Why do I write?

And I don’t know, except that when he writes, I feel it.  He seems to make sense where I live and yet still write in a way that engages people from other, different points of view.  I try to learn how to do that by watching him and a small handful of others.  Anyway I’m damned glad he’s out there.  He has been a friend to me even though we’ve never met.

My own blogging has dropped way off recently and there is a reason.  Is it possible to be too stressed out to blog?  At times like this I have a hard time putting anything, let alone my own thoughts and feelings, in words.  Ideas come to mind, but break apart before I can make them look like anything. Worry is a universal human thing, so here goes.

There’s been the whole weird thing with the surgery on my upper jaw, with bone graft to replace bone destroyed by a huge infection that, strangely, did not manifest itself painfully.  I only noticed it when a tooth collapsed into the, uh, sinkhole in my upper jaw and the adjacent teeth got wobbly.  Now I have a titanium pin bonding to the new bone graft, and if all goes well they’ll eventually connect a fake tooth.  But the loss of teeth was secondary to the concern that the infection was awfully large.  And then…

You know that “symptoms you should never ignore” list?  Woke up one morning and found myself with one of the really obvious ones.  Since then I have been knocking around from GP to specialists and had some really painful and invasive tests, and the upshot is… I am at  risk and will be taking medication that has nasty side-effects, and be checked about twice as often as most guys my age.  OK, great.  And there’s another whole battery of more general tests that need done, because my physical checkup 2 years ago was interrupted by a really, really bad day.

But the State of Illinois is playing billiards with its employees health insurance.  Richest country in the world, but we are having trouble doing something that much poorer countries manage with little difficulty.   I don’t know if I’ll have the same  health insurance company to finish the tests as who started them, or if the same hospitals will be in-network or if they can competently share records.

Here’s the thing – commercials on TV for “ask your doctor about” drugs make it look all clean and easy and then you go off on a cross-country trip on your Harley, right?  I’ll write about it sometime, but the reality is a lot messier physically, emotionally and financially.   You start thinking about people you know who have gone through things you counted yourself lucky not to.   Then you see blood ! where there shouldn’t be any and you really start to worry.

(More?  My roof is leaking, there is structural damage and the new roof will cost… well let’s just say it’s a good thing I don’t need to buy a new car for the next few years.  My ’89 Civic is running just fine thank you.)

So I’m trying to focus.  I’m reading your blogs, friends – you help me remember the larger world out there.  You help me focus on the meaningful plot twists, in a story whose ending is already known.  Meanwhile thanks for trying to make sense out of this ramble.

 

Categories: Uncategorized
  1. July 18, 2011 at 14:39 | #1

    Well, we appreciate it when you do write, so do it when you can (and, yes, it is possible to be too stressed out to blog).

    Sorry to hear about the litany of bad stuff … for what it’s worth, I’ll keep you in my thoughts.

  2. July 18, 2011 at 18:21 | #2

    I am saddened how many things have gone wrong in your life at once, George. Hang in there. You’ve always been a friend on the net and have encouraged me when I needed the encouragement.

  3. July 18, 2011 at 22:06 | #3

    We all get to the point where reality crowds out a lot of things that are not quite important. A time when we must figure out solutions for the immediate problems. You must take the time you need for this and be aware that we will still be around to read when you can post!

  4. Webs
    July 19, 2011 at 21:44 | #4

    Wow. It is certainly reasonable for you to take a break. Hang in man, things will turn around.

  5. dof
    July 20, 2011 at 08:00 | #5

    Thank you all. I know there are people with much worse problems – the only one that’s really bothering me is the end result that I can’t seem to focus my thoughts at all. It’s an intoxication of fatigue.

  6. WeeDram
    July 22, 2011 at 06:10 | #6

    Hang in there. More to say perhaps, but not here.

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