Could Be Worse

After two days of almost continuous sleep, I returned from the dead to be greeted by pain. It wasn't horrifying pain. I could hear the voice of some poor well intentioned person telling me that it could be worse. Yes, it could be worse and it isn't so I should be grateful and I am to some degree. The other side of the coin is that it seems as if this is the right time to stop or scale back my emergency pain control measures. I must start being more careful about my use of the liquid anesthesia more commonly known as beer. I never drink bad beer and rarely drink anything in the neighborhood of average so liquid anesthesia isn't cheap.

When things were at their worst in terms of pain, Melissa made sure I had some decent Belgian (or Belgian style) beer on hand. I was suffering on one hand yet the nectar of the gods kept me happy on another. After a while, the pleasant feeling of the alcohol joined the wonderful taste and put the worst of the pain in a place where it felt as if I were experiencing the pain of someone else. It was far from pleasant as if someone I cared about deeply (but not as much as I care for Melissa) was in pain and I felt unhappy about it. This was matched by the guilty feeling known as "better you than me" but the guilt didn't spiral. After all, the pain was mine and the barrier I used against it was a trance thing not an actual transfer of misfortune.

In any case, the reality of it all is that I am sitting here at my desk with a pain cocktail (not a pain control cocktail but a combination of symptoms) of fibromyalgia's muscle burn, the arthritis "bone ache" where it feels as if someone kicked my arms a bunch of times yesterday, the sore joints that feel like they are swollen though they are not yet. I don't have any actual swelling yet. I don't have a sleep deprivation headache despite the fact that I know it is coming. The real pain is coming but, as the joke ran in college, so is Christmas.

Melissa and I have a life that I am determined to live while coping with the pain. We have cats to care for and maintain in a continuous state of "spoiled rottenness." We have a house to reassemble out of more boxes than I knew existed and a system to set up to care for it. I have a writing career to get off the ground which means setting up the interrelationships of the crew and passengers of the space liner, S.S. Zephyr, at the moment. Without believable relationships, it won't matter how neat life on a luxury liner in space is. Science fiction is driven by real life human drama.

It is going to hurt but I have exactly zero chance of living the dream by doing nothing. I remain terrified by the mere possibility that I have the wrong price for the house repair. The right number means that I could get a bank check for the full amount as early as Monday. If it's the higher number, I will need a few months. It is potentially an honest mistake at worst. I'm willing to presume an honest mistake where the missing TV is concerned but I would be ecstatic to receive the same consideration in return. It seems to be the best possible outcome.

In the midst of all this pain and stress of reentering my life, Melissa reminded me yet again why she's my best girl, my dream girl and the wifey I'd choose every time all over. She had told me that she was going to re-bandage my feet where heel blisters had broken open and gotten ugly. I had bled through my sock and she told me that she was going to treat my feet as soon as I showered. A considerate person would have stopped what he was doing that very moment, showered and thanked her a million times while she bandaged. I'm just not very considerate.

The truth is that I had a headache that made standing intolerable. By the time medication made it possible, I showered but my poor wifey was tuckered out asleep in bed. I showered and joined her sleeping on my stomach so that I was less likely to bleed on the sheets. I woke to the very slight disturbance of Melissa disinfecting and bandaging my wounded feet. More than that, she knew I hadn't slept well at the hotel so she was trying to do this without waking me. I'm not a total schmuck. She caught me cooperating by holding my feet up on cue or else I would have let her not wake me. She still all but succeeded because I was only awake for a few seconds at a time and went back to sleep immediately after she finished.

Isn't that about the sweetest thing you've ever heard? Go ahead and be jealous because you can't have her.