healing

some years ago i had a hard time accepting the diagnose i got, SLE. i just couldn't believe that my own immunesystem would turn on the body it was made to protect for no reason at all. i speculated that there was some underlying condition that made my immunesystem act this way, for instance a parasite or poisoning by environmental toxins, and it turns out i was kind of right all along.

for the latest five months i've been dealing with what started out as a case of suspected sceleton cancer. i had this bump on my leg and it hurt badly, especially at nights. at the worst, i had three nights of sleep on one week. i went to see doctors. several in a row as my case was passed upwards, until it got to national level of care in Stockholm. that's when you know you have got something unusual.

i was getting pretty worried while all the different scannings went on, and ihad to wait for the results. X-ray, MRI, CAT scans, many bloodsamples and doctors appointments. at the same time i was grateful for the level of care i recieved. you should know this is practically free for the patient in Sweden, i would never been able to afford to pay for the real cost of all of that myself.

two and a half months ago i was put under for surgery. i have never had surgery before and i was pretty scared, but meditated to diffuse the angst. a major part of the bump was chiseled away and sent to a lab to be analyzed. since the bone canal had grown shut by the bump which they were calling a tumour at that point, they also drilled it open. the i had sickleave for six weeks to heal up.

i didn't feel comfortable to stay at home just waiting for the results, so i started working early. it turned out it wasn't a malignant cancer tumour - anymore. my doctor, Dr J Marton, explained to me that my immunesystem detected the cancer years ago and capsuled it in a material that is harder than bone and thus isolating it and killing it. amazing!! so it might be that all those 'SLE symptoms' i had was just my body fighting cancer.

all these years when i have been disappointed at my body because it was acting irrational and weaker than i expected it to be, it was actually more of a warrior than i could ever have imagined or believed. now i'm still healing from the surgery, so there is no snowboarding in the plans for this spring, and i run out of stuff like magnesium in my body and have to eat supplements. but on the whole i'm feeling better than i have been in years.

The Hideaway

Midsummer time we spent at the cottage. But since we didn't get the water pump working yet, we were going home almost very day to shower or to get something. We thought we had packed enough to get by for four days, but no. It's just a twenty minutes drive, still I feel uneasy about it. Environmentally. Most of the time we have been working at the roof, and fixing stuff. As usual I have worked mostly in the garden. And making a meal for us now and then.

I'm happy with the results of our garden redesign. Lo tore down the old woodshed. I've got my 'druids corner' of the garden and they can do what they want to with the rest. I had to move my whole herbarium & strawberries which took two days of digging and replanting. Happily all of the the plants suvived the brutalism! I have sawed down many of the shrubberys and smaller trees for the more 'airy' garden design. Some older trees will be cut down later, but not the oldest ones, I saved those. Phew!

Althought if one of the great trees were to be stormfelled it could crush the cottage. I told them in that case I would mourn the tree and not the cottage. The cottage is an historical building, an more than 150 years old miners house from somewhere. But my grandfather was a miner his whole life, and I think he would say: "Leave those trees alone!" And I can truthfully claim I need the shadow of the trees, and that is pretty hard for anyone to argue with. Sometimes lupus isn't all bad. :-)

Dealing

I was worried just now, when a overseas friend of mine edmitted that he drinks exessivly these days. I figured that he was a person who listened to music as a way of dealing with stress, guess I was wrong or that doesn't really cut it for the current situation. I think one of the big things that carachterise a person is how they deal with stress. My friend often says that it means a lot to him that his friends are there for him and I am very happy to hear that some of his friends are visiting soon.

I deal with my stress in a different way. Yesterday evening I was on my way out running at sunset, I have changed from mornings to evenings now. But since the collective's dirt bike was available I changed my mind and headed over to the track instead.

Since I had my latest flare of lupus I have had a long way back. It took longer to shed the extra weight I put on from the prednisone than I had expected. Every time I started exercising more I had inflammations in the joints again and had to rest. Since I don't want to go into another flare I have to be careful.

But yesterday I was able to really go and I got concentrated enough to be able to get to that stillness in my mind and heart that training gets me to if it is intense enough. Oh how I have missed it! For shame I didn't take a helmet because I didn't expect to be able to go any fast at all. I thought it would be a struggle. Instead I felt like I should. Strong and light and fast. (Sorta. I am really still slow and weak, comparing...)

I need exersise to be able to deal with emotional stress. I can't just meditate it away as some people manage. That is why lupus is so doubly painful to me, when it locks me into immobility. It makes me unable to successfully deal with stress the only way I can. At the same time it wrecks my life and threatens me with death and really stresses me out. Torture!

Now I am speculating, but I peg Baron as a person who exersise not only because of the blatantly obvious reason - he is as vain as a beauty queen! - but as a way of dealing with stress, it makes him feel good? I think beeing captive and tied down must feel something like what i feel having a lupus flare only worse. Fear of death, stress, but no way of dealing except to escape inside. I read a research paper about hostage situations and hallucinating, it is very usual in those situations. Maybe they are not hallucinating, maybe their spirit really leave the body and wander. I hope that he manages to keep his sanity and that we'll get him back in one piece both physically and mentally.

Speaking about 'one piece', I wonder how long the bike has been creaking like that when strained. Doesn't sound good. If I ask the others they will probably say I singlehandedly wrecked it with this my first ride in like a YEAR, and make me pay for repairs or a new one. :-D Nahhh! They would never do that.

Blacksmiths & Black magic

I bought this viking age style glass today. This model was found at Birka. Come Beltaine I will drink Wytchwood brew from it! Since before I have a bowl and a money purse from Birka that my brother gave me. I have some jewelery too, quite much. When we sailed to Birka on Coleridge last summer, I bought a crystal pearl. My collection of replikas is growing, I hoard like a dragon. I like how much of the things are made in the same way now as they were back then. From my aunt I found out that we have some Vallon blood in our family, and she said my eyes are Vallon.

The Vallons were blacksmiths and magicians. Or people thought there was some magic to the blacksmithing that they were so secretive about. I have many different streaks of magicians in my family history, and on both sides too. Most of it is sami. I love to hear storys about my ancestors. Some of them are infamous. Well, one of them. He had a bit of a temper. I wouldn't strike someone with blindness, even if it was just for four days. To begin with, I don't care to find out how to do something like that. And then there is the Law of Return. Who knows, my wiccan sisters could be right, there might be something to it...

I'm pondering something the mysterious 'Gerrymander' left as a message to the PIE crew: "To see ahead you must learn what has come before."

Well, that is true for my life too. I want to learn as much as I can about my ancestors and history around them. Like, what was special about the skolt samis that set them apart from other samis? This summer I'd like to travel to Inari to find out. I am also intrigued bu the Komsa culture. When I worked at Voullerim 6000 we made a research trip to Alta to look at the place it was discovered with professor Westfahl. It's interesting the way genetic research changes our outloook on sami history in Scandinavia and western Europe right now. And all peoples all around the world. Like when they found out the viking queen buried in Norway was persian! Peoples have wandered around and blended with eachother.

Ohh, I want to participate in the Genographic project. Too bad I have no brother on my biofathers side though. Maybe this research will counteract racism. I know I am a total mix and I am happy about it, just more of history to feel connected to. My microbiologist friend who is han chinese, told me that the split toenail I have is a sign I also have han chinese ancestry. I was intrigued, I love daoistic philosophy and long before I ever heard about Dao De Jing I heard sentences from it in my dreams. I was also awed when I found out the linkage between samis and berbers of noth africa 9000 years ago! But there is another aspect to it also. Now research in immunology is done on samis, and I have donated my blood tests to research on Lupus. The long dark winters in the arctic may have changed the samis immune system, researchers theorize. Maybe knowledge of the past will lead to a cure...

Moonbathing & nightswimming.

This early in the spring everyone is as fishbelly-pale as I am. Later, I will stand out in a crowd beeing the only one still with a snowtan. I have to wear hats when I go out in the daylight and it makes me feel like Greta Garbo: "I want to be alone!" (Don't come any closer, I'm strange, mysterious and aloof. It's not that you don't like me, I didn't like you first!)I didn't choose to be a goth, it pretty much just comes naturally with the whole 'stay out of the sun' Lupus regime. And a black hat suits a hex.

But I have bought a new bikini! It's a monochrome black Panos Emporio, inspired by punk, with lots of nice details. The bottom has a scottish kilt inspired supershort skirt. I will wear it moonbathing on the deck of Coleridge, a Leisure 23 sailingboat. And nightswimming in the lake in the forest.
At midsummer, the Arctic Cirkle, midnight, the sun is weak. It almost sets at the horizon, stops, and then rises again. I like that month. If I can choose I sleep at daytime and stay up all nights instead... A very romantic time, that midnight sun time of the year.