There IS Always Good

Introduction

This is a Seven Days In post from May 2015, after I had been diagnosed with Cirrhosis of the liver (which eventually led to Liver Cancer), but it did show me a lot of positives. You can see that in 2015, I found positives as I still do today, ten years later.

There IS Always Good

After the disappointment of the Election result, all my friends seemed to be under a cloud, with good reason, and yesterday I finished the day with a bone density scan because I have cirrhosis of the liver.

When I was diagnosed with that, even my consultant, as well as a lot of my friends, expected me to take it badly. This guy is a total top NHS consultant who is one of the most brilliant and nicest, and most supportive people I have ever met. I won't name him here, but his first name begins with Q, and if you know me and the Freeman, you may work it out. My reply was that because I'd been on a trial that he had asked me to be on (testing a new drug which I'd volunteered for because if people didn't do things like that I wouldn't be here today) we had caught this very early and therefore knew about it , and though it's irreversible (at the moment) it means I just have to take extra care.

If I hadn't been on the trial, I probably wouldn't have known until something bad happened, so in my opinion, it was a good outcome. Oh, and he spotted muscle wastage in my left hand, which he reckoned was a trapped nerve (this is when I lost the horizontal use of my left hand and it was decided it may have been a TIA). He got me a referral, and severe nerve damage in my elbows was diagnosed, and surgery has restored my hand to be 95% back to normal, though I only needed to use of two fingers to play bass guitar!

Anyway, after that lot, I came back into town and got off the bus on Northumberland Street and was about to cross the road to pick up some money from Ladbrokes when I saw the Globe Gallery.

They had an exhibition on of George Chakravarthi’s ‘Thirteen’, thirteen photographic light-boxed pictures of characters from Shakespeare who committed suicide. Here's some information lifted from the Globe Gallery Site:

Thirteen

‘Thirteen’ is a photographic installation by London-based artist George Chakravarthi. Commissioned by the Royal Shakespeare Company to mark the 450th anniversary of Shakespeare’s birth. The work portrays thirteen of Shakespeare’s tragic characters, all of whom meet their ends through suicide. Embedded in light boxes, Chakravarthi has created a series of powerful self-portraits, where he assumes the roles of some of Shakespeare’s most celebrated yet doomed characters: Brutus, Cassius, Eros, Goneril, Mark Antony, Othello, Timon of Athens, Lady Macbeth, Portia, Ophelia, Cleopatra, Juliet and Romeo.

Chakravarthi says of the project:

‘The portraits are multilayered and imbued with colour and texture, created to present my vision of each image and character, revealing the beauty, anguish and complexities found across Shakespeare’s tragedies.’

The Gallery are also promoting Suicide Awareness, which obviously ties in with the exhibition. The two ladies whom I spoke to were extremely helpful, pleasant, and easy and interesting to talk to. I think I was talking for about twenty minutes while we talked about other projects and events.

We still have a lot to look forward to, and we have friends who can see us through and support us when we come up against difficult situations, and remember to always be there to help anyone who needs it.

The music for this is Medicine Head's "Pictures in the Sky", though the Afro-haired guy doesn't really contribute that much 😁