Still no appointment

I still have not seen the neurosurgeon. First, her staff lost my referral, then she cancelled three appointments at the last minute due to emergencies. These cancellations are understandable but frustrating since Peggy took off from work to go with me, and I even left a funeral early to get to one of them. Also, the doctor’s nurse told me to stop taking my anti-inflammatory a week ago in preparation for an early biopsy, and this has caused my pain to grow exponentially, yet she will not schedule an operating room until I see the doctor.

On the good side (maybe) I’m told that my next appointment (tomorrow at 8:00 a.m.) is a”100% sure thing.” Right. Sort of like when I call a doctor’s office and the receptionist says, “I’m going to put you on hold for just a moment.” Now, I would define “just a moment” as longer than a second but shorter than a minute. People who work in doctors’ offices have a different definition. They define “just a moment” as an indefinite quantity of future time that would normally transpire before the caller dies—assuming that the caller is not too sick or old, and his call is not disconnected. This means that a “100% sure thing” could mean, as I define it, a 0.4% sure thing, or a 50% sure thing, or anything else.

I took the following summary to the neurosurgeon's office today along with some other forms:

A Summation of Why I Have Come

I have impingement problems in both shoulders. When the pain got so bad that I could not carry on a normal life, I went to Shapiro for surgery. Shapiro said that a tingling/burning sensation in my right arm was not connected to the impingement problem, and that I would need to see a neurologist before he operated. I waited six weeks for an appointment with Balm who said Shapiro was probably wrong, but that he would test me anyway. He did an EMG and a nerve conduction study, and ordered an MRI and a CT scan. These tests proved Balm right, but they also showed a “shiny fifth cervical vertebra.” Balm suggested that I see my internist, Jacobsen, to determine whether I have metastatic cancer that, he speculated, might have originated in my prostate.

I told Balm that the pain in my shoulders (and to a lesser extent in my back) often leaves me just short of tears, but that despite my fervent and repeated requests for adequate pain relief, Shapiro had not seen fit to prescribe anything stronger than 25mg Elavil (of which he said I could take a whole tablet if I needed it—the first night I took two tablets and still got little if any relief). Balm gave me a prescription for hydrocodone, but it makes me itch so bad that I rarely take it. I partially control the pain by: taking Piroxicam each morning and Elavil, Ambien, and Requip at bedtime; sleeping with a heating pad under my back and a pillow under each shoulder; and not doing any physical activity that involves my arms if I can avoid it (I even keep my hands in my pockets when I walk, and I ride my bike with only my left hand on the handlebars as much as possible).

I also went to an acupuncturist for eight visits. I wasn’t sure he helped (or if it was my constant experimentation with other measures that accounted for the pain reduction), but I observed that he stuck me in the same places each time, so I ordered some needles and have been doing almost daily acupuncture on myself. I’m not sure what combination of measures I can attribute it to, but I have reduced the pain sufficiently that I am no longer obsessed with suicide as a means to escape it.

Jacobsen suggested that I see you. Bridget lost my referral, and three appointments on three consecutive days were cancelled by your office at the last minute, so it has taken me three weeks to get in. Last week, Debbie suggested that I go off the Piroxicam in order to obtain a speedier biopsy. I did this, and the shoulder pain and the pain from an arthritic left knee is getting worse.

Lorna, in Jacobsen’s office, told me that two other doctors said a biopsy was too dangerous, but that you are willing to do one. I don’t know why they thought as they did or why you think as you do. No one who I have spoken with knows any more than I do.

My poor opinion of Christianity

I came across the blog of a young man who is studying Catholic theology and challenged his assertion that suffering is invariably a lesson from God. He replied with a polite but paternal note in which he did nothing more than reiterate the point I had challenged. I wrote a second time asking him to explain what he thought God’s lesson was for starving infants and abandoned dogs. He then accused me of showing contempt for God (or at least his version of God) and for himself (I had no intention of being disrespectful), and suggested that I not visit his blog again. I apologized for having caused offense, not because my challenge was unreasonable but because I expressed it bluntly.

I respect the right of the blogger to hold any opinion about anything as long as that opinion doesn’t cause him to infringe upon the rights of others. But what is his rationale in demanding that I show respect for the opinions themselves, and did he believe that he was doing as much for me? I daresay he would argue that my opinion was sacrilegious, and that reciprocity was therefore impossible.

I was not taken aback so much by his unwillingness to address my questions as by the vehemence of his response. His blog was about love and peace, and I assumed from this that he was loving and peaceful. This tendency to take people at face value is a failing in someone of my age and experience.

…I have a great many objections to Christianity, regardless of the version offered. I have made several attempts to be a Christian, it is true, but this was not because I assented to Christianity intellectually, but because I wanted the comfort it promised; and it was this attempt to squash my intellect that eventually defeated me. I might as well have tried to squash a coiled spring or a slab of foam rubber, objects that have infinitely more patience and tenacity than I.

Even so, I might have overcome my intellectual reservations if only I had seen Christianity delivering what it promised. Namely, if Christians have the guidance of the Holy Spirit, why isn’t this evident? I have known people who were strong and people who were weak; people who were honest and people who were crooks; but I have never observed that Christians were stronger or had more integrity than non-Christians. If anything, I’ve wondered if they were as good; my speculation being that Christianity might appear most attractive to those who are weakest of character.

The “defense” of Christians about why the guidance of the Holy Spirit doesn’t enable them to stand out as moral examples runs along the lines of, “Christians aren’t perfect, just forgiven,” but this doesn’t address the argument; it ignores it. In regard to the really bad things that Christians have done (inquisitions, religious wars, frightening children, burning heretics, etc.) I have heard Christians offer that atheists are just as bad (Communists being the example given). That Christians would attempt to mitigate the behavior of their fellow Christians by pointing out that it is no worse than that of the very people who they consider the lowest of the fallen strikes me as extraordinary. It also misses the point. Atheists don’t claim the benefit of divine guidance, and there is a vast difference in Christians persecuting people in the name of God versus atheists doing it in the name of Communism. I have yet to hear of a single atheist killing anyone in the name of atheism.

I don’t believe that the failures of Christians to live up to their own teachings is entirely their fault, and this leads me to another serious flaw of Christianity, namely that it is not grounded in reality. I’ll give an example. Jesus commanded those who are robbed of the jackets to offer the robbers their coats also. Does anyone live this way? Should anyone live this way? I see signs in church parking lots that read, “Unauthorized Vehicles Will Be Towed At Owner’s Expense.” What if, instead of towing cars, churches followed the spirit of Jesus and gave two parking spaces to everyone who took one parking space? What if, instead of calling the police when their houses were being burglarized, Christians helped the burglars carry heavy objects and gave them more than they had intended to steal?

There is practically no end to my objections to Christianity, and I don’t recall that even one of them has been answered in a manner that made the least bit of sense to me, this despite my very great desire to embrace the Christian faith. Yet, I have known many people who, though not Christians, expressed a great admiration for Jesus. Have they actually read all of the things he supposedly said? The part about abandoning your family and following him, or selling everything you own to buy a sword, or hiding the truth from those whom God doesn’t want to save?

There is the Jesus of the Bible and there is the Jesus of popular culture, and the Jesus of popular culture is kindly, patient, tolerant, peaceful, and forgiving. The Jesus of the Bible might have taught some of these virtues on occasion, but he was inconsistent in his teachings. He was also bad-tempered, humorless, prone to sweeping generalizations, intolerant of sects other than his own, disrespectful of his mother, had an adolescent zeal for offending his elders unnecessarily, insisted on teaching in parables even though his own disciples couldn’t figure out what he meant, and often acted contrary to what he professed to believe. Of course, most Christians seem to hold that Jesus meant for very little of what he said to be taken at face value. Well, okay then—I’ll leave it to them to interpret the words of their verbally challenged deity. Unfortunately, they can’t agree among themselves as to what he intended.

Out of mind, out of body; out of body, out of mind

I see my new neurosurgeon tomorrow to hear her thoughts about a spinal biopsy. Peggy is sick with worry and can’t understand why I am not. I tell her that my biggest fear is pain; my second fear is disability; and my last fear is death. I still have hope that I can stop the pain. The other two fears may or may not be realized, but pain is the only one I don’t think I can handle, yet it is the only one I am having to handle.

Permanent and unalterable pain would, in all likelihood, lead me to suicide. I should imagine that Peggy could better survive my demise if it wasn’t voluntary, and that is one reason I fear a fatal illness less than I fear pain. In the face of unalterable pain, a fatal illness would be a godsend. In the absence of a fatal illness, I might feel it necessary to continue my life on Peggy’s account alone.

I just hope I have time to finish editing my writing. When everything has been added to my blog, I will create a synopsis. Whether I am gifted at recording my life on paper, I cannot say, but there it is, the exemplary and the shameful, the trivial and the profound, the sane and the crazy, the boring and the entertaining; a quarter of a century worth. Very little will be left out; it will just be cleaned up for the sake of readability. I entertain little hope that anyone will be interested in it, and I can’t even think of a compelling reason why they should be, but such considerations are of no great importance; only the work is important.

If I had the wherewithal, I would seek publication, but that would mean taking topically oriented portions of what I have written out of journal form and putting them into chapter form. Next would come working with others to make my work saleable. I do not say that this is a low end, it is just not an end that I can see my way to accomplishing.

I’m tripping today, and I haven’t even taken any mind-altering medications since last night. I don’t altogether like the feeling because it’s too near the outer edge of control. I’ve been here before, and I know that all I have to do is ride it out as if I were a surfer…. I feel tired, cold; every thought and every fact seems equally and unbearably profound; every object looks equally distant. It is a very old feeling; it puts me in touch with my childhood, as if what I feel now, I felt then, and what I felt then, I feel now; as if time hasn’t moved, as if my whole life is happening at once, and I’m observing my life through eyes that aren’t entirely my own.

I think my present state comes from being too inwardly focused. I’m not taking on projects, not seeing people, not exercising, and not leaving home except to run errands; my mind is feeding on itself. I am tempted to stop surfing, to lie back and see what will happen, how bad it will get, and then to see what lies beyond how bad it will get. When we come to an intersection, are we really free to choose which way we go?