The Final Minutes of Day 47 of 101 - There Are Other, Bigger Posts in the Works

...but here's a little something to whet whatever appetites are out there for their daily dose of Miles to the Jay.

I've been working on a lot, probably because I'm still lacking the necessary painlessness, or been unable to find a manageable level for tolerating pain, and unable to do much other than read and write and journal. When it really starts to kick in, then I kick myself for doing whatever it was that I was doing earlier, which probably wasn't much of anything, and then I have to find a happy spot from which to close my eyes and breathe and wait for my medication to kick in. I'm more than somewhat disgusted with the results -or lack thereof- I've experienced so far, and I'm fairly certain that the professionals at The Spine Institute are beyond frustrated with the frequency of my calls requesting a response on whether or not this or that is normal or okay. In fact, the major endeavor I'm batting around is all about that so I'll just save my thoughts and ideas and fears for that little nugget that I'm hoping to complete and have up and ready to be read in the next few days.

Something I've learned (and can share without running the risk of spoiling too many plot points in my upcoming, recovery-related post) from the spinal surgery recovery process is that a commonly touted adage about people like me is unquestionably true. The saying goes that doctors and nurses make the worst possible patients. Why? Because they know too much. I have no doubt that the words are the truth, but I have to take things a step or two beyond: nursing (or any other student seeking professional licensure in a medically-related field) students are a nightmare. Why? Because we think we know too much and really only know just enough to be really dangerous. What's more, our heads are filled with the myriad facts and figures and statistics and worst-case scenarios that have been drilled into our heads to teach us to practice safely and think quickly; therefore, we're only too eager to wonder about every little stab of pain and drop of unexpected blood. When it's our pain or our drop, we require instant clarification to ease our troubled brains. Without the clarification toward easement, if the subject is a regimented Type A personality who lives his life by a daily to-do list and needs a place for everything and everything in his or her place, then we're going to dwell, stress, consult Google and then really start to freak out when we realize that every slightly abnormal new development could lead to hemiparalysis, massive infection, MRSA, neuropathy, or be possible early indications of a stroke (I'm really pleased to be looking at other, more satisfying and challenging career futures, but I'll never be able to unlearn everything that I've learned in the past three years... le sigh).

In other words, my brain is constantly ticking, which I'm sure is no great surprise to anyone who may be reading this. At any given time, whether I'm reading or watching a movie or totally engrossed in an old episode of Alfred Hitchcock Presents, I have at least four other directions in which my thoughts are floating, none of them has anything to do with the other; therefore, my notebooks are filling with lists and ideas and questions. My journal is filling with the same. And I have several privately saved entries on this end of blogspot on which I'm working at any given time, whether I have my laptop in front of me or not. Kind of a blessing. More of a curse.

I'm still reading the Schatzing book, The Swarm, and I'm finding several passages particularly disgusting, especially now that I'm getting into however whatever the hell is going on in Earth's oceans is beginning to affect the citizens of the world in the darnedest little ways (although I've had the meat, I've never actually sat down to order a lobster in a restaurant and after reading this book, I almost certainly never will). Once I have this gargantuan undertaking completed, I have Tess of the D'urbervilles to tackle followed by Black Water from Joyce Carol Oates, Thomas Tryon's The Night of the Moonbow (I read The Other not long ago, and really enjoyed it), a re-reading of some childhood favorites that I can't totally remember (The Westing Game by Ellen Raskin, and two from Roald Dahl: The Witches and The BFG), Herman Wouk's War and Remembrance (I read The Winds of War a little more than ten years ago, and I'm currently watching the miniseries [which I had to get on Netflix because I loaned out my boxed set of the piece and I've never gotten it back] to re-familiarize myself with the novel's events so I won't be totally lost with this SUBSTANTIAL addition, and Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell, a book that Rhonda talks about all the time, and I feel I'd be remiss if I didn't gobble it up so that I can express my thoughts on the work during one of the next opportunities I have to sit at her kitchen table with her and the rest of the brain gang.

...I just glanced back through that last paragraph and I can see what a huge load of reading I have to do. I guess I better hurry up and get this posted so I can get in bed and see what's going on with the jellyfish and crustaceans and layers of methane-devouring worms on Norway's continental shelf. I'll probably write for a while longer, but I really need to get back to Schatzing and find out what he's got next for his version of the end days.