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Doctor Who - “The Unquiet Dead” - S01E03

A Meta Post/Review

Revised 01 December 2019.

Summary

In Cardiff, an undertaker and his servant deal with the fact that their deceased clients keep coming back to life and even kill the living. The Doctor tries to show Rose the TARDIS’s backwards-in-time feature by taking her somewhere more tourist-friendly, but the TARDIS knows best and brings them into the center of the drama. The Doctor, Rose, and reluctant ally Charles Dickens try to help Gwyneth, the undertaker’s servant, make sense of the “sight” which she has possessed all her life and what it might have to do with the ghostly, gaseous creatures who have haunted the funeral parlor and the surrounding areas.

Content Below

Analysis

Arbitrary Ratings

Content Warnings for Parents and Kids (Depending on Your Age)

Analysis

The Thesis Statement

Having shown Rose (and the audience) aliens and monsters and the possible future, the third episode of Doctor Who takes Rose to the past. The first three episodes of New Who are very clearly formulaic to a point that they might be viewed as something of a three-part pilot for a new audience. It is very clearly outlined in order to show the audience something of the breadth that the show can and will offer. There are aspects of the first two episodes that I personally find just a little bit difficult to watch now. They have obvious budget constraints, strange costume and effect choices at times, and several early installment hiccups that would be ironed out even by the end of Series 1.

If and when I am introducing New Who to a friend/new viewer, I always ask them to be ready to bear with me through Episode 5 and discount how silly and terrible aspects of Episodes 4 and 5′s villains are, too. However, I think that this episode is really one of the first that has aged pretty well in spite of any of its early installment difficulties. Now on to the episode itself.

Christmas in Cardiff

The cold open of this episode is more charming to me now than it was when I first watched it. Perhaps it is simply having more context for what a difficult place the United Kingdom was during the 19th Century. It is a place that seems riddled with ghost stories and scary tales in great part because of how difficult living was in the region when the Industrial Revolution had utterly changed the world, entrenching its own ills and advancements without any hope of going back.

One of my favorite things to do when I don’t feel like looking at a screen is to listen to podcasts, and I often favor true crime and mythology. I can’t tell you how often the two intersect in Victorian Britain, so I feel that this setting is a really good choice for Doctor Who to establish its time traveling element backward in time.

The opening scene with Mr. Sneed, a funeral parlor owner, comforting one of his clients upon the death of his grandmother is also something that is uniquely personal to me. Before becoming a teacher, I worked at a cemetery for a while. Anyway, one of the things that stands out to me as possibly unique is how obvious they make it that the reanimated Mrs. Redpath snapped her grandson’s neck. For some reason, this seems much more realistically deadly than some of the deaths that have followed in the show even though the series has a consistently high body count.

While I tend to balk at the idea that Doctor Who in its current incarnation has ever been a children’s program primarily, I appreciate the fact that upon Gwyneth’s introduction the different social norms - the class difference between her and her employer and the way in which he patronizes her in a sexist way in particular - are made clear in a way that seems like it would be easily accessible to younger audience members without a sophisticated understanding of the history of any of those things. It is unsettling without being cartoonish and absurd beyond what it should be.

The special effects in this episode with the Gelth and reanimated corpses themselves may not in any way compare to what Doctor Who has been able to accomplish and expect since, but I think what those visuals lack the set and set pieces and audio make up for. I find the old woman’s scream layered in with the childish cry of the Gelth voice inside her absolutely unnerving.

Again I would muse that Doctor Who isn’t something that I really expect many small children to be interested in on their own except for moments at a time. However as a family program I think that it often has pretty sophisticated storytelling that holds up to deeper analysis. Later in the episode, a person who is viewing the story in a wholly moment-by-moment way may easily sympathize with the Gelth and wonder if the Doctor’s curious, guilt-ridden compassion for them is correct. However, if one simply pays attention to the opening scene before the Doctor and Rose ever arrive (with the TARDIS tugging them in the direction they should go, after all), one can see that there is nothing benevolent, lost, or curious about the entity reanimating Mrs. Redpath’s corpse.

While she goes through the motions that Mrs. Redpath had intended to take before her death - attending the Dickens performance - it would seem that this is either simply a faulty connection between the Gelth and its human vehicle or something of a test run with the Gelth interfacing with the human brain it now controls like a user interface. What is most haunting about this whole thing is that there isn’t any sense that this woman is getting to fulfill a wish in any meaningful way from beyond the grave. Rather, something has coopted her unfulfilled plans after having mercilessly murdered her grandson. There isn’t any symbiosis between anything that remains of Mrs. Redpath in her body after her soul has gone. This is something that a keen viewer (or simply one who has seen it far too many times like myself) might pick up on, but it shows that there are layers to the narrative that are accessible to any age or caliber of viewer with reason.

The Greater Good

As an aside, since I imagine if you’re reading this post you are familiar with or curious about the episode, I want to give a little layman’s refresher on what “bodysnatching” is, given that Mr. Sneed tells Gwyneth that his is what they are about to do. Stripped down, this episode is literally about the ethics and morality of bodysnatching in a modernized and scifi-ized context. I recently heard a refresher in a podcast (Lore if you’re wondering), so I’ll pass it on to you: Bodysnatching was a practice that took place during the early days of medical research and large-scale medical schools. The term “operating theater” is sometimes used into the present day, but if there is an observation room it tends to be sealed behind a window in order to keep the operating room sterile. However, in an age before sterilization was fully understood or practical to do, one way in which medical students would learn about surgery and, more often, the inner workings of the human body would be to watch a more experienced physician perform surgeries or dissections of corpses in a room that literally looked like an amphitheater with a small stage.

One has to remember that prior to imaging technology that we have today, the only way to understand what was going on inside the body was to literally see the inside of a body. Therefore, corpses were in high demand in the training of young medical students. However, laws concerning the remains of law-abiding, typically Christian citizens after death prevented teaching doctors from getting access to the number of corpses they needed. This is where bodysnatching came in.

Bodysnatchers were not necessarily conventional grave robbers. In fact, some would even return clothes and the material riches buried with the deceased to the coffin in order to avoid prosecution as best they could. Their profit was made primarily or entirely through the shady deals that hospitals and medical schools made with them out of desperation, as the only legally available bodies were those who were the unclaimed who had died in workhouses and the bodies of executed murderers. Eventually, some alterations to the law which allowed for the donation of bodies made the need for this practice disappear, but there was a time when medical doctors had to make the choice between what they viewed as the most productive and helpful of two evils.

I think that the clear connection between that and the plot of this episode is as plain as day upon informed viewing.

Except for you.

Before the Doctor and Rose become aware of what is happening outside the TARDIS, we witness a bonding moment between the two of them. Rose is still wearing the same clothes from when she ran away with the Doctor, and one gets the impression that they have been having some issues with the TARDIS since they got back inside after getting chips at the end of the last episode. They haven't gone anywhere else. The Doctor is trying to wrangle the TARDIS into cooperating with backwards time-travel, but for some reason, she is not cooperating as well as she did with going into the future. One might assume that perhaps it is because she knows where they need to go even if they don’t yet.

The Doctor intends to take Rose to Naples, Christmas Eve, 1860. At first, he believes that he has succeeded. The Doctor is clearly in impress-Rose-and-convince-her-to-stay mode, full tilt. She has forestalled any decision about going home, and so he is allowing himself to hope that she will stay.

We have not yet had any complex analysis of why he wants this, but we do know that Nine tried traveling on his own and came back for Rose in particular. While I am not an Old Who expert by any means, we all know that he has had a history of traveling with companions. Generally, the Doctor in New Who is reluctant to take on new companions, but he has a moment which proves him wrong about a particular person. In the case of Nine, though, we don't so much have a moment as a process with his wanting Rose to stay with him, longer and longer each time.

For her part, Rose shows that she has the time travel bug badly when she responds to the idea of visiting a Christmas that has passed long ago. She holds reverence for the fact that something comes and goes and is over forever for everyone except the Doctor. She wants to be a part of this life, no matter what it might cost her, in this moment. After this and her commentary about learning about the expansion of the sun on television in the previous episode, it is once again clear that for whatever she lacks in certification and credentials, Rose is a brilliant person with a thirst for knowledge. She wants to see living history. She wants to experience the world around her.

In Doctor Who Confidential, I recall RTD mentioning that the Doctor and Rose were written to be soulmates of a sort from the beginning, and I think that this more than anything is what he probably meant. It isn’t just about personality quirks, but it is about that itch that Rose has to run away from her ordinary, expected lifestyle to touch the pulse of history unfolding and mattering around her that makes her “like the Doctor” and a match for him in that regard.

Healthy Skepticism

When the Doctor and Rose go for a walk in Cardiff and hear the screams coming from Charles Dickens’s performance as the reanimated Mrs. Redpath makes herself known, the Doctor and Rose go about investigating the problem in distinct ways. The Doctor does have a concern for the safety of others, but he goes directly to the highest vantage point and tries to identify the source and to ask the person who appears to have the most authority. Meanwhile, Rose notices the old woman and the undertaker and his servant and goes after them. She is concerned about the welfare of someone she has picked out of the crowd as needing help. Both of these are important roles, but the fact that Rose does this when she is traveling with the Doctor points out again how he needs someone like her to live up to his calling and reputation.

I had never really considered how both of Rose’s first outings involve her getting trapped in a room in some way. I can’t decide if this is an homage to the old show, a cautionary tale, or simply meant to show that there is a learning curve for traveling with the Doctor. It seems a bit odd that it happens in two episodes in a row, but when Rose awakens in the funeral parlor with Mr. Redpath coming back to life as well, she goes back to her customary cautious skepticism. She tries to go for the most ordinary, rational conclusion first, but she much more quickly accepts that she is dealing with zombies than she did with the shop window dummies in the first episode.

I cannot attest to how well Charles Dickens is portrayed in this episode as I don’t know as much about him as some other historical events and figures. However, I must say that the depiction is sympathetic and interesting. I really enjoy his presence in the episode, and the Doctor’s fawning over him is a cute bit of characterization that shows the Doctor’s ability to compartmentalize even when he does care about the present danger.

It is also nice to have a historical figure so known for pointing out social ills and being a skeptic of spiritualist frauds in a story that points out something that seems like it points to something of that nature going on. I appreciate that the story acknowledges the more rational sides of what could be even when it is presenting something that is more fantastical.

The debates that take place in this episode between the Doctor and Dickens and the Doctor and Rose, on a meta-level, primarily have to do with establishing a balance between skepticism and belief and between standard morality and the willingness to push those boundaries. Each person in either argument can be seen to have a point, and one of the things I admire the most about Doctor Who is the way in which it allows people of all different backgrounds to carry some of their own presuppositions and worldviews with them while challenging others. While the series itself tends to err on the side of science and rationality and in not allowing faith or religious belief to be an “opiate” that allows people to ignore present dangers and concerns, it does not take on such a cynical point of view that the most cynical and skeptical person in the room is always right.

In this case, the Doctor seems very resistant to the idea of an afterlife as Gwyneth perceives it, even though he has no problem with the fact that the Gelth need corporeal bodies in spite of existing outside them. While he knows that there are multiple universes and dimensions, he is dismissive of the idea that Gwyneth’s parents sent these “angels” to look after her. And this gives way to the Doctor cynically using what he believes to be Gwyneth's (primitive?) beliefs to further an agena. While he can be a tolerant and open-minded person, in this case Nine isn't having any of that.

The Doctor uses Gwyneth’s beliefs to manipulate her. He conveniently ignores those aspects of the narrative she presents about the Gelth and her understanding of them that he knows are objectively false but which further his purpose of giving these “pitiable” creatures the opportunity to live.

To be fair, one of the reasons he is so insistent about doing this is because they inform the Doctor that they lost their corporeal forms during the Time War. He feels personally responsible for what they have lost. He sees a resource in the empty human bodies of the dead, and he comes to a compromise in his mind. He plans to allow them to go through with their plan of using the reanimated dead and then to take them to a place where such an advanced race might be able to build new and proper bodies for themselves. Therefore, he allows Gwyneth to believe that she is helping “angels” that her parents sent from the afterlife to comfort her.

The Gelth themselves also use emotional manipulation in order to convince the Doctor and Gwyneth that they are pitiable creatures. They utilize children’s voices and a visage that looks very much like the shape of a human child when they manifest into a gaseous form. This comes in spite of the fact that we have already seen that they will kill before they will verbally communicate with humans. They have ingratiated themselves with Gwyneth and have comforted her. They have learned about her life and needs because they need her in order to establish a physical link within the rift that has opened up between their part of the universe and Cardiff. In spite of the fact that longterm exposure to the spacetime rift has allowed Gwyneth to develop an apparently-supernatural insight into the minds of others around her, among other things, she has had no ability to discern the true, more violent intentions of the Gelth.

Rose takes a different angle, but she is equally as skeptical about Gwyneth’s qualifications to make her own decisions about this circumstance. Rather than allowing Gwyneth to “believe what she needs to” in order to get the job done, Rose wants to protect her from her naivete that is based on the cultural differences between a woman of Rose’s time and one of Gwyneth’s. While this point of view may be more immediately sympathetic to me, it is also making the point that not meeting a person where they are and acknowledging the insight they do have, in spite of any blindspots or ignorance, is also dangerous.

Last but not least, we have Dickens who is skeptical about the very existence of something other-worldly influencing the physical and real world he knows. This is in spite of a few references to the fact that he perhaps holds to some religious and/or metaphysical beliefs. He resists the rampant abuses of the spiritualism fad of the time while also allowing himself to be convinced through empirical evidence. Charles is the character in the story who gains the moth “faith” in something that he cannot understand or make sense of completely, and he comes out of it with a renewed sense of vigor in his person and life in spite of the fact that he is nearing its end.

Gaslighting (not really I'm just making a joke)

Now, back to the way the Doctor manipulated Gwyneth and its consequences. Because the Doctor missed every possible sign that the Gelth were up to no good in a much more deliberate, calculating way than the Nestene Consciousness was, the Gelth manage to begin pouring themselves through the portal Gwyneth has become for them. The Doctor and Rose have to lock themselves in a sort of cage? I don't know what that is for in a funeral parlor. Maybe it is a closet, but it has a weird, barred door. They are left alone, and if not for external help, the Doctor and Rose would have both been overtaken by the Gelth. Rose is again faced with the possibility of her imminent death, and again she says that she is glad she met the Doctor rather than allowing herself to dissolve into regret. She doesn't want to die, but she seems to be continually convincing herself that even dying like this is better than not having done it at all.

I lived and breathed Doctor/Rose from the first few weeks I was into Doctor Who. Ever since I felt like I had a footing in the canon, though, I have always found that fellow-shippers always seemed to view the Doctor and Rose's relationship through rose-colored glasses (pun intended or no). I think that one of the most interesting parts of it is how it experiences very heartfelt, sweet growth through frankly insane, impulsive actions. It isn't an especially normal love story by a long shot, and I don't really understand the compulsion to act like it is, but I digress.

Luckily, Dickens decides to come back after having run away in terror. He figures out that the creatures are made of gas and that they can essentially pull them out using the gas system in the funeral parlor. Planet, Doctor, and Rose saved again. Then, the Doctor is faced with figuring out how to clean up the mess he has made through listening to his survivor's guilt instead of common sense and assuming that he knew better about intergalactic politics than everyone else in the room - regardless of the context and stakes. He tries to insist that Gwyneth send the Gelth back, and when she does not immediately comply, he again calls upon her beliefs in a way that he clearly does not himself espouse. He tells her that if her parents could look down and see her that they would help her and want her to do it. He knows that she has realized that the Gelth have manipulated and lied to her, but he still goes about trying to manipulate her. Poor Gwyneth simply could not catch a break from anyone.

The Gelth pulled this trick on all of them when they simply remained silent to demands for promises of safety, to the Doctor’s plan for helping the “few” of them, and so on. This lack of good faith conversation is shown on “both sides” - when it is intended to shelter and protect someone and when it is deliberately malicious. In both cases, it still causes some harm.

When Dickens returns and the Doctor once again tries to manipulate Gwyneth in order to save her and to, by extension, save everyone, it is still clear that the Doctor isn’t the one who is in control. Rose tries to insist that she stay behind because she has come to care about Gwyneth, but the Doctor successfully pleads that both the humans go without him. He even uses the phrase “I won’t leave her while she’s still in danger,” which one might argue is yet another emotionally manipulative phrase, but I tend to think that it is a very raw, true statement about how the Doctor must view life and death in some of the circumstances he finds himself in.

More things in Heaven and Earth

The Doctor is shocked when he works out that Gwyneth has been physically dead the entire time she had been interfacing with the Gelth. They killed her, and yet she maintained control of her mind. While she was literally their bridge, she manages to hold them and push them out. I wonder how much of that ws intentional or a matter of narrative convenience. In any case, it shows that the Doctor is also wrong about the existence of a person’s intentionality and personhood “after death,” at least in this one particular case. When he rejoins Dickens and Rose outside and recounts this to them, Dickens is the one who reminds him to have an open mind even when the truth seems regressive or irrational, showing that he has learned his lesson. The Doctor needs to learn his own lessons too, sometimes.

While this isn’t a Christmas special as such, it also introduces the fact that there is a certain special, forgiving nature to the Christmas season even in this universe and regardless of why. I think that this episode is affirming regardless of where you fall on the spectrum of easy-faith or easy-skepticism. It shows that the best way to approach something is through honest searching. That is why Gwyneth is a tragic hero in this episode. No matter what anyone else around her was doing, she was approaching her attempts to understand from an authentic place. She listened without a lot of presuppositions, and that was her strength. In the end, it cost her her life but let her keep her soul.

Arbitrary Ratings

Story - ★ ★ ★ ★ ★

Characterization - ★ ★ ★ ★ ☆

Aesthetic - ★ ★ ★ ★ ★

Overall - ★ ★ ★ ★ ☆

Considerations for Watching with Parents or Kids (Depending on Your or Their Ages)

This episode is actually pretty family-friendly except that it includes a lot of death. Lots and lots of death and dealing with corpses. If you feel your parent or child can handle that, then you’re probably safe.

Support

If you enjoyed this post and are over 20 years of age, please consider donating to my ko-fi to help an under-employed teacher pay her bills and for small millennial pleasures like avocados. You can find a link above. Other ways to support and encourage my writing are to comment/reply/engage and to reblog!

[braindamageforbeginners]

Just Eat Your Stupid Vegetables

Day 59

I’d like to begin today’s festivities with a recounting of recent events in my on-going attempt to get more Temodar. For any new readers, this is the chemo drug that all GBM patients are required to take for a year (possibly more)(as I’ve mentioned, the only thing worse than hearing, “We’re extending your treatment” is, “We’re discontinuing your treatment because it’s not working”), and I have been working feverishly to get more of it (and been thwarted by various forms, claims, claims-adjusters, and, most importantly, CVS)(new rule; just as I go out of my way to protect the anonymity of any of my care providers who do me a good turn, I’ll point out the folks who are likely to kill you if you have a serious illness)(and, based on current events, it seems likely that if you wandered into a CVS with an open, dripping wound, they’d call their supervisor and request the proper form before offering you a band-aid). After the most-recent mishap, in which CVS claimed that there was an insurance issue; I found the proper insurance form, forwarded it to the Warlocks’ administrative team, and heard back from one of the nurses that they’d filled it out and sent it on. I got a call the other day from a creepy, automated voice saying that my insurance company had just approved the release of my drugs. There are small children on Christmas who are less joyous than I was at the thought of putting more toxic substances - in higher doses - in my body. In my enthusiasm, I called CVS to see about delivery. You can imagine my confusion when they told me that the hang-up was because there were two prescriptions (Temodar only comes in a few different dosages, so doctors will prescribe you one or two dosages, and give you instructions on how to mix-n-match them to get your exact dosage)(again, you can’t cut these things in half, because they’re basically gel capsules containing mustard gas)(that’s a slight exaggeration, but not by much). After much tearing of hair and rending of teeth, CVS advised me to get in touch with my insurance company about the hold-up. So I called the insurance folks, whilst thinking of being on a beach in the Caribbean. The insurance folks were helpful, and figured out that the obscure authorization form that the Warlocks filled out could be applied to one Temodar prescription (again, I need two); and, after a call to the in-house insurance pharmacist, okayed the second prescription. No screaming or cajoling required. I gave myself an hour off (I had more coffee, when, in retrospect, I should’ve had a martini or two), then called CVS. They eventually agreed to ship me the drugs, after a $130 payment was made. It’s depressing to think that we could put a dollar value on a human life. It’s suicidally-depressing to realize that, apparently, that value at the moment is $130 and 16-ish hours of paperwork and phone calls (we won’t discuss my insurance premiums, which are astronomical). And it’s Bambi’s-mom-died sad to think how many cancer patients with far better prognoses than mine died for far less money. Anyway, I did finally convince CVS to take my filthy, peasant money in exchange for their goods (one feels that Adam Smith might rethink his thesis if he saw the 21st century), and made a mental note to throw a brick through the front window of the next CVS I see (I’m getting a chunk of those 15 hours and $130 back one way or another - CVS can either have my time or my money, but it seems greedy to claim so much of both)(especially when, as Research Coordinator pointed out, Temodar is such a common chemotherapy drug nowadays that it’s quite common for large pharmacies to have a bag or two stashed away). And the chemo drugs arrived this morning, so that’s a form of victory. But that’s not what I want to talk about at the moment.

I would like to share with all of you an interesting revelation I had whilst on vacation from the abyss (I know my father would probably hate that metaphor; sorry, Dad, but it’s a good one, and I’m sticking to it)(I’m about to heap some well-earned praise on him, so I figure it’ll even out). You surface dwellers are aware that there are food sources that you don’t have club to death or process, right? That’s not just a giant squid thing that’s unique to me, is it?

I have ask that because I only this morning starting putting some of the pieces of the puzzle together. Now, the biggest complaint about Temodar is that it causes motility issues (that’s the polite and scientifically-preferred term, I believe), and I suspect that’s been a complaint about the Captain America serum, because the Warlocks recently asked a few times about that issue, or, more specifically, that I didn’t ever seem to have that issue (not in any obvious or nagging way, just a part of me noted, “It seems odd that they’re double-checking that particular question.”). And I only put that together because I recently had to put in a special request to Mother Dearest for various ready-to-eat plant-based items. And only then did it start to occur to me that I’ve been on an ultra-high fiber, ultra-high protein diet.

Although I might jab my father occasionally, it should be noted that he has done a lot in the day-to-day business of keeping me alive. And, when you’re back at home after life knocks you on your ass, you eat what’s in the fridge at home. And my father is almost-obsessive about fruits, vegetables, and fiber. He even eats that horrible bran cereal that is almost-indistinguishable from those food pellets you feed to pet rodents (I really, really hope that’s not the cure for cancer, because I might choose death before that).

I bring this up because it contrasts a bit from me, in the initial part of my treatment. I’d been a pescovegetarian for eleven years - count ‘em, folks - prior to the diagnosis. Heart disease runs in the family, and I thought I might avoid that disease (once you start to think about all the weird, crazy paradoxes and hypocrisies in your life, you go a little mad). After I was told I had a terrible disease, one of my initial thoughts was, “Clearly, vegetarianism is bullshit.” 

Reader, you may be familiar with the word “relapse” as it pertains to addiction. Well, for those first few weeks, that was pretty much me; the crazed, blood-soaked carnivore who refused to eat anything unless it did move. Dad did point out that it wouldn’t do to survive brain cancer to die of heart disease or malnutrition; and that I wasn’t going to win the “Most Eligible Bachelor” award if I continued eating live chickens where the general public could see me. My memory of this conversation suggests that I responded in a less-than-graceful manner (a note to the family and friends of cancer patients; even the nicest, kindest person on the world won’t be very nice or kind for the first month or two after the diagnosis). Instead of smothering me in my sleep (again, that could make him a candidate for canonization), Dad just kind of kept chipping away and, either due to me seeing light, or the exhaustion wearing down my stubbornness, I eventually started eating more plant-based matter (and, eventually, that turned into a lot of plant-based matter, once I learned that vegetables and fruits are actually pretty tasty)(of course, this was all going on while I was chugging Gatorade, and, stacked up next to that, cough syrup doesn’t taste too bad). And, because I’m into weight training and I’ve been told by my neurofeedback guy that protein is good for neurological injury, I increased my protein intake (mostly from those awful protein shakes, which are only slightly better than Gatorade). And I went to the gym, every day (well, at least 5 days out of the week - that Captain America serum is tough on the body). The point is, I have been living - completely accidentally, as it turns out - an extremely healthy lifestyle, as of late. The fact that this was occurring to me as I was literally being torn apart on a molecular level, poisoned, and used as a guinea pig in a mad science experiment (this is a dramatically reductive but not-inaccurate description of cancer treatment) is one of those little ironies that drives me as a writer.

To get to the larger point, at every stage in the process, everyone - from the radiation techs to the Warlocks - has commented on how exceptionally well I’ve tolerated the treatment. I usually shot them a dirty look, because I felt like hell - and, now that I’ve recovered a little, I now realize that I was utterly physically miserable the whole time (it’s just like when I started taking melatonin and sleeping through the night that I realized how many years I must have spent half-asleep and utterly exhausted). Still, in all fairness, the Warlocks and everyone were, in retrospect, right - I was miserable, but I was never completely bed-ridden, apart from two or three mornings here and there. Which makes me wonder, if a large part of that wasn’t due to lifestyle choices on my part; which I’ve been able to contrast with life outside of the abyss. And you people seem almost fearful of anything that isn’t carved from an animal and deep-fried (to be fair, I love bacon-wrapped, beer-battered veal as much as the next guy - probably moreso, since I’m still making up for lost time).

Now, this is not to say that fruits, vegetables, and stair-steppers (or bench-presses, in my case) are going to cure me. If I survive this thing - and that’s still a big “if” (I realize that seems pessimistic, but I’ve realized that, just as positive outlook is important, it does not do to ignore the dark probabilities of life), it’ll be because my surgeon went orienteering in my skull; Radiation Oncologist nuked me; and the Warlocks dosed me with massive quantities of strange and dangerous substances, and then I begged all of them to do it again and again. But, at the same time, maybe there’s something to be said for healthy lifestyle as a complementary treatment to being scalped, microwaved, and poisoned.

Again, this is absolutely not an endorsement of “alternative” medicine (my go-to quote on that matter is from Tim Minchin, who wrote, “Do you know what they call alternative medicine that’s been proven to work? Medicine.”). There is no secret cure “they” don’t want you to know (I love the medical industry, but it simply isn’t competent enough to suppress that type of immediately-profitable information), and if there is, “they” don’t want you to know about it because it’s unsafe or unreliable (or, in my case, being tested for safety)(Mother Dearest once summarized it best when she said, “They could cure cancer, HIV, and Ebola tomorrow if they didn’t have to worry about the patient surviving.”). But, at the same time, there might be a lot to be said for complementary medicine, which, apparently, includes spending time in the gym and large quantities of tasteless fiber. And even then, it’s not like it’s some major constriction on your day-to-day existence (I’m sure Laura, Dan, and Julie are out there reading this and saying, “He wasn’t on any sort of diet I noticed” - and I wasn’t, either, until I got out, and realized Dad had quietly been slipping more plant life into my diet than I was comfortable with). Again, I wouldn’t even have noticed it all until I remembered the Warlocks’ specific questioning about my lack of GI chemo side-effects, and then realizing that I’d been eating far more than the average amount of veggies (if you’re downing gallons of hateful Gatorade and taking dreaded Temodar on a nightly basis, as well as being microwaved every day, extra helpings of brussel sprouts and an extra half-hour in the gym on a daily basis tend to go unnoticed). So, maybe, perhaps, if you plan on being seriously ill, a healthy lifestyle change at the same time might help you out. Maybe,. Possibly. Again, I’m just one person, statistically, I can’t prove or disprove anything.