Talked with Doctor Chao about my back pain over the phone today.
Nothing new was revealed. Well, one thing, apparently some of the bones surrounding my spine show signs of deterioration consistent with arthritis.
Quelle shoc. Arthritis doesn’t just run in my family, it gallops. Doc Chao recommends that I get myself some Tylenol Arthritis to help with the pain.
I might, I might not. The cyclobenzaprine (muscle relaxant) seems to keep the pain under control well enough. Dunno if I need another painkiller.
On the other hand, it couldn’t hurt. Well, except in the wallet.
Predictably, I did not bring up any of the other health weirdness. Like the fact that I keep pooping the bed.
Consider that your brown alert warning.
And it’s not normal poop at all. Instead, it’s a mixture of a thick, translucent fluid and these extremely dense little pebbles of fecal matter.
And I have no idea what the fuck is up with that.
Clearly something is going drastically wrong in my digestion. Something that is causing the constituent elements of normal, healthy feces to come out unmixed.
According to this article, pebble poop is a known thing and is usually just a symptom of constipation. But the article doesn’t mention the fluid portion or the incontinence.
I am pretty sure the fluid portion is the reason for the incontinence. It’s just not something my rectal sphincter is designed to contain.
I should probably see someone about it anyway, though. Could be that there is something very nasty going on that warrants medical intervention.
But I am never eager to go to the ER or Urgent Care and tell them I keep shitting the bed. That’s not something that’s easy to admit to a stranger.
Childish, I know. But it is what it is.
And now, of course, I have the extra strain of telling them that this has been happening sporadically for like a month, yet I am only bringing it to them NOW.
God, being Avoidant is fucking complicated.
It’s way, way easier to just clean up and then forget about it. Go back to living my life like I normally do and hope for the best.
But not really. What I really do is just forget all about it. Yay.
All part of my “just keep going” internal programming, I guess. When there is nobody there to pick you up, you learn to never fall down. For my whole life, since I first went to school, I have just trudged along doing what was expected of me and not taking time to stop and care for myself because I had no faith that I would ever get started again.
And, well, thirty years of wasted adulthood and the grim reaper looking me over like he’s deciding where to stick the scythe later, I am thinking I had a point there.
When my parents took me out of school and made me move back into my childhood home and into my childhood bedroom, that damned near killed me.
I was doing great in school. My professors liked me, I like them. I had nerdy friends I could hang out with and play games. I was even beginning to maybe think about trying to find a way to get laid without getting lynched.
But my parents killed all that just so they could take early retirement.
Typical fucking boomers. It’s all about them.
This is part of why us Gen X types are so sullen and bitter. We grew up with Boomer parents who did whatever the hell was best for THEM and we their unfortunate childred were expected to be perfectly fine with that and whatever consequences there were to US and our wellbeing.
So yeah, I am god damned bitter. I got a concentrated dose of Boomer selfishness and I still have not recovered from it 30 years later.
Because I never had a breakdown. I never tried to kill myself. I never did anything to get in trouble with law enforcement. In short, I never cried for help.
I just kept going.
More after the break.
If I broke down
OK. So, realistically, what would happen if I went catatonic and/or otherwise could not move and needed to be rescued, call 911 style?
Well, it would take a while for anyone to notice. I spend most of my time alone in my room with just my computers for company.
And they don’t notice shit.
So if it was some kind of medical emergency, I might be in deep trouble. But I can’t see a way around that. I certainly can’t ask Julian to do a verbal check once an hour.
That would irritate me and put a lot of strain on him and that’s a recipe for disaster.
Do not taunt grumpy fun fox.
But what would happen when I was finally noticed? Julian would know something was up for sure if I did not come out to watch stuff with him at midnight. Or if I did not show up at all for one of our Zoom meetings with Joe and Felicity.
He would check on me eventually, I am sure. And when I didn’t respond to the phone or to him calling out my name, he would come into the bedroom to see what’s up.
And when I was completely unresponsive, he would call 911. I am sure of that.
So my internal narrative of having to keep going because nobody will be there to pick me up if I falls is not entirely true.
I think another part of needing to “keep going” is the need any hunted animal to keep moving in order to be a “moving target”.
Can’t stop. Clown will eat me.
I also think that if I did break down, I would find it so embarrassing. I guess one rule of my universe is, “take care of yourself so that you’re not a burden to others ever. ”
We can see how well that worked out. I’ve become a burden to Julian against my will. And the way things are going, I will be a burden on the health care system soon.
That doesn’t bother me much, though. It’s being a burden to those I am close to which makes me feel convulsively guilty.
Even though they’re not complaining.
Being me is so complicated.
I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.