I call them Wilson, Keppel and Betty. They live inside my brain. I think they are three, but there may be more than one Betty. They are not the Wilson, Keppel and Betty some may remember, if anyone does, although, just the same, they sprinkle sand and scrape it around with their feet.
Betty, however many there are, is not too bad. She is not there all the time. She tries to make you forget things. Like when you know the name of the author of ‘Goodbye to Berlin’, but some cocky little sod from Edinburgh or Oxford shouts out Christopher Isherwood on ‘University Challenge’ while you are still thinking W. H. Auden, which you know is near but not quite right.
I can just about cope with Keppel. He makes your mouth slack and flobby, and blurs your words, but only when you are low on blood sugar. Others say they have not noticed, but that is how it feels to me.
No, Wilson is the worst. He used to put swirling patterns in my eyes. Dr. Hatfield tried to zap him away, but he came back. Mr. Thomson said he would cut him out, but he would not be able to cut all of him out, he would have to leave bits behind.
So Wilson is still there. He now blanks out a space just to the right of my point of focus, and if you can’t see the next along a line of then you can only read one word at a rather than fluently. I should learn mirror-reading, right to left.
He also moves words along, and up from the line below, and puts them where you are reading now, slows which letters slows things down even more. And, sometimes, he makes you look at letters for ages before you see what they are, and makes you write an M for a B, or a D for a P, or an S for C.
He is a total mactarp. I have to get the computer to read things out, or Mrs. D.
They have stopped their sand dance for now. So long as I keep taking the Tepmetko Tepotinib they will be quiet. They don’t like it. It makes them ill. It makes me ill too, but not as ill as it makes them. Dr. Brown says that one day they will decide they have had enough and do away with me. It might be this year, but we thought that this time last year, so who knows? Perhaps they realise that if they do away with me, they do away with themselves as well. Mactarps!
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Wednesday 17 January 2024
Wilson, Keppel and Betty
https://youtu.be/pkhJpr2zR8s
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Tasker, I am not sure that I know what to say. Except that I admire your ability to describe such a condition in a way that raises a small smile despite the underlying reality of it. I fervently hope that they do not decide to do away with you for a very long time yet.
ReplyDeleteIt struck me some time ago that the makeup Wilson and Keppel used to look like the figures on Egyptian tombs, and the old flickering film, made them look like a couple of brain tumours.
DeleteSuch a creative way to describe medical symptoms! I hope Wilson, Keppel and Betty are kept at bay for a long, long time.
ReplyDeleteThank you. It's an attempt to give some idea of why I make so many spelling and writing mistakes. WK&B can piss off back to their Egyptian tombs as far as I'm concerned.
DeleteJoe Keppel was an uncle of my first mother in law, there was more than one Betty, one was the daughter of the first one.
ReplyDeleteI remember seeing them on the London Palladium show on TV. My mother was excited they were on. There are other videos inline and I find them hilarious. Those were the days when you could tour the country with the same act for years and years. It's interesting to read up about them. They last performed at Great Yarmouth in 1962. The first millionaire winner on Who Wants to be a Millionaire, Judith Keppel, as a relation.
DeleteI didn't realise that your well-being and indeed your sense of self was being challenged in this way. Keep battling on old chap as your presence in The Great Blogosphere of Life is widely appreciated. That sand dance looks remarkably like an Irish jig in places.
ReplyDeleteThank you. The videos online use various pieces of music, all similar, such as the Egyptian Ballet (1875) by Alexandre Luigini.
DeleteThe sand dance tune sounds like an Irish jig even.
ReplyDeleteSee response to YP above. I wonder how they would have been received in an Irish folk club.
DeleteAssigning illness is a clever way of putting it in its place, it must be very frustrating but your approach reflects your strong personality. So Wilson, Keppel and Betty please behave yourself we are all very fond of Tasker! Thelma
ReplyDeleteThank you Thelma. Gwynneth (gz ook!) said they also found naming it was helpful. Laughing at an enemy is a good strategy.
DeleteGood luck with your Wilson Keppel and Betty. I would never have known with the comments you leave for me. My brother who had a stroke a few years ago was telling me only the other day that he had had to relearn the alphabet and how to write again. Although I am very close to him and speak to him regularly he only just told me. I was quietly shocked.
ReplyDeleteI guess it is similar to a stroke in many ways. You just have to check and double check everything. Your brother must have been very persistent.
DeleteTrying to think of something useful to say and can't. Your situation sucks, but despite all that you manage to find humour in those tumours. You are a courageous man.
ReplyDeleteTumour humor! It helps. It really does.
DeleteTasker, I've always admired your creativity but you can tell these three to behave themselves! I'm sorry you have to deal with this. You have all my best wishes and admiration. I always appreciate your interesting and creative posts!
ReplyDeleteThank you. Support of Blogger friends is a big help. I hope I can continue being creative. It is one of the things I most enjoy.
DeleteWhen I had a stroke I woke up bereft of nouns. Every noun. I had adjectives, but no nouns. I has to relearn all. I kept a notebook and wrote them down as I learned them. Interestingly, as I beat up my brain for the withheld knowledge, I found myself able to talk around a noun without sounding stupid, and better yet, dredging up arcane nouns from Shakespeare or Chaucer. Strange times.
ReplyDeleteThere are always coping strategies. It must have been strange to lose just nouns. I've heard of people not being able to read analogue clocks, but being ok with digital. The working of the brain are hard to understand.
DeleteWhat a trio! Thank you for explaining about them. I do hope they realise indeed that doing away with your means their own demise as well, and they put that off for a lot longer.
ReplyDeleteWhen my Dad had a minor stroke (many years before he died, only a year after he retired), he lost and never regained the ability to whistle. And when dementia began to set in, more often than not he would remember a song but not the word he was actually looking for. Abstract things, mainly anything that had to do with numbers/figures (times, years and so on) were completely gone from his mind. But he remembered even his sister's long phone number (she lives in Denmark, which means there is the international prefix, too), because he memorised that one as an entity, like a word or term, not like a series of numbers.
I guess we store things away in different ways in different parts of the memory, and some can be affected while others are not. Have you seen what Joanne said above about nouns?
DeleteYes, it was actually Joanne's comment that reminded me of what my Dad lost after his stroke and later with dementia.
DeleteYou are a brave man and I applaud you.
ReplyDeleteI think one has to keep positive. I'm sure that some people sink into lethargy and give up. I'm lucky in being able to find things I can do and enjoy - maybe a bit like Weave.
DeleteHaven't thought of them for years and years. Sorry they inhabit your brain. Whoever said 'old age is not for cissies' got it right. Battle on dear Tasker - it's the ony way as I too am finding out. With me silly things inhabit for a day or two - a song I haven't thought of for years, some silly little happening rom the past. I tell myself someone or something is having a good old spring clean up there. Soldier on dear bloggy friend - onward and upward is my motto. Best wishes.
ReplyDeleteThank you. I think we are similar in being able to enjoy simple things. The video of Wilson K&B is very entertaining if you can see it. They retired in 1962.
DeleteThank you for describing it all in ways we can all understand, with humour (when obviously it's not fun). My Dad was on morphine before he died but was not in thrall to it - he had hallucinations but for the most part knew exactly what they were and would describe them humorously for the rest of us to enjoy (and try to understand).
ReplyDeleteThank you. Yes, I was trying to give an idea and simulate what I experience. I'm learning to cope better and better. Maybe I should learn how to read in a mirror.
DeleteMactarps indeed. Your take on what is otherwise a somber topic is interesting and clever. I wish I could write this well!
ReplyDeleteThank you. I wish I could be consistent. I might have coined a new word there. Ronnie Barker would have used it in Porridge if he had thought of it.
DeleteI applaud you, Tasker, humour is a great way to beat many troubles and I'm sure you'll get the upper hand on Betty, Watson and Keppel.
ReplyDeleteI hear you clapping. We know someone who was told she had only about 6 months to live. That was 15 years ago! I doubt I'll do that well.
DeleteI was sitting here feeling sorry for myself, as I have a bad cold, but you have made me realise things could be so much worse. So sorry to hear you are plagued with this. You sound cheerful, although I suppose resigned to it. Sending hugs.
ReplyDeleteThank you. Actually I think a bad told would be worse. I'm OK at the moment and hope to be so for a long time yet.
DeleteAbsolutely brilliant piece of writing, Tasker, although being a dumb Yank I had no idea who Wilson and Keppel were. Upon viewing the video it seems they were forerunners of Monte Python. I'm so sorry for what you are having to endure, but you have gone a long way in enlightening the rest of us what , exactly, that is. Can't help you with the Bettys, either, but I can confidently report that there was more than one Darrin in Bewitched and more than one Becky in Roseanne. Keep on keeping on, Tasker. We're all pulling for you out here in Blogland.
ReplyDeleteThank you, I try my best. Wilson and Keppel performed variations of this same act in Britain's music halls for decades, starting after the discovery of Tutenkhamum tomb in the 1920s. I don't think they did anything else, but they were enormously popular. There were indeed several Bettys over the years.
DeleteI can only echo the sentiments expressed in the comments of others, as I can think of nothing original or helpful to say. Hopefully you'll be around for a good long while yet.
ReplyDeleteThanks. We're all getting older, and these things happen.
DeleteI saw the heading of this a few days ago when I happened to be going through things quickly before going out and I thought "A music hall reminisce - I'll pop back". Big lesson. Never assume anything in life! Especially in Blogland. Fortunately (for me) I popped back.
ReplyDeleteEver since I was diagnosed and operated on for cancer 28 years ago each time the cancer recurred I played the Glad Game and, so far, it's worked. I only had three weeks between diagnosis and removal so I never had to time to develop a coping mechanism with what was inside me. However, as a PEROLIM I would never have thought of your coping mechanism and brilliant way of conveying it.
Of course, like everyone else, I hope that all goes well and that you find ways to work around it and keep on blogging and enjoying life.
(PEROLIM = Person of little imagination).
Thanks for returning. I think by definition bloggers cannot be PEROLIMs. But some posts turn out better than others.
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