Another day, another session of brain frying sleep.

And I knew this would happen. Once more, I got sleepy when i was supposed to be hungry (wrong dwarf) and took a nap when I should have been eating and blogging.

And as I lay me down, I thought, “I’m going to wake up feeling awful and then have to blog and eat while my brain slowly cools, aren’t I?”

Man, I hate it when I’m right.

And yet, i felt like I had no choice. The nap attack could not be denied.

Well, not without a damn good reason anyhow.

It occurred to me recently that I have managed to arrange my life so that I almost never have to stay awake when I feel like sleeping.

So I almost never have to force myself to stay awake. Bed is always close at hand,

I don’t even have to stand up before I lay down. I can just roll right out of my computer chair and into bed.

It’s kinda fun.

Anyhow, the luxury of being able to sleep when I please is pretty awesome.

But it leads to my “abuse” of sleep.

I’ve talked about this before, and it’s been on my mind again. I use sleep in order to reset my anxiety level. Over the course of a day, my background anxiety level slowly rises, and taking a nap resets that level back to zero.

And I have grown very dependent on this coping mechanism. So much so that I start to feel panicky if i am away from home and my bed for too long.

Because odds are, by then it’s nap time again. And forcing myself to stay awake when the urge to nap strikes has become very stressful.

This is not healthy.

The so-called real world does not allow for unlimited nap breaks. If I want to be able to go out there and find my way some day, I am going to need to be able to stay awake for at least eight hours in a row.

That is logical and undoubtedly true.

The idea scares the hell out of me, though.

Then again, what doesn’t? I live wrapped in a straitjacket of clutching fear. Everything I want to do to improve my stupid fucking life is out of reach as a result and I am stuck trying to find the way out that I am actually strong enough to use.

It feel futile. But what else am I going to do?

There must have been a door there in the wall when I came in. Right?

I wish I was so much stronger. Maybe I will be after my operation, I dunno.

I am so tired of collapsing under even the slightest of burdens. That is not the real me. The real me is mighty of heart, mind, and will.

This fragile demeanor is just a thin shell over my real and genuine self.

And some day I am going to crack that motherfucker wide open.

More after the break.

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Shell? What shell?

Sometimes I feel like this little guy.

That’s Sheldon from the comic strip/cartoon U. S, Acres. He is a baby chick who decided he didn’t want to hatch, and has therefore stayed in his shell.

Sound familiar. But what really makes me identify with him is that he is highly intelligent and quite the intellectual. He’s probably the smartest animal on the farm.

And yet, he’s also an undeveloped infant.

The parallels are as numerous as they are shocking.

Cause that is how I see myself. On the one hand, I have a brain the size of a planet and all this deep philosophical insight and wisdom and true understanding of people.

On the other hand, I am a helpless malformed creature unable to take care of himself in even the most basic of ways who wallows in his own filth and weakness and degradation because he lacks the strength to do anything about it.

As corny as it is to say, I am a study in contrasts. An admixture of opposites – vast mental strength paired with great spiritual weakness, bright and warm and friendly persona masking a dark and cold and lonely life, abilities far above the norm coupled with shocking disabilities that leave me far below it.

Like I am some strange sort of savant, with all my human potential bound up in a broad but limited set of abilities leaving nothing left for even basic functioning skills.

I am a hothouse flower without a hothouse. I was never going to be able to make it in the wild. I need (and needed) very specific conditions to thrive.

Instead, I barely eke out a pathetic existence way below the radar of society at large, clinging to playing video games as my only effective medicine against my depression an like all good addictions, it is also killing me.

My deep and abiding bitterness demands that I point out that all of this would have been different if someone had simply see the value in me as a child and taken the time and energy to invest in me despite my being a rather bizarre handful at times.

But instead, I was so very very alone. Like I said before, I got almost none of the emotional nutrients a growing child need in order to grow up healthy.

No love, kindness, guidance, discipline, and so on.

I told my therapist that given all that, it’s a wonder I grew up as sane as I did. There must have been some stubborn inner core of stability that refuse to give in to the kinds of jaded and embittered paranoia endemic to folk like me.

You know, the profoundly socially isolated weirdos with highly developed intellects but vastly underdeveloped social instincts.

A lot of people in my position would have become misanthropic and hateful and addicted to the sort of justification for outrage the internet can provide so well.

But I refuse to give in to the darkness. I am going to keep being a nice person who wants to get along with people no matter what.

The darkness is tempting. I totally see how it sucks in others. The short term benefits must be incredible. Feeling all righteous and justified and persecuted and seeing the world as being against you must be very alluring.

But it’s bullshit of the worst degree and will kill you if you take it too far.

Better not to go there in the first place.

So far so good!

I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.

My childhood was so very, very cold.

That’s how I remembering. Like miles and miles of midnight tundra. An endless expanse of nothing but snow and ice and frozen ground.

Like winter on the Moon.

Because there was no light and no love for me back then.

My mother froze me out. She was too tired from working all day then having to make supper when she got home and all the rest.

So she ignored me till I went away. I’d try to tell her about my day and she wouldn’t reply or even acknowledge me at all. I would hug her and she would not react except to look at me like she didn’t even know what I was.

That shit has to have done some serious damage to me. She was my last lifeline to the warm and wholesome world of human emotion.

And she just… gave up on me. Like I wasn’t even there.

She doesn’t remember any of this, of course. But um, I ain’t making shit up. She really withdrew from me and possibly everyone else as well.

So after that, I had nobody. No friends, no connection to my family, no support at all from my teachers or the administration.

I was a robot who went to school. When I wasn’t in school, I was in my room playing video games or reading. Or I was watching TV alone. ‘

No light. No warmth. No love. No caring. No compassion. No guidance. No understanding. No protection. No support. No attention. No anything.

And nobody noticed. Or if they noticed, they didn’t care. Certainly not enough to actually do anything about it.

After all, if they did something, they might have to deal with me, and it seems like was pure fucking poison for some reason.

I dunno. I guess I can see how dealing with me might have been pretty weird. This little fat kid who talked like a college professor and who was obviously mega smart but there was something oddly missing, too.

And that meant conversations with me were alienating and unpredictable. I didn’t think or act or react like a normal kid at all.

Because I wasn’t one.

What got me thinking about all this coldness is when I admitted to myself that I was really enjoying my visits to the hospital for IV antibiotics because it meant someone actually touching me.

I have been deeply, deeply starved for human touch for so long. No wonder I spend time every day as a cuddly fluffy fox. Virtual cuddles aren’t a patch on the real thing but they are all I can get right now.

I wish I could have a boyfriend. Or cats. Or both.

Hey, I’m a furry. My boyfriend could BE a cat.

I’m emotionally starving on so many levels. Romance, sex, nurturing, respect, purpose, direction, accomplishment, closeness, intimacy, approval, success… I am dying of the lack of all of them and I can’t see that changing any time soon.

The problems all compound one another and I am not yet strong enough to be able to choose and commit to a way out.

All roads lead everywhere.

I truly feel incapable of extricating myself from this deep dark hole of mine.

I don’t know how to thaw that poor boy out.

But I will keep on trying.

More after the break.

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It makes a statement

First, a quick share from some ladies I really love :

I love Baroness Von Sketch. Their work is always sharp, funny, high density, and best of all, without the hesitation and/or shame that held back previous female-led skitcom.

Not that I am slagging the considerable talents of other ladies of skitcom whom I love, like Jan Hooks, Nora Dunn, and Rachel Dratch.

But I feel like in my lifetime, I have had the privilege and joy of watching women led skitcom emerge from the shadow of male dominated comedy and dare to be just as daring, subversive, and sharp as anyone us dudes did.

That makes me so happy.

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Another medical roundup

Not much to report today. Did the IV Antibiotics thang. Was late – my fault entirely, not only was I slow in getting ready but then I forgot my mask.

For some reason, as soon as summer kicked in, I completely lost my ability to remember to wear a mask when going out.

Maybe I needed the prompting of having to put on my coat. Or maybe my brain has switched in to Summer Mode otherwise known as derp.

I don’t exactly become stupid in the summer but my tendencies towards absentmindedness and airheadedness get exaggerated.

So yeah. Derp!

The infusion (love that word) went smoothly, as usual. I was a little worried my IV port had gotten dislodged when I got the webbing that holds it in place caught on something, but the pre-infusion flush went through fine.

The big event was Maria the wound care nurse taking another stab at debriding my wound. At first she was having trouble but seemed to find a point of entry and that let her open things up and clear stuff out.

She then filled the wound with this antiseptic packing stuff I recognize from the previous time I had a hideous wound on my leg caused by an infection.

A truly distressing amount of the stuff disappeared into there. I guess it goes a lot deeper than it looks like it does on the surface.

That…. was unpleasant to learn. Gives me a tiny jolt of the heebie jeebies just thinking about it. A wound is one thing.

A… cavity in one’s body is far more upsetting.

Oh well. I already have a bunch on the other leg that won’t heal. At least untiI finally get my blood sugar under control.

I really need to get back to that. This hospital stuff has me all distracted.

But um, it’s kind of important, so…. yeah.

If only high blood sugar was painful.

Besides causing hideous leg infections. Hmmmm.

Maybe when I feel like slacking off in my efforts to finally get my blood sugar under 10, I should give my wound a poke.

Pain is the great teacher, after all.

I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.

In fact, it’s more like bleeeeeehhhhhhh.

Feeling fairly crappy at the moment. Probably need a shitload of sleep. I’m sleepier than your average fuck right now, yet I know that if I lay down, I won’t be able to sleep.

Instead. I will end up having to get up just so I can breathe right and then spend time on the edge of my bed trying to force all the used air out of my lungs and going through the waves of crushing despair that come with it.

Damn I hope getting CPAP working will save me from all this crap.

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More medical madness

To recap, yesterday, during my IV antibiotic treatment, I consulted with a doctor and she decided to transfer my case to the Infectious Diseases Department.

Which is also called the IV Antibiotic Ward. Whatever.

So that’s where I went this morning. First weird thing : I had to take a number and go through Admitting just to go there,

Things have gotten way more formal due to Covid, it seems. First the Covid screener at the front door, then the Information Desk to point me to my next step, then Admitting..

They print me a familiar looking pinky-purple form and I am on my way.

Things are a little more loose in the ward, which is way at the end of a long corridor. At first I couldn’t even figure out where reception was.

But that got sorted, I got seated, a nurse came along. Decided my IV port was old an busted so she removed it and put in a new one.

And she had this super cool gizmo to help her. It was a light that shone on a patch of my arm that made all my veins glow.

Far fuckin’ out, man.

That done, she hooked me up, and then removed the dressing on my wound… and walked away. WTF?

Oh, it was because she knew the doctor, Doctor Kwok (snrt), would want to see it. Still, having it hanging out there all exposed and gross made me feel oddly vulnerable.

Eventually the doctor took a look and decided it was time for this frigging thing to be referred to the wound care nurse.

Her name was Maria and I like her. She was sweet and very careful not to hurt me.

That means a lot to me.

She spent a lot of time “debriding” my wound, which basically means removing all the dead bits and other junk from the wound to help it heal faster.

Like the previous time I was going to the hospital for a hideous wound on my leg caused by a massive infection that appeared out of nowhere (!), there is a stubborn little bubble in the wound that is full of fluid and still very much alive and ouchy.

She managed to get a lot of the fluid out (ick, but yay) so it’s not as swollen. She will give it another shot when I see her tomorrow at 1:30 PM.

Yes, I stupidly said yes when asked if I could see her at 1:30 PM, completely forgetting that I have therapy between 1 and 2 pm tomorrow.

D’oh! I will have to call one and reschedule. Probably the therapy.

It’s so complicated being me!

More after the break.

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Wrong dwarf entirely

Got sleepy when I should have been hungry again. ^[1]

As a result, I am only getting around to eating at 9:15 PM. Which is a tad late, seeing as I will be having my midnight snack at… well, midnight.

Oh well. At least my appetite has been pretty good lately, which is a relief. So who knows, I might have enough hunger for both.

And if not, well, whatever I don’t finish will keep.

---

Took care of the scheduling conflict between the hospital and my therapist. LEft my therapist a voice mail.

Ball’s in his court regarding getting said message before tomorrow’s session. But maybe I will email him as well to make sure my ass is fully covered.

As require by law. Dammit./ I’d love to show off my big bear bum un public.

As a gay man, it would be a form of advertising. All this could be yours!

---

Coda to today’s medical misadventure : there had been no parking available when Julian dropped me off. And I knew this, and thus knew there was a very good chance he would not be in the parking lot when I was done.

Nevertheless, I stupidly circled the parking lot looking for the family vehicle in the hot sun when I should have just called Julian and asked where he was.

Honestly, I think part of me just wanted to get out in the fresh air and sunlight an get a little bit of exercise for once.

I should listen to that part of me way, way more often. It knows what I need to be healthy even if the rest of me is too numb from depression to tell me.

Never been any good at listening to my body. I know it will tell me what it wants and what it needs if I slow down enough and turn down the chatter in my monkey brain enough just to listen.

That’s more wisdom from my Seventies childhood, by the way.

But it’s true. In a state of nature we are guided by our cravings. They are how our bodies ensure they get what they need.

It’s not like cavemen had diet and nutrition apps.

Presumably, when their body was low on something, they craved it so they went out an got it. Simple.

But in the modern world, we have junk food messing things up. As supra-normal stimuli, they make us prefer them over food with actual nutrition, and so a lot of people (most, possibly) are rocking multiple vitamin deficiencies and don’t even know it.

The real killer app would be one that can give you an exact reading on what nutrients your body needs right now and offers suggestions as to what foods you could eat to fix that right away.

Imagine a world where our bodies always have all they need. Entire categories of mild ailments (and some majors ones too) could be wiped out.

Man, junk food ruins everything.

Now leave me to my cookies.

I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.

Another day, another hundred miles on my medical odometer.

Got the ol’ echocardiogram (heart ultrasound) done this morning.

That started off with some drama because my frigging alarm failed to go off. So poor Julian was forced to wake me up, and I know that’s not easy for him.

So thanks dear. 🙂

And then I had to scramble to get ready because we were way behind schedule, and by the time we left the building it was 6:55 am and the appointment was for 7:15 am.

So we were late. And I haaaaate being late. Always have. Even as a little kid who had only recently learned to tell time, being late would stress me out and I would get upset.

So we get to the hospital, and I follow the red line (I love those) to the ultrasound department. They tell me I want the echocardiogram department, which is next door.

So I go next door. The door is locked. Waddy fug?

A nice doctor emerges from within to tell me the echocardiogram department is, in fact, across the hall.

I’m already stressed out, I don’t need these fucking games.

Anyhow, I get there, and as the final irony, the receptionist is like, “I will be with you in just a minute”.

ARRRRRRGH. Waiting when i am this stressed is torture.

Anyhow, my being late had no real consequences and the procedure went fine. Like I said, compared to other procedures like my angiogram, ultrasounds are a breeze.

The only unpleasant part was when, to my surprise, in addition to the image on the screen, there was sound. The sound of my heart.

It sounded unhealthily…. squishy, to me. A good heartbeat, as far as I know, is supposed to be a good, solid beat with no sloshing. And if there IS sloshing, that means one or more heart valves aren’t doing their job properly and blood is flowing back through them on every beat.

Kind of wish I didn’t know that. Oh well.

Dunno how valvular malfunction might change my surgical future.

After that, it was back to Richmond. I figured I might as well get the daily IV treatment over with while I was out rather than make a second trip.

That went smoothly. Got my treatment, and my dressing change.

It’s very sad how much I have come to look forward to having the dressing changed.

Closest the big baby inside me can get to a diaper change, I guess. Disgusting.

But it just feels so nice to be touched and cared for.

What the fuck went wrong in my childhood? I was messed up before the rape. Did my mother not cuddle me enough or something?

Aaaanyhow. eventually the doctor came to consult, and she decided it was time my case was transferred to the Infectious Diseases Department.

So when I go in for my treatment tomorrow, I won’t be going in through Emergency but through the main entrance to the IDD.

Must be a real fun place to work.

More after the break.

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Another block of text

As you can tell by the title, I got nuthin’.

Well, nothing in particular anyhow. If I cudgel my brains, I can always find something to write about. After all, I am a creative genius whose mind is an ever-overflowing fountain of ideas and stories and wisdom.

But right now I have nothing except a vague notion that I wanted to talk about… confidence? In some way?

Now if only I remembered where I was going with that.

Oh well, at least I remembered something, That’s progress.

Obviously, I’ve been trying to build up my confidence for a long time, and lately it seems to be bearing fruit. I find I can think of myself as awesome a lot more often.

I’ve often wondered if I should try the classic egotist route of compensating for my tragically low self esteem by affecting brash overconfidence and smug self-assurance.

It’s more than a little obnoxious, but what the hell, if it works, it’s worth it.

I will gladly trade being kind of obnoxious and hard to be around for the confidence necessary to leave this cage of mine and make something of myself.

I could even take the attitude of, “I am going to kick ass and take what I want, and I dare the world to punish me by showing me my limitations!”.

Of course, that’s a win/win for me because either I get everything that I want or I finally feel my limitations and know where the goddamned walls of my world lie.

I never had anyone to test myself against. Intellectually, I was always the biggest kid on the playground by far and could whip anyone around.

Other kids, teachers, ever other adult I knew, people on TV… I was smarter than all of them. And not by a little, by a lot.

So when I get the urge to tell the world to go fuck itself, all I am really saying is that i want someone to come fight me, god dammit.

So maybe i should tell the world to go fuck itself. Unleash that big bad ogre inside me that just wants to go all Juggernaut on the world and smash through all barriers and take whatever the fuck I want.

Surely the world would have to find some way to stop me. Surely.

I think I might have just become a supervillain.

I’ve often suspected that supervillains are secretly just children acting out for attention and unconsciously begging for someone to love them enough to stop them.

I can freaking relate.

That’s why they get so fixated on the superhero(es), They become the villain’s substitute for the father figure that is supposed to be the final boss of their childhood.

Something like “you’re not a man until you can whup your daddy”.

Makes me wonder what would happen if they won. Killed the bejesus out of all those pesky superheroes and now had nobody to oppose them.

My guess is that it would be like a lottery win : awesome at first but then you start to lose your mind because your world doesn’t make sense to you any more.

You could even pull a Marvel fastball and have this happen in a comic so you can explore the idea but then have it be that the villain only thinks they killed the heroes.

Then they come back and the villain is giddy with joy.

Then swears to destroy them, of course.

Might make a pretty good comic.

I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.

Well, a mystery, anyhow.

Thought I had an appointment with Doctor Ebtia, my cardiologist, at 8:15 am this morning. Julian dropped me off there at the appropriate time.

But when I got there, the office was locked. Nobody there. Weird.

Aw crap. I just re-checked my notes and they say the 27th, not the 26th. So the appointment is for tomorrow, not today.

Well I ain’t gonna be there because I have a heart ultrasound at 7:15 am at St. Paul’s tomorrow. One ordered by Doctor Ebtia herself. And seeing as I was told the ultrasound will take 30 to 45 minutes, and it takes half an hour to get from St. Paul’s back to Richmond, there is no way I can make it on time.

So now I have to call her office and work this out.

---

Now I am on hold. Wow, they have Muzak. How old is this place? They want out of business ages ago. But the need for light on-hold music remains, it seems.

This shit is offensively mellow.

---

LOL. The comedy continues.

Turns out that my notes are wrong and the appointment was for today, the 26th. But it was a phone appointment. D’oh!

So while I was discovering that the office was closed, she was phoning me and finding that I was not home.

What a silly mixup. Oh well, lesson learned : always note whether an appointment is in person or over the phone.

Good thing I had to be in the area to get my IV antibiotics anyhow.

It was super convenient. The office building with all the doctor’s offices is right across the street from the hospital, so all I had to do was cross the street and get my daily dose of personal attention, human touch, and antibiotics.

Sad. But it is what it is.

No surprises there. Checked in, pinky-purple form, got hooked up, nurse changed my dressing while the IV dripped, all done, went home.

The taxi driver annoyed me by not knowing what the hell he was doing. He had to ask me which way to turn onto Cooney Street to get to our place.

Which was annoying enough but his thick accent made it even worse.

From then on I guided him, which I greatly resented. I hate having to tell cabbies how to do their fucking job.

The idea is that I get in, tell you where I want to go, and you take me there. I should not have to give you directions. It’s all very simple.

And it’s particularly galling in the era of ubiquitous GPS.

Just punch it into Google Maps. dude!

---

Oh well, job done, anyhow. My next thing is tomorrow’s heart ultrasound, which is no big deal apart from it being at 7:15 in the fucking AM.

But the procedure itself is no big deal. Ultrasounds are very chill. They put the goop on the place, they probe around with the hand scanner, you’re on your way.

Much more chill than, say, an angiogram, which is the last procedure I had and which was very complicated.

After that there’s a lull till my CPAP appointment on the 3rd of August.

I could have sworn I had something on the 4th, too, but if so, all evidence of it has vanished, so I hope that they call to remind me the day before.

I am really not cut out for the life of a gadfly.

More after the break.

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Greetings from outer space

Currently stumbling about trying to recover from some truly deep and terrible sleep.

Wow, is my brain fried right now. Crispy. I’ve been awake for over 20 mins and have staggered through making supper and yet I am still bleary and dizzy and have the distinct feeling that my head is a balloon full of helium and my mind has already floated off to Venus or some shit.

So I am playing tag with the screen right now, weaving in and out of focus on it and getting my words in periodically.

This kinda sucks.

But I love you people and want to share my wisdom with you, so I soldier on.

Must have really needed that nap. I must have done a shitload of high intensity ultra high density dreaming in the roughly two and a half hours of downtime.

Admittedly, my sleep has been pan fried crap lately. I realized today that I have been getting maybe three cumulative hours of sleep a day for what feels like forever.

That’s bad. Very bad.

There is nothing so bad that sleep deprivation can’t make it worse. I can feel how big that blank white space in my mind has gotten and it’s not a pretty picture. I would feel a million times better if I just got like six hours of soli high quality sleep.

Easier said than done, of course.

In fact, if it was that easy, I wouldn’t have that problem in the first place. But I am a very complicated person and both highly neurotic and extremely complex, and I have multiple physical issues too, and all that adds up to a restless head.

Restless Brain Syndrome, I now call it.

I know the solution. I need to take one of my sleeping pills. I have a bottle full of quetiapine right here. Could take one and my next nap would be longer and I might actually pay off all that sleep debt.

I’ve been dodging doing that because I don’t like the period of hyper sleepiness and grogginess and serious sleep apnea side effects that will inevitably follow.

Imagine barely being coherent enough to get out of bed and go pee only to be faced inevitably with the impossibly complex task of eating.

These are the days where you seriously consider whether you want good sleep enough to get yourself a catheter.

And intellectually, I know the hyper unpleasant mega-sleep period will be “worth it” once I catch up on sleep, but I am a tired creature and making little sense and I don’t wanna.

I probably will, eventually. This bad sleep shit had got to stop.

But I won’t enjoy it.

I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.

Today was too boring to be classified as a misadventure.

So, got my second Pfizer shot today. So far no side effects, knock on wood.

Was somewhat miffed that nobody asked me for my confirmation code. When I got my first shot, they acted like it was this big deal that I didn’t have it.

So for this shot, I carefully wrote it down.

But nobody gave a shit. Hmph. I guess this is all old hat to them now and that means they have figured out what parts of the process are actually important.

Turns out the damn confirmation code wasn’t.

Whatev. Point is, got the thing done. I am fully vaxxed, sorta.

Turns out that I am not truly fully one hundred percent vaxxed for double keen sure, no take backs until two weeks from now.

Well fuck that. I’m declaring myself immune via fiat.

When it came time to go, I found I had a choice : I could wear a pair of pants with one butt cheek reduced to threads, leaving it around half exposed in total, or I could wear one of my pairs of dress pants that require a suspender to keep them up.

I chose the dress.

Hey internet, how’d that turn out?

I had forgotten how much I fucking hate suspenders. I was quickly reminded on the way down to the car when the strap in the back gave out.

And let me tell you, there is nothing quite like having your ass suddenly hanging in the breeze followed one comedy beat later by being bapped on the head by the clasp that just failed you.

It’s a near perfect slapstick moment and hilarious as long as it’s not happening to you.

When it IS happening to you, it is rage inducing. Made me feel like I was going to have some kind of angry fat dude meltdown at any second.

Sorry you had to be there for my ranting and roaring, Julian. I hope you know that none of it was directed at you.

After the shot, there was the fifteen minute waiting period to make sure you aren’t having a serious reaction to it.

Then it was off to the hospital for the day’s IV antibiotics treatment.

It seems to be working. The lobster-red area on my led is much smaller than before. The “blood blister” area (that’s what the doc called it) that was swelling up so fast that it made me go to the ER seems to have healed some and it’s not “weeping” (that’s what the nurse called it) as much as before.

So we’re winning the war on that front at least.

I am supposed to see my cardiologist, Doctor Ebtia, tomorrow. But my heart ultrasound isn’t till Tuesday, So I am going to call and see if she wants to wait.

The heart ultrasound is at 7:15 in the frigging morning. Why do they always do these procedures early in the AM?

My theory is that they figure you’ll be sleepy and docile then.

They’re not wrong.

That will be it until August.

Unfortunate truth : I like being this busy. I like all the attention. I like being cared for.

In many ways, I’ve never been happier.

Sad, isn’t it?

More after the break.

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On being awesome

I feel like I am remembering my own awesomeness more often lately.

At least in my imagination.

And that’s a hopeful sign. My journey to mental health requires developing some kind of healthy self-worth as a key ingredient in building a stable sense of self.

And I have a lot to be proud of. I have extraordinary gifts and a wonderful personality. I could be one heck of a big deal in this crazy world if I wanted to.

And I find it easier to imagine myself in such a role than ever. And that is super important because before I become something, I have to be able to dream it.

If I can “see” myself in a more successful and important role, I can move in that direction and, over time, my protean personality can slowly assume that shape.

And I can imagine being some kind of highly paid executive.

I make the big bucks because I have the big brain and know how to use it. My ideas and creations and strategies are top notch and everyone knows it. I’ve risen rapidly because everyone can plainly see that I am a natural leader and visionary and therefore the kind of guy who can make things happen at the executive level.

And so I have achieved my simple, innocent childhood dream of wanting to get paid to be smart all day.

That still sounds good to me, to be honest.

Increasingly, though, the idea of just being a writer seems too flat and dull to me. Whether I am writing screenplays or sci fi novels or television episodes, the idea of doing my work alone and sending it in and collecting a paycheck seems boring. \

I’d want to be more involved than that.

Then again, who knows. I might transform back into a hermit some day. And then I will wish I had stayed a writer.

Of course, i have to somehow get myself sane first.

I’m working on it. I am always gnawing on that icy wall of fear that cuts me off from the living world, trying to bring it down. Every day the glacier sitting on my heart melts a little more and I get that much closer to being a real little boy.

It’s a nonlinear process and therefore impossible to predict. All I can do is keep living my life and striving to resurrect myself in hopes of one day truly, truly waking up.

And when that day comes, I will finally emerge from my own shadow and walk in the sun and be a part of things instead of sitting on the sidelines.

That may or may not mean that I will be happy.

But at least I’ll be alive.

I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.

…still yields to the dawn.

Been feeling better lately. And by better, I mean “less deathly”.

My appetite is back at around 80 percent strength. I still have to choose what I eat carefully and be sure not to eat too much too fast or I will trip the nausea alarm,. but food seems pretty good to me at least some of the time and that’s the important thing.

Having zero appetite sucks. Making yourself eat is never fun.

Pretty sure I know what caused it to disappear. Constipation. Nuff said.

And I am not nearly as depressed, either. The feeling of dour doom is gone. I am still pretty worried about my health conditions and how they might yet kill me, but I can at least forget about it and have fun now and then.

And we all need fun. Pleasure is important. And not optional.

I suppose in a way, I feel better now because I have become pleasantly fatalistic about it all. I will do the things I need to do to get healthy and beyond that, I can’t control what happens, so why worry about it?

Speaking of my health, I am excited to get my second Covid shot tomorrow morning.

A bit worried that it will make me sick as it has others, but whatever. Still worth it.

I think that for me and billions of others, getting your final Covid shot is the official end of your particular chapter of the Covid story.

Obviously the world is still dealing with it, especially the USA (grr), and this fucking Delta variant is making the end of this drama very… messy… but I am really looking forward to being sure I am safe from it.

The best part is that Joe and Julian will be getting theirs on Monday. and Felicity will be getting hers in early August, and therefore soon we will be able to do Denny’s again!

I have missed us being able to eat together so much. This eating in two different cars and shouting to one another sucks.

We did it at Wendy’s last night. Kept having to shout over the sound of jets passing overhead. Turns out our Wendy’s is directly under the flight path for the local airport.

That was fun.

And I have always hated eating in cars. My father made it so tense with his dire warnings of even direr consequences if we made a mess.

For a clutzy kid who screws up no matter how hard he tries to do everything right, this seemed like a no win scenario.

So eating in cars is invariably tense for me. I’d rather not. I look forward to eating in restaurants where you can all sit together and people bring the food to you.

That’s what civilization is for, god damn it!

Oh. And I really, really look forward to not having to wear a mask in public.

Technically, my province has already lifted the legal mask mandate. But we’re all still wearing them anyhow.

I think it will take a long time for us to stop. After all, who wants to go first?

Not me, and I have hated wearing the things from the very beginning. I have a deep fear of smothering and can’t stand to have anything covering my mouth and nose.

But I wore them anyway because I am not a fucking child.

More after the break.

---

IV drug use

Did the IV antibiotic thing this morning at around 9 am.

Not much to tell. Had a cute nurse name Kevin. Very Gaysian. To a fault, really, because he did that sing-song voice thing I can’t stand.

I honestly had the urge to tell him to be a little less gay.

The following nurse may be too gay for some gay people.

That was probably for the best, though, because it kept me from falling in love or lust with him. He was very cute.

Also consulted with a doctor. We agreed that there had been little progress so far so I will be going to keep doing the daily treatment until Tuesday at minimum.

Oh. And when Kevin asked what was up with the usual rash on my head, I panicked and told him I had bumped my head, and that became a whole thing, with Kevin cleaning and dressing my “wound” after the doctor examined it.

It’s all very sitcom. I have this absurd lie I have to maintain now.

Or I will just fess up. Lying is too much damned work.

What am I waiting for?

Still trying to figure out what I am waiting for when I end up sitting on the edge of my bed for like 20 to 30 minutes, lost.

Because it’s definitely a waiting game. While I am sitting there in that strange form of immobility, I am definitely awaiting some future condition.

But for what? For my blood to resettle around my boy after pooling in various places while I was laying down? For the fluid in my ears to stop sloshing about and making me very very slightly dizzy? For the stars to align so that I might, through a sacrifice of flesh, unlock the Door of Eternity and witness the full glory of Creation?

Probably not that last one. I don’t even own a goat.

So far, the micro-dizzy explanation seems the most plausible. I have been getting dizzy a lot lately. Pretty much every time I stand up unless it’s one of those rare moments where I actually remember to stand up slowly.

And even then, I still get dizzy. But a lot less.

Problem is, I have a lot of potential culprits for my dizziness. Could be my weak heart, could be my diabetes, could be my sinus issues fucking up my inner ear.

But it is getting worse and that scares me. I don’t just get dizzy, I stay dizzy. To the pint where I look like a drunk trying to walk into a stiff breeze.

Being bedridden with vertigo sounds like a form of hell to me.

Here’s hoping it doesn’t come to that.

I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.

Now, to write this without sending myself into a massive panic attack. Fun.

Basically, it seems that every time I lay down, it becomes hard to breathe. It’s like there is this dark cloud slowly filling my lungs.

Unsurprisingly, this has been building for a long time. Equally unsurprisingly, I lacked the decisive will to do anything about it except watch my doom approach with all the vitality and willpower of a barnacle about to be crushed by the bow of a cruise ship.

And now I am in trouble. Not being able to lie down any more is kind of a problem. Makes sleeping rather tricky.

I tried sleeping in my computer chair with my feet up on the bed, but that did not pan out. Must be an acquire taste.

Now, not being able to breathe is my worst (and, as it turns out, most realistic) fear. I am positive said fear shares a positive feedback loop with my sleep apnea.

What I am truly worried about is that it won’t stop here and soon I won’t be able to breathe whether I am horizontal, vertical, or diagonal.

That would kill me. Obviously.

And so logically, I should probably respond to this fresh crisis by hauling my ass back to the ER, or possibly even call 911. That would be the prudent, intelligent, logical thing that any sane and rational person would do.

They might even panic a little, just for effect.

But I am not a sane or rational person. I am a lunatic. And that means I have to think about it for a while before I can make up my mind to do it.

I will most likely get there eventually. But it will take some time.

Speaking of being insane, one of the main reasons I am reluctant to go back to the ER is that I would be embarrassed by the fact that I was just there yesterday.

Even for me, that’s wildly irrational. Odds are that nobody who saw me yesterday at 6 am will even be on shift on a Friday afternoon.

And even if it was the exact same cast and crew, who cares? What are they going to do, mock me for being a sickie?

This is how social anxiety and/or avoidant personality disorder could straight up fucking kill a person, folks, by making them too shy to get desperately needed medical help.

So I will probably go eventually. Not looking forward to it, the ER sucks.

But they will likely put me on oxygen, and that sounds real good right now. Even sitting here upright and at rest tapping away on my keyboard, I feel tired and like I could use some fresh air and maybe a transfusion of oxygenated blood.

That sounds refreshing.

And I am fairly sure that “I can’t breathe” is up there with “I have chest pains” and “my pancreas is radioactive” in terms of statements that get you to the front of the triage line.

Assuming I can get someone to take me seriously.

That is by no means guaranteed, especially around medical people.

But hey, at least I might not have to wait as long.

Heck, they might even have TWO doctors on duty now.

Oh, the luxury.

More after the break.

The morning’s medical misadventure

So my second daily IV antibiotics treatment was uneventful.

Julian drove me there at a bit after 8 am. Not the happiest time for me to be up and moving but at least I got it over and done with.

I know the routine from my previous leg infection. You show up, you give them your CareCard, they print out some stuff on pink/purple paper, and you take that to the nurse’s station in the ER.

You then sit down in one of the comfortable Barcaloungers in the waiting area and eventually a nurse comes around, flushes your IV port, and jack you into the IV of life saving antibiotic medicine.

The whole thing is pretty mellow, to be honest.

The only excitement – medical grossness warning, skip ahead to the next sectionif squeamish – was when I remembered at the last second that they were also suppose to change the absorbent dressing on my grotesque wound.

The nurse wasn’t sure she should do it as apparently despite the previous day’s nurse having assured me that they would change my dressing when I came in today, she did not note that anywhere in my file. \

But then I showed her the thing and she said “Um, yup. that has to go. ” It was stained a truly disturbing shade of mottled brown over 90 percent of its surface.

It was like a full diaper but grosser.

And when she removed it, this huge amount of brown fluid splashed out. Seriously, this thing was like the world’s must disgusting water balloon.

Luckily she was able to clean everything and give me a fresh nappie…. er, dressing. It’s’ already looking pretty, um, “used” though.

I think tomorrow I will ask for an extra in case I want o change it myself.

---

About the stuff I said in the top half :

Well I didn’t go to the ER and I’m not dead.

Zut alors, quelle choq!

I managed to find a prone position where I was not being smothered too much, and got an hour and a half of sleep, and felt much better afterwards.

So no 911 just yet, but it’s in the pipeline just waiting for things to get bad enough. Could happen at any minute.

Or not at all.

I know one thing : I am very tired of being so tired. Just getting up to get a glass of water from the kitchen feels like a fucking marathon. Taking the elevator down to the car makes me feel like I’m on a death march.

Heck, maybe when I am in the ER tomorrow, I’ll tell them my symptoms. See if they think I need to be admitted.

I am positive I do.

This shit has got to stop.

I need oxygen dammit.

I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.

Well I’ve ha a fun time.

When last we met, I had this red patch of skin on my leg that felt and looked scalded. It was smooth, red, tender to the touch, and rather disturbing.

Because like, what the fuck happened? Where did this shit come from? And what did I do to deserve having my body fall apart like this?

Well, yesterday there was a new wrinkle.

When I woke up yesterday. the red area had eyes.

Well, two blue-gray dots that looked kinda like eyes, anyhow.

Aaaand as the day progressed, those dots kept swelling and swelling, clearly inflating like some kind of Cronenbergian water balloon.

So I started contemplating a trip to the frggin ER. Never fun, sometimes necessary.

Originally I was going to wait till today but around midnight last night, I noticed that it was swelling up really fast. I was afraid the thing was going to pop, and I know from my experience with a carbuncle on the back of my neck many years ago that when something like that pops, it can push a ton of toxic infected goop into your bloodstream and kill you in a horribly painful and disgusting way.

Dunno if that was in the cards this time, but I wasn’t taking any chances.

So I got Julian to drive me to the ER. Thus began the Epic of Waiting.

Got there around 1 am.

Was seen by a doctor (Doctor Fong, which totally sounds like a Seventies porno) at around 6 am.

Five fucking hours.

But, you see, they only have one doctor on duty between 2 am and 6 am, because apparently the lives of people who get hurt between those hours aren’t worth shit.

And they were really slammed last night.

I was okay until around 4:30 am. I dozed in bed. I wasn’t very comfortable. My back was killing me because that’s when whatever mechanism turns my low intestines being gassy into excruciating back pain via muscular tension chose that time to kick in.

Because really,. why inflict only one kind of misery on me?

Around 4:30 am, however, my brain got bored with just coping passively with my situation so it started to panic.

I grew increasingly agitated by and angry with the lack of progress, and I sort of convinced myself that if the thing popped I would die, and that therefore these PEOPLE were going to NEGLECT me until it KILLED me….

Let’s just say a lot of issues got triggered.

Man, it sucks to be crazy.

Eventually the doctor arrived, and did what I knew he would do, which was to lance the swollen bit so it could drain.

That was a relief.

A nurse then put an absorbent dressing on it as it was still draining, and gave me some IV antibiotics, and I will be doing the daily trip for more until I get better.

Just like way back when I had that massive infection on my leg.

At least this one isn’t nearly that bad.

After they let me go, I took a cab home.

More after the break.

---

I hunger to hunger

Right now, my appetite is gone, daddio.

As in, Splitsville. population me. The best that I can say is that it at least isn’t negative appetite – the thought of food or eating doesn’t disgust me.

And I can make myself eat, but only in very small amounts.

It’s a strange sensation. Like my digestive tract has turned to wood. There is a weirdly solid feeling to it, and it makes me feel artificially full.

Luckily, if I go long enough without eating, a tiny bit of appetite shows up and I can get more than a few nibbles of food in.

Otherwise I would be in trouble. Diabetics, even out of control ones like me, should not go without eating. It can destabilize things completely.

Ironically, it might be my chronically high blood sugar that is easing me through this period by providing a sort of blood sugar buffer.

Probably not. But it’s an amusing thought.

I wonder if the loss of appetite is a side effect of the IV antibiotic they gave me at the ER. They told me it’ name but it was like syllable stew, I don’t retain it.

Maybe, but I doubt it. My appetite has been fading away slowly over the last week or so. My current state is just a continuation of that trend.

It’s funny – I have had IBS for so long that I barely register lack of appetite as a symptom unless it gets this bad.

My gut does weird shit all the time.

I try not to reward it with attention.

Don’t stiff me

I am also experiencing body wide muscle stiffness.

Boy, the hits just keep on coming, don’t they?

This seems to happen to me now and then. It often creeps up on me. I don’t know anything is wrong until it’s time to stand up and suddenly I’m the Tin Man in desperate need of an oilcan.

This is quite possibly a serious problem. But I have so many.

Too many. If I was to go to Doctor Chao and tell him all my symptoms, he would completely overwhelmed. Heck, I bet WebMD would crash given my list.

All my medical pigeons are coming home to roost at the same time and quite frankly it’s hard not to conclude that they will take me out soon, either individually or as a group.

I wish I could just go to the hospital and surrender myself to their tender mercies. Tell them to test for everything because I am not a reliable witness to my symptoms.

“Mister Bertrand! Why didn’t you tell us your spleen was on fire!?!”
“Oh right…. that…. ”

The stiffness feels like something inflammatory. Why it only happens some of the time is a mystery. It could well be a food allergy.

Next time I notice it has started, I will have to think about what I ate recently. That can get complicated given all the various trail mixes I eat.

But what the fuck. Stiffness sucks.

I leave making a crude and obvious joke about that as an exercise for the student.

I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.

But I’m way less sad.

Went to see Doctor Caswell, my diabetes and sleep apnea specialist, this morning.

Was feeling quite terrible when I got there. I’d been feeling worse than usual for the last three or four days. Felt very hot and heavy and head-achey and tired and my appetite was almost completely dead.

Luckily the fever has broken and after I finally got some decent sleep, I feel a lot better and more human now.

The appointment went well. Got two more sensors from Doctor Sherri, plus a sample of a new drug called Ozempic which, fingers crossed, will help me finally get my god damned blood sugar down to something reasonable.

I also told her about the problem I have been having with needing to just sit on the edge of my bed for a while in between being in bed and actually getting out of bed and doing stuff because it takes me a while to catch my breath and adjust to the shift in position.

It’s a surreal experience because I never know how long it will take and during it I am in a strange state of suspended consciousness.

I am fully aware and I can think and wonder and whatnot like usual, and yet there is no way in hell I can do anything until the process completes.

I tried forcing it yesterday. It hurt. Turns out my body knows what it’s doing.

That makes one of us.

So I told Doctor Sherri about it, and naturally we got to talking about CPAP, and I told her I was hoping for a mask like the one I wore when I was in the hospital for pneumonia a few years ago,

It was my oxygen mask and the key feature was that it only covered my nose. That made it way, way easier for my somewhat paradoxical fear of smothering to handle.

A fear of smothering I strongly suspect came from my sleep apnea.

It’s the Circle of Suck!

She put a call in to my CPAP people, Coastal Sleep, and I am going to go see them on August the Second in order to check out new masks and such.

Glad I got the CPAP train moving again after like a decade. I guess all it took was realizing the effects of my sleep apnea were escaping the realm of sleep.

Who am I kidding? That was always the case. I just don’t notice because I have no basis for comparison any more.

Terrible sleep is my normal now. I can’t imagine what it is like to wake up feeling refreshed. For me, sleep is something one survives.

But if I can get CPAP working for me again, all that might change!

So overall today started out kind of crappy but got a lot better. I have injected the Ozempic and will check my sugars later to see what effect it has.

Hopefully it will get things moving in the right direction.

Things are actually potentially glancing in an upward direction, kinda.

More after the break.

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Twinkle little star

So as I was assembling my supper, Julian was watching an episode of Kimmel with a little girl who joined MENSA at the tender age of two.

And my first thought was, “Bullshit. That’s not even possible. ”

But then I started thinking about my own bizarre childhood, and all the things I did that people would have called bullshit on in the exact same way.

Like learning to read before I was three years old. Implausible, no? And yet it happened to me. I was reading long before I entered Grade 1.

I even tried reading Shakespeare. Not successfully, I must add. I could totally read most of the words but had no idea what de heck people were saying or what was going on.

The words I could do. The sentences, not so much.

So when I was watching Kimmel completely patronize this poor little girl like he was the worst “Kids Say The Darnedest Things” host ever (god I loathe that show), all I could think of was, “that could have been me. ”

And let me be crystal clear : I am on no level jealous of her.

In fact, the whole thing triggered teh fuck out of me because attracting that kind of attention would have been a frigging nightmare for me at that age.

Hell, it would freak me out now. I’d just get over it because money.

And when I say that could have been me, I mean it quite literally. There was a time in m childhood where the school system wanted to advance me a grade and only by (I shit you not) clinging to my bedpost and refusing to go back to school if they made me go to the higher grade did I resist that doomed move.

Because once that started, who knows where it would have stopped? I was definitely a lot more than one grade above my peers.

I really didn’t want to be one of those elementary school aged kids in college.

And the wisdom of this decision was revealed to me when I saw what happened to Michael McNally. He was also super bright, and he took the advancement, and as a result got bullied way, way harder than I ever did.

As an aside, he hated me. Presumably he saw me as a rival before the upgrade.

It says a lot about my basic nature that I didn’t see him as a rival at all. I am just not capable of that kin of petty jealousy.

He was smart. So was I. So what’s the big deal? Why should we fight?

I wonder if that pissed him off too. Imagine that you are throwing everything you’ve got against a hated rival and they not only don’t even acknowledge being attacked but refuses to even antagonize you.

God, that kind of thinking depresses me.

Can’t we all just get along?

I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.