Mdina – Malta -Dream Follow Up

September 11, 2025September 11, 2025 ~ quantumdreamer ~ Leave a comment

I first landed at Malta airport in mid-late August 1974. I was nine years old and flying from Lusaka to Heathrow. I was about to start my 11^th year incarcerated in an English preparatory school in Gloucestershire. As a child of the dawn I woke my mother to see dawn from 30,000 feet as we approached the island. It was a refuelling stop. My mother being a creature of the night was not overly impressed. By this time I already had ~50,000 air miles under my belt and I had a BOAC captain’s logbook to get filled in, another 5,000 miles to add to my tally.

Something very deep was touched as we approached the craggy light-brown rocks pinking in the sun. I knew this place, it seemed.

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The last time we went to Malta was at Easter in 2015. At the time I was keeping a poo blood diary to note symptoms. Not long after I was diagnosed with bowel cancer. I had a T3 tumour removed on 2^nd July 2015. On this visit we went to Mdina and remarked that inside its walls would be an interesting place to live. Properties within the walls are not for sale often. When they are the likes of Sotheby’s and Christie’s have them on their books.

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Clearly these are way out of our price range!!

I visited the airport a number of times on the way to school in the 70s and went to the island for another holiday around 1990. There was déjà vu of a profound kind, to the core.

My understanding of the link relates to my Christian priest-soldier life around 800 years ago. This is entwined with the first Sicily visits. {Insofar as I can tell} In this life I met my end in the oxymoronically named holy land. I was executed on a beach by “Arabs”. I had been under “protection” but there was political upheaval and that protection no longer held for the rebel faction. There were a number of us killed that night and early into the dawn. I can still smell burning oil used for torches. If I flare my nostrils now I can scent it. I can hear the drums and the noise.

I belonged to an order and wore the rosy cross over my chain mail. My function was largely scholastic and I was welcomed by Jew and Arab alike. For us knowledge was more important than creed. Here I was exposed to Kabbalah and to science. I had licence to travel where those of my creed were not usually welcome. I made several visits by sea. We found ways to speak amongst us and using Latin was one of those. The “sultan” wanted to be kept up dated as to progress as did the head of my order. I was accustomed to meet both separately.

Weird that Mdina should pop into my dreams, not so weird for Malta. I have been looking at houses to buy near where I went to school in Gloucestershire. It is a 1974 vibe in a way…

Having had a former abode at Mdina is consistent with my liking for the place, a kind of home. It was not my real home in that life, though I did spend time there with my studies. Home was in a green part of France. Where I was clergy to a village by a river. From time to time duty called me away.

Asking the Right Questions – CT Scans

April 19, 2025April 19, 2025 ~ quantumdreamer ~ Leave a comment

One of the things raised by the spine surgeon was the need to have comparable CT scans over time. I remembered that I had a benchmark post cancer op CT scan not long after we arrived in France. Incidentally this time a decade ago, 2015, I was collecting “blood in poo” data whilst in Malta prior to kicking off the colon cancer investigation.

I have been unable to get the imagery service to remount the full data {yet}, but like a squirrel storing nuts I have images.

Sometimes thinking differently to others does not go down well. Questioning is not always welcome.

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I have fished the images out. The radiological report was focussed only on the possible recurrence and metastases of cancer. The scan was reported as normal.

Close examination reveals some spinal anomalies in 2020 which suggest “bone” growth has been going on for five years.

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One can see a “bony” anomaly to the image left hand side of the thoracic spine. The aorta, round circular grey thing, is not yet displaced significantly to the right in the image. This image is a mirror, right in the image is left in my body frame.

Looking down at the pelvis area we have.

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To my untrained eye there is spinal torsion towards the image left, corporeal right. The sacroiliac joints are asymmetric.

The final image looks distinctly unbalanced and odd. It does not sit well with my need for symmetry and although it could be an artefact, it is a pretty big one. This “deformity” if it is one could explain much…

A year prior to this I had a titanium “nail” inserted into my left femoral neck/head to repair a facture.

I had to wait three days to be operated on. Not much was said to me about the whole thing.

In principle then I now have before and after CT scans to demonstrate the growth of whatever it is on my spine…

The radiologist answered all the questions asked of them but did not comment on the spinal column, which seems bit odd to me. But I do not know what common clinical practice is. One could talk about CT images ad infinitum. There needs to be some focus.

Not sure what if anything to do with this…

Dual Colonoscopy Dream 21-12-2024

December 21, 2024 ~ quantumdreamer ~ Leave a comment

This is, for me, one of the weirdest dreams I have had, because it is so matter of fact and “normal”. The last time I had a medical themed “dream” was when I recalled seeing my laparoscopic colectomy from above. They were removing my T3 colon cancer. I was in theatre for around six hours and had an OBE. I speculated that I died briefly on the table. The after care in recovery for me seemed much more attentive than that for the others in the room. Before the dream I had a very strong visual / connection with someone I knew about 20 years ago whose surname is Colon.

The dream opens with me on an operating type of bed. I have a blue medical gown on with a hairnet. My knees are up towards my stomach and the gown is open at the back. I am lying on my right side and viewing a computer screen which shows my colon from the point of view of a colonoscope operator. They are withdrawing the instrument because this first attempt at a full colonoscopy has failed. They have decided to try a different instrument. The instrument is withdrawn. I observe this.

A nurse comes around to speak to my face. She tells me what is going on. She administers some sedative via the catheter in my arm. She tells me that they are going to give me a brief general anaesthetic. The doctor inserts the colonoscope and I can see it moving into the sigmoid colon and up towards the splenic flexure. The colon looks free of polyps and cancer. As he approaches the splenic flexure the nurse administers the general anaesthetic. I know from before that passing the flexure is the most uncomfortable part. I wait a few seconds. Then in the dream I can feel the anaesthesia come up and I become unconscious in the dream.

I wake up in the recovery room. In the dream I am puzzled as to why I am having this life like vivid experience of colonoscopy.

The dream ends.

On waking I make a note that maybe I should arrange to have my next colonoscopy early in the new year.