If it were not so, I would have told you.

Dear Readers, mostly of the Sweet Sort --

I received this comment after my last scintillating post of a copy of one of those LOLcat thingies that cat fanatics laugh at every day:

T said...

Been a week now, that's not like you. I hope you are ok.

TAM

Well, okay, damn it, TAM, if you're gonna get all pushy and rude about it, and can't get by for a week on a hard-fought, drainingly intellectual (and creative!) cat cartoon, well, then, geez!  I guess I'd better write something.

You want the truth or the truth?

I mean, I could say it's all been due to March Madness and the fact that my Gothic Wonderland DukieDom was demolished in the Elite Eight, and I'm in mourning.  La Bonne et Belle Bianca ripped off all her clothes -- which took a while -- who knew the secret of her amazing assortment of undergarments, that we will blithely name "shapewear"?  We caught her, reluctantly, before she made it over the drawbridge, but Fred is still putting drops in his eyes.

Speaking of Fred, he has the world's weirdest ear infection going.  In both ears, though he only perceives it in one.  Talking to him is the tops of hoots:  he offers you one side of his head, then the other, then proceeds to slowly rotate back and forth, listening for the correct pitch of your blip on his radar.  He has no pain, has had no fever or dizziness, and likely would not have noticed a thing were it not for the echos and distortion to his hearing. But get this!  He went to the doctor, TWICE.  Of course, TWICE, he saw, not the doctor, but the PA, who was rude enough to check his prostate, as well.  The ear bone is connected to the prostate bone -- new-fangled medicine.  So I've been thankful to the ear issue as it lead to a physical and the sudden appearance of a salad with his every meal -- we both skip breakfast, as I can't do salad for breakfast.  Fruit salad, yes -- staying ahead of TAM, the smarty-panted.

Which leads, quite naturally, to a discussion of why we skip breakfast.  Neither of us are able to sleep.  For a few nights, it was the height of ridicule, both of us in bed, awake for worry about the other.  That accomplished nothing but resentment in the blaring, glaring light of day.  I've gone over to the dark side, to Fred's "schedule." I sleep when I can, and, basically, that means either whole days at a stretch, or not at all.

Many nights of biting through my lower lip, a worried feline Dobby gently putting his paw on my former shoulder, trying in his elven way to bewitch me into sleep, so that he can then curl up on my head, tail forming  an Amish beard under my chin.

I have been writing, but mostly, sorry, poetry.  And sorry poetry it is, too!

I even hosted a poetry contest which I then ruined by being myself.  My contestants, having been "judged" by unnecessarily long and pretentious comments, are almost universally and uniformly pissed off.  Add to that the warm-hearted comments I keep getting after I win any sort of "prize" or recognition, and I feel a bit like a motherless child.  They keep saying, "There is no audience for you here." 

Well, the motherless child reference is just overwhelmingly rich, as my Dearest of Readers already know,. and though Freud and Jung both suck, they'd easily earn their weight in cocaine and great mandalas after just 30 seconds of my whine.  "She's mourning ze mama," they'd say.  Well, she ain't dead yet, my Monty Python side mutters.  I feel no remorse for calling in the troops of Adult Protective Services and only hope that they are true to their word -- which would be a first among the human species I've encountered in the last few weeks or so.  I lay in my bed, moaning, finding no position free of pain, and am psychically connected to her decrepit frame and mind, so many hundreds of miles away, and sometimes I do not reach for my pain medications out of a demented certainty that her pain is untreated, her confusion enhanced by the hurt.

They are not cruel people, her children, and caring for her can be no easy task.  But it's one that needs doing, and must be done well.  

I also hope they've not robbed her blind.  I also hope that... well, you know what one hopes.

My blood work shows something that looks like hemolytic anemia, so I'm not bleeding out, though I am still bleeding.  Sumpthing, sumpthing to do with bone marrow that would like a vacation, please.  Probably from the onslaught of five years of heavy-duty antibiotics.  No bitterness here, no ma'am, no sir!  The worst part is that exertion, sometimes in the form of three to ten steps, can bring on a dip into cold-lipped darkness.  So I use a trick that I knew would one day come in handy.

Many, many years ago, in the days of living with the Self-Proclaimed Greatest of American Authors (was I ever that stupid?  Yes, I was!  And, oddly, regret it less and less.  Honor the ways in which you have survived, no matter how self-demeaning and weird!) -- Anywho, back to my fairy tale: 

Many, many years ago, in the days of living with the Self-Proclaimed Greatest of American Authors, he and I spent an entertaining couple of summer months as Drum and Bugle Corps groupies for the Santa Clara Vanguard, a six-time Drum Corps International Champion.  Self-Proclaimed Greatest had once been the freaking drum major for UCLA, one of those odd quirks that make up attractions, as I would often ask for some strange bedroom reinactments.

His younger brother played horn, blew trumpet, for The Vanguard, and a more dedicated horn blower there has never been.  "Squealing" was the height of heights for these brothers.  Squealing consisted of Baby Brother standing at the end of his bed, which, thank the gods, had a low footboard, his back to it.  Throw pillows were scattered about his feet, "just in case." To squeal is not just to blow for all you are worth, for the entirety -- and then more -- of your lung capacity. No, you show control as well, and as you wail, your back naturally arches, the horn turns heavenward, and you traverse the tones, you trip the light...

Well, yeah, you actually do trip the light.  You do it, or they did, to the point of passing out.  Done correctly, this musical exercise leaves you plopped on the end of the bed, drooling, and much as Heston dared, still gripping the horn which might have to be pried from a dead, cold hand. 

Then, rapidly coming to, you high five your sibling and yell out things like "the coolest" or "awesome blow, dude." 

So as I maneuver around the bedroom, not seeing the point of the transfer to wheelchair and its so forths and so ons, when all I want is something out of the closest of the twelve walk-in closets of our well-appointed digs here in The Manor, I sidle around the contours of the bed, looking for all the world like Eliot's crab, ragged and scuttling.  It's as close to a trumpet squeal as I'm gonna get, and twice has actually worked as planned.  Things began to go cold and dark, and all I needed to do was go backward.  Once, actually, it probably even looked like a casual, planned sit.  Except for the ensuing collapse of the upper body onto the mattress.  Other times, I've parked the wretched chair in the mid-space of my route, and usually made it to the seat in time.  A few times, I've hit the wall, instead, which has a subtle sobering effect, and causes a bit of internal panic, but, as yet, no need for repainting.

Unfortunately, nonsense such as this has lead to more medical appointments, something I had wanted to swear off, as this year is dedicated to staying away from the beastly medic types, unless there is a fire to be put out.  I suppose go-to-guy sees this as a stray spark in a virgin forest afflicted by dangerous drought, an over eager aridity.  I could burn the world down.

So tomorrow, and then again on Thursday, we waste our days with figuring all this out and spraying down the old trees, wetting the underbrush, digging fire lines, breaks to the spread of my ember's arson.

In short, I'm tired.  One trip last week, to sweet Justine, the world's best vampire, wore me out. Writing bad poetry, insulting contestants who willingly entered into a sacred agreement with me to honor their work, trying to keep the Domestic Staff from going wild with equanox joy, and keeping the naked Bianca contained on this side of the moat, all of it has taken a ridiculous toll.  The Mother-Unit's troubles, Fred's poor muddled ears, and the fact that I've demanded coffee in bed the past four days -- all this makes me blue.

Three fingernails are trying to come off and I'm too much of a baby to yank 'em.  My song of experience?  There was a fourth, and I yanked it.  A terrible, sad new use for the profundity of "Never again!" 

Oh, I forgot one of my better excuses!  My eyes.  I'm not blind, I just can't see.  I've even gone faithful to the regimen of glaucoma drops but isn't it the nature of need-driven faith to just gnaw your ass off?

We'll call this a Post of Obligation and hope that you all can find enough in the archives to stay amused.  There's no cure yet for CRPS, or I'd have told you, and the gated community of biofilm osteomyelitis infection has only added a chain link lock to the wrought iron enclosures.  Jose Ochoa is still a turd, as is Scott Reuben, and Lindsey Baum is still gone.  

If it were not so, I would have told you.

That would be heaven

I am having a weird day.  No, I don't feel like justifying either my definition of weird or exactly how any other day might be called less weird.

Part of the problem is that I am on a new medication that is kicking mine buttocks.  Of course, I looked it up, sure to find big old looming black-boxed warnings and pictures of necrotizing fasciitis -- only to find bolded and underlined reassurances as to how freaking mild a drug it is, how virtually no one has ever experienced even a twinge of a negative sensation from this pharmacological concoction (it's two, two, two drugs in one!).  Yes, according to my research, even an overdose is cause for balloons, cake, and karaoke.  The most severe reaction ever recorded?  A sneeze.

Me?  I've had the room go black three times since starting it yesterday morning.  You know, that lovely feeling of the lips going cold as vision fades and the floor rocks-and-rolls.  Given that the other endearing side effect is diarrhea, the fainting part -- from orthostatic hypotension -- is not much appreciated.  I don't stand very often... In fact, the only standing I do is when I take the perilous journey of five steps from wheelchair to toilet, or from door to bathtub, also about five steps.

I am a tough person.  I know that I have to give medicines a chance, have to allow time for adjustment, and so on, but I do get tired of the process.  There's little point in calling anyone, the situation doesn't demand a brainiac to decipher its intricacies, and besides, the prevailing attitude is that I can, and should, put up with most any physical./mental/emotional problem.  It's my lot.  It's the dealt hand.  It's -- well, you get it.

Since "we" are talking medications...

Twice yesterday my judgmental self went into overdrive over "wrong" attitudes.  Of course, in my present mood, an attitude that is wrong would be any attitude that deviates from my own, "right" one.  I need life to be simple for a day or two.

Let's see.  First, Fred came begging for tizanidine because he has a terrible backache.  That's fine -- he showed up begging because I suggested he take some of the drug to begin with.  I had given him about 10 or so a few months back, as his back has become more and more of an issue.  For Fred to make an issue of pain is an occasion of note, to be taken seriously.  Another important detail?  We are both, after our fairly extensive experimentation with recreational drugging as middle-aged youth, ardently against drug abuse and tend to undermedicate ourselves as a result.  In other words, I know that Fred would never wrongly or casually take medication.

But the boy does suffer from a sometimes severe case of ADHD, as well as living with the tough distractions that come from PTSD.  Organization is a constant struggle, memory more an ideal than a reality!

He moves around the Manor, showing me that he is actively searching for the aforementioned previously gifted bottle of tizanidine.  "Look," his actions cry out, "See me search?  See me search and not find?"

Rather than have *that* to watch all afternoon, I decided to gift him with some more tablets.  I was hurting rather awfully myself, had just put mine self in bed, and didn't want to move a single muscle.  So I asked him to bring me an empty pill bottle for the stuff...

He first brings an old pill cutter thingy that also has three compartments for pills.  The problem is, each compartment is full, occupied by previous pharmaceutical offerings on my part.  Me being me, each compartment is labelled, and none of the labels say "tizanidine."

"You actually expect me to mix tizanidine, a round white pill, in with this prednisone, also a round white pill?" Knowing, as you do, Dear Reader, that I am feeling pissy and that I'm a dyed-in-the-wool teacher-type, you can imagine the tone I adopted.  (Yes, I also find that tone repulsive.)

"Hmmm?  What?  Oh, yeah, that will be fine.  I'll remember the difference,"  he proffers, while staring distractedly at the Nadal-Roddick match on the telly.

Anyway, after I reject that idea, he repeats it... and later, when my own pain pills have kicked in, I give him a properly labelled, single-use bottle.  But I make a point of adding a review of all those bottles on his side of the Big Round Bed to my Long List Of Seemingly Pointless Tasks.  It scares me, the thought of him reaching for one thing and possibly ingesting another.

My other pet peeve is activated, usually, on the internet.  I am incredibly judgmental of "pain" patients when they allow their tone to become too casual in referencing opiates, or any other strong medication.  It's my contention that that very laxity is what can get us in trouble, perhaps addicted to opiates even when/if our condition improves.

Language *is* attitude.  So when I read "perks," in lieu of Percocet, or "meth" instead of Methadone, I respond pretty negatively.  To everyone rolling their eyes, I say that vigilance in these smaller reflections of larger attitudes is warranted.

Even writing "scripts" for prescription bugs me.  I'm hyper-aware, hyper-judgmental -- which is just as abnormal as romanticizing tablets and pills, but I'd rather be sick with an abundance of caution than sick with opiate withdrawal.  Oh, dear God, I will never forget the Great Jump Off back in May and June! Never, ever.

Along with an inevitable hardening of my arteries, I am experiencing a hardening of my heart.  On the one hand, I am generous and would do anything for a loved one;  On that other hand, I am amassing a disturbingly long list of things that I find notably distasteful.  I thought that the apotheosis of my propensity for Hate came with the cut-out picture of Jesse Helms (next to one of Augusto Pinochet) that was neatly held to my apartment door by the knife embedded in his forehead.

I was wrong.

I'd better change the subject.

I bought a vacuum cleaner.  Two vacuum cleaners, actually.  Sad to say, I am all a-dither over my purchase.  Once upon a time, I felt that way about a new pair of shoes, a dress, a book, a reliable source of endive, inexpensive printer ink, or a sale on my favorite tennis balls.

I spent about a week researching vacuums.  I engaged the dichotomy of canister versus upright.  I did Consumer Reports, I did customer reviews.  I gauged the importance of  pet hair;  I pondered the impact of noise on my hearing.

I role-played.  I envisioned.  I convened a Blue Ribbon Panel.

Vacuuming via wheelchair is different from doing it while standing.  That's pretty obvious! Also different is losing the use of one's shoulders and having diminishing strength in the hands.  Clearly, we needed lightweight sucking tools and maneuverability, simplicity.  Ah, but the first thing that goes, I found, when you push those requirements to the head of the list?  Power!  Effectiveness!

So... I dragged out the adage of my youth:  It only costs 10% more to go First Class (an adage not known for its accuracy).  A more popular variation:  You get what you pay for.

So, yes, I spent a small fortune on my vacuum duo -- being both a lightweight upright and a canister with on board tools.  Rave reviews from me on the upright -- and consternation on the canister. That will change into the anticipated joy once I figure out how to carry it.  I looped it around my neck yesterday and that was quickly very painful.  It was designed to be tossed casually over the shoulder, but that I cannot do, so... I will have to find an alternative method of canister vacuuming.

O, but it has a beautiful telescoping wand for easy clean-up of things like slats and air vents!  O!

Ideally, I'd have gotten cordless devices but cordless and power don't go together any better than my initial demands.  And in this instance, the problem isn't solved by spending more money.

I do have a point, in case you are bored with reading about my Hoovering prospects: I end up spending more money (and working harder at the task at hand) than able-bodied people in order to achieve the same boring, everyday results.  Because I cannot work, I have less money to begin with... And it just is pissing me off.

It wasn't supposed to be this way.

Is it living when, at the end of a long day, I reflect on its various hours only to discover that almost every moment was dedicated to the alleviation of, or distraction from, physical pain, a goal never actually accomplished, and forever put off to the next day?  I don't think so.  It's not the way I wish to live.

At least the available remedies aren't difficult to assemble -- suicide, asinine sublimation, or less-asinine sublimation.  Whatever I chose to do, I am either dead, essentially dead, or a living-falsehood-biding-its-time -and-wasting-everyone-else's-time-until-dead.

You know what would really improve the gimp-friendly high end vacuum cleaners -- until that glorious day when cordless cleaners truly are powerful enough to clean Marlinspike Hall's peculiar kind of filth?  If they were all equipped with retractable cords.  That would be heaven.

Major Stupidity

Major Stupidity:                                      

Most of the morning and much of the afternoon was dedicated to diuresis, and there was great success in that endeavor, with fifteen trips to the bathroom ending in the suspicion of ankles down there where the leg ends.  Oh, and all my rings fell off!  [I wear three at all times.  Unless they fall off, willful little Tolkien-cribbers.]

The dregs of this Summer Viral Thingy had my throat sore enough that I did not want to drink, and the seemingly endless trips to the WC only reinforced that reticence.  Of the things I did manage to swallow, 50% was a strong Italian roast.  The remainder was split between a Diet Root Beer and a paltry 12 ounces of water.  This is noteworthy as I normally drink too much water (according to the Go-To-Guy Doc) -- roughly 4 litres. That's water on top of coffee and 1-2 diet decaffeinated drinks.  I could try to justify this weirdness but I won't.

We are out of yogurt.  This hardly ever happens.  I need yogurt in much the way I yearn for lots and lots of water.  I popped the foil on my last container last night only to find that it was... abnormal.  That's right, my last serving (or three) of yogurt came on Wednesday night.  Please keep in mind that I am continually on antibiotics and that my gut therefore has its own appreciation of my low fat plain yogurt concoctions.  I add a preferred amount of artificial sweetener and a dusting of cinnamon, or cocoa, or a spritz of vanilla extract... Add the current novel and you have my bedtime routine in its entirety.  Of course, "bedtime" around here is a laughing-stock of a notion.  Last night?  I kinda-sorta slept from 22:30 to midnight and then again from 03:00 - almost 05:00.  When exactly was bedtime?  Now, Fred sleeps like the proverbial rock as well as the fabled log.  He came to bed at 03:00, read precisely 5 pages of his book, and then rose from the bed at... drumroll, please... 15:30!  ManorFest 2011 is sapping the boy's strength.

Oh, you thought I had forgotten ManorFest 2011?  Not so, not so.  I am just at a loss for the best words to EXPLAIN it.  It hasn't exactly been your normal ManorFest...

Okay, so... the last of today's oddities.  That would be my handling of blood sugars.  I recently became a bit hot under the collar at the price of diabetic testing supplies (one of the greatest undisclosed absurdities of Medical Economics, probably because we poorer diabetics don't want to embarrass ourselves in front of the doctors, be they Go-To-Guys or not).  My anger resulted in the brilliant decision to not test as frequently as recommended.  Like sometimes not at all.  Which is what I did today, while not eating, not drinking, taking a humongous amount of Lasix, all the while still having my usual fever and *sweats*.

The sweats and the heat (Yes!  Even here in Tête de Hergé, it's freaking hot!) consorted to make me decidedly in need of a shower.  That's a major undertaking, so I filed it under "things to consider doing later, like, when I'm feeling really weak and shaky."

What?  Why, yes, I *did* take my insulin.  As scheduled.  Right on time!  Without eating, without testing.  What?  Why, yes, I *am* a Brainiac!

(Are you still with me?)

Fred, all perky-like after his marathon sleep session, heard me whining about not having any yogurt and cheerfully volunteered to make a yogurt run -- and I bet you've already guessed that one of the Cistercians' numerous cottage/mail order industries is yogurt-making!  Put Fred and Abbot Truffatore together on a Friday evening and you have a recipe for communion wine and politics.  Jump back, Jack!  Not that there's anything around here as exciting as the debt-ceiling debacle in The States, mind you.  We have, nonetheless, our own brand of titillating government scandals.  And they just go down better, says Fred and The Abbot, with communion wine on Friday nights.  Sometimes Tante Louise totters down to the Monks' Mess and joins in, but we won't talk about that.  It's okay, though -- she has a cell phone now so there won't be any more missed "911" calls.

Not that there's much of a need for "911" calls in Tête de Hergé.

{cough}

Ah, alone in our apartment within the West Wing of Marlinspike Hall!  What a luxury.  Why not surprise Fred with a freshly scrubbed face (and feet, don't forget the feet, those things purported to be down there at the end of my legs... where are my legs?)?  Some fresh bright Gimp Clothes to tie my red face and purple feets together, and my goodness, he will faint from shock.

Which is, of course, what I did in the shower...
While alone in our apartment within the West Wing of Marlinspike Hall;
With La Bonne et Belle Bianca Castafiore on duty out in the middle of the ManorFest 2011 maze (as if she'd be of any help were she in the shower with me);
With Fred getting potted in the stolid arms of Tante Louise as the Sweet Boys sing the world a lullaby, and settle in for the night's silence.

I am fine.

Stupid, a little bruised, but fine.
Let's thank God for the shower chair, perfectly placed, as it happens.

Fred just made it home, fine purveyor that he is of all things I ever need.  I can hear him banging around in the Medieval Kitchen, shelving his purchases, feeding the felines, doing little jigs.  And Bianca's there, too -- determined to have a cup of tea despite the blanket of heat.  I think I hear The Cabana Boy, as well, humming along with the dread Jewel Song she never ceases to rehearse -- Sven's son.  Oh.  My.

Well, some catastrophes just have to happen, I guess.

I am going to finish chugging this water, then devour my sixth piece of hard, sweet candy, and go join the merriment.  Right after I verify a blood sugar above 38...