Red Eye Addendum
by ChrisJanuary 20th, 2006 2:07 am
Since Susie linked and people are looking, I just want to expand a little on my nearly non-existent commentary on the previous post. First of all, I wish the woman who received the world’s first face transplant all the best. I never meant the post to be cruel. I hope nobody took it that way.
Facial disfiguration is one of the most psychologically debilitating injuries a human being can ever experience. So long as the eyes are spared great harm, facial disfiguration is not an injury that keeps a person from climbing stairs without aid, buying beer at the corner store or walking down the street. It is, however, an injury that makes leaving the house a traumatic experience - an easily understandable agoraphobia.
Human beings, by their very nature, rely on facial expressions as a primary means of communication. It’s a little late and I’m a hair past drunk so I may be a bit off here, but I think that communication via facial expression is one of the defining characteristic of most of the large primates. Whatever. The reaction that most of us have to a person bearing a severelydisfigured face is, even with our huge brains and our well thought out moral codes, not particularly attractive. Whatever - I’m not sure where I’m going with this, so I’ll stop while I’m not too far behind.
I’m not interested in having a giggle at the expense of a woman who has suffered traumatic injury and undergone very experimental surgery which may, in the long run, benefit many. I was really just having a giggle at my own, nearly 20 year, addiction to cigarettes. I’ve amazed myself on many an occasion by smoking heavily regardless of whether I was quite healthy or quite ill.
I’ve known some to stop smoking with the flu or even a sore throat. Hell, I’ve known some to give up for a day or two because they are just too lazy to walk to the corner store. That’s not me. I always smoked through the flu, no matter how high the fever or how badly my lungs hurt. If anything, I probably smoked just a little more because I’m a bit of a baby about not feeling well and smoking always made my brain feel a just little better. I even smoked straight through an extremely unpleasant case of tuberculosis when I was a teenager. I barely had an inkling that I should stop, no matter how much my lungs felt like they had been intimate with 10,000 tiny band saws. Smoke gets in your eyes. Sometimes it leaks into your brain, in which case it’s damn hard to get out.
That’s all really. I understand why somebody who lost one face and just got another would feel the need to have a drag despite the best medical advise. That’s exactly what I would be doing.
Smoking is bad….blah..blah..blah. Good night!
January 20th, 2006 at 2:24 am
Good God, you smoked with TB? At least you were consistent. That’s one of the things I’ve always liked about you. Goodnight my friend.
January 20th, 2006 at 10:15 am
indeed. let nobody call you inconsistent.
January 21st, 2006 at 1:19 pm
I hear you, brother. As a smoker myself, I know how comforting that light-up can be during times of stress. I tell myself I’ve got to quit for my health. But then my brain says right back to me, what about my mental health?