Fair warning, tonight’s entry is going to be about my deteriorating health, and may therefore be disturbing or even frightening to those who care about me.

But this is all stuff that I have been ignoring and/or denying for a long time. So I need to talk this all out in order to get out out my system so I can get over the denial and tackle theses things head on.

First, a little backstory. I just finished watching an episode of Forensic Files that revolved around a kind of mold that made the people who lived there very sick. The symptoms of their illness, such as memory and concentration problems,  sounded eerily familiar.

Now let’s talk about my nervous system, shall we?

It’s no secret that I have been having cognitive issues lately. I’ve already talked about all the forgetting I have been doing. Being a depressive, I have naturally been blaming myself for that. It’s my sleep apnea, it’s my diabetes, it’s my being fucked up in the head, it’s a sign of middle age,  etc.

But the thing is, looked at objectively, my symptoms are fairly stark and indicative of someone who is undergoing a neurological decline. Simply calling it “my absentmindedness” just won’t cut it any more.

I am finding it increasingly hard to concentrate. I forget things nobody should be forgetting, like our phone number, or the names of my instructors. As it stands right now, I can usually recover from these mental absences, but only by straining my mind to it’s fullest in order to deduce the answer from the remaining information. I’ve been losing track of what I am saying in the middle of a sentence. I have this growing sensation of vacuity, as if there was wide open spaces in my mind where my thoughts should be.

I have to admit, there’s a certain pleasant peaceful sensation to it. Like I can finally experience periods where my overweaning intellect is blissfully quiet.

And then there’s the physical symptoms. I am increasingly clumsy and my sense of balance is starting to go. I get up from sitting and instead of the usual self-righting that our sense of balance allows, I end up staggering into a wall or nearly tipping over and it takes a considerable effort just to regain my equilibrium. Things seem to jump out of my hand sometimes. My hands and feet get cold easily, especially on my right side.

Ah, my right side. I have done a little informal testing, and my right side is definitely weaker and less sensitive than my left. I frequently get a pins and needles feeling in my right hand and right leg. I experience a lot of random symptoms in my right foot. Sudden feelings like hot or colder water has been splashed on it. Little electric shocks. Cramps. Spasmodic twitching. More or less the entire neurological pathology buffet.

Oh, and I have been experiencing digestive issues too. Might be my IBS. Might not.

So clearly I am in some degree of neurological distress. I am far from blameless in this. I’ve been eating sugary shit all the fucking time. I have not been treating my sleep apnea at all. My diabetes is uncontrolled because it’s been three years since I tested myself. I’ve even started to forget to take my nightly insulin. My blood sugar levels must be through the fucking roof by now.

But the thing is, I’ve always been in a kind of mental fog. I assumed that was just do to my dreamy otherworldly mindset and general weak attachment to that cozy old neighborhood called “reality”. But now I am wondering whether I have been neurologically depressed my entire life, or at least, since I was abused.

I know one thing : I have fallen into the trap of thinking that if I can keep going, I must be fine, or at least, good enough. That is a very specious kind of thinking. It’s akin to the old joke about the optimist who fell off the top of a skyscraper and at every floor was heard to say “So far, so good!”.

Clearly, I have to start taking this shit seriously

Now that I can take a look at the whole picture in the pure and sober light of reason, I realize that taking it on might well require some serious interventions. The kind that land you in the hospital for multiple days, and maybe involve doing a lot of physical therapy and enduring a lot of lifestyle restrictions.

And here I am, in the literal middle of my VFS education. Inconvenient to say the least.

How did I get like this? I think it all traces back to my bout with serious hypochondria in my early 20’s. I pulled myself out of that deadly state where I was malnourished, dehydrated, in serious bowel distress, and constantly terrified. And I think that in doing so, I overcompensated. I went from overreacting to every little twinge and twitch to ignoring all the bullshit my body did if it wasn’t a clear and overriding symptom.

Something I couldn’t ignore, basically.

But you can learn to ignore anything if it comes on slowly enough. And we Taurus types have an inborn gift for carrying on no matter what. It’s quite noble in the right circumstances, but there are times when you really should stop and look after yourself instead of bulldozing (ha) ahead until one day, you drop dead in your harness.

And the coroner says, “To be honest, it’s surprising he kept going for as long as he did. ”

Yay for us.

So this might be the sort of situation I am facing. One where I have done something I have always looked down on – namely ignore the warning signs – and now I might just need a pretty serious level of intervention in order to save myself from myself.

One little bright light : I saw an ad for a medicine called Lyrica that claims to be able to treat diabetic neuropathy.

I might not be a total wreck yet.

I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.