Yesterday remembered today

Of days remembered

I probably have a knack for remembering dates and events, though I cannot say I have total recall of everything. Sometimes, things are not remembered at all, or the memory is a bit fuzzy. Much as I had many encounters with diaries growing up, I never saw anyone journalling anything, the most a diary was used for was appointments and at a stretch, a calendar.

Having a blog going back 20 years has offered key points of journalling, though not in the strict sense, I still find myself noticing and making notes in blogs that I can reference as an aide-mémoire.

Yesterday, all my troubles

I thought about writing this yesterday but here I am reflecting on the significance of yesterday today. The 8^th of February; when I joined Twitter, I buried a friend, and it turned out to be my last session of chemotherapy.

Interestingly, the former happened in 2009 in the week that the 13^th fell on a Friday and I joined the bandwagon of those caught in the grip of paraskavedekatriaphobia on what appeared to be the coldest day in the office because someone thought that would be our contribution to helping stem the problems with climate change. We were to wrap up warm rather than enjoy the ambiance of a comfortable office. My first tweet? See below:

I am now a twit on twitter ...

— Akin Akíntáyọ̀ 🏳️‍🌈 #European (@forakin) February 8, 2009

Blog - Caught between Paraskavedekatriaphobia and Cryophobia

A sad tragedy, it was

Then in 2010, my friend Dick van Galen Last died on the 2^nd of February, 8 days short of his 58th birthday, and hardly 2 weeks after he defended his PhD thesis, an event I could not attend as I was experiencing the most debilitating effects of chemotherapy two days after, I was so weak and for the first time, I had anti-emetic medication that worked a treat.

I had planned on calling Dick to ask about his defense as he had informed me in late December that he was having his PhD viva voce and I had made my excuses that I might be unable to attend. It was then that he told me he was undergoing treatment for lymphoma, I cannot remember if it was Hodgkins or non-Hodgkins. I quipped; we might meet for tea in the treatment room as we shared the same oncologist.

When my phone ranged on Wednesday the 3^rd of February, the number ID came up as Dick’s phone number, but it was Ousman on the phone who was Dick’s lodger and he regularly came to clean my apartment, the news he had on the phone was that Dick had passed on, but he had refused to have Dick taken away, Dick was lain in his bed for his friends to come and pay their respects until the day of his buried. I cried all the way to Dick’s place.

Blog - Dick: As he lay

A man, a celebration

The morning of the 8^th of February was a dreadfully cold winter morning, I got on my bicycle and rode to the St Barbara Cemetery where we all assembled in the chapel to give Dick a rousing and celebratory send-off, the crowd, especially of the youth that attended with the eclectic mix of different cultures and personalities was a testament to the person he was. The music as pallbearers carried him to the burial plot could not have been out of place at a carnival.

Blog - Seeing Dick Off

However, I could not wait to see him buried as I had another appointment, the 7^th session of chemotherapy, with the 8^th and what I had hoped would be the last scheduled for the 1^st of March. When I arrived at the hospital, the nurses who also knew Dick were quite sad at his passing, one even indicating there was nothing to suggest Dick was at risk of death, he did not have the kind of prognosis I was given at my diagnosis.

It became the last one

Not a vein could be found around my hands up my wrist to insert a cannula for chemotherapy even after warming my hands in hot water than the insertion was further up the arm near where phlebotomists took blood.

Blog - Almost in vain for a vein

I did not know that session would be my last chemotherapy dose until a checkup over a week later in conversation with my consultant that they agreed that the focus should be on recovering my immune system and the chemotherapy had done its job fully as predicted by the consultant in September that the cancer could be treated if I tolerated the treatment.

I could have made much of yesterday and yesterday is a narrative that gives the past a telling different from when you are living in the present. Thank you for the past we can remember in words of triumphal living against all adversity.

Opinion: Who owns the public conversation?

My view is gone

One thing I dread about social media spaces I do not control is the loss of views, opinions, replies, or comments I have posted to status initiated by others. You cannot control how others moderate their spaces whether they decide to edit, delete, or hide what you at one time publicly contributed to.

Obviously, one does not want to make a habit of journaling every comment posted, but the danger is there that if you contribute something substantial, you first have no control over the situation and might well lose it when you return to check if others have contributed, validated, or repudiated your comment, only to find that the whole post with the original thread has gone.

Who owns the public conversation?

I first became aware of this risk some years ago after a contribution to a post on Facebook that was soon deleted, there have been several instances of lost responses on Twitter, only yesterday, I was somewhat bereft when a show of support towards a broken relationship by relating my own personal experience was gone, the whole thing with the almost 200 comments attached.

It is very well the prerogative of any person to decide on what to post, entertain commentary, moderate participation, and consequently remove that post if they are so inclined. However, the question becomes when you have made a view public and people have contributed, in comments, views and responses, are you now the sole proprietor of that public commons to do as you wish without recourse to others who have engaged?

Again, this is not to remove autonomy or agency from the individual owners of social media spaces, if I have attended a party at someone’s place, the person can politely ask me to leave, however, what is indisputable is I attended regardless of what evolved at the party. Unfortunately, that imitation of life in social media is not readily present.

At the mercy of

The original poster might remove a posting and put a placeholder in its place indicating why the posts and comments were removed, but that would be an extended view of courtesy rather than a strict requirement. Then, thinking about this, there is the possibility that conversation landscape is reduced out of the fear of the possible loss of one’s voice in an engagement that we choose not to contribute substantially apart from post easy platitudes.

Alternatively, we keep a record of everything we have posted or offer a broader commentary in our owned spaces with a link in the comments where we would have posted to people to read our views. Obviously, if the original post is deleted, we still have our opinions intact, even if the apparent context and setting for that comment is lost. My reticence is triggered, I might well be less forward in contributing to other spaces.

Let's treat the cancer and laugh

Notes to the times

I recall that when I was in the hospital, I was writing blogs about my situation, it gave the impression to some readers, especially my brother that I was not that so near death if I was lucid enough to be tapping away on a keyboard. He had no idea.

Even though I was in my sixth year of blogging, the records of those contemporaneous are the best journal of my life at that time and it becomes the kind of advice I would anyone who starts blogging. Always journal the before, the during, the after, the reflection, the analysis, the memories, the rehash, if you must and any other thing that celebrates your story.

Considering the pain, discomfort, and situation I was in, I find myself reading the blogs 12 years on and extracting some of the apparently humorous lines that made light of a grave situation. I say, no matter what you are going through, acquire a sense of humour if you do not have one and use it as much as you can, a little mirth can be extraordinarily good medicine, it saves your dignity and enhances your gracefulness too.

Excerpts to amuse

When I was in pain and it appeared, nothing was being done about it. “I was literally begging, give me morphine, I beg of you – I am in a hospital for crying out loud, I am not here to find out how much I can endure pain and seek my pain threshold as a thing of achievement – I am not that mad.” {In hospital to kill the pain]

Could there be a better way to talk of urination? “And so I have been manufacturing bottles of Premier Cru Urea 2009 by the gallon, the colour is golden, there doesn’t appear to be impurities, I would not hazard the ideas of bouquet, palate, odour and what not.” [Golden red and painless]

It was pain, pain and more pain. “No, I did not die and go to heaven; I lived through the pain to tell another story of an event in my hospital life.” [The looming abyss of a deep biopsy]

There can be no praise of hospital food, none at all. “Don't worry, I am sick-bag trained, no mess.” [Seeing hospital meals again]

If I had a book of Psalms to write, this might be one of them. “For weeks I had sacrificed my peace at the altar of pain, bringing offerings of agony and lamentations of the unbearable as I worshipped as a subject of things going wrong and circumstances becoming dire.” [Getting off the pain train]

When you move from manual to automatic, there probably is no instruction for that transition. “One observation, the hospital bed controls do not lend themselves to geriatric finesse, I have observed both fumble in frustration with the buttons, the more senior expelling expletives as if he was out at sea. Strewth!” [Crutches on the drip]

In utter exasperation, I wrote. “Can you believe it? I can hear him from here. Save our ears. Save our sanity or as restraint overcomes whoever decides the cat of throttling him – save that man from himself.” [A relocation from the cacophony]

Something called chemotherapy is neither a barber nor a dentist. “The chemotherapy is supposed to be very tolerable though, what I am told and what I read are in two different spheres. I am not to expect hair loss, as if I had much anyway and my nails will not be growing off my teeth.” [Scuttling cancer with chemo]

Content is everything, especially when vomiting, yet, sometimes, you just have to go through the motions. “So, four times overnight I regurgitated the exclusive hospital gourmet till my body was conditioned into realising you could only throw up content, the channelling remains in the body. It was horrible.” Then on the gentler matter of the thing that might have brought misery after much pleasure. “The pain that ran to my feet when I stepped off the bed for a shower was excruciating, I threw away all inhibitions and let the nurse bath me, she was gentle on my crown jewels.” [Nausea abates by suppository]

I probably lost some of my humour in the next few blogs, not that I had given up, I was in good spirits, the food and seeing it all again but not from the plate in which it was served was getting to me. One last stab at this cuisine. “I will NOT abide this food any longer, no not any longer.” [I'm alive after my autopsy]

One last act on the catwalk before I leave tomorrow. “I have also changed to using the designer hospital tunics which seem to have no front or back, I suppose you wear the buttons to the back for ladies and to the front for gentlemen.” [One more night]