The extended period of recovery during which I cannot perceive any improvement from one day to the next (and I cannot remember how I was a month ago so that I accustom myself to each new level of discomfort, unconsciously, as if the discomfort of today is just the same as yesterday and just the same as three months ago, and so it will go on until I can say it is not going to get any better than this) gives a quality of provisionality to my life. It is as if I am on hold, for the moment; constantly on call; that it is not yet the time to make plans. Nobody is a rock. So much effort ought to yield a perceptible result – something I can feel, like after a bad headache goes away and you can revel in the relief. Others assure me my progress is spectacular. And if I make act of memory then, yes, there has been an improvement. I concentrate on specific things – three months ago I could not eat with the same ease, I could not walk as far, the scars in my neck were on fire and throbbed constantly. Now it is different. So there is progress. And my act of memory does me good. Still, is this is as good as it gets? I ask myself – Could I live with this level of discomfort and disability? I answer - yes. Then I correct myself - no…it must get better than this. There are still things I want to do and I cannot do them. I have no plans, but I have a plan. I have an illusion. I daydream, I build castles in the sky, I construct a castle in Spain (very apt). Then I return to the ‘long wait’ – the only immediate reality.
I tell myself I must have faith (not religious faith, faith in an invisible hand for the invisible hand will always put you down, it will never lift you up) but faith in time, faith in the healing capacity of the body, faith in the ability of the mind to adapt, the affirmation that each day will bring a tomorrow and that tomorrow will be better than today. The body and the mind can adapt to anything if they really must. And my body will improve and my mind will adapt. So, I have faith…
I've found your blog by chance, when the question of "How does someone with no tongue eat?" came to my mind today, suddenly. But I've found more than what I expected to.
ReplyDeleteThis blog is great, your writings and the way you expressed what you felt and how the operation changed your life... I don't know if your tongue has improved, as the last post is from 2010, and I'm not sure if writing all this things helped you or made you feel worse, in fact, I don't really know what I could say here... it's just that I wanted you to know you have made me see, or make me feel like I was you, and, although it's been just for a moment, it's been enough for learning something. Learning what? I don't know, about tongueless people, about mutes, about illness or just about life, and the way it can change from one day to another... and about how we people are not really helpful when we see someone with a disability, and spend more time looking at what they've got different from us than trying to make them feel like there was nothing different between us...
I don't know, but eitherway, thank you. I hope you've managed to be happy the way you've been imposed to live by now.