This is already third post today - but these other two have been nagging at me for a time, too. This one is just about today.
I have been thinking that I can't get much out of my mind and into the blog too often. And I am really sorry about that. It is not that I don't have any thoughts to share - rather I am lying awake every night for some time thinking of everything I should write about, but I can't do it because I should sleep. Well, I have come to a decision. If I feel that the dream fairy is not very kind with me at that moment (catch my irony on that fairy thing, please) I will come and blog even if I have to rise early the next day. I should get more often something published in this blog, I should get more practice at writing, I should get more things out of my head. And in the long run I might even find that I sleep better and won't spend half nights finding a more comfortable position.
3.31.2008
My bathroom window
Some time ago I got my bathroom remade - practically from scratch. There is - and has always been - a small window in my bathroom. And it faces a staircase to another home squarely. Before the renovation there was a steel curtain, but it was cold and steely and I didn't want it to stay. My bathroom has to be warm in colour and materials. The room got quite a bit narrower at that point as well and so I didin't want any other type of curtain as well. What was left? Window art!
Now exclaimers:
* It was made over a period of many weeks but on only 3 occasions. Don't look for coherent thought.
* It was made by me and my son - often fighting - and finally finished by me alone. Don't look for coherent thought.
* At the time of finalizing it I had a crazy notion of dedicating it to the God of Random. Don't look for any meaning or system.
* At the time of finalizing I listened to Huun-Huur-Tu. Find its influence on the pictures.
* It is really not very easy to get pictures at one metre across room - when there should be parallel lines and you only have your soapbox camera-dear. Be happy with what you got.
But otherwise enjoy your glimse into my bathroom window :)
Now exclaimers:
* It was made over a period of many weeks but on only 3 occasions. Don't look for coherent thought.
* It was made by me and my son - often fighting - and finally finished by me alone. Don't look for coherent thought.
* At the time of finalizing it I had a crazy notion of dedicating it to the God of Random. Don't look for any meaning or system.
* At the time of finalizing I listened to Huun-Huur-Tu. Find its influence on the pictures.
* It is really not very easy to get pictures at one metre across room - when there should be parallel lines and you only have your soapbox camera-dear. Be happy with what you got.
But otherwise enjoy your glimse into my bathroom window :)
3.27.2008
God or no god
A few weeks back I had a conversation IRL, which I am now so-oo sorry not to have on a chat log or e-mail or somewhere. And as it has been bugging me on and off, I had to try to get it out. I might not be able to replicate the dialogue very exactly and I will avoid telling about that other person - so, K., your private thoughts are still safe and I hope you're not mad at me for publishing this.
My memory of the conversation starts with me trying to explain how the issue of soul or life-force was explained in the end of Ender's Saga (Orson Scott Card's series, specifically books "Xenocide" and "Children of the Mind"). Long story short, they find out that there is an aiua (wrong accentuation here) for every living being and every living cell. How some of them are strong and some weaker, how in humans (or any other sentient beings) there is a central aiua holding all of the others together and that way if this aiua is leaving the body the body dies (there are far too many details to the theory and I will not tell about all of it here - if interested, read the books - I am not too sure I got these details I did put here right).
Which made K. ask me whether I do believe in the existence of souls.
This is a tricky matter, but to my mind nobody has explained well enough for me to understand, how a body can be alive if there wasn't a soul of some sort. Somehow I doubt that if some intelligence (our own bio-engineers?) would put together all component parts they would get a living being. Or more pointedly, if there is a person who is for example suffocated and the suffocating agent is removed - why does he or she still remain dead (all physical parts are still the same, unharmed, person has just stopped supporting life for a short while)? So I have to say that I still believe there has to be some kind of soul to every living being. I would welcome it if anyone could point me to an article or other piece of knowledge, which could disprove it to me understandably, but as yet nobody has come out with evidence of that (I admit, I find it hard to believe in soul but I have not explored the subject very throughly as well). Not knowing a way to explain it to myself I put it amongst the things humans have not explained yet. Not to me anyway.
Now you know, this is my piece of superficiality. I do consider very doubtful all the stories about ghosts and life after death etc, but as long as there is no way to definitely disprove their existence I remain ever cautious about the matter but tending to be sceptical.
Somehow the conversation then took us to yet a bigger question - is there a god (or many gods)?
I would vote for No, but - something I haven't heard anyone else saying, something that gets so puzzled looks to missionaries on street (and there is a missionary church near my home) - I think it does not matter if there is a god. What I believe is that god helps those who help themselves. Which in my mind really means - do what you have to do and you might get what you aim for, god or no god. Just praying won't help.
Let me explain it further. Humankind has grown, evolved out of a very primitive state. In my mind it is very similar to how children grow up. At first they are very dependent but then they learn to do things by themselves - from eating to walking to getting food to taking responsibility in life to ... And just as there was a need for a parent in our childhood - someone to depend on, someone to take care of us, to explain the world, to teach us, to love us - primitive peoples found the need for god. So they found or created one. Someone all-mighty, all-knowing and all-loving and all-forgiving. Someone to get counsel from at the time of emergency. Someone to trust in if you couldn't control the situation yourself. It is so good to feel there is some other great plan and your mishaps might be for the benefit of that greater and more important plan. But at this time we know that the prayers are not always answered and the religions have been used for evil as well as support. And why should we pray to a god that doesn't answer? Isn't it better for us just grow up and take our life's, humankind's life's reins into our own hands? I won't deny the right to love god or gods still, just as I love my own parents more and more, but they are more proud of me if I can make it on my own. In fact, in a stage in child's life parents knowingly withdraw their control to let the child make its own mistakes, to find its own feet.
The conversation went to some other path, but what I would like each person to ponder for themselves - religious or not - we have grown so much from our primitive roots that we have a responsibility to all of the world, to all other life as well as our own. The world as the planet and the world as all the countries and states in it. The world as all the people. We have grown smart enough to find ways to cooperate for the better of all. God or no god - we need to get matters under intelligent control. God will help us, if we help ourselves.
I don't know if we ever got to the point where I would try to explain why people should be moral - god or no god, life after death or not. I try to be anyway.
And I really don't remember if we got to discussing the possibility of life after death - or maybe I just waved it off as "there's no way of knowing" (as I would today to that question) or maybe our most delicious Italian food arrived first...
My memory of the conversation starts with me trying to explain how the issue of soul or life-force was explained in the end of Ender's Saga (Orson Scott Card's series, specifically books "Xenocide" and "Children of the Mind"). Long story short, they find out that there is an aiua (wrong accentuation here) for every living being and every living cell. How some of them are strong and some weaker, how in humans (or any other sentient beings) there is a central aiua holding all of the others together and that way if this aiua is leaving the body the body dies (there are far too many details to the theory and I will not tell about all of it here - if interested, read the books - I am not too sure I got these details I did put here right).
Which made K. ask me whether I do believe in the existence of souls.
This is a tricky matter, but to my mind nobody has explained well enough for me to understand, how a body can be alive if there wasn't a soul of some sort. Somehow I doubt that if some intelligence (our own bio-engineers?) would put together all component parts they would get a living being. Or more pointedly, if there is a person who is for example suffocated and the suffocating agent is removed - why does he or she still remain dead (all physical parts are still the same, unharmed, person has just stopped supporting life for a short while)? So I have to say that I still believe there has to be some kind of soul to every living being. I would welcome it if anyone could point me to an article or other piece of knowledge, which could disprove it to me understandably, but as yet nobody has come out with evidence of that (I admit, I find it hard to believe in soul but I have not explored the subject very throughly as well). Not knowing a way to explain it to myself I put it amongst the things humans have not explained yet. Not to me anyway.
Now you know, this is my piece of superficiality. I do consider very doubtful all the stories about ghosts and life after death etc, but as long as there is no way to definitely disprove their existence I remain ever cautious about the matter but tending to be sceptical.
Somehow the conversation then took us to yet a bigger question - is there a god (or many gods)?
I would vote for No, but - something I haven't heard anyone else saying, something that gets so puzzled looks to missionaries on street (and there is a missionary church near my home) - I think it does not matter if there is a god. What I believe is that god helps those who help themselves. Which in my mind really means - do what you have to do and you might get what you aim for, god or no god. Just praying won't help.
Let me explain it further. Humankind has grown, evolved out of a very primitive state. In my mind it is very similar to how children grow up. At first they are very dependent but then they learn to do things by themselves - from eating to walking to getting food to taking responsibility in life to ... And just as there was a need for a parent in our childhood - someone to depend on, someone to take care of us, to explain the world, to teach us, to love us - primitive peoples found the need for god. So they found or created one. Someone all-mighty, all-knowing and all-loving and all-forgiving. Someone to get counsel from at the time of emergency. Someone to trust in if you couldn't control the situation yourself. It is so good to feel there is some other great plan and your mishaps might be for the benefit of that greater and more important plan. But at this time we know that the prayers are not always answered and the religions have been used for evil as well as support. And why should we pray to a god that doesn't answer? Isn't it better for us just grow up and take our life's, humankind's life's reins into our own hands? I won't deny the right to love god or gods still, just as I love my own parents more and more, but they are more proud of me if I can make it on my own. In fact, in a stage in child's life parents knowingly withdraw their control to let the child make its own mistakes, to find its own feet.
The conversation went to some other path, but what I would like each person to ponder for themselves - religious or not - we have grown so much from our primitive roots that we have a responsibility to all of the world, to all other life as well as our own. The world as the planet and the world as all the countries and states in it. The world as all the people. We have grown smart enough to find ways to cooperate for the better of all. God or no god - we need to get matters under intelligent control. God will help us, if we help ourselves.
I don't know if we ever got to the point where I would try to explain why people should be moral - god or no god, life after death or not. I try to be anyway.
And I really don't remember if we got to discussing the possibility of life after death - or maybe I just waved it off as "there's no way of knowing" (as I would today to that question) or maybe our most delicious Italian food arrived first...
3.10.2008
Tonsillectomy: The Revealations
I really thought I would publish this post sooner, almost immediately after the first of the series, but the intention didn't come true until a dear friend of mine told me he will be going through it himself (there are more tonsillectomies in Estonia than in some other, more southerly countries). But let's get on with the real revealations, that everybody should know before they get their tonsils removed. It will be a very different post than the previous, indeed...
Get a sizable supply of Paracetamol to your home on time.
In the first post I told how it wasn't that painful at all. I was in the hospital and probably still under their more powerful painkillers. I could talk, even yell and was even a bit angry that others wouldn't let me because they knew I should heal first. My last shot of hospital painkiller was sometime the morning after the first day (that was described in my first post). Some time around midnight after that the pain became unbearable. The doctor had told me I could only use Paracetamol for my pains if it still hurts after the soluble pill she gave me. I rummaged through the first-aid cupboard (at home) - there was exactly one pill of Paracetamol. Not lucky.
About Paracetamol - you can't swallow well, so you'll have to dissolve it in some water to be able to swallow it all. It is quite bitter so it really is an ordeal. You cannot use Efferalgan (soluble paracetamol), because it's too sour.
You will only be able to eat very fluid and not sour substances.
Get a supply of icecream and milk to your home. I melted the icecream before eating though some I heard could eat it cold. You cannot even eat every yoghurt. Don't even try any fruit or fruit juice, the result will be horribly painful. There is a possibility you could be able to eat puree soup, at least after a few days, but not hot. Somehow they could make a soupy porridge in the hospital, that I could eat, but at home I couldn't imagine eating something like this. It will be like this for at least one week. An historical note - my grandma said she had to drink raw egg with milk because this was the only thing, that would go down...
You won't exactly starve.
You won't eat much, that's true. But you won't starve either. You just don't want to eat as much as usually. I thought going around starving would be an ordeal in itself, but it wasn't. Uh, I only lost 2kg's, too (compared to 5-8kg's I've heard of it is really very small amount).
You better not talk at all.
Though at some times it feels OK to talk, you shouldn't for a week at least. You will be in pain soon after each time you talk. And you shouldn't read out aloud for at least two weeks (it has been two weeks for me, now, but I still won't read to my son, he's been reading by himself now - and doing a good job, too).
So what's the solution? A notebook and a pen to be carried with you at all times. You shouldn't use just papers lying around or you'll soon find how easy it is for others to read your previous conversations even though they shouldn't know about it. Other reason to keep it with you all the times is to keep yourself from being left out from important conversations, the arguments - and when your argument is written down, it is just a bit clearer than any of the others ;)
You will get the chance to understand how much you say unimportant things.
Use it as a chance to understand yourself. I have always thought about myself as the quiet person. But at least half of what I would have said at that time, I didn't. It just wasn't that important that I would start writing - and others would've moved on from that point in conversation by the time they read it. The jokes, the nice things... They all stayed inside me. You'll understand how much you spend in your conversations just socializing and not sharing information. Which is notr exactly bad thing, but you'll get an understanding from your temporary muteness. And you'll understand mutes better.
You will be told to avoid water procedures.
That was the one I hated that much that I didn't follow it. I had to wash, my hair at least. I didn't stay in the tube for long and avoided extreme temperatures (I love it quite hot) and I didn't do it as often as usually, but I did it. And nothing bad happened of it, I'm glad to say.
You will be told not to do any physical work.
You will be able to do your work if it is in the computer or without talking, but it will be tiresome. You are told to avoid it for two weeks, but it will get better after a week. You can't work out, you can't do anything hard at home. I didn't exert myself as well so I can't say is it really necessary after a few days, but better careful than sorry. You can't do anything, so...
Get some books :)
To while away time while you can't do anything physical and can't very well take part in social life, read. It is one of the best opportunities in your life to be just reading - everybody knows you're sick and can't be interrupted. Well, some probably will be satisfied with watching TV, but that bored me very soon.
I have to say that I was very lucky and it was easier on me than on some others I've known. I spent a full day in Finland to learn about a program there just 6 days after the surgery. I could even eat regular soup there and each day afterwards I ate just the regular foods (not sour ones, though). I was working full time after a week and the weekend (the surgey was on 21.02 and I was working in 4.03, that's 10 days). It is usual to be told to be at home for 2 weeks. Some have experienced bleeding after a week, but there has been no bleeding for me, there wasn't any in the hospital as well.
Now my throat only hurts when yawning and coughing (I have developed a small cough, I suspect it to have something to do with the healing of the throat tickling) and I am not reading out aloud or yelling, but that's OK. I think I might use that opportunity to end reading bedtime stories to my child (he's 6 and reading pretty well himself) and yelling at him (that's never good anyway) :)
Maybe you won't be that lucky. I was. Good luck!
Get a sizable supply of Paracetamol to your home on time.
In the first post I told how it wasn't that painful at all. I was in the hospital and probably still under their more powerful painkillers. I could talk, even yell and was even a bit angry that others wouldn't let me because they knew I should heal first. My last shot of hospital painkiller was sometime the morning after the first day (that was described in my first post). Some time around midnight after that the pain became unbearable. The doctor had told me I could only use Paracetamol for my pains if it still hurts after the soluble pill she gave me. I rummaged through the first-aid cupboard (at home) - there was exactly one pill of Paracetamol. Not lucky.
About Paracetamol - you can't swallow well, so you'll have to dissolve it in some water to be able to swallow it all. It is quite bitter so it really is an ordeal. You cannot use Efferalgan (soluble paracetamol), because it's too sour.
You will only be able to eat very fluid and not sour substances.
Get a supply of icecream and milk to your home. I melted the icecream before eating though some I heard could eat it cold. You cannot even eat every yoghurt. Don't even try any fruit or fruit juice, the result will be horribly painful. There is a possibility you could be able to eat puree soup, at least after a few days, but not hot. Somehow they could make a soupy porridge in the hospital, that I could eat, but at home I couldn't imagine eating something like this. It will be like this for at least one week. An historical note - my grandma said she had to drink raw egg with milk because this was the only thing, that would go down...
You won't exactly starve.
You won't eat much, that's true. But you won't starve either. You just don't want to eat as much as usually. I thought going around starving would be an ordeal in itself, but it wasn't. Uh, I only lost 2kg's, too (compared to 5-8kg's I've heard of it is really very small amount).
You better not talk at all.
Though at some times it feels OK to talk, you shouldn't for a week at least. You will be in pain soon after each time you talk. And you shouldn't read out aloud for at least two weeks (it has been two weeks for me, now, but I still won't read to my son, he's been reading by himself now - and doing a good job, too).
So what's the solution? A notebook and a pen to be carried with you at all times. You shouldn't use just papers lying around or you'll soon find how easy it is for others to read your previous conversations even though they shouldn't know about it. Other reason to keep it with you all the times is to keep yourself from being left out from important conversations, the arguments - and when your argument is written down, it is just a bit clearer than any of the others ;)
You will get the chance to understand how much you say unimportant things.
Use it as a chance to understand yourself. I have always thought about myself as the quiet person. But at least half of what I would have said at that time, I didn't. It just wasn't that important that I would start writing - and others would've moved on from that point in conversation by the time they read it. The jokes, the nice things... They all stayed inside me. You'll understand how much you spend in your conversations just socializing and not sharing information. Which is notr exactly bad thing, but you'll get an understanding from your temporary muteness. And you'll understand mutes better.
You will be told to avoid water procedures.
That was the one I hated that much that I didn't follow it. I had to wash, my hair at least. I didn't stay in the tube for long and avoided extreme temperatures (I love it quite hot) and I didn't do it as often as usually, but I did it. And nothing bad happened of it, I'm glad to say.
You will be told not to do any physical work.
You will be able to do your work if it is in the computer or without talking, but it will be tiresome. You are told to avoid it for two weeks, but it will get better after a week. You can't work out, you can't do anything hard at home. I didn't exert myself as well so I can't say is it really necessary after a few days, but better careful than sorry. You can't do anything, so...
Get some books :)
To while away time while you can't do anything physical and can't very well take part in social life, read. It is one of the best opportunities in your life to be just reading - everybody knows you're sick and can't be interrupted. Well, some probably will be satisfied with watching TV, but that bored me very soon.
I have to say that I was very lucky and it was easier on me than on some others I've known. I spent a full day in Finland to learn about a program there just 6 days after the surgery. I could even eat regular soup there and each day afterwards I ate just the regular foods (not sour ones, though). I was working full time after a week and the weekend (the surgey was on 21.02 and I was working in 4.03, that's 10 days). It is usual to be told to be at home for 2 weeks. Some have experienced bleeding after a week, but there has been no bleeding for me, there wasn't any in the hospital as well.
Now my throat only hurts when yawning and coughing (I have developed a small cough, I suspect it to have something to do with the healing of the throat tickling) and I am not reading out aloud or yelling, but that's OK. I think I might use that opportunity to end reading bedtime stories to my child (he's 6 and reading pretty well himself) and yelling at him (that's never good anyway) :)
Maybe you won't be that lucky. I was. Good luck!
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