A little dose of reality
Its Monday afternoon and I am sitting in the study having received the call that my blood tests this morning were normal and I am good to go for tomorrow. I have finished doing a little bit of work and I am reflecting on the last month and what is to come before I participate in my last conference call at 3.00pm. I have reread my posts and agree with Petra that I have been exercising my own level of censorship on what I have been writing.
The truth is sometimes I don’t know why I am writing at all. Is it for you, is it for me or some other purpose. The blog entries do follow to some degree the ebb and flow of my experience but I do agree that I have been emphasising all the good things and doing so in an upbeat and sometime humorous manner. I am not sure if there is anything wrong with that.
So this afternoon I will drop some of the censorship.
In truth this experience is really, really difficult, probably the most confronting experience I have had to deal with in my life to date. Its is both physically and emotionally draining.
It’s relentless.
Physically you decondition, you lose weight, muscle tone and fitness. Your hair thins and is lifeless. Your skin feels drier and cracks as do the membranes in your nose and mouth. The veins in your hands and arms burn, ache and swell. Cuts and scrapes take longer to heal. Your libido disappears and your energy levels fluctuate from extreme lethargy to manageable. The nausea is simply horrid.
Emotionally you fluctuate through various levels of anxiety, depression, boredom, restlessness, anger, frustration, happiness, love, fear and confusion. I am often less tolerant of people and situations. I often just want to be alone. Strangely I seek the company of the others that sit in the big blue chairs. I can feel disconected from those around me, even those I love and who love me.
All in all its pretty crappy.
I don’t think this is a “gift” like I have read about and listened to in audio books etc. I don’t need this shit in my life for me to know what makes me happy or how lucky I am. I just want this to end as quickly as it can.
Thats it.
My Unplanned Sabbatical 
Hi Serg, it has been a few days without taking a look at your blog (was in Spain for a prolonged Easter break), and I am now catching up, and I see your reality note. Yes, it is exactly as you say it, and yes the censorship was noticeable. I have been lucky not to go through what you are going through but I have seen in close (too close) in my family. To some extent, I have been an insider. It is not a gift, it is a curse – the days when you cant get up, move, breath, think properly, even feel properly, the lack of light at the end of the tunnel, the sensation of being a stranger that you look at from above and you cant recognise, the pain and the burns and the change in the physical appearance, the empathy that you feel with (and from) the “blue chairs”, the impotence of knowing that that’s not your real “empathy team” and yet you cant help feeling that way. All of it, it is crap.
But all of it is just a process, it is a temporary you, that will disappear with the end of the process, leaving only certain marks behind – things you want to do different.
It is easier said than done, but dont lose hope. It will go and it will go soon.
Do you play tennis? I dont, but i like it as it is a bit like life. You may be losing all the points but as long as there is a point to play, you can win the match. You may think you’re weaker than your opponent, but there is one point, a single one that you win that makes you feel a bit stronger, and then stronger and then strongest.
And the irrecognisable stranger temporary you disappears.
Bear with that “Serg”, the real one will be back soon.
Thank you Carmen
Hi Serg, I get the weekly summary of your blog and even sugar coated it cuts into my day. Perhaps the gift is ours rather yours. Certainly stops me in my tracks to think for a while. Always found you to be really positive so thats your normal style I guess. Thinking of you and wishing a speedy recovery, slainte Seamus