Category: Personal Reminiscences

The Cancer Diaries, Part 10

Cancer / Daily life / Family history / Health & Medicine / Musings / Personal Reminiscences3 Comments

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My father died of esophageal cancer several years ago. It was a horrible, lingering death, and I watched him shrivel and die, in constant pain towards the end. On one of my last visits to his bedside, he asked me whether I thought it was better to die with the full knowledge of what was happening to you, or to be unaware. It was a startling, unexpected question. My father and I had had few, if any, philosophical discussions in our lives together. Without giving it a lot of thought, I replied, “With knowledge.” I probably thought he was talking ……… click below for more ↓

It’s *NOT* Junk Mail

Advertising / Culture / Daily life / Marketing / Personal Reminiscences / Social Order & DisorderLeave a comment

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I recognize that we all like to apply labels to categorize things, as shorthand in communication and in conversation, and to identify common views and beliefs. I do it myself; we all do: labels are our everyday metaphors. They are fast and easy shortcuts. But I weary at times of trying to explain to people that the unsolicited material they get in their mailboxes several times a week is not simply “junk” mail to be tossed into the recycling bin without another thought. Or worse: at their community mailboxes some people simply litter it rather than taking it home to ……… click below for more ↓

The Cancer Diaries, Part 9

Cancer / Daily life / Musings / Personal ReminiscencesLeave a comment

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Well, I suppose it’s a good news/bad news story for this post, although I dearly wish it was better. Would that I could have put it all behind me, finished my recovery, and moved on. Not to be: I receive comfort like cold porridge (to quote from The Tempest). Still, I came away from my consultation with at least some sense of relief: after all, it might have been much worse. The anxiety of waiting for the results was far more stressful than actually hearing them. My recent PSA blood test showed a greatly-reduced number (less than 1, which is ……… click below for more ↓

The Cancer Diaries, part 8

Daily life / Musings / Personal ReminiscencesLeave a comment

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Diseases desperate grown By desperate appliance are relieved, Or not at all. Shakespeare: Hamlet, Act 4 Sc. 3 Those Kegel exercises sure work. I had my doubts at first, but I stand as living proof they are effective. My pelvic muscles could probably lift a car — well, whenever the doctor tells me I can start lifting things again, that is. And my anus can clench more tightly than a conservative’s when he is confronted by a liberal suggestion to raise the minimum wage to a liveable amount. It’s been 51 full days since my surgery. I can also count ……… click below for more ↓

I Just Don’t Understand Americans

Musings / Politics / US PoliticsOne Comment

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I’ve long been somewhat of a politics/history junkie, and as such I read a lot about both topics, from ancient times to modern; I read about events, wars, issues, personalities, elections, debates, governance, and the philosophy of politics. I read books, newspapers, websites, magazines, social media, and more books. I don’t have cable TV, however, but I do get to several reliable media sites online every day, including BBC, CBC, Al Jazeera, Atlantic, Reuters, Spiegel, Agence France Presse, Forbes, Macleans, New York Times, The Star,  Globe & Mail, Slate, and others.*  So even though I am not an American, I ……… click below for more ↓

The Cancer Diaries, Part 7

Cancer / Daily life / My Writing / Personal ReminiscencesLeave a comment

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I don’t want readers to think I’m being narcissistic in writing these posts about my cancer or how it has affected me. Sure, I can be accused of being all sorts of things for writing my other posts, and a narcissist is the least of them. I’m sharing these because I felt — I hoped —others might benefit from my experiences: men and their partners. I think partners (be they men or women) should be as fully informed and engaged about what happens and what to expect as the patient. I found a lot of medical and pseudo-medical (read: quack) ……… click below for more ↓

Don’t Get Your Hopes Up

Astronomy & Cosmology / Conspiracy Theories / Critical Thinking / Humour & Satire / Politics / Predictions and prophecies / Science & TechnologyOne Comment

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News that asteroid “2018 VP1“, will pass within about 480 kms of Earth on November 2, 2020, has raised social media hopes that it might be drawn in by the planet’s gravity and crash on the White House, thus ending any speculation about the reviled Donald “Putin’s Puppet” Trump’s re-election. However, if you are among the alleged millions who wish for this scenario, I suggest you are being overly optimistic. Not only is the targetting rather too specific, but the chances of it even reaching the ground are very slim. And besides, it’s pretty damned small for an asteroid. 2018 ……… click below for more ↓

The Cancer Diaries, Part 6

Daily life / Family history / Musings / Personal ReminiscencesLeave a comment

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I’m sitting here, on my back deck, in the late Friday afternoon, beside Susan, trying to take stock of my life over a glass of wine, and read a bit while the light’s still good. I’m 30 days past my surgery and recovering reasonably well, but still three weeks away from my next set of tests, and almost four until I sit down with the urologist and learn if I still have cancer. And what happens next. All the rest of my life is on hold until that meeting. My father lived to 92, and died of esophageal cancer, caught ……… click below for more ↓

Shopping carts, masks, and morality

Culture / Ethics & morality / Musings3 Comments

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The shopping cart theory — or rather the S.C. hypothesis, since it really isn’t a theory in the proper scientific sense — is a test of our humanity and whether we have any empathy, or so the notion goes: The shopping cart is ultimate litmus test for whether a person is capable of self-governing. But it’s more than that: it’s a test of civility, social conscience, morality, community, and ultimately our own level of selfishness. But none of these sites seem to bring up the outright theft of shopping carts for the sake of convenience by someone too lazy to ……… click below for more ↓

Why Science Fiction Matters

Books & Reviews / Daily life / Musings / Personal Reminiscences / Pop Culture / Reading & Literacy / Scifi and fantasyLeave a comment

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In the past two years, we’ve watched all the Star Trek series (on Netflix) from start to finish, and all the ST movies (on DVD). We just started watching the Battlestar Galactica series on Blu-Ray this past week (which we had seen some years back, but with long gaps between seasons). Both of us love scifi. Although the first ST series was often more space opera than scifi (as the Star Wars series has been), it matured quickly into some complex, adult-oriented storytelling in the subsequent series (a sad failing of the first several Star Wars films was their failure ……… click below for more ↓

The Cancer Diaries, part 5

Daily life / Health & Medicine / Musings / Personal ReminiscencesLeave a comment

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The resilience of the human body is truly amazing. Here I am, three weeks after major surgery, and much of my daily life is back to normal. I can drive, walk the dog, unpack the dishwasher, cook meals, pour the wine, feed the cats, walk upright… a far cry from my crabbed old-man style of a week or two ago. Not that I am fully recovered. I have several weeks or even months ahead of me for that. My incisions are still tender, in particular the spot where the Hemo-vac tube had been inserted. The main incision from my navel ……… click below for more ↓

Juet’s Journal in Word format

Blog & Blogging / Books & Reviews / England and Britain / History & Biography / My Writing / Personal Reminiscences / Typography / What I'm Reading NowLeave a comment

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For those readers interested in the voyages of the late-16th-early-17th century adventurer, Henry Hudson, or in the European explorations of North America, I have recently scanned and edited a copy of Juet’s Journal into Word format and placed it online here. Here is my website on Henry Hudson, too. I haven’t done much with it of late, but that may be slowly changing as I find I have more time these days, during my recovery. The journal documents how Hudson and his crew ‘discovered’ parts of North America and sailed up the river that now bears his name. For Americans, ……… click below for more ↓

The Cancer Diaries, Part 4

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A home is not a sterile environment. Not mine, anyway. With two cats, a dog, numerous houseplants,  rooms full of books, and my sometimes lackadaisical attitude toward cleaning, our home will never be sterile. Not to mention the microbiome we all carry around with us: 100 trillion microbes live on or in each one of us: only 10% of the cells we carry around are our own. Most of these colonists are benign, but a few species are opportunistic and will invade our territories when they can. Plus there are viruses around and on us, too. Coming home after surgery ……… click below for more ↓

The Cancer Diaries, Part 3

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The operating room was cold. Not merely cool: winter cold. In my thin hospital gown, I felt the chill and shivered a bit. The nurse told me it’s kept cold to help discourage bacteria from thriving. I wanted to ask her about this, to chat about bacteria and their lives. I’d been reading about microbiology and the microbiome a lot of late, so I’m curious. But this was not the place or time. I was helped onto the table, and a warm blanket wrapped over me. Very comforting. My arms were splayed out from my body on small side panels. ……… click below for more ↓

The Cancer Diaries, Part 2

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There was an episode in the original Star Trek series called The Deadly Years in which Captain Kirk and some of his companions aged rapidly. At one point, the ship’s computer pegs Kirk’s age at between 60 and 72: he stumbles around clumsily, bent, shuffling, is forgetful, has anger issues on the edge of senility. He’s a caricature old man. Watching it recently, we laughed at the cartoonish portrayal of someone who could be a decade younger than we, yet behaved like he was much, much older. But there I was, a few days after surgery, bent and shuffling like ……… click below for more ↓

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