Yes, I'm Still Kickin'

 So it appears that my eye troubles have finally come to an end. Yay. And surprisingly I have no new illness to report 😅 I do need to get some new glasses though, as my vision seems to be much different, which is to say worse, after the stroke plus the eye infection plus the eye virus 🙄

It is Galungan now in Bali, which will end in Kuningan 10 days later. This holiday this year has fallen right before the annual Nyepi, silent day, holiday. Happily, Evelyn will be coming to spend Nyepi with me, so it won't be as boring as usual. Actually, she was here for Nyepi Day last year as well, so I am doubly blessed.

I have been meaning to do some writing here, and had been intending to address some of the political bullshit going down in America, but every time I start out to do so, a wave of depression washes over me and I just think What the hell is the use? I guess it is only the good people of America who can now save our good country, seeing as how even the Supreme Court of the land appears to be corrupt and more in the business of propping up Donald Trump than in delivering actual justice in the land. We are contending therefore with a lawless person, a lawless political party, and a lawless Supreme Court. God help us and, as president Biden says, God save the Queen.

And with that, I will keep my peace. For now, anyway.

Quiet

 Well the family is gone now and the villa feels awfully quiet, especially in the evening. It's just me and Etta the dog.

We had a good time during their stay here. Nothing extravagant. Just hanging out at the Villa or at the beach or at the mall. And I felt fairly well as the days went by. My eye steadily improved. I saw the doctor on Tuesday and she said that there was still a small spot of the virus in my eye. However, it has not been hurting as it did before and my normal vision seems to be returning. I will need to get glasses after the eye is totally well. The stroke or the eye infection or both seem to have changed the vision in my right eye.

So now it is three more days alone here and then back to my little house in Sanur. The maid says that I must sleep in the little bedroom upstairs on Sunday and Monday because she wants to make up the big bedroom for the return of the owners of the villa. I don't quite like sleeping upstairs because there's a ghost up there. But I will need to just maybe sprinkle some holy water and chant some incantations to make the place safe for sleeping 😄

Waiting Game

 Finally, a third doctor at Sanglah seems to have cured the infection in my right eye. I hope. After a week of inserting ointment and anti-inflammatory and looking at the world through a fog, the eye appears to be almost normal again. I had hoped to return to her today, but it turns out that the appointment is for tomorrow. So one more day of a blur.

In the meantime, Evelyn, Michelle, Monica and I have been enjoying a sort of lazy time at the villa. The girls do a lot of cooking and I do a lot of eating. The weather has turned fairly foul, with rain beginning in the early afternoon and turning to thunderstorms at night. Happily, we are enjoying the use of Louis' car, which allows us to all get out together, because of course we all cannot travel about on my motorbike 😅

Visitors

 Today Evelyn and her two daughters will arrive to stay with me for about a week and unfortunately I am profoundly fatigued, I guess from the herpes zoster infection, or maybe from the damn medicine. Moreover, the ointment I have to use five times a day in the eye makes my vision blurry and continually causes the eye to tear. Good grief

Oh well, I will do my best. At least Evelyn can help me apply the stupid ointment, because every time I try to do it, it is as likely to go onto my cheek or my stomach as into my eye 🤣

Light

My eyes like the light

They drink it in

As if they thirst

Let them pour it out as well I say

Strange Cases Indeed

 And ivory-faced and silvery-haired old woman opened the door. She had an evil face, smoothed by hypocrisy: but her manners were excellent.

--The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, Robert Louis Stevenson

What an odd pair of sentences, don't you think? Read it several times, and then several more. Note the unusual juxtaposition of ivory and silver with evil. And then smoothed by hypocrisy? How so? And her manners were excellent!

The novel indeed is an excellent maze of conflicting terms and shades, of conspicuous contradictions, hopelessly separate and yet inseparably connected.

The genius is all in the startling language, reminiscent somewhat of Stephen Crane. Or is it Crane who is reminiscent of Stevenson? They were roughly contemporaries. Who knows ... maybe they were the same person!

Its Will, Not Mine

 I have been waiting with bated breath to see what new problem my body will come up with once I get rid of this I inflammation of the eye, but it surprised me by not coming up with a new target of attack at all but by adding a problem to the already existing problem. I have now developed, in addition to the bacterial infection in my right eye, a herpes zoster viral infection as well. Oh what a clever body I have.

So I'm just back from a new doctor today, ostensibly for the old and amazingly persistent allergic problem, and have learned of the new viral problem. This sort of virus, she says, takes advantage of a weakened condition as might be found in a system weakened by stroke, for instance, or by multiple sclerosis or indeed by an infection in the eye. 

So now I am to treat both illnesses at the same time, the new viral infection with an ointment that will be used five times a day. This, the doctor hopes, will be sufficient to overcome the viral infection, although she is guaranteeing nothing at this time. I must see her again in a week after giving this new treatment a trial. The ointment which is meant to chase out the virus will make the vision foggy in the meantime. And what fun that will be!

One really does stand in awe of the body's irrepressible will to be ill.