How far do baby germs fly?
"‘How far do baby germs fly?’ I agree with my lateral sort of thinking in this case. Wondering how far people’s sneezes fly is usually not something I occupy myself with, unless of course when I’m sitting in warm surroundings where endemic bugs tend to live."
25% OCD
When I was growing up, I used to hear stories about my grandfather’s need of having things sorted in an often peculiar way. He would line up items on the fireplace mantel with the edge of the mantel and if items were placed too far back, he would raise his eyebrows in jest at my grandmother. Other examples exist, and if the term ‘OCD’ existed in his time, he might have been a possible candidate to earn that title. My granddad’s legacy? I inherited some of his peculiar ways. He was the king of his fireplace mantel. I am the queen of my kitchen cupboards. When I see that things have moved in my absence, I go on the lookout for explanations.
Death: a fearful thing?
"Within Gandhi’s description of strength, however, was some fear also, and within that fear, there was indignity. That superbug wasn’t meant for me. I wasn’t an elderly person, I didn’t live in unclean housing and I hardly ever used antibiotics. I could’ve continued listing pessimism, unhappiness and disaster, only, I unconditionally refused to. Clostridium Difficile wasn’t indeed mine to get, or to give in to, so I fought my way back. I am not now, have never been and will never be one to give up without at least trying five different ways to solve a riddle of life. I wasn’t ready to go. I had lived enough for two lives, but I wanted a third."
Silver Linings
Although I wrote the following post and updated it a good while ago, the subject sometimes finds its way back into my mind and reveals itself as something “ugly”. After all, what can be uglier than death, than feeling yourself slip into darkness? If that was not ugly enough, thoughts about the actions of certain people would make it feel even worse, as if you were just imagining things and what was happening was ‘not that bad’. Having seen what ‘in extremis’ is like, what dwindling closer and closer to my six feet under feels like… it is something that made me realise what life is really all about. So here we go… mor(t)ality…
Mortality
The superbug that had been staring into my eyes for months seemed long gone. In its wake, it left me wondering. I went through an abyss, one that could resemble Dante's nine circles of hell. That bottom of that abyss had been the morning before the rush into surgery.
