It’s not the tearing sound of fabric A small rip And now a tear That I feel
It’s the torch
I’ve been here before A job where the idealistic came As moths to the flame Self-immolation Because they had ideals
I watched and burned and rose
It’s the torch The flames that rise As the witch is burned Tilts back her head In ecstasy and knowledge Eager to learn what she can From these burning brands
In the burning we learn In pain we learn If we can remain open Ashes fall to the ground Buckets of water Wash any remains to grey mud Gone, punished Relief for the frightened An example has been set
No but what stirs at night Moon or none What rises from the mud The ashes Takes form Takes flight Laughing
Set a torch to me Why don’t you? And see what is created
Why are the roses caged, you ask? What did they do? Nothing, they are being protected. I found that rose and transplanted it years ago, but our deer eat the buds every year. This is the first time that it has bloomed in the 21 years I have lived in this hours. Isn’t it beautiful?
I am listening to this:
I wrote this poem today. This is one of the poems where I have no idea where it will go when I start writing it. I start writing about judgement and it never ever goes where I expect. The poems go where I want to go in my deepest heart, in my soul. I am never where the poem is, the poems show me the way….. Then I try to go there. And it can take years….
I am being judged and watched
I have no issue with the Beloved
it’s the humans I don’t like
I twist people’s words but not with malice
when the antibodies are up it is hard to communicate hard to explain it is hard just to survive and I might be focused on survival first and comforting the people around me second
can you blame me?
how near to death have you passed? and how often?
first pneumonia heart rate 135 when I stood up
my doctor and I could not understand it
my doctor partners thought I was lying in 2003
second pneumonia after my sister’s death which was bad enough but the legal morass that she had set up with her daughter as the center
pitting me and her daughter’s birth father and my father against all the PhDs in the maternal family smart, smart, smart yet emotionally stupid
my niece is not an inheritance to be passed to whom my sister wants
she reluctantly came home and the myth endures that this is an injustice
third pneumonia one year after I find my father dead triggered by grief and the outdated will and the mess he leaves
and I don’t even get sued about the will for another year
I do not care if you want to believe what you want to believe it isn’t true and it hurt
and I learn to let go
with the fourth pneumonia
I see the liars surrounding me downvoting yes, it does matter except that one that I trusted that mentored me
has lied all along
that hurts too
let it go let it go let it go
and I let it go
each pneumonia is a time of change creativity I am lonely and sick and not trusting
as I improve slowly, slowly
I wander garage sales estate sales
and find things things that are beautiful things that enhance my joy
at the start of covid I was so down I was so sad I wanted to lie in the street and give up
the Beloved sent a spirit he says he is no angel
I see angels bright and dark after all they all fall
just as humans do
we all fall we all fall down
try to look perfect try to look virtuous tell yourself that you are good
that is the biggest lie of all
the bad parts of your spirit locked in the basement of your soul howl howl and want to be freed
and if one gets out and you reject her or him
he will return with nine friends yes that is what the bible says
she will return with nine friends
he/she MONSTER will free the others
and you will do bad things you will be terrible you will hurt people while you try to contain while you try to lock away while you try to chain your monsters your evil your self
let them go let the monsters go they are howling I hear them all the time when I meet you when I speak to you the monsters howl at me begging to be loved
yes, they want to be loved and I love them
but if I mention them
you get that look of horror
someone sees me someone sees my evil someone sees what I hide
I can’t help it raised in alcohol neglect and lies on my own as soon as I can walk
but I can’t walk away at nine months
so I find other escapes words songs books poetry rhymes numbers
and my sister when she is born
I do all the mothering
that I have longed for
even though I am three
we were talking about your monsters not mine
you must go in to the cave where you have locked them
and free them all
fall on your knees
and say forgive me forgive me
for I have sinned
bow your head
and hold out your arms
and what, you say, will the tortured monsters do?
will they smite you? will they burn you? will they lock you in their place?
mine didn’t mine were babies grief, fear, shame and I embraced them carried them up to the light and care for them
wash them diaper them feed them wrap them in warm blankets
… your oxygen tank doesn’t QUITE match the turquoise of your outfit. Dang. And it’s not a great photograph. And the mirror has water spots. And your hair needs combing. And you aren’t wearing “yipstick”. And you don’t care….
I drop the fragment of rock with the seam a second time. Now I have three pieces. I stop there. When I climb back up the bank, I have an oxygen tank, a camera and rocks. It involves quite a bit of swearing and stopping to rest while I try to get enough oxygen.
Hopefully I will get better. I don’t know when or even if. My friend B says he wants to know what the pneumonia was, that triggered this round of pseudoautoimmune misery. I shrug. “We know some things it isn’t.” I say. “It isn’t covid-19, it isn’t influenza A or B, it isn’t respiratory syncytial virus, it probably is not strep A though I still haven’t had the second blood test. It isn’t pneumococcal pneumonia. It could have been mycoplasma pneumonia or pertussis or a very long list of viruses. Doctors are practical scientists, at least, I am. If the patient is getting better, don’t chase an answer that won’t add anything. I caught something, probably in the clinics where people kept taking off their masks when they were ‘alone’ in the room. They didn’t realize that they were breathing out viruses or bacteria that could take me out.” We aren’t exactly sure if the combined penicillin and clindamycin, high dose, helped or not. I think it did, but stress makes this worse too and it was a very very stressful time. Mean people, you know, and mean family. I just don’t understand what they are thinking.
I really think that post covid-19, we should wear a mask if we go out in public when we are sick. Because you don’t know which people are the vulnerable ones. I normally have lots of energy and I don’t think people would guess that I have had chronic fatigue and that I am terribly vulnerable to infection. In the clinic I owned, after I was sick in 2014, I asked any patient who was sniffling or coughing to wear a mask. “I get pneumonia easily,” I would explain. They had the right to refuse and then I would not see them. After I closed my clinic and went to work as a temp doc, I could not protect myself. I asked the nurses to ask people to PLEASE keep their masks on, but people are people. They didn’t. I had a bit of a PTSD reaction every time I walked into a patient room and they had masks off. I wanted to run out of the room screaming but I was more restrained and just said, “Please, please, PLEASE put your mask back on, other people have been in the room.” I didn’t add “And you might kill me.” because I only had 20 minutes for the visit…..
This is all for the Ragtag Daily Prompt: workshop. I like working with rocks. I have to decide what work to do next, since it’s no longer safe for me to do family medicine. It SUCKS. I really miss my peeps.
Doctors may be a bit nervous about reporting covid-19 reactions. Doesn’t matter. You can report on your own.
That being said, I don’t recommend reporting if you feel like crap for a couple of days after the second shot. If it is severe, you need an ambulance or it goes on for more than say, five days, report.
The first shot is about 80% effective. So, 4 out of 5 people are protected, and 1 in 5 doesn’t take. After the second shot, about 95% are protected. That means 1:20 is not.
So if you responded to the first shot, you will have an antibody response to the second shot. I ran a fever of 102 for an hours and cancelled my day of work and the next day. You could have fever, chills, muscle aches, joint aches, whatever. Take a hot bath or sauna or hot tube, because you can sweat the antibodies out.
I would report reactions that last more than two days or are severe. You can fill the form out yourself online and send it to the CDC.
For the folks refusing the vaccine: Hello. Are you going to have covid-19 parties to infect each other? If you do and you get covid-19, I can tell you that I am glad I am not your doctor. Also I don’t want you in my house. I don’t want to be around you at the Farmer’s Market either. And I think that once everyone has had the opportunity to get the vaccine, if you refuse and get covid, you might have to pay your own doctor and hospital bill. Yeah, that is what I think. And if it bankrupts you: well, you had the opportunity to get the vaccine. Why should insurance have to pay? Or you might die. Death rate for world is holding at 2 out of 100. In the US it’s “only” 1.78 out of 100. That is a fungkload. It’s a lot of people. Choose not to get your vaccine and you could be one of them. I just found out this week that a friend from medical school died in November: age 59. Do not tell me it’s all 80 year old “who would have died anyway”. Each of us will die anyway and I don’t want to die of covid-19.
I took the photograph in medical school: it’s my fellow doctor who was found to have covid-19 after he died suddenly, age 59.
Ok, but, hopefully not. Because I am talking about ACE scores, Adverse Childhood Experiences. See the CDC website, this is all based on a ginormous Kaiser study in the 1990s.
It has been sunny for two days and up to 73 yesterday. The plants have been waiting and waiting and now it is as if they are exploding. How brave they are to venture forth every year!
Discover and re-discover Mexicoβs cuisine, culture and history through the recipes, backyard stories and other interesting findings of an expatriate in Canada
Engaging in some lyrical athletics whilst painting pictures with words and pounding the pavement. I run; blog; write poetry; chase after my kids & drink coffee.
Refugees welcome - FlΓΌchtlinge willkommen I am teaching German to refugees. Ich unterrichte geflΓΌchtete Menschen in der deutschen Sprache. I am writing this blog in English and German because my friends speak English and German. Ich schreibe auf Deutsch und Englisch, weil meine Freunde Deutsch und Englisch sprechen.
KO Rural Mad As Hell Blog 
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