Misfortunes of Imaginary Beings: Another Groundhog Day: The End of Six Months of Winter?

A blog formerly known as Bookishness / By Charles Matthews

"Dazzled by so many and such marvelous inventions, the people of Macondo ... became indignant over the living images that the prosperous merchant Bruno Crespi projected in the theater with the lion-head ticket windows, for a character who had died and was buried in one film and for whose misfortune tears had been shed would reappear alive and transformed into an Arab in the next one. The audience, who had paid two cents apiece to share the difficulties of the actors, would not tolerate that outlandish fraud and they broke up the seats. The mayor, at the urging of Bruno Crespi, explained in a proclamation that the cinema was a machine of illusions that did not merit the emotional outbursts of the audience. With that discouraging explanation many ... decided not to return to the movies, considering that they already had too many troubles of their own to weep over the acted-out misfortunes of imaginary beings."
--Gabriel García Márquez, One Hundred Years of Solitude

Wednesday, February 4, 2009

Another Groundhog Day: The End of Six Months of Winter?

I saw Dr. B. today, and he's pleased with my progress. Wants another month of IV treatment though, which will bring me up to six months of antibiotics. He also switched me off of Flagyl, a particularly potent and bitter pill that I had to take every six hours. (I have to set the alarm clock to wake me at six a.m., though there's something like a guilty pleasure involved in shutting off an alarm clock and rolling over to go back to sleep.) One of the side effects of Flagyl (or its generic, which has one of those methawackadoodle names) is a tingly-numb-burning sensation in the fingers and toes. It's mostly a nuisance, although Dr. B. says it could turn into permanent nerve damage, which is why I'm now taking clindamycin instead.

The next checkup is March 4, and I have to have a CT and an MRI before that. But there's light at the end of my tunnel vision.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...: Bravo, Charles!; February 5, 2009 at 6:23 AM