The Bodhisattva of Compassion and the Cunning Fennec Fox

1 May 2014

1031 hrs

all photographs in this post are copyright protected; 
Properfessor (c)

Good Morning, Patient Reader!

            Well, I have a shit-ton more to rant about regarding the views and opinions I have of cancer, and as I thought about it last night, it’s also a raging against the machine of (American) healthcare.  So I will tell more of the Miranda story, as it reflects views of both topics. 

            Shall I continue?  Splendid!

The Bodhisattva of Compassion

            Miranda never knew the memories sown by her paroxysms.  These dark crops grew only in the minds of we who watched. 

            Miranda did not know she urinated on herself during her seizures; she did not know she wept weakly between them.

            Oh, but we knew.  We who held her head so it would not bounce off the tiled floor, our fingers bruised and swollen from the beating of her Hammer Head and the anvil under our fingers.  The floor as unyielding as a god.

            We who cleared the vomit that was forced out like magma from a raging earth until all that was left was the bile squeezed by a wicked reverse-peristalsis from the wrenchings against her gall bladder; cleared it from her mouth and throat, our fingers careful of the movements associated with seizure-induced mastication.  Our ruined wristwatches marked the frozen timeline.

            We who saw the wearily terrified mother who knew exactly what Wit’s End looked like.  She was able to draw it like a photograph from memory alone. 

            A prolonged seizure, status epilepticus, is potentially fatal.  Global brain damage from frying neurons; anoxia from loss of the mechanics of breathing . . . all manner of horrors can result from a paroxysm lasting ten minutes or more.  Ten minutes on a ruined wristwatch; en eternity for a mother. 

            So we watch our ubiquitous clocks and count those goddam minutes; we watch with extreme vigilance- ready to fight the darkness creeping down the cold and quiet corridors toward us; ready to kick at the tenacious, slouching demons inherent within the mist.  

            After the seizure comes the post-ictal phase, the violent throes of headache and diaphoresis.  The flood of lactic acids form by muscle cells overstressed and weeping venom and all she knows is that every one of those muscles scream in the pain of poison.  Too much muscle damage too quickly can cause rhabdomyolysis and shut odwn the kidneys as they try to eliminate such large volumes of myoglobin; the urine brown from such an assault.

            Then the helplessness of inability to explain to Miranda why her life hurts so much.  To explain it to her, or ourselves for that matter. 

            I picked Miranda up and placed her on the nearby stretcher we kept fresh and ready for situations such as this.  Miranda was lethargic and obtunded and smelled of the vomit already drying.

       I was amazed that Carol, the mother, began to wipe the vomit from my hands and sleeves, wincing at what it did to my wristwatch. 

       I am never amazed.

       It saddened me that Carol was so adept at taking care of her daughter’s seizure disorder, and all the baggage that came with it, that this task came so easily to her.  It was learned by rote.  It angered me that these paroxysms came so often that the task of cleaning up unmanaged secretions and excretions was perfunctory.

       Too much ruin lay within the tumor’s wake.

       I stopped Carol, thanking her for her troubles.  “I use a dry cleaner . . . he’s very good.”  Yeah, I was somebody who could afford a dry-cleaner regularly, and my explanation was lame.

       She held on to my hands a bit longer than she should have , and I let her.

       Miss Vera, one of my technologists and someone in whom I placed a great deal of respect, saw this that passed between Carol and me.  She later told me, Go to her, Fox.  She won’t be comforted any other way, baby.”

       Miss Vera was the only person who called me baby, or could.  She was like a grandmother to me; old and wise, yet letting neither stand in the way of her humanity. 

       I recognized that moment of Carol and Me, having seen it so many times over the years of my then so short life; I recognized it for what it was: it was the non-lust . . . the non-love. 

Our permeable souls let in pain like the vampire at the door.  Physical touch is the talisman, the crucifix, that banishes it.

       This is an ache born neither from love or lust.  This is only the vacuum left behind when something within us is shifted aside or removed altogether.

       It’s the ache of the hole that needs filling.  The empty grave dug for the heart that used to beat before it broke. 

       We use our innate abilities, these well-worn tools for comfort; the giving and the receiving of it.  The offering of pleasure, and the drinking of it, thirstily.

       We reach for one another across chasms filled with sorrows found only in an abyss filled with regret. 

       We fend off the creeping grief, even for the briefest of moments, illuminating the darkness of pain with the light and the glow of our heat. 

       

This is not Lust; there is no awkwardness; no guilt or shame.
This is not love either, for within it there is no lie.

Stay tuned, Patient Reader; there's a bit more I have to say about all of this.

'Til then, then.

I thank you.
The Cunning Fennec Fox