Health And Otherwise

In 1860, his annus mirabilis, it seems that Garibaldi, as he often did at various times, was suffering badly from chronic arthritis. It could affect him so badly that there were occasions he needed to be carried by others. The guy was amazing, as Christopher Hibbert's excellent biography makes abundantly clear. He was also, it would seem, amazingly lucky. You lose count of the number of times you think This time he's going to lose some battle or other when the odds are, as usual, stacked against him. Oddly, he generally, though not always, behaved as if he were assured of victory. This is a guy, you feel, who made his own luck.

Not so lucky, at the moment, is Mum with these damned shingles. The doctor predicted the pain would go in two to three weeks. It's now the fifth week, and she thinks it's getting worse. We're just hoping for a sudden change in the condition. I'm ringing on a daily basis so she can have a good moan about it. It's all I can do, and it seems to do her some good. Or maybe that's just wishful thinking on the part of someone who's powerless to be of any real help.

On the other hand, brother-in-law John seems to be making a good recovery from his knee op. He went outside for the first time since he was under the knife the other day, he informed me with the kind of enthusiasm that shows he's on the mend. It would be a relief to hear some of the same from Mum.

And me? I've been off the medication (for my sciatica) for a week or so and it's not been too difficult to deal with the pain. I'll be seeing the doc on Friday afternoon and I'm hoping he lays off prescribing the pills for a while. Apart from the fact I'm not keen on becoming dependent on medicines generally, it's been suggested that my puffy cheeks (people think I've put on weight when I'm the lightest I've been since my late teens) may be a side effect of something I've been ingesting. Mind you, I think it could simply be that my face is collapsing due to old age.