Bad sleep. Bleary. Confused. Disoriented. Sweaty.

Really frigging hungry too. Luckily, I have lunch.

Tried the Cheesy Garlic Bread flavour of Lay’s. Can’t say I taste the garlic much, to be honest. Then again, I tend to like my garlicky things to be very garlicky.

So it’s probably fine for most people.

And they are still tasty. Just not quite how I would want them.

I have already tried thw other two flavour-of-the-month offerings, Onion Rings and Pizza. The Onion Rings flavour tastes pretty much like you’d expect – oniony.

In the best possible way, natch.

The Pizza flavour is amazing, though. It really tastes like a slice of pepperoni pizza – including the crust.

In other words,. yum. 

The half hour before noon was rough because I was so sleepy and hungry. Too sleepy to do much of anything at all, even read Facebook or watch a Reddit thread video.

Video games were out of the question. Waaaay too little ability to focus and concentrate available for even a very simple game.

But now that I have some food and Diet Coke in me, I am at least marginally awake.

Got one of my appointments to have the dressing changed on my wound this afternoon at 2 pm. Shouldn’t take long, it’s not exactly a complicated procedure.

Then again, there’s my compression stocking to deal with, so it will take a little bit longer than before. First they have to take the old one off, change the dressing, and then, potentially, put an even tighter one on.

My current one is only a Level 1 squeeze tube. There’s at least one more level, with stronger pressure. I will move on to that level if Level 1 seems to be working.

I kind of hope it isn’t. I am not at all confident that an even stronger compression version won’t set off what I call my claustrophobia.

It would probably be better described as “fear of being trapped”. but even that doesn’t really get the idea across.

I am just worried that they will put the Level 2 compression stocking on and I will flip out like I’m an animal caught in a leg-hold trap.

I am free to tell them to take the fucking thing off, of course. But I would rather not have the psychotic level panic attack at all.

Cause ya know. They suck.

I can’t really say for sure whether my current compression stocking is helping my circulation or not. It kind of feels like it is and the attached foot feels less asleep.

I guess I will just have to wait and see.

Honestly, right now I would rather be asleep. But it’s only an hour till I have to leave for that appointment. Normally I would not bother with that short a nap.

But I think I will this time because god damn it, I am tired.

Honestly wish I could blow off the appointment. But that would be dumb. Besides, it won’t take very long and then I will be back here and sleep the rest of the afternoon away if I so choose.

Looking forward to it.

More after the break.

---

Still tired. But can’t sleep. It’s too hot. my head hurts (must acquired more Advil), and I feel logey and depressed.

It’s always struck me as ironic that summertime, the best time for doing awesome outdoor type activities, comes with heat that sucks the energy right out of you, making it kind of a moot point.

That’s why summer nights are so awesome. It cools off to something livable and, at least when you are young and energetic, that’s when you have fun.

I vaguely recall having energy. Makes me tired just thinking about it.

Did the appointment. Was a tad worried, because shortly before departure I had a difficult defecation, the kind where it feels like my digestive system is a wastepaper basket and someone is stomping down the contents to make room for more trash.

“Everything must go” and all that.

So I was worried that I would have another attack while I was at the health center. That would have been especially bad because the clinic is on the ground floor and the bathrooms are on the second floor (oy), and it would be a very bad situation to have a dash to the bathroom involve stairs or the elevator.

Luckily. I was able to keep calm and get my dressing and compression stocking changed without any dark emergencies.

I finally got the nurse with the cool Eastern European accent. Turns out her name is Yanna, and she introduces herself as a “home care nurse”.

Which made me want to ask, “So you live here?” .

But those are the thoughts I keep to myself.

It did the job of telling me she was qualified, at least. Not that my needs are particularly complex or difficult. I imagine changing dressings is like, Nurse 101.;

The compression stock is more complicated. It felt weird when she took the old one off. Not bad, exactly. Just weird. Like it wasn’t really my leg, in the sense that it felt unlike the leg I knew. ^[1]

But then she put the new stocking on, and I felt “normal” again.

Sometimes I think I am too adaptable for my own good.

One of these times, I want to ask them if they have a way of telling whether the compression is working or not that does not rely on my self-reporting.

I have swarms of neuroses clustering in clouds around my ability to communicate the right information to medical professionals.

I just don’t communicate the same way most people do. Ergo I do not give them the sorts of answers they want.

This, I fear, compromises care and outcomes.

It’s like a hyper potent example of my inability to give people the responses they want and expect no matter how hard I try.

I’m one strange beastie. And there’s nothing I can do about that. I missed the boat on being normal the day I was born.

The trick, therefore, is to make it work for me.

I am working on it.

I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.