But I don’t wanna.
Whatever infection I have got has moved into my throat and lungs now. My throat is raw and I have a smoker’s roughness when I speak. My lungs are rough and it burns a a litle when I breathe. My nose is running and I feel pretty wretched.
So I definitely probably should go to the ER and get myself checked out.
But I don’t wanna.
What I wanna do is stay home, eat nice foods, drink my Diet Coke, and play Skyrim in between naps and meals.
Typical convalescent stuff. And for all I know, I could just have the flu.
But nothing is “just the flu” in this plague stricken age,.
So now I have to begin the arduous process of talking myself into it.Overcoming my own inertia and getting myself to get my clothes and books together so I can get my ass to the ER ain’t gonna be easy.
‘Cause I don’t wanna.
It’s ironic. Being sick makes me feel fragile and vulnerable, and feeling fragile makes me even less eager than usual to submit myself to all the waiting and noises and bad bad vibes of the ER.
i suppose I could dodge the decision by arranging a Zoom with my GP instead. Let him decide if I should go to the ER or not.
Show him this goddamned thing on my side. See how he reacts.
I have to admit that a certain unhealthy part of me would be greatly pleased if I showed it to him and he gasped in horror.
Told ya I was sick!
I wish I could somehow go to the ER with protection. Someone strong and kind and reassuring who can help me stay calm and feel safe amidst the chaos and hubbub.
I’ve never had such a person in my life. Not even when I was a kid. I have always been abandoned to my fate. I can’t remember a single moment in my life when I felt like there was someone bigger and stronger and smarter than me whom I could trust to keep me safe from the harsh and unforgiving world.
So deep down, I just plain don’t believe in safety. Not for me, anyhow. Life for me is constant danger and the only kind of safety I know is won by constant vigilance and anticipation of potential threats.
No wonder I am so reclusive. Under those operational parameters, with “safety” as the highest priority, staying the hell away from the world is the most efficient solution.
In order to change, therefore, I have to change those parameters. And that’s a tall order and a half. M sense of safety was shattered when I was only four years old, and that was a very long time ago indeed.
Damage from trauma that early doesn’t just mess you up. It becomes a permanent part of your brain structure. Hardwired, as it were.
Getting over something like that is probably not possible. Like losing a limb, it’s probably something you can learn to live with and have a nearly normal life, but no matter what you do, that limb ain’t coming back.
And all you can do is limp along the best you can.
More after the break.
Oh, and here is what the damned thing looks like. Warning : gross.
Waiting on fear
Well, I am still here. So you know I haven’t gone to the ER yet.
I asked myself the question, “What am I waiting for?” and after some soulsearching I realized the answer was “for something really scary to happen”.
Like, when I went to the ER with a massive suppurating wound on my leg, that was pretty dramatic and extremely scary. I was not the least bit surprised that it resulted in a ten day hospital stay.
My memories of that stay are rather blurry. Good.
So I am forced to conclude that it will take something like that to scare me enough to pull the trigger and actually go to the ER.
And I am honest enough to admit that I know this is not the prudent course of action. A prudent person would go to the ER when they saw a Demon Nipple appear on their body and to hell with anything else.
But I am not a prudent person. What I am is a crazy person, and irrational choices are kind of our thing. I try to be smart, prudent, far-thinking, and sensible, but shit happens.
Maybe I should focus on trying to be happy instead.
It’s possible that I will decide to go to the ER without a dramatic new symptom to shock and horrify the fine people there. I feel like I am moving in that general direction and that it will probably happen tomorrow or Friday if it does.
It’s just a matter of overcoming my resistance to the idea and making peace with the idea of waiting around in the ER as I slowly make it through the gauntlet of triage until an actual doctor sees me.
AndI have to go in with a feisty attitude. This is one situation where my usual affable easygoing friendly mode just won’t cut it.
I have to advocate hard for myself. I am not there to make anyone’s job easier, and other people’s tensions and schedules and pressures are not my fucking problem, I am only there to get better, and that has to be my top priority.
But I don’t want to come across as belligerent or hostile as that would put me at a strategic disadvantage. So I will instead invoke the power of my middle class upbringing and my father’s powerful examine, and deploy my “friendly but deadly” mode.
In this mode, I am bright, friendly, smiling, and absolutely unstoppable. I never raise my voice or show any sign of anger at all,but I press my case unrelentingly until I get what I want out of the situation.
The genius of this approach is that by giving people no reason not to give you the perfectly reasonable thing you are asking for, it makes it nearly impossible to refuse you, and perfectly frames the situation so that the path of least resistance is to just give you what you want so you will go away.
I mean, even pretty terrible customer service people won’t come right out and say “Because I don’t want to do it, okay?”.
Sad that I have to treat medical professionals like bad customer service people, but the bitter truth is that some of us have to remind people that we’re human.
Otherwise, we just get stepped on.
I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.