martedì 7 gennaio 2014

My body.

My body. Maybe I should start this post like tv series on Fox Crime Channel: content shown may not be suitable for easily impressionable viewers. I often ask myself how much my looks were changed by the disease. Of course I changed, but the rare times I look at myself in a mirror, my face doesn’t seem very different. I’d better avoid any comments about the body, though. Actually, let’s talk about it. I’m sure when I’m healed it will look even better than before, anyway. Right now I look like a prisoner who survived Auschwitz, with all due respect for those poor people. Nonexistent arms, Biafra-like chest. The belly has gotten bigger, since it doesn’t have any more muscles to feed, and it looks even more disproportioned compared to the aforementioned chest. Who do I look like? Mostly like poor Jerry. Well, maybe this is going too far: the Ciccionazzo’s belly, as you-know-who calls him lovingly, was unrivaled, like his memory. Legs are the most devastated part. When I was young I was ashamed of my muscled tighs and calfs, caused by the intensive soccer practice. The bitch (no more brackets, you know what I’m talking about) left my legs alone for a while, attacking arms and hands instead. In Vietnam, two years after the diagnosis, I could still walk, although with the help of a walker. For almost four years my legs held me, allowing me some perks in daily life, like sitting on the wheelchair without the help of the hoist, getting in a car and some other stuff. Unluckily one day there weren’t any muscles left in the upper body. I found myself unable to breathe, and at the same time legs and neck abandoned me. I can’t say that in Vietnam, while being in a wheelchair and being fed by Aiste, life was all good, but it was certainly much better than today. I still remember the first examination like it was yesterday. December 19th, 2008. Bologna’s College Clinic. I went alone, since at the time I had no problems driving or walking. Among various exams I was scheduled to pass an electromyography, which was (but I only discovered it later) a sort of a Chinese torture with huge needles being sunk and turned, at the end of their nightmarish route, in every muscle of my body. As if it wasn’t enough (bad news never come alone) the doctor doing the exam, after having left me waiting four hours in a decrepit room of the clinic’s «day hospital» (I was the only one left, with four cleaning ladies), during the exam had the good idea of having a fight with his wife/girlfriend/lover while poking holes in me, and for half an hour he proceeded with this operation with the phone nestled between ear and shoulder. Very professional. All right, everybody has got problems to deal with, but being able to prioritize them should be a part of one’s professional ethics. I think the episode…. ooops, the post is over for now. If you aren’t too perturbed by it, you can go out to dinner, walking or driving, and have a tuna and artichoke pizza with a beer toasting to my health. I’m not jealous at all. (well…).

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