From the very start, I made no attempt to hide my reasons for writing this blog. I wanted to get the word out about what my symptoms are like. I warned you that things could be graphic and even disgusting though I'd attempt to screen out the worst of it. I am not going to find it easy to protect your gag reflexes. My original intent was to err on the side of informing you over protecting you. This slipped some over time as I tried to be less of a whiner, etc. It helped a lot when my medication caught up to my symptoms. Even now, with what I am going to tell you, I am a happy person leading a good life. At the moment, I'm enjoying a bit of a break from the worst of my newest symptoms. My pain medicine is helping make the pain manageable for now and for now is all anyone can ask.
Earlier today, I enjoyed a couple of action movies featuring giant manned robots fighting to save humanity which is one of my favorite movie genres. Outnumbered humans made a last stand against the aliens with giant fists, swords, glowing energy weapons and our sheer will to survive. Mostly, they won because they refused to give up. I'm not giving up either. I'm not drawing a line in the sand and yelling slogans like, "No retreat!" I may be forced to retreat and make choices about what recently reclaimed part of my life needs to be surrendered to save the rest in metaphorical terms, of course.
The latest development is crippling intense pain in my legs. At the moment, I must endure a ten on the pain scale to climb up or down the stairs much of the time. I suppose I can be grateful for having given up on using my bedroom since I sleep better in a recliner anyway. On the other hand, the bathroom is a problem. Everything about the need to use that second floor bathroom is approaching a crisis. Through most of the day, I have had to clench my teeth trying to avoid crying out in pain on the stairs. Shifting my weight to prevent falls has been the worst as I've held on to the railing for dear life despite knowing it will not take my weight in a sudden fall. Despite being barefoot on a nice soft rug, I feel like an athlete trying to make a sudden horizontal cut and getting my cleats stuck a little. It's not my hamstrings or my quads since I know what those feel like.
That's the inside of my leg and the part that's only disgusting by implication. After months of not making it to the bathroom consistently and this is a big deal to someone is incontinent already, I have large open sores in various states of infection or something. I can't really be sure about infection unless pus is involved and there is no pus here. Such is the state of how I feel that a lack of pus feels like a victory. Also the swelling has gone down from a few weeks ago.
I hate the fact that I cannot find a reasonable solution that doesn't involve massive changes. The only medium/long term solution that makes any sense to me would involve moving to a single floor home somewhere and installing a walk-in bathtub/shower. This would be hopelessly complicated and would require a force of will that I lack at the moment. I'm also one of those people who consider my cats to be members of the family as important as I am. Therefore, a first floor apartment would likely be out of reach due to the size of my furry family.
On the other hand, I'd like to keep my health in a state where I'm not seriously worried about losing my legs or my life. As any Zipperhead knows, things can improve over time with work but they sure can get worse a lot faster. You'd think I'd be panicking by now but I'm not. I have a good life, a great wife, great kitties and so I can enjoy each day as it comes along.
Monday, September 5, 2016
Saturday, September 3, 2016
Whatever Gets You Through Whatever
Though I'm trying to work on silver linings, I was feeling pretty out of sorts Saturday night until Melissa came home from work. That alone would have made me feel a bit better but she brought home ham salad and Cheez-Its for dinner. We also had crab salad left over for today and it was a wonderful experience that I would have tried to deny a few years ago when I was supposed to be ashamed of enjoying food as much as I do. Scooping some ham salad on one of my favorite cheese crackers was a delight. It wasn't even my favorite variety of ham salad flavored with savory mustard and pickle but ham salad is still ham salad. I got the desired saltiness and very minor crunch from the crackers and the combination was amazing. I would have preferred more of a crunch before most of my teeth broke off but I can still tolerate Cheez-Its. Ham salad and Cheez-Its are a delight separately but some things are just that much better together.
Would I be raving about the delights of ham salad and cheese crackers if I were healthy? I doubt it. As I mentioned above, I was taught to feel shame about enjoying food. Life is so much better without the shame. I can enjoy the combination of flavors found in the various varieties of ham salad and artificial cheese crackers without judging myself. It's okay to consider relief from pain to be a high form of pleasure.
I've been playing my way back and forth through the original "Fallout," a game released in 1997. Like almost all the games I like, it's turn based so my poor reflexes don't frustrate me and there are few stupid mistakes that can cause you to lose all at once. It's quirky with a sense of humor that might not appeal to some. The violence in the combat is cartoonish in its extremity. You can use a flamethrower and leave your enemy as nothing more than a blackened, overcooked skeleton or shatter a target into a bloody pulp from the waist up but my favorite has to be the alien weapons that melt targets down into pools of goo. It's kinda disgusting but I find it funny compared to the "flesh wounds" that do no damage at all.
The best bang for the buck is the $2.18 submarine game for my phone. The degree of difficulty is the most impressive thing about that game. Your sub's only defense is stealth so any armed ship will inflict major damage on you. I have yet to face a warship yet I've been forced to withdraw from attacks on commercial ships twice because of their puny deck guns. The sub wasn't sunk but the hull was so damaged the first time that my deck gun and all five torpedo tubes were too damaged to be used. On the second try, the merchant ship held me below the water too damaged to catch up for a torpedo shot. I got it on the third, fourth and fifth tries.
Madeline wants her dinner a few minutes early and she's been pretty well behaved today. I think I'll just give in for once. The kitties are fed and I'm starting to consider a nap seriously. Napping is one of those silver lining/black cloud situations. I don't like the need to nap but the ability to do so when it will help can be wonderful. I'll need to get current on today's medicine before daring to fall asleep. Waking up disoriented and in agony is something I'll take a pass on every day and twice on Sundays.
In today's world, a couple like Melissa and me just can't get ahead but that doesn't mean we have to be miserable about it. I've mentioned how I enjoy store brand, name brand and generic food the same almost all the time. Most of the time, the generic stuff might even be best because it's packed full of stuff like sugar instead of the finest ingredients available. My beer snobbery is one exception for sure. I drink cheapish whiskey if I want to dull pain and ease anxiety but beer - ales more specifically - are treats drunk solely for taste. Even the alcohol content in good beer has more to do with taste than anything else. Most high alcohol content comes from the aging process and, therefore, the alcohol picks up flavors from the barrels it ages in.
Nonetheless, I didn't intend to write about food and drink yet again. It's just a form of what might be the overall point. It's escapism that keeps me from resenting the wealthy and the knowledge that everyone has their own problems. It might not surprise you that wealthy people have their own problems but it surprised me each time I learned that a wealthy person is actually short on money all the time for reasons beyond their control. It might be safer to read books about wealthy people than to be wealthy.
Of course, I'm not talking about the mega-rich here. A large number of Americans strike me as rich because I've lived my adult life between the eright ball and the corner pocket. Most wealthy people in the US have most of their income tied up in investments especially the family home. If your home is valued at a couple hundred thousand dollars, chances are that you're paying an outrageous mortgage each month. Your wealth is more of a liability than an asset in practical terms. One mistake at work might be just as disastrous as it would be for someone with hardly any wealth.
Once again, that's not really the point. It's arguable whether or not I'd prefer that sort of anxiety to knowing that the pain will be there to greet me sometime soon. Maybe it's for lack of choice but I choose to read and re-read books about heroes and heroines dealing with other problems because money issues are out of the picture. I can't say for sure that I'd trade having someone trying to murder me for having a servant to clean up after me and bring me my favorite expensive beers when I ring the bell.
Things aren't easy all around so I enjoy my escapism and my very real blessings. It's almost enough to blow my mind that I am the only one lucky enough to have Melissa come home to me every night after work. The rest of you may love your spouses and partners - I hope so much that you do. - but I can assert with no exaggeration that I am the luckiest of us all. Nightmares may rock my world on a regular basis but Melissa is here to set things right again. No one else is quite so lucky.
Would I be raving about the delights of ham salad and cheese crackers if I were healthy? I doubt it. As I mentioned above, I was taught to feel shame about enjoying food. Life is so much better without the shame. I can enjoy the combination of flavors found in the various varieties of ham salad and artificial cheese crackers without judging myself. It's okay to consider relief from pain to be a high form of pleasure.
I've been playing my way back and forth through the original "Fallout," a game released in 1997. Like almost all the games I like, it's turn based so my poor reflexes don't frustrate me and there are few stupid mistakes that can cause you to lose all at once. It's quirky with a sense of humor that might not appeal to some. The violence in the combat is cartoonish in its extremity. You can use a flamethrower and leave your enemy as nothing more than a blackened, overcooked skeleton or shatter a target into a bloody pulp from the waist up but my favorite has to be the alien weapons that melt targets down into pools of goo. It's kinda disgusting but I find it funny compared to the "flesh wounds" that do no damage at all.
The best bang for the buck is the $2.18 submarine game for my phone. The degree of difficulty is the most impressive thing about that game. Your sub's only defense is stealth so any armed ship will inflict major damage on you. I have yet to face a warship yet I've been forced to withdraw from attacks on commercial ships twice because of their puny deck guns. The sub wasn't sunk but the hull was so damaged the first time that my deck gun and all five torpedo tubes were too damaged to be used. On the second try, the merchant ship held me below the water too damaged to catch up for a torpedo shot. I got it on the third, fourth and fifth tries.
Madeline wants her dinner a few minutes early and she's been pretty well behaved today. I think I'll just give in for once. The kitties are fed and I'm starting to consider a nap seriously. Napping is one of those silver lining/black cloud situations. I don't like the need to nap but the ability to do so when it will help can be wonderful. I'll need to get current on today's medicine before daring to fall asleep. Waking up disoriented and in agony is something I'll take a pass on every day and twice on Sundays.
In today's world, a couple like Melissa and me just can't get ahead but that doesn't mean we have to be miserable about it. I've mentioned how I enjoy store brand, name brand and generic food the same almost all the time. Most of the time, the generic stuff might even be best because it's packed full of stuff like sugar instead of the finest ingredients available. My beer snobbery is one exception for sure. I drink cheapish whiskey if I want to dull pain and ease anxiety but beer - ales more specifically - are treats drunk solely for taste. Even the alcohol content in good beer has more to do with taste than anything else. Most high alcohol content comes from the aging process and, therefore, the alcohol picks up flavors from the barrels it ages in.
Nonetheless, I didn't intend to write about food and drink yet again. It's just a form of what might be the overall point. It's escapism that keeps me from resenting the wealthy and the knowledge that everyone has their own problems. It might not surprise you that wealthy people have their own problems but it surprised me each time I learned that a wealthy person is actually short on money all the time for reasons beyond their control. It might be safer to read books about wealthy people than to be wealthy.
Of course, I'm not talking about the mega-rich here. A large number of Americans strike me as rich because I've lived my adult life between the eright ball and the corner pocket. Most wealthy people in the US have most of their income tied up in investments especially the family home. If your home is valued at a couple hundred thousand dollars, chances are that you're paying an outrageous mortgage each month. Your wealth is more of a liability than an asset in practical terms. One mistake at work might be just as disastrous as it would be for someone with hardly any wealth.
Once again, that's not really the point. It's arguable whether or not I'd prefer that sort of anxiety to knowing that the pain will be there to greet me sometime soon. Maybe it's for lack of choice but I choose to read and re-read books about heroes and heroines dealing with other problems because money issues are out of the picture. I can't say for sure that I'd trade having someone trying to murder me for having a servant to clean up after me and bring me my favorite expensive beers when I ring the bell.
Things aren't easy all around so I enjoy my escapism and my very real blessings. It's almost enough to blow my mind that I am the only one lucky enough to have Melissa come home to me every night after work. The rest of you may love your spouses and partners - I hope so much that you do. - but I can assert with no exaggeration that I am the luckiest of us all. Nightmares may rock my world on a regular basis but Melissa is here to set things right again. No one else is quite so lucky.
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