February 3, 2010

Computer issues have taken me away from the blogging routine I was getting into. Things are getting more back to normal, although some data recovery work from 'crashed' hardrive has yet to be completed.

My mother is recovering from a nasty case of eczema which was compounded by her tendency to scratch herself every time she was experiencing some anxiety. The first hour of the day is most difficult for her. She is much disoriented. Doesn't know what day it is and wants to know all that is going to happen. She will shuffle down to my study and scratch as I write out the events of the day on a whiteboard. The cortisone cream and the prednisone treatment the doctor prescribed seem to be working. The inflammation is clearing up. The anxiety remains. I do not know if there is a direct causal link between anxiety and eczema but it would make sense, with scrathcing being the 'transmitter'.

We scratch where it itches. Sometimes we scratch just to scratch, perhaps to create an itch so we have something to scratch! It feels good to scratch. I have an itch to sow some pea seeds today...to scratch the soil, the skin of Mother Earth.