Thoughts

I made this blog to put down my thoughts and add to the documentation of my illness.

I would like to think I have done a decent job of documenting my condition. I truly wish it wasn't necessary. The travesty done by redacting the knowledge from science has cost me dearly. Despite that, I have made the best of a bad situation. I know I saved my life that day over 28 years ago, and whatever I've had to endure because of that is obviously worth it. I believe I have contributed to the world and I've created so many memories for me and others.

My mother and wife are truly the only ones who know how hard it has been. I think I've kept up appearances very well. The referral process keeps any one doctor from getting the full picture of this. Specialists have helped and hurt medicine. I think Artificial Intelligence will bring about an age where so many more things will be caught and treated. If AI is given unfettered knowledge to all research, a new age will come to medicine.

So, what to say? Know that I will not go into detail for the final days, whenever those may come. That would be unkind to my loved ones, and I wish to ease their burden in any way possible.

I have love and been loved. I have experienced exhilaration, despair, sadness, longing, desire, satisfaction, fear, thankfulness, kindness, and so many other feelings and emotions. I have lived almost exactly twice the lifetime of my father and his father before him. It is not enough, but I don't get to decide such things. I've mentioned it before, but I feel I should do so once again. This poem, Invictus, perfectly captures how I feel about my condition. I am the captain of my soul.

Invictus

By William Ernest Henley

Out of the night that covers me,

Black as the pit from pole to pole,

I thank whatever gods may be

For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance

I have not winced nor cried aloud.

Under the bludgeonings of chance

My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears

Looms but the Horror of the shade,

And yet the menace of the years

Finds and shall find me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,

How charged with punishments the scroll,

I am the master of my fate,

I am the captain of my soul.