So I realized something about all pain I have been suffering since taking a tumble and landing flat on my back on the sidewalk last Wednesday.
The fall might have triggered it, but it alone can’t account for the symptoms.
To recap : basically, I am very stiff and sore all through my body. When I move in any large way, I get that kind of grinding pain that comes from trying to move a stiff limb.
If I’m lucky.
If not, I also get severe shooting, stabbing pains in my muscles that are enough to make me shout out and/or whimper out loud in pain.
That really sucks.
And so my mobility is even more limited than usual. My life has broken down to a series of challenges to my ingenuity and determination as I have to summon both just to get the fuck out of bed.
I am somewhat okay once I am upright. I can keep my spine stiff and avoid bending or flexing much of anything between the waist and chin as I sit or move around.
But getting there suuuuuuuuuuuuuuuucks.
I mean, it was hard enough to find the motivation to get out of bed when it didn’t hurt.
So the last two days have been extra brutal. The nurses always take my blood pressure (plus blood ox and temp) when I sit down to get my IV Antibiotics, and for the last two days they have been concerned about it being a little high, and ask why.
“Because just getting from the car to Ambulatory was brutal fucking agony!” is what I want to say.
Like I said, the fall might have triggered it but it can’t account for it all. I landed on my back but this state applies to my entire body, from toenails to temples.
And I have no specific pains on the surface of my back. I don’t feel any scrapes, bruises, or other impact injuries.
Mental note : get one of the roomies to check my back for signs of bruising.
So the symptoms and the injuries are not a match. There has to be something else going on here.
I think it’s some kind of body-wide inflammatory response. Not sure how the hell a fall could trigger one of those, but it’s the only thing that makes sense.
If so, then an anti-inflammatory might do me a lot of good. Sadly, my beloved Tylenol is not one, so it can’t help me.
ASA is one, though, and I have my low-dose time-release ASAs that I take as a stroke prevention measure, so hopefully that will help.
Still, might order some actual Aspirin from 7-11 or whatever. If it could break the hold this bullshit has on me, it would be way more than worth it.
I keep dithering over whether this is the sort of thing I should take to the ER.
I mean, logically, it is. I mean, I’m practically crippled. Any sane or rational person would see that as an ER-worthy problem,
But I dunno.
I don’t want to go through another long boring wait in the ER so soon after the last one. And for all I know, it would all be for nothing because there’s nothing they could do.
Except give me a dose of a really GOOD anti-inflammatory, I suppose.
I dunno. Maybe after IV antibiotics tomorrow I will hobble over to the ER. See what they think of my condition.
More after the break.
Another meal gone
Well it looks like I am going to miss another goddamned meal.
No supper for me tonight. Why? Because I slept when I should have been eating again and now it’s 10:45 pm and I haven’t had “supper” yet at all.
I could still eat, of course. “Midnight” snack won’t happen till 1:45 am or so, three hours from now. Plenty of time to eat and then recover my appetite. Right?
But I have zero appetite and my back is sore and life seems very dark and unpleasant to me right now and the bottom line is that I am just too depressed to eat.
I can’t find the motivation to even just go put some Smartfood popcorn in a bowl.
And that is both stupid and bad, of course. I know this. How could I not? There’s a voice in my head screaming it at me as I type these words.
But don’t let that fool you. It’s not on my side. It’s only saying that to make me feel worse. It knows that its words will do the opposite of motivating me.
They will make me retreat even further into myself and become even more depressed and make things even worse.
That’s life when you’re a sad little turtle, folks.
Whatever. I will survive, probably. I usually do. I will muddle through, have under-eaten yes again, and probably dealing with attacks of killer appetite and/or feeling cold, dizzy, and lightheaded until I manage to get a big meal into me and catch up again.
Just another day in the care of the insane.
I must make peace with the fact that I am a crazy person and therefore not in control of myself, ergo not responsible for my inability to behave sensibly.
I want to be the smart guy who does the sane and intelligent thing all the time, but I am not. I am, instead, a victim of mental illness trying to muddle through life with a head full of bad wiring, a heart full of shards of broken icicles, and a soul that knows nothing but the darkness of outer space.
Take that, Emo Kid.
So what do I do? That’s the eternal question. I know all kinds of things I could do – if I had a brain that worked. And I know all kinds of wonderful things I SHOULD do – and therefore can’t do.
But none of it matters because none of it is actually doable with my broken brain.
I need solutions for the brain I’ve got, not the one I want.
And I am not going to be able to come up with them by myself.
Because my brain is broken.
I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.