hola todos:

i have become like bruce chatwin in one limiting, negative way: it has become excruciatingly difficult for me to write as a regular discipline while trying to live th settled life. it grates. it feels gratuitous- boring & pretentious at one & th same time. th emotional ground, th very impulse to write feels tainted- rotted thru w/ old, accumulated grievances- at th pathological posturing dance of avoidance & procrastination my brothers & i laboriously fritter our anxiously comfortable lives away on, for example.

it seems all th long-simmering, paralysing, accumulated anger & frustration in my life finally found physical expression.

two weeks ago tuesday, a marble-sized growth popped up in my inner left thigh, close by th groin.

it seemed like a lymph node but th lack of any other symptoms- pain or tenderness in th area, body aches or general malaise-had me entertaining some options in my mind- a little hernia just now expressing itself??

friday after treatment my acupuncturist was leaning, not very convincingly or convinced herself, towards a fatty cyst diagnosis- but i did feel th little stringy attachments that whispered 'lymph node'...

dr.dad rendered unquestionable verdict as lymph node on saturday. i forget if by this time th swelling had grown to cue marble size...also not sure if i was experiencing pain already- certainly generalized malaise, like some virus coming on, & growing discomfort in th area of th swelling...as is his style, dr.dad pontificated speculatively- some local infection-certainly i'd gotten countless scrapes on th seagrapes & pricked myself on thorns from th lime bush- all trees in th property are diseased to greater or lesser extent, covered in one form of fungus or another- bougainvillea & star of india besides th formerly mentioned. then there's th mysterious tree just outside th entrance gate, w/ big green pods & little thorns all over- local lore deems it poisonous so that it can kill a weak man...

when i went for a second opinion, my cousin tate, family practitioner in vega baja, wanted me to start on broad spectrum antibiotics immediately. a week's cycle was just under $71 at walgreen's. later for that.

around two in th morning late sunday night th first crisis woke me: cold, shivery fever, intense pain shooting both down my leg & up into my abdomen. i cannot remember if i went dowstairs for a couple of aspirin or just held on tight, curled into a fetus under th sheet until th symptoms subsided in a pool of sweat around daybreak. i wd guess th latter.

i spent monday napping, recovering, waiting fruitlessly for my brother javier to drive me in for a formal looksee by dr.tate(that's two syllables)centered around th obligatory blood tests. javier's energies were taken up w/ fixing th new fridge w/ th help of a tech buddy of his. he did relay my dad's eureka insight message: i had cat scratch fever disease.

(a suivre...)