Basho in Bedlam and Being Unceremoniously Thrown Out Of Bed: An Excessively Precipitous Taper

Basho in Bedlam and Being Unceremoniously Thrown Out Of Bed: An Excessively Precipitous Taper

A victim of implacable, incurable brain cancer, of glioblastoma, my darling wife Anne has been subject to well-intentioned medical experimentation ever since was diagnosed and operated on just over two short months ago.

It’s clear that her new “Annehood” has been determined, in large part, by the doses of steroids that she receives.

Last week, her assigned specialist, who is not a steroid enthusiast, decided that her steroid use should be swiftly cut back to a tiny amount, and then to zero.

Coincidentally, within two days of the cutbacks, Anne became inert and incontinent. On Saturday morning, she collapsed and was taken to Emergency.

Like the “corner” administering aid to a prize fighter between rounds, the Emergency staff did a complete turnaround and stuffed her with mega doses of steroids this past weekend.

We were told that her “taper” was too ”precipitous.”

On Sunday, she “came around.”

Now Anne has been devouring all sorts of literature throughout her ordeal, most recently re-reading and memorizing the poetry of Matsuo Basho, revered as the master of haiku, a type of Japanese poem that always uses the same number of syllables in a three-line format to focus on  the multi-layered significance and fleeting beauty  of a single moment in time.

Anne is barely able to speak or to perambulate, but she remembers the past and its poetry.

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/basho

Yesterday she “talked” to our younger son who lives in Thailand.

“You are Basho,” she told him.

She also decided that her hospital cot was not big enough for the both of us. I was banished to the comforts of a visitor’s chair, there to spend another night in bedlam, where people on chemotherapy scream and dry heave, begging in vein for succor.

All night. All night long.

Your friend,

Robert

https://robertmcbrydeauthor.com/