The dam leaks

Just had a small urinary oopsie.

I didn’t think I needed to pee that bad, but apparently I was wrong. Because on the way back to my room from the kitchen, the contents of my bladder sloshed against what I guess you’d call the urinary sphincter, and a little leaked out.

That’s not good. That’s not good at ALL.

Add that to the list of things I really should take to Doctor Chao. But that’s unlikely to happen soon because it takes more than a week just to get a phone appointment with him, and I find that quite discouraging.

If I have an issue, what are the odds it will still be there a week from now? Given how frail and variable my health has become, the odds aren’t good.

Even pharmacists are now saying, “You should probably just go to Urgent Care. ”

I still feel weak and I am still worried that the cause might be physical. It’s occurred to me that I have been sick for so long that I no longer have any solid frame of reference for what I should and should not be feeling in my body.

I know I have felt weak and low for a long time and that it really seems like my body starts to gear up to get going then something happens and all the energy flows out of the system again, like a car when the engine won’t turn over.

For all these years I have attributed that to my ruptured psyche, but it’s entirely possible that the problem is, in fact, my wounded heart.

I mean, how would I know?

I am trying to remember the last time my heart got looked at in a medical sense. I am pretty sure it was at least two years ago. Maybe more.

Couldn’t hurt to ring the bell on that sometime soon. What the heck.

Wouldn’t it be amazing to find out that it’s been a physical issue all this time and that an operation or procedure can fix it?

It would do wonders for my deep feelings of guilt and shame about having not lived a grownup life at all despite being 51.

See, it wasn’t a moral failing. I don’t lack character and grit.

I just had a bum ticker.

It’s still a longshot but it’s something worth considering, at least.

And yeah, I know I’m not supposed to feel utterly terrible about how my life has turned out and I am especially not supposed to feel like a complete and utter failure.

What I should be doing is forgiving myself and accepting that I am who I am and I am where I am in life and the best I can do is make the best of the time I have left on this mortal plane and just try to relax and enjoy myself.

Blah blah blah. Knowing what I am supposed to be feeling doesn’t make it happen, it just makes me acutely aware of something else about me that is broken and wrong.

And I’m not supposed to be feeling that either.

But I do. I feel it all. The guilt and shame are crippling. I cringe inwardly at the thought of being in any social situation where I have to admit to completely failing at life.

Nope, no job stories. I have no idea what it’s like to work for a living. Sorry, can’t relate.

No relationship stories either. No idea what it’s like to be in one of those either.

I’ve just lived the same pathetic existence in one place or another (doesn’t really matter where) for the last 30 years or so.

And yet, to the outside world, I don’t seem sick. I never let it show. If it wasn’t for this blessed blog of mine, the world would have no idea anything was wrong with me.

I can’t even come close to truly baring all even with my therapist.

Around other people, my smooth persona is in place and I seem just fine and dandy.

When I grew up, it was definitely not okay to not be okay.

Because when there’s nobody to catch you, you better not fall.

More after the break.


The other “shoe”

Well it start with the same letters, anyhow.

Having peed myself earlier, I had to complete the set and shit the bed.

The usual circumstances : I was asleep, was woken up by the need to poop. Or rather, by the horrible realization that I had um…. already started.

Then I was stuck trying to get to the bathroom without squeezing the toothpaste tube too much, so to speak.

A futile endeavour, to be sure, but I had to try.

I got my dirty ass into the bathroom and onto the throne and inspected the damage. Turns out I had done a much better job with the toothpaste tube than I had thought. The amount of substance in my pants was fairly small.

I didn’t think I needed to “go” when I lay down to nap. The lesson to never ignore that need in favour of sleep in order to prevent this very thing has finally sunk in.

But who knows, I might have ignored the warning signs. That would be better than the other possibility, that my condition has gotten even worse and there is now nothing I can do to keep from needing Depends when I sleep.

God, I hope that’s not it.

Oh, and I got my second needle to the eye from the folks at West Coast Retina Consultants this morning. This time it was the right eye.

I brought a book because last time we were there, last Tuesday, we were there for at least an hour and a half.

But today it took less than half an hour. I guess they didn’t feel the need to do all the forms of testing they did the first time.

How much could my eyes have changed in six days?

So the shot hurt the same but the wait? I barely felt it at all.

I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.