greetings from the sick ward

normally when i get sick, i only manage to take myself out of the game for a few days or weeks. this time, and with this cold, i'm taking hostages.

goddess girl liz laughed when i told her a coworker told me that i infected her with my cold, only i had only spoken to her over the phone since i came down with the plague.

"car, there's no possible way you could have infected her over the phone," she tells me, being all practical, and future-nursing student-like. "maybe you saw her before you were symptomatic or you both ran into whoever made you sick."

"yeah, i guess that's possible. we have been in constant contact since "project rock-and-a-hard-place" began," i offer. "but she managed to get the oozy eye, too. so far, i've been the only person to get that part," i continued, referring to the swollen, bloodshot eye-gunk oozing that made me look and feel particularly attractive last week. like quasimodo with a smoker's cough. only i don't smoke anymore.

liz was a little more receptive to the possibility of my new germ warfare when her throat became increasingly sore after our conversation. "i'm laying in bed and can't sleep because my throat is so red hot and sore, i think, 'i'm gonna kill her if i get sick'," she recounted the next day.

take that telemarketers, you may be next. think i won't?

* * *

the only reason i can attribute to feeling better at all this week has to be because i managed to share the love, err, sickness with others. i thoroughly take stock in the idea that until my germies, like elvis, have left my building can i ever hope to recover.

normally, this plays out like this: i get death-bed sick -- cough, congestion, fever, strep throat, bronchitis, hanta virus. mam, with whom i share everything, maybe gets a slight cough. NOTE: this scenario also plays out in the reverse - mam gets the sniffles, i get pneumonia.

last sunday, when the one-two-punch of fever and sinus headache knocked my ass back in bed, i figured i was in trouble when mam rolled over and told me he wasn't feel any better. "shit," i muttered in between fever chills and chattering teeth, "i'm screwed." if neither one of us was in a position to accept the new germs and we just kept passing them back and forth, then those sumbitches are going to grow fruitful and multiply, and quite possibly kill me as they got stronger.

besides, if both partners are sick, who is going to take care of the other?

as a take-charge, forward adult, it would probably surprise most people that i am a complete puss when i get sick. it's as if i'm a toddler again, throwing irrational tantrums, prone to crying because my head or throat hurts, or bitching because i can't breathe. my legs cease working, too, and i cry out for someone to bring me more juice or more tissues. i throw one mean pity party, i tell ya.

but with mam nosing in on my turf, who was taking care of who? surely, mr. hacking-cough is no match for a 160 degree fever, right? (even in sickness i'm one competitive bitch.) somehow i managed to win our little tete a tete, probably when my core body temperature reached near nuclear levels did he concede my victory and got out of bed to get me juice. hah! he probably feared singed flesh if he stayed under the covers with me any longer.

(this is also precisely why we are NOT fit to be parents, either. my dogs can be trained to bring my slippers, aspirin and i'm sure it wouldn't be too difficult to teach them to open the fridge and help themselves to a meal.)

mam was really sick, though -- sick enough to take three sick days in a row -- something that has not happened ever in the 16 years that i've known him. in fact, after last week, he probably now has somewhere in the range of 4 months worth of days still accumulated from his years of good health.

on day three of my plague, when i could no longer stand the razor blades i surely swallowed ripping my throat to shreds anymore, and called the doctor, mam decided to tag along. actually, he rode my coattails to an appointment. with all my medical melodrama, i was coded as a "priority patient" at some point which simply means this chick is so fucked up, you better see her sooner, rather than later or else the medical mystery only gets more complicated. i don't think in the last decade, i had to wait longer than a day to get an appointment. it's like being a rock star and getting into an exclusive club only nowhere near as fun.

"how do you know all these people?" mam barks, as we signed in at the doctor's office, "they all know you by name, for crying out loud."

"i have people, man," i croak, because my throat really balks at the feeling of air rushing over it to form syllables and words, "you don't come to the office weekly for tests without knowing the staff. remember, you got this appointment today because of me."

after some excellent deductive reasoning ("some tenderness in your neck and throat, i see," after i moan and wince as he examines it), the doc concludes we have the average, run-of-the-mill virus, wrecking havoc on our area, and not some form of "hoof and mouth" disease i thought my brother back with him from scotland.

"your throat does look a little red, though, so i'm going to test for strep just in case. we can get the results in about 5 minutes and if you do have it, we'll get you started for treatment," he tells me as i begin to pout at just having an "ordinary" virus. doesn't he know me by now? "ordinary" has never been an adjective used to describe my medical history.

oddity, i'd accept. ordinary, not so much. after gagging me with a tree branch wrapped in cotton to get a culture, mam and i head out to wait the results in the lobby. the very germ-y lobby where i try to never touch anything, except when i'm sick and really trying to share the love, err, germs with others.

but this time, i was so tired and yucky feeling, i couldn't even take pleasure in someone picking up a magazine i touched and getting this plague. so when results came back negative (something very loudly announced to the rest of the waiting room i might add. goddess knows what they others waiting with me thought i didn't have -- the hiv? pregnant?)

on the drive home, mam tried to brighten my spirits on not having strep and coming home with loads of pills to knock this out of my system. "think of it this way, hon, at least you can take advantage of the weight loss benefits not eating solid food affords for a longer period," he tells me, hacking once for good measure because he walked out of there without any drugs either.

oh, i'm sick alright.

costco goodness and other random thoughts

at least this year i am ahead of the game and may actually have purchased my husband's birthday present BEFORE his birthday actually gets here. go me!

before you think i'm some wicked wife, to my defense, i was hospitalized last year for the week before his birthday and by the time they released me, i really wasn't in the mood to go shopping.

this year will be different although i am determined to buy mam's birthday present at costco again. instead of ordering online a really cool hammock like last year that got to see more of the united states than i could ever dream on its delivery to casa mc-clotsky before it managed to get lost in transit, i plan to purchase his gift in the store.

just as soon as the item comes back in stock.

see i could tell you what the item is, but then i'd have to kill you. after i finally tracked down a live, honest-to-goodness costco employee that wasn't either carding at the door like a bouncer or stuck behind a huge line as a cashier (try it, i bet you go as crazy as i did trying to find one) and drug him back to the display, he merely shrugged his shoulders and told me i was outta luck.

"sorry, lady. we don't have anymore in stock of those. i could sell you the display but if you want a box, you'll have to wait until tomorrow." as i contemplate the number of scratches on the display and whether it would bug the shit out of me over time because i didn't want to wait until morning, he added, "or i can just write you a raincheck."

nope. a raincheck just will not cut it this year. last year's blood clot gave me a reprieve on punctuality, i have no such excuse this year. (nor do i want one, fcuk you very much.)

"how many are you expecting in?" i ask, trying to gage if i need to make the return trip on saturday or if it can wait until sunday while i mentally rearrange my schedule in my head.

when he says "24", i begin to relax. i have plenty of time until he continues, "but you're the 20th person to ask me that today." damn.

knowing that they open the store at ten, i'm afraid i'll be camping out tomorrow morning, like it's tickets for some sort of super-fantastic-rock-legend-straight-out-of-hell-one-night-only concert. normally, i'm too lazy to be that cheap but it's a whole lotta smackers i'd save by getting at the warehouse of holiness, costco.

seriously, i'll be at the store at 9:30 to stake my claim on one of the 24 "things" due in stock tonight. if you catch the news tomorrow night and see a story about a suburban-assault-vehicle running through a crowd in a parking lot, you can safely bet i was gonna be number 25 in line.

and a random thought for a day...

what marketing genius decided to come out with strawberry-flavored blunts?

i couldn't believe my eyes at wawa while i waited for helga (my nickname for the old, gruff lady who works behind the counter) to take her good old time ringing up the people in from of me.

the pink carton stared out at me while all i could think about was how did this affect the marijuana most people use the friggin' blunts for in the first place? is the strawberry-flavor in the cigar wrapper or in the tobacco?

are the gangs hip to the new pink packaging? it doesn't exactly scream tough urban thug if some g-boy were to pull out a pink box before rolling a fattie joint.

is this the new gay version of blunts? something to entice the gangstas on the down-lo? a new replacement for the ol' friend of dorothy to signal that someone was homosexual?

as i got back into my car and drove away, i shook my head and thought what's next -- blueberry?

stupid people

after my "writing as therapy routine" in my last post, i forgot to add one additional insight gleaned from my doctor's appointment today.

stupid people really can elevate your blood pressure!

sitting in the waiting room waiting to see the doctor, i sat across from the only two people in the room not hacking and sneezing, a middle-aged couple. while trying to enjoy my house beautiful decorating magazine for a few minutes, i got sidetracked by the assinine conversation taking place across from me from the only non-sickies in the room. figures, at least the sick people are quiet if you discount the coughing.

no, these brainiacs enlightened me with their conversation about "how them doctors really do have a cure for cancer but there's too many people who would lose their jobs otherwise if the cure for cancer was made available -- because we all know there is ONLY one type of cancer out there for researchers to crack the code on -- like the oncology doctors, researchers and most of all, the drug companies. cancer has been around for ever, didn't you know? they should have the answer by now."

arrghhh, are you kidding me? conspiracy theorists listen up, let me introduce you to the inevitable fault most people share -- EGO. trust me, if some researcher caught wind of how to cure THE cancer, that doc's name would be PLASTERED on every surface possible. hell, it may be a requirement that in order to get the cure, you first had to tattoo the doc's name on a body part where THE cancer had taken hold.

then, as if my blood pressure wasn't already beginning to climb, they began their discussion of gardisil, Merck's human pampilloma virus (HPV) vaccine that offers protection against the virus that can later cause cervical cancer.

(before anyone thinks these people really are bright and educated, their conversations stemmed from the televisions in the doctor's office that play health-related programming.)

"they just know all those young girls -- and why do they have to be young girls -- will have problems later on trying to have children." again, the evil drug companies are trying to thin the herd by obviously sterilizing the youth of america. c'mon.

if that were true, i'd have a list of people to stick in the arm. while drug companies do have their faults, let's give them some credit as to whether or not they plan for world domination.

so thankfully before the brainiacs got too deep into their discussion of HPV (the guy actually said nothing more than what? during his female companion's rants), the nurse called me back to the office.

"let's take your blood pressure today." (yes, this is the same witch who made me get on the scale a week ago. and yes, she made me do it again today.) "wow", she remarked,"your blood pressure is high today, it's 136 over some number i never remember."

"it's probably because the people out there were killing me with their stupidity," i said. "can we check it again after a few minutes? i need to cool down from biting my tongue for so long. it's very traumatizing for me to keep quiet."

the nurse looked at me and nodded, "yes, it's probably best if you don't cause a riot in the waiting room." this kind of disturbed me thinking back because i'm not sure if she was kidding or if she really thought i could have browbeat that couple into submission.

after drawing my blood, she retook my blood pressure: 118 over that number that i never remember but is good.

"see," i told her, "stupid people are dangerous to your health."

welcome back, klot-ter

some gentle truths i have come to realize in my 30 years of playing the game of life:

enjoy the highs when it comes, but always be ready for a bitchslap on the way back down;

every life experience - both good and bad - present opportunities to learn more about yourself and what it is you really want (it's your responsibility to act on these insights);

nietzche was dead-on with "that which does not kill us makes us stronger" line.

joyfully, and with some trepidation, i get to come off the blood thinners i have taken for the last 6 months to help my body avoid another bloodclot after getting one this past july. i am excited to resume some normalcy after the roller coaster ride this past half year has been, but i am also scared to have my security blanket taken away from.

i am a worrier by nature; worrying helps me plan, stay on top of my game by always anticipating every angle and possible outcome. that's very much a function of the analyst in me. nights i spent laying in bed, having trouble falling to sleep when the worries that swirled in my head refused to allow sleep to come, well, i could recite my mantra: "i'm taking bloodthinners, there is nothing that can harm me now" to help me create a safe place in which to let sleep enter.

every morning was greeted with relief that i hadn't succumbed to a wayward clot that lay hidden inside me and shot off to my brain or my lungs killing me in the process. every weird ache or pain is suspect, i was caught offguard with the first bloodclot, i will not be caught offguard again. each twinge or pain is analysed by my brain and categorized - possibly lethal, non-lethal origin identified, or normal dumbass.

i worry, therefore i am. sometimes i feel i teeter on the edge of being a hypochondriac.

how could i have known in september 05 when i created multiplicity that it's meaning would crossover into so many different - and relevant - facets of my life? i couldn't have possibly known what lie ahead. i created multiplicity as a way to capture the stories of the "creative girl living in a buttoned-up world" who just is "too uptight to live 100% in the creative world". how could i have guessed that it would also come to capture my medical dramas as well? the girl who a decade ago was diagnosed with an autoimmune disorder for being unable to clot is now the same one who worries her blood will clot too much. i feared bleeding to death a decade ago; in some ironical way, i now fear clotting to death.

before, with my autoimmune disorder ITP (idiopathic thrombocytopenia purpura), i knew its origin was unknown and unpreventable. somehow, this not knowing was more soothing to me than knowing a list of possible source.

with my bloodclot in my leg -- my minor DVT -- as the doctors refer to it, isn't so neatly disclosed as to the source of its origin. it could have been the birth control pills i had taken for the last 12 years of my life. it could be the long 8-hour car ride i had taken days before in combination with air travel a day or two before that. or, it could have been the genetic factor discovered in the blood tests taken at the hospital. factor V leiden is inherited, one of my parents gave me this lovely gift like they gave me blond hair and blue eyes.

it could have been one of these or it could have been all of these. the doctors are unwilling to assign a guilty plea to any of these culprits individually. in the meantime, i have stopped the birth control pills, avoided long periods of inactivity. i have even altered my diet to avoid futures episodes but the one thing i cannot change is my genes. that which makes me who i am and i cannot escape me.

so welcome back, klot-ter. the drugs may be gone but surely there is something that i have learned in all of this. i need to get busy living. just in case i die trying.

sucker punch

with all of my medical melodramas that i have encountered in my ... ummm, 29B years, i can usually tell when i am on the road to recovery -- my doctor's office staff stops treating me like a princess.

yup, no more spur-of-the-moment appointments, no more just-go-right-back,-the-doctor-is-weighting-for-you greetings and certainly no frequent stepping on the scale routines. i usually attribute this to the "why torment the sick and dying anymore than we need to" mentality?

but today, folks, i must be healthy. not only did i have to wait a week?!? to get an appointment for bloodwork, the nurse who would be doing my lab work asked me to step on the scale.

"'scuse-ez moi?" i asked innocently, pretending not to hear her as i drop my work bag into the chair in the examination room.

"let's just step over here and get your weight." she tried again.

shit, i looked right at her as she said it while i'm thinking i have a good 6" over her and i'm not wearing heels. i can take her down pretty quickly, without needing to sit on her. if i pretend not to hear her again, she's going to fit me for a hearing aid before i leave today.

inside my head i rage a great conversation with all the reasons why that might not be a good idea; my favorite one involved me telling her to just punch me in the stomach instead -- either way, if i stepped on the scale or if she slugged me in the gut, i was pretty much assured to feel sick to my stomach and angry for the rest of the day.

instead, i gulped, slid out of my fuzzy, no-name wannabe uggs clogs. i stepped up. and before i could let the air naturally fade from my lungs, it hit me...

oy.

turns out 12 days of potato really did add 12 pounds of blubber to my growing spare tire in the belly since i last stepped on the scale sometime in august.

it's a good thing my course of treatment should be wrapping up soon, she pulls another stunt like today and the sucker punch may be for her.

12 days of potato

seriously, it's no wonder i feel like a mushroom cap in my clothes these days. we are deep into the time of year, i affectionately refer to as the 12 days of potato.

my 12 days of potato may be very similar to your 12 days of christmas cookies, or 12 days of office party lunches but is in no way to be confused with 12 days of sobriety. 12 days of sobriety would enable me to fit in my pants without first crying a little bit and secondly, dodging buttons that burst off like little rockets these days. (someone at work was nice enough to find one of my buttons that took flight this week and oh-so-anonymously left it in the bathroom stall for its owner to claim. thank you kind soul, now mam can stitch the sucker back on for me.)

one of my friends left me a voicemail the other day while i was out of the office over christmas: "hey, just calling to bitch that my pants are so tight today, i can't breathe. oh well, just thought you would understand." this is my same friend who had a meltdown in the bread aisle at trader joe's when she undertook a serious 10-day fast to fit in bridesmaid's dress.

but the 12 days of potato is partially all my fault. the official start of the 12 days of potato begins on PMD (pierogie-making-day) and officially ends when i can no longer fit into anything that resembles clothing in my closet. my friends, that day is here.

for 12 days, no one holds a butterknife to my throat to demand i eat pierogies until i start to resemble the fat little doughy pillows myself. for 12 days, no italian mafia forces me to order bruschetta and gnocci (more potato) at not one, but two holiday dinners back-to-back. of course, gluttony is to blame for a lot of my squishiness around my belly. the other part i blame on a fcukin' microscopic blood clot that tried to take me out this summer and now forces my vegetarian-self to eschew green leafy vegetables.

(oh, the irony, my cholesterol levels were fine before the bloodclot. now, i'm afraid to have them checked to see how much damage my cheese-and-bread restricted diet has done.)

that's okay, with less than 36 hours left in the fcukin' horrible year known as 2006, i'm ready now to go all double-0-seven on my fat cells in the new year. cheers, baby.

naked

this past weekend i celebrated my 6th wedding anniversary with mam. wow, what an old fart we've become!

anyway, we decided early in the year to go away for our anniversary. in years past, we've been haunted by the killing season that is grandparentus interruptus. so even in this even-numbered year, we tempted fate by leaving our cocoon and the princess and piglet puppies home.

we drove 2 hours to get away from our lives here and for me at least, all the worries that accompany it. driving up to lake wallen-ppp-pauck (i can't pronounce the sucker, let's just leave it at that) in the cold hard rain that friday night, i worried that my suburban assault vehicle would go crashing off the road into a tree. i worried that a deer or whole friggin' flock of 'em would come dashing out in front of me and land on my windshield. i worried i would hit a slick patch of leaves and slide off the road into a ditch or worse, into the lake that i can't even pronounce.

somehow i am not sure this exchange would make the next onstar commercial:

onstar: "ma'am, we've detected that your airbags have deployed. is everyone alright?"
me: "no! fcuckin' help me. my mutha-fcukin' car is in water. i think i'm in lake www-all-n-pppp-uck."
onstar: "ma'am, are you alright? have your hit your head? you're not making any sense. i am sending an ambulance to you. can you tell me where you are?"
me: "i told you, i didn't hit my friggin' head! i'm in mutha fcukin' lake www-all-n-pppp-puck. and i can't swim!"
onstar: "ma'am, everything is going to be alright. help is on its way to you. try to keep your neck in one position until help arrives. they can help you with your head injury."

these are the thoughts that run through my head as i am driving on a highway that's not really a highway in upstate pennsyl-tucky. i worry like some people breathe, much too heavy and annoying for everyone in close enough proximity.

but i told myself i was not paying oodles of money to go away and worry in a foreign location. i even picked this location based on how well it was decorated. no, there would be no worrying and i planned to drink and be naked all weekend.

yum. naked. naked and drunk.

it's been a while since i had been either, mostly due to the bloodthinners and my insane body issues. but it's something i have desperately wanted to be for a long time.

after finally arriving at our destination -- in one piece -- it was time to start on the naked and drunk part of our weekend. a nice glass of riesling for me and a godiva martini for mam we were all set to start our weekend of decadence. lots of dirty sex before falling asleep on our wonderfully soft, king-sized bed.

sometime in the middle of the night, i remembered something as i sat up in the bed and gasped for air, i'm allergic to goose down. and right then i discovered i was trapped in a goose down sandwich -- feather bed atop our mattress, comforter and pillows. i hit the allergy trifecta on this one.

realizing that being able to breathe was vitally important to making to morning, i gathered the only non-goose down blanket on the bed and headed over to the sofa by the fireplace. shivering because a leather sofa is fcukin' cold when you're naked and only wrapped in a cotton coverlet, fireplace or no fireplace.

what a way to start an anniversary weekend. but at least i was still a little tipsy.

weathervein

you can never really imagine how much time you actually spend sitting on your ass until you need to be aware of such things.

mi-clot-ski, as my co-workers lovingly call me, needs to get up and walk around every 2 hours.

that means, no more sitting for a whole afternoon while in the zone, plugging away at work-stuff. no more long car trips which really sucks because i live in the 'burbs where places of interest are at least an hour away. rest stops will need to be more frequent and i guess i will actually allow myself to drink water while on a car trip. (my camel-like tendencies are needed to counterbalance what has to be the world's smallest bladder.)

but even all of this can be accepted easier than my vascular systems latest trick -- i am the human weathervane.

this newest thing to plague my body is a direct result of the blood clot i suffered through this summer. the veins in my legs -- both the healthy one and the bad one now have this roaring, flushed feeling whenever a change in the atmospheric pressure indicates a storm is approaching.

to describe the feeling, i need to take you out back -- not to outback, as in the steakhouse, that would be against my vegetarians beliefs -- but out back to the yard, where the garden hose is kept. when the water is running through the hose, if you squeeze the hose, you feel the water pressure change inside. going back to basic science class, if you increase the pressure on the outside of the hose, the pressure inside the increases as well causing the water to move quicker and more forcefully.

this is what is happening inside my legs. those little purple spider veins look darker and more pronounced. the larger blue ones, which i swear are the beginnings of varicose veins, come to the skin's surface to wave hi. say hello. be neighborly.

it is the throbbing that accompanies all of these physical changes that pains me. i knew i would never win a beauty pageant based on my thunder thighs and big, manly calves.

it starts slowly enough with a itchiness, like the feeling of you get when you use bar soap that dries out your skin. only this itchiness is internal and no matter how much rubbing or touching of your legs can you satisfy that urge.

as the itchiness subsides, the twinges begin. little bursts of "why hello there, legs. i had forgotten all about you, hadn't i?" remind me to pack an umbrella. once we enter this stage of the hose being stepped on randomly without warning, with proper care the twinges can be managed. frequent walks to nowhere, propping of the legs, increased water consumption can help ease their transition. why water? not sure exactly, but it keeps me getting up to go to the 'loo.

but what if you can't prop your legs up somewhere? say you're in a meeting? or driving? what happens next you ask?

you bend over and take it deep. for the team, of course.

if you can't remedy the twinges, you get the full-on, run-a-marathon-without-training, deep aches. at this point, you would prefer to actually have run the miles so you at least you could say you had gotten some exercise.

the only thing you can do in this phase is move to the nearest sofa, sprawl out and self-medicate with a glass of wine. or two. and wait for the storm to pass.

insta-friends

one of the best female bonding experiences can often be expressed in one word - bridesmaid.

from the moment you are asked to be one until the moment you do the asking, this rite of passage for women only seeks to deepen our common bond.

if the wedding happens to be for one of your goddess girls , it is a time for a chance to grow even closer than you thought imaginable.

if you are adding to the list of the bridal party "cool kids" because you are a family or peripheral friend, there is a great opportunity to add more goddess girls to your line-up with insta-friends.

insta-friends are friend-of-friends, who simply because the size of the universe is too great for you to meet them on your own, you gain through the experiences of your other friends. when acquaintences reach the highest level, or a great blind date.

it makes sense, really. if you like your friend so much and share similar qualities, there isn't a big stretch to think she may have more clones of you in her friendship lineups. and pow! when you meet, there it is!

insta-friends.

pink mist

for any devoted grey's anatomy fans, you'll understand my reference in the subject line. in one amazingly brilliant episode, a patient comes into the hospital bleeding out and most likely to die if not for the actions of a young EMT played by christina ricci who instinctively put her own hand inside his chest to stop the flow of blood rushing from his heart.

her actions are somewhat heroic; the doctors are all amazed at her quick thinking to save the patient's life. that is, until they discover the patient whose heart she is holding is determine to have a live, homemade grenade lodged in his chest cavity. one that could detonate at any moment. with or without provocation.

that's how i feel right now. this blood clot in my leg is that live, homemade grenade wedged inside my calf at this moment, waiting to dislodge and travel to my heart or my lungs, cutting short my so-called life.

when this happens, when they know that it is a grenade that she is touching, her anxiety is palpable, her fear tangible as christina ricci acted her ass off in those scenes. so the moment when she decides she can't handle the pressure any more, good ol' meredith who is always a bit on the risky side, slides her hand in place of the young EMT. stupid move, some say when one false move could blow the building to smithereens. or pink mist, as the hunky bomb squad captain called it, as in the only thing left after detonation if you're the unfortunate one holding the bomb at the time.

the rest of the show is filled with nail-biting moments of anxiety and preparations to prep the hospital for the removal of the device. much like now, when i swallow 4 pills of blood thinner a day, trying to keep my blood thin enough while i wait for my body to dissolve the clot. much like now, there is confusion and uncertainty and moments of sheer anger at the helplessness of the situation.

and there are moments of sheer delirium when faced with challenge that you are able to muddle through, like meredith standing at the hallway watching the hunky bombsquad captain slowly make his way out with the building holding the device, freeing her from servitude to it. i was meredith yesterday after i successfully gave myself an injection, that's my "just in case" medicine.

in case the pills aren't working as they should (which they haven't) to prevent me from becoming my own version of pink mist.

meet virginia

meet virginia. virginia gives me perspective as i lay here in this hospital bed watching the hands on the clock moving at their own lazy pace during my own private pity party.

she doesn't say much. her main communiciation she shares with me is her guppy-like gasps for air. wheezing high-pitched and soft, wimpering sounds of a puppy, blind and searching for its mother's teat follows each gasp.

occasionally, she'll moan when the nurses come to poke and prod her. forgetting that inside the mask-like creature still beats a heart all by itself -- at least for today. a dramatic difference from the rest of the mechanical tools needed to continue her existence. but for now, her heart still fills itself with her warm blood, filling nerve centers still active and alert although her mind no longer is.

the first night, i heard her cry out. i imagine behind the thin curtain that separates our beds that her hands are crossed prayerlike at her chest with her body twisted to the side. i am not sure if it is real or if i am just reliving how i first saw her. before the orderly wheeled my bed next to hers and pulling the curtain shut, as if the busy abstract pastel cotton sheet would separate us before joining us together.

in her sleep, oh how her mind must race. she shouts for "beverly" and cries out as to where she is going, to wait for her. so weak when "awake" yet how vividly her mind recreates memories of people and places. i believe that before we die, our friends and family come to ease our journey into the next life or whatever comes next. they join us on our deathbed and make the transition less frightening because of our trust in them. i believe beverly was there for her that night. her mind in its little shell, burst out of her age, her illness and dementia to make one last call out for help on her journey. it would be her last words spoken.

i feel honored to have been a witness.

meet virginia. she isn't gone. her body lay still in that hospital bed, family pushing doctors to do things they wish they never had to do. well-meaning but ignorant, the sons push for answers for reasons that being 90 years old and suffering from pneumonia and dementia in a life that is no longer your own will not satisfy as an answer.

i lay silent in my bed, waiting, wishing, wanting to disappear or become invisible to their pain. activity rushes in the room. hushed voices. beeping and clicks. the whrrrrl of machinery now pushing breath into her lungs since they can no longer expel the air on their own. the heavy, sweating man pushes his way into the room and the air around us cannot expel him. he leans over and whispers to her that he is there to help her and gives her last rites. anointing of the sick with oil. grade school sacraments flood my memory.

but the priest in sneakers and black t-shirt doesn't understand. these are not her last rites. virginia has no rights. her decisions are not her own. her last rights were taken from her a while ago. these are a feel-good motive to absolve her of her sins but what sins could she commit?

blessed are those who care for the sick, who take care of the elderly. the young nurse who comes in soon after, chases the family from her side. she slides the curtain around to give some dignity while she provides her own last rites. the water sloshes in the tub and the smell of dove soap fills the room. clean and refreshing to chase the smell of death and tubes that permeates in this room we share. i hear the nurse squeeze the droplets of water from the washclothe. another son bursts into the room and rips the curtain open.

the nurse yanks it right back and clears him from this sacred space. "you can sit with her after i am done giving her a bath," her kindness with virginia contrasts greatly with this newly tapped anger and frustration. but her movements continue, water still sloshes until virginia is clean and reborn.

a little while later i am moved to a new room, a single room where i won't be witness to a families' pain and woman's last breaths. a few more days later, i am able to leave the hospital that virginia won't be allowed to do.

they say there is no dignity in dying and i believe them -- meet virginia.

black and blue

it's funny, my bruises are never really black and blue.

they start out a vibrant green tinged with yellow as they radiate out from the spot where... well, where if you touched me too hard, if i bumped myself or carried something too heavy, anywhere you apply pressure to my body, they can form.

it's not immediate reaction, like "ouch, owww, that hurts." like a fine wine, they develop over time, leaving you to wonder days later what slight movement or touch gave birth to this one. i know some people in my situation who like to keep journals of each potential touch gone wrong but i refuse to drive myself to that level of distraction. my illness takes a large enough toll on my fragile resources, it will not claim my sanity as well.

bubblewrap girl.

i joke that i need it to protect myself from my surroundings, but in all honesty, the bruises are the only outward sign of the raging battle within. the bruises are like the smoldering battlefields left behind after the battle is over -- singed and scarred rememberances of power. the ebb and flow of the positive and the negative forces surging through my blood without rhyme or reason, or concern for the cells surrounding or the greater life force in which it is contained. it's greedy and myopic.

the bruises tell a silent story of something amiss that in looking at me you just would not hear otherwise. sure i look paler, move slower and more cautiously, but to the unassuming eye, those could all be explained or reasoned away as eccentricity or genetics.

my husband dreads moments when the bruises are especially large or well-placed. he gets the sly glances of disapproval, the disgust. he carries the burden of shame, undeserved and unspoken, that strangers cast on him. "how could he beat the girl? look at those bruises on her arms, her legs. someone should give him a taste of his own medicine. mmm - hmm," they tsk and shake a finger to themselves and occasionally at me.

"girl, don't you know better than to let that man take advantage of you like that? you don't need someone who hits you." my protests otherwise sound too familiar, like the fish that got away.

"no, he's a good man. he doesn't hit me." all told countless times by real victims protecting their abuser. only my story is true. but to the hardened souls, my words have no effect on their judgement. it's the bruises that do.

i'm not battered, just black and blue.

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.