Sometimes I forget that I am a cripple now.
Like just now. I told Julian that I would be fine walking home from the pharmacy. The pharmacy which is one scant urban block away from my home.
I was very, very wrong. I feel like I am dying right now. My lungs burn from the cold air, my eyes are blurry, my muscles ache like cold fire, and my heart is beating hard and fast like I got a rabbit between my ribs.
And it wants OUT.
So not gonna be doing that again any time soon.
This all started with my dermatologist’s appointment. First, there was stress because Julian had to dog-sit so he wouldn’t be able to drive me home.
No problem. I’d take a cab home. Easy peasy.
Then the appointment itself. Time for a new heading.
Not a good sign
When I took my hat off, the dermatologist exclaimed, “Oh my god, what is that?”.
Sounded even funnier in her South American accent.
Turns out that she can’t even tell what I have because the area is so scarred and inflamed and infected. So she couldn’t even take a biopsy.
This fits rather neatly into my view of myself as a mass of disgusting afflictions.
Which checks out.
So now I have a pill to take four times a day, a cream to apply twice a day, a stern dictum to shower once a day, and an even sterner dictum to stop picking at it already!
It’s a lot of work. But I will be a good boy and do it, because having a dermatologist, who has presumably seen some shit, taken aback by my problem is a real wake up call.
The tricky part will be not picking at it. I tend to do it when I am waking up and that’s not the best time for remembering not to do the thing your dumb ass wants to do.
I had a moment of sexism when the doctor first entered the examination room. She was this matronly woman in a purple/pink labcoat and for some very long and heavy moments I was stuck there thinking “Is this the doctor??”
Thank goodness I didn’t actually say it.
Had I been more on the ball, I would have said “Doctor Saldana, I presume?”.
I’m pretty suave when I am healthy.
Got therapy in an hour. Kind of wish I didn’t. After my ill advised walk, I really don’t feel up to it. Now that I have eaten, I just want to roll back into bed and put reality on pause while I regain my will to live.
I think I will call up and postpone. Even though that would be the second time I have postponed it, the first time being because it conflicted with the dermatologist.
But I really cannot imagine doing therapy right now. Not before a nap, some quiet gaming time, and a complete change of blood.
Actually, skip that last bit. Takes too long to collect it. And people ask dumb questions.
Time to call the doc and then flop with a vengeance.
More after the break.
But I can see
Well that sucked.
Woke up from a nap with my blood sugar crashing and my glasses missing.
Now historically, some of the worst mental states I have been in have all happened when I was freshly awoken. I am in a very vulnerable state then, and my anxieties and other demons can get to me while my defenses are down and really have a time.
I searched all over the sleeping area of my bed [1] for those goddamned glasses. Eventually, I regained a quorum of my faculties and was able to reason that I might find my glasses more easily if my blood sugar wasn’t crashing harder than a junkie.
So I managed to get up and go to the kitchen and git myself some food. An apple and a big handful of trail mix. I started eating on that while I ordered some more substantial grub from 7-11.
I’d been planning to do that anyhow.
Then I resumed looking for my lovely new glasses. No dice. I even looked in some really stupid places, as one does when things get desperate. Not there either.
Now I was really freaking out. I decided to jettison my dignity and ask Joe and Julian to help me. Woops, they ain’t home.
Not that they did anything wrong by leaving. I could hardly expect them to hang around just in case I threw a wobbly.
Then, right after my 7-11 showed up. with barely a conscious thought I suddenly reached behind myself as I sat at the computer and boom, there were my glasses.
Do you understand what that means? It means that on some deep level, I knew where my glasses were all along, and it was only when my mind was so distracted and stressed that I couldn’t think that my subconscious mind could guide me to them.
So that was an exercise in pointless stress.
And I was already not feeling very good after my ill advised one block marathon earlier today (see above). So right now. I am feeling pretty bad. I feel like my anxiety got activated and now it won’t shut down. My heart is pounding and so is my headache, and I feel very twitchy and paranoid.
Probably should not have been drinking diet cola with my meal, in hindsight. Nothing like a chemical stimulant to really give your anxiety lasting power.
So once I finish blogging, I will lay down in the dark once more in hopes of calming down and getting back to normal.
On the way to the bed I might do just a tiny bit of light exercise in order to hopefully drain some of my excess energy away.
This has been such a stressful day it makes me want to lay down and cry.
What the hell, I might do that too.
I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.