With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion.
The good life, as I conceive it, is a happy life. I do not mean that if you are good you will be happy - I mean that if you are happy you will be good.
Too much sanity may be madness and the maddest of all, to see life as it is and not as it should be.
The only way to find the limits of the possible is by going past them into the impossible.
September 08, 2009 - 12:18 p.m.
I never made it shopping yesterday. I didn't even get dressed. My ileum took a turn for the worse. I did manage to go out in the surgical scrubs I wear in the house and move the car to where it is legal to park today. That was pushing it. I wasn't a total obstruction and the pain wasn't extreme but it was not pleasant and it was wearing. It hit me how much pain I've been in, in my life. My pain is marked on a curve. A perforated small intestine is supposed to be one of the most painful things possible. I ran around with that for a month. Each Crohn's attack is as bad as a gall stone at it's worst. I know I had that too. My second entry was called Pain = Depression. That relationship doesn't hold as much as it used to. It think it's because I had some amazing friends that helped through my major illness in 2001. Pain then equaled an outpouring of love and concern. Thank you. Not that pain now makes me happy. All things being equal I'd rather be healthy.
So I'm happy now. I'm feeling all better. I'm going to take it easy though and give myself the recovery day. I'd like to go shoe shopping, I'll see if I can do that. Otherwise I'll wear my dress shoes for the first day of school and go shopping after class. If I do that maybe I'll wear a tie too. I'll see how I feel about it in the morning.
My guess is that most of you don't know how Crohn's disease works. I'll try and give a quick explanation of what's been going on inside me. Crohn's disease is an inflammation of the small intestine, especially the ileum. When I first got it they simply called bye the broader term ileitis. Crohn's is more specifically segmented ileitis. It's characterized by disconnected inflamed regions. When I first had it the inflammation ranged from my stomach to my rectum. Since then it's been restricted to the terminal ileum. I once took part in a research project as a teen and when we went in for the first interview the doctor looked at my records and said, "I see you have terminal ileitis." My parents turned white. I had never heard the term before I figured he meant ileitis of the terminal ileum.
The inflammation is like having hives on the inside of my intestine. I've had it since I was 12. That means a lot of damage has been done. After an inflammation it leaves scar tissue. That's what causes my current problem. The scars leave the intestines narrower. That means things can get stuck in them, just like a clogged drain. When I have an attack, something is lodged in a narrowing, blocking everything. It is a purely physical phenomena. It has nothing to do with the chemical nature of the food. It doesn't care of its meat, vegetables, or dairy. It cares if it is something that stays in big pieces that can get stuck. That is why I can't have corn or raisons or lettuce. They pass through the digestive system largely untouched.
I have a suspicion something else might be going on. I have a hernia from my surgery. I can feel that is exactly where I’m having the obstructions. I can feel the intestine inside swelling like a water balloon when it is trying forces its contents through the obstruction. There is a chance that it isn't scarring but the intestine is being pinched when it slips in the hernia.
To cover my bases I've gone back on the prednisone. I hate doing that but it will keep the inflammation down if that is what's causing the problem. I tried that before and was fine till I got off it. I'll try staying on longer this time.
I got a call this morning from the Transit Authority. They let me know that the bigoted bus driver I reported was disciplined. I did not get the details but I know they were trying to fire him. I hope they succeeded. I didn't talk to the driver's boss this time. He was a lot friendlier. I'm sure he would have told me.
Take me to Take Me To The River - September 14, 2009
At Least I Didn't Trip Over the Ottoman - September 13, 2009
There is no Deni-ing Pinataland - September 12, 2009
Idiot Story LXXXVIII - September 11, 2009
Gotta be the Shoes - September 10, 2009
Email me: GordonLew at gmail
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 License. Horvendile September 08, 2009
