this is war

wednesday, july 12

isn't it ironic? after nearly a decade of worrying that my body would relapse and betray me by bleeding out, it changes the rules of engagement by now deciding to clot.

i discovered my recent leg injury was caused not because i had twisted an ankle or pulled muscle. my leg pain was caused by a blood clot.

once again in the war for control, my body has found a way to play dirty.

now i sit anxiously waiting to know more. i know i have been through a lot and came out stronger for it. but now i want answers. i want drugs. "let's move it, people," i silently plead with passersby who refuse to look at me while quietly shaking their heads and wondering why a young woman sits alone in this er.

time is precious and i am scared. sitting in this waiting room i am reminded how alone i am. everyone around me is sitting in pairs. even the chair i pull towards me to rest my swollen leg upon is joined to two others. the dingy carpet shows the ground up remains of stains left behind by others who sat here like me, possibly alone, or more likely not, as judged by the sampling of people that surround me now. dark rings show the cleaning staff's ill-fated attempts to remove the evidence of the stain that the person who sat in this chair where i am sitting now left behind. for all i know, this dark ring could be the only thing that remains of the person who put it there in the first place.

but i am tired of looking down at the carpet but yet i still don't trust myself to look up at others around me or to look into their eyes.

i want to scream - not again! this can't be happening. haven't i had my own fairshare of freak things happen to my body? others my age aren't burdened with worrying about ptt levels and platelet counts and half of the other maladies, symptoms and side effects that swarm inside my head. i know this flustered feeling of uncertainty, of shock, an almost emptiness that sits at your very core knowing before you is two choices -- push forward and fight or retreat and concede the battle.

a decade ago, i sat in this very place when the doctors first told me they had a name for what was ailing me. a name to call my illness. finally. the disbelief of others was over. and my new disbelief was only starting.

almost five years of misdiagnosis, claims of fakery, accusations of domestic violence. they had a name, goddammit. i had a name. i.t.p. those three little letters started two long years of pills, pain, mood swings, anger and fear. lots of fear.

but yet, that battle has long since ended. victory was mine after i dropped my own version of an a-bomb on my body to end it. imagine doing something so drastic as to remove a piece of yourself in order to cure yourself. have someone reach way deep down inside of your sleeping self and cut away that which harms you. it would be almost biblical if i believed in a god.

now a new challenge presents itself. a new fight. every cell in my body tingles with fear, with anticipation. ready to be called up to fight but still unsure as to whose side it will fight. this is really nothing new to me.

i have been training for this all of my life.

i am a warrior and this is war.