DesDownunder

Thanks Pedro. Your story about the opiate painkillers aligns with my experience in that I refused the oxycondone injections and caused the nurse much frustration as she was determined that I needed them. She muttered something about the need for the injections as it took too long for the painkiller to build in the body to be effective, and it was best to keep the levels constant. She did not seem to understand that I had no pain, or at least no pain with which I could not cope. Since leaving hospital some surgeons, pharmacists, and my doctor have all told me that they are aware that some people are susceptible to hallucinations when on oxycondone, and that I must have had a really bad reaction. No kidding? I am still a little unsteady on my feet, but at least my cognition seems to be intact even if a word I want hides behind a train of thought speeding through the neuron tunnels of my brain to connect to the next available synapse station. Moral of the story is, prepare yourself for a much slower recovery period than the surgeon told you; especially if you are over 70. Also typing these posts has taught me to warn anyone silly enough to edit my work in the future had best be able to cope with runaway typos and missing words. I am sorry to hear about your partner. My partner, despite having all the papers and power of attorney was stopped from visiting me in hospital. He caused quite a commotion, I believe, at the hospital information desk. The hospital now knows better than to ruffle the feathers of an empowered gay man.

After my recent run-in with an anaesthetic that caused me one hell of a hallucination (reported elsewhere,) I must tell you that Bi Janu's story is very close to many truths. However, I would like to comment, not on Bi Janus story, but on the coincidence of "sad teenager" stories. Cole Parker is revealing his sad teen story, and I have a story under construction that touches on more than one element of these stories. The challenge here, is to find a way to keep accusations of plagiarism at bay. I have no concern that my story would be considered part of a conspiracy to drown AD in a sea of teen sad tears, but I amused by the coincidence of the themes and settings being so close to each other. To Cole, I am enjoying your story very much, and am waiting with exasperation for the next chapter.

Yes Cole, I did notice fratchety, and immediately googled it. I was rewarded with a definition. I was as surprised as I suspect you were.

What wonderful story! Recovering from my recent surgery this story gave me some much needed rest from my self-obsession with hospitals. I also found some further proof of my Welsh ancestry (mixed with a taint of Scottish.) I swear that through Mihangel's writing I heard the Land of my Fathers with fresh ears and tears in my eyes for the love that comes to us all if we will but wait. Even if it means waiting All Through The Night. Recommended.

I shifted my comment to the other thread after I found it.

Thanks guys, you make me feel wanted. Bruin, I think you understand what I went through. My medical notes are all ,marked now, "Do not administer opioids." It is a strange twist of fate that my only recreational drugs have been coffee and tobacco. Now, of course, I have stopped smoking with the aid of a nicotine mouth spray. This is approved by my physicians. Today, I had my yearly checkup with my cardiologist who certified me as medically fit, even if I am still a little fragile. His assessment was most welcome, and I immediately felt better when he told me I should continue to improve. The reason I have an annual cardiologist checkup is because I was born with a hole in the heart which was repaired when I was 19. The anaesthetics used back in those days was morphine and pethidine, and under their influence all I did was astral project around the hospital without the horrors of oxycondone. Anyway that's the way I remember it, but even so, it was enough for me to never want to try hard drugs. If I need an anaesthetic in the future I think I will recommend an axe. Thanks again everyone, life sure has its interesting moments.

So someone did notice I was AWOL. Boy, do I have a story for you. Apart from developing glaucoma and in need of cataract surgery, both of which makes typing difficult, I have been beset with a threatening condition which I will now attempt to share with you all. In fact the experience of the last 4 months or so, may prove intensive enough to fuel a couple of stories. To give you the background I will tell you here, the true incidents whilst the stories will be fabricated from the experiences. However, I cannot help but tease you all whilst I relate the horrors that befell me. Last Christmas day I noticed a small lump on the side of my tongue. It looked like an ulcer and wasn't painful. I decided to wait until my doctor came back from his Christmas break. I opened my mouth for him as this made it easier for him to examine my oral cavity. I would have offered other cavities for him to probe, but I wasn't in the mood for it. Like me he felt we should give the "ulcer" a couple of weeks to see what happens. Who knows it might go away. It didn't, but neither did it get any worse. A couple of more weeks and the good doctor sent me to an oral surgeon who told me that the biopsy he performed on the ulcer had returned a positive result. I had a tumour, or something. That was the day I stopped smoking, February 5th 2016. By March 16th I was in the operating theatre having about a third, perhaps less, of my tongue being cut out. I thought about the priests in the film Land of the Pharaohs who had their tongues removed so that they couldn't tell anyone where the Pharaoh's body was located in the great pyramid. Deep into a near death anaesthetic coma, my true horror began, The anaesthetic they used was called oxycondone and as I now know it causes hallucination in some people, in particular -me. You know how, when you have a nightmare, like you dream you have killed the cat instead of the mouse, you tell yourself not to worry because it's only a dream and that you should wake up. Well, the hallucination that the anaesthetic caused in me didn't allow me to recognise that I was dreaming or having an hallucination. I totally believed that the hallucination was real. I was certain that the doctors were trying to kill me, and not being able to awaken only confirmed my drugged out brain that I had to escape their maniacal attempts to murder me. The nurses and student doctors were taking blood from my arms and checking it out to ascertain whether the poison, hemlock, was in fact strong enough to do its job. Then I thought I saw a policeman and I tried to tell him I was being killed. I got hold of my mobile phone and rang home to try to get my hubby to rescue me. For five days this drug induced stupor slept with me in the recovery room. The fan in the ceiling rotated the ceiling, the room itself and my bed. One night a Hindu general was entertaining his latest wife in a huge cardboard box that was half filled with popcorn. A nurse had allowed two teenage boys with a large dog to sleep behind a door which led to a secret room. Walls shifted a corridor to reveal a new innovation in hospital wards. Move the walls instead of the staff and patients. There was much more to this hallucination experience, but I think you might have some idea of what it was like and why I have not been posting at AD. Eventually I was released from hospital and further testing of the tongue shows that not only was all the cancer removed, but it was so successful that I wouldn't need any radiation or chemo-therapy. Follow up reviews of my surgery confirm that all is well. Back home at last and the hallucinations wander in and out of my dreams into my consciousness. Each day they receded and i have found the devotion of my boyfriend more comforting than ever. Now I only have to worry about my upcoming cataract surgery and treatment for glaucoma. For those of you with an interest in Australian 's health system, my total cost was around 2 hundred dollars for subsidised fees for the oral surgeon. Everything else was covered by our public hospital system. So I guess you will have me around for a while yet.

I'd read it before, but I got more out of it this time. Perhaps this was because I just had a similar experience to Jeffery as consciousness returned to me after a general anaesthetic. I could have easily believed that the world had changed more, and yet remained the same. Certainly this story is a modern masterpiece.

Socrates was the man who was executed with the poison, Hemlock. Please read the summary of the lives of Socrates, Plato and Aristotle, here

Some of the disappointing subjects of the student films at the film school centre I worked at was the preponderance of horror stories (vampires, zombies, etc.) The demise of the so-called "classical education" has been accompanied by loss of the humanities in present day studies. A recent situation arose where, I asked a dozen or so medical students if they could tell me what hemlock was. Not one of them knew what I talking about, nor did their professors know. So my question for you, should you choose to answer is, "What is hemlock, and who was the most famous historical figure associated with it?" No googling the answer, this is a test of previously acquired knowledge.

I'm halfway around the world in Australia and I haven't had a big one since they stopped making the xxx large size condoms.

I have no intention of going to NZ. I don't think that New Zealand needs help with their earthquakes as they already have marriage equality.

The trouble is that Aussies face a Federal Election on July 2, and we are headed towards re-electing the no-tory-ous liberal national party (LNP) back into power. This disaster might be avoided if we could get some media coverage showing that the LNP wants to effect a Trump-like status across our once lucky country. We don't have a Canada to our North or even a Mexico to our South to which we might escape. All we have is a rightwing party of Aussie religious rednecks hiding behind their political aspirations; quite the equal to anything that the GOP can muster. I think our Aussie election will be a prophecy of the U.S. results, and that means the new Dark Age will have begun in Australia.

I was particularly thankful and impressed for being able to directly correspond with the ancient Greeks, Plato, Aristotle et al. However, it wasn't just those historical figures or the ancients of China or Egypt, that loomed large in my childhood; it was my love of the mysteries of life that kept me moving from the music of one civilisation to another. As the Moody Blues sang, Thinking Is The Best Way To Travel. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YqOiZjwQKaU&feature=youtu.be

To understand, assuming anyone wants to know, my experience with the written word, you first would have to know that my introduction to reading was my grandmother reading Noddy stories to me. After that I discovered Enid Blyton stories, "The Famous Five" and "The Secret Seven." I also found myself reading "Alice in Wonderland," as well as hearing my grandfather reciting some of the "Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam." School of course in those far off days introduced me to Shakespeare's plays. I was fortunate to have an English Teacher who was able to share his passion for literature without alienating me. As a backdrop to all this was radio; you see there was no TV when I grew up and I heard many, many plays and stories on the radio, complete with dramatic sounds and music. Oh, how I loved the way music could dramatise the words I heard. Even now I hear music when I read. Modern movies drive me crazy with their total lack of relationship to the story. Most times, modern soundtracks are little more than noise masquerading as music, and they do it very badly. This is not to say that there aren't some new forms of music that can compliment a reading, or a movie, but they are rare. Anyway back to the point, reading a book has its own soundtrack playing when I read, and I feel really fortunate to be able to hear the accompanying music to most stories I read. It's contained in the words, the poetry and the meaning of the written word, the meaning of the creativity of what drives us to write, read, and dare I say hear the message and beauty of the words.

Perhaps you could have a pi series that goes on forever... Just joking.

Thank you Cole, your kind words do help and we have, I believe, got everything under control. Now, if we just get our rightwing politicians to behave themselves...

I've been reading Colin's "One..." Series, and finding them very entertaining. I'm about half-way through the series, and they're just what I needed to relax with, during some difficult times in the real world. Thanks Colin.

Bruin never fails to seduce the reader with possibilities, past or present that paint a picture of the future. I can imagine a movie inspired by this story.

If it is disasters:you are watching for, then think on this Prime Minister Turnbull could be returned to office with a majority and later this year, the American people, not wanting to be outdone by the Aussies, elect Trump as their president.

Here in Aus, we are facing a federal government election. The replacement for the above mentioned village idiot (Tony Abbott) is another from the same village called Malcolm Turnbull. I have a suspicion that it is a whole village of idiots. Anyway, the requirements have been met for the election to be a double dissolution, to be chosen by the Prime Minister (Turnbull). Both houses of parliament would be dissolved by the Governor General under advice from the Prime Minister. This would mean all the seats in both House of Representatives and the senate would be vacant and thus subject to the election. The main parties are the Labor Party, The LNP (Liberal and National Party) and the Greens. Several smaller parties and Independents can be expected to take part. Unlike the long protracted election system of the U,S.A. We will probably have only a few weeks of campaigning and this helps us stopping the clowns from finding where the clown car was parked after the last election. Sadly, if the LNP wins the election we will, in my opinion, have a rightwing government intent on dismantling our health and welfare system, whilst simultaneously increasing tax benefits for the already too rich. The poor will be seriously disadvantage if that happens.

As a red-headed son of a red-headed mother, I can assure you that this bullying is all too common. But take heart. When I was 16 I learned that the Greek muscle men of ancient times, and the Romans of Latin good looks fame, revered the red-headed Norse people as Gods, desirable and worthy of being sought after as lovers. When I discovered this my whole world changed, and the local Greek and Italian descendants were very satisfied with my efforts to praise and appreciate their ethnicity.

Religion poisons everything ~ Christopher Hitchens

Cole, it's generally agreed that Fawlty Towers' episodes are all masterpieces of British humour.

Yes Cole, we had a colony of mice who thought that the cavity in our wall was a bungalow built for their inhabitation. However, since we gave our latest cat free reign over the house, I am pleased to announce the mice have either emigrated to another housing development or have supplemented the cat's diet. I suspect the latter.