A lot of thing have been happening in Will's life lately. My health as gone to shit. I've started using a cane to help control my balance. My talking has become increasingly difficult for my to articulate at a speed that feel normal. I'm weak. I have taken a 30 day leave of absence from work and I'm not sure it helped. I still feel about the same as when I started. I started a new treatment regime and am take Perdinsone by mouth instead of IV. This was the recommendation from the second opinion I got from Johns Hopkins. They seem to agree that I have a condition called CLIPPERS and this it the standart treatment. So much fo me and my health. I happy to restart this blog but am curious where it will lead and how it will fit in with my life.
It has been awhile
Reset.
I have be diagnosed with a brain condition which goes by the acronym of CLIPPERS. Chronic lymphocytic inflammation with pontinocelebellar perivascular enhancement responsive to steroids or CLIPPERS for short. Most of the cases, of which there are only a few, show on MRI involvement of the pontine, a small midline structure deep in the brain. My involvement is only in the cerebellum, which connects with the pontine.
Here are some pictures that show my brain.
Post Contrast T2
It doesn't look like much but the symtoms are pretty rough. Fortunately they are not so bad as to prevent me from working. Sometime I should write down the whole affair. Brain biopsy, cancer workup, full body CT and multiple lumbar punctures. Turns out that steroids are the treatment and they worked originally. Then after 4 months I went 6 weeks without a treatment and had a relapse and now have to basically start over.
Anyways, enough for now about my brain. Been in the shop some and have some spoons that I have to photograph for the blog.
The Human Spirit
We are on page 192. Today's miniature teaches about how "there is always a bigger flea." To make his point, Aitken uses a pair of writers, Robert Louis Stevens and Leo Tolstoy, and a pair of short stories, "The Touchstone" and "How Much Land Does a Man Need?". Having not read either, I can not speak to the merits of his comparison as to which writer was the "bigger flea".
That is not the point. On the surface, Aitken does a great job of presenting first RLS as a writer who "informs my very life." Strong praise indeed. Then he goes on to introduce LT and note Chekhov's proclamation that LT's short story is "the best short story ever written." Aitken's writing here is masterful. He places these two writer next to each other and imagines there relationship.
With more reflection, we see that comparison and our desire to know or be the "bigger flea" is a part of the human spirit. If we hold these comparisons lightly, recognizing the ephemeral nature of the sense of separation that allows comparisons, the human spirit can be light. If we put too much energy in comparisons, in who's the bigger flea, then the human spirit becomes needy, heavy, busy with judgments.
Chose to be light. See the ephemeral nature of separation. Be kind to yourself.
I'd like to point you to Lucy Loomis, a photographer, who has posted to Flickr a set of her visit to Dan Santos' woodworking shop. I don't know either of these people yet their sharing has inspired me. We will see what develops. Here is a link to the set and a sample.
Photo by Lucy Lommis
MY NON-FICITION BOOK LIST
MY NON-FICITION BOOK LIST
- Brain Rules by John Medina
- Getting Things Done by David Allen
- Outliers: The story of success by Malcom Gladwell
- The Art of Happiness at Work by Dalai Lama and Howard Cutler
- The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey
- Presentation Zen Garr Reynolds
- Zen Mind, Beginners Mind by Shunryu Suzuki