Conflicting Medical Advice

One of the drugs I’ve been pre­scribed for my col­i­tis, Asacol, is delay-released, which means it has a spe­cial coat­ing that makes it trav­el through the stom­ach, and absorbed only in the colon. This spe­cif­ic brand is released in the left and end of the colon, which is where my col­i­tis is. I often get con­flict­ing advice about how to take the drug:

  • The instruc­tions that came with the med­ica­tion say it can be tak­en with or with­out food
  • The first phar­ma­cist told me to wait an hour after eat­ing before tak­ing the pills
  • The sec­ond phar­ma­cist told me I did­n’t need to wait and could have it with food and oth­er med­ica­tions
  • The third phar­ma­cist told me that delayed release drugs should be tak­en on an emp­ty stom­ach, and may have con­flicts with oth­er drugs
  • My gas­troin­testi­nal spe­cial­ist told me I could take it with food

It’s gen­er­al­ly tak­en that the doc­tor’s advice takes prece­dence over any­thing else. But as a per­son who works in the med­ical indus­try, where doc­tors are fre­quent­ly revealed to be incom­pe­tent, I know that not all of them know what they’re talk­ing about.

Scary, for an indus­try in which we put so much blind faith. Who am I sup­posed to believe?

Goodbye, Love

Tulip carnation bouquet

On our last day togeth­er she brought me a bou­quet of tulips and car­na­tions, and a Joe Hisaishi CD — a child­hood mem­o­ry of mine she ordered from Japan. I had men­tioned it in pass­ing on one of our walks as the only album I’ve been unable to find for down­load or pur­chase, and there it was, in my hands.

We watched Before Sunrise, and after­ward, we laid next to each oth­er on the couch, silent, unsure of what to say, because there was no com­fort to be had. Soon, I was kiss­ing the tears from her face, over and over again.

She asked what she was going to do with­out me. How long it was going to be before we saw each oth­er again. Whether a sim­ple phone call was allowed. I could say noth­ing, because I under­stood the neces­si­ty of it all.

So she said she was being reduced to an observ­er, and I grew cold and dis­tant. It was the first time I had con­sid­ered my own feel­ings, when I had felt reduced to much more than that, and she was­n’t mak­ing it any eas­i­er. With her lips on my neck and her hand through my hair, she com­fort­ed me in turn, and our pas­sion took hold of us one last time.

Before she left, I hugged her, felt her tears grow cold on my shoul­der, and kissed her once more on the cheek. Thank you, she said.

My heart has been filled with a calm sad­ness ever since. A strug­gle between the pain of being away from her, and know­ing that it’s for the best. That we would be stronger, and more sta­ble when it was all over.

In the days since, I’ve remem­bered the things I want­ed to say to her before she left my back porch, run­ning to car with­out look­ing back before the emo­tion could over­whelm her. Things that did­n’t come to my head because I was too focused on keep­ing myself togeth­er.

Don’t stop cre­at­ing. Take care of your­self. I love you.

In A Flash Photo Contest '09

Photo contest entry

Photo contest entry

For the In A Flash pho­to con­test this year, I got run­ner up to the main prize for this pho­to I took of my muse, and an hon­ourable men­tion for my pic­ture of Pat in Jen’s wed­ding dress in the humour cat­e­go­ry.

I did­n’t tie with myself like last time1, but I was still glad to get two of my pho­tographs in there.

  1. It was a blind judg­ing again, where there are no names to the pho­tos, so there’s no favoritism. At the same time, this means more than one pho­to by the same per­son may be award­ed. [↩]

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Large Print

Large print

Large print

I final­ly got a large print made for myself, of the frozen lake from my trip to New Hampshire. You real­ly need to see the orig­i­nal from the entry (on black) to get an idea of what the pic­ture looks like, because the shot I took above does­n’t do it jus­tice as I was expos­ing for the gen­er­al area in my liv­ing room, los­ing much of the detail of the pic­ture. At over 48″ wide and 32″ tall, it cost me a pret­ty pen­ny, but it was oh so worth it.

After some extra tweak­ing on my end to bring out the con­trast, my awe­some print­er brought out the trunks of the white birch trees in the left for­est using Photoshop, adding a touch of con­trast and detail. The pic­ture was lam­i­nat­ed with a mat­te fin­ish, so there’s no glass to reflect (and hence dis­tract), from he win­dows. Then my framer used one of her new fram­ing tech­niques where she takes tex­tured fab­ric and stretch­es it over an inside bor­der (instead of a mat board), then adds a frame that’s smooth but not flat1. The colours fit right in with the walls, while the bor­der and frame match­es the couch.

It’s the first pic­ture I’ve used to dec­o­rate the main floor of my house, because I’m real­ly picky about the stuff I put up on my walls. This one was cho­sen because the sky, the sun­set, the ice and the pat­terns in it, all speak emo­tion to me, which is what I try to achieve in my pic­tures, and some­thing I enjoy look­ing at.

  1. This means I sign, stamp, and num­ber the pic­ture on the pic­ture itself, since there’s no mat board to write on. [↩]