Kurt R.A. Giambastiani

Somewhere between the publication of FC:IV and the writing of FC:V, I got sidetracked. It was a lot of things, really, but one thing, primarily: I met my mortality.

When I was young, like many melodramatic youths, I expected to die young. At the age of 32, to be precise. Who knows why that age and not, say, 34, became locked in my mind like some sort of Logan’s Run sell-by date, but it did. When the age of 32 came and went without so much as a blip on the death-o-meter, it wasn’t a surprise; by that time, I’d realized how silly the conceit was.

Then Death came by for a little visit.

Nothing too serious. Just a pop in, how ya doin’, can’t stay, must dash type of visit. Specifically, I suffered what is known as a TIA (transient ischemic attack). I saw the doctor, ran some tests, took a few precautions, and thought it was a fluke. Then, a few years later, I had another episode, a bit more serious. Death—if I may be allowed to stretch my metaphor—dropped by once more, but this time, stayed for a cup of tea.

These two drive-by butt-kickings were sufficient to get my attention. Things had to change.

One result is my insistence on a good life-work balance and a more robust program of stress management. The other result was, of course, a chronicle of the events. Hence, Cryptogenesis, a short memoir of my trip through the medical establishment.

I wrote it for myself. By writing down what I was going through, and by injecting as much humor as I could into my observations, I was better able to cope with what was truthfully a pretty scary episode. I had no intention of ever publishing it, but I can see no reason not to at this point.

Part of my motivation to bring it out now is to test the Kindle waters with some of the new strategies I’ve read about, but primarily, it’s just to be open and honest about that dark period, and to fill in the gap in my curriculum vitae.

With so much changing in my life right now, it’s also a way to punctuate the past, put a full-stop at the end of the story so far, and assist my endeavor to start a new chapter.

k