Of Flu and Foe

It feels like there is an elephant living inside my face. But the real question is, why did I catch a bout of the flu... during July? You know when everything is confusing but there are just a few things you know you can count on, like your sense of smell or ears that don't constantly hurt like a stubbed toe. But then, BAM!! all of a sudden, those are gone too. Oh, and the worst part is waiting for a fever to break. It's like transitioning between two strange states of hazy consciousness - from absolute frozen-ness and uncontrollable shivering to experiencing the raging heat of fire because you've put on 27 layers and curled up in the fetal position underneath 4 blankets - something which proves to be not completely sensible at this time of the year. Having siblings without the flu doesn't exactly help either. The three of our rooms are controlled by one thermostat. Do you see what I'm saying? It has also been made quite apparent that constant sniffling and big, wheezing coughs are welcomed with no sympathy whatsoever in this house. So yeah, the flu in July has been an interesting experience.

But, like always, there is something else and I think I need to stop avoiding exactly what I want to discuss here.

Alright, here goes...

This past week was a rough one at the nursing home. I've been doing a lot of work in the Alzheimer's/dementia unit which is kind of weird for some reason. It just feels different than what I was doing last year, while remaining completely and tangibly identical. I don't think I like having even the smallest understanding of what's happening inside these nice people's brains. It makes me dread going there sometimes because I don't want to put faces and people and families on the same, connected level with a horrifying disease that I spent some time observing from afar. It just doesn't seem fair in any respect.

I'm also starting to feel like my constant pursuit of scientific knowledge will soon make me lose the ability to think as a human. Having more knowledge makes it more and more difficult for me to choose a profitable balance, a righteous judgement between times when one should leave intellect aside and when it should be utilized to the fullest.

I started to study topics of human biology when I did because it was the only thing that made sense to me and eventually helped me to understand other things that did not make sense to me. But as I am delving deeper, this line between the understandable and the not understandable is becoming slightly blurred. I know that this is only because I am doing more and more of it and actually getting to see the multitudes of nuances in the topic, but it leaves me seriously wondering whether or not this could be my complete undoing.

But at the same time, it feels different when I'm just studying the worms through a microscope. Because they're just worms. Worms with Alzheimer's but worms nonetheless. I constantly keep bouncing between these two mannerisms - do I avoid the human aspect and focus on worms or do I allow the important, yet weird-to-feel implications help me improve in other respects? I don't really know what to do. It bothers me just the slightest bit because biology used to be my safe haven from confusion. It offered me a mental challenge that I could overcome with a (seemingly) foolproof logical approach. But now, now it has become something of my foe. Biology also gave me this dumb flu, so we're not on very good terms at this moment...

Now, this unhinged-ness may be due to the cough medicine or my own half-conscious neurosis, so don't worry, I won't make any decisions or do anything hasty until I have given this some thought.