Being – temporarily – almost back in the land of the living, I am going to celebrate with a short post. <\/p>\n

I can’t say that I haven’t been humbled by a brush with bizarre and incomprehensible illness. Because I see that my rejoicing in my health and strength and energy was hubris in its most fate-tempting form. <\/p>\n

I’m still in shock. Within 24 hours after happily scrambling up wilderness hills, I was screaming in agony and getting Kafkaesquely treated like a demented lunatic who was probably faking their identity (due to my official first name not being the one I was known by) and faking their date of birth (bizarrely by twenty years in either direction) and was screaming in agony just to annoy hospital staff who had “really” sick people to look after. (And was probably 8 months pregnant but denying it for reasons best known to the clinically insane.)<\/p>\n

(I must say that most of the hospital staff who treated me were kindness and mercy personified. The evil witch nurse responsible for most of the Kafkaesque-ness even came and apologised profusely to me, incomprehensibly saying “I thought they were making it up” but that in no way stopped her treating me as a non-person.)<\/p>\n

After a few hospital stays, ambulance emergencies and enough painkillers to allow a minor amputation and enough antibiotics to cure an outbreak of the plague in a small African country, I am at home and even well enough to sit at the PC for hours at a time. <\/p>\n

But clearly not well enough to think about anything except myself…. <\/p>\n

I have to go for an operation in three weeks but I feel almost human. (A bit more human even, given that I am amazed and gratified to be alive.) I will try to restore some semblance of normal blogging asap. <\/p>\n

Thanks to everyone who left kind wishes on T_W’s post.<\/p>\n