Intimations of Mortality….

Without burdening my gentle readers with too much of my life, it’s important to today’s blog entry to mention that I suffer from an exceedingly rare cancer.  Pathologists specializing in neuroendocrine cancer beg bits of my tumors from the oncologists who happen to be treating me at the time.

 

Faithful readers will recall that in Second Life, I have role-played at being a physician.  Obstetrics was my first medical specialty in Second Life. Since this IS Second Life we’re talking about here, perhaps I was sunnily naïve about what would happen after I started seeing patients.

The same patients began requesting repeated consultations with long, slow pelvic examinations, some more than once a week.  I shouldn’t gripe, I made a good friend during my rotation in OB/GYN, a talented SL photographer and steady companion. I withdrew from that SL medical specialty on good terms with my former practice.

After that, I would occasionally role play in OB/GYN for friends who needed a kindly gynecologist to look over their “property.” While I don’t role-play D/s or B/D personally, I am sympathetic to those who do find it a rewarding part of their SL.

Then, I signed on as an emergency room physician in a “dark” combat sim, which had its high and low points. I did more actual SL medical role play there in a few months than in four prior years of Second Life.

I was, in fact, too enthusiastic, and my long-suffering patients apparently didn’t have the heart to complain about my long, slow, technically correct role-play trauma surgery – to me, anyway.  Eventually I read the sim’s role play manual on how to role-play medicine.  That led to slightly less exciting medical care from my standpoint, but was more rewarding for the people who RPed with me as “patients,” and that was more than fair enough.

My tenure as an RP trauma doc ended when the sim did (which was a true shame, because the sim was so well done, both build-wise and conceptually).

Now, I’m having a real-life episode which I hope to be able to use to make medical RP more rewarding to myself and people who choose to RP with me as patients in the future.

I’ll have plenty of time to reflect on how oncology might work as roleplay in Second Life.  Certainly, for those of us who enjoy RP drama, I’d think the situation of being poised literally on a surgeon’s knife edge between life and death has its possibilities.  But the concept does need work, as I found out in Midian.

In the meantime, I’ve had chances to RP as a science-fiction drama, sort of a distaff Simon Tam in a Serenity/Firefly RP sim, and look forward to more of that.  Perhaps I’ll gain insights from RPing with others there….

UPDATE: Patty is alive and well in RL and SL!

I’m recovering from being gutted like a trout during exploratory surgery, but am recovering, the important thing in all of this.

So, for those of you who were worried, please don’t.  I’m fine and getting better by the day. *HUGS!*

It’s wonderful to have so many good and loyal friends who do care.  It’s a pity that bad things have to happen to make one aware of just how good one’s friends are, when they’ve been that good all along….

UP-UPDATE: Patty’s still cuttin’ – in Araxes!

I talked about Araxes, where I do science-fiction RP , in another entry.  Well, I and my patient Cheryl Anne wandered out there back in 2015, and we were graciously welcomed to be part of the mordantly comic science fiction adventure on that planet orbiting the star Al Raqis (Arabic for “the dancer”).

I was granted privileges to practice medicine and surgery at Araxes Medical Center, and eventually was made the planet’s Minister of Health and Safety.  Last night, I was at the interrogation of a suspected contract killer to assure she remained in good health through the interview by the planet’s Truthsayer. A good time was had by all (but the subject, who I said was well enough to be carried away in handcuffs).

That’s largely due to the game’s admins, who make sure that role play in Araxes is enjoyable for those who take part, comedy for those who appreciate it, intense drama for those who enjoy that, and a surprising emphasis on scientific plausibility (several of the sim’s regulars have qualifications in the sciences and senses of humor, so Araxes role play nods to realism without being dry).

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