Today's thoughts
I am beginning to understand why people who are injured can lose the use of their limbs.And why pathologists and homicide detectives specialise in dark humour.
Then there is the rather horrifying realisation that my brain is doing inconsistent things with input. 1+1 no longer seem to =2 in the lexicon of my unfettered mind.
Back to the first statement about losing the use of limbs. Despite the fact that I feel no pain on my left side, using that arm and leg requires a tremendous effort as the arm feels immobilised at the shoulder, fastened down with heavy weights or super strength resistance bands and it would be so much easier to let it rest.
The leg is not so extreme, just supremely tight around the knee suggesting that I avoid bending it. Then there is the crushing grip about my left ribs which says 'don't breathe too deeply.
And when my internal watcher makes jokes of my deepest fears I really do not need anyone, especially my mother, to say 'don't you think you should be taking this more seriously?'
What happens if I take it seriously? What happens if I do not?
I went to a neurologist . I let them take my blood. I had an EEG. I am scheduled for an MRI. I cancelled my vacation plans.
Explain to me what exactly it is I need to do to demonstrate that I am taking this thing seriously?
I am so angry! My sister is here. Visiting from St. Lucia.
She asked how I was doing and a mention of my symptoms opened up the floodgates of memory she supposedly lost in 1998 and drowned me in the stories of her stroke, her feelings, her numbness, her nerve endings coming back to life. Like I give a flying f@@k right now.
Does using '@@' make that any less a swear word? Stupid hypocrisies we have to practise. And I am angry at myself because my mouth opened to say that to my sister and I closed it altogether instead of finding gentler words to say 'right now I need to focus on myself and keep my blood pressure in check'.
Truth is there were no gentle words with my reach, just this new willingness to speak first and damn the consequences as I did when I was three, or thirteen or seventeen.
I even said out loud, the taste of tears like acid burning in my nose "I'm feeling scared' to have them both tell of their great fears in times gone by, and how they suffered.How I am strong and can get through this.
Yes, I am strong, but right now I want to shriek can't you SEE ME? Can't you HEAR ME?
I am losing control of the one thing I lay claim to, my physical self that I feed and bathe and care for. Oh, I have always known it is just on loan, a finite span of time to sing, to dance, break hearts and mend them fall in love; but for that span this being that I am was mine.
And now an egg I touch turns into shards, dripping slime, because a nerve goes into spasm. My finger bleeds because I did not feel the knife and somewhere in the recesses of thought the monsters gather, chortling at the knowledge that darkness hovers on the edges of my world, just by the margins of my eyelids.
Even the anger serves a purpose, it is just energy that I can use to fight my current battle. Just writing this and I have gone from pseudo calm to rage to bedrock peace even if for just a moment.
I want to write a poem, but I cannot find the words and was fading at the thought of all the energy required to type and then to proof read. Then I decided it did not have to be a poem, i just need to let my soul out in the air a little, let it breathe and see the sun with all the promise of tomorrow.
Just push through a little, stress the muscles, keep them living, let the people who cannot see or hear me live their dreams in comfort, we all do the best we can at any given moment.
Right now the best I can do is write a blog, and rage a little, and admit I am scared as my systems keep on failing so gently, an imperceptible decline unless you live inside my head.
Comments (2)