More Physiotherapy for Russel and More Transcribing For Me

Wednesday, April 3, 2019
Bombay

More Physiotherapy for Russel and More Transcribing For Me

     Namaste from Bombay!
     Same old, same old! Nothing very exciting to report today--so I shall keep it brief. Well, the trips I will take soon are exciting...but that apart, nothing much.
     Awake at 6.30, blogged, read my Twitter feed and made my breakfast of muesli and coffee while watching Mary Berry--whom I am delighted to find on You Tube.
     Next. I left my place, walked briskly on a beautiful April morning to Dad's to be present while Valerian conducted physiotherapy with Russel. Dad and I had a chat with him and congratulated him on his being so astute in telling us where we ought to be heading with regards to Russel's condition. He reassured us that the knee fusion surgery through the use of a rod will be the best way to go as he has seen the huge difference it has made in patients that he has treated. He assured us that Russel will walk so much better than he is doing now--that he will be stable and able to move about with so much more assurance and confidence. It was very heartening to talk to him.
      I can see that poor Dad is feeling so disheartened to have to face this complicated surgery that lies ahead for Russel, but I am trying my best to boost him up and make him feel more optimistic about things. I keep telling him to focus on the positive. I keep telling him that we must face up to reality--that Russel may never have the the kind of lifestyle he had earlier, but that we must be grateful for the many years in which he had full and complete freedom to go wherever he chose. I have to tell him that this is a natural process of ageing--we have to give up some things we enjoyed doing and accept a more sedentary lifestyle--sadly, it is happening to Russel earlier than most--but we need to accept this as part of God's plan for him and take it with fortitude and stoicism.
     I know that Dad feels that although he has been praying so much, his prayers are not being heard. But I feel just the opposite. I feel that the Lord is answering our prayers in His own ways--by sending Valerian to us, he has sent another Angel who was astute enough to tell us to go to other orthopedists and get other opinions. And in being pro-active and going to these specialists, we are getting the best counsel--so that we now need to make some decisions that will all work towards helping Russel get better rather than keeping him as helpless as he currently is. All of this is God's work, I feel--His answers to our prayers are coming in concrete ways. I find that a lot of my work here in Bombay is counseling Dad and rah-rahing him towards the next objective and then being there to support him as all of us go through Russel's treatment together.
     Back home, I spent the rest of my day transcribing. I was chained to my laptop as I finished transcribing two interviews (all part of my past backlog) and was in the middle of the third when I had to leave for the Novena and Evening Mass. In-between I had my lunch and a pot of tea with a few nuts. In keeping with my GP's advice, I am now eating one chapati per meal--so I have added healthy carbs now to my diet but I have knocked off the unhealthy carbs I was eating at tea-time (cakes, cookies, etc). I finished the five day course of tablets he had prescribed for my inexplicable stomach gripes and I am very happy to say that they are a thing of the past. Hopefully, cutting off dal (which I always thought was so good for us!) and adding a second vegetable each day, will work well for me and also keep my weight low! The whole idea of cutting off carbs was to keep down weight and make my clothes feel comfortable because I am not going to shop for anything new while here! It seems to be working...fingers crossed.
     Meanwhile, at my laptop, in corresponding with people in different parts of the world, I have finalized a trip at the end of May and into early June to South America where I shall be participating in a Liberal Studies conference with all my NYU colleagues in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Llew will be joining me there--so I am already looking forward very much to seeing him again soon. As I also want to follow up the research I am doing here with Catholic Goans on the Portuguese colonial legacy of their involvement in Western music, the two of us will make a detour to Rio de Janeiro in Brazil where we will be the guests of our professor friend Rosana de Freitas from the University of Rio. Llew has never been to Brazil--so it will be a good holiday for him--I have been to Rio, about four years ago, and did the tourist circuit quite throughly then..so I shall focus a lot more on my research interests while there.
     Also very exciting is a new Fulbright teaching opportunity that has opened up for me in, of all places, Uzbekistan--former Soviet Republic. I have been invited by Tashkent State University to teach Writing Workshops for their students--this was a result of the contacts I made during the Fulbright conference in Cochin. All travel and visa formalities are now being sorted for my departure at the end of this month.  Time is short and I have a lot of preparation to do before I leave--but hopefully, everything will fall into place as I get to Tashkent. It is my hope, while there, to visit the fabled cities of Samarkand and Bukhara and I am hoping I will have the company of another Fulbrighter based in Tashkent, Greig, to do some day trips to these exotic cities.
     Dad is really enjoying the IPL cricket matches and each evening after Mass, when we part at his gate, I can see that he is in a hurry to go home to switch on his TV set--he keeps telling me that each match is more exciting than the next. When I meet him the next morning, he explains such things to me as "run-out" and how it affected a recent match that gave victory to the Mumbai Indians because the other side did not protest soon enough! The next night, he said, the match was even more exciting. He keeps telling himself that he should try to go to bed by 11.00 pm, but he says that the matches are so compelling that he stays put at the TV set. And he was so glad he did because in one match he was witness to someone getting a "hat trick" which is a very rare occurrence in cricket. Russel goes by the clock...so he does not watch the IPL matches--he is fast asleep by 9.00 pm on most nights.
     I got home, had my dinner and watched Traitors on Netflix as the actress Keeley Hawes tweeted about it (I follow her on Twitter). I found it rather confusing and am hoping it will make sense soon.
     A quick chat with Llew and I turned the light down and fell asleep.
     Tomorrow is a very busy and very long day for me as I start off with an interview at 10.00 am, will do three of them and will return home only after dinner in Colaba where I have been invited by a friend who is visiting from America.
     Until tomorrow...