R.F. Tyminski's Blog
September 8, 2023
Tuberculosis (TB) Part Two
Back at school, January and February came and went. But the cramps and nausea never did go away. I watched as I dropped below 125 and thought, "I'm starting to look like a Halloween costume." At the beginning of May, I went to Germany for a language course. I had to get a residence permit, and this meant having another doctor's visit to make sure I wasn't bringing the pox into Germany. He asked me about the medicine (isoniazid), and I explained why I was taking it. Another chest x-ray he took was clear. He weighed me, and I saw I was 55 kilos, about 121 pounds. He shook his head and said in good doctor's German, "Sie müssen aber zunehmen!" Which translates as: "Dude, you gotta put on weight!"
He told me to go home and flush the rest of my pills (another three months’ supply) and he said there was no way I had TB or would get it now. I did as he said, and within a week, I was eating like the horse those pills were meant for. I ate my way through Germany and Italy for three months. When I got back to Haverford, I weighed 140!
Yes, they had to be sure I didn't have an active TB infection. And if I did have it, that it got treated. But no one really appreciated the nausea, cramps, and weight loss except me--and a German doctor. My point is that diagnosing a sickness is as complicated as healing from one. Preventing a disease is a way to get a head start on healing. But sometimes, the body doesn't like this approach. And when it protests, it can't be ignored.
He told me to go home and flush the rest of my pills (another three months’ supply) and he said there was no way I had TB or would get it now. I did as he said, and within a week, I was eating like the horse those pills were meant for. I ate my way through Germany and Italy for three months. When I got back to Haverford, I weighed 140!
Yes, they had to be sure I didn't have an active TB infection. And if I did have it, that it got treated. But no one really appreciated the nausea, cramps, and weight loss except me--and a German doctor. My point is that diagnosing a sickness is as complicated as healing from one. Preventing a disease is a way to get a head start on healing. But sometimes, the body doesn't like this approach. And when it protests, it can't be ignored.
September 6, 2023
Tuberculosis (TB) Part One
Crappy life experiences prime us to read (has anyone else gone through this?) and to want to write (well, let me tell you!). I was eighteen and moving from college in Rochester NY to another one in Haverford PA. I needed a physician's exam, and I thought it'd be routine because I'd had one a year earlier and that one was routine. I sort of remembered the pin prick test for TB, and it didn't register with me the second time.
Until my lower arm swelled up with a lump. So another TB test, but this one was an injection, and boy, did it react. Next stop was a fast trip to radiology where I had my lungs x-rayed. There was no active infection. This meant I'd been exposed to TB, possibly infected, and needed to take medicine--it's when I learned the word "prophylactically" (what a mouthful). Because the medicine would head off any TB infection if I had it.
The medicine was called isoniazid. I can still picture the white bottle with red-orange lettering on it. The pills were unfortunately meant for a horse. Plus, "to be on the safe side" (the doctor really said this), I had to take them for a year. Three-hundred sixty-five pills!
I was about six feet tall and weighed around 135 when I headed off to Haverford. I noticed after taking "the pill" for a few weeks, I was constantly getting nauseated and my appetite took a dive. Two months later, I was in the gym and weighed myself. 130. Uh-oh, I thought.
Then the cramping started. I was sitting in French class and I was "maux d'estomac", as my teacher later told me. I made it to the bathroom before I barfed. I saw the doctor on my Christmas break for another x-ray (again, no active infection) and I told him about the cramps and nausea. He said, "You'll adapt. Don't worry about it." I weighed 127.
More to follow....
Until my lower arm swelled up with a lump. So another TB test, but this one was an injection, and boy, did it react. Next stop was a fast trip to radiology where I had my lungs x-rayed. There was no active infection. This meant I'd been exposed to TB, possibly infected, and needed to take medicine--it's when I learned the word "prophylactically" (what a mouthful). Because the medicine would head off any TB infection if I had it.
The medicine was called isoniazid. I can still picture the white bottle with red-orange lettering on it. The pills were unfortunately meant for a horse. Plus, "to be on the safe side" (the doctor really said this), I had to take them for a year. Three-hundred sixty-five pills!
I was about six feet tall and weighed around 135 when I headed off to Haverford. I noticed after taking "the pill" for a few weeks, I was constantly getting nauseated and my appetite took a dive. Two months later, I was in the gym and weighed myself. 130. Uh-oh, I thought.
Then the cramping started. I was sitting in French class and I was "maux d'estomac", as my teacher later told me. I made it to the bathroom before I barfed. I saw the doctor on my Christmas break for another x-ray (again, no active infection) and I told him about the cramps and nausea. He said, "You'll adapt. Don't worry about it." I weighed 127.
More to follow....
August 31, 2023
Healing: how does it happen?
My book Crooked Lines is about healing. Healing is a mysterious process; a bit of alchemy is involved. Most of us will take a medicine to feel better, for example, aspirin, acetaminophen or an antibiotic. It trains us to think that the medicine is what heals us. But it's complicated because medicine starts a process in our bodies, but a lot depends on how our bodies react. And also on how our minds react.
When we're sick, we might be aware of how closely our body and mind are woven together--you could think of it like a basket. But if we are sick, the basket has loose fibers making for openings in it. I like the Japanese art form of Kintsugi. An artist doing Kintsugi mends a broken object made of pottery or ceramic by using lacquer mixed with gold or silver. This is an art form about finding beauty in repair, transience, and imperfection. In my analogy here, the artist is like a doctor and the lacquer is like the medicine. But how it holds together depends on the qualities of the pieces that have broken apart--these are like the body.
Most healing occurs through a challenge to put back together what has broken apart. The medicine we might take is important, but we are too because our bodies can respond differently depending on so many factors. How we will take up the challenge of being sick? Many times, we can't and the outcomes are terrible. But hopefully, we can find something in us to work in synchrony with the medicine. That's part of the mystery of healing.
When we're sick, we might be aware of how closely our body and mind are woven together--you could think of it like a basket. But if we are sick, the basket has loose fibers making for openings in it. I like the Japanese art form of Kintsugi. An artist doing Kintsugi mends a broken object made of pottery or ceramic by using lacquer mixed with gold or silver. This is an art form about finding beauty in repair, transience, and imperfection. In my analogy here, the artist is like a doctor and the lacquer is like the medicine. But how it holds together depends on the qualities of the pieces that have broken apart--these are like the body.
Most healing occurs through a challenge to put back together what has broken apart. The medicine we might take is important, but we are too because our bodies can respond differently depending on so many factors. How we will take up the challenge of being sick? Many times, we can't and the outcomes are terrible. But hopefully, we can find something in us to work in synchrony with the medicine. That's part of the mystery of healing.
August 28, 2023
Resilience Versus Adversity
Hey Goodreaders, I'm new to the site and I look forward to interacting with any of you interested in my writing. I like to write about how we overcome adversity. This has many names like grit, toughness, fortitude, rallying, flexibility, adaptation, and sturdiness. All are aspects of resilience --a quality we each have to make it through and persevere when life throws curve balls at us, when we stumble, when we lose hope. Often, sickness tests our endurance. There are around 15 million children and teens in the US who have a form of chronic illness, and their situations usually require resilience in them and in their families. It's not easy. Children can come down with illnesses that threaten both their physical health and psychological wellbeing. Like COVID (which can turn into long COVID, even for kids). I am amazed how kids pull through conditions like these, how they find creative ways to cope and laugh, how they bounce back. If this is a topic that interests you, maybe you'd be open to reading Crooked Lines. A new version is just released and available as an e-book or in paperback.
Take care,
Rob
Take care,
Rob
