I rarely/never post here anymore. I thought I might just put a few thoughts up. My girlfriend and I just got a digital set top box and it is awesome. We are both psyched to be able to watch WB cartoons, Seinfeld and Frasier etc. Right now I’m watching Night of the Living Dead which is rad!
I haven’t really been posting here for a couple of reasons. First and foremost, I’ve been going through some pretty serious health problems that I couldn’t be fucked living through let alone writing about on top of it. I probably will write about it in detail sometime as people at their lowest is pretty interesting to read about, but I couldn’t be fucked right now. So yeah, I didn’t feel like writing about my health (I’ve been diagnosed with Crohn’s Disease) but at the same time I felt that because I try to be completely honest and open when posting here, any post would be weird if I omitted my heath problems because they have been virtually all-concuming. Excluding band stuff I have pretty much had to strip my life of all but essential activities. I have deferred from my film course, I am unemployed, and for a few months last year I was basically housebound. Things have improved a great deal since commencing medications, but my condition still remains precarious until I can find the correct combination of medications. I’m currently taking Corticosteroids, Mesalazine and Azathioprine.
Over the course of the past few months I’ve had to overcome a lot of obstacles in terms of the way I think about western medicine. I was raised by very ‘New Age’ parents. My mother is a doctor of Chiropractic who has studied numerous holistic therapies and incorporates all of the above into her own techniques of healing. My father is an ex ambulance officer. All through my childhood I was given the impression that western doctors were incompetent fools with little knowledge of the true nature of the human body. My own experiences have by no means refuted this fact, but it has presented me with some internal conflicts when making decisions regarding suggested medications that seem to have a long list of brutal side-affects, or even going through the process of diagnoses. But in truth, my circumstances have given me little choice: my symptoms remained too severe while attempting to treat myself alternatively to the western medical approach, so I therefore decided to take the drugs suggested. It presents me with additional internal conflicts regarding my choice of a vegan lifestyle too, but that’s another story.
I certainly feel as though I’ve gone through a number of psychological evolutions over the course of my diagnoses and treatment. All have ultimately been positive, but most have been born out of extreme physical and emotional anguish. Some of the most important or note worthy have just been things like I mentioned before: coming to terms with the seeming necessity of western medicine in the treatment of my condition in it’s current state, but also learning how to deal with the anger I felt as a result of ‘having to deal with this shit’ and not just being able to go about my life as normal.
Bang! One of the first ever African-American leading men just coped it right between the eyes! On a lighter note: Night of the Living Dead is really an awesome movie. I’m so glad I got the opportunity to see it at the cinema not last year but the year before. Gorge A. Romero was attending the Melbourne International Film Festival for I think it must have been The Diary of the Dead, and he came out and did a Q and A after it screened (Night of the Living Dead) at ACMI. It was great to see him still so excited to talk about a film he made so long ago and the session was really informative.
Anyway I’m pretty tired so I think I’ll hit the ol’ dusty.
