Category: Illness

Late this afternoon I orchestrated a lecture-discussion on research for a wide range of postgraduates – not the densest lecture (in terms of content) I’ve ever given, but successful I think, especially as I’d been worried about the rather vague theme and large audience. I was satisfied, and pleased with myself afterward; went to the…

It is strange, and trivial, and serious, and ambiguously embarrassing: to write about my own skin, about my psoriasis. The factual: I’ve had psoriasis since I was eighteen (I was devastated when the doctor told me, as though I could already foresee what it would mean throughout my life, or perhaps what I would make…

V. is gone. Actually not gone, but – going – they have decided that there is enough brain damage that even if she could be awakened it wouldn’t really be her. They are turning off machines tonight; she may continue breathing for a few days, but she really died on Monday evening, when she had…

Last night I got to hold V.’s hand for a long time – about an hour and a half, I guess. The experience is reassuring – her hands are clean and soft, and pleasant to hold, and there is movement from breathing (or perhaps from the respirator, but the effect is the same); the immediate…

The last few days: explaining V.’s condition (clearly serious, but who knows the future?) to a variety of people, interfacing between her husband and the university. An hour and a half sitting with her, by her husband, in the ICU tonight – we talked, and talked to her, etc. Actually it was nice to see…

V. is extremely ill – a cardiac arrest in fact; she is unconscious in the ICU unit, and we don’t know whether she will recover. She has been, as it happens, ready for this – in fact she has had the most direct and unflinching ability to look at her condition and possible problems of…