Life Goes On? Yes, But Beyond Numbers and Many Other Major Concepts

Posted by piermarton on February 12, 2012
Posted in: Graphics, Humor, Insights, LifeAfter, Work.

Stuff – Les Trucs Machins

Such a life-changing experience leaves traces. Most concepts become just “stuff.”
Reminds me of the joke about those five Jews:
Everything is one (Abraham). Everything is love (Jesus-Christ). Everything is economics (Karl Marx). Everything is sex (Sigmund Freud).
Everything is relative (Albert Einstein)

Un branle-bas de cette nature change tout et laisse des traces. La plupart des concepts apparaissent comme des “trucs machins.”
Ça me rappelle la blague des cinq Juifs:
Tout es un (Abraham). Tout est amour (Jésus-Christ). Tout est économique (Karl Marx). Tout est sexuel (Sigmund Freud). Tout est relatif (Albert Einstein).

2011

Common Era/Safety, Faith and Hope in Numbers ©Marton 2011

2012

Creative Juices 2012 ©Marton 2012

“What does not kill you, makes you stronger!” – Really?!?!

Posted by piermarton on February 11, 2012
Posted in: Family, ICU, LifeAfter, Post-Op, Rehab, TheBodyChallenge, TheMindChallenge.

Illness, sickness, being “out” has
NO REDEEMING VALUE.
Trying to “be positive” about it
(to hide one’s fear?)
represents an indoctrination like any other.
– life is the way it is –

While one does know certain things because one has been punched by life – often by just plain stupidity – that knowledge amounts to being able to say:

“one can be punched hard by life or by stupidity.”

Christopher Hitchens’s take on the famous saying goes this way:

“Whatever doesn’t kill me makes me stronger.”

“Oh, really?” says Hitchens, “Take the case of the philosopher to whom that line is usually attributed, Friedrich Nietzsche, who lost his mind to what was probably syphilis. Or America’s homegrown philosopher Sidney Hook, who survived a stroke and wished he hadn’t.”
… it ends with “one can dispense with facile maxims that don’t live up to their apparent billing.”

‘You Look Great’ and Other Lies (how to be with a sick person)

Posted by piermarton on February 11, 2012
Posted in: Uncategorized.

Visitors, well-wishers, friends (so many disappear… ) overall do not know how to be with a sick person. It seems as if THEY would like to be taken care of because THEY cannot handle the stress of being with you…

I remember a friend from those days having a hard time accepting that “No, things were not better” and this was not changing fast enough… but a sick person cannot be teaching a healthy person how to be (with a sick person).

From my point of view, besides the good tips below,

just BE with the other person, NO need to fill in the gaps.
Presence is 100 percent of life.

=================================================================
An excerpt from the NYTimes article by Bruce Feiler:

The NEVERs:

1. WHAT CAN I DO TO HELP? Most patients I know grow to hate this ubiquitous, if heartfelt question because it puts the burden back on them.

2. MY THOUGHTS AND PRAYERS ARE WITH YOU. In my experience, some people think about you, which is nice.

3. DID YOU TRY THAT MANGO COLONIC I RECOMMENDED? I was stunned by the number of friends and strangers alike who inundated me with tips for miracle tonics.

4. EVERYTHING WILL BE O.K. Unsure what to say, many well-wishers fall back on chirpy feel-goodisms.

5. HOW ARE WE TODAY? Every adult patient I know complains about being infantilized.

6. YOU LOOK GREAT. Nice try, but patients can see right through this chestnut.

“The Arrogance of Normalcy”

Posted by piermarton on February 11, 2012
Posted in: Doctors, Family, General, ICU, Insights, LifeAfter, Nutrition, OtherSupport, Post-Rehab, Rehab, TheBodyChallenge, TheHospital, TheMindChallenge, Work.

I speak of this elsewhere, but it was clear from the ICU on that what was considered normal was a complete aberration. Being surrounded in rehab by many brain surgery survivors who could only mutter vague sounds to express themselves, regular activities like speaking, holding a pen or defecating have to be considered miracles, amazing victories!

Nothing can be taken for granted.

We are born disabled, and most of our lives are probably disabled in one way or another (but deny it)… and we will most likely die disabled.

Another one of those “beams in the eye” – so prevalent it is one more omnipresent blind spot.

People Simplified

Posted by piermarton on February 11, 2012
Posted in: Death, Doctors, Family, Genes, ICU, Insights, LifeAfter, Rehab, TheHospital, TheMindChallenge, Work.

With life having slowed down in a major way – did I know whether I would EVER leave ICU, “eternity” appears like a daily occurrence.
A particular bird’s-eye view cannot be avoided – all of the tohu-bohu of daily activity, whether it is the curtains that are drawn across the way in the ICU (I assume from the movement of people that someone has just died), or on the other hand, their busyness, people can easily be summarized in this way:

  • The Dead
  • The Living
  • The Kind
  • The Unkind

    People Simplified ©Marton 2012

    d

 

EVERYTHING depends on YOU…

Posted by piermarton on February 11, 2012
Posted in: Death, Doctors, General, Insights, LifeAfter, Nutrition, TheBodyChallenge, Tips.

… the good and the bad.
You are in charge, even if you are dying.
(to be remembered, if possible, till the end)
–
Samuel Beckett
” Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better.”
“I can’t go on, I will go on.”
–
Don Miguel
“Don’t Take Anything Personally. Nothing others do is because of you. What others say and do is a projection of their own reality, their own dream.
When you are immune to the opinions and actions of others, you won’t be the victim of needless suffering.”
–
As Ajahn Sumedho calls one of his books:
Don’t Take Your Life Personally

Juices (My Boostraps)

Posted by piermarton on January 31, 2012
Posted in: Insights, LifeAfter, Nutrition, OtherSupport, Post-Rehab, TheBodyChallenge.

To regain my footing – I still have major fatigue/balance issues – (following my mother who lived till 93 thanks to the good care of my brother), AFTER I have listened and followed most official medical advice… I now

TRUST IN VEGETABLE JUICES!
If I can gather them: ginger, garlic, parsley, cucumber, beets, spinach, tomatoes, carrots, celery, cabbage, asparagus.
(a few samples from an on-going series)


The Healing Arts Series © Pier Marton 2011

The Healing Arts Series © Pier Marton 2011

The Healing Arts Series © Pier Marton 2011

The Healing Arts Series © Pier Marton 2011The Healing Arts Series © Pier Marton 2011

After Rehab

Posted by piermarton on January 31, 2012
Posted in: Insights, Post-Rehab, TheMindChallenge.

REENTRY
I am finally at home. Never thought it would happen… Time had been so stretched out that I could not afford to hope for that anymore.

The drive home is “out of this world.” Trees, light, people, space… an amazing sight. And that huge gap between what I am, the most finite form of a self observing all of that, and the rest, what is generally called “life.”

OMG?
The weeks pass one by one.
Yes I am home…
BUT I am so sick that, in my naivete, I think that people in my state would NOT be allowed to live… by God.
So much for God!
Being asleep is the only solace along my (horizontal) day.

THOSE FRIENDS
So much for friends too, it has become clear that many friends will not be there, cannot be there. A no-man’s land has appeared, as sad as it may be, the borders are clear. I am losing “friend” after “friend.”
Days, weeks pass and no improvements. People asking me how I am doing cannot handle my repeating day after day that I am not well. They want to feel better about me.

KNOWLEDGE CAN ONLY COME FROM INSIDE
Hoping to finally read some of the classics on my shelves, it is clear that will have to be for another time: I cannot hold a book in my hands, nor concentrate on a page.
A great physical therapist who visits me at home and to whom I complain that I am doing absolutely nothing, responds that I am doing plenty: I am healing.
To take off from John Cage, I am doing nothing, but I am doing it!
Silent lesson in humility.

BARELY THERE
Later, when I can sit for a dinner, I cannot really sit up: my head has to be resting in my hands or worse, on the table on my arms.

STUFF
My first look at my desk with all of its tchotchkes, it was clear that had I not come back, most everything would have been stuff to those that survived me. I am the only one who knows what is what and provides meaning to “stuff”… most everything is stuff!